Groundbreaking Research - Top Sales Performers

What's Inside of Top Sales Performers in the United States and Europe.

By Bill J. Bonnstter

Research studies of top sales people in both the United States and Europe confirm that top sales performance can be predicted. The most successful organizations in the world already know that hiring the right people has the potential of becoming the most powerful "secret weapon" in their arsenal of competitive strategies. What they don't know is that hiring the right sales people can be as simple as following a recipe based on recent findings from an international study conducted by Frank Scheelen of The Scheelen Institut, WaldshutTiengen Germany and myself, Bill Bonnstetter of Target Training International, Ltd. in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As a result of our twenty years of research, development and distribution of assessment tools to measure performance, we have been telling organizations that it is what's on the inside, not the outside, that counts, especially in sales performance. What we are fighting is the myth that hiring people who look and sound good leads to good performance. As global competition forces organizations to greater heights in key performance arenas such as customer service, quality and customization, aggressive organizations must be ever vigilant in the identification, acquisition, development and integration of innovative technology. This type of innovative technology is now available to select top performers.

Much of the research conducted in the past on top salespeople has been focused on behavior. Behavioral research has been popular because, like looking good and sounding good, behavior can be observed. Little, if any significant study has been focused on what goes on inside a top salesperson. Our groundbreaking research in the United States and Europe now confirms that attitudes far outweigh looking good, sounding good or behavior in distinguishing top salespeople. 

Two of our most significant assumptions were confirmed by the two studies. (1) Top performing salespeople around the world are similar and, (2) Attitudes or values are more important than behavior in sales performance. (See Study 1 and Study 2 below).

In both studies, only top performing salespeople responded. In the United States study and a separate German study, top-performing salespeople responded to two assessments. One was based on the internationally validated DISC behavioral model and the other was based on the Personal Interests, Attitudes and Values model, currently being validated internationally.

Note that in the United States study of 178 firms, top sales performers tended to be spread across three behavioral dimensions. In the German study, top sales performers tended to be spread across the same three behavioral dimensions. In view of these results, it is reasonable to conclude that salespeople can sell in most, if not all, behavioral dimensions.

However, when it comes to what is on the inside of top performing salespeople, both United States studies as well as the German study confirm it is hands-down, a Utilitarian Attitude.

8 Critical Functions for Success

What does Xerox, CN and Kodak have in common? Well, yes, they are all big multinationals with thousands of people to manage. So what do a pro-golfer like Tiger Woods and an Olympic gold medalist like Jennifer Hiel have in common with them? Or, a small Canadian company like Spark The Branding Shop? The answer is simple. They are all highly successful and engage qualified coaches to help them reach their full potential – in terms of performance and earning power.

Business and executive coaching is rapidly becoming a mainstream business tool, strategy and resource for maximizing productivity and profits. In fact, many leaders now consider it their secret weapon and would just as soon their competition not figure it out. The value received and results generated through an effective coaching relationship can be phenomenal.

Here are eight critical ways coaching-based solutions support success.

1. Clarify The Strategy (or Game Plan). Develop/update strategic direction and create winnable game strategies and action plans.
2. Attract and Retain Top Employees. Determine if you’ve got the best players on your team, how to get and keep superior performers, and what to know about the interplay between brand and attraction strategies
3. Develop Leaders. Learn how to hone leadership effectiveness and populate the entire work culture with a winning attitude. Create a coaching culture based not on telling but rather on motivating upwards, downwards and across.
4. Build Intellectual and Emotional Capacity. Define and develop the skills, behaviours, attitudes and knowledge for top performers.
5. Strengthen Team Performance. Team coaching and other strategies designed to foster highly engaged, passionate and committed teams. Focus on increasing levels of employee engagement.
6. Assess Performance and Provide Feedback. Conduct individual assessments and 360 degree feedback surveys. Develop scorecards. Support/align with coaching for improved performance.
7. Seek Feedback and Measure Progress. Design and conduct employee surveys to gage feelings and attitudes on relevant topics.
8. Succession Planning. Ensure that your leadership pipeline is filled and that you have an effective, objective succession plan in place.

Evolving Strategy, Systems and Skills

You’ve heard it all before. To get ahead and sustain momentum requires an “edge” – an advantage over the ordinary, over the competition. In my opinion, to really get ahead and stay there requires an additional evolutionary phase. A process whereby an initial edge is rounded out by at least a couple more critical core strengths.

If you are a Jim Collins (Good to Great) fan, you will be familiar with the concept of a well-balanced flywheel that, after an initial amount of force applied to it, will run on its own. What he doesn’t say is that no amount of initial force will create the conditions for ongoing momentum if it is a lop-sided wheel.

