________

What are the secrets to a #highperforming #team?

There really is no secret to building a high performing team.

At the risk of making this sound too simplistic, here are 3 things that you may wish to look at when you want to build a high performing team:

1. #Clarity – Clarity of purpose, direction, instructions.

2. #Communication – Effective communication is the bedrock of psychological safety and inclusiveness. Everyone needs to be able to voice their thoughts, concerns, and their opinions. I often hear that communications need to be a 2-way street. But I beg to differ. Communication is multi-directional – everyone needs to be communicating with everyone else – to learn from one another, and to support one another.

3. #Cognitive #diversity The term “Diversity ” has become a cliche these days. Most think that diversity is about education, race or nationality. And I beg to differ here again. It is much MORE than just education, race, nationality. It is about embracing people with different backgrounds, beliefs, experiences AND Thinking Styles.

And here’s the catch: All the above 3 Cs are interconnected. You can’t have one without the other for a high performing team.

And I ended the post with this question:

There’s one more C. Do you know what it is?

__________

And I received a number of responses. Here are some of the answers I received:

• Culture,
• Connection
• Compassion
• Collaboration
• Character
• Competency
• Customer
• Caring
• Coordination
• Co-operation

All very good answers, however they weren’t the answer I had in mind.

So here’s the fourth “C”:

#Civility

If you want to build a high performance team, then you will need to ensure discussions, arguments and disagreements remain civil.

Being Civil means respect – even if you do not agree with what is being said.

It doesn’t mean a high performing team is one that has no disagreements or arguments. Far from it.

In fact, a high performing team would be expected to have more disagreements.

However once a decision has been made, the entire team will align itself behind that decision to make it work – putting differences aside.

Civility creates a certain #climate around the team – one that is respectful, authentic, and candid.

About the Author

Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP.

He is an Author, Facilitator, Consultant and a Coach. Steven has more than 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is a Certified Solution-Focused Coach (CSFC), Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coach Federation (ICF), and MBTI® (Step I & II) certified practitioner.

Over the last decade, a lot of things have been said about employee engagement, motivation and passion, and most leader know the “Whats” and the “Whys”. However, most are still in the dark about HOW to actually engage, motivate and inspire your employees.

For instance, HR professionals talk about replacing “Exit Interviews” with “Stay Interviews” and Leadership gurus talk about leading teams with a purpose and vision, and communicating effectively.

However I would like to boil all of these down into 10 simple strategies that will enable you to motivate, engage and retain your best employees.

So here are 10 things I did with my team that kept my attrition rate at 0% and employee engagement at 100% and achieving 100% annual objectives for 10 years straight:

• I had regular personal conversations with each and every team member
• I genuinely cared for their professional career development and growth
• I genuinely cared for their personal growth
• I took pains to plan their career paths
• I regularly asked for their feedback, suggestions and comments
• I delegated important tasks and projects to them
• I encouraged them to run their own race
• I always gave credit where credit was due
• We celebrated every success
• We solved problems as a team

I did all of the above with each of my team members, and they rewarded me with loyal service, 100% engagement levels and achieving 100% of all our annual objectives – for 10 years straight.

It’s important to keep in mind that employee engagement is a two-way street, and to be successful, you as the manager or the leader need to be available, genuine and authentic. The fastest and surest way to kill employee engagement is to be arrogant, fake and ungenuine.

Do you need to do all of the above. The answer is YES.

However doing all 10 would be overwhelming for most people. So for a start, identify 2-3 strategies that you can implement immediately and then put them into action. When you experience positive results from the actions you took, identify another 2-3 strategies and put them into action.

If you do all of the above diligently, I can assure you that your employee motivation, engagement and retention will go through the roof.

About the Author

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

What this means is that if an organisation has 10 employees, it may have between 1 and 5 employees who are not performing to expectations.

Now that is a staggering number of bad hires by any stretch of the imagination!

So if you are a HR Professional or a Hiring Manager and you conduct job interviews, you should be concerned!

