Only 13% of the world’s workforce is actively engaged at work. This is because employees become unmotivated or resentful when their relationship with immediate management is inefficient or hostile. As a manager, how can you find strong employees and keep them motivated, focused, and productive without creating frustration through constant micro-managing? Successful managers throw out the rules of conventional management and create an individualized approach that focuses on the talents, weaknesses, and personalities of their employees.
Most organizations know that their ability to find, engage, and maintain strong employees is essential to their success. However, few know how to gauge how well they’re doing at that task.
To determine how well you’re finding, engaging, and maintaining employees, you need a precise and thorough way to gauge the strength of your organization. The Q12 Items are 12 question items to give to your employees that help you determine the strength of your organization.
Employees respond to the Q12 on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items are as follows:
To improve your Q12 scores and become a stronger manager, develop the four keys of management:
Talent is not a magical gift. Talent is a recurring feeling, thought, or behavior that can be used in an effective way. Every job lends itself to a unique set of talents and, therefore, requires a person with those talents to fill the role. For example, great lawyers have a talent for debating. Great accountants have a talent for organizing. Great caregivers have a talent for empathy.
Talent can’t be taught. Talents are developed at a young age and can’t be changed after your teenage years because of the way the brain works. Therefore, while you can give someone the tools to grow in their talents, you can’t teach talents like empathy or confidence. You need to hire people that already possess the necessary talents for the position.
While talent is fixed at a young age, skills and knowledge come through experience and education. They can be taught at any age and provide employees with the tools and information they need to use their talents.
Skills are the abilities an employee uses to do their job such as performing basic tasks on a computer. Knowledge is information that informs how you do your job such as information gained through a textbook or through personal experience.
You can teach skills and knowledge after you bring someone on-board. With this in mind, you should always focus on a candidate’s talents over their skill-sets or education. For example, if you’re hiring an accountant for your organization, you can teach them to use Excel and build reports. However, you can’t teach them the striving talent of accuracy or the thinking talent of organization.
There are three basic categories of talents: striving, thinking, and relating.
How do you find talent to fit the positions that you need filled? When searching for new employees, clearly define the talents that describe the ideal worker for the position you’re trying to fill. Think about the following tips as you’re creating your list:
Tip #1: Think about the structure of your company. The talents associated with any given role will change based on the way your company is run. This is because your expectations and the way you interact with the person in that position are both unique to your organization.
Tip #2: Think about your current team members. Consider what talents you can add to your team to increase performance. Make sure that the people you hire have the appropriate talents to interact with your team effectively.
Tip #3: Look at your best employees. When coming up with your list of talents, think about the best employee you’ve ever had in that role or a closely related role. Then, consider the talents that they possess that allow them to succeed. Use these talents to inform your search.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have direct control over your employees as a manager. While you can suggest specific ways to approach the work, your employees ultimately decide how they’re going to do their jobs based on their talents. However, despite the differing approaches, you need to ensure that everyone is performing to standard.
With this in mind, how do you get people to perform to expectation without having to micro-manage every aspect of their work? You need to define your team’s goals, then allow each employee to discover the best way to get there.
Many managers make the mistake of micro-managing their employees. They come up with a variety of excuses to justify their need to control every aspect of the work:
Excuse #1: I know the best way to approach the work. While it’s tempting to believe, there’s no one “best” approach to any position. Everyone has different talents that inform how they work effectively. While you can offer suggestions and resources to assist your employees, trying to dictate every step of their process ignores the talents that make them effective in the first place. Embrace the uniqueness of your employees and allow them to approach the work in a way that plays into their talents.
Excuse #2: My employees aren’t talented enough to work on their own. If you believe this, then you didn’t hire the right people for the job. In contrast, if you hire people based on their talents, then you should be able to step away with the knowledge that your employees are capable of doing the work.
Excuse #3: They need to earn my trust before I allow them to work on their own. If you think that you can’t trust your own team, you may be allowing your own insecurities to dictate the way that you run your team. Yes, sometimes, people will let you down. However, you need to embrace that this is the exception, not the rule.
Defining your team’s goals instead of their process helps you avoid micromanagement by giving your employees a unified objective to work towards without stifling their processes or talents. Every organization has different goals. For example, a retail store may focus primarily on customer satisfaction whereas a medical organization may focus primarily on patient safety. While these goals aren’t mutually exclusive, these organizations have different priorities because they have different purposes. When defining your organization’s goals, think about the following three questions:
Question #1: What do your customers need? This is the first question you need to ask because, without customers or clients, your company has no value. Use focus groups or customer surveys to ask your clientele what they want and expect from their experience with you. Use this information to inform your organization’s goals by zeroing in on the items that your customers feel passionate about.
Question #2: What does your company need? While a company’s core mission typically remains the same over time, the strategies you use to execute that mission change. Adapt your goals as you change your strategies. This adjusts the focus of your desired outcomes toward your new approach to fulfilling your company’s mission.
Question #3: What do your employees need? As you now know, every employee has a unique set of talents that inform the way that they work. When you set goals, you need to keep these talents in mind to adapt to each employee. While this is more challenging with larger or more standardized teams, you need to adjust as much as possible to ensure a more effective result.
Once you’ve hired for talent and defined your goals, build up the talents of your employees and figure out how to navigate around their weaknesses. As discussed, people don’t change that much. With this in mind, the talents and weaknesses of your employees are pretty much set. Instead of trying to fix your employees, help them build their talents by offering skills and knowledge, and navigate around their weaknesses by placing them into the appropriate positions.
You only have so much time and energy. Great managers believe that it’s better for employees to put their time and energy into building their talents instead of trying to change the unchangeable. Great managers use the following rules to help employees develop their abilities:
Rule #1: Put people in the proper roles. When placing people into roles, know the talents associated with each role as well as the talents of each individual employee. Watch your employees over time to see how they work and how they interact with other team members. If you like being more direct, ask them about their strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Note: this doesn’t refer simply to hiring. You can use this principle even if you have no power over hiring or need to shuffle an employee to a different position.
Rule #2: Break the Golden Rule. The “Golden Rule”—treating everyone the same—isn’t efficient. You need to relate to your employees based upon their individual needs. Here are examples of questions you can ask to get a better sense of what your employees need:
Rule #3: Spend more time with your best. Keep the following tips in mind:
Focusing on talent doesn’t mean ignoring weakness or failure. Mistakes and poor performance need to be addressed quickly, but you need to address them properly to avoid frustrating employees or wasting your energy. First, ask yourself four questions:
If you answered “yes” to one of the questions above, you have direct control over the factors needed to make a change. This is because these questions relate to temporary (personal issues) or changeable (knowledge, skills, and motivations) factors. However, if you answered “no” to all of the questions above, you don’t have direct control over the factors needed to make a change. This is because your issue is likely related to talent. When this is the case, go through the following process:
A non-talent is a talent you don’t have, but don’t have to use. On their own, non-talents are harmless. For example, if you’re terrible at remembering names, but your position never requires you to meet new people, your non-talent doesn’t impact your ability to work.
However, non-talents become weaknesses as soon as they become necessary to a role or position. For example, if you’re terrible at remembering names, and your new position frequently requires you to meet new people, your non-talent suddenly becomes a weakness. Knowing the difference between the two allows you to watch for the moments when your employee’s non-talents turn into weaknesses and impact performance.
There are three methods you can use to help someone succeed despite their weaknesses:
At the end of the day, if an employee is still performing poorly because of their weaknesses, they can’t stay in their position. Either find them an alternative role that better suits their talents or say goodbye.
Employees want to develop in their careers. This has traditionally been associated with the concept of “climbing the ladder.” They feel the need to move up the chain of command in order to be seen as successful. However, employees who excel at one position often don’t have the talents to excel in a management or leadership role.
How do you keep people in roles they excel in and give them the feeling of accomplishment they need to feel fulfilled without promoting them into roles they don’t fit? You have to change people’s perspective on success, assure them that changing careers doesn’t make them a failure, and navigate people away from positions without destroying their morale.
