Our continuing feature highlights an interesting and fairly common question. This is one that shows how important it is to look at the interaction of more than one characteristic on the Performance Profile.

Here's the question:

"We had an applicant for a sales position recently who was rated a "4" on the Friendliness characteristic on the Performance Profile Report. My boss doesn't think that will be a problem, but I am concerned. Don't we want our sales people to be friendly?"

And The Answer Is...

Of course you want your sales people to be seen as friendly but their first priority is not making friends, it is making sales. Being perceived as friendly is usually dependent more on a person's social skills than on his or her inherent preference to be a nice person.

Effective sales people are often perceived as friendly because they are sociable -- that is, they enjoy talking with people and have well-developed social skills. They establish and maintain rapport with others easily and are interested in people. All of this looks like "friendly" behavior.

For a sales position, you would ideally want to see at least a '6' on the characteristic of "Sociability," which indicates that the applicant enjoys being around people and won't have to exert a lot of effort just to get face to face with customers and prospects. It is often also an indication that he has the social skills to do so as well. Tip: It is not a good sign if the applicant for a sales position is not able to present him or herself smoothly in the interview.

Sociability refers to the degree to which a person enjoys being around people, and that is what an effective sales person has got to do - be around people a lot. A person whose Sociability rating is low is usually a person who gets tired, both mentally and physically, by extended contact with people.

An applicant for a sales position with ratings on "Friendliness" that are "7" or above may spend more time with prospects and customers than is warranted simply because he wants to be nice and make friends with them.

Thus, even though it sounds contradictory, it can be an asset for someone in a sales position to have a marginal Friendliness rating (such as "4"), as long as the Sociability rating is at least "6" or above. Such a combination of ratings suggests a person who will not waste time talking with poor or unqualified prospects just because they are interesting or "nice people." This person is there to make a sale, not to make a friend, and he or she will remain on a sales call only as long as the prospects for a sale are promising. At the point that he or she realizes that a sale is not in the works, he or she will use good social skills to disengage and move on to the next prospect.

Young employees are like puppies with their barely controlled energy and enthusiasm. Sometimes, like puppies, they get so eager to please that they seem to create more problems than goodwill. How do you harness that energy and enthusiasm without killing it? To answer that question, let's look at the two most common liabilities that young or inexperienced employees, regardless of their assets, bring to the job: lack of experience and undeveloped maturity.

Potential vs. Reality

Neither lack of experience nor undeveloped maturity is the fault of a young person who is fresh out of school, or new to the job market. They are temporary, by definition, and both will change as time passes, experience is accumulated, and outlook and behavior become more mature. However, neither of these changes happen quickly.

The Value Of Experience

Knowledge can be taught and that, of course, is the justification for schools and courses of study - to drum knowledge into our empty (when we are young) heads. Experience, on the other hand, comes only by repeatedly getting your hands dirty, so to speak, doing the things you were hired to do. Experience is a great way to test and affirm knowledge. Experience accumulates slowly, building on itself over the course of months and years until, finally, your understanding of your work becomes second nature. Remember the first time you tried to drive a car? You had to concentrate more, and think actively about every step of each process that you can do now pretty much automatically and without much thought. Knowledge can be taught, but experience must be acquired.

The Magic Year: 25 Is The Turning Point

Maturity, too, comes slowly and on its own timetable, a timetable that is different for each person. Some lucky few people seem to mature early, and seem more mature at nineteen or twenty than many people do in their 30s. For most people, however, the process of maturation that begins in the teens stretches out through the 20s and into the 30s, with full maturity attained (finally) by the mid-30s. The age of 25 is, for many people, something of a turning point. Without calling attention to itself, 25 is the age when most individuals begin to settle down and take their lives more seriously. They begin to think more about the consequences of their decisions and their behavior.

The Mentor Mantra: Structure, Feedback, Encouragement

How can you help your new, young employee? One of the most effective ways to help a young or inexperienced person is by mentoring with structure, feedback and encouragement.

Structure

Because they lack experience, most young employees will need more structure in their work lives than do older employees. Much of what seems "common sense" to someone with experience will, in fact, be brand new information to most young employees. Things like punctuality - the importance of coming to work on time all the time - and initiative -looking for ways to be helpful when an assigned task is finished - and good co-worker social skills - avoiding petty personality clashes - require skills that were not taught in school. Don't assume new employees know how to do these things; instead, create structure in terms of making your expectations very clear. Communicate, communicate, communicate, and give the young employee plenty of opportunity to ask questions.

Feedback

Feedback is invaluable for inexperienced employees. He or she needs to know for sure what has been done correctly, and what has been done incorrectly - and all the shades of gray in between those two extremes! Be specific; point out exactly what was done well, and talk long enough about what was not done correctly so that the new employee learns how to think about how to correct mistakes.

Feedback should be offered in private. Embarrassing any employee has a negative effect on motivation, but inexperienced or somewhat immature employees are more prone to letting resentment about embarrassing situations affect them for too long. Always offer a sincere, well-earned compliment before talking about what was wrong, and you will help a young employee begin to develop the thickness of skin that will allow him or her to become a person who focuses on finding solutions instead of on hiding errors.

Encouragement

Encouragement is the final key to helping expedite the development of maturity. Build on the person's strengths, and demonstrate your faith in his or her ability to learn, by problem-solving together. Try to end conversations about a problem or mistake on a positive note, so that the last (and lasting) message that you send is one of encouragement.

The characteristics on the Performance Profile Report have precise definitions that may be different from the way you customarily use that word. Be careful about assuming that you know what characteristics mean (see the Question Of The Month in this issue). Periodically review the definitions of the Performance Profile characteristics in the Performance Profile Quick Reference Guide and in the Reference Manual. If you have misplaced your copy of either of these documents, call us at (800) 886-4356, or send an email to botto@helmtest.com, and we will send you a free replacement copy.