The big question that we should be asking ourselves is “WHY? Why do organizations end up with so many bad hires?”

The 7 Shocking Truths

To get an idea of why so many organizations end up with so many bad hires, perhaps we should look at the following 7 shocking truths about candidate Resumes:

1. 46% of resumes include discrepancies in job candidate’s employment and educational histories
2. 40% of executives lie about their education
3. 35% lie about accomplishments or job missions
4. 53% of all job applications contain inaccurate information
5. 34% of all applications contain outright lies about experience, education, and ability to perform essential functions on the job
6. 9% of job applicants listed false employers, or identified jobs that didn’t exist
7. 11% of job applicants misrepresented why they left a former employer

Other surveys have also uncovered similar patterns of deception. For instance:

• 53% of all job applications contain inaccurate information
• 34% of all applications contain outright lies about experience, education, and ability to perform essential functions on the job

(Sources: March 8, 2014 The Daily Stats by Harvard Business Review; www.hireright.com)

Some have commented that these statistics are mostly US-based statistics and questioned if these numbers apply here in our Asian context.

Unfortunately, we do not have similar statistics here for the Asian region (well, at least I have not found any so far. So if anyone reading this knows where to find these Asian-centric statistics, please let me know!). But I would boldly venture to state that if we were to do a similar study or survey here in the Asian region, the results wouldn’t be very far off.

Endless Resources

In addition, I was browsing in a bookstore recently and came across an entire shelf of these books:

I also did a search on Google on “Answers to tough interview questions” and Google returned over 10,000,000 hits!

What this means is that candidates today have an enormous amount of resources they can fall back on in order to get themselves fully prepared for job interviews.

With such odds stacked up against HR Professionals and Hiring Managers, it is therefore not surprising that your chances of hiring the wrong candidates are so high!

Now the BIGGER question is: How do you minimize the risk of hiring the wrong candidates?

Are there any ways you could mitigate the risk of hiring the wrong person and minimize the number of bad hires in your organization?

The onus is on us hiring managers and HR professionals – who act as the Gatekeepers of our organisations – to weed out the wheat from the chaff. However the sad fact is that most of us hiring managers and HR professionals who shoulder this heavy responsibility as Gatekeepers are not trained in effective interviewing and selection techniques.

As businesses get more and more competitive, and our world becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, it becomes imperative that you as a responsible hiring manager to insure you know what to look for and how to pick the right candidates every time. This will save you tons of headache, heartache and psychological pain going forward.

If you are putting up with mediocre, unmotivated and uncooperative employees, then it is time you did something about it.

About the Author

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

But being too busy can be counterproductive.

Studies have also shown that we have a bias toward action: when faced with a problem, we prefer to act, even if it would be best to pause first or do nothing. Together, both of these behaviors show that choosing to be busy is the easy choice.

Being productive, by contrast, is much more challenging. What helps remedy this dilemma?

Take time to step back and reflect on a regular basis. Reflection helps us understand the actions we’re considering and choose the ones that will make us productive. Even 15 minutes of planning each morning can help.

So the next time you feel busy, stop and think about what you actually need to get done.

Do you know the true cost of a bad hire?

Unfortunately, most of us don’t.

If you did a search on Google, you will find all kinds of estimates and suggestions regarding the negative financial impact of bad hires. Some have even suggested that the cost of a bad hire can be up to twenty times the executive’s base salary!

Whatever the numbers may be, the financial impact of a bad hire should never be underestimated. Business Owners, CEOs, CHROs, HR professionals and Hiring Managers should never underestimate the negative ramifications of a poor hire.

The fallout can be extensive and could affect the entire organisation in ways that are not always obvious.

To get an idea of the negative financial impact of a bad hire, here are some indirect costs associated with it:

• lower personal productivity among dissatisfied employees
• disruptions caused by dissatisfied employees
• higher turnover rates among productive employees
• damages to reputation and market share
• lost management time
• increased stress and anxiety from people problems
• poor employee morale
• lost business opportunities

What about Direct Costs?