While promotion is a great step when you have an employee who fits, it shouldn’t be your defining factor of success. Respect each position within your organization and develop ways that people can further their careers without changing roles. Three tips:
Tip #1: Develop achievement levels. Achievement levels are essentially promotions that allow team members to continue to do the work they excel in while gaining respect, prestige, and bonuses. These levels keep team members motivated by showing a clear progression of success without overhauling their job description. This allows them to become experts in their position while still feeling like they’re succeeding.
Tip #2: Adjust your payscale. To encourage great employees to stay in the roles they do well, create pay ranges that offer higher pay for great “lower-level” employees and lower pay for new or poor “higher level” employees. This works for two reasons:
Tip #3: Get creative. Often, leadership won’t give you the freedom to develop achievement levels or adjust your pay scales. When leadership forces you to stick to a particular model, get creative and find ways to provide your employees with a sense of progression and development without breaking the rules. For example, if your boss insists that you must put someone into a management-level position, adjust the responsibility of the role into one of mentorship. This allows them to advance into the required role without forcing them into a position where they can’t use any of their talents.
Moving an employee out of a role isn’t an easy thing to do. Unless they’ve committed a crime or unethical act, it’s emotionally difficult to demote, transfer, or fire people. However, because they drag down the group as a whole, you need to quickly remove poor performers from roles they aren’t talented in. This requires tough love:
In a lot of situations, you know your employees better than they know themselves. Though this may seem egotistical, it's difficult to recognize your own talents and weaknesses when you’re the one doing the work. When you address an issue with an employee, they may grow defensive or angry because they don’t see their weaknesses. In these situations, stay calm and be consistent in your feedback.
Only 13% of the world’s workforce is actively engaged at work. This is because employees become unmotivated or resentful when their relationship with immediate management is inefficient or hostile. As a manager, how can you find strong employees and keep them motivated, focused, and productive without creating frustration through constant micro-managing? Successful managers throw out the rules of conventional management and create an individualized approach that focuses on the talents, weaknesses, and personalities of their employees.
Most organizations know that their ability to find, engage, and maintain strong employees is essential to their success. However, few know how to gauge how well they’re doing at that task. Some companies offer concierge services such as flower delivery or dog-walking to their employees to try to keep them happy. Others offer stock options and financial incentives. However, these services benefit good employees and bad employees alike. It may help them find and maintain employees, but it doesn’t incentivize engagement or reward strong performance.
To reward strong performance, you need to determine effectiveness. To do this, many companies use measuring tools such as retention rates, opinion surveys, and turnaround. However, these numbers are generic and imprecise. They don’t tell a company how they’re doing with finding and keeping strong employees. They tell the company how they’re doing finding and keeping all employees.
To determine how well you’re finding, engaging, and maintaining strong employees, you need a precise and thorough way to gauge the strength of your organization. The Q12 Items are 12 question items to give to your employees that help you determine the strength of your organization. Managers have the most direct impact on high Q12 scores because they interact with employees on a daily basis and dictate the tone of leadership.
Employees respond to the Q12 on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items are as follows:
A high number of “strongly agree” responses typically indicates a high mark in one or more of the following business goals: productivity, profitability, retention, and customer satisfaction. The reasons for this are as follows:
A large retail company used the Q12 items within its stores. After receiving over 28,000 responses from employees across the country, the organization saw an interesting trend between its franchises. Some stores reported back with a high number of “strongly agree” answers. However, others reported back with a significantly lower number of “strongly agree” answers. The discrepancy between their yearly performance is as follows:
| Top 25% of “Strongly Agree” Answers | Bottom 25% of “Strongly Agree” Answers | |
| Sales Budget | On average, these stores were 4.5% over their sales budget for the year. | On average, these stores were 0.84% below their sales budget for the year. |
| Profit/Loss | These stores ended their year almost 14% over their profit budget. | These stores ended their year almost 30% below their profit budget. |
| Turnover | The top stores maintained approximately 12 employees more per store than the bottom stores. This calculates out to about 1,000 employees per year. Because of the costs of scouting, hiring, and training, this difference cost the corporation about $27 million dollars over the course of the year. | |
The retail company gave every store the same tools, incentives, initiatives, and rules, so what was causing the disparity in numbers? The answer was management. The Q12 Items revealed that direct management dictated the experience of the employees. Even though they were given the same materials and benefits, employees at lower-performing stores typically had lower levels of satisfaction and motivation because of their negative relationships with their immediate managers.
The Q12 items are ordered in a specific way. The ordering of these items guides employees through a specific thought-process that shows their level of security and satisfaction with the company. Those levels are as follows:
| Level/ Q12 Items | Significance | “Strongly Agree” | “Strongly Disagree” |
| Level 1/
Q01-02 |
These questions relate to the basic needs of an employee: expectation and proper tools. | You know what’s expected of you and you have the tools to succeed. Because you can perform the basic function of your job, you can focus on the quality of your work. | You don’t know what’s expected of you and you don’t have the tools to succeed. Because you can’t perform the basic function of your job, you can’t focus on the quality of your work. |
| Level 2/
Q03-06 |
These questions relate to the performance of an employee and the perception of how others view their work. | You’re doing something that you’re good at and are being properly recognized for the effort you put in. You feel as if management cares about you and your development. Because you feel qualified and supported, you can focus on building relationships at work. | You’re not doing something that you’re good at and aren’t being recognized for the effort you put in. You feel as if management doesn’t care about you or your development. Because you don’t feel qualified or supported, you can’t focus on building relationships at work. |
| Level 3/ Q07-10 | These questions relate to the relationships and interactions between the employee, coworkers, and management. | Your opinion is valued at work and you feel that your job is important. You’re surrounded by people that are committed to doing strong work and you’ve made a close friend in the office. Because you have strong working relationships, you can use that support to help you focus on growth and improvement. | Your opinion isn’t valued at work and you feel that your job is unimportant. You’re surrounded by people that have no interest in doing strong work and you haven’t made a close friend in the office. Because you lack strong working relationships, you have no support to help you focus on growth and improvement. |
| Level 4/
Q11-12 |
These questions relate to growth and improvement. | You’ve been spoken to about ways to improve and feel as though you’ve had opportunities to use that information to grow and improve. | You’ve never been spoken to about ways to improve and feel as though you haven’t had opportunities to grow or improve. |
In order to build a productive and satisfied workforce, you need to focus on items 1-6 before you attempt to develop 7-12. They build a foundation of connection and trust that allows you to develop relationships and focus on growth. Aiming to solve the higher-level questions before you establish your base will lead to interesting concepts that you won’t be able to execute. For instance, if you haven’t laid out expectations for your employees, you can’t expect them to focus on the quality of their work because they have no reference for your definition of “quality work.”
To improve your Q12 scores and become a stronger manager, use your employees’ talents to develop the four keys of management:
As discussed, the four keys of management depend on your employees’ talents. Talent is not a magical gift. Talent is a recurring feeling, thought, or behavior that can be used in an effective way. For example, if you consistently remember important dates, that’s a talent. Every job lends itself to a unique set of talents and, therefore, requires a person with those talents to fill the role. For example, great lawyers have a talent for debating. Great accountants have a talent for organizing. Great caregivers have a talent for empathy.
Talents create a filter through which you see the world. They guide the thought processes that create habits and proficiencies. For instance, if you’re a talented socializer, your brain likely keeps you open and comfortable by filtering out many of the insecurities that are often associated with new relationships.
Traditionally, organizations have held onto the belief that talents can be trained into employees or that talent isn’t a necessary component of success. Both of these beliefs are inaccurate:
There are three basic categories of talents: striving, thinking, and relating.
As discussed, talents can’t be taught. If you can’t train your employees to have talents they don’t possess, how much of a person can you actually change?
