Introduction to People Optimization Dr. Chuck Coker Scott Howard - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• Dr. Chuck Coker

Scott Howard Human Capital Strategist Executive Director, Operations MECLABS MECLABS

Introduction to People Optimization

• Dr. Chuck Coker – Human Capital Strategist

Chuck joined MECLABS Group in January 2007, in order to drive the growth of the organization through acquisition, as well as the recruitment and retention of high‐value employees. His organizational development background includes work with AT&T, General Foods, Harris Corporation, Sprint PCS, Tupperware, Verizon and

• Zurich. Chuck has developed over 50 training programs for personal and

career development, as well as achieving the title of Senior Professional in Human Resources. He is past Chair of the President’s Council of the National Speaker’s

• Association. He has been guest lecturer at Universities like Auburn,

Harvard, Westminster and Moscow State. Chuck is a former USMC Officer and a 7th degree Grandmaster Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. His education includes both B.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

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Scott Howard – Executive Director, Operations

Scott Howard is responsible for the daily operations of MECLABS and is the man that keeps the trains running on time for all research projects in the laboratory. Before joining MECLABS in May 2008, Howard was the Vice President and Head of Pre‐Settlement Operations for Macquarie Bank, and has held operational leadership roles for other financial industry firms such as Countrywide Home Loans, PHH Mortgage, and Merrill Lynch. Scott holds a degree from the highly ranked Department of Economics at Indiana University in Bloomington.

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Can you really optimize people?

• The 2012 Benchmark Personnel Guide study suggests:

─ All sizes of companies acquire people similarly ─ Yet, they don’t all lead and manage people similarly

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• A few definitions:

─ Leadership  People … (Influence  Develop) ─ Manage  Process … (Control  Measurement)

The MECLABS story

The early days

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• We were focused on hiring the most competent and high

character individuals

• We had reasonable growth
• We hired based on skills

Skills Resume

We, like all managers, wanted to see that candidates:

• Could do the job with COMPETENCE
• Would do the job because of their CHARACTER

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A couple of C’s

Things that can be managed: Competency

• Can they do the job?
• Do they have the:

─ Resume ─ Skills ─ Knowledge

• Make sure you’re hiring for the

right competencies

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The story of Scott’s Competency

• Perceived importance of marketing background
• Understanding organizational needs

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Things that can be managed: Character

• Will they do the job?

─ Trustworthiness ─ Work ethic ─ Loyalty

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What does character mean? “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

– John Wooden

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• There is a lot of information on character and how it relates

to business ─ Ethics ─ Doing what you say you will do

• Measuring character

─ Hitting deadlines ─ How mistakes are handled ─ Output commensurate with stated competency

How leaders manage character

Back to the story… we were cruising along

• But… margins weren’t growing
• Growth was not exponential, but simply linear
• As the scale went up, margins would eventually go down

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So we hired Chuck

• Chuck asked us:

─ What traits we valued when trying to hire, lead, and manage talent

• We answered: Competence (can they do the job)

and Character (will they do the job)

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Then Chuck asked: how do you know if a person…

• Can work in our culture and with our unique team
• Will be able to mature personally and professionally

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We said:

Who cares?

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Chuck told us this story

Background:

• The Specialties division of the world’s fourth largest financial

institution

• Needed to improve their sales effort by 8+ figures

Goal:

• Create a sales and marketing team of employees who could
• utperform last year’s record sales volume

Approach

• Acquire a training resource to increase professional and personal

knowledge

• Conduct whole‐person focused testing and training

─ Garner insight into their own personalities and the personalities

• f others

─ Learn how to work with those differences

• Enhance commonalities across ranks and departments
• Eliminate employee bias
• Everyone must learn to “speak” the same language
• Work from the same foundational principles

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Results

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$22,000,000 increase

Previous Year New Year

We said:

We want a piece of that action!

We asked Chuck what were we missing?

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• Chemistry – can they work with my team
• Capacity – can they do the work

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What is the impact of adding an extra couple C’s?

• Increase the effectiveness of the existing team
• Increase margins
• New hires acclimate more quickly

4C

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Foster the roots to grow the tree We call these the 4C’s

What are your hiring priorities?

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Company is focused on:

• Can a person do the job?
• Will the person do the job?

Candidate is focused on:

• Can I work well in this setting

and the team?

• Will I be able to mature

personally and professionally?

The four aptitudes necessary for a high performing, self‐motivated team

There are four critical areas requiring attention and focus.

The 4 C’s.

• Competency and Character (managed)

─ Revolve around the task to be performed ─ Require skills and initiative to ensure the job is completed satisfactorily

• Chemistry and Capacity (developed)

─ Revolve around the people and how they interact ─ How they can grow

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In order to achieve long‐term, continuous growth

• Focusing on all four C’s should be a top down initiative
• You already know how to focus on competency & character.

HR should do this for you.

• We will give you, the leader, some insights and suggestions

into how to add the chemistry & capacity components

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Exercise

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What are the repercussions of bad chemistry?

• People are forced to struggle against their natural tendencies
• People will not develop connections in the workplace
• People will require more effort to perform job duties
• People will not work efficiently and will avoid collaboration

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What is Chemistry?

Mutual attraction, attachment, or sympathy between people working together which makes their interactions harmonious or effective

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Develop chemistry by teaching employees how to…

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• Appreciate differences and interact in various scenarios
• Handle surprise encounters with dissimilar personality types
• Work in teams and accept feedback
• Openly praise each other’s strengths
• Embrace their individual desire for success
• One of the best ways to teach people how to interact with
• thers is to start by being an example of embracing

differences

How do we assess Chemistry?