The same is true for business. The business “wheel” is a system held together by multiple spokes, with three of them being primary and absolutely critical. If these aren’t strong enough to stand the test of time, it will either begin to slow down and falter or will need additional force to keep it cycling at maximum speed.

The three business spokes are: strategy, systems and skills or, purpose, processes and people. Time and time again I see one or two of these critical components stressed to the point of a near-snap. And guess what? The weakest link is almost always the people component. Odd, since you and I today would both be hard pressed to find a CEO and/or leadership team that doesn’t believe that their most critical asset is their people. In many cases, “people” also represent the largest cost item on the operational expenses sheet. Unfortunately, the people expense is often bigger than it need be, but that’s another article.

I have a couple of clients that are in the manufacturing business. In both cases, they are good at what they do and have lean manufacturing down to a science. Their overall strategy is good, as are there systems where producing and managing widgets are concerned. What isn’t in alignment – yet – is their people strategy and systems. One of my jobs is to help them notice this misalignment, and to see that the majority of their issues and time consumers involve people not showing up and performing as expected. How about you - have you noticed
this in your world?

If you have, you need to have a conversation that involves working on the business rather than about working in the business. One that stretches strategy and envisions the mix of skills, knowledge and values needed to turn the CEO’s vision and organizational strategy into reality. One that is about “Now that our flywheel is running on its own, what do we need to do to keep it well oiled and resourced?” And, of course, alongside that, ever more keeping an eye on the technology that is evolving to either aid or replace the flywheel. It is in this conversation that the real power lies to create and sustain an organization’s future.

There are two ways to build your overall strategy, systems and skills wheel. One is to start by clearly defining your strategy and then intentionally recruiting the key people and skills to deliver on the strategy – including creating the systems and processes to support these new people. This is the approach that most organizations take, albeit not with as much intention and knowledge as would produce better results.

The second approach is to spend less time defining vision and strategy and more time picking, developing and supporting teams. This approach assumes that if you recruit top performers and ensure that they have the resources and systems needed to create superior results, they will figure out how best to get from A to B (strategy). Jim Collins’ says that a leader’s most important role is to make sure that he or she has the right people, in the right seats on “the bus” and then to count on them to effectively drive the bus to where it needs to get. Either approach requires a thorough understanding of what each job requires in terms of skills, behaviours and values. So, if the job could talk, what would it be telling us was needed? The answers come in the form of a tool called “job benchmarking” – this will give you the top seven personal skills, top 3 behaviours and top 3 interests that best define the job and consequently, the person who should be in it. The more you, or your organization, follow this approach, the more likely you are to experience the following outcomes:

• Less turnover, better retention
• More productivity, revenue and profits, along with lower costs by reducing unnecessary conflict, turnover and time-consuming meetings
• Higher employee engagement scores
• Happier employees who are passionate about what they do and how they contribute
• More internal referrals (a critical recruiting strategy)
• Less difficulty recruiting top performers (because great people want to bewith great people)

No longer can decision-makers afford to squander the potential to achieve these outcomes. Yet they do so – everyday. Why? Because they either don’t know where to start or don’t know what more is possible. It all sounds and feels like too much work. They don’t have the time to research alternative systems and processes and in not doing so, they miss an opportunity to affect positive change.

Change that will generate the same sizable returns that result from perfecting ‘lean’ systems. If your organization could benefit by maximizing your ability to create the above outcomes, let an expert help you build the team, tools and processes that will get you there. If I can help you accomplish this, give me a call (780-701-8178) or pop me an email cwright@wright-group.ca.

Recruitment and Selection Stats and Facts

• Two of three new hires will disappoint in the first year

• Two of three employees would rather work somewhere else.

• Ninety-five of 100 applicants will “exaggerate” to get a job.

• Most hiring decisions are make in haste – during the first 5 minutes of an interview.

• Most people believe they are a good judge of character, and trust their gut when it comes to making hiring decisions. Sometimes this will work; often it will not.

• Most people do not fail in their jobs because they lack hard skills; they fail because they don’t have the personal skills necessary to do that specific job in that specific environment

• A survey of 1000 retail employees revealed that sixty-two percent of them simply do not possess the personal beliefs, values and convictions necessary for success in retailing. Even if the skills are there, as well as the appropriate behavioural styles, you will never get peak performance from a person whose beliefs and values are not consistent with the beliefs and values required by the job you are hiring them to do.

• An organization’s human capital practices represent as much as forty-three percent of the difference between your market value and your competition. Deloitte and Touche, “Creating Shareholder Value Through People.” 2002.

