Windridge - Identify. Develop. Retain.

How to Use Assessment Feedback Past the Hiring Decision

My hope for this post is that you will begin to think about assessment use past the initial hiring decision, realizing there is a world of helpful information to be gained by using assessments throughout the life cycle of your workforce.

Here are a couple of things I love about the Winslow Assessment:

• The Winslow Assessment is a great tool for measuring “behavioral” habits and influences of the people you are bringing into your organization (hiring). Behaviors change with life and circumstances. The importance of identifying what is going on “now” with an individual is critical for onboarding and performance success. When stress, disappointments (personal or professional), dysfunctional management, and / or life circumstances become a downward spiral, you will not get the same performance as when life is humming along.
• The ability to candidly discuss with the candidate any area(s) of “concern” before the hire. This helps you notice their attitude toward development, their ability to be objective, and their pro-active approach to areas that challenge them. You can then identify if you want to move forward with the candidate, or not.
  This objective overview also alleviates “this person walks on water” syndrome that can come back to bite you about three to four months after the hire when annoying behaviors surface that you never expected.
• The ability to set performance expectations with a realistic “behavioral” blueprint for areas of strength and / or areas for development. This is an asset not only for the hiring company, but also for the individual. Time, coaching, and money are not spent on areas that are already working.
• The added benefit of being able to use the assessment on your current workforce is to help you identify “behavioral fit,” who will work well with whom, who might over power or frustrate another, etc. I have clients who simply assess their workforce every two years (life happens after all), provide their behavioral feedback to them, and then coach them accordingly.

Assessments in general help conversations quickly flow into “what is most important for us to be talking about right now” without the need to spend a lot of time probing for where strengths and / or concerns might be.

Here are a few ways to incorporate assessment results into your organization:

• Applicant Screening - Eliminate unqualified applicants early in the process
• Personnel Selection - Select the best available applicant for the position
• Personnel Placement - Place new employees in the most suitable position and environment
• Needs Analysis - Objectively determine the specific training and development needs of  individual employees
• Succession Planning - Identify the most suitable individual(s) to be coached and mentored to replace those who will be promoted, transferred, retired, or terminated
• Reorganization Decisions - Determine which employees will function most successfully in the  reorganized unit
• Termination / Outplacement - Explore the possibility of changing duties, positions, managers,  departments, etc., instead of termination
• Organizational Development - Identify the development needs of the organization
  (For example, if you see low Trust scores across the board – plan to address this dysfunction via training or coaching.)
• Performance Appraisals - Determine if employees are performing to potential
• Career Pathing - Advance individuals into the most suitable positions or coach them so they can develop the behaviors necessary to succeed in their career

Are you are currently using assessments for hiring? Where are some of the other areas you have found their feedback helpful?

If you are not currently using assessments and would like help exploring areas where behavioral feedback would be an asset in candidate selection and/or the professional development of your current workforce, contact Lindsay at [email protected] – 425-697-2700.

 

The Balance Between Styles, Types and Behaviors

Personality assessments are typically broken into three distinct categories:

• Styles: A manner of doing something.
• Types: A category of people or things having common characteristics.
• Behaviors: The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward
  other people or situations.

Inevitably when I have conversations about personality assessments the talk always turns to “styles” or “type” assessments, as these seem to be extremely common these days. In addition, I imagine that you have either heard of, or taken, one of these types of tests yourself: MBTI, DISC, Enneagram to name a few.

In “styles” or “type” assessments, a participant’s scores are calculated and the test categorizes the test taker into various groups by first and secondary characteristics. I recently had a conversation with a woman sitting next to me on a flight from London. Her comment, when talk of “personality tests” came up, was how interesting it is to find out who all the “yellows” in the group are.

Okay… I understand that this may create a feeling of camaraderie for the moment, but I’m not convinced (past the initial “aha – this is fun!”) that a springboard for learning and personal development conversation will take place. Personally, I tend to react to labeling people and placing them in a “box” instead of allowing them to develop their individual strengths and overcome their weaknesses; no matter what color or animal they are.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I have taken a number of “styles” and “type” assessments over the years. While I find them somewhat fascinating and enjoyable, not one “style” or “type” assessment has ever moved me to make any positive improvement in my behavior. Moreover, at times I have even found myself sinking into the “Well, it’s just the way I am…deal with it” mode… which is not really helpful for self-development.