Talents are developed at a young age through neural pathways, which develop based upon your experiences. For instance, if you handled confrontation constantly as a child, you likely built a strong neural pathway that allows your brain to quickly process aggressive situations. That pathway may translate into a talent for debating or handling difficult conversations.
Once you reach your teenage years, you no longer possess the ability to develop new connections. While you can improve upon the connections that already exist to a certain extent, you won’t be able to develop significant talents or abilities if they don’t already exist.
While talent is fixed at a young age, skills and knowledge come through experience and education. They can be taught at any age and provide employees with the tools and information they need to use their talents.
Skills are the abilities an employee uses to do their job. For example, most office employees need to know how to perform basic tasks on a computer. If they don’t have a talent for learning new information or using technology, they may never excel at these skills, but they can be taught to use them at a level of proficiency that allows them to do their work.
Knowledge is information that informs how you do your job. There are two types of knowledge: factual knowledge and experiential knowledge.
You can teach skills and knowledge after you bring someone on-board. With this in mind, you should always focus on a candidate’s talents over their skill-sets or education. For example, if you’re hiring an accountant for your organization, you can teach them to use Excel and build reports. However, you can’t teach them the striving talent of accuracy or the thinking talent of organization.
Historically, organizations have hired based on three criteria: experience, intelligence, and determination. This is because:
However, when you look at a pool of employees that were hired using these criteria, there is often a high range in the quality of their work. Some employees work efficiently and without issue. Others work slowly and cause problems.
If they all meet the standards of these criteria, what is the reason behind these discrepancies? The answer is differing talents. If a candidate has experience, intelligence, and determination, but lacks the talents necessary to effectively perform in a specific role, they won’t excel in the position.
The purpose of a manager is to help employees translate the talents they already have into performance. In contrast, trying to teach someone a talent that they simply don’t possess is time-consuming and ineffective. Instead of focusing on the things that an employee lacks, focus on what they bring to the table.
If you disregard talents when hiring, you risk putting someone into a position that they aren’t equipped to handle, even if they have skills and knowledge that suggest otherwise. For example, if you hire a customer service representative who lacks the thinking talent of problem-solving, they may struggle when a customer approaches them with an issue that was not described during the onboarding process. Though they have the knowledge to address standard issues, they lack the talents necessary to apply them to a unique situation.
The Range of Performance in NASA’s Astronauts
In the 60s, Brigadier General Don Flickinger was tasked with assembling a team of astronauts to lead the United States’ foray into space. When looking for candidates, Flickinger assessed a variety of criteria including age, height, experience, intelligence, and athletic ability. He then ran candidates through intense psychological and physical tests. Ultimately, he chose seven men.
Despite similarities in experience and intelligence, the performances of these seven astronauts varied drastically. On the one hand, astronauts such as John Glenn and Gordon Cooper ran successful missions and became public figures. On the other hand, astronauts such as Gus Grissom and Scott Carpenter made critical errors that led to the loss of millions of dollars worth of property.
What led to this significant range of performance? Natural talent. For example, during takeoff, Glenn’s pulse never rose above 80. Grissom’s spiked to 150. This is because Glenn had a talent for keeping calm under pressure where Grissom didn’t. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Grissom’s critical error occurred after he had a panic attack and blew his capsule’s hatch too early after splashing down on Earth. This caused NASA’s expensive vessel to sink to the bottom of the ocean, never to be recovered.
You now know the difference between skills, knowledge, and talent. With this in mind, look more closely at the language you use to describe the ideal worker. To strengthen your ability to communicate expectations and encourage growth, you need to clarify when you’re referring to skills and knowledge that your employees can develop versus talents that they have little control over.
Many companies use the term “competencies” to define behaviors that they expect from their employees. The problem with the term is that “competencies” can describe skills, knowledge, or talents.
For example, many companies consider the ability to follow standards as a competency for managers. This is a skill that relies on the manager’s knowledge of the company’s policies and, therefore, can be learned and developed. However, many companies also consider the ability to keep calm under pressure as a competency. This is a talent and, therefore, can’t be learned or developed.
The term “habit” refers to anything that is second nature. You’ve been told that you can change any habit with enough willpower and effort. However, most habits are talents, and, therefore, can’t be changed.
For example, if you're habitually aggressive, you likely won’t be able to stop the feelings of aggression that emerge whenever you feel attacked or cornered. However, you can develop habits based on skills that allow you to handle your aggression such as counting to ten or stepping away from a situation before speaking.
Many companies press their managers to create an environment where everyone has a positive attitude. However, a manager has little control over their employee’s attitudes because a person’s primary attitude is based on the way that their brain filters information according to their talents.
For example, if someone has a talent for empathy, their brain likely filters cynicism or denial out when they listen to other people describe their problems. What’s left is a willingness to listen and embrace the emotions of others. These behaviors and feelings become their attitude.
Managers often treat drive as something that can be created through education or willpower. However, drive specifically relates to striving talents (talents that inform your motivations) and can’t be changed.
For example, if you have an employee that lacks the striving talent of competitiveness, you’re not going to motivate them using an in-house contest. Their behavior won’t change because their actions aren’t motivated by competition.
Myths surrounding talent suggest that talent is a difficult thing to find and something that isn’t necessary for all positions. These myths prevent people from seeking talent in their hiring process and lead to the employment of people who don’t fit in certain roles.
As a reminder, talents aren’t magic. Everyone has talents. As a manager, the challenging thing isn’t finding someone with talent. It’s matching their talent with the right position. To do this, you need to pay close attention to the requirements of each role and the talents of your individual employees.
For example, the relating talent of socializing isn’t inherently special. Many people possess it. However, an employee that works in human resources with that talent is special. This is because they’ve been placed in a role that plays into their talent. This advantage makes them more likely to be a “talented” HR employee.
Many managers or higher-level employees can’t understand why “talented” people would want to work in “low-level” positions such as a housekeeper or janitor. Therefore, they assume that those positions don’t require talent, and that the people in those positions are simply desperate or waiting for a promotion.
However, this perspective is false. While some people have striving talents that push them to try to climb the corporate ladder or achieve high-profile status, others have striving talents that push them to maintain consistency and complete daily tasks. As a manager, you have to respect the fact that every position requires talent to be done effectively.
For example, great janitors aren’t defined simply by their ability to clean a room. Anyone could clean a room every once in a while, but janitors return to work every night knowing that the work they did the night before has been destroyed. While this would wear most people down, great janitors have a specific set of talents that allow them to return every day despite the endless cycle.
How do you find talent to fit the positions that you need filled? It’s not easy to determine someone’s talents, especially not during the hiring process. There are two reasons for this:
While you can’t change the way people present themselves, you can clearly define the talents that describe the ideal worker for the position you’re trying to fill. Think about the following tips as you’re creating your list of talents:
The talents associated with any given role will change based on the way your company is run. This is because your expectations and the way you interact with the person in that position are both unique to your organization.
For example, two companies are searching for a sales representative. Company A enforces strict procedures but encourages cooperation with fellow reps. On the other hand, Company B gives its employees the freedom to work any way they want but puts them in competition with their fellow reps. The ideal employee for Company A would have talents such as organization, attention to detail, and cooperation. However, the ideal employee for Company B would have talents such as creativity, flexibility, and competition.
Consider what talents you can add to your team to increase performance. Make sure that the people you hire have the appropriate talents to interact with your team effectively.
For example, you’re looking for someone to join your marketing team. You know that your current team has a talent for assertiveness but doesn’t always think before they act. With this information in mind, you conclude that an ideal candidate would be assertive but would also have a talent such as critical thinking or patience to force the team to think through their choices before they make them.
Trying to come up with a list of talents can become overwhelming. When determining the proper talents for a role, start by choosing one talent for each of the three types of talent: striving, thinking, and relating.
For example, if you’re looking for an executive assistant, you may want someone who has the striving talent of service, the thinking talent of organization, and the relating talent of remembering names. Someone with this combination of talents would excel in the role and offer you the assistance you need.
