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A Work Behavior Lesson from the Meltdown

Brilliant, financially savvy minds have pondered the events that led to the credit market meltdown and wondered: How could this happen?

Here’s my take non-financial observer. My analysis comes from looking through the lens of my understanding of how human dynamics affects how things do and/or don’t get accomplished. At the risk of dating myself (again), I’m reminiscing about a parody from my childhood, Alan Sherman’s Camp Granada and his description of summer camp conflict.

“All the counselors hate the waiters And the lake has alligators” – Parody Performer Allan Sherman from Camp Granada (link to lyrics)

I don’t know if this makes me a counselor or a waiter. I admit to being one of those people who’s able to get things done despite the rules, not because of them. When I have encountered people of the opposite persuasion, I admit to occasionally losing my patience and naturally finding ways to circumvent these highly compliant, regulation loving types. I’d prefer not to work with those who I consider bottle necking naysayers. I suspect that the feelings are mutual.

And so it was with those highly educated financiers who developed a creative new product they called Credit Default Swaps. These financial instruments were designed to indemnify the shaky, shell game sub-prime mortgage products that investment bankers also created. As I understand it from the video below, Credit Default Swaps were represented to be “like” insurance policies while designed to avoid the scrutiny of the highly regulated insurance industry. Unlike insurance policies, there are no reserves created to pay the claims. Now those claims are due and taxpayers are footing the bill for this Enron Déjà Vu. So the savvy financiers avoided the scrutiny for those bottle-necking naysaying federal regulators.  The rest is history.

Lessons for Rule Benders and Breakers: New Tolerance for Style Diversity

We say this about both customers and the opposite gender: Can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ‘em. Now that we’ve again see what can happen when the rule breakers prevail without restraint, perhaps we should add those highly compliant rule mongers to the “can’t live without ‘em” category. Wherever your sympathies might side in the ongoing case of Rule Lovers vs. Rule Breakers, try to think of it in the same light as customers vs. suppliers or men vs. women. Despite some inherent conflict, we need to improve our tolerance and understanding of each other and find ways to work together. What better example do we need than a global financial meltdown?

I heard a former regulator said that “blaming the credit crisis on Wall Street greed is like blaming gravity for a plane crash.”  Like gravity, greed is ever present.  In language of DISC, those rule monger High Cs play an important role in any system of checks and balances.  Their value to the system should not be ignored.

And you want to be my latex salesman.

Seinfeld fans will remember the line that Jerry delivered to George as he ran from the washroom with his pants at his ankles in a futile effort to accept a verification phone call from the unemployment office.  He had claimed to have applied for a sales job at latex manufacturer, Vanedlay Industries.

All Sales Jobs Are Not Created Equal

After studying the assessments of hundreds of sales candidates for a variety of different sales jobs, we hold this truth to be self-evident. The talent required for selling is dependant on the job situation.   We’ve all seen examples of a previously successful person who flopped in a new environment.  So how can you predict a fit?

Are there some universal rules?

We had a client who had completed interviewing and reference checking a previously successful candidate with a 10 years of selling experience.  He would be held accountable for acquiring new customers in a completely new geographic territory where the company was unknown.  They were about to pull the trigger on the hire.  But just to be sure, they had him take our talent assessment to validate their positive fit beliefs.

Recognizing Hunters

This position called for a hunter (vs. a farmer) approach.  In the process of pioneering a new company and acquiring new customers, a salesperson needs to approach a lot of strangers and encounter a lot of rejection.  Claiming you have the right stuff to do this in an interview is one thing.  Just because a candidate has handed out business cards with a sales related title, doesn’t make him or her a hunter.   With this candidate, his natural high-D, DISC behavioral profile indicated enough assertiveness for hunter potential.  However there are other warning signs that convinced us that he was better suited for an Account Manager position where he primarily nurtured existing relationships.

The Research on Motivators

Research shows that top performing sales people are motivated by results and financial rewards. So we look for high utilitarian scores when assessing their success potential.  They also are high individualistic that are driven to influence their own destiny as well as others.

