What are you asking of your new employee? If you are responsible for their leadership development, take coaching them serious.

DISC reports are very thorough, but for them to be useful to the hiring company, they must know what the job entails. Remember, DISC only measures HOW a person will respond to the tasks. The closer the person is matched to what they like to do and HOW they want to accomplish the task the more productive they will be. High D’s like to make decisions. Put them in a room by themselves with no one to lead and they will either dry up, leave or retire in place.
On the other side of the coin, the high C is thrilled to work on projects alone, in a private area with no interruptions with many rules. Placing these people in the wrong job leads to absenteeism, possible drug use and eventually they will leave and you have to pay for another new hire. You also have done them an injustice by giving them a stop on their career that will be seen as a failure in their eyes.
Match people to the job. You should be able to see what successful people in this role do. How much interaction is necessary? How much time is spend assembling and interpreting data? Do they have to work on routine items each day? Do they have to solve many problems at the same time.
Again, DISC tells you HOW the person would like to accomplish the job tasks. Give them the best chance of being successful by placing them in the proper role based on FACT!

This is not pigeon holeing people. It is putting them where they have the most likely chance of success. EAch of us has certain God given talents. The earlier you recognize these in yourself by using the DISC, the more of your life will be spent on “acting natural”.

Just got off a coaching call with a wage roll employee that his company values him enough to pay for the service. He was the most outspoken, arrogant, untrusting person in the plant. Every meeting with management, he did everything possible to disrupt the meeting and question the leadership in public. His decision was essentially learn how to play with others or you can look for a new job after 18 years with the company. When we got the results from his DISC, it was obvious. The employee was driving, ambitious, pessimistic, impatient and exacting. We did a 360 with his peers and he ranked lowest in accepts feedback and role model for others.
Why did his supervisor put up with this? He was the most technically competent operator in the plant. He just had no patience with others? Couldn’t tolerate their slowness and did it himself.
We did not want to lose him. What kind of leadership coaching could we give him that would work?  We sat down and reviewed his DISC and 360 feedback and told him if he wanted to be considered for a senior operator job, he had to work with people. We explained how to communicate with different styles of people and how to recognize them. Within a week, he asked others opinion. At first they just stared at him. Now they believe he is sincere and are helping him work on a project to make their job easier.
Without the DISC tools as coaching data, we could not have salvaged this valuable employee.  He has recently been awarded the site senior operator job!  He has gone from one foot out the door to our most valuable leader on that shift. 

I was doing a DISC Triad this week with a client who always completes one with everyone who comes to work for her in the first 2-3 weeks.  This is simply to sit down together with a certified DISC trained third party, exchange reports and review each section.  As we review them, we ask “which ones do you think in each section are most critical to your sucess”?  The manager then knows how to lead this person.  How best to teach Leadership Coaching, than to honor the differences.  Unless we know how to recognize different styles, how can we honor them?

The do’s and don’t’s of communication are always the highlight of  the session.  What is a “do” to one party is often a “don’t” to the other.  For example one person’s report said “make an organized presentation and stick to the agenda” while the other said “leave time for relating and socializing”.  This is a great way to teach the DISC profile tools and how we communicate as WE like to be communicated to instead of how the other person likes to be communicated with. 

When we have a new employee, we can try trial and error for the first few months or sit down together with a facilitator and read each other’s DISC profile.  I then know how to adapt a leadership or coaching style that has your full attention.  This is also the most efficient way to run a business. 

One of the largest Personnel placement agencies in the world surveys more than a 100,000 people every year to determine success factors. Year after year, they get the following responses.
There are really only three things that are critical to my success in any new job.
I have the tools I need in good working order is the first.
I am not a mechanic, why do I need tools?
Tools for any job require things such as procedures, desk, computer, phone, map of work area, how to get support, etc. Many people are put in jobs without these basic essentials.
Many companies drive employees away by not providing the most simple of things.
The second most important to my success is to KNOW WHAT MY JOB IS.
Really simple isn’t it! Business often spend thousands of dollars finding the right person for the job and then ignore them as soon as they are in place. Give me my job description, goals, measurable, and when I can expect to get feedback on how I am doing. I shouldn’t have to ask.
The third and last thing I need to get my job done is feedback. This feedback should occur regularly and in a standard format that ties to our department goals and how I am impacting them with my performance.
Using DISC, all three of these can be satisfied.

Recently I held an interview with a prospective client who is the Senior VP of Operations for an $8B corporation.