When coming up with your list of talents, think about the best employee you’ve ever had in that role or a closely related role. Then, consider the talents that they possess that allow them to succeed. Use these talents to inform your search.
For example, you’re looking for a new marketing associate to join your non-profit organization. You know that the best employee you’ve ever had in the position possessed the striving talent of fulfilling a mission, the thinking talent of focus, and the relating talent of empathy. You use this knowledge to inform the way that you guide your decision-making process.
Many managers try to look at their worst employees to find qualities that they want to avoid when looking through candidates. However, bad employees and good employees often share many of the same qualities. It’s how they use those qualities that make a difference. If you look at your worst employees to find qualities to avoid, you may actually be overlooking things that would benefit your company when paired with the right talents.
For example, a great teacher and a bad teacher may share a talent for confrontation. The difference is that the great teacher also has the relating talent of empathy and knows when to support a student instead of confronting them. On the other hand, the bad teacher lacks a talent for empathy and confronts students at inappropriate times. If you only look at the bad teacher, you may avoid candidates with a talent for confrontation or aggression. However, as the great teacher proves, these proficiencies can be valuable when paired with other talents.
While the hiring and interviewing process can be complicated and multifaceted, be sure to have a separate interview for talents. In this interview, don’t discuss money, the company, or expectations. Focus solely on discovering the talents of the candidate. When constructing the interview, think about the following concepts:
Allow the candidate to reveal their tendencies by asking them open-ended questions. Don’t guide their responses. Rather, let them answer using their own filters and talents. If you intervene too often, you won’t get a good sense of their genuine tendencies because they’ll begin to say what they think you want to hear.
For example, you’re interviewing a candidate for a nursing position. You ask them, “What do you think is the most important part of being a nurse?” As they respond, you notice that they never mention the patients. Because you didn’t guide them towards patient care, they answered the question in a way that is true to their tendencies.
Examples of open-ended questions include:
Looking to past behavior is a great way to determine tendencies. To discover this in an interview, ask candidates to talk to you about specific events from their past work experiences. These can include questions about times where they overcame adversity, worked with someone they didn’t like, felt they did good work, and so on.
When listening to their response, focus on the specifics of what they’re saying. If they can quickly come up with specific examples, they’ve probably had many experiences like the one you're asking about. This shows a talent. However, if they ramble on without giving any specifics, they probably haven’t had many experiences like the one you're asking about. This shows a lack of talent.
For instance, you ask, “Could you tell me about a time when you helped a coworker with a project you were not a part of?” Initially, they ramble on about the importance of teamwork and collaboration. However, they can’t come up with any specific examples, which shows that they probably don’t have a tendency to help coworkers on projects they’re not involved with. This could imply a lack of talent surrounding collaboration, altruism, and/or empathy.
Other than looking to past experiences, there are two other signposts of talent that you can use in your talent interviews:
You can use similar questions for all of your talent interviews. In fact, this may be a good way to maintain consistency in your interview process. However, the desired answers to these questions will change based upon the requirements of different positions. With this in mind, specify unique talents for every role. Keep these unique talents in mind when you listen to your candidate’s responses.
For example, think of the following question: “How do you deal with confrontation?” If you’re interviewing a potential lawyer, the response you’re looking for may be, “I embrace confrontation. I try to articulate my side of the argument and get others to see my perspective.” However, you may not want this response if you’re interviewing a potential customer service representative.
When hiring, you need to focus on talent. This requires that you consider both the talents necessary for the role and the talents of your candidates.
Think about a specific role that you’re currently searching to fill or recently filled. Describe the position.
Now, think about the best employee you’ve ever had in that position. Describe their talents.
Next, think about the structure of your company. What procedures are employees expected to follow? What expectations are they expected to meet? Describe them.
With all of this in mind, describe the talents of the ideal candidate for the position you described above. Think about striving, relating, and thinking talents.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have direct control over your employees as a manager. While you can suggest specific ways to approach the work, your employees ultimately decide how they’re going to do their jobs based on their talents. However, despite the differing approaches, you need to ensure that everyone is performing to standard.
With this in mind, how do you get people to meet expectations without becoming overbearing? You need to define your team’s goals, then allow each employee to discover the best way to get there. This allows your employees to use their specific set of talents to work in a way that is most efficient for them while still holding them accountable.
For example, you manage a large sales department that consists of three teams. Each team has its own unique way of working. To ensure that they deliver, you set a clear goal for the department. You tell each team that they need to create two pitch packets by the end of the month. This allows the teams to work in a way that feels effective and comfortable to them while giving them a clear deadline by which they need to achieve a set goal.
Many managers make the mistake of micro-managing their employees. They come up with a variety of excuses to justify their need to control every aspect of the work:
While it’s tempting to believe, there’s no one “best” approach to any position. Everyone has different talents that inform how they work effectively. While you can offer suggestions and resources to assist your employees, trying to dictate every step of their process ignores the talents that make them effective in the first place. Embrace the uniqueness of your employees and allow them to approach the work in a way that plays into their talents.
For example, Madeline Hunter, an education expert, developed a 7-step method that she believed to be the best way to create an effective lesson. At first, many districts bought into Hunter’s method by forcing their teachers to develop lessons using the 7-steps. However, many of these districts showed no improvement in student achievement scores. In fact, some districts began performing more poorly than before. This is because Hunter’s approach didn’t always work with the talents of the teachers that were forced to use it.
If you believe this, then you didn’t hire the right people for the job. In contrast, if you hire people based on their talents, then you should be able to step away with the knowledge that your employees are capable of doing the work.
For example, if you manage a high-end yoga studio, you may be in charge of an in-house cleaning team. If you don’t hire cleaners based on their talents, then you may find yourself watching over their every move to ensure that they do their jobs properly. However, if you hire people that have talent for seeing the details and creating a clear process, you won’t have to watch over their every move to know that they’re doing the job that you hired them to do.
If you think that you can’t trust your own team, you may be allowing your own insecurities to dictate the way that you run your team. Yes, sometimes, people will let you down. However, you need to embrace that this is the exception, not the rule.
For example, if you manage a restaurant and assume that your wait staff is trying to steal from the till, you may make a rule that you’re the only one who can operate the register. Not only does this place strain on your relationship with your employees, but it also makes the payment process slower and keeps you from performing your other duties.
While some goals are more challenging to define than others, they’re still definable. This may mean that you need to put more thought and effort into creating a clear goal for less tangible performance standards.
For example, employee satisfaction is an intangible skill. If you’re in upper management, you may be tempted to dictate the ways that lower managers are required to interact with their employees. However, this ignores their talents and forces them to adhere to a process they may not be comfortable with. Instead, you could develop an employee survey that teams fill out once a year that allows them to rank their satisfaction in their positions. These results give you an indication of your managers’ relationships with their employees and keeps you from forcing a potentially ineffective procedure.
Though you should try to avoid micro-managing, there are occasions when you have to define process. The following are tips to help you determine when and how to define process to your employees:
If you fail to define process for employees dealing with monetary, legal, or safety standards, you risk putting your company in jeopardy. Give these employees a clear set of rules or requirements that ensure that you and your organization are protected from extreme financial loss, legal repercussions, and failures in safety.
For example, you manage a theme park. You hire a project manager to oversee the construction of a new roller coaster. Though you want to allow them the freedom to work in their own way, you know that there are particular steps that need to happen in order to ensure financial, legal, and safety standards are met.
Standards are a variety of conventions (such as symbols, scales, and terms) that ensure consistency across an industry or organization. Standards create a universal language that allows for clarity and consistency in both internal and external communication. When standards are an essential part of your organization, define specific protocols and procedures to ensure the accuracy and consistency of those standards.
For example, you manage a team of 911 operators. When overseeing their performance, you need to make sure that they communicate using standard terminology when speaking to law enforcement or medical services. This prevents confusion and ensures the highest level of efficiency possible.