• Low resilience staff members are more likely to exhibit greater illness and disability, higher absence and turnover, and reduced engagement and productivity. On the other hand, employees who are highly resilient can easily adapt to change, find ways to overcome adversity, are more productive, and easier to work with. How resilient is the workforce is how resilient the business is.

• Most organizations base their recruitment and selection decisions on experience and technical skills: few attend to the characteristics that are most likely to result in employees who are productive, satisfied and likely to succeed in the organization.

• Many Canadian employers are woefully unprepared for an aging workforce says "Rethinking Work" a 2004 study of more than 2000 Canadian workers and employers. Only about one-quarter to one-third have workforce plans that address recruitment and retention beyond three years. Few have succession plans for senior managers or for key non-management positions. Furthermore, only five percent currently encourage older workers to delay retirement or return to work from retirement. Close to one-quarter of respondents are very likely to adopt flexible retirement as a HR strategy.

• Candidates search for jobs online between Monday and Thursday, with a major drop in activity on Friday and continuing through the weekend. Out of 100% of job-viewing activity in a given week, the distribution ran as follows; Mon (17.5%), Tue (17.8%), Wed (18.1%), Thurs (16.8%), Fri (12.3%), Sat (8.6%) and Sun (9.0%). Post early in the week for best results.

• According to research by Michigan State University, the typical interviewing process used at most companies is, at best, only fourteen percent effective in predicting successful hires. The remaining eighty-six percent keeps you extremely busy managing the revolving door of resumes, applications, hires and fires. In turn, your profits suffer from lapses in staff coverage that equate to lost opportunities, erosion of customer satisfaction, continual training expenses, and seriously wasted time for management.

Employee Retention – Is it a front-line responsibility?

Workforce retention is a hot topic and one that has catapulted to the forefront of any CEO, senior manager or HR professional’s mind.  Whether you realize it or not, every employee, supervisor, senior manager and business owner is in the business of employee retention.  Now, you probably see the connection for managers and owners, but wonder about the relevance for employees.

It’s my view that the complexity of the emerging workforce is going to force many decision-makers to shift their organizational culture in the direction of accountability and responsibility carefully balanced with flexibility and respect for individual differences.  Likewise, an increasing emphasis will be placed on building a sense of community among employees.  And with that sense of community will come an increasing dependence on internal champions – at every level in the organization – to assist with recruiting and retention. 

Many employers already encourage and reward employees for referring their family, friends and contacts as potential job candidates.  As the labour pool further shrinks and competition for outstanding talent heats up, organizational cultures and strategies will need to reinforce a retention mindset as well.

As an owner, the more my employees strive to ensure the satisfaction of their colleagues, the greater will be my ability to retain good people and to spend my attention and dollars on things other than recruiting and training newcomers.  At the same time, the more my employees take ownership of retention as a personal, professional and organizational goal, the more they stand to be personally rewarded. The key is to make sure ownership of workforce retention is measured and rewarded as a function of your organization’s appraisal and reward programs.

Here are a few “What’s in it for me” answers for employees, supervisors and managers.

• Research shows that only about 20 percent of businesses survive the first five years.  Look 10 years out and you'll only find approximately four percent still in business.  These statistics are based on history and, therefore, on less dynamic and competitive times.  As we move forward, the changing business landscape will increasingly exact a toll on a business’s ability to survive.  Retention will be, and indeed already is, a major survival factor.
  
  So, if employees like the work they do, and where they do it, they have a reason to care about retaining their fellow workers.  Doing so, will contribute to their employer’s ability to survive and, therefore, to continue employing them and their colleagues.
  
  
• The higher the retention rate, the lower the workforce turnover rate.  With lower turnover comes a greater opportunity for productivity and/or profits and the potential for rewards and bonuses.  The less time and dollars spent on a continuous cycle of recruiting, selecting and training, the more time and dollars available for investing in existing workforce development initiatives.  So, again, an employee gains personally from a healthy rate of retention.
  
  
• We all know employees who are currently feeling stressed by an expectation that they take on extra responsibilities due to under-staffing, unfilled positions or new employees learning the ropes.  The less the turnover and turmoil, the more likely it is that employees can focus and enjoy their own work responsibilities.

In addition to personally benefiting from all of the foregoing, supervisors and managers can more readily focus their attention on being effective managers and leaders and maintaining more work/life balance.

These points above assume three things.  One, that hiring decision-makers have recruited a high caliber of employees in the first place,  two, that employees generally respect each other and are motivated to work together and, three, that retention is a company goal. 

