May 2006 Vol 3; No. 4

The Helm Report:  Tools, Tips, & Techniques for avoiding hiring mistakes and developing people.

Published on the second Thursday of each month

Barbara Otto, Editor (mail to mailto:botto@helmtest.com

Visit us online at http://www.helmtest.com/

Word count for this issue – 1499

Approximate time to read = 5 minutes

Dear Friend,

I recently returned from a trip back to my old stomping grounds in Dallas.  I managed to be there in between the 100° + days by bringing some cool, spring-in-Indiana weather with me.  While I was in Dallas, I had the opportunity to work with my friends at TD Industries.  This was particularly significant for me as it marked our twenty-year anniversary of working together.  TD Industries is consistently listed in the top ten of Forbes’ “Best 100 Companies to Work For,” and when you meet the people there you immediately know why.  They are among the most professional and the nicest people I know.

Not all managers are created equal and the difference between “good” managers and “great” managers is huge, according to author Jim Collins in his book, Good To Great.  Good managers do a good job and rarely make big-time mistakes.  Great! managers do a good job, rarely make big-time mistakes, and they grow the business.  They seek out opportunities and find ways to take advantage of opportunities when they find them.  These are the managers who open up new markets, create new products, and introduce innovative procedures.  Their value to the company is many times that of the good manager.

“OK”, you say to yourself, “Let’s hire nothing but Great! managers”.  Well, as wonderful as Great! managers are, there are a couple of good reasons to exercise some caution here. 

First of all, Great! managers don’t come along every day.  Finding a Great! manager, unless you just get very lucky, can take significantly longer than most searches do.  If an existing manager is leaving or has already left, this can mean that the exiting manager’s department must be run with interim leadership until the position is filled.  As time invested in the search drags on, the absence of leadership can progress from a minor annoyance to a serious problem.  Key people in the department may leave, morale suffers, and productivity may lag.

Second, not all management positions require a Great! manager.  Great! managers shake things up.  They innovate, change how things are done, and introduce new ideas, all of which can be very disruptive for a department that is not used to change.

Nevertheless, let’s assume you have a senior management position of strategic importance that really requires a Great! manager to take it, and the company, to the next level.  Here are three steps to begin the process of finding that Great! manager.

Three Steps

1.      Decide what you want:  Basic experience, skills, and knowledge are an absolute pre-requisite.  This is not a learner position.  You want a manager who has all the basics down pat and can hit the ground running.

2.      Cast a wide net:  Great! managers don’t fall off the turnip truck every day.  In my experience, Great! managers make up only about five percent, or less, of all managers.  Finding the right one can take up to 18 months.  If you find one in less than 12 months, you got lucky!

3.      Don’t compromise:  This step requires discipline.  Begin by making a list of the critical requirements for the position so that you know what you can’t compromise on.  What knowledge, experience, skills, and management style are required, not just to meet but also to exceed expectations for this position?  Next, list the “nice to have but not necessary” characteristics.  Some of these, in combination with the critical requirements, may make the difference between a good and a Great! manager.  Be willing to keep looking until you find a candidate who has all the critical requirements and most, if not all, of the “nice to have” requirements.  “Close” may count in horseshoes and hand grenades, but not here.  Don’t settle for second best.  As Collins expresses it in Good To Great, “The old adage, ‘People are your most important asset’ turns out to be wrong.  People are not your most important asset.  The right people are.”

In Summary

The difference between managers who can maintain the company and managers who can grow the company is wide.  The Great! managers are hard to find and won’t settle for simply maintaining their departments.  They want to make things happen for the better and are usually proactive in moving things forward.  If you need a Great! manager the suggestions above are a way to begin the process of finding one but, as the man says, these three steps are necessary but insufficient all by themselves.  Keep in mind the unofficial motto of the United States Marine Corps, “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.”  That’s what Great! managers do and, in order to find and hire one, you probably will have to do the same.