Sometimes, organizations develop policies that are supposed to work toward a specific goal but actually hinder their progress in practice. For example, many airlines pride themselves on on-time departures as a sign of excellent customer service. However, their policy for tracking “on-time” departures is to track the moment that the plane leaves the gate, not the moment that it takes off.
This means that a plane that leaves the gate but waits on the runway for an hour is still considered “on-time.” This encourages pilots to keep frustrated and cramped customers sitting on a plane that has left the gate rather than return them to the terminal because it will improve his “on-time” rating. While it may seem on paper that the airline is succeeding at improving customer satisfaction, the reality is that their policy often doesn’t serve the customer.
It will only prevent dissatisfaction. Customer satisfaction relies on your team’s ability to develop relationships with your clients and customers. These relationships develop through four levels of customer service.
Level #1: Accuracy. At the bare minimum, your company needs to work accurately. For example, customers want the food that they ordered, the room they reserved, or the item they purchased. If your team fails to provide accurate service, they can’t build any degree of customer satisfaction.
Level #2: Availability. Once you’ve proven that you can work accurately, your company needs to be available. For example, if a landscaper provides strong services but is never available to do the work, a customer will eventually get frustrated and use another service. Great service without availability pushes potential customers away.
Level #1 and Level #2 are baseline expectations. Though they still require employees with the proper talents to execute them efficiently, they can be supported by standard procedure or step-by-step instruction. However, they don’t build customer satisfaction. They only prevent customer dissatisfaction.
Level #3: Partnership. Once you’ve created availability, your company needs to connect with a target audience and provide them with a personalized experience. For example, if a local clothing company wants to promote body positivity in their clothing, they may create an initiative called “For Your Body” in which they invite customers to get tailored fashion looks that allow them to feel fashionable and comfortable. Baseline service without partnership doesn’t give the customer the “above and beyond” experience they need to feel higher levels of satisfaction.
Level #4: Advice. Once you’ve connected with your audience, your company needs to be prepared to give advice. Customers begin to seek advice from the companies that they trust. For example, if a local hardware store has proven that they care about the projects their customers are doing, people may begin to seek advice from team members when they’re developing their DIY projects. Be sure to educate and prepare yourself and your team to give appropriate advice. If customers seek help, but you’re unable to give it, it may hurt your credibility.
Level #3 and Level #4 are heightened expectations. These change organization-to-organization and can’t be developed by standardized processes. They require team members with specific talents that allow them to connect with customers, help them solve their problems, and teach them ways to improve their lives. These heightened expectations are what build customer satisfaction.
Every organization has different goals. For example, a retail store may focus primarily on customer satisfaction whereas a medical organization may focus primarily on patient safety. While these goals aren’t mutually exclusive, these organizations have different priorities because they have different purposes. When defining your organization’s goals, think about the following three questions:
This is the first question you need to ask because, without customers or clients, your company has no value. Use focus groups or customer surveys to ask your clientele what they want and expect from their experience with you. Use this information to inform your organization’s goals by zeroing in on the items that your customers feel passionate about.
For example, if you manage a grocery store, you may believe that promoting new products is the best way to bring in customers. However, if your customers just want to be able to consistently buy the products that they love, they won’t necessarily care how many new products you’re bringing in. In this situation, you need to adjust your goal away from bringing in different products and shift it towards maintaining stock of popular products.
While a company’s core mission typically remains the same over time, the strategies you use to execute that mission change. Adapt your goals as you change your strategies. This adjusts the focus of your desired outcomes toward your new approach to fulfilling your company’s mission.
For example, you manage a design team within a clothing company. Your company’s core mission is to create affordable and stylish clothing. At its conception, your company’s strategy was to focus on the creation of new designs to attract new customers. However, as your company has become more mainstream, they’ve decided to shift their strategy to creating clothing that can be mass produced at a low-cost to keep up with the demands of current customers. To accommodate this, you shift the goals of your team from “unique designs per month” to “cost per design.”
As you now know, every employee has a unique set of talents that inform the way that they work. When you set goals, you need to keep these talents in mind to adapt to each employee. While this is more challenging with larger or more standardized teams, you need to adjust as much as possible to ensure a more effective result.
For example, you manage a development team that creates new gadgets for various industries. Overall, you’ve set a goal for your team that requires them to complete ten designs per quarter. However, you know that each individual member of your team is motivated by different striving talents (as a reminder, striving talents inform an employee’s motivations).
Kelsey has the striving talent of completion whereas Eric and Ben have the striving talent of competition. You give Kelsey the additional goal of testing at least two of her designs before the end of the quarter and attach it to a financial incentive. On the other hand, you put Eric and Ben on the same projects and agree to give a bonus to whomever comes up with better designs for each project.
Performance management consists of meetings and conversations that help you to focus on the progress and performance of your employees. These sessions differ based on the needs of the employee, the company, and the position. However, good performance management routines all share the following four characteristics:
For Key Two, performance management relies on goal-setting meetings. These meetings are meant to discuss progress and set goals for further development. The frequency of this meeting depends on how often your employee wants to discuss progress. To prepare for this meeting, have your employee prepare answers to the following three questions:
For the first 10-15 minutes of your meeting, discuss his responses to the questions above. Then, turn your focus to the future by asking the following questions:
These questions and the discussions they spark will help you and your employee set goals that reflect their progress, their personal objectives, and their talents.
(Shortform note: other performance management meetings will be covered later in the summary for both “Key Three” and “Key Four.”)
When defining your team’s goals, you need to ask yourself three questions. These questions help you define your goals based upon the needs of your customers, your company, and your employees.
What do your customers need? Think about the services you provide and the needs of your average consumer.
What does your company need? Think about your company’s core mission and the strategies you currently use to fulfill that mission.
What do your employees need? Think about the talents of your employees and the ways you can develop those talents.
With these requirements in mind, make a list of goals that fulfill the needs of your customer, your company, and your employees. List 3-5 goals.
Once you’ve hired for talent and defined your goals, build up the talents of your employees and figure out how to navigate around their weaknesses. Instead of trying to fix your employees, focus on the unique talents they bring to the table. Be specific and develop a fleshed-out idea of who they are and how they work. To develop a stronger workplace, you have to reject the concept of “transformation,” build up talents, and navigate around weaknesses.
In Hollywood, you see the trope of transformation all the time: the hero discovers their weakness and fixes it for the better. While this story is sentimental and engaging, it creates a false narrative. It says that you can make yourself whatever you want to be by fixing your weaknesses and creating new talents to take their place. This concept of “transformation” is problematic for the following reasons:
If everyone could truly be anything they wanted to be, then no one would have a distinct identity. While you could define yourself through goals or achievements, you wouldn’t possess any unique features that made you stand out. This is because people would always fix socially unacceptable weaknesses and develop new, lucrative talents. For example, if everyone in the world could develop the talent to sing, would singers be unique or special anymore?
When people try their entire lives to fix their weaknesses, they often feel like they’re putting in significant effort only to see little to no change. This futile effort develops frustration and disappointment. While persistence can help you develop skills and knowledge, it won’t give you the talents you don’t have or fix the weaknesses you already possess.
For example, Bo lacks the talent of picking up on social cues. Though he’s tried for years, his brain still doesn’t process his interactions in a way that allows him to note many of the subtle messages that body language sends. Through books and classes, he’s learned to see the physical indicators, but he still can’t accurately decipher what they mean. Because he’s poured years of his life into making a change, he’s become immensely frustrated with his inability to “transform.”
If you’re always pointing out the weaknesses of your team members, emotions such as frustration or guilt will rise to the surface. While employees may have many strengths, all they’ll be able to think about are the areas that you constantly tell them they need to improve. This will lead them away from using their strengths and force them to put their energy into something they can’t change.
For example, you manage a bookstore. One of your employees, Helen, tends to avoid interacting with customers but excels at quickly restocking shelves and organizing the store. She currently works on the floor, but you decide you want to try to “fix” her weakness by putting her behind the counter. She’s uncomfortable and ineffective. Two weeks later, she puts in her notice. She loved her job when she was able to use her strengths, but, because she’s in her head about her weaknesses and doesn’t get to use her talents, she’s decided to move on.