Our hunter candidate’s talent assessment showed that his drive for results (utilitarian) score was below the mean (as shown by the yellow bar below the black line).  His individualistic score (black bar) is OK.  However his primary drivers are not typical of high performing sales people:

1. Social/Altruistic: the desire to help others (turquoise bar on the chart)
2. Traditional: The belief in a system for living. (gray bar)

Based on his motivators/values chart (right), I compared this person to Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson’s devout, caring, compassionate next door neighbor. In fact, the assessment also revealed a high level of active empathy.  So he is highly attuned to the feelings of others and is inclined to act on those feelings.  This typically admirable trait does not serve those who are regularly involved in negotiations of pricing and contract concessions as these folks tend to cave in and struggle to stand firm.  In my discussions with the client, I suggested that “Ned” likely would gain his fulfillment by doing church volunteer work.  That analysis proved to be a moments of clairvoyance for me.  It was then that I learned that “Ned’s” interviews had to be scheduled around his church volunteer activities.

I suggested that while “Ned” likely had achieved success in a previous account manager’s role, he was unlikely to excel in this position.  In wrapping up our discussion, I advised that while there is every reason to believe that Ned was destined for heaven, hiring him for a hunter type sales position would be a potential hell for all parties.

…becasue we’ve always done it that way.

We had a client that struggled with high turnover for a mission critical position that titled Customer Service Representative.  We were hired to create a job benchmark for the position and subsequently assess candidates.

To Avoid Confusing Activity with Achievement

Our Job Benchmarking process works with company subject matter experts who know the job and culture.  With this group we determine the job’s key accountabibilities.  These take the form of three to five achievements as we seek to define the service model and desired outcomes for a specific  job.  In effect, we define star performance for the position. Then we methodically survey our subject matter experts to generate a Job Benchmark that prioritizes attributes, skills, behaviors and motivators of a potential star performer for this job in this culture.

In our facilitated discussions with the client’s  job experts for this Customer Service position, we started to collect some responsibilities that were un-common to a typical customer service role.  Profitable sourcing of customer requirements was at the top of the accountability list.  The group agreed that the job potentially provided great fulfillment for a proactive, results orientated person as the job was an opportunity to run a business within the business.

Moment of Discovery

Upon hearing all of this, I was compelled to ask:  Why are we calling this a “Customer Service Position”? Their answer  is the title of this post.  “That’s what the prior owners of the company called it ten years ago.”   One of our job experts had joined the company eight years ago in a customer service capacity and had grown along with the position.  Upon reflection, she candidly admitted that if she had started in the position as it is today, she would have lacked the skills to do the job and could never have done the job.  Indeed, all too many other successful candidates for the job that the skills that served them in other Customer Service positions did not translate to success in this job.  The result was a revolving door of frustrated workers that resulted in under served customers and untold lost revenue opportunities.  And the ongoing turnover related costs of re-recruitment and training.

Resolution

So the client discovered the cause of their turnover problem. They created an new, more appropriate job title and defined and communicated the jobs proactive attributes and key accountabilities up front. We surveyed the job experts to generate a prioritized list of attributes, behaviors and values: the Job’s DNA.  We could then match the DNA of their candidates with the newly discovered DNA of the job.  The metaphoric revolving door to their customer sourcing department is gone.  Their customers are better served.  Their turnover bleeding has stoped.

Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

I first leaned to apply the statement above when making graphic design decisions marketing media, especially websites.  In that application its another way of saying “less is more.”

It can also apply to career selection.  On the left is a pair of DISC charts for a person who has been doing regulatory consulting for the past decade.  His natural, unmasked behavioral style is illustrated on the right chart, his adapted, working style to the left of that. In this example, were looking at the blue “C” bars and how much they differ.

