“Average managers play checkers…while great managers play chess.

In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way. You need to plan their movements, but they all move on parallel paths.

In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. More important, you won’t win if you don’t think carefully about how you move the pieces.”

Marcus Buckingham - First, Break All the Rules

Take a look at this quote. On the face of it, it would seem to be fair to give everyone the same-size shoe. What could be fairer? Unfortunately, not everyone has the same size feet.

It’s also true of managing. You could try to manage everyone in exactly the same way. On the face of it, it seems as if nothing could be fairer. But managing every employee in the same way is like giving every employee the same-size shoes.

The challenge:

With disengagement affecting more than 70% of the workforce, the cost of not optimizing your talent strategy can be staggering. It’s estimated that a disengaged employee can cost a company $3,400 for every $10,000 of their salary. Now multiply that cost by 70% of your workforce, and you can see how it adds up. But while all CEOs have a business plan and most have a financial plan, how many have an intentionally-designed people plan that will allow them to achieve optimal performance.

Introducing talent optimization.

Talent optimization is the missing link between business strategy and year-end results. By aligning business and people strategies, leaders are empowered to assemble the right teams and create environments that fire up employees to achieve tangible business results. It allows companies to intentionally, consistently, and strategically design cohesive teams and a culture that drives business results.

Talent Optimization consists of:

Diagnose: The insights uncovered by diagnosing the root cause of an organization’s people problems can help to optimize how they design their people strategy, hire purposefully and inspire effectively to drive an engaged workforce that produces results. 

Design: Businesses can’t just put a random assortment of people together on a team and hope for the best. To achieve the best outcome, an organization must leverage “objective” people data to deliberately design its approach to leadership, culture and team dynamics.

Hire: The ability to hire well sets the stage for future organizational success. Defining the roles an organization needs, and then matching the right person to the requirements of those roles, can boost the opportunity for success.

Inspire: When leaders understand their employees, and employees understand each other, they are equipped to minimize conflict, reduce organizational toxicity, communicate more effectively and let distractions get out of the way of achieving quality results.

Every good business has a strategy that demands results. What stands between success and failure is in the hands of its people. Talent optimization is a discipline that provides business leaders with the framework and tools to design culture, roles and teams that maximize business results.

Managers need to have self-awareness and also be able to understand the needs of others.

Organizations need to keep their people engaged so they can live up to their full potential.

Predictive Index conducted a survey of over 5,000 professionals in order to understand the behaviors of effective and ineffective managers.

58% Don’t communicate clear expectations
57% Play favorites
55% Don’t show concern for career and personal development

Self-awareness defined:

There are two components to self-awareness:

Awareness of one’s own drives, needs, and behaviors
Awareness of how one’s styles impact others

Ask them, “What do you think I can do better working with you?” It can be very helpful to collaborate on these insights to find ways to work together that will be helpful. The strategies suggested here provide opportunities to have discussions that might not happen otherwise.

PI’s research has identified four active forces working against us that block organizations from achieving great results.

Job Fit

If someone isn’t a good fit to their job, that can pull them down every day struggling to meet the requirements of the job.

Manager

If someone’s manager doesn’t know how to meet their needs, that can be very disengaging.

Team

If the team dynamics are off, or if the team doesn’t understand the work, it can pull them down.

Culture

If the organization isn’t listening to the employees and never tries to address issues that arise, that can be very disengaging.

Establish what an engaged employee looks/acts like and why it is in an organization’s best interest to foster engagement.

Let’s compare with an engaged person.

How do you recognize them?

• Go above and beyond
• Care about the quality of their work
• Stay late and arrive early

Predictive Index gives your managers and employees the strategies and tools to drive great employee results by:

• Placing individual team members in jobs that fit their behavioral drives. Work performance is:
  • Skills, Education, Knowledge, Experience.
  • Passion, Values, Emotions.
  • Behaviors
• Having a self-aware manager that manages them based on their needs.
• A team that understands its own team dynamics
• Help organizations hire “A” players, keeps them engaged and retains them.

Predictive Index does the above and when done right it gives organizations these results:

34% - Higher Employee Performance
30% - Lower Turnover of Top-Performers
31% - Less Time on HR Related Issues
16% - Higher Strategic Success Rates

Predictive Index thoughtfully utilizes their skills, and develops them. Imagine the power that could bring.

The forces of disengagement become the forces of engagement.

Marty Ramseck is an expert, who helps organizations intentionally design and implement a people strategy, building powerful teams and cultures to match their business strategies. If you are interested in learning how Predictive Index can benefit your organization, please email Hazel Balmaceda, hbalmaceda@hecouncil.org.