Thinking you can fix your weaknesses with hard work and willpower sends a stark message: it’s your fault if you haven’t changed. The concept of “transformation” claims that people who haven’t changed simply haven’t tried hard enough or gave up too soon. When you, as a manager, send this message to your team, you’re telling them that they’re to blame for their weaknesses when the reality is they can’t do much to change the way they are. This demoralizes employees and leads to resentment.
You only have so much time and energy. Great managers believe that it’s better for employees to put their time and energy into building their talents instead of trying to change the unchangeable. Great managers use the following rules to help employees develop their abilities:
When placing people into roles, know the talents associated with each role as well as the talents of each individual employee. This takes a little patience. Watch your employees over time to see how they work and how they interact with other team members. If you like being more direct, ask them about their strengths, weaknesses, and goals.
Note: this doesn’t refer simply to hiring. You can use this principle even if you have no power over hiring or need to shuffle an employee to a different position.
For example, you’ve just been promoted. You’re now the manager of a team of “marketing associates.” You didn’t have the ability to select any of your employees, and none of them have a unique title to differentiate them from one another. To coordinate your team, you do the following:
Don’t Fall for Stereotypes
When putting people into roles, some managers inadvertently place them according to stereotypes. Stereotypes surrounding certain genders, ethnicities, and/or positions cloud your judgment when analyzing your employees. Be sure to give members of your organization individualized attention and care. Great managers can assess the difference between people. They don’t make broad assumptions about the differences between groups of people.
The “Golden Rule”—treating everyone the same—isn’t efficient. You need to relate to your employees based upon their individual needs.
For example, if Tommy enjoys public recognition for his work but Henry prefers private recognition, they’re not going to feel the same satisfaction at having a lunch party in the break room thrown in their honor. Where Tommy would probably love it, Henry probably wouldn’t. Instead, praise Henry with a note and a meaningful gift.
Traditionally, managers feel the need to spend more time with employees who are struggling because they think that’s the best approach to increase overall productivity. They tend to spend time trying to instruct or control these employees to increase performance.
Great managers focus on turning talent into performance, not controlling or instructing their team members. They create ways to help employees unleash their potential through their individual talents by doing the following:
The more talents an employee uses, the more potential they possess. With this in mind, great managers can’t help but be drawn in by their most talented employees as it’s a more efficient use of their efforts. As you begin to put more energy into your best employees, keep the following tips in mind:
The phrase “no news is good news” is often used by managers to express that, if an employee hasn’t heard anything from them, that’s good news. This is because these managers tend to only speak with their employees if there’s an issue. However, this belief can be dangerous.
Part of a manager’s job is to promote productive behaviors and remove ineffective ones. Your voice has more power than you think. If you fail to praise productive employees, their productive behaviors will begin to fall away. This is because people require some level of validation. When you ignore the good work of your strongest employees, you’re effectively telling them that you don’t care about their efforts. This may lead to your star employees acting out or giving up.
When focusing on your best, don’t make promises about the future. Focus on what they’re contributing today. Your words have more power than you realize because your best performers often don’t know that their work is as valuable as it is.
While you should try to be fair, fairness isn’t giving everyone the same amount of attention. It’s giving attention proportionate to the amount of work a person puts in and the amount of success that they have. While this sounds blunt, it doesn’t make sense for you to invest your time into someone who doesn’t work hard or will never yield productive results.
For example, two of your employees, Tabitha and Rolando, are working on separate projects. Tabitha tends to avoid work and doesn’t produce solid results. On the other hand, Rolando always works hard and creates strong results. Though you may be tempted to focus on getting Tabitha up to standard, Rolando deserves more of your attention. His hard work and tendency to perform mean that your efforts will yield better results with him than with Tabitha.
When you spend time with employees who struggle, you gain a clear picture of what failure looks like. However, this doesn’t help you see what excellence looks like. Contrary to popular belief, excellence isn’t the absence of failure. It requires a different structure that can only be discovered by studying what works instead of what doesn’t.
Spend time with your best employees. Watch them work. You can learn how to help others handle challenging obstacles by observing how your successful employees handle them. Ask them questions. They will often have insight that can guide you in developing strategies. Also, it helps you better understand your successful employees’ talents. This allows you to find the best ways to support them in their work and gives you a guide when hiring new employees for similar roles.
Many managers obsess over average figures. Average figures show you the typical output of your organization and develop a level of “acceptable” performance. While it's important to know the average efficiency of your office, it's ineffective to use these figures as a barometer for success. You want your employees to be excellent, not average.
Don't spend time on employees who are below average or average. Instead, spend time on good employees who have potential, but know that it's hard work to make even good employees truly great.
When you focus on getting your team to reach a quota, your employees will coast once they’ve hit their goal. For example, a sales team that hits a quota of 100 sales per quarter will coast once they hit it. Instead, praise your top salespeople, use them as an example of excellence, then use their striving talents to continue to push them to excel.
Unfortunately, you often won’t have power over this as leadership or higher management may require you to set these goals for your team. When this happens, devise a plan that focuses on their striving talents and pushes them to excel beyond an “average” quota.
Focusing on talent doesn’t mean ignoring weakness or failure. Mistakes and poor performance need to be addressed quickly, but you need to address them properly to avoid frustrating employees or wasting your energy.
First, ask yourself four questions:
If you answered “yes” to one of the questions above, you have direct control over the factors needed to make a change. This is because these questions relate to temporary (personal issues) or changeable (knowledge, skills, and motivations) factors.
However, if you answered “no” to all of the questions above, you don’t have direct control over the factors needed to make a change. This is because your issue is likely related to talent.
It’s not uncommon to encounter an issue related to talent. No one has every talent related to their particular role. However, in a situation where an employee’s weaknesses are severely impacting their ability to do their job, you need to make some adjustments.
A non-talent is a talent you don’t have, but don’t have to use. On their own, non-talents are harmless. For example, if you’re terrible at remembering names, but your position never requires you to meet new people, your non-talent doesn’t impact your ability to work.
However, non-talents become weaknesses as soon as they become necessary to a role or position. For example, if you’re terrible at remembering names, and your new position frequently requires you to meet new people, your non-talent suddenly becomes a weakness. Knowing the difference between the two allows you to watch for the moments when your employees’ non-talents turn into weaknesses and impact performance.
There are three methods you can use to help someone succeed despite their weaknesses:
Method #1: Create a system of support. In regards to talent, support systems are tools and methods that help employees turn their weaknesses into non-talents. For example, if someone is bad at remembering when meetings are, have them put a calendar app on their computer that pings and shows a notification 15 minutes before their scheduled meetings. This changes their inability to remember scheduled meetings from a weakness to a non-talent.
Method #2: Pair people together based on their talents and weaknesses. This will create a mutually beneficial relationship in which each employee can use their talents to cover the other person’s weaknesses. For instance, say you manage a team of sales reps. Rebecca always remembers names but struggles with her elevator pitch while Frank is terrible at remembering names but delivers a fantastic elevator pitch. With this in mind, you put Rebecca in charge of initiating conversations with potential clients and Frank in charge of then pitching the product.
Method #3: Promote individual roles within teams. If you require someone to constantly rotate into a role or task that they’re not talented in, they won’t excel. Rather than requiring your employees to play all of the team’s roles, focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each employee and define their responsibilities accordingly. This allows each team member to use their talents while someone else covers their weaknesses. Once everyone is in a proper position and talents are balanced, you can build a level of proficiency throughout your team that allows them to cover different roles in the event of an emergency or unexpected development.
