ADVISA

• Can your business survive your departure?
• Would you be comfortable taking a six-month sabbatical this year? 
• Are you building a team that can perpetuate the value you've created? 
• Have you hired people to do what you do better than you can do it; or, have you hired people to do what you tell them to do?

I’ve been travelling over the last couple of weeks to see clients with BJ McKay, our most recently minted consultant. The calls have had multiple purposes. In all cases they were an effort to connect BJ with clients he was going to service. In some cases, it was an effort to reacquaint myself with old friends and contacts. And again in all cases, we were there to simply provide customer service – to see how and if we could help our client businesses perform better. 

The sessions have been really valuable – for our clients and me.

I’ve gotten to watch clients respond to BJ’s natural enthusiasm paired with his solid knowledge of how to apply our products and services. He brought value talking to clients about our Selling Skills Assessment Tool™ and its’ value in measuring Sales Skills. Every one of our meetings had some discussion around Predictive Index® and how the Predictive Index Management Workshop™ applies to applicant screening, employee productivity and work satisfaction. It was fun sitting back watching BJ field a range of tough PI® questions comfortably and correctly. He even was given opportunities to discuss applying the principles of organizational alignment, successful strategic planning and executive coaching to various client problems.

The visits were all successful because clients saw us as actively engaged in helping to solve their problems. That was natural - because that is what we were there to do.

I am working with a client in helping them to fill a key management position within their organization.  One element of this particular search is that there are members of the team who have been with the company for a period of time who are interested in this opportunity.  This is a not-so-unique challenge that hiring managers face when key positions become available - do we promote someone from within because they have earned it by putting in their time?  The way this particular client chose to handle the situation is unique.  Rather than just "giving" the position to an internal person they opted to have these individuals go through the same assessment and selection process that other candidates are going through.  This means that the resumes of those internal candidates came into my inbox just like everyone else's and even I did not have a heads up that the internal candidates were interested!  I found this to be a particularly interesting piece of the client's recruiting strategy.  It allowed all candidates to be placed on the same playing field and all of them were put through the same applicant screening process.  It may not seem unique but even though a best hiring practice is to hire the best person for the job sometimes hiring managers settle for the "best I've got" right now.  They take this approach in order to take the hiring project off of their plate and move on to new and usually more exciting things.  Hats off to those hiring managers and companies who take hiring seriously enough to make sure that the person they bring in to a key position fits well with the bigger picture of their organizational alignment.   

I’ve blogged several times about the leadership transition from me to Heather at ADVISA – from the development of our strategic planning approach to our attempts to create balanced scorecard metrics for each other in the process. Today’s post is about a clear cultural shift that’s taking place as Heather takes on her greater leadership role in the organization.

My Style. My method of leadership gave subordinates significant leeway in operating style so long as results were achieved. I didn’t really care how folks interacted so long as they generally stuck to our core values and delivered their results. I tended to be tolerant of insults (generally, but not always, not intended to be such) and lack of acknowledgement and / or appreciation. Why not? Those behaviors didn’t / wouldn’t hurt my feelings. As a result, we’d have “Ground Hog Days” – situations that tended to recur among people because I was more comfortable tolerating the bad behavior than working to eradicate its causes.

Heather’s Style. As we work through specific issues regarding engaging employees throughout the business, Heather takes a different tack. She’s still very biased toward results. However, respect is now also required. People don’t have to like each other, but they do need to work together comfortably without feeling injured through their interactions. My style allowed injury and the hurt was ignored unless it got out of hand. Heather proactively addresses those areas where arrogance or unkindness seeps into communications to resolve the underlying issues and assure that people are able to work together going forward. Injured feelings and a lack of willingness to work together are no longer tolerated. Heather jumps on the underlying issues and works out solutions between the people involved. She lets them know that there will be no more “Ground Hog Days” involving behaviors that have created problems in the past.

This was a cultural shift that was needed.

ADVISA is becoming an organization where teamwork and the ability to draw on the many talents of our people are essential to our ability to be successful delivering results to clients. Collegiality and cooperativeness have become necessary to achieving our goals in that environment. Heather’s ascension has forced us to embark on this change. She’s instituting her own DNA into the business in a more forceful way. It’s good for us and it will also be good for you – our clients. You’ll be better able to draw on the resources of all of our talent as our talent becomes more effective at working together. Heather won’t tolerate anything less. No more “Ground Hog Days.”

