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Despite the fact that I think it’s largely a fad, the current obsession over “engagement” seems to be one thing I just can’t seem to leave alone (like the rest of the business world apparently!). Interestingly though, true engagement (or its lack) fits squarely into the “Why?” of Smart Work | Network.
Among the key reasons we started this business, and especially why we’ve moved so heavily into assessments, is this: huge numbers of people in the workplace today are a poor fit for the jobs they’re doing. Surveys tell us that whether they’re in leadership, individual contributors, professionals, team members, line workers, or others, millions of people are miserable working in jobs they hate, for bosses they despise, in cultures they don’t respect – and we wonder why they’re not “engaged”(?!).
So what to do about it? The common response has been to agonize over the status quo, conduct multiple, redundant studies, and (mostly) find someone to blame. At Smart Work, we decided that the usual approaches didn’t make sense. If the problems are poor fit to jobs, incompatibility with bosses, or tenuous relationship with cultures, it seemed to us that the solution was to “fix what was broken” – and that’s where these assessments come in.
As a reminder, these assessments were developed in the late ‘70s, and were based on the premise that “self management” was THE key attribute to success, and that everyone could be a self manager when matched to the right job, right boss, in the right culture. Sounds like a tall order, right?
I remember when I was first exposed to this idea: I was a training manager for a large corporation, involved in hiring, training and assigning sales people, developing managers and customers, and one issue was a constant. The common lament of sales managers was that, after awhile, too many of their people just “hung around”. These people needed to be directed, checked on, babysat, motivated, and disciplined. And the universal response from these managers was, “I don’t have time for this!”
But my colleagues and I (and many of you, I’d wager) simply took this condition as a given. THAT’s what managers do: babysit, direct, correct, enforce accountability, and all the rest. Sound familiar? Any alternatives?
Then, near the end of my tenure there, I was introduced to this assessment, and I began to understand its potential. Because it’s normative, you can compare people in a legitimate, quantitative way. Because it’s predictive, you can use it to determine who has the potential for success in a given job, matched to a particular manager, and in a specific culture.
The impact is mind-blowing: if you can determine (and you can!) what particular traits top performers possess that medium and low performers don’t, then you can limit your new hire candidates only to those (based on assessment results) who also have these key traits. Pick the best out of that remaining pool, and you automatically begin “top grading” your staff.
Here’s an example: let’s say that your average sales person does $2.5 million in business annually; however, your top performers exceed $4 million every year. Begin “cloning” your top people, and all of a sudden your $4 million performers (who originally constituted less than 20% of your sales force) become 25% of the total, then 40%, then 60%. In addition to people who are easier to manage (thereby reducing your sales manager “burn out” rate), what would that productivity do to your bottom line? What would it do for your bench strength? What influence would it have on the remaining $2.5 million members? The fact of the matter is that this evolution is almost exclusively composed of “upside”.
Now many “experienced” HR managers, recruiters, trainers and others responsible for bringing new people into companies will protest that this is simply impossible. “Finding top performers isn’t that easy . . . It’s all a crap shoot . . . All you can do is shorten the odds for failure.” And I will admit, using the tools and techniques that have been most commonly available, they’re 100% correct. BUT . . . use a tool that is proven to be normative and predictive, with a deep well of data from over 20 million finished assessments, and now the ball game is transformed.
And that’s what we do: we can show you which tools to use and how to use them. We can perform the studies that identify the traits of your top performers. We can help you design your recruiting and selection processes. We can train your leaders how to coach effort, enforce accountability and optimize results. In short, we know that there IS something different from “same old, same old”, and we can introduce it to you as well.
I know that this may seem too good to be true. I used to think the same thing. I also know that it sounds like it must be brutally expensive. It’s not; the tools themselves may even be less expensive than what you’re using now. And if you’re using nothing, you’ll see the savings in quality and productivity almost immediately.
So the bottom line is this: if you want a ridiculously engaged workforce (because they’re managing themselves), higher productivity, better morale, more effective managers, and dramatically increased financial results, then you have to try this.