For example, you manage a retail store with the following employees:
| Employee | Talent | Weakness |
| Ricky | Communication | Problem-Solving |
| Yolanda | Organization | Communication |
| Shen | Problem-Solving | Organization |
You assign Ricky to walk the floor and talk to customers about their needs. You put Yolanda in charge of organizing displays and maintaining dressing rooms. Finally, you put Shen in charge of the register and customer service. This makeup allows each individual to perform tasks that promote their individual strengths and navigate around their weaknesses. Once everyone knows their primary responsibilities, you teach them the requirements of the other positions. While they won’t rotate into these roles frequently, it gives them the ability to cover these positions in case of a sudden rush or emergency.
At the end of the day, if an employee is still performing poorly because of their weaknesses, they can’t stay in their position. Either find them an alternative role that better suits their talents or say goodbye.
Once a year (or a week or two after a new employee starts), have a full performance review session with each of your employees. These sessions help you get a better understanding of your employee’s talents, weaknesses, and motivators. This information will help you develop strategies to build up their talents, navigate around their weaknesses, and create a stronger working relationship with them.
Over the course of an hour or so, discuss the following ten questions:
To develop efficiency in your workplace, you need to treat each employee differently according to their talents.
Think about a specific employee. What are their talents? Think about their striving, relating, and thinking talents.
With those talents in mind, think about the ways that this employee would want to be recognized for good work. Describe them.
Now, think about the goals that would motivate this individual employee. Describe them.
Though you can’t directly fix your employees’ weaknesses, you need to navigate around them to keep the workplace productive. You can do this by creating a system of support, pairing people together based on talents and weaknesses, and promoting individual roles within teams.
Think about a specific employee’s weakness. What’s one way that you can navigate around that weakness using a tool or system? (For example, think of the employee who struggled to remember dates having a calendar downloaded on their computer.)
Think about the talents and weaknesses of your current employees. Now, think about the ways you can pair your employees based on their talents and weaknesses. Finally, think about one of those pairings and describe the ways that each employee’s talents would support the other’s weaknesses.
Think about the job description of one of your team members. What are some ways that you can specify their responsibilities to allow them to use their specific talents and avoid their weaknesses?
After you've completed the first three keys, the final key for maintaining a strong organization is guiding employees towards the right fit according to their talents. Employees want to develop in their careers. This has traditionally been associated with the concept of “climbing the ladder.” They feel the need to move up the chain of command in order to be seen as successful.
However, employees who excel at one position often don’t have the talents to excel in a management or leadership role. For example, an accountant who excels at analyzing data and compiling reports may not have the talents to excel at managing a team of accountants. Though they have a talent for attention to detail and organization, if they don’t have the talents of communication or problem-solving, they won’t be a successful manager.
How do you keep people in roles they excel in and give them the feeling of accomplishment without promoting them into roles they don’t fit? You have to change people’s perspective on success, assure them that changing careers doesn’t make them a failure, and navigate people away from positions without destroying their morale.
While promotion can be a great step under the right circumstances, it shouldn’t be your defining factor of success. Employees should only be put into management or leadership positions because their talents lend themselves to those roles, not simply because you want to reward them for good work.
With this in mind, respect each position within your organization and develop ways that people can further their careers without changing roles. To do this, develop achievement levels, adjust your pay scale, and (if all else fails) get creative.
Your goal as a manager is to place people into roles that match their talents. However, if their talents relate to “lower-level” positions, many people feel that their room to grow and achieve is limited. They actively seek promotions because they consider that an essential factor in career development.
To change this perspective, develop achievement levels for your employees. Achievement levels are essentially promotions that allow team members to continue to do the work they excel in while gaining respect, prestige, and bonuses. These levels keep team members motivated by showing a clear progression of success without overhauling their job description. This allows them to become experts in their position while still feeling like they’re succeeding.
For example, law firms use achievement levels to advance their lawyers into more responsibilities and prestige without changing the core of what they do. A lawyer starts with a firm by picking an area of expertise and beginning as a junior associate. If they excel, they rise through the ranks, from senior associate all the way to senior partner. Though their title changes, their work always revolves around the expertise for which they were hired. Because they focus on a specific area, they become an expert in their field, can handle more complex cases, and can take on more responsibility as they rise through the ranks.
Often, employees want to be promoted into higher positions because the pay rate is significantly better. Even if they’re not equipped for the position, the promise of a higher salary is enough to push people towards the role. To be fair, some roles are inherently more valuable than others. For instance, a pilot is more valuable than a flight attendant in terms of actually providing the service of air travel. However, it’s often more valuable to have a great “lower-level” employee than a mediocre or poor “higher-level” employee.
To encourage great employees to stay in the roles they do well, adjust your payscale if possible. Create pay ranges that offer higher pay for great “lower-level” employees and lower pay for new or poor “higher-level” employees. This works for two reasons:
For example, you manage a fine-dining restaurant. New servers are paid $20,000 per year, but expert servers are paid $75,000 per year. Also, while expert managers are paid $150,000 per year, new managers only make $30,000 per year. These numbers mean the following:
Often, leadership won’t give you the freedom to develop achievement levels or adjust your pay scales. They stick to a traditional view of progression and don’t give value to lower-level employees. When working in a restrictive environment, what can you do to guide your employees into roles that fit?
When leadership forces you to stick to a particular model, get creative and find ways to provide your employees with a sense of progression and development without breaking the rules. This is the most challenging way to change perspectives on success because you have to actively work against a structure that doesn’t promote alternative paths to prestige and development.
There is no one “right” way to get creative. Use your ingenuity to figure out ways to work within the confines of your organization’s structure. Ways to approach this include adjusting the responsibilities of roles, creating new roles, and giving gifts for achievement.
For example, if your boss insists that you must put someone into a management-level position, play with the definition of that “management” position. Instead of forcing them to run a team, adjust the responsibility of the role into one of mentorship. This allows them to advance into the required role without forcing them into a position where they can’t use any of their talents.
As an employee, the driving force behind a healthy career is self-discovery. Discovering your talents allows you to select roles and positions that give you fulfillment and let you play to your strengths. If you’re in a position that you love, stay in that position. Though conventional wisdom insists that a varied résumé is important to success, it’s not worth leaving a position you excel in just to add a line to your résumé.
However, if you feel as though your position doesn’t fulfill you or work with your talents, you’re not in the right position. Take the time to discover what drives you and find a role that matches your talents. This doesn’t just apply to new positions. Sometimes, your fit in a particular role changes over time. Whether it has to do with a promotion or a change in team makeup, take stock and be willing to adjust if you no longer fit in a role.
For example, you’ve been promoted from a management position to a leadership role. You felt like you fit in your previous position. However, you don’t feel comfortable in your new position. You take a step back and investigate why. You discover that your talents lie in guiding teams, not sitting in executive meetings. You use this information to guide your decision to leave your current role and search for another job that better suits your talents.
As a manager, you will often meet employees starting new careers or climbing into new positions as part of their journey of self-discovery. To help them explore different roles and find where they fit, use the following methods:
When employees step into new roles, give them feedback to guide their performance and give them a constant barometer of their proficiency. When you do, keep the following in mind:
While you don’t need to be best friends with the people who work for you, you need to understand their motivations and their talents. This connection allows you to make informed decisions and develop better solutions.
For example, Dan constantly shows up 15 minutes late to work. While it would be simple to assume that he’s lazy or lacks time-management skills, you decide to ask him what’s causing the delay. He explains that he has a young child and has to wait for his nanny to arrive every morning before he can leave for the office. With this information, you decide to move Dan’s workday to start 30 minutes later than the rest of the office and give him the option to work a longer day or do some work from home.
Traditionally, when someone moves up the corporate ladder, they lose the option to climb back down. If they discover that they hate their new position, they feel stuck because there’s a stigma of failure surrounding moving back into a position you were promoted from.
To overcome this obstacle, use trial periods when you bring someone into a new position. Be clear that you’re just trying them out in the role before you or they commit to the new job. This gives both parties the opportunity to determine if it's the right fit before making the move permanent.
For example, you’ve just started a trial period with Tyler for a management position on your sales team. He was a fantastic sales rep, and he’s begged to be promoted for months. You move him into the position and tell him that you’re going to give him the next three months to feel out the role before making any final decisions. Throughout that time, Tyler discovers that he doesn’t enjoy running a team and wants to go back to his sales rep position. Because nothing was ever set in stone, you give Tyler his job back without creating a stigma of failure.