This week has been exceptional at ADVISA.  As five of our Management Consultants make the PI Worldwide rankings for the most productive in the world, not just nationwide, I wanted to look further into the strategy behind our employee productivity. So, I had a conversation with Bob Wilson, ADVISA'S Founder and President, about attracting and retaining top talent at our company. 

• People are given what they want and need; understand what will be required of them and the results they'll be expected to deliver.
• The PI profile of the individual matches the role; meaning that they are motivated by what the role offers and requires.
• Select people based on their intelligence and charisma.  Their background doesn't play as large a part in success as inherent talent.

I trained my 3^rd PI class in the last two years this past week. I had planned on auditing a day of the training until the day before the training began – when our consultant called to say he had a death in the family and wouldn't be able to lead the class. My schedule was clean and I said I’d be happy to pinch hit. I could cover.

A couple months ago we had a similar scenario when another consultant came down with laryngitis the day before he was to begin his class. Frantic calls and a few re-scheduled appointments and our client was taken care of – with the voice-less consultant in back of the class whispering encouragement to his able voiced teammate.

The Values Statement we crafted in our first strategic planning retreat many years ago states among other things, “We will operate as a team - wherever possible helping each other.” While there are times we don’t do as well as we should, it is nice to see that the majority of time, we do pretty well. 

It was also fun to deliver the Predictive Index Management Workshop™ again to a group of working managers. Watching the light bulbs go off in the audience as they saw how they can influence work satisfaction, employee engagement and staff motivation simply by following the leadership training and development that the workshop provides was very rewarding.

Working at Advisa is really a cool way to earn a living - even doing it as President (for a little while longer). 

On the technology-adoption spectrum I lean toward the Luddite side of the continuum. Skeptical of new technologies’ benefits, I prefer to focus time and energy on the unchanging elements of human nature that leverage the importance of motivation and drive business performance.

Every now and then, however, I run smack dab into a reality wall that highlights the very real benefits of the new and amazing tools we have at our disposal. Such was my experience this week in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The seemingly haphazard road network in Central Massachusetts has its origin in Colonial times. The routes diverge and converge in what appear to be random sequences developed when horses and human legs were the primary forms of transportation. I found myself in the midst of this maze as my wife and I assisted my recently-graduated daughter search for an apartment to accompany her new job in the area.

With a very short time window we had to visit and view multiple living options around the town. There is absolutely no way we could have accomplished this without our GPS tool. “Garmina,” as we call the female voice guiding us from the Garmin-branded device, unerringly led us from place to place.

As a former touring cyclist, I’ve always prided myself on my ability to read maps. Blessed with a good “sense of direction” I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been lost despite extensive travels across every inhabited continent. So when GPS devices first came out I scoffed in disdain.

I like to think this same sense of direction guides my ADVISA efforts in strategic planning methods and organizational alignment.

While I still love a good map and prefer my own sense of place to electronic guidance I have to profess love for Garmina and all she did for us this past week!

When somebody invents a computer that can replicate my strategic planning methods at ADVISA I'm going to have to really start worrying!

• Aliah Wright wrote an article called "Millennials: Bathed to Bits" in the July 2010 edition of SHRM's HR Magazine in which he states, "Old style interviews are out.  Two way dialogues are the way to hire."  If you've not seen this article, be sure to check it out.  Great perspective on a new hire's first three months and a new paradigm for the employee lifecycle.
• Diane Spiegel's posting, "7 Questions You Wouldn't Expect During a Millennial Interview" aligns perfectly with Wright's article. The questions she presents are great examples of a candidate engaging the interviewer in a real dialogue.  Are you ready to answer these questions? 

At this point, we've all read or even experienced ourselves the open position that had 500 applicants.  With such enormous candidate pools and so many people looking for work (and even desperate for work), this means that employers have maximum control of the process, right.  Well, not really.




Even with lots of candidates out there..., 

• Candidates will have other opportunities (part 1) - If you drag out your candidate screening process over weeks and weeks, you are increasing the chances that candidates (even finalists) will move on to another opportunity.  The "hotter" the candidate, the more opportunity they'll have, even in this market. The company who can put them through their process quicker and offer an equal opportunity may beat you out.
• Candidates will have other opportunities (part 2) - The great candidate may also be one who is in pretty dire circumstances.  He/she may have to take the first offer they get of any work. 
• Candidates will get uncomfortable and withdraw - If your process drags on, candidates can start to think, "Jeez, even if they offer me a job, it doesn't seem like they're really that interested in me.  I'm not sure if I want to work somewhere where I'm not valued."  Even if a candidate doesn't officially withdraw, they'll just go silent.