• Trimetrix (a potential tool we’ll talk about later)
• Focus on the attitudes and values portion

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MECLABS’ three primary values

• Theoretical

─ Having a desire to identify the truth ─ Understanding why things happen

• Utilitarian

─ Taking the objective and finding a way to make sure it is reached both effectively and efficiently

• Social

─ Team‐centered person that prioritizes the needs of

• thers first

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Other values to be understood

(They may be important for certain positions)

• Individualistic

─ Self‐focused person that prioritizes their relative importance, as well as their power and prestige

• Traditional

─ Takes a global view of the world and the parameters in which it should operate

• Aesthetic

─ Needs for things to be harmonious, attractive, and produce a friendly environment (does not mean artistic)

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What happens when we miss one

We don’t always get it right

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Most important thing to an employee

• Their ability to grow and prosper in an organization
• The right environment to find fulfillment

Things that can be developed: Capacity

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• “Will they be able to mature personally and professionally?”

─ Growth potential ─ Mental development ─ Professional development

How do you enhance capacity?

• Help them to develop increased confidence through

improving:

─ Communication skills ─ Problem solving ability ─ Acceptance of constructive feedback

• Regular one‐on‐one meetings, not annual reviews

─ Annual reviews assess competency ─ One‐on‐one meetings build capacity

• Leaders must be creative as well as “arm chair” psychologists

─ Find ways to communicate with others’ personalities ─ Find ways to enhance employees’ personal well‐being

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How did we measure Capacity?

• Trimetrix attributes (personal skills hierarchy)

─ Problem‐solving ─ Continuous learning ─ Conceptual thinking

• If these skills are good, they have capacity potential

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How did we increase Capacity?

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• Training (formal and informal)

─ Leadership ─ Behavioral communication skills ─ Understanding behavioral styles in conversation ─ Project management

• One on ones, not just annual reviews
• Peer review sessions

The purpose of capacity growth

• Prepare people to take on new jobs and leadership roles
• Creating an environment of perpetual capacity growth

─ Increase their competence levels based on their stronger skill sets ─ Deepen their character (increasing their willingness)

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Questions for you…

• Have you hired someone very competent who did not work
• ut?
• How many people have you worked with in the past five years

that have moved on to “greater/growth opportunities?”

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Focusing on the right priorities

• Competence and character do not guarantee success
• A candidate’s focus is typically different than a company’s

focus

• You must optimize people from the same paradigm of thought

that you manage websites – work with their mindset in mind, not what you want to tell them ─ Measure ─ Test ─ Convert

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Remember what is going on in their mind

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How can I . . .

Use my:

• Present competencies
• And strong work ethic

To achieve:

• Chemistry with my peers
• And learn what I need for future success

There is a connection between effective work places and the 4 C’s

• Hiring Managers can save their companies time, money, and

stress by hiring the right type of person for a job

• It’s so much more than just skills

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Four things to keep in mind

• 1. Despite behavioral benchmarks, it’s rarely possible to hire a

candidate that fits your job profile perfectly

• 2. You can only manage certain aspects of your employee’s

makeup – their competencies and character

• 3. To develop an individual’s potential, department chemistry

and an individual’s capacity to grow must exist

• 4. You must possess a win‐win strategy in order to retain your

best employees

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• 1. Hiring

Establish behavioral benchmarks for new hires

• Test for key success factors in present employees and compare

them to your potential candidates

• Don’t allow just a good resume and a good interview to sway you
• Take all four C’s into account to avoid making the typical hiring

mistake of valuing competency over all else

• Begin by understanding the applicant’s strengths, weaknesses, and

where the tweaking must begin through testing and behavioral interviews

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• 1. Hiring

You won’t find a perfect fit, but how do you find a good one?

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You’re looking for a general “type” to HIRE—Remember that no

• ne is perfect or possesses every competency you need.

• 2. Managing

You can manage competence and character

• Managing Competence

─ Testing processes to ensure they are effective/efficient ─ Reflecting on the progress and finding ways to do it better

• Managing Character

─ Behavioral attributes produce observable and predictable behaviors ─ Address the attributes to develop a sense of integrity in their approach and where they find pride in the work they perform

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You can only manage what is manageable.

• 3. Developing

What cannot be managed must be developed

• Developing Chemistry

─ Set departmental goals; however, individualize for each employee ─ Deal with issues immediately ─ Communicate to individuals that you want them to succeed and demonstrate how they can succeed ─ Praise and do not micromanage them ─ Be consistent and fair ─ Treat everyone differently

• Developing Capacity

─ Structured approaches for today’s work and tomorrow’s future ─ Develop their capacities by building new personal and professional competencies

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Without development THERE WILL BE NO OPTIMIZATION

• 4. Retaining

Once you’ve developed great employees, you’ll want to keep them

• Applying optimization to people

─ View the human factor with the same mindset as the quality management process ─ Alter job descriptions to increase the likelihood of perfect placement ─ Develop departmental chemistry by rewarding collaboration and praising individual effort ─ Provide a code of rewards that matches their unique value system; balance structure and flexibility

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Plan your retention process with each individual in mind

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The 4 C’s Foster the roots to grow the tree

Takeaways

• Different assessments will help you discover what you

need to know about your employees:

─ Behavioral will provide communication/interactional data ─ Values will provide mindset approach to tasks/people ─ Attributes will provide capacity for growth and development ─ Motivational will uncover habit patterns that determine future success

• Align jobs to strengths

─ In some cases you may even need to rewrite a job description for a highly talented individual

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Questions?