Moving an employee out of a role isn’t an easy thing to do. Unless they’ve committed a crime or unethical act, it’s emotionally difficult to demote, transfer, or fire people. However, because they drag down the group as a whole, you need to quickly remove poor performers from roles they aren’t talented in. This requires tough love:
In a lot of situations, you know your employees better than they know themselves. Though this may seem egotistical, it's difficult to recognize your own talents and weaknesses when you’re the one doing the work. When you address an issue with an employee, they may grow defensive or angry because they don’t see their weaknesses. In these situations, stay calm and be consistent in your feedback.
Sometimes, employees know they’re struggling but don’t know how to get out of their positions. This may be because they fear a career change or unemployment. It could also be because their pride won’t let them quit. In these cases, employees may subconsciously put themselves into situations that actively expose their weaknesses. This is called “manager-assisted career suicide.” Whether they know it or not, they’re pushing you to fire them because they feel like they can’t just walk away. In these situations, help your employee by removing them. They may not realize it in the moment, but it’s the best option for them and for your team.
Throughout the course an employee’s time with your organization, they will likely want to discuss career options. This is a perfect opportunity to help guide your employee towards a path that fits their talents. These sessions give an employee an opportunity to reflect on their talents and determine what roles best suit them. This allows you to work with them to determine their path with your organization and help them into a role that realistically aligns with their talents. For these sessions, ask the following questions (note: where it says “provide your perspective,” give your opinions as a manager):
The first six chapters addressed how to create an environment for talented employees to thrive from a manager’s perspective. In this chapter, we’ll explore how to work with managers from an employee and leadership perspective.
When working with managers, you need to consider their strengths and weaknesses just as much as you consider your own. Your relationship with management will determine both personal success and the success of your organization. The way you deal with managers depends on your position within the organization. If you’re a lower-level employee, you need to know how to navigate your manager’s weaknesses. If you’re a leader creating standards and processes, you need to develop a structure that allows great managers to thrive.
Managers expect a lot from their employees. Their expectations include a willingness to reflect, a desire for self-discovery, an effort to build relationships, a commitment to tracking progress, and an ability to make the workplace better.
When a manager helps their team use their talents, employees feel supported as they work towards these expectations. However, when a manager gets in the way of their team using their talents, employees have to navigate around their manager’s weaknesses to fulfill these expectations. To work towards expectations while dealing with a poor manager, consider the following tips:
Tip #1: If your manager is always too busy to discuss your performance or goals, ask to schedule a performance management meeting. Explain that you want to receive feedback and discuss your goals. If your manager makes the time to sit down with you for 30-45 minutes, there’s a good chance that they care about your progress, and they’ve just been struggling with time management. If your manager refuses, there’s a good chance that they don’t care about your progress, and that the lack of feedback meetings has nothing to do with their time management abilities.
Tip #2: If your manager requires you to do things their way, suggest changing the definition of your role to outcomes instead of steps. Often, managers define steps because they believe that it’s the most effective way to make performance consistent and efficient. However, because everyone has different talents, this is simply not the case. Ask them what the desired outcomes of your tasks are and explain how you would work towards that outcome. If there’s pushback, try to find a middle ground. If they refuse to be flexible, their need to control your process may be a result of their need for power instead of a desire for efficiency.
Tip #3: If your manager praises you in ways that you’re not comfortable with, suggest alternative ideas. Schedule a meeting with your manager to show that you’ve thought about this issue and aren’t just speaking “off the cuff.” In the meeting, show gratitude for your manager’s desire to praise your performance but explain why the way that they do it makes you personally uncomfortable. For example, you may be the kind of person who likes low-key affirmation. If your manager brings everyone into the break room to vocally praise your accomplishments, you may feel anxious and overwhelmed. Explain this to your manager and ask that they change their approach in the future.
Tip #4: If your manager checks in on you too frequently, explain that this feels intrusive and doesn’t help. If your manager is checking in because you’re having personal issues, explain that you need some space to process and move forward. If your manager is checking in for progress or performance reasons, explain that you like to work a bit more independently and that you’d appreciate a bit more space between check-ins. If they respond that they feel more comfortable with constant check-ins, try to find a middle ground that will appease both you and your manager. If your manager is checking in because they’re suspicious of you, there’s nothing you can do because your manager has made the decision that you’re untrustworthy.
Tip #5: If your manager constantly disrespects you by ignoring you, blaming you, taking credit for your work, and so on, get out. If nothing you do seems to work or the behavior of your manager borders on inappropriate or unethical, you need to move out from under their control. This could be a lateral move into another position in the organization or a full departure from the company. While you can go to HR or to leadership to try to state your case, if your manager has been with the company a while and seems stuck in their ways, they likely won’t change.
If you’re in a leadership position, you need to create an environment where great managers have the freedom to thrive. Recognize the individuality of each of your managers and set wider parameters when creating policies. This allows your managers to work in a way that suits their talents while also ensuring consistency throughout your management team. As you begin to create guidelines, consider the following tips:
Tip #1: Focus on outcomes. Don’t dictate process unless absolutely necessary for legal, financial, or safety reasons. When defining outcomes, find a way to rate performance. For example, if your desired outcome is to increase customer satisfaction, develop a customer survey. If an employee receives high marks and minimal feedback from customers, you know that they are achieving the desired outcome.
Tip #2: Value high-performers. Praise the employees who succeed, even if they’re in lower-level positions. Find high-performers by developing different levels of achievement in every position and rewarding the people who climb through those levels. To keep people in roles they excel in, develop a wider pay scale that incentivizes staying in a role you excel in over trying to move up the corporate ladder.
Tip #3: Learn from your best. Study the best performers in specific roles. For hiring purposes, study their talents and use them as a guide when looking for new hires. For training purposes, use their insight to develop strategies to improve performance from others in their position or department. Lastly, create a workplace “university” where employees can learn about the practices, talents, and strategies of high-performers in your organization.
Tip #4: Teach the ways of great managers. When training your management team, use the Four Keys and any insights you’ve gained from your most successful employees. Explain the differences between talent, skills, and knowledge and use how to use each when hiring, training, evaluating, motivation, and, if it comes to it, firing. Encourage your managers to focus on their best employees instead of trying to motivate their worst. Lastly, promote the use of feedback that focuses on developing an employee’s strengths instead of trying to fix their weaknesses.
The first two keys focus on hiring for talent and defining goals over process.
Interviewing for talent relies on using open-ended questions to allow candidates to reveal their talents. List 3-5 open-ended questions that you could use for your interview process. When developing your questions, think about the specific needs of your organization and the signposts of talent.
Avoid micromanaging to allow your employees to use their unique talents to work toward a desired goal. Think of a time when you were guilty of micromanaging an employee when the process didn’t have to do with legal, financial, or safety standards. What led you to micromanage? Describe the situation.
Now, think of a way that you could have handled the situation by defining goals instead of defining process.
The last two keys focus on building strength instead of trying to fix weakness and guiding employees to the roles that best suit their talents.
One of the best ways to help develop the talents of your employees is studying your best. Think about a stellar employee. Now, think about a particular time when you watched this employee handle an obstacle extremely well. Describe the situation and the outcome. What did they do? What talents did they use? What skills and/or knowledge did they use?
Now, describe the ways you could use this situation to train a similarly talented employee. Think about the specific talents these employees possess and the ways that skills and knowledge help with development.
Employees often want to climb the corporate ladder because they believe that it’s the only way to excel. Think about a time where a successful employee wanted to be promoted into a position that didn’t suit their talents. Why did they want the job? Did you ultimately promote them?
With this situation in mind, think about the ways you could have guided the employee towards a better fit or incentivized the role they were currently in. Think about developing achievement levels, adjusting your payscale, tough love, and career path meetings.