Not every company cares about retention at every level in its organization.  Indeed, some companies strive to retain their senior people, but elect turnover as a preferred strategy for the front line.  That is a different conversation so I’ll leave it for another day.

If these comments spark some thoughts around your personal responsibility, and that of all employees in your work place to take part in, and contribute to, organizational efforts to retain capable talent, I will have accomplished my goal.   Employee retention is in everyone’s best interest and up to business leaders to begin having the conversation sooner rather than later.

If you have a different (or similar) opinion, I would be delighted to hear from you. Send me a quick response by clicking on the following link, cwright@wright-group.ca .

Retention Strategies

Next month, we’ll be highlighting some key ways to engage employees.  Improving your ability to effectively achieve that goal, in turn, supports and improves your ability to achieve retention goals.  So, suffice it to say, we’ll have some more tips for you in October as we delve into the topic of employee engagement

In the meantime, here are twelve key retention strategies:

1. First and foremost, recruit the right people and match them to the right jobs.  Focus on building the right team(s).
2. Know what employees want.  Get to know each person as a unique individual and his/her core values and interests.  (Actually, you should acquire this information as part of the selection process.)  Survey your workforce to determine overall values.  More often than not, employee surveys produce surprises.  Be informed.
3. Design your recognition and reward systems to align with individual and group values.  Make sure these are consistent with organizational culture and values.
4. Redesign your performance management and compensation plans to afford maximum flexibility and responsiveness.  Provide timely feedback (“timely” is relative and differs by generation).
5. Train supervisors, line managers and senior leaders to understand and apply their knowledge about how to align individual recognition with individual preferences. 
6. Train your supervisors, managers and leaders to mentor and coach effectively.  Measure and reward them for reaching desired performance standards.
7. Design unique training and development programs involving strategic partners in order to maximize access to professional development opportunities for employees at all levels.
8. Become very clear about the differences between generational coherts (there are now four of them in the workplace).  Understand what motivates each generation and what hinders their ability to succeed.  Know their “must haves.”  In October and November, we will be leading a series of workshops on “What You Need to Know to Better Manage a Multigenerational Workforce.”   Email us at info@wright-group.ca if you would like more information. 
9. Invest in career pathing and succession planning at all levels.  Even if you have less than 10 employees, this is an important activity.  People want to know how they fit into the bigger picture and where their career is headed.
10. Invest in multiple initiatives that encourage social interaction.
11. Constantly articulate a clear vision.  Help employees see how it serves their personal goals.  Keep lines of communication open and flowing with relevant information.
12. Provide a competitive compensation and benefits package.
    
    

    These twelve strategies represent only half of the options available to you.  We can help you deliver on all of them and more, so do let us know if we can be of assistance.  Here is a bonus strategy to reward you for having read this far:

     

13. Be unique.  Use subsidized residential mortgage rates to attract and retain good employees.  Curious?  Ask us how.

What Kind Of Leader Are You?

It seems there are about as many resources and models on leadership as there are automobiles buzzing about on our well traveled roads.  Each one designed for the same general purpose but with differing colours, shapes and prices created to appeal to its market.  In some cases, we find ourselves driving a model that isn’t particularly appealing, but it’s what we have to work with.  

Come to think of it, most of us probably spend a lot more time researching, choosing and maintaining our vehicles of choice than we do pinpointing, selecting and polishing our leader behaviours.

Interesting, considering I’ll bet you intuitively know that how you show up as a leader, whether that’s within your organization, family or communities of interest, has a much greater impact on your ability to achieve meaningful personal and professional goals.  It has a much greater impact on your ability to complete what really matters to you and your ability to make a difference in the lives of others.

Few among us wouldn’t agree that at the end of the day, it’s not about the cars we drive, or the homes we live in, or how much money we have in the bank.  It’s about the relationships we build with people that matter to us.  And with every single one of these relationships, we have the opportunity to lead, in a small or significant way, at one point or another.

For some, the people that matter are those that work with and for us.  For others it’s about family, friends, community and/or the less fortunate a continent away. For some, it's about all of the above. And yet for something so vital to our sense of self and accomplishment, we pay so little heed.  We spot and/or take so few opportunities to manage the many moments of truth and to ‘touch’ the life of another soul.

Why is this?  Is it because we are too busy?  Is it because of competing priorities?  Is it because we don’t know how?  The answer might lay in all of the above, but I’m betting my money on the primary reason being we simply don’t know how.  We haven’t defined, specifically, the leader behaviours we want to embody personally.  We haven’t made it our business to acquire and integrate a framework and set of behaviours into our being so that they just become the way we think and show up in the world.  We don’t even know where to start – so we don’t.  In fact, we probably don’t even know that we need to start.