An associate and I were trying to convince him that even though we were small, we could give them the service to help them meet their goals quicker than doing it with their current tools. After sharing our success with him, he very adamantly stated that the results were in manufacturing and what did that have to do with their business?

He was quick to tell us how busy he was that they were engaged in the annual capital plan meeting and was not in a very good mood. Since Cost of Poor quality was only good for manufacturing, how could that metric be useful to them?

What are your goals for next year? To double the stock price, he answered.

How do the employees impact the stock price?

How does this capital plan meeting impact the stock price?

How do you measure the success of the meeting?

How do you accomplish the goals of the meeting without rework, waste and downtime?

What are the critical four to six measures that all capital spending should be measured against? Were you using a Priortization matrix (also known as a Cause and Effect Matrix or Decision Matrix) to decide which projects to fund?

Did everyone in the meeting understand what these critical few were?

After we had prioritized the list of capital appropriations, did we know how to use a FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) to see how likely we were to accomplish the goals of the appropriations?

No, the goal is not to spend all the money on time and account for all of it!

If we were not going to meet the financials promised by the job, did we have an alternate plan to make the numbers with other capital opportunities? Was someone accountable for the results? Was it baked into the operations plan?

After hearing the questions, the VP could only respond. The Prioritization matrix and FMEA do not apply to a non manufactureing environment.

This is not about how many units of production, or how many service calls or how many times the employee did what I pay him/her to do. This is about the unlocking of the knowledge and abilities of the people who come to work every day, do their job and then go home with all the unused capacity. This under utilized capacity is there for the asking, but requires you to do something first.

When you have done things to show that you value the person, the most outrageous employee is often the most valuable in terms of business improvement. The employee that challenges the leadership in public is most likely to be the one who understands our business and knows in his mind that we can be better. His mantra is “in spite of this we make money“. Almost any change in the way we do business helps to make his day to day job easier.

Who is the only expert on any job? Most likely it is not the college educated person we pay the big bucks to. It is the person who does that job every day. Unleashing this gold mine is simple but difficult.

The secret- ASK!

“But I have asked many times.” How many times did you do something with the information? This past week saw a very outspoken employee come up with an idea that will generate cost savings 10X his annual salary!

We valued him. He told us his idea, we acted, fought the Engineer for him (let’s try anyway) and he proudly told the President of our division about his idea and how much money it would mean.

ASK ME! I would love to tell you how to protect my job by being more efficient.

Recently, we received a request from a local school for some much needed supplies. The school (private) as a classroom project was teaching the students how to write letters and benefit the school at the same time (love efficiency!). This was a rather mundane thing that passed my desk.

The opportunity was this child belonged to one of my most outspoken critics on the plant floor. Maybe this was the opportunity I had been looking for. This employee was technically the most competent, but attitude was horrible.

To make a long story short, I approached the employee about what was needed and why. He was not sure I was sincere and it took some convincing to show him that the company would provide the needed supplies if he would accompany me to the school to present them. He agreed.

When we contacted the school they were so pleased that they wanted to do the presentation in front of the entire student body (500) . I had planned on doing the speaking, but kidded with the employee and told him “it is your idea, you can make the presentation”.

He did the presentation of the supplies. We gave the kids a framed certificate. They were the only ones in the class that even received a response from any local company contacted. Their dad was a hero in their eyes. His son was the envy of his classmates with his “framed certificate”. His dad was the envy of his classmates.

Although this did not enter our minds at the time we did this, we had an incident at the plant that made the local papers a few months before. How much good did we do with the 500 families represented in the audience to improve our company image.

Don

The other day I was working with a Manager who has continuously demonstrated to the workforce that he wants them to have control of their own destiny. He has supported this workforce with training, leadership development skills, and defined metrics or criteria for success.

Yet his workforce still does not fully trust him.

Here is a recent scenario. He has decided to change the schedule of the call center employees.

After collecting several months of data, he came to realize that most calls were coming in on Mondays and Tuesdays during day time hours. Currently the workforce has a 24 x7 rotating shift schedule. One of the perks is a 7 day break for the workforce.

So, he showed each of the employees the data. He told him he wanted 7 day coverage for 12 hour days. It was obvious from the data that this was the best solution. Then he told them that he wanted them to design the schedule. His criteria:

a) Cost neutral to both the employee and the company

b) Easy to manage (knows who is supposed to be on and who is supposed to be off)

c) 7 days covered and 12 hours covered

It was unbelievable the response that he received.