Regarding the Work Attitude Questionnaire Report, a client recently asked:

“We had a Work Attitude Questionnaire Report come back with a Moderate Risk rating for Theft.  The Report showed the applicant answered question 11 with a “2 – Strongly Disagree.”  That question says, “Taking small items or small amounts of cash home from work is all right if everyone else does it.”  Why isn’t the applicant’s response an acceptable one?  After all, he ‘strongly disagreed’ with the statement.” 

And The Answer Is:

Every question or item on the Work Attitude Questionnaire gives the test-taker ten possible response choices, usually from “Totally Agree” to “Totally Disagree.”  Here is how question eleven appeared to the applicant, with the ten-point response scale.

11.     “Taking small items or small amounts of cash home from work is all right if everyone else does it.”     

The ten-point response scale gives the test-taker a wide range of choices, from “0 – Totally Disagree” to “9 – Totally Agree.”  Both the results of our validation studies of responses to this statement, and common sense, suggest that the only response that is fully acceptable in the context of applying for a job is “0 – Totally Disagree.”  Any other response raises questions:   what will this person consider “a small amount of cash” or “a small item?”  For example, most people could agree that taking a quarter out of petty cash (without leaving an IOU) for the coke machine is a small amount of cash.  Is taking $5.00 from petty cash for lunch also a small amount of cash?  What about taking $20.00 for lunch?  If it’s OK to take 25¢ once, what about taking 25¢ every day?  Where is the line between what is OK and what isn’t?  And what constitutes a “small item?”  A pad of paper?  A small digital recorder?  A small laptop computer?

It’s better to simply say that taking things from work without asking is not OK.  Now, I understand that in the real world few companies pay much attention to a very small amounts of shrinkage, but I also know that every company has different standards and there is wide variation in those standards.  The real point of this question is the mindset of the person who is taking the Work Attitude Questionnaire:  as a business owner, I want the reassurance that a new employee does not make assumptions about what is acceptable.  I want to know that the new employee’s mindset – internal assumption – is that it is not OK to help himself or herself to company-owned supplies.  Asking first and receiving permission to take something is acceptable.  Simply walking out the door with company property without asking is not.

The Performance Profile Report is a treasure trove of in-depth information about your applicant.  It provides insights into how the applicant likes to approach work, deal with coworkers, handle difficult situations and much more.  However, all of this invaluable information – information that has the potential to decrease turnover, improve productivity, enhance morale, and avoid all manner of other problems – is useless if you don’t read the Profile Report. 

Stop  Everyone is busy.  Too much to do and too little time in which to do it.  But beware of allowing the “urgent but not that important” to get in front of the urgent and important.  Nothing is more important than making good hires.  Therefore, don’t rush through the Performance Profile Report and read only the Job Match Rating and Recommendations. 

Look  Review what the job will require of the applicant, if hired, and look at the critical Characteristics on the Performance Profile Report.  How well does what the applicant brings to the job match what the job will require?  Note which ratings suggest possible problems.  For example, if the job requires extensive people contact and the applicant’s rating on “Sociability” is a “3,” this suggests that the applicant may not spend as much time with coworkers because he finds doing so difficult and fatiguing. 

Listen  In the interview, ask the applicant about possible problem areas and listen not just to what he or she says, but how he or she says it.  Listen for hesitation, altered voice tone, or a stammer that would indicate the applicant is ill at ease talking about this area.

Remember, the goal is to get to know the person behind the “look good in the interview” face as well as you can in order to determine his or her suitability for the job.  The pre-employment process is not the place to get rushed.

Remember, people are your most important asset!

To hire the best, test!

            To reveal management potential, test!

To diagnose problem behavior, test!

Best regards,

Kurt G. Helm, Ph.D.

Phone Toll Free 800-886-4356

Email:   khelm@helmtest.com

Website:    http://www.helmtest.com/

© 2006, Kurt G. Helm, Ph.D.  All rights reserved.  You are allowed to use material from this newsletter in whole or in part provided that you include attribution in the following form:  “By Kurt G. Helm, Ph.D., of Helm and Associates, Inc.  Please visit our website at http://www.helmtest.com/ for more information about how to avoid hiring mistakes by using pre-employment testing as part of the applicant evaluation procedure.”