We haven’t measured, in any significant way, the impact we are having on others, so our level of self awareness is lower than it could be.  We haven’t uncovered our blind spots and hidden strengths.  In short, we haven’t begun the journey of leadership; we haven’t even planned the route.  But oddly enough, we expect to arrive at ‘the’ destination – the destination being peace within ourselves for having lived a full life aligned with what matters most.

So you may be asking, “Where do I start?”  “With the volumes of leadership material and models in the marketplace, where does one begin?”  If you are asking this question, you’ve already begun.

If you have already adopted a particular leadership model, then make sure you are headed in the right direction and enjoy the journey.  Chances are that you will need to continually do spot checks, invest in ongoing maintenance and plan for an upgrade or two.

Regardless of where you are on the journey, here are 13 vital steps to manage:

1. Select Leadership Principles.  Identify the core principles and practices of leadership that match your values, expectation and culture.  If you are a team of one, you’ll do this alone.  If you are surrounded by other leaders and managers that you rely on to inspire and influence organizational outcomes, involve them in this process.
2. Select Leadership Framework.  Pick a leadership framework, philosophy or model that aligns with your chosen principles.
3. Speak Your Vision.  Articulate why the chosen principles matter – to you, to your people, to your organization or community.  Connect this to your vision.  Write it down and keep it in front of you.  Make sure everyone on your team sees, understands and buys into your vision and its alignment with leadership principles and behaviours.  If they don’t, they shouldn’t be on your team.
4. Invest in Knowledge.  Through self assessment and a 360 degree feedback process, become keenly aware of your hidden strengths, known strengths, known growing edges and blind spots.  Flow this activity out to the front line.  Done appropriately, you will reap many long-lasting rewards.
5. Be a Student of the Model.  Become so comfortable with the principles and behaviours of your leadership model that it feels like a favourite set of shoes from which you don’t want to part. 
6. Identify Critical Behaviours.  Pinpoint the key behaviours you most want to reinforce or develop – in yourself and others.  Be careful to identify the few that will make the biggest difference in your ability to reach your goals and focus there.  Don’t take on too much, else you will do so at the expense of all.  Lazer in on what is most important, to you, to your employees, and to the organization as a whole, and then focus there like a dog with a bone.  Once the desired habits have taken form, move on to the next level of critical behaviours.
7. Practice.  Practice, practice, practice until “its in your bones.”   Start with no more than a handful of very targeted behaviours and create opportunities to practice them.  Seek feedback.
8. Build Capacity.  Become a steward of outstanding leader ability by focusing on building capacity in others.  Model, mentor, coach and invest in leader learning opportunities for those around you.  Start at the top of your organization and cascade throughout every level the knowingness and ability to lead.  Understand that everyone has the potential to lead (and yes that means the receptionist and janitor as well as all others at the front line) – in the workplace, in their homes, in their communities.  The more effectively they build this capacity, the more valuable they will become to you and you to them.
9. Acknowledge Similarities and Differences.  Recognize that many people in your workplace and/or life will be at different places on the journey – or even taking a different route to get to the final destination.  Look for the similarities and create systems and processes for building upon them while, at the same time, acknowledging individual preferences, needs and approaches.  Create a sense of “community” and a desire for individualism.
10. Innovate.  Create and establish unique and fun approaches to becoming a master and creating mastery of best leadership practices at all levels in your organization.
11. Align Performance Management System.  Ensure that you reward yourself, and others, for integrating and applying the desired leader attributes.
12. Calibrate.  Identify what to measure, how to measure, and how often to measure and recalibrate to ensure you stay on track.  In other words, determine how you will know when you are on-route or not, and when you’ve arrived at your destination.  Make sure you measure the right things and then hold people accountable for delivering on them.
13. Recognize and Reward.  Catch people “doing” and “being” a leader and shower them with praise and rewards.  Make it fun.  In recognizing the desired behaviours, always link it back to the specific competency and why it matters.

Leadership is deeply personal, and as I said, it’s a capacity that lays within each of us.  Think about it. 

You may consider yourself a leader or you may not.  Whether you do or you don’t, I guarantee you that your life is, and will be, full of “leadership moments.”  It’s a matter of scale and perception.  You don’t have to own a business or head up a corporation to be a leader.  You can lead from wherever you are right now. 

This is the place to start.   Consider who influences you and who you influence.  Inventory it.  I’ll bet you’ll be amazed at not only your opportunity to influence, but at the degree of influence you already, and unknowingly, have.  Are you ready to take responsibility for it?  If so, ask us about our leadership development programs. One such program is profiled in this newsletter.