They hated the idea. Some of the employees felt that he was trying to take away their seven day break. Others had side jobs and felt that the new schedule would not allow this continue. They cried, they wined, they felt he was putting the screws to them.

Well, this went on for four days. The manager could not go into the call center area without a hush falling over the place. He knew something was up. And he was upset about it. He received some feedback from some of his lieutenants about the employees’ issues.

So here is what he did.

He took 15 minutes and created three shift schedules.

Schedule 1: It was exactly like the employees thought it would be. Two days on two days off, three days on three days off. Working two weekends a month. It was cost neutral to the company and the employee. It was simple to manage because there were only two groups or shifts of employees that went through the schedule. No seven day breaks.

Schedule 2: Difficult to explain but it split the two groups into four groups (which was previously assumed to be a constraint.) This new schedule gave the employees six days off in a row and another 5 days off in a row. However, it required them to work 7 days in a row… which is tough. Again cost neutral… but a little more difficult to manage because there were four groups to manage instead of two. Required the teams to work two weekends a month

Schedule 3: Again difficult to explain but in this schedule, more people worked on Monday and Tuesdays. Only one person worked on Saturday and Sunday. And since there were four groups, that meant a person only had to work one weekend a month. Also, they got seven days off in a row. The longest number of working days in a row was four which was exactly what they had in their current schedule. Finally, it was cost neutral to the employee and to the company. Plus it was all day work… no more switching shifts from nights to days to nights.

He walked into the call center and gathered several of the employees around to review the schedule. He took them through each one. Everyone groaned after seeing the first schedule. His comment… yes I thought it sucked too… but it would be easy to manage.

He took them through the next two schedules and he could hardly get done with the third before people were saying that schedule was great. They thought it was awesome. People outside of the department wanted to move to that schedule!

He explained to them that it met all of the criteria laid out. And commented that it took him about 15 minutes to lay out the three schedules.

Guess what he did next.

He took the piece of paper he had everything written on…

And crumbled it up and stuck in his pocket.

Everyone gasped and said how can we explain what you came up with to the other people on the next shift?

‘Easy’ was his reply.

Figure out your own schedule like I asked in the first place.

He walked away knowing that he could walk back into the call center at anytime and the low hum of chatter and laughter would be back.

After many months of thinking about reorganizing a company, you start to role out your plan to your top lieutenants.

After the warm reception from your first conversation, you figure the next couple will be equally as easy.  Considering that each of these folks are getting a promotion (including more money… not just a title), you start to feel proud of yourself.

Then BAM!  A train wreck occurs.

During your next conversation with a star employee, she tells you sorry, I am not interested in the position that you are offering.  She’s not hostile.  Just very direct.  She also hints that if she is ‘forced’ to take the new role, she will leave the company.  She knows that you know that the company would take a hit if she leaves the company.

What do you do?

Well here are a couple things to take into consideration.

a)  There is never a ‘kept secret’ in any company.  If you let her have her way (regardless of how you rationalize it to yourself), it will get around to the rest of the workforce.  Guess who the new leader is now?

b)   Consider where YOU went wrong in the assessment.  How did you get to this place where you misread her needs?  Maybe you don’t understand what her values are?  Maybe you thought money and power were important to her… maybe she is actually happy with the type of sanctification (or flexibility) that her current work provides her.

c)  Remember no one person is bigger than the company.  Let her go.  I still remember this little story after leaving my first job for a promotion within the company.

A superior of mine that I had the greatest respect for stood and gave a small speech at my going away party.  I had worked with this individual for over five years and learned a great deal from him.  I thought that I had made it look good (and I was happy to do it) during my tenure at the location.  This is what he said… ‘Michael has been a great asset for our business during the last five years.  He has grown and developed as a leader.  With that being said, after two weeks, it will be like Michael was never on our plant site.’

I was floored.  I was sad.  I almost dropped my drink.  The people around me weren’t.  I felt terrible.  I approached him towards the end of the night after I was able to gain enough courage and asked him why he said what he said.  He smiled and told me that it was a compliment.

I could not figure out how that was a compliment until he explained.  He said ‘Michael, usually when I stand up here and give this speech, I tell people it usually takes only TWO DAYS before it was like the person was never here before.  Whereas for you, it will probably be two weeks.’

He then continued to tell me that the place was going to continue to satisfy customers because of systems that I had put in place and because of the people that remained.

This was the greatest lesson that I ever learned in my career. Think of this way, if the company truly failed after you left, you may have been a great task master, but you were not a great leader or developer of people.