This is why I’m all about assessing behaviors, pure and simple. I believe that treating each person as a unique individual makes it easier to provide the feedback and the opportunity for opening up their potential…no matter what their “style” is.

In my coaching experience when I have clients with low Trust scores, those low scores are based on totally different, and individual, experiences and reactions to their life situation or circumstances. This is where receiving behavioral feedback can help someone identify steps for improvement versus providing them with the excuse of, “I’m just an XYZ - gotta love me.”

Bottom-line: While your “style” or “type” may be fascinating and fun, developing your own (or your
employees’) behaviors will help achieve the most success.

 

Windridge Coaching is Born!

I absolutely love the work I do around hiring and placement of behaviorally fit individuals. You know, the people who come into your organization and hit the ground running with little-to-no “surprises” in their personality. And I so appreciate the hiring managers, recruiters, business owners, and executive teams I work with around hiring and the positioning of their people. They are the best!

Still, much of my work even in the “hiring assessment support” realm is actually coaching, pure and simple. I am the listening presence. I am the objective outsider, a sounding board who is an asset when making those sometimes difficult hiring decisions.

And so, because I love this listening /supportive line of work and I seem to be doing more and more coaching within organizations, my decision to create a targeted website for Windridge Coaching was born!

This site will provide access in one place to useful professional development information and also allow access to some of the wonderfully skilled associates / coaches I have in my inner circle… There may be times when I am not the coach a person needs for their situation, and the ability to refer them to the capable skills of my colleagues will be a wonderful asset.

With the addition of Windridge Coaching I’m looking forward to allowing Windridge to grow and provide a broader range of support to professionals who are in the process of moving themselves, their careers and their organizations, forward.

Website is up – content will be growing and expanding - please check out Windridge Coaching!

3 Steps for Overcoming Failure

I read a post recently that stated: “For most businesses, failure is one of the most feared results possible,” and I thought to myself, for most business yes, and also for many people. Failure is many times the divider between those who succeed, because they persevere, and those who don’t succeed because they succumb to what they perceive as failure (when maybe they’re only one step away from success).

Personal failure typically causes you to first look for excuses (in everyone and everything besides yourself) and second (and more deadly) blame yourself and let the set-back rob you of the mental energy to pick up, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward.

Growth is about risks…and risk includes failure.

So how do you fail and yet keep your enthusiasm and perspective intact?

1. Fail quickly
   Okay, you failed…is it life threatening? Probably not, take inventory, examine what went wrong and why, and then start to strategize how to get back on your feet and back to your project quickly. Many times this will be as simple as “doing the next thing” and not letting yourself become distracted by the downward spiral of negativism.
2. Accept that failure includes valuable lessons learned
   Take time to understand why something didn’t work. Seek solutions outside yourself. Is there someone else who may be able to shed light or offer a viable perspective or solution? Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to reach out.
3. Learn from your weaknesses and find your strengths
   Be willing to look squarely at your contribution to your situation–positive and negative. Be willing to learn from, and modify if necessary, areas you are weaker in by talking to someone you feel comfortable with (a coach, or manager, or colleague). Use this person as a sounding board for your “next step” actions. As you work with them, learn to identify your strengths and use both strengths and weaknesses to identify and adopt new successful habits.

Understanding why or how you failed can help you avoid making the same mistake again. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, but expecting different results. Use your failures as prompts to identify next steps for desired changes that will assure personal / professional growth.

If you need any help with this process, feel free to contact me at [email protected]

Image: istockphoto

Behavior Assessments: Hiring and So Much More

Behavioral assessments are a great tool to use in your hiring practices because they add insights about candidates and enable you to interview around specific strengths and weaknesses, not simply broad generalities. The other fantastic use of behavioral assessments is with your current workforce: leadership, managers, project management teams, etc...

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when considering bringing in assessments.