Our expertise will assist and encourage you on each leg of your journey.

Setting Priorities for the Year

It’s time to identify your key priorities for the coming year.  With so many options, so much change and a mounting number of challenges, where does a person start?

My best advice says to start by making a list of all your significant challenges and opportunities.  I bet you can do this in less than 15 minutes and it will be the best spent time between now and the new year. 

The key here is to really think about this.  Consider more than surface level problems and what seems to be obvious opportunities.  Get to what is behind or underneath problems.  See if you can identify a trend that allows you to catch the wave early.  Ask yourself, “How do I know for sure what I think to be the case? Are my decisions and strategies based on fact or assumptions?  What is the trend I’ve experienced or noticed and how can I/we get ahead of the curve?”

As you reflect on your answers, pinpoint the one or two (at most) opportunities, that when acted on strategically and purposefully, will make the biggest impact on your life or business.  Figure out what that one key thing is that most needs your attention.  My guess is that it will be a behaviour.  A behaviour of yours that needs to change, or a behaviour that is predominant throughout your organizational culture or family.  Figure out what that is, change it and reap the rewards.

I probably don’t need to remind you of the definition of insanity:  doing the same thing and expecting different results.  What different results are you intending for?  Is it more work/life balance?  Building a highly engaged team?  Becoming a dynamic leader?  Improving your ability to retain top performers?  Increasing income?  What ever it is, create new habits for success.

Once you have pinpointed the one or two key results you want, identify the behavioural change that will be required in order to achieve your goal.  Then focus on creating that change like a dog with a bone – or should I say, like Santa and his reindeer intent on accomplishing their mission.  Focus, focus, focus.  Communicate, deliver.  Communicate, deliver….

Back to the earlier point about facts and assumptions.  If you haven’t tested your assumptions, do so before you decide to act on your key initiative. 

If your change initiative involves people (how can it not), make sure you understand their reality.  Do you know what they are thinking?  Do you truly understand the drivers behind current behaviours?  Have you identified what most motivates them?

If not, I suggest you start by getting some feedback.  For best results, use an objective process and tool to gather your information.  Survey your team or entire organization and look for feedback that confirms and displaces your assumptions.  In my experience, most organizational surveys produce results that surprise owners and managers and increase awareness of problems and opportunities not previously identified.  Invest in knowledge.  If you focus on the wrong problem, you will have not only lost an opportunity, but squandered your time and resources.

If your change initiative starts with you and your own behaviours, chances are you’ll come out on top no matter what.  No matter where we are in an organizational hierarchy or on our journey called “life”, increased self awareness always leads to change – change in perspectives, change in choices, change in behaviours.  This holds true for all, but is especially so for senior leaders and owners who have greater opportunities to build and influence relationships.  Nevertheless, there are ample opportunities to assess your impact at a personal level as well.

The Wright Group team offers numerous options for gathering feedback.  These range from conducting self-managed individual performance assessments, to providing 360 Degree Feedback surveys, to efficiently orchestrating an entire organizational-wide survey process.  If you aren’t regularly utilizing all of these tools, and/or don’t know how or where to start, let us help you get on the right track. 

Once you are equipped with reliable knowledge, it’s time to solidify your priorities, craft your strategies and put them into action.  Resist the temptation to focus on too many things.  Strive to identify a key strength you can leverage. 

If you’ve identified your biggest opportunities, you’ll want to consistently apply your focus and resources there until you see real change.  Until the change is evident, develop your key messages and stay on message.

Look for every opportunity to catch yourself and others engaging in the desired behaviour or behaviours and quickly and passionately recognize and reward.  (If you would like some ideas about how to do this in a very profound way, I’ll be happy to share some ideas with you.  Just give me a call.)

Finally, make sure that once you’ve pinpointed the results you want, training and performance appraisals systems are realigned to match up.  More importantly, make sure you are modeling the behaviour you desire.  If your behaviour isn’t in alignment, others won’t realign theirs – and if they do, they won’t last.

Aligning training and performance appraisals requires getting clear on how you will measure performance, communicate progress and provide feedback.  Don’t make the mistake of forgetting to regularly communicate progress in a meaningful manner.  This is absolutely a critical ingredient for achieving your top priorities.  Do everything else but leave this step out and you’ll likely miss the target.

All the steps outlined above may sound like a lot of work.  It doesn’t have to be.  If it takes a great deal of effort, you probably need it more than ever.  Consider the alternative – missing the biggest opportunity available to you.  This holds true whether the focus is on business or self or both.