Indeed, even with unemployment high, best hiring practices still hold true when it comes to working with candidates.  It's still critical to move through your hiring process expeditiously.  here are some thoughts to help with that. 

1. Set an 8 week deadline.  Commit to no more than 8 weeks between posting a position and making your final decision on a candidate (or to restrategize the search and start over). 
2. Make sure that internal stakeholders agree on the position and search parameters before you launch.  When there is internal dissention about the scope of a job, qualifications, compensation, etc., it drags out the hiring process because these matters are being worked through while candidates are being considered.  Figure out the position first, get everyone in agreement, then launch.
3.  Have the infrastructure in place to move through the process.  If you don't have the capacity to quickly process resumes and move candidates through quickly, consider engaging additional help.  (Note that our RPO service is perfect in these situations!)
4. Communicate to your candidates.  Be clear about your timeline for hiring and where they are in the process, especially if they're real contenders.
5. Keep the top candidates engaged. If the hiring manager just interviewed someone fabulous but is going on vacation before the final decision can be made, make sure that the candidate is contacted by the company in a meaningful way during that week.  It's not enough just to tell them that you'll be away - keep them connected.

When did summer get here? It seems like just yesterday I was trying to figure out how I would get everything done before Christmas. I had projects that I planned on completing indoors before the nice weather arrived, and almost none of them have been done. Now, July is coming to a close and I have a patio bar inside my house still waiting for the new tile top. I'm faced with the possibility of another season of not using it.

The same thing happens at work. There are things I intend to do, little back burner projects that need completed. The only problem is, the back burner doesn't ever seem to get moved to the front burner. Recently I've begun working remotely every other Tuesday in an effort to minimize interruptions and complete some of these projects. I'm happy to say I've completed 2 of them in just 3 remote work sessions. It's done wonders for my morale and motivation. I suggested it to Bob and Heather as an option in my mid-year review, and they were happy to give the rotation a try. Employee productivity was the primary goal but the importance of motivation was also a contributing factor. I'm happy to work for a company that considers the employee into the equation.

We moved into our offices on Range Line Road in Carmel in October of 2001. If you’ve not visited, our offices are in a home that was built in 1899 (there’s a picture on the wall that was taken of the house and the family living there in 1920). The house had been the 210 Restaurant for about 8 years prior to our purchase, redesign and renovation. Those of us who work here all like the warmth and homey feel it provides. It feels like a home away from home – which was the intent from the beginning.

Of our current team of 15 people, 4 of us reside here on business days more or less permanently, 3 others do most of their work here and another 3 are regular visitors. Our remote consultants visit irregularly. Additionally, we hold our local Predictive Index Management Workshops™ here in our training room. We’ll also host occasional client meetings and strategic planning sessions. In our nine years, we’ve gotten very good use of the facility. And, as you might expect, there are signs that some work needs to be done – both to spruce things up physically and to provide general technology upgrades for our training facility.

I don’t think work satisfaction or staff motivation have been impaired by the natural wear that’s taken place. It’s just time for a sprucing up. And that’s what we’re doing.

All week carpenters have been banging, measuring, drilling, moving. Painters have been scraping, rubbing, painting. Dust and the smell of paint waft through the air. Strange faces come and go – in and out. We’re under construction.

But, it won’t be long before the transition is complete. The training room will have new video, board and sound capabilities. The exterior and interior will both have a bright, shiny glow. Our space will be the “new, improved” Advisa home. 

Will the sprucing up impact employee engagement or work on improving employee morale? Probably not. But, we will look a lot fresher. And I think we’ll all be pleased with the improvements. That can't hurt work satisfaction, can it?

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by. It may not all be complete until mid-September, but we'd love for you to visit. I hope we’ll feel like home to you too.

• Who are your critical dominos if you will?
• What would happen if they fell (left your company)?  
• Who would be impacted by this?  
• How well does your strategic plan account for these instances?  
• How will you communicate the message to all stakeholders inside and outside of the organization?
• How will this impact the people and the families that rely on your company?