• Would gaining a focused behavioral overview of strengths and areas of concern (job specific) for your employees or yourself be helpful?
• Would assessing your current workforce to identify common strengths or areas of concern specific to successful performance be an asset to your managers?
• Would the ability to target your training dollars where the identified need is be an asset?
• Would creating focused on-boarding or coaching programs designed around behaviors, accountability and performance goals provide an advantage?

Benefits of having a quality behavioral assessment in your toolbox.

To the Individual

• Self-awareness---identify strengths and weaknesses; provide a starting point for forward career development.
• The ability to realize how behaviors affect personal and professional relationships, in both positive and negative ways.
• Reduce stress by understanding and correcting self-sabotage.
• Provide immediate awareness, and thus corrective action in any deficient area.
• Acknowledge and build on natural strengths.

To the Manager

• The knowledge gained through assessment feedback will form the basis of improved communication and trust.
• Help in identifying which workers are most likely to conform to the organization’s mission/vision statements.
• Reduce conflict with those who have oppositional behaviors, and will provide an understanding and starting point for coaching conversations.
• Enhance clarity of communication.
• Realize the real reason people act the way they do – not the apparent one.
• Understand which workers are self-sufficient and which are not.

To the Organization

• Enhance each leader’s ability to manage themselves, and their staff.
• Provide employees’ feedback to aide in their career success.
• Provide an objective measure, not a subjective opinion or “feeling” based on possible personality differences.
• Communication is profoundly enhanced; manager and worker can speak the same “language.”
• Initiates a uniform promotion/development/discipline system.
• Enhanced team unity through an increased level of openness and honesty.
• Establishes an excellent base for performance reviews and coaching programs.

If you need help understanding or implementing a behavioral assessment program within your organization do not hesitate to contact Windridge.... And if there are other areas where assessments play an important role in your organization’s development programs... Please share!

Image: istockphoto

Quiet Leadership...

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon,
and the deeper it sinks into the mind.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Quiet leaders are all around us. Unfortunately many times we are simply too busy to notice them. These people are willing to make the small, continual, “behind the scenes” efforts necessary to develop not only our organizations, but our world. These quiet leaders work tirelessly to do the right thing in the face of challenging obstacles with little to no recognition.

Quiet Leaders: “They move patiently, carefully and incrementally. They do what is right—for their organization and for the people around them, and for themselves—inconspicuously and without causalities.”  —Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.

Quiet leadership many times is made apparent by an individual’s communication style. Oftentimes, through tireless steadfast step-by-step strategic development, they help to build strong teams and organizations that can perform successfully during difficult shifts and / or transitions. Quiet leaders are the steady hand amidst the white water of organizational and family life.  This work may be done in the background of others, but make no mistake, there would be no success without these leaders.

Leadership at this level is not about the glitz and the glam; it is about helping others accomplish extraordinary things. I remember years ago when it dawned on me that my job as a leader was to make others look good, not to show how talented, skilled and amazing I was. I have come to believe that true leadership is the strength of character to help others achieve their full potential while letting them shine.

The image I previously had of “leadership” consisted of the strong charismatic leader: In control, knowing every motive and dictating the moves of everyone around them. Trust was not found in this leadership vocabulary, however, suspicion and micro-management most definitely was!

Now in my work with leaders around change, communication and trust issues, the focus is always to help the leader develop behaviors and  skills so that they will influence and communicate well with the people who are directly affected by the decisions being made. This approach is not weak, indecisive or pandering, but is an inclusive and pro-active.

Gaining employees' opinions and help during a change effort is critical to the success of the change process. Professors W. Chan Kim and Reneé Mauborgne in their book “Blue Ocean Strategy ,” say that when included in the change process:

"Individuals feel recognized for their intellectual worth (and) are willing to share their knowledge; in fact, they feel inspired to impress and confirm the expectation of their intellectual value, suggesting active ideas. When individuals are treated with emotional recognition, they feel emotionally tied to the strategy and inspired to give their all."

On the other hand, the authors point out that:

“When people are only informed about the new strategy and are treated as if their knowledge doesn't matter, they feel "intellectual indignation" and as a result will not share their ideas or expertise and will hoard their best thinking.” 