If you are ready to make this year your best year ever, don’t try to achieve that alone.  Find a partner to help you reach your goals.  That is what leadership coaches do best – that is what The Wright Group does best.

With that, stay well, healthy and active as you embrace the key opportunities waiting for you in the future.

Succession Planning Steps

The scope and steps of succession planning will vary depending on the organizational context, size, culture, budget for retention and succession and employee demographics.  To get a manageable succession plan off the ground, here are 10 steps to follow:

1. Set retention and succession planning program objectives.  Typical objectives include:  improved business performance, decreased turnover, maintain competitive intelligence by filling majority of positions internally, offer a hiring advantage, and higher ROI for training and development expenditures.
    
2. Align implementation with organizational culture and practices. This requires careful planning and a clear delineation of accountabilities along with clarifying intent and identifying best practices for succession management.  Attach to core business drivers and cultural priorities. Decide if a basic computer and paper management process will suffice, or if software needs to be acquired and learned.
   
   
3. Identify critical areas to be addressed.  Interview leadership team members, develop a shared understanding of current strengths and weaknesses of the system being used or not used, and gain the buy-in of key decision-makers. 
   
   
4. Communicate the specifics of the succession program to all employees.  Make sure all managers understand their role in terms of identifying potential successors, responding to questions and managing their part of the system.  Give everyone an opportunity to understand the program’s purpose, process and expectations for performance.  Encourage feedback, questions and interest.
   
   
5. Create a master job benchmark for each key position.  Creating job benchmarks is like investing in gold.  It provides you with the critical information needed to make the best selection choices.  It is what creates a competitive advantage and sets in motion an organization’s future.  Create a binder for each position that houses critical information about the job’s core competencies, behavioural style, values hierarchy, knowledge and technical expertise, credentials and experience required.  Include a copy of the job description and other relevant information such as performance appraisal documents.
   
   
6. Assess organizational talent.  Assess current talent (both in the job and outside the job) for as far out into the company as your budget will afford.  In order to get best results, use an assessment tool that has the capacity to align and compare each employee directly against the job benchmark.  In this way, it becomes clear which employees are truly the best candidates to succeed others. Add printed copies of assessments for anyone currently occupying each position into their respective master job binder.  Add the assessments of others that have been earmarked as potential successors. Keep in a secure location.
   
   
7.  Communicate proposed learning plans to potential successors. Sit down with each individual targeted as a successor and explain your plan for and commitment to their success and development within your organization.  Co-create a learning and development plan designed to ready them for additional responsibilities and accountabilities.  Add the plan to the job’s master binder along with any information about an incumbent or successor's development successes. 
   
   
8. Measure, monitor and adapt.  Create a process for tracking where each position is in terms of grooming its successor and/or developing its incumbent.  Keep in touch with successors and make sure you know what they are thinking and experiencing as it relates to their job satisfaction and career plans.  Record any change in individual plans or employee status and adapt accordingly.  Make sure leaders and managers are fulfilling their requirements.  Measure the ROI for succession program planning and management in terms of reduced turnover/increased retention, ability to attract job candidates, impact on bottom line, attainment of business goals, and so on.
   
   
9. Schedule annual reviews of strategy and plan.  Revisit the program’s purpose and results annually and align this effort with a strategic planning process.  Schedule annual or bi-annual assessments of targeted successors and organizational newcomers that show high potential.
   
   
10. Celebrate.  Don’t forget to celebrate the positive impact you’ve made on individual lives, leader abilities, organizational culture, and company revenues.  Acknowledge every person that has contributed in one way or another.

Companies with foresight prepare for their next crop of leaders, thereby keeping morale high, reducing turnover, preserving excellence, and assuring continuity of leadership best practices.  If you could use help fine-tuning your current succession management system or designing it from the ground up, The Wright Group would like to help.  Call Catharine at 780-701-8178 to discuss how.

The Art of Communication

How To Make A Strong First Impression: Tips That Really Work!

 Kris Reiniger, cpba

We have all heard this warning: “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”  Psychologists, writers and seminar leaders caution that we only have from seven to seventeen seconds of initial interacting with strangers before they form an opinion of us.

With this widely acknowledged pressure to “make our case” instantly, here are some tried and true tips for making your first impression truly positive.

• The greatest way to make a strong and positive first impression is to demonstrate immediately that the other person – not you – is the center of attention and conversation.  Illustrate the spotlight is on you only, and you’ll miss opportunities for friendships, jobs, love relationships, networking, and even sales.  Show that you are other-centered and first time acquaintances will be eager to meet with you again.

