Written by Sam Alibrando, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and president of APC, Inc. his own consulting firm that works with organizations and senior executives.

There are few things more important to the success of an organization, than getting the right people into your organization (and then keeping them). The costs of a bad hire are enormous in terms of the financial investment in the hiring process, cost of poor performance, lost time and energy in needless management, decreased morale and employee retention (there is growing evidence that good employees don’t leave organizations, they leave bad bosses).

When you think of the worst things about your organization, you can probably trace it back to a bad hire. Likewise, when you consider what is working well, you will probably trace it back to a good hire. 

There are three ways to get the Best People into your organization. You can Hire them, you can Inspire (or develop and retain) them or you can Retire (reposition or fire) them. Firing people is necessary but difficult and at times carries with it risk. Repositioning is often a good alternative as long as the problem was poor fit rather than poor emotional intelligence or incompetence. Developing is always good but you can only develop people within their capacity to truly learn. It is hard to take an average employee and develop them into a star (and even more difficult to take a low-performing employee even to only the next level). By far and away, the best option of getting the work force that you want is to hire them. It is easier to hire a star than attempt to develop them over years. And let’s face it, not everyone is teachable.

One of the favorite things that I do as a consultant is to help organizations hire good-fit, emotionally intelligent leaders and then to help integrate them into their new position (and possible new work culture). Below is the five-step choreography that I use, let’s D.I.S.C.O.

Define the position.  Not enough time is spent on thinking about the position to be filled. What exactly are you looking for and what kind of person would fill it?  We often assume that we should just fill the same position that is vacated. If you think like that you will at best get what you already had. Think about what you need now and into the future. We are currently helping the president of a company hire a COO. We are suggesting to him to think 2-3 years ahead. Who do you want or need this person to be in two years? Consider the position that you are looking to fill, a new position that is aligned with your current strategic plan (if you have one). Once you do that, describe the KSA (knowledge, Skills and Aptitudes) of the ideal person. As consultants we use a system that profiles that ideal candidate, one that we later use for assessment and interviewing purposes and even later for measuring success after they are hired.

Identify the best (and fewest) candidates. There are many ways to identify the best candidates. You can identify candidates as simply as advertising the position on the web (e.g. Craig’s List or Monster.com) for lower level hires to employing a search firm for C-level executives. Although very expensive, the advantage of using an executive search firm is that they can locate people who are already working and currently not-looking. Although we do not identify and recruit we help you determine the best way to do it. We also partner with recruiters and search firms as well. What is important in the Identification process is to get the best prospects, and not one more. This involves not just identification but also good screening.   You can screen candidates by reviewing their resumes, doing a standardized phone screen or hire a search firm to do the screening for you.

• Selection.  Once you have a final group of good candidates you now need to go through a thorough selection process. Here are the ABCs of this process:
• Assessment. We put candidates through a battery of assessments that assess fit to ideal profile, strength assessment, their team role, cognitive capacity and personality fit. We then use this information to guide the interviewing process.
• Behavioral Interviews. The typical interview has about a 50% accuracy (might as well flip a coin) for predicting success.  Do you want to improve your odds? Then you need to do what is called a behavioral interview. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. In the interview, you want to assess how a person performed and therefore will perform in your organization. If you do this, you improve your predictability to 80%. I would take those odds. As consultants, we have both guided this process and will actually sit in on interviews. And speaking of sitting in on interviews, generally speaking the more touches (the more people in the interviewing process)–up to a certain reasonable amount, the better chances of making a good hire (and avoiding a bad one). 

 Confirm. You want to confirm what you are told. This includes actually following up with references, confirming allegations and doing background checks. We worked with one company that was hiring a very important general manager. The chair of the hiring committee found someone who was a friend of a friend (not the best way to identify a candidate) and he had everything that they were looking for in a GM. The chair of the committee loved him was ready to hire him on the spot. Fortunately, three other people interviewed him. One seasoned executive who interviewed the candidate had a “bad feeling” about this prospect. The assessments that we did indicated an average to poor fit for the position. This instigated enough concern that a background check was done. And when they did a background check, they found that he had a history of serious problems that would likely follow him into this next position.  If the chair selected this person–in a manner that most organizations do– without following the ABCs of Selection, they would have hired their next huge headache and unnecessary expense.

Choose.  This is the shortest but obviously most important decision you will make in the DISCO process. Bring together all the stakeholders, interviewers, data from assessment, information from references and background check and make a decision. Honor people who have a “bad feeling” about someone.  Don’t necessarily trust “likeability” (remember narcissistic people are notorious charmers).  You need to tie likeability to performance and fit. And when you choose someone, think emotional intelligence. You can have a very talented person but if they cannot regulate their emotions or they relate poorly to others, you will get more than you bargained for.  After having the basic KSAs in place, few things are more important than emotional intelligence, especially if this person works with clients, needs to work in a team or manage or lead others.   

Onboarding. The hiring process does NOT end with the hire. This is a mistake that many organizations make. In our process we will stay with the new hire over the course a several months helping them integrate into the new position–and the new culture if they are an outside hire. Monitoring and assessing their progress and enhancing important communications along the way. We will use all the assessment data to both coach the new hire and direct his or her boss on how to mentor the new hire. The purpose of onboarding is to instigate a soft landing (integration), detect any issues early that might be problematic down the road and hone in the performance to the strategic needs of the position. 

If you are going to cut costs in an organization, do not cut costs in the hiring process. It will come back to haunt you for years.  Instead learn to do the D.I.S.C.O. and you will not regret it for a minute.

“Nearly 80% of people believe they are among the top 50% most emotionally intelligent people”

Peter Salovey

There are at least three distinct approaches to measuring EI and emotional and social competence representing different models.

The first, delineated by Reuven Bar-On, was influenced by his interest in the aspects of performance not linked to intelligence; the second, often tied to Daniel Goleman’s interpretation, approached EI through competencies; and the third, represented by Mayer and Salovey and colleagues, was influenced by their interest in the relationship between cognition and emotion.

These three approaches have led to diverse and non-overlapping measures of EI characterized as: 1) Personality oriented (e.g, Bar-On Emotion Quotient Inventory); 2) Competency or “Mixed” model oriented (e.g., Emotional Intelligence View 360); and 3) Ability or skill oriented (e.g., Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test; MSCEIT).

Issues with Ability Based Measures of Emotional Intelligence

• Independece from personality measures (e.g., five factor models)
• Weak convergent validity with other cognitive ability measures (i.e., they don’t highly correlate with IQ)
• Scoring issues (i.e., lack of agreement and some controversy on how these assessments are scored)
• Confounded with a measure of knowledge (i.e., they seem to be measuring what someone “knows” as well as emotional intelligence)

Problems wiht Self-Report (Mixed) Measures of Emotional Intelligence

• High correlations with five factor personality measures (i.e., the overlap is so high it suggests that some measures of EI are really nothing more than another personality inventory)
• Limitations of 360-feedback (e.g., inflated self-ratings, moderate correlations between and within rater groups)
• Limitations of self-report (how do you measure EI in people who lack emotional intelligence?)
• Tend to ignore context, situation and setting (EI is not a useful predictor of performance in jobs that don’t have high emotional labor or are socially demanding)

Our own “mixed measure” of ESC called Emotional Intelligence View 360 based on the Goleman construct has some strengths and limitations as all measures. Our EIV360 appears to be statistically unique from ability based measures (very low correlations with the MSCEIT), correlated with the most popular measures of transformational leadership and predictive of both academic and work performance.

In a review by Joseph and Newman (2010), they found a negative association between measures of EI and work performance when jobs do not require strong social skills. Although the sample sizes for this analysis were rather low (N = 220 and N =223, respectively) it does suggest that EI is important for positions like sales, customer service and leadership and less important in predicting performance and success when high levels of interpersonal interaction are required¹.

A newer 2010 meta-analysis by O’Boyle et al. included 65% more studies and twice the sample size to estimate EI and job performance outcomes².

Their findings extent those of Newman (2010) and suggest that trait, personality and mixed measures demonstrated corrected correlations ranging from 0.24 to 0.30 with job performance. Their research also shows that all measures show incremental validity over cognitive ability and personality measures.

Measurement of emotional intelligence (ability based) is most likely different from other approaches (personality and mixed) but all techniques tend to significantly predict job performance, health and social competence particularly in roles and positions requiring high interpersonal interaction. So, depending on your purpose (e.g., selection versus development of talent) some approaches to measuring EI might be better than others.

The one big lesson from the confusion in the measurement of emotional intelligence is that “it’s not HOW smart you are that counts, but how you are smart…Be well….

1. Joseph, D. & Newman, D. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 54-78
2. O’Boyle, E., Humphrey, R., Pollack, Hawver, T. & Story, P. (2010). The relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10.1002/job.714

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. 

Aaron Levenstein

Another edition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. According to a late 2010 survey by CareerBuilder.com (2,482 U.S. managers and 3,910 full-time employees in the private sector), only 58 percent of managers said they ever received any formal management training to help them make the transition into leadership roles but nearly 60 percent think they are doing just fine. The most common problems they experienced included:

• Handling employee conflicts (25%)
• Motivating teams (22%)
• Performance reviews (15%)
• Finding resources for staff (15%)
• Creating career paths (12%)

2. In this same Careerbuilder.com survey, regardless of age or experience, 20 percent of the managers were rated as having poor leadership skills. The biggest complaints included:

• Doesn’t listen to employees or address morale issues (40%)
• Not enough transparency (33%)
• Major changes without warning (30%) and unreasonable workloads/demands (27%)

3. Based on the Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011, Transformations 2.0, World Economic Forum the U.S. is ranked fifth out of 138 countries for its use of communications technology and computers.  The top countries included Sweden, Singapore, Finland and Switzerland.

4. A July 2010 Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that 55 percent of U.S. mobile web users go online from their phones and mobile devices on a daily basis (up from 24 percent in 2009). 

5. According to the Thomson Reuters Workforce Wellness Index (March 2011), unhealthy behaviors of U.S. workers cost employers an average of $670 per employee annually. High body mass indices contributed to $400 of the overall per-employee cost.

6. A 2010 Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) survey found that 44% of employers offered telecommuting options on an ad hoc basis, 34% on a part-time basis and only 17% on a full-time basis. 

7. A May 2011 SHRM poll asking about whether one’s organization had a formal succession planning in place.  Results suggested that 38 percent had no formal succession plan in place and 17 percent don’t with no plan by leaders in the organization to develop a plan.

8.  Some findings from the DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2011 of 12,423 leaders and 1,897 HR professional representing 74 countries:

• Organizations whose employees rate their current leadership as high were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition on key metrics such as financial performance
• Only 38 percent of the 12,423 leaders in the study were rated as good or excellent with nearly 25 percent rated as poor or fair
• Both leaders and HR rated leadership quality highest in North America (52% rated it highly) and lowest in Europe and Asia (33% rated it highly)
• Approximately 33 percent of HR and leaders rated their leadership development programs as being effective
• The most critical skills required from leaders included driving change (48%), Identifying and coaching talent (36%), Fostering innovation/creativity (35%), Coaching and developing talent (32%) and executing strategy (32%).  When asked to rate the ineffectiveness of leaders in these areas, the ranges were from 40% to 50% on each
• 68 percent of organizations use managers as coaches (63% rate it as effective) and 27% use external coaches often (37% rate it as effective)
• The iPad generation desire to learn from others and coaching and the older generation appears to favor classroom training and special projects
• The range of effectiveness for leadership selection, succession planning, performance management and development programs ranged from 22 percent to 33 percent by HR respondents

9. According to an online survey of more than 500 senior managers and executives conducted by AMA Enterprise, one-quarter of employees in the U.S. and Canada tend to regard talent development programs as less than equitable.  Participants were asked, “How is the high potential program perceived by your organization’s employees?” They responded:

• Impartial and even-handed (12 percent)
• Flawed, but well-intentioned (27 percent)
• Unfair and political (24 percent)
• Don’t know (37 percent)

10. A 2011 survey by Addeco (“Workplace Outlook Study”) found that the most important thing(s) to job seekers now are:

• Job security (21%)
• Health benefits (20%)
• Salary/compensation (14%)
• Work/life balance (14%)
• Retirement benefits (11%)
• Vacation/days off (5%)
• Company culture (4%)
• Company perks (1%)

The largest fraction of Americans looking for jobs consisted of 18-34 year-olds.  And 28% of Americans are starting a new job in 2011 compared to only 14% in 2010.

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ”
Albert Einstein

Leaders are generally incompetent when it comes to coaching and developing talent.

Here ae few findings from some recent studies and surveys that may (or may not) surprise you:

1. In her 2006 doctoral research on the impact of 360 degree feedback on leadership, Nancy Rehbine found a high level of disappointment and greater opportunity to involve the leader as internal coach:

• 62% of the respondents reported being dissatisfied or highly dissatisfied with the amount of time their manager spent helping with a development plan
• More than 65% expressed strong interest in utilizing an online follow-up tool to measure progress toward behavior change

 2. In the Blessing White 2009 study targeting 2,000 leaders and HR professional exploring the role of leaders as coaches (The Coaching Conundrum 2009: Building a coaching culture that drives organizational success.  Blessing White Inc. Global Executive Summary) they found:

• 84% of managers are expected to coach talent but only 52% actually do (only 39% in Europe)
• Only 24% of all leaders are rewarded or recognized for coaching and developing talent
• 85% of all managers and employees see value in leaders as coaches but 32% of managers reported it takes too much time and interferes with their job

3. The 2011 DDI Global Leadership Forecast of 12,423 leaders and 1,897 HR professional representing 74 countries found:

• 68 percent of organizations use managers as coaches (63% rate it as effective) and 27% use external coaches often (37% rate it as effective)
• 43 percent of leaders were rated as ineffective in this particular skill area
• The most critical skills required from leaders included driving change (48%), Identifying and coaching talent (36%), Fostering innovation/creativity (35%), Coaching and developing talent (32%) and executing strategy (32%).  When asked to rate the ineffectiveness of leaders in these areas, the ranges were from 40% to 50% on each (43 percent were rated ineffective in coaching talent).

Ways to Improve Leaders as Coaches

What seems clear is that leaders today might not be that competent at developing and coaching talent.  One reason could be that leaders really lack passion for the role but are attracted to it by the latest mobile phone, title, decision making control and compensation.  Here are a few things that could be considered to help enhance the effectiveness of leaders as coaches today:

1. Select for those with interpersonal skills and social competence that can be good performance coaches with their direct reports.
2. Train and develop the skills to become better performance coaches.  Coaching skills and the micro-skills that underlie them are capable of being taught and developed further with deliberate practice.
3. Help leaders recognize how generational differences play a role in learning and engagement.  The iPad generation of today prefer blended learning and coaching as the primary way to learn and grow within organizations.
4. Recognize leaders who develop high potential talent.  You get what you recognize (and reward) so share what great leaders are doing internally as a performance coach to serve as a model to others in the organization.
5. Use employee engagement surveys to evaluate leaders who retain high potential talent.  Measure the leaders who are able to retain talent and explore the “line of sight” between your bad leaders with turnover, customer complaints, grievances and productivity.
6. Reward (through compensation) those who hold onto high potential talent and make it part of the performance management system.  Make performance coaching part of the performance review process and make salary increases and bonuses part of the leadership role.

I’m off to try to practice my leadership skills with my willful guide dog puppy in training Rocco on his journey to become a guide for someone who is blind–I will let you know in about 8 months if my coaching is effective….Be well….

“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.”

George Carlin

To stimulate research on the topic of poor leadership, Robert Hogan in 1990 suggested that the base rate of leadership incompetence was between 60% and 75%. Other research has confirmed that approximately one out of two executive leaders fail in corporate America. These leaders seem to consistently lack emotional intelligence, be overly controlling, poor at delegation and problem solving and perceived to be untrustworthy.  Leaders may be made but clearly finding the ones that are born with “leadership set points” would appear to maximize the success of organizations.

Based on several recent surveys (e.g., Abderdeen Group and Rocket-Hire), the utilization of assessment tools for pre-employment selection and promotion is approximately 60% to 70% across all industries with some projections of increased use in the next 12 months of about 14%. 

Of those using pre-employment assessments across job levels, the most popular approaches continue to be evaluation of work history, candidate interviews, skill and aptitude tests, and personality inventories.  Which approach to measuring key aspects of potential talent’s knowledge, experience and competence actually do a good job of predicting future success and performance? The table below summarizes a large number of recent meta-analytic research studies in the industrial/organizational psychology literature across diverse industries, job levels and different measures of job performance and success.

The numbers in the column are called validity coefficients and they can range from 0 (no association with performance outcomes) to 1.0 (perfect association).  This table is based on very diverse industries for leadership positions across all levels using a wide variety of specific measures of success, salary, promotion, and performance in mind.  In the industrial/organizational literature, it is not unusual to find that most assessments today are only modest at actually predicting future success of leaders in any industry—regardless of how it is defined and measured.  The use of two or more of these pre-employment and selection methods doesn’t dramatically increase predictive validity but relying on only one approach may lead to erroneous hires and selection decisions (e.g., relying only on personality inventory results or interviews).

Any of these methods can be used for selecting talent as long as they are based on a systematic job analysis summarizing relevant knowledge, skills and abilities required for successful performance.  There are many ways to establish validation of a pre-employment assessment with the most common methods used including content validation (showing a link between the job requirements and the content of an assessment) and criterion related validation (showing a statistical relationship between the assessment and some measure of performance) methods.

What We Know About Selecting Successful Leaders in the Future

A number of practical and important observations can be made by looking at the relative average predictive validities (correlation coefficients) ranging from the highest (.54 for work samples) to the lowest (.01 for age). 

• No specific assessment approach is statistically very strong in predicting success or performance although work sample simulations, cognitive ability tests for entry positions and more structured interviews are the strongest.
• The standard “mutual seduction” interview is probably only modest at predicting future performance.  Predictive validity increases as interviews become more structured, based on a comprehensive review of the position requirements and based either on specific situations that can be reliably evaluated or behavioral samples from the past.
• Interests are relatively weak at telling us much about future performance or competence (just watch the television show American Idol and you can see this in action). However, interests are strong predictors of job satisfaction and turnover so it is important to get a sense of what will maximally engage talent.  New research suggests that job specific interests might be stronger in predicting performance and turnover.
• Although reference checks have legal restrictions that minimize their usefulness, in concept they should be pretty revealing if you can get information to be shared by previous colleagues, peers and employers given the predictive power of peer and supervisory ratings.
• Minimize stereotypes about the value of talent with particular educational backgrounds and age—both are virtually useless for making predictions about future leadership success.
• Those who demonstrate cognitive ability seem to learn more rapidly and assimilate information.  Cognitive ability tests are known for potential adverse impact and are often viewed more negatively by prospective candidates.  At higher levels there is a compression of mathematical-logical intelligence making these type of assessments less useful (predictive) but still the more of it you have the greater the job performance.
• It’s not how smart you are but how you are smart.  Interpersonal competence, self-awareness and social awareness (ingredients of emotional intelligence) are probably better predictors of who won’t succeed than who will.  Be careful about overstated claims about the predictive power of emotional intelligence on job performance.
• “Show me” assessments or simulations appear to be universally strong predictors of leadership success.  These types of measures have been incorporated into assessment centers with strong predictive validity and little or no adverse impact.  Because they are designed around the job in question, candidates also respond much better than to pre-employment approaches that don’t appear to be immediately relevant to the position (e.g., intelligence tests, personality inventories).
• Personality measures are modest predictors of job success with two “universal” or generalizable factors typically found to have the strongest association with job performance across diverse settings: conscientiousness (driven, dependable, organized, achievement oriented, responsible) and emotional stability (self-confident, even tempered, adaptable, resilient, emotionally well adjusted).
• When job performance depends on leading and influencing (e.g., sales and managerial positions) extroversion is a significant personality predictor and for customer service oriented positions interpersonal factors (agreeableness) appears most strongly associated with performance and success.
• In positions requiring creativity and innovation, a personality factor often referred to as “openness to experience” is quite predictive.
• There isn’t much argument that selecting and promoting the best leadership talent is a strategic competitive advantage.  However, what approach to use for “human handicapping” is an important decision when companies, large and small, begin to introduce specific assessment methods for pre-employment hiring and promotional decision making.  Most are significantly better than chance and some are certainly better at increasing the odds of predicting high performers.

If only it was as easy as the final scene in the baseball movie called The Natural where Roy Hobbs breaks his precious bat and tells the bat boy “Pick me out a winner Bobby” with pretty dramatic results (and even better score by Randy Newman)….Be well….

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. 

Aaron Levenstein

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. In the latest APA Stress in America survey, 69% of employees are satisfied with their employer but only 44% are satisfied with opportunities for career growth and 46% reported being satisfied with the recognition practices of their employer.

2. For the past 6 years the American Psychological Association (APA) has been measuring aspects of psychologically healthy workplaces.  Here are some U.S. averages from 2011: Employee turnover (38%), Employees reporting chronic stress (36%), Employees intending to seek employment elsewhere (32%), Employees who would recommend their company to others as a “good place to work” (53%) and Overall employee satisfaction (69%).

3. The International Coach Federation (ICF) 2010 “Global Consumer Awareness Study” conducted in over 20 countries found that awareness of coaching was varied (only 20% in Germany to 92% in South Africa).  Of those who were coached, 83% reported high levels of satisfaction.

4. In the 2011 Blessing White “Employee Engagement Report“, only 31% of all employees reported feeling engaged at work and 17% considered themselves actively disengaged. Trust was higher of immediate managers versus senior managers–72% of North American respondents trust their managers compared to 52% who trust senior leaders.

5. In a recent online survey of 320 executives by the Institute for Executive Development and Alexel, 27% of the external hires had left the company they started with.  The number one reason given for the departure was lack of interpersonal/social competence (75%), structural problems/inconsistencies within the organization (28%), goal conflict between the executive and organization (23%) and poor assignment (23%). 

6. A study by Deloitte Consulting LLP, titled “Talent Edge 2020: Building the Recovery Together — What Talent Expects and How Leaders Are Responding,” found that not only are 65 percent of the employees surveyed actively testing the job market, but that “dissatisfied employees are transparent” with their executives and managers about “the most effective employee retention strategies” their companies could utilize to keep them.

7.  In the same Deloitte study mentioned above, when asked to list their top three retention incentives, 53 percent of respondents ranked promotion/job advancement first, followed by increased compensation (39 percent), and additional bonuses or other financial incentives (34 percent). Another 30 percent of those surveyed listed boosting employee support/recognition from their managers, a non-financial incentive, as an effective retention tactic.

8. Employee burnout is one of the top issues for Canadian employers. According to research by talent and career-management firm Right Management, which surveyed more than 3,000, executives across Canada, 54 per cent of executives cited employee morale and burnout as their biggest business concern. Executive responses: 1). Employee morale and burnout: 54 per cent; 2) Risk of losing top talent: 51 per cent; 3) Not having the skills required: 31 per cent; 4) Lack of high potential leaders in the organization: 31 per cent; 5) Redeploying key talent: 25 per cent; 6) Ability to attract new talent: 25 per cent; and 7) Loss of intellectual capital due to recent downsizing 10 per cent.

9. Results from the 2011 State of Talent Management Survey that was conducted in March by the New Talent Management Network suggest the major finding: To make talent management successful, it’s all about active support by senior management and the CEO.

10.  A new research study by SBR Consulting found that 70 percent of Millennials say there is a possibility they will change jobs once the economy improves but despite the current economy 70 percent are positive about their future in general.  Only 9 percent reported they plan to open a business within the next 5 years even though 37 percent say they do not trust big businesses.

11. Professor David Finegold and Senior Research Scientist Susan Mohrman, at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California, presented a paper in the Spring of 2001 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland entitled: What Do Employees Really Want? The Perception vs. The Reality.  The four most important things were: 1) A clear and compelling strategy; 2)  An innovative environment low in bureaucracy; 3) Challenging work assignments that enable employees to grow their capabilities; and 4) Rewards based, in part, on how well the organization performs.

12. One third of employees believe they are overqualified for their current job according to a study commissioned by recruitment agency Randstad and conducted for them by Ipsos Public Affairs. At the same time, 38 percent reported their hard and soft skills perfectly developed for their role.

13. A new study by consulting firm McKinsey shows that 30 percent of U.S. employers are likely to drop health care benefits. Another done by Towers Watson and the National Business Group, that said that a bit less than four in 10 employers were confident they’d be able to offer health care benefits. That’s a sharp decrease from 2007 when nearly 3/4 of employers said they were confident they’d be able to offer health care benefits.

14. The HR software firm formerly known as StepStone Solutions: In the U.S., only 37 percent of men and 24 percent of women enjoy going to work every day.  In the survey, more men (73 percent) than women (59 percent) reported being confident their company will reward them for extra effort or taking on extra responsibilities.

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

 

Too often in my executive coaching I run across a senior leader who will confess to me that they aren’t sure why they ever went into management.  I’m always curious to ask what they would love to do instead and almost all of them share they would rather be “doing” than “leading” and a small minority tell me they just plain hate organizational politics and would rather work for themselves and start their own business.

Maybe not all of us “have the right stuff” to be leaders.  It’s a lot more popular to subscribe to “leaders are made” versus “leaders are born” but perhaps research suggests that both positions are right.

For example, Avery and colleagues, based on twin studies, estimate that about 33% of the variance in holding leadership roles is due to genetic factors¹. Findings from numerous studies of personality show that genetic effects account for approximately 50% of the variance in five factor domains².  Maybe we all have some “leadership set-points” that provide a ceiling or upper limit to our leadership capabilities.

If leaders truly understood the pre-wiring of the interests, values and motives of talent and tried to use this information to lead them more effectively they would be able to unlock some of the mystery surrounding effective leadership.

The four career path preferences summarized below are theory based and measured in one of our assessments called the Career Profile Inventory.  Understanding the primary interests, values and motives underlying each can help all of us better understand what our “signature passions” might be.  These “paths” also provide some insight about how best to reward and recognize talent to enhance engagement and retention.

The Four Career Path Preferences and Motives Underlying Them

LEADERSHIP — This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in continually moving vertically up the organizational ladder into traditional supervisory and managerial positions with increasing spans of control, responsibility, power, and authority.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include power, influence, leadership, control, task accomplishment, status, managerial competence, and directing others. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include: upward mobility, promotion, special perks, titles, and organizational symbols of success (e.g., profit sharing incentive plans, company car, stock options, financial planning, expense account, club memberships, etc.).

SPECIALIST/INDEPENDENT CONTRIBUTOR — This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in remaining in one career field or profession for much of their working life. Along the way, these specialists are able to highly refine their technical knowledge, skills and abilities. These individuals are less interested in moving up as they are in becoming the expert and having autonomy to do things their way.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include technical and functional competence, expertise, skill mastery, service to others, independence, affiliation and security. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include: job enrichment, continuing education, membership in professional associations, recognition, motivational programs, organizational benefits, sabbaticals, tenure and job security.

GENERALIST/PROJECT MANAGEMENT — This career path preference is best characterized by those who gradually change jobs and career over time but utilize the foundation of previously acquired skills, knowledge and abilities. These generalists generally move either laterally or upwards increasing their breadth of knowledge and experience along the way. Individuals who follow this career path tend to prefer new challenges and assignments that will enable them to grow and develop professionally. This career path preference is particularly well suited for project and program management assignments within organizations.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include professional growth and personal development, learning, coaching, developing others, and innovation. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include cross training, job rotation, project management, tuition and educational reimbursement and coaching and mentorship assignments.

ENTREPRENEURIAL — This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in rapid job, career, and occupational changes over short periods of time. These individuals enjoy working on diverse projects, tasks, assignments, and business ventures with measurable and visible outcomes. They are most motivated by autonomy, risk taking, challenge, achievement and being their own boss.   In a new study of 3,412 twins from the UK and 1,300 twins from the US, researchers examined whether genetic factors were associated with the “Big Five” personality characteristics) and the tendency to become an entrepreneur (defined as self-employed, starting a new business, being an owner, or engaging in a start-up process).  The researchers found that common genes influenced the correlations between only two personality factors and the tendency to become an entrepreneur³.  These included:

• Openness to Experience
• Extraversion

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include: entrepreneurship, achievement, autonomy, variety, risk, challenge, change, freedom from organizational constraints, flexibility, creativity and diversity. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include flexible schedules, short-term projects, independent contracts, consulting assignments, start-up operations, job sharing, and bonuses.

Of course we find combinations of these drivers.  For example those of you high in both “specialist” and “entrepreneurial” anchors are likely to be attracted to external consulting.  Others with a combination of “managerial” and “generalist” love “fix it” assignments and short term challenges before moving on to another leadership opportunity.

One important organizational lesson is to stop teasing that specialist/independent contributor about leadership roles–they really just want to practice their craft and be left alone.  Oh, and stop trying to lead them too! 

Interested in knowing your own career path preference?  Just email me at ken@envisaonline.com and I will set you up for a free career assessment….Be well….

1. Avery, R.D., Zhang, Z. Avolio, B. & Kreuger, R.F. (2007).  Developmental and gentic determinants of leadership role occupancy among women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 693-706
2. Bouchard, T.J. & Loehlin, J.C. (2001).  Genes, evolution and personality.  Behavior Genetics, 21, 243-273
3. Shane, S. et al. (2010).  Genetics, the Big Five and the tendency to be self-employed.  Journal of Applied Psychology, 6, 1154-1162

“Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”

Aaron Levenstein

Another edition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?
1. Hooray for U.S. work ethics!  According to he Center for American progress in 2010, 86 percent of men and 67 percent of women work more than 40 hours per week.  The International Labour Organization has reported that American workers spend 260 more hours at the office than those in the UK and 499 more hours than the French.

2. Hooray for workaholics!  Mika Kivmaki and colleagues (University of London) examined the relationship between work hours and its ability to predict cardiovascular illness and death in 7,095 adults aged 39-62 working full-time and free from CHD at the beginning of the study.  Those employees working 11 hours or more per day had a 1.67 fold increase in heart disease compared to those working 7-8 hours during the 12-year follow up period. So, if you want to increase your chances of dying prematurely by about 67%, just keep returning those emails at all hours of the night.

3. Hooray for being healthy!  It apparently pays to be well–particularly for employers.  A study by the non-profit National Business Group on Health found that incentives for wellness provided by employers averaged $430 per employee in 2010 (65% increase from $260 in 2009).  These incentives included gift cards, cash and contributions to the employee’s health savings account.  Punitive efforts such as reducing employer contributions to these same health plans were increasing for those not motivated to participate in wellness programs.

4. Hooray for retirement parties!  The American Institute of certified Accountants survey in January of 2011 wasn’t great news for those planning on retiring.  Because of the economic downturn, Baby boomers planning on retiring now plan to wait an average of four years longer than their target dates.

5.  Hooray for salary increases!  A recent survey by Towers Watson of 381 large and mid-size employers in diverse industries found that corporate leaders were budgeting merit increases of 3% for 2011 compared to 2.7% overall in 2010.  Before the recent economic downturn the average merit increase was 3.5% to 4%.  Better not spend your increase just yet as inflation (e.g., gas prices, electric, health insurance) seems to be increasing at a faster rate.

6. Hooray for work spouses!  Nearly two-thirds of 640 adults surveyed in July 2011 by Captive Network reported to have had or currently have a “work spouse” (they could be single, married, have a significant other or be of the same sex).  So, what’s a “work spouse?”  Captive Network defined it as a relationship were you can be brutally blunt about appearance/hygiene, you know what the other individual eats for meals, you share inside jokes, you know as much about the person as their “real” partner and you can finish each other’s sentences.  No information was reported on whether any of these “work spouses” also had sex with each other.

7. Hooray for creativity!  A 2010 survey by IBM’s Institute for Business Value of 1,541 chief executive officers cited creativity as the most important trait for successful leadership (but see below!).

8. Hooray for quirky!  A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by Jack Goncalo and colleagues of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor relations.  They asked 55 employees at a multinational refinery to rate 291 colleagues (all working in a creative division) for their ability to come up with ideas and leadership potential.  The results showed a strong correlation between being creative and been seen as poor management potential. 

9. Hooray for job seekers! A 2011 survey by Addeco (“Workplace Outlook Study”) found that the most important thing to job seekers now are: job security (21%), health benefits (20%), salary/compensation (14%), work/life balance(14%), retirement benefits (11%), vacation/days off (5%), company culture (4%) and company perks (1%).  The largest fraction of Americans looking for jobs consisted of 18-34 year-olds.  And 28% of Americans are starting a new job in 2011 compared to only 14% in 2010.

10.  Hooray for Social Media Recruiting! The 2010 Jobvite survey(“Social Recruiting Survey”) revealed that the most popular social media used for corporate recruiting included: LinkedIn (78.3%), Facebook (54.6%), Twitter (44.8%), Blogs (18.7%), YouTube (137%), My Space (5.4%) and None (14.4%).

11. Hooray for critical organizational needs!  According to a recently released Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) report called the “Critical Human Capital Issues of  2011“, the top issues identified by organizations as “most critical” included: Succession planning, coping with change, knowledge retention, talent management/coaching, leadership development, performance management, innovation/creativity, engagement, measuring human capital and managing a global workforce.  Since last year, measuring/rewarding results and workforce planning dropped of this annual survey (they have done it for 30 years) and innovation/creativity and coaching became part of the top 10 this year.

12.  Hooray for believing in organizational change efforts! According to a survey by PeopleNRG Inc. talent in the U.S and abroad are skeptical of change efforts by organizations and don’t easily buy in (78% were skeptical in the United States and 77% in other countries).  Leaders seem to communicate the benefits of change (61% in the US and 50% in other countries agreed that this is true) but only 26% of U.S. companies involve talent in change effort planning (23% in other countries).

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”

Aaron Levenstein

More Talent Management Facts #18

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world. Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. Recent statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor shows women now outnumber men in the workforce. However, in all of the S&P 100 companies surveyed, less than 10% of women were found to be the top-paid executives and less than 20% were included as board members. Only 14 companies have two or more “diverse” officers in these positions.

2. The 2010 Center for Creative Leadership’s “Workplace Attitudes 2010″ survey of 1,500 North American managers found that 64% said they would be happy to spend the rest of their careers with the organization, 80% reported being satisfied with their jobs, more than 50% reported feeling overloaded and difficulty balancing work and family challenges (72% of women reported this as a stressor compared to only 60% of men) and only 17% of those surveyed expressed an interest to seek employment elsewhere.

3. According to a Corporate Executive Board survey of nearly 500,000 employees from 85 countries, employees who work in cultures with high integrity were 67% less likely to see major incidences of corporate misconduct than those low in integrity. Companies low on the ethics survey scale reported 10 times more misconduct (e.g., violation of company policy or law).

4. Slightly less than half (49.3%) of companies surveyed in the study “The Measurement Dilemma: Tying Learning to Business Impact and Financial Outcomes (ESI International) said they do measure their initiatives for impact. The Kirkpatrick 4-level evaluation model was used equally with the ROI model (18.6%) with 47.4% ot using anything specific and 15.5% using some other evaluation model not defined.

5. A recently released report by the Human Capital Institute (HPI) and Lee Hecht Harrison called “Leaders Developing Leaders: Capitalizing on the Demographic Gift to Revive Your Leadership Development Program” found that more than half (51%) of survey respondents agreed that leaders are not being formally held accountable for developing and coaching talent. Lack of skills (38%) and lack of information (23%) were also cited as barriers as leaders becoming better internal coaches.

6. The 2011 Blessing White “Employee Engagement Survey” showed that engagement levels around the world remained stable comparing 2008 with mid-2010. Their survey of over 11,000 employees showed that 31% of employees worldwide are engaged and 17% are disengaged.

7. The Chartered Management Institute of the UK surveyed training and development opportunities in 2011 (“Future Forecast: Expectations for 2011″). Strategic decision making (40%) topped the list followed by Networking (38%), coaching and mentoring (34%), project management (32%), communication (27%), financial management (27%), team leadership (22%), negotiation (19%), talent management (16%) and delegation (15%).

8. In The New Unemployables: Older Job Seekers Struggle to Find Work During the Great Recession (Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging & Work and the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University) job seekers 55 and older are having the toughest time seeing employment. The study found that 84% of the older workers who were unemployed in August 2009 were still unemployed in March 2010 and 67% had been looking for work for more than a year. Only 1% of unemployed older workers said they are very optimistic that they will find a job in the near future, while 30% said they were very pessimistic.

9. Robert Half Management Resources surveyed over 1,400 chief financial officers in U.S. companies with more than 20 employees and found that 50% reported that they believe it’s more challenging to be a leader in today’s business environment compared to five years ago (31% said significantly more challenging, 4% said somewhat or less; and 14% didn’t report much difference).

10. According to two recent surveys by Office Max, 46% of employees reported that have trouble deciding what they should throw away at work; 59% admitted they hide office supplies from co-workers and 56% confessed to taking supplies home for personal use.

11. According to findings released by United Health-care and VolunteerMatch in April 2010, 75% of those who volunteered through work said they felt better about their employers because of their direct involvement with volunteer activities. And 21% said they would not have volunteered if it wasn’t for their company’s encouragement. In fact, 41% of the 4,582 U.S. employees survey said they volunteered in the past year and one quarter of them said they did so through work.

12. The recession has been an equal opportunity stressor for both men and women although financial strains for women seem to have increased relative to their male counterparts. The American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” survey last year revealed that women reported less work but more financial stress than their male counterparts (73 percent of men reported money as a significant stressor, compared with 79 percent of women). Women also reported an increase in stress compared to men over the last five years (49 percent of women versus 39 percent of men).

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess”
Oscar Wilde

At most things in life I’m pretty average—in other things I’m pretty deeply developmentally delayed and won’t ever catch up (e.g., driving, reading a map, dancing, house painting).  

Maybe to achieve happiness and success it’s desirable to cultivate skills and abilities that are somewhere between excesses and deficiencies.  Some new research actually exists to support this premise.

Achievement Striving and Job Performance

Compared to talent who are low in achievement striving (conscientiousness in the “Big Five”) high flyers tend to be more motivated to perform well on the job and more likely to achieve higher performance due to their goal setting, drive, careful planning and persistence to move through obstacles and challenges.  But, after a certain point, high achievers become pretty rigid, frozen to make decisions, inflexible, and almost compulsive perfectionists.  Too much achievement orientation might result in  paying too much attention to the small stuff, overlooking bigger goals and having rigidity might actually interfere with ongoing professional development.

It appears that there is indeed a threshold level of conscientiousness that once crossed, actually interferes with high performance¹.  In a new study exploring the association between achievement striving and performance it appears that for higher level complexity jobs (engineer, scientist) more is indeed better compared to low complexity jobs.  Indeed, a curvilinear relationship was found between conscientiousness and performance for low complexity jobs where deliberate, cautious, diligent and rigid attributes of high flyers leads to people to waste time influencing both speed and accuracy.  

These findings support a U-shaped relationship—high achievement will initially lead to better performance but the relationship will become weaker and then eventually disappear after it reaches a certain point and this relationship depends on just how complex the job is.  One implication of this finding is that for more routine roles where innovation and intellectual thinking isn’t critical it might be a mistake to hire those on “potential” and drive alone.  In fact, they might do fail in these roles but really shine in more complex positions.

Stress and Job Performance

On the surface, it would appear that the ability to manage emotions, remain calm under pressure and experience less negative states like anxiety would always be desirable.  Researchers have for a long time predicted an “inverted U-shape curve” between stress and performance (Yerkes-Dodson law) but perhaps this curvilinear relationship can explain the modest correlations seen between emotional stability and job performance in the literature.

As emotion (e.g., anxiety) rises, people tend to focus more and concentrate but at higher levels it may interfere with critical thinking, judgment and decision making.  Again, an optimal level of concentration is required to perform well but might be wasted and no longer be helpful.  In a study by Le et al., 2011, the researchers again found a curvilinear relationship between emotional stability, job performance and organizational citizenship behavior.  This research tends to support the notion that there is an optimal midrange level (threshold) of personality and job performance.

Optimism, Self-Efficacy/Self-Esteem

Believing that things will turn out positively and that one gets results based on effort and confidence sounds like it’s a formula for success and productivity. However, new research supports the idea that an “optimal level of optimism” is  desirable because at high levels it would appear that optimism encourages riskier behaviors and expectations that are difficult to meet².

According to research, sometimes quitting may actually be better for your health. Psychologist’s Gregory Miller and Carsten Wroshch have found that people who are able to feel comfortable quitting when faced with unattainable goals even when they were optimistic they could complete them may actually have better mental and physical health than those who persevere and push themselves to succeed³.

This study was based on their previous research which found that those persistent individuals in the face of uncontrollable goals actually experienced higher levels of an inflammatory protein called C-reactive protein (an indicator of stress) as well as increased cortisol. Contrary to what we might have been taught, it appears that it might be in our best interests to “cut our losses” in the face of unattainable goals and life challenges and actually disengage from the goal to ensure optimum well-being and potentially long-term health.

Happiness/Life Satisfaction

The happier one is in life the more successful they are right?  Not necessarily.  Longitudinal studies from UK, Germany and Australia sugges that life satisfaction actually has an inverted-U-shaped relationship with income 5 to 15 years later⁴. In fact, people with the highest levels of happiness achieved lower education and engaged in less political participation that those who were moderately satisfied in life.

Angus Deaton, an economist at the Center for Health and Well-being at Princeton Deaton and Daniel Kahneman reviewed surveys of 450,000 Americans conducted in 2008 and 2009 for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that included questions on people’s day-to-day happiness and their overall life satisfaction.  Happiness got better as income rose but the effect leveled out at $75,000 but their overall life satisfaction continued to rise as their earnings grew beyond that point⁵.

So, it appears that the “inverted-U-curve” is a pretty prevalent phenomenon in psychology and life and helps to answer just how much or too little is needed to be healthy, happy and successful in life.

I’m sure like all Blogs, there is also an inverted-U-curve about length and attention so off to get my guide dog puppy Rocco out for a training walk…Be well….

1. Le, H. et al., (2011).  Too much of a good thing: Curvilinear relationships between personality traits and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96-113-133
2. Grant, A. & Schwartz, B. (2011).  Too much of a good thing: The challenge and opportunity of the inverted U.  Perspectives in Psychological Science, 6, 61-76
3. Miller, G. & Wrosch, C. (2007). You’ve Gotta Know When to Fold ‘Em: Goal Disengagement and Systemic Inflammation in Adolescence. Psychological Science, 18, 773-777
4. Oishi, S., Diener, E. & Lucas (2007).  The optimum level of well-being: Can people be too happy?  Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 346-360
5. Kahneman, D. & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. PNAS, 107, 16489-16493

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. 

Aaron Levenstein

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?
1. A recent survey by Global One found that 89% of 1,043 Americans say that work/life balance is a problem and 31% reporting that the recession has upended balance affecting their lives.

2. A September 2010 CareerBuilder survey reported that 75% of U.S. workers are living paycheck to paycheck and 21% have reduced their 401(k) contributions or personal savings in the year (4,498 full-time employees).

3. A recent survey of 600 HR and recruiting professionals by Jobvite revealed that 73% of these individuals used social networks or media in recruiting in 2010.  They most used channels were: LinkedIn (78%), Facebook (25%), and Twitter (45%).  Overall, 46% planned to spend more on social networking in 2011 and 38% said they were going to use less third-party recruiters.

4. In a recent report, Global Firms in 2020: The Next Decade of Change for Organizations and Workers, 67% of the 479 senior executives agreed that they need to maintain a leaner organization using outsourcing rather than hiriing full time staff over the next 10 years. 

5. ManPower’s 2010 Talent Shortage survey found that employers in six of the world’s 10 biggest economies ranked skilled trades as their number 1 or 2 hiring challenge in 2011 (skill trades can not be geographically fixed and can’t be outsources or relocated off shore).  Examples included electricians, welders, plumbers, and carpenters.

6. According to Compdata’s Executive Compensation 2010/2011 survey, slightly more than 77% of organizations offered perks to their CEOs in 2010, down from 89.8% in 2009.  The most common perks included supplemental life insurance (31.7%), company cars (30.7%) and club memberships (26.1%).

7. According to Sibson Consulting’s 2009 Rewards of Work Study of 542 companies, 44% of 2,000 employees surveyed are not committed to perform on their jobs even though they know what to do.  No mention was made of those slackers who didn’t know what to do.

8. A recent study by Mercer found that although 70% of companies in the US are interested in increasing diversity of their workforce, 70% don’t have a clear strategy for developing female leaders, 43% don’t offer any programs aimed at women leaders, and only 19% track progress of female leaders.  The biggest obstacles for women seeking advancement were lack of an executive sponsor (43%), insufficient experience (36%) and work/life balance challenges (31%).

9. The 2010 National Survey of Employer Sponsored Health Plans (Mercer) indicated that the average cost of total health benefit cost per employee in the US rose 6.9% to $9,562.00 which is the biggest increase since 2004.

10. According to an international survey by LexisNexis of 1,700 white-collar workers (e.g., Australia, US, China, South Africa, UK) found that 62% of all workers report that the quality of their work suffers because they can’t sort through the information they need fast enough and 91% of US workers report deleting or discarding work information without even reading it.  Finally, 90% of US workers say they need to search for old e-mails at least once a week to find the right information they need to get their work done resulting in a large waste of time.

11. The 2010 Global Workforce Study (Towers Watson) asked more than 20,000 full-time employees from around the world “How much would receiving each of the following influence your decision to leave your current organization?”  The top five answers included: 1) Increase in pay; 2) Greater job security; 3) Pension; 4) Improved work/life balance; and 5) Better health benefits.

12. The American Psychological Association’s 2010 Stress in America Survey found that 44% of US respondents reported moderate to high levels of stress with the leading causes including: 1) Money (76%), 2) Work (70%), 3) Economy (65%), 4) Family responsibilities (58%), 5) Relationships (55%), 6) Personal health (52%), 7) Housing costs (52%), Job stability (49%), 9) Health problems of family members (47%), and 10) Personal safety (31%).  The most common physical symptoms of stress included: Irritability/anger (45%), fatigue (41%), Lack of interest/motivation (38%), Anxiety ((36%), headache (36%), and feeling sad/depressed (34%).

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. 

Aaron Levenstein

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you  think?
1. Research from George Washington University suggests that the annual cost of being obese is $4,879.00 for a woman and $2,646.00 for a man adding such things as sick days, lost productivity and even the need for extra gasoline.  Two-thirds of American workers (and all Americans) are either overweight or obese.  Large women earn less than slim ones but wages don’t differ for obese men.  The yearly loss in productivity and health costs due to obesity among full time US employees is $73 billion (Journal of Occupational Environmental Medicine).

2. The Boston Consulting Group in 2010 asked HR executives about measures taken during the recession and whether they will be continued.  The 2010 rankings included: 1) Improving leadership development; 2) Managing talent; 3) Enhancing employee engagement; 4) Measuring workforce performance; 5) Improving performance management and rewards.  Managing work/life balance was rated number 4 in 2008 but slipped to #16 in the latest survey.  Guess it’s back to work for talent now that losing their jobs might be slightly less of an issue.

3. A new survey by Kelton Research on 584 working Americans foundthat 56% of employed workers reported beyond compensation that being appreciated would be enough to keep them from moving to another company. The survey also revealed that 53% don’t understand how their role contributes to the company objectives and 68% report they haven’t received useful feedback from their supervisors.

4. A Bluepoint survey of of 200 CEOs revealed that “creativity” was the number one leadership quality that CEOs said they were seeking in those managing others.  The CEOs also reported that they preferred internal experiences and developmental activities to external training (52% versus 27%).

5. When asked if it is HR professionals’ responsibility to regulate the food and beverages available to employees to encourage better eating at work, only 36 percent of 570 HR professionals said yes, according to a July 2010 poll by the Society for Human Resource Management. In January 2010, the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine published a study on pricing and availability intervention in vending machines at four bus garages. The researchers found that increasing the availability of healthful items by 50 percent and reducing their prices an average of 31 percent led to sales increases of 10 percent to 42 percent.

6. In another SHRM poll of 598 randomly selected HR professionals conducted in July 2010 on healthy food polices found: 1) Organizations in the Midwest (49 percent) were more likely than organizations in the West (29 percent) to have an informal or formal policy or practice promoting healthy food and drinks in the workplace; 2) Employers with 500 or more employees were more likely to offer healthy food and beverage options in workplace cafeterias than employers with fewer employees; and 3) Multinational operations were more likely to offer healthier vending machine options, provide point-of-purchase nutritional content on cafeteria menus, and offer healthier food and beverage options in the cafeteria than U.S. based-only organizations

7. A nationwide survey by Hewitt Associates of more than 1,450 large U.S companies shows that base salaries rose 2.4% in 2010 (higher than the 1.8% workers saw in 2009).  Estimates for 2011 are higher with respondents’ projecting increases of 2.9% or higher for nonexempt workers and executives.

8. Sibson Consulting surveyed nearly 2,000 workers in late 2009 and found that 52% were “engaged” compared to 47% in 2007.  About 27% reported being “disengaged” and 17% were labeled as “renegades” (those who know what to do but who do not want to do it). 

9. A survey by Glassdoor.com on 2,418 adult workers in diverse industries in the second quarter of 2010 indicated that 27% of all employees said that their job satisfaction had worsened compared to a year earlier.

10. A survey by Reuters-Ispos of 12,000 people in 24 countries revealed that nearly 10% overall reported harassment at work.  More than one quarter in India reported they had been sexually harassed by a supervisor followed by China (18%) and Saudi Arabia (16%).  Employees in Sweden and France reported the lowest levels of harassment at 3% (approximately 5% for Belgium, Germany, Poland the the UK with 8% of the respondents in the U.S. being a victim of harassment).

11. According to research from executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles and Stanford University, over 50% of US and Canadian companies could not name a successor in their organization’s chief executive officer. The research on 140 CEOs nd directors at large and mid-cap companies found that 39% of the respondents have no viable internal candidates, only 50% have any written documentation detailing skills required for the next CEO, only 19% have well established benchmarks to measure internal candidate skills and only 50% of companies provide onboarding or transition support for newly named CEOs.  Additionally, boards spend only 2 hours a year on average discussion CEO succession planning.

12. Research from Boston Consulting Group and the World Federation of People Management Associations in their Creating People Advantage 2010 Report found that 60% of high performing companies filled top executive positions internally compared to 13% of low performing companies.  It seems as if the development of internal leadership talent pools might be a critical success factor for organizations.

13. There is a 50% drop in risk of developing memory problems among older adults who walk 6 to 9 miles (10 to 15 km) a week according to a new study in Neurology 2010.  Maybe leaders should all walk to their next meetings.

 Back to research some new talent  development facts….Be well….

“Statistics are like bikinis.  What they  reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal  is vital.”

Aaron Levenstein

Another addition of leadership and talent  management “facts” from all over the world.   Some intuitive and some not….what do you  think?

1. The 2010 SHRM Employee Job Satisfaction Survey revealed that job satisfaction among  older employees remained about the same  through the recession but 19% of those  workers in both the Millennial generation and  Generation X reported being dissatisfied  compared to only 11% for both groups in 2008.   It should be fun figuring out how to engage  younger talent today given that only 28% of  organizations have plans to hire 2010  graduates compared to 52% in 2007.

2. In a 2010 survey by Workscape, 65% of  employers polled reported that they were  considering pay increases to increase  retention while 46% will consider increasing  or improving benefits.  Only 10% of  organizations actually cut pay in 2009 but  39% froze pay increases and compensation.

3.  Data from 24,436 IBM employees in 75  countries explored the point at which 25% of  talent reported the work got in the way of  family and personal life.  For those working  on a regular office schedule, the breaking  point came in at 38 hours per week.  But,  given a flexible schedule and telecommuting  employees worked 57 hours per week before  they reported work/life balance conflict.  It  appeared that telecommuting was only  beneficial for reducing work/life inbalance  when flextime was also available.

4. A recent 2010 Newsweek pool asked leaders  to rank attributes in talent in order of  importance.  Of 9 character traits, “looks“  came in third below experience (No.1) and  confidence (No. 2) but above where a  candidate went to school (No. 4).  Economist  Daniel Hamermesh’s research confirms that  over a career, a good-looking man will make some $250,000.00 more than his least- attractive counterpart.

5. Fifty seven percent of corporate managers  asked by a different Newsweek poll of 202 corporate HR hiring managers said landing a  job is much harder for unattractive  candidates. About 60% of overweight women and  men reported they have experienced employment  discrimination and 50% of the hiring managers  encouraged candidates to spend as much money  on their looks as on their resumes  http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/19/poll-how- much-is-beauty-worth-at-work.html

6. In a 2010 SHRM survey of 819 professionals  (Organizations Response to Health Care  Reform), 64% of companies reported they were  “highly likely” or “Likely” to pass along  increased health care coverage costs to  employees in 2011 (23% were unsure and only  12% were “unlikely” or “highly unlikely”).

7. In the 2010 Employee Job Satisfaction Survey (SHRM) of 606 members, the top contributors to job satisfaction for employees  included: job security (1), benefits (2),  opportunity to use skills/abilities (3)  the  work itself (4) tying with organizational job  security and pay (5).

8. The average number of people who  supervisors trade gossip with is 7.4 compared  to only 3.9 that non-supervisors trade gossip  with (Joe Labianca, University of Kentucky).   Positive gossip at work is actually more  prevalent than negative according to his  research (72% of those analyzed found a blend  of positive and negative, 21% were  predominantly positive and 7% were  predominantly negative).

9.  A recent Catalyst study on mentoring  reported that 83% of women were as likely to get mentoring compared to men but 72% of the  women studies do not believe that mentoring  provides the same benefits as their male counterparts.  Men had a higher number of  executives who served as actual mentors  relative to women (78% versus 69%) and only  11% of males had female mentors versus women  (36% had female mentors).   www.catalyst.org/publication/413/mentoring- sponsorship.

10.  A 2010 pool conducted by the Kessler  Foundation and National Organization on  Disabilities found that among all working age  people with disabilities only 21% said they were  employed full or part time compared with 59%  of working age people without. Among those  with disabilities described themselves as  unemployed, 73% reported their disability was  the cause.

11. The excellent 2010 Zogby/Workplace  Bullying Institute study showed that although 34.5% of respondents had experienced workplace bullying at some point in their  career, fewer than 9% were currently  experiencing it — a drop from the nearly 13%  who reported be bullied in 2007.

12. The staffing firm Randstad has created an  index of employee satisfaction and other  work-related attitudes and behavior across 26  countries. While Japan, according to it, has  the lowest satisfaction, with only 41% of its  workers calling themselves either very  satisfied or satisfied with their employer,  Denmark tops the charts at 83%. (Note that  there is other research that shows the Danes  are the happiest people in the world.) US  workers, while not as satisfied as their near  neighbors the Canadians (78%) still came in  at 70%. Worldwide, some 68% of employees are  satisfied with their employer

13. A survey late in 2010 by the Conference  Board  found that only 45% of American  workers were satisfied with their jobs. That  marked a record low in the 22 years the  Conference Board has been asking (contrast  it with 49% in 2008 and 61% in 1987.) Only  51% of all talent were satisfied with their  bosses (down from 55% in 2008 and 60% in  1987).

Back to research some new talent development  facts….Be well….

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“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Albert Einstein

Which of the following below are most important to you with respect to your career?

• Getting ahead
• Getting to do new things regulary so you aren’t bored
• Getting to do the things you truly love
• Getting to take risks and become your own boss

These four primary drivers seem to correspond to how some of us are able to follow our career path preferences in life whether it is leading others, managing diverse projects, specializing and practicing our craft or being entrepreneurial. To be successful in any of these career paths requires careful attention to how you “play the game” typically called “politics” with others.

No doubt, some of us are better at playing this game of “politics” then others. It appears helpful to craft our social and emotional intelligence skills as evidenced by some recent research by Witt and colleagues. In 5 of 7 independent samples of employees, those high in dependability/achievement striving (conscientiousness) who were also low in interpersonal awareness and skills received significantly lower overall ratings of job performance compared to those high in agreeableness.¹.

At the end of the day, employers, colleagues and clients classify all of us into four basic groups based on what we accomplish and how we go about accomplishing things. Each of these groups are viewed in unique ways and create impressions that are in need of being managed if we hope to be successful in our careers. Here are some proven political strategies and tips to successfully manage your career:

1. High Performing Psychos
2. Low Performing Psychos
3. Lovable High Performers
4. Lovable Low Performers

HIGH PERFORMING PSYCHOS

HOW YOU ARE EXPERIENCED BY OTHERS:

It’s great you are able to bring in large sums of money, close deals, save lives, and convince juries that your client isn’t guilty but have you read what’s written about you in the bathroom walls? Basically, everyone will respect your intellect, track record and high performance but would taser you each time you came within striking distance if they could.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR IMAGE POLITICALLY:

1. Start by regulating your amygdala, the small “emotional brake” in your brain whenever you are annoyed, impatient, stressed or frustrated with others to avoid shouting, yelling, screaming, bullying or belittling others.

2. Apologize for being a “putz” to others from time to time. Explain your typically arrogant and demeaning style as being developmentally delayed in emotional intelligence and that you are trying to catch up. This strategy will at least add a small withdrawal from your narcissistic bank account.

3. Tell your boss what a wonderful job they are doing. This will remind them how important you are to making him/her look good in the organization.

4. Give credit to anyone else you work with. Those that deserve it will be shocked and those who do not will wonder when you started taking oxytocin.

LOW PERFORMING PSYCHOS

HOW YOU ARE EXPERIENCED BY OTHERS:

You are the most likely to be “voted off the island” by those in charge and very little will be written about you in the bathroom wall.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR IMAGE POLITICALLY:

1. Start a home business.

2. Use social networks to establish as many professional connections as possible as you are likely to need it to find another job.

3. Look for a common enemy within the organization–a “loafer”, someone disgruntled with management or someone recently fired and establish a club to focus on this “enemy”.

4. Esablish a solid relationship with the human resources department and seek career coaching while explaining how challenging it is being actively engaged working for the type of leader you report to.

5. Try to “out live” your current boss or see # 4 above.

LOVABLE HIGH PERFORMERS

HOW YOU ARE EXPERIENCED BY OTHERS:

People actually listen to your ideas and recommendations and most people will follow you to the bathroom.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR IMAGE POLITICALLY:

1. Work your peers as they hold the key to any future ambitions you might have to move up in the organization.

2. Identify and spend more time with other employees and leaders that are followed into the bathroom.

3. Describe to your boss how a future role, task or assignment would really “engage” you and watch to see how quickly they try to develop a “stretch assignment” for you.

4. Dress for success–watch how those “voted off the island” dress and find out where they shopped so you can make sure not to fall into the same image trap they did.

LOVABLE LOW PERFORMERS

HOW YOU ARE EXPERIENCED BY OTHERS:

You will be able to “hold court” with senior leaders and other employees who will join you in the bathroom.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR IMAGE POLITICALLY:

1. Ask for a coach. Everyone does and you are likely to have your request accepted by senior management.

2. Tell as many stories about home, health and family problems as you can create. This will engender sympathy and explain your lack of performance, skills or abilities for a long time.

3. Look to join teams and groups that are largely made of of low performing psychos. You will “rock” in these situations.

4. Avoid bosses who are serious about performance management. They will make your life miserable but will tell you about every affair they have ever had, their own vulnerabilities and fears and who they secretly want to screw over.

So, no more whining about how unfair it not to be recognized, promoted and valued. These proven political secrets are guaranteed to extend and promote your career whether you want to move ahead in your organization, start and grow your own business or become a recognized guru within your profession.

Well as they say, “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending”….Be well…..

1. Witt, L., Burke, L., Barrick, M. & Mount, M. (2002). The interactive effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness on job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 164-169

“There are some people who, if they don’t already know, you can’t tell ‘em.”
 
Yogi Berra

Current EI Issues and Controversies

Anyone confused about what emotional intelligence really is, how to define it and how to measure it? 

You should be.  No doubt this list is incomplete but here are a few issues that have been hotly debated in both the academic and practitioner circles in the last few years:

• Confusion about an accepted definition of emotional intelligence
• Confusion about the relationships between other closely related concepts such as emotional health, interpersonal skill, social intelligence and emotional competency
• Unsupported claims about the power and predictive ability of emotional intelligence for job performance, career success, and business related outcomes
• Diverse and somewhat weak measures of the constructs underlying emotional intelligence models
• Overlap of many emotional intelligence measures with well established personality constructs (e.g., five factor personality models)

The Cascading Model of EI

Current research by Joseph and Newman suggests a “cascading” nature of emotional intelligence and emotional and social competence¹.

At the most basic level, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is typically defined as the ability to perceive, understand and manage your emotions and behavior as well as others effectively.  Although there is much controversy about different definitions models of EI, these three core elements seem to be most widely recognized as a way to define EI.

1. Emotion Perception:  This fundamental process is most strongly associated with the five factor personality construct of “conscientiousness“.  People who are organized, planned, detail oriented and diligent seem to most competent to pick up clues about the feelings and behaviors of others as well as themselves.

2. Emotion Understanding: Cognitive ability(general intelligence) appears to be most strongly associated with the ability to understand and label thoghts and feelings.

3. Emotion Management: The five factor personality construct of “emotional stability” appears to be most strongly associated with resilience, coping with emotions and managing strong feelings that might interfere with social interactions (e.g., practicing “sign language” when you get cut off while driving on the freeway).  This in one reason that topics such as stress management, repression, relaxation and coping sometimes seems to be part of the “kitchen sink” of how EI is often described (and measured).

This “cascading model” doesn’t appear to emphasize as much of the social skills that Goleman and others have focused on in recent popular works but can be easily accounted for by conceptualizing the diverse models of EI into “emotional and social competence “as Cherniss (2010) suggests².

Current Issues and Controversies With Diverse EI Measures

It seems as if just about every vendor now has some type of EI assessment.  Our own “mixed measure” of ESC called Emotional Intelligence View 360 based on the Goleman construct has some strengths and limitations as all measures.  Some of the issues in EI measurement include:

Ability Measures

• Independent of FFM
• Weak convergent validity with other cognitive ability measures
• Scoring issues
• Confounded with a measure of knowledge

Self-Report (Mixed) Measures of EI and ESC

• High correlations with five factor personality measures
• Limitations of 360-feedback (e.g., inflated self-ratings, moderate correlations between and within rater groups)
• Limitations of self-report (how do you measure EI in people who lack emotional intelligence?)
• Tend to ignore context, situation and setting (EI is not  a useful predictor of performance in jobs that don’t have high emotional labor or are socially demanding)

The field is young and controversey is actually good to help clarify the various definitions, models and measures of both EI and ESC.

In any case what seems to be true is that  it’s not how smart you  are but how you are smart that seems to make the most difference in work/life success and even health….Be well….

1. Joseph, D. & Newman, D. (2010).  Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 54-78
2. Cherniss, C. (2010). Emotional Intelligence: Towards Clarification of a Concept. Industrial and Organizational Psychology,3, 110-126