The following will help provide you with a better idea of the direct financial cost of just one bad hire in your organisation (depending on the seniority of the position):

• Recruiting Fees
• Background Checks
• Employee Referral Incentives / Fees
• HR Department time and expenses
• Hiring Manager’s time and expenses
• Travel expenses
• Base Salary
• Bonuses
• Benefits
• Relocation Costs
• Employee Perks (car, house, etc)
• Vacation/Time off
• Stock options
• Severance Pay
• Legal Costs
• Outplacement Costs
• HR department time and expenses

Multiply the total cost by the number of bad hires in your organisation and you will begin to realise the astronomical cost of bad hires and the extensive impact it could have on your organisation in the long term, and the opportunity costs to your organisation.

Obviously, the total cost of your bad hire depends very much on what benefits or perks he or she has, and it also depends on whether your organisation is a Multi-National Corporation (MNC) or a local business.

Whatever it is, the total cost of one bad hire could really add-up for you and your organisation.

So if you are a Business Owner, CEO, CHRO, Senior Executive, HR Professional or a hiring manager, then you should be concerned. Problems with bad hires are like a cancer that will slowly and silently destroy your company from the inside out. And these diseases often times creep up on you on the quiet, and by the time you realise what has hit your organisation, it might already be too late.

Problems with bad hires are like a cancer that will slowly and silently destroy your company from the inside out. And these diseases often times creep up on you on the quiet, and by the time you realise what has hit your organisation, it might already be too late

So how can you avoid making bad hires for your team or your organisation?

Stay tuned for more information.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Ironically, these statistics don’t lie! (No pun intended)

In fact the statistics above underscores the critical importance of effective interviewing.

Let’s face it. Many job seekers will not stop at anything – including lying through their teeth during interviews – just to get that job you are offering.

With 57% of candidates lying about their skills, and 55% lying about their job accomplishments, it is ample warning to all of us hiring managers to keep our eyes and our ears open.

Unfortunately, most hiring managers (including HR professionals) are not trained in effective interviewing and selection skills. But yet, these untrained hiring managers are expected to be the Gatekeepers of their organisation.

As Gatekeepers for your organisation, the onus is on you to ensure you hire only the right people into your organisations.

The fact is the strength of your organisation is only as good as the people who live and work within it.

As Dee Hock, ex-CEO of VISA International, once said:
“An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it.???

An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it. ~ Dee Hock

What Dee Hock is saying is very clear:

People are the real assets of an organization. What is critical is not the form or the structure, but the substance of the organization; and the substance of an organization is its people.

And the only way for hiring managers like you to be effective Gatekeepers of your organisation is to learn to be effective interviewers and talent spotters.

Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is consistently ranked as one of the world’s wealthiest, successful and most influential persons.

One of Buffett’s famous quotes is “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing”.

Buffett should know it better than anyone else. He has seen his wealth skyrocket from practically nothing back in the 1950’s to billions today. Buffet’s investment philosophy has always been in Value Investing. But how does Buffett do it?

Buffet gave the following answer when he was asked about his sources of information during the Annual Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in 2003:

“We read a lot — we read daily publications, we read weekly or monthly publications, we read annual reports, we read 10-Ks and we read 10-Qs. Fortunately, the investment business is a business where knowledge accumulates. Everything you learn when you’re 20 or 30, you may tweak some as you go along, but it all kind of builds into a knowledge base that’s useful forever.”

Without a doubt, Buffett spends an enormous amount of time reading and researching the executives, the company and the business he is interested in before making any investments in it. It has been reported that he spends days and even weeks pouring over trade reports, annual reports, the target company’s business strategies, its management philosophies, its competitors and the long term growth potential of the business. He does all of that before he even considers investing in the company and the business.

Buffett ensures that he does his homework thoroughly before making any investment moves. He first invests time, energy and effort upfront to understand the target company and its business inside out before putting any money down for the target company.

“Never invest in a business you cannot understand” is Buffet’s famous philosophy. It clearly underscores his investment philosophy and explains why most of his investments have brought him huge returns over the years.

Jim Rogers, another famed investor who made his profits in Commodities also had this to say:

“The best advice I ever got was on an airplane. It was in my early days on Wall Street. I was flying to Chicago, and I sat next to an older guy.

Anyway, I remember him as being an old guy, which means he may have been 40. He told me to read everything. If you get interested in a company and you read the annual report, he said, you will have done more than 98% of the people on Wall Street.

And if you read the footnotes in the annual report you will have done more than 100% of the people on Wall Street.

I realized right away that if I just literally read a company’s annual report and the notes — or better yet, two or three years of reports — that I would know much more than others.

Professional investors used to sort of be dazzled. Everyone seemed to think I was smart. I later realized that I had to do more than just that. I learned that I had to read the annual reports of those I am investing in and their competitors’ annual reports, the trade journals, and everything that I could get my hands on.

But I realized that most people don’t bother even doing the basic homework. And if I did even more, I’d be so far ahead that I’d probably be able to find successful investments.”

Do you perform your due diligence before hiring the candidate?

In our context of interviewing and selection, you need to prepare yourself if you are the interviewer and your preparation must be done prior to meeting any of your candidates for a job interview – just like what Buffett and Rogers do before putting their money down for any investments.

So if you still believe that your people are your greatest assets, then you need to ensure that preparation is done upfront prior to any human capital investments.

“Risk Comes from Not Knowing What You’re Doing???. Nothing is more applicable to our context of interviewing and selection than this.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t know who you are hiring, then your risks of ending up with a bad hire increases exponentially.

Do you know how your Leadership Styles affect your team’s performance?

This is a question that stumps most people I know.

And the reason is because most of us are not aware of the leadership styles we use on a day-to-day basis. Most of us have no idea how we come across to others during the course of our workday. Very few of us take the trouble and the time to take stock of our own leadership styles to understand the impact on our team’s performance.

Based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research, there are 6 distinct leadership styles. Which style you exhibit on a day-to-day basis will determine the performance of your team and the people around you.

In case you are not familiar with Dr. Daniel Goleman, he is an internationally known psychologist and a visiting professor of Harvard University. He is the author of several international best-selling books including Emotional Intelligence, Working with Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership.

Out of the six styles, two are correlated to negative performance, while the other four styles correlate to high performance.

The six leadership styles are:

1. Visionary

2. Commanding

3. Coaching

4. Affiliative

5. Democratic

6. Pacesetting

All of us will have one of these styles as our dominant style. In other words, we use one style most often and usually by default. Under stressful situations, our dominant style usually manifests itself above all other styles.

Visionary

A Visionary Leader is a visionary and focuses on the end goals. He does not dictate how to achieve those goals and will generally give people the leeway to devise their own means. Visionary Leaders give people freedom to innovate, experiment and take calculated risks.

Commanding

The Commanding Style is sometimes referred to as the Coercive Style. The Commanding Leader employs the top-down command and control style of leadership. He demands that others comply with his expectations immediately. He will not hesitate to take drastic actions against those he perceives to be non-compliant or under performers.

Coaching

The Coaching Leader focuses on long-term personal development of employees. He works with them to conceptualize, plan and develop long-term development goals and guides them to achieve those goals.

Affiliative

The Affiliative Leader’s top priority is to maintain peace and harmony among team members and employees. He values individuals and their emotions over tasks and goals, and strives to keep individuals happy.

The hallmark of the affiliative leader is a “People come first” attitude.

Democratic

A Democratic Leader encourages participation from his team regarding the directions the team should take and what actions they should prioritize. He will solicit input from others as a way to build “Buy-in”.

Pacesetting

A Pacesetting Leader sets extremely high-performance standards and holds everyone to the same standards. He is obsessed with doing things better and faster and expects the same of everyone around him. Pacesetters focus on individual effort and expect others to be competent in their roles.

So which two leadership styles are correlated to negative performance?

They are:

• Commanding
• Pacesetting

The rest of the other leadership styles are all positively correlated to high performance.

In other words, if you use too much of the Commanding or Pacesetting leadership styles, the chances are you will stifle the performance of your team.

So which leadership styles do you exhibit on a day-to-day basis?

Would you like to find out what your leadership styles are?

If you would like to receive insights into your leadership styles, email to su*****@*************om.sg and indicate your interest in finding out your Leadership Styles.

I always answer with this question:
“What type of persons do you like to work with?”

And the answers I usually get include some or all of the following:

“Someone who is helpful”

“People who are friendly”

“Someone who is caring”

“Those who are good leaders”

“Those who are genuine”

“People who are un-pretentious”

“People who are authentic”

“People who care for the team as a whole”

“People who are not selfish and only care for themselves”

“Those whom I can relate to”

“People whom I can trust”

“People who are candid”

And this is not even an exhaustive list of the answers I normally get.

But if you look at the list above, you will realise that practically all of them point to a person’s personality or at least alludes to a person’s personality.

It is a fact that productivity and efficiency increases when everyone in the team or organisation are helpful, friendly and caring towards one another. Research has shown that a happy work environment is the pre-cursor to higher employee engagement and would also minimise employee attrition rates.

We all feel better when our colleagues are helpful, caring and friendly. These traits help make the office environment a much more pleasant place to be in. And this in turn creates a conducive environment where productivity, creativity, efficiency and effectiveness can soar.

Do you have to get familiar with personality instruments such as the MBTI?

In most cases, you don’t.

For most of us, the Big Five Theory of Personality that psychologists came up with back in the 1970’s is good enough for us to understand the basics of personality types.

I wrote about the Big Five back in November 2014. Click here to read the article.

So the next time you make a hiring decision, don’t overlook personality traits.

The entire nation literally came to a stand-still as the nation mourned the passing of our Founding Father of Modern Singapore, the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.

Having transformed Singapore from mudflats into a modern, thriving Metropolis – all in one generation – is a feat that no one else can claim. He was truly a giant of a man. Even in death, there are no equals.

And as a tribute to the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, I would like to quote what he said during an interview for the book “Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going???:

“Gallup did an analysis of what made a country grow. They decided it is talent. They noted in the 1980s, economists projected that Japan and Germany would overtake America. They did not. The reason? America was attracting talent from all over the world. So whether China will be the most powerful nation will depend on whether it can attract foreign talent and retain its own talent.??? (pg. 34).

So what has this got to do with you?

If you are a hiring manager or a HR Professional or a Recruitment Specialist, this applies directly to you and your organisation.

The fact that even countries require talent to grow is testament that companies require the same. If you want your organisation or team to grow – in terms of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness – you will need to hire the right talents.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment around us today, it becomes imperative that organisations review their talent acquisition strategies to ensure they attract, hire and retain the right people for their organisation.

At the same time, organisations need to realise that their hiring practices that worked in the past would probably not work today. In the past, most organisations focused on qualifications, skills and experience. However in our VUCA world, qualifications, skills and experience is no guarantee of success.

What is required today in order to be successful, are key qualities such as Aptitude. What we need are people who are adaptable, flexible and are continuously learning and improving.

Your aptitude to learn, adapt, change and continuously improve will determine how well you survive and thrive in a world that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly complex and volatile.

The late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew recognised and acknowledged that talent is crucial for not only the survival of Singapore, but for it to continue to thrive and grow on the world stage.

I quote again from his book “Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going”:

“…it is not enough to find people who graduated summa cum laude from Ivy League universities, or top surgeons or lawyers. It is certainly not enough to be a good orator or popular at the polls. The government uses Shell’s method of selecting its executives and looks for character, motivation and “helicopter quality”, or the ability to assess situations through analysis, sense of reality and imagination. ‘Talent’ therefore takes in not only raw academic or professional success, but also the fuzzier concept of having the ‘right’ personality and outlook. Integrity and honesty are vital.” (pg. 100)

It would be prudent for us all to heed his advice.

May he rest in peace.