Topgrading, as discussed in a previous article, is the practice of hiring only the best people for your company. It is used by many successful companies. However, as previously mentioned, it is even more important for small businesses. Let’s face it, every one of our employees is important; but if you only have 5 or 10 or 25, the selection of each employee is very important.
When we consider filling a position, most of us review the candidate’s background and we do the reference checks. Do we consider what goals we want the new employee to accomplish, and the specific skills that the position requires? Did you ever consider that this person’s interaction style with others would have a large impact on his or her success? Or that people with different styles may have to be managed differently? And how will this person fit into your team?
These often overlooked elements can be even more important than background, goals, and skills. Training can fill in the gaps in a person’s skills. What is really hard is finding the right “fit”. Fit comes from understanding how a candidate deals with problems and challenges, with people, with the demands of the job, and with the independence or dependence the job provides. It also comes from understanding how a candidate’s values mesh with those who are already in the company and with the job requirements.
You might be saying “Nice philosophy, but how in the world can I figure out a person’s behavioral style and values from a resume and a couple of interviews?” Good news - - - there are great tools available to help you figure this out. Some of these are: Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Big Five Tests, and DiSC. DiSC (Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness, and Compliance styles) along with PIAV (Personal Interests, Attitudes and Values assessments), along with Myers-Briggs, are highly favored tools.
DiSC was first used by the US Army in the 1940’s and has remained a powerful and well-kept secret until recently. DiSC is special because it allows you to quickly categorize someone and predict their behavior. This ability to predict the person’s motivation and future behavior is critical in many roles, especially management and sales.
DiSC measures four dimensions of behavior: how a person deals with problems and challenges, how a person deals with people, how a person deals with pace, and, how a person deals with structure, rules and regulations. We all have some of each dimension, but each individual mix describes vastly different behaviors. There are no right or wrong behaviors. It’s just the way we are.
Personal Interests, Attitudes, and Values (PIAV for short) measures a person’s values: what motivates a person to action. PIAV characterizes values into six dimensions: Aesthetic, Individualistic, Social, Theoretical, Traditional, and Utilitarian. Again, we all have some of each, but we will have one or two that dominate our decision-making. Taken together the six dimensions describe what is important to us, what we value. It is said that partners in great marriages often have opposite behaviors, but common values. The spouses fit! It was Johnson & Johnson’s Credo, their statement of corporate values that took Tylenol off the shelves in 1982 when an outsider contaminated some Tylenol with cyanide. Each customer’s well-being was more important than profits.
Every job has an optimal behavioral and values profile. Benchmarking is the way to determine the optimal profile. The people, usually five or six, most knowledgeable about the job create a DiSC and PIAV profile for the job. “What behaviors and values would describe the ideal person for this job?” The benchmarkers discuss the behaviors and values until a consensus is reached.
The next step is for each of the final candidates for the position to take the DiSC and PIAV assessment. The assessment is easy and takes very little time.
These candidate profiles are compared to the job benchmark to test the fit. Candidates should be ranked according to this comparison. And this should be one measurement of the hiring process.
Job benchmarking is a great tool for employee selection, but it doesn’t replace management judgment. It is another important tool to help managers make the best decisions possible. Background, willingness to go after certain goals, and skills are all very important ingredients in selecting the best candidate for a position. Adding job benchmarking to the selection process has reduced turnover, improved performance, and reduced errors and accidents for companies that use it. But, in the final analysis, it is good management using all of the tools available that maximizes the potential of the business.
Bill Boyer is the President of CEO Focus of the Tidewater and an AdviCoach® with BAI. He can be reached at bboyer@ceofocus.com or 757-233-2577.
A Topgrading Tool - To learn more about this author, visit Bill Boyer's Website.
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Bill Boyer
(Visit Bill's Website)
Bill Boyer has over 35 years experience
working with businesses, from small to
major international corporations with
extensive experience in operations,
distribution and finance.
Bill has held CEO, COO, CFO, and other VP
positions with Burlington Industries, The
Disston Company and Hickson PLC and other
corporations. He has also been an
individual coach/consultant with many
smaller corporations.
Bill holds a BS in Industrial Management
from the University of Richmond, and is a
graduate of executive programs at the
University of Virginia.
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