Doing detail orientated regulatory/high compliance work is not a great fit for this person’s natural “C”/compliant style as shown by the score of 24 on the right chart.  After 10 years of dealing with the details, he adapted his behavioral style significantly to become significantly more compliant as the job required.   However a style adaption this significant will take its emotional toll.  So upon noticing this on the chart, I asked him:  “Have you really enjoyed doing that kind of work? He candid response: I’ve hated it!

My logical next question was: With all of the other talents you have, why did you do it for so long? The answer lies in the next tea leaf, his motivators. His chart on the right show he is a passionate utilitarian: Driven by results and, in this case money.  His answer to why he would do work that he hated for so long was simple.  “People kept paying me and paying me very well.  So I kept taking their money and doing it.“

Not everyone could do this without melting down.  But being so driven by the financial rewards, he was fulfilled even though, for him it was energy draining work.

So here we have a case where the DISC profile that indicated the person was not ideally suited for the job.  Yet the strong motivation prevailed and he had he skills and capacities to do the job and do it well.

For those who believe that DISC analysis alone is an effective predictor of job performance, this is my exhibit one in support the case that you need a broader perspective to make effective talent decisions.  That said, the question that was unasked and unanswered for ten years:  “Is this a situation where we can predict star performance?“  The short answer is no. To quote author Jim Collins, this is a case where “good is the enemy of great.”  Somewhere outside of a highly regulated environment, there is a happier, more productive place for him.

Interviews are great for evaluating interviewing skills. What about the job?

We always caution our clients that our assessments are not the end-all criteria for evaluating a candidate. While they provide at least 33% more insight, our assessment tools will enhance the interview but should never replace it.  Talent assessments also do not measure a person’s technical knowledge or level of technical experience. That is the function of the resume, background/reference check and the interview.

Dan and Chip Heath, the authors of Made to Stick, have studied interview ineffectiveness and concluded that interviews are of little use in predicting job performance.  Link to article.

While I personally admit that I have never approached world class interviewer status, I differ with the Heaths about the value of the interview.

As we continuously validate our tools we have done our own studies with candidates who assessed well, yet did not perform.  What we have learned in hindsight from clients is that in looking back at the interview there were some yellow flags that went up.  But because of the combination of impatience, urgency to fill the position and the positive assessment, the interview yellow flags were ignored.

So to summarize my yellow flag on interview effectiveness, interview strangeness or quirkyness can be an indication of job quirkyness. It should not be ignored.

We say “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” If only we could really apply it when judging people.

While we like to maintain a high opinion of our own open mindedness and freedom from bias, sometimes a reality check is in order.  And so, I offer the youtube link below.  The video shows a segment of the UK’s version of American Idol.  It features an unemployed, underdog candidate with a dream.  With her rare, long-shot pursuit of fame, Susan Boyle allows us to hold up a mirror for ourselves for just such a personal-bias reality check.

Susan was unemployed, without resume credentials, over 45 and not exactly dressed for the part. She didn’t exactly ace her her dream job interview either. Click on Susan to see, hear and experience her interview and subsequent dream job performance.

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Ignore the pop-up. Due to viral demand, Youtube has disabled their embedding feature for this clip.

Just click on the photo.

Watch the Susan Boyle segment.

Even though you kind of know what’s coming, don’t you still find it difficult to watch Susan being interviewed without at least a touch of skepticism about her ability?  Can you admit it?

While our assessment tea leaves are designed to provide an unbiased view of a candidate, I’m sorry to concede that early interview bias would too often prevent a candidate like Susan from ever progressing to the assessment stage of the recruitment process.

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Skills for the Future

This video provides food for thought about talent and skills needed in the future.

Among them:

• “The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.

• So we are currently preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that don’t yet exist to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.”

The video’s content is primarily focused on the speed of technology.  As we prepare students as well as lifetime learners for what’s to come there are some fundamentals that will not change as fast.  While the ways that these will be applied will change, we will still need to develop…

• Communication: outgoing and incoming.
• Leadership
• Time management
• Self Management
• Decision Making
• Problem solving

…just to name a few.