Quiet leadership involves serving, communicating, trust, and the willingness to help build others into strong and capable leaders.

 

Knowing is Not the Same as Doing

Knowing what to do is not the same as doing it. You can have all the intent and knowledge in the world, but until you put that intent and knowledge into action it really does you no good. I read once that “The world is full of broke geniuses,” you know, the folks who “know it all,” but never link action to their wonderful ideas or dreams.

To keep yourself from falling too deeply into this trap, start the practice of spending time each week identifying and reviewing what your next steps around your desired outcomes will be.

Here is what it looks like:

• Identify a short term goal – personal and / or professional
  This can be a behavior / habit you want to modify, a project that needs to be completed, etc.
• For each goal, address three areas:

1. Goal – The difference between where you are currently and where you want / need to be. What will this look like when you have arrived?

2. Theme – What are your main objectives along the way? What are the obstacles? What are the support systems you will need to have in place to succeed?

3. Ideas – How will you achieve this? What, or who, do you need in place to help you make this happen?

Next, set weekly, monthly, and quarterly objectives, and break them down into doable actions.

Here’s how:

• Weekly Goals:
  Where are you now—where do you want / need to be?
  What do you need to have completed by the end of the week?

   Ideas:
   Actions:

• Monthly Goals:
  Where are you now—where do you want / need to be?
  What do you need to have completed one month from now (or by the end of the month)?
  
   Ideas:
   Actions:
   
• Quarterly Goals: (Be sure to put a completion date on these!)
  Where are you now—where do you want / need to be?
  What do you need to have completed by the end of this quarter?

   Ideas:
   Actions:

Touch base with your list of short-term goals on a regular basis; keep them where you will see them if not daily, at least every couple of days. By doing this exercise, and reviewing it at least weekly, your main objectives and desired learning outcomes will actually start to be accomplished.

"Goals in writing are dreams with deadlines." - Brian Tracy

 

Image: istockphoto

 

 

5 Ways to Avoid Regret

When faced with uncomfortable or annoying situations it is easy to lose sight of the big picture and the objectives you are striving for in your professional or personal life.

In the heat of the moment, when you are still feeling that all too familiar sting of words or actions (or lack of action) it’s easy to:

• Jump to conclusions
• Prejudge a situation before listening to all sides
• Take something that was meant for constructive criticism too personal
• Speak before you have all the facts

The list goes on...

Martha Finney lists 5 Ways to Avoid Regret when faced with challenging, in-your-face circumstances:

1. Give yourself time to react.
   Unless the situation has something to do with a building on fire, you’re likely to be able to wait 24-48 hours before making a considered pronouncement on the matter being shoved into your face. Their emergency doesn’t have to be your emergency, unless you allow it.
2. Know the difference between the facts and your interpretation of what’s behind the behavior.
   You need to be insightful around human behavior and motivation. But that doesn’t make you a mind reader. Personally, I cherish the belief that I can see into other people’s souls. So when people don’t say “thank you” or “I’m sorry” or “you’re the most wonderful person in the world,” I haul out my favorite kit bag of all-purpose judgments. I have to stop and remind myself that my own knee-jerk reactions can be relied on for only one thing: To be wrong.
3. Make someone else’s problem…someone else’s problem.
   You can provide an ear, but you don’t always have to provide the solution.
4. Know what your boundaries are and expect everyone to respect them—including yourself.
   You’ve heard that expression, “We teach people how to treat us.” Of course, but how? By setting boundaries, by being clear on expected behaviors and standard of performance and interaction, by politely and calmly enforcing your expectations. Why is this relevant here? When you’re confident you have the power to honor yourself and your own needs in the little ways that the people in your workday try to chisel away at your boundaries, you know you can afford to stay powerfully calm when facing down big-stakes issues. Those little straws won’t pile up, so there will be no “last straw” that ignites your own personal ka-boom.
5. Don’t lose sight of what you really want in the long run.
   If your immediate emotional reaction has even the slightest tinge of self-righteousness to it, dollars to donuts acting out on that reaction will move you further away from your people objectives. While you’re giving yourself time to react (see #1), review exactly what your end game is and whether your emotions are supporting that end game.

Hasty reactions are almost always the breeding ground for regrets. Handling those potential knee-jerk moments well speaks volumes about your maturity and leadership skills. What have you found works to help you gain perspective and maintain focus?

* Photo credit: istockphoto

6 Steps for Handling Difficult People

We all have them: business colleagues, bosses, family members or friends who, for whatever reason, are “difficult” people to get along with. Let’s face it, they push our buttons, and these folks can turn a perfectly good day into stress, frustration or inferiority with a dismissive look or caustic remark.

As with all things “people” the only person you have control over and can change is yourself.

Here are six steps to help you maintain perspective.

1. Learn to ignore annoying and / or irrelevant comments. Don’t continually relive and replay unintentional hurtful or mean comments or actions; let them go.
2. Choose (if possible) when you will expose yourself to a known offender.
3. Make communication simple and to the point when communicating with someone who has the potential to derail you.
4. Identify before interacting with your difficult person what your response(s) will be, and don’t let yourself be pulled off track by emotional responses.
5. Learn to rephrase your ideas for clarity. Miscommunication is at the heart of many people’s frustrations.
6. Adapt. Sometimes people are difficult for us to work with simply because we don’t try to understand and/or adapt to their style. You may want them to change their style for you, but in fact, it will actually increase your value as a leader and communicator if you can learn to adapt yourself to others.

Learning how to manage yourself first, will make you an asset wherever you go. Please share any other techniques you have found useful for managing the difficult people in your life.

* Photo credit: istockphoto

Keeping a Work Journal

Recently, while working with a coaching client who was new to managing others, I made the suggestion of keeping a work journal as a way to capture workplace interactions and also ideas: what works—what doesn’t work, recording incidents, interactions with co-workers, etc. The goal: To create a way to build on successes and handle or modify failures.

Keeping a record will help you remember

We all have so much on our minds these days. How many times does something happen during the course of your workday, a great idea, an inappropriate comment, something you need to ask someone… but four days later (or maybe four hours later!) when you try to remember what it was, suddenly it’s blurred in the recesses of time.

A post by Patty Azzarello on this subject clarifies this point.

“A manager who worked for me was really annoying me. It got to the point where I decided the organization would be better off without him.

When I talked to my boss about it he said, “Oh, I don’t know… he’s been in place for a long time, and I’m not sure you’ll have the support to make that move.”

But then he said, “Can you give me an example of what you mean?”

So, I went back to my journal, and in a moment, I was able produce a list of about 20 transgressions which occurred over the last six months.

It included things like failing to communicate important information to his team, speaking badly of employees with his peers, not delivering on commitments; then blaming it on others, taking credit for other’s work, being out of touch; then miscommunicating things that led to confusion and re-work, undermining management decisions. And, every entry had a date stamp.”

Positive and negative

My encouragement is to record both the positive and negative aspects of your work-a-day world.

• Notice the positive “stand out” things of those you manage or lead so that you can provide positive reinforcement and praise. How often does someone on your team do something wonderful, and you simply take it for granted, forgetting to show recognition for a job well done?
• Take note of the “not quite right” things you might see going on around you so that you can get a clear picture of what actually happened, and then if there are necessary issues to bring up or address, you can then create an action plan for dealing with them with all the facts in front of you.
• Keep track of ideas, needs, brainstorming sessions, etc.

Patty also mentions another more personal and equally important asset of journaling, and that is the ability to step back and examine your own reactions to work incidents.

“I was working with an executive who was being driven crazy by a micro-managing boss. He started noting the date and issue of each offense, and after a couple of months he realized that the problem was his own emotional response.

He hated being micromanaged so much that when it occasionally happened, he was blowing it out of proportion.

When something really bugs you, it can become a trigger and feel like a bigger deal than it is. The notes helped him see that the specific behavior from his boss was not that frequent—it’s just that if it happened at all, it made him angry and miserable. The data allowed him to put it in perspective and not get as upset about it.”

What are some of the advantages you can think of for keeping a work journal?