• You’ll make a superb initial impression when you demonstrate good listening skills.  Give verbal clues like: “Hmmm….interesting”, “Tell me more, please”, and “What did you do next?” No different than actors benefiting from prompts, your conversational partner will welcome your assistance in keeping the exchange going.

• Nonverbally, you show you’re a good listener by maintaining steady eye contact.  Keep in mind how you respond to the social ”who can I talk to next” individual who appears to be looking over your shoulder for his/her next casualty.

• Use the name of your new acquaintance frequently.  You show that you have paid attention by catching the name during the introduction.  Equally as important, you’ll make conversations more personal by including the listeners name several times.  Remember, we all like hearing the sound of our own names.

• Follow Dr. Wayne Dyer’s advise, offered in his wonderful book ” Real Magic”, by giving up the need to be right.  Confrontations with someone you’ve just met will destroy rapport before you even start building it.  Wait until you’ve established credibility before you challenge another’s statements.

• An individual’s speaking style also impacts the first impression … maybe more than we wish.  Listeners judge our intelligence, our education, even our leadership abilities by the words we select and by how we say them.  Speak so you are easily heard … listening to mumbling can be frustrating.  Enunciate clearly and with confidence and don’t be afraid to change the tone and pitch of your voice from time to time.  A little animation in voice and gestures are often welcomed.

Keeping these tips in mind will help reduce any fear of business encounters with unfamiliar faces  … you’ll start enjoying successes that you may have thought were beyond your reach.

As we witness Mother Nature’s paintbrush dancing throughout the next couple of months, I encourage you to take the time to listen to the splendor of this special time of year – Spring.  Colours will emerge like laughter, and the sounds of nature like music … may this be a time of both personal and professional renewal.

Kris is a performance coach and talent management specialist with a love for working with individuals, teams and organizations who choose to maximize their levels of satisfaction, productivity and income.

101 Employee Engagement and Retention Strategies

Our newly developed ? Employee Engagement and Retention Strategies”  The Most Complete Guide to Retaining Employees and Maximizing Productivity” is hot off the press and boy do we think you’ll be pleased with the product.

What works in one organization won’t necessarily work in another.  With 101 strategies to choose from, you can be sure to find several that fit your needs and make your purchase pay off many times over.

This document is available to you for the price of US $9.95 simply by clicking the "Buy Now" button below to use your Paypal or credit cards as a form of payment. Alternatively you can email us your billing information to info@wright-group.ca and we will send you an invoice. Once Payment is received we will email you your copy of "101 Employee Engagement and Retention Strategies".

Forward your purchased copy to as many people as you wish within your organization, but please respect the effort put into creating this resource at a very affordable price. We trust that you won’t provide electronic or hard copies for anyone outside your company.

Any questions, call Catharine at 780-701-8177 or send an email to cwright@wright-group.ca

BENCHMARKING AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

What is Benchmarking and what does it have to do with Personal Responsibility?

 “If the Job could talk, what would it say?”  

It would explain precisely what was necessary to achieve superior performance.

We could ask it to tell us about the:

• Knowledge a person needs
• Personal attributes such as degree of Personal Responsibility required to drive success
• Rewards for superior performance
• Hard skills vital for the job
• Behaviors necessary to perform at peak levels

But we all know that jobs can’t talk.  Therefore, we must get the truth from another source – subject matter experts.  Before we can learn the true meaning of superior performance for any particular job, the experts must remove their natural biases.

Bias is an unfair preference or dislike of something.  Bias can create a blind spot – blocking out a single thing – or act like a set of blinders – making only one thing visible. Unfortunately, biases get in the way of truly understanding job requirements.

We know that once subject matter experts do slice through their bias, they are able to hear the job talk.  Once that happens, they can identify the key accountabilities or competencies for the job.

The Benchmarking process leads to an understanding of the knowledge, intrinsic motivators, personal attributes, behaviors and hard skills required of each key accountability for the job in question.  It identifies several critical competencies, or personal skills, such as Personal Accountability.  Why is this important?  Because we know that for many positions, and especially for those involving sales and management/leadership positions, a person is more likely to be successful if they have a relatively strong natural ability to hold themselves accountable for results.

Measuring accountability is but one of 65 different skills assessed.  After a benchmarking process, businesses can compare all current and new staff members to the results, and provide a developmental plan for each.  Developmental plans that are job related are much better than those based on one person’s opinion.

Should you have additional questions about the Benchmarking process, or any of the other tools/products we boast, please call Catharine Wright (780)701-8177 or email at cwright@wright-group.ca .