This is Part 2 of the Talent Integration Series

In the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) hears a voice as he walks through his cornfield – “if you build it, he will come”. Over the years it has since become part of our lexicon of misused quotes and has morphed into phrases like – if you build it they will come.

We see this kind of thinking seep into talent integration – if you hire them (or promote them) they will contribute. Well, to use another well known phrase – “not exactly”. Why would we honestly believe that hiring or promoting a person into a new job will result in immediate success? The hiring retention success rate is dismal, with some studies reporting a rate lower than 50%. Without knowing the job requirements, what needs to be done, what skills, behaviors and attitudes are required for success, you might as well spend your money on a trip to Las Vegas to roll the dice. The chance of winning is about the same – or maybe slightly better in Vegas, and likely you will have more fun.

The standard ingredients for selecting candidates are: your application and /or resume, the interview and references. And these tell you only what the candidate wants you to know.  (Good creative writing and strong impression management skills do not necessarily equal the most suitable candidate.) Have you ever hired someone who appeared perfect for the job only to find out they did not have the ability to do the job? Costly mistake? Exactly! Let’s look deeper.

Just because someone can report experience on a resume does not mean they have the personality to do the job. For example, we saw one of our clients hire a department director who was charged with turning around an underperforming department. He appeared to be well qualified, coming from a department that recently had undergone a very successful turnaround. He was the assistant director. He failed in the new job. One of the reasons is that he was too empathetic and had a very high interpersonal sensitivity toward others. Simply, he could not make the tough people decisions. Nowhere on the resume, during the interview nor with the hand picked references did this come out.

To integrate talent well, you need to start with talent integration potential. Just as you cannot fit a square peg in a round hole, you cannot make successful a person who does not have the basic ingredients for success in the job you need done. This does not mean the person cannot be successful; it just means they cannot likely be successful in a particular job.

How do you know? Consider having all of the selected candidates take a personality-based and job performance indicator that measures a candidate’s potential for success in different business environments. Such an assessment should never be used as the sole criteria for selection. But as part of a selection set, it can be an invaluable tool to avoid hiring the wrong candidate for the job. It can also be used as a tool to coach the new employee in areas that need to be addressed to ensure a fast and effective integration into a new job. We all have derailers (personality traits that can sabotage our success). When we know them, we can deal with them. The better we deal with them, the better we perform in our new job. Everyone wins.

Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest

Blog Addition: Dear friends and colleagues, we are starting a second weekly blog post on Thursdays, called “Quick Tips”. Each week we will provide topic specific tips to help you excel. We welcome your comments.
We start today with a common challenge many of us face–stage fright. It happens to many of us when we need to speak in front of a group: whether it’s a small group of colleagues, the management team or a large audience. Most all of us at some point will need to speak or present in front of others, and to do this, most of us need to break free from our comfort zone of staying out of the limelight.
So, to help we offer you Quick Tips for Effective Speaking:
Understand that effective speaking requires a spectrum of behaviors and skills. It is not just about the ability to “talk” in front of a group – a fear in and of itself that for many ranks above death.
1. The first critical element of speaking in front of others is to be able to get your message across to the audience. This requires the ability to formulate a clear, concise and meaningful message. You need to structure and “chunk” your message.(This is the formulative part of the speaking/presentation message, and next week’s Quick Tips further address this.)
2. The second element, and often more important for getting the audience’s attention and in having a real impact with the group, are the behaviors for effective speaking. Behaviors that are often referred to as “platform skills”. Some examples include:
-starting strong with a clear introduction of yourself and your purpose in a manner that entices people to listen (congruency of your verbal message and body language)
-connecting through humor (making light of yourself is usually best). Unless you are adept at telling jokes, we encourage you not to.
-using pauses and silence to provoke thinking and emphasize your points
-using eye contact (or perceived eye contact – that is looking over the head of an audience member) with people across the room
-reinforcing and repeating your message through different points and stories
-asking individuals and the groupprovoking questions to engage them and keep the information relevant to the audience
3. Actually practice your message/presentation. At the very least, rehearse it mentally in your mind.
4. Also important is to look your best. Personal presentation skills – that is how you present yourself to the audience – is important if you want to be taken seriously. Like it or not, people make immediate decisions about your professionalism and confidence based on how you present yourself. Why not use your personal presentation to your greatest advantage.
We welcome your comments and additions.

If you honestly believe that people are assets to your organization, if you want to maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace, and if you are serious about managing costs, then talent integration (also known as onboarding) must be part of your people strategy.

Talent integration is the third leg of the three legged talent management stool, with recruiting and retention representing the other two legs. In future blogs we will address new employee (non-management) orientation and integration.

Talent integration involves working with new managers and executives (whether promoted from within or hired into the company) to transition them quickly and effectively into their new role. The key purpose of talent integration is to reduce the time for those new to their roles to become productive contributors (i.e. shorten the new job learning curve).

Talent integration involves:

- Formal transition plan to help the manager / executive integrate into the organization usually covering the first 90 days

- Formal and purposeful discussion between the new manager / executive and their immediate supervisor on how best to work with each other and to define clear expectations regarding job performance and expected results (for more information on this see our “Transitioning Middle Managers” article in the resource section of our website)

- Internal mentorship to help the new manager / executive better understand the organizational culture, the players, and “how work gets done here”

- Coaching (best done with an external/neutral executive/performance coach) – to help personally with the transition especially if new skills are needed (i.e. technical person being promoted to manager)

Clearly, talent integration done well requires frontloading in investment. But, recruiting top talent is a challenge for all organizations and the success rate is disappointing. A good hire not properly integrated into the position and the organization will lead to poor performance of the individual, which in turn often  leads to into a host of issues that impact the department or organization, such as, retention problems, morale issues, even customer service or product quality issues, then you are frequently back at the beginning-recruiting. This can and does become a vicious and expensive cycle.  We see it more than we would like. The great news is that is it correctable.

Think all this is now redundant:

While recruiting is an explicit cost, the more significant cost of not having a talent integration process is the opportunity cost created by a lack of focus and concentration on the work and the marketplace. To be competitive, attract and keep the best talent, you must treat them that way from the beginning.

Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest

Are you a business owner whose current success is keeping you from being very successful? Are you a manager who so enjoys your success that it is actually keeping you from growing your division or department? Are you no longer listening, no longer taking risks, no longer making the hard decisions? Some owners, leaders and managers talk about competition, but fail to do anything about it. Content with success, they slowly become risk averse and complacent. Good is good enough, don’t rock the boat, why mess with a good thing. We behave like the frog dropped into a pot of cold water. As the pot heats, the frog continues to swim around until the water boils and the frog is done. Change happens so slowly the frog never saw it happening.

There was a mid-sized consulting company (approximately 500 employees) in the mid-west. It successfully completed an IPO (Initial Public Offering, which was very popular in the mid 90’s). It was a very successful company – one of the top two firms in its market. At point, its market value approached a half billion dollars. What did they do with the money?

• - They bought other companies – but did not have an integration strategy
• - They leased more office space
• - They increased the number of executives (overhead)

At one point the company had close to 1500 employees, who were working in silos, sometimes at cross purposes and spending money. When the pull back in technology started in 2000, they were poorly positioned to compete. Pleased with their success, they continued doing more of the same, without looking forward and taking action based on what was on the horizon. The company was eventually sold.

How do you know if success is keeping you from being successful? Consider

• - Is your revenue growing?
• - Is it growing faster or slower than your competition? (Do you know?)
• - Is your customer base growing?
• - Is there a product or service being introduced (or anticipated) to the market that could make your product or service obsolete?
• - Are your departments (or staff) working with, against, or without the support of each other?
• - Are your best employees leaving?
• - Are you able to attract top talent? (great job candidates for your company)
• - Are you introducing new products or services into the marketplace and adjusting your offerings with the trends and forecasts?

You may say to us (or yourself) that these points are nonsense. How could a company grow in this economy? Complacency thinking. Companies are growing in this economy; businesses are maintaining market-share. It’s you choice. As Marshall Goldsmith so powerfully titled one of his popular and widely read books – “What got you hear, won’t get you there”.

Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest

Workaholism – one of those dreaded “isms”. We read about it; we hear about it; we are afraid to admit (out loud) that we may have it, and if we do, we frantically search for a cure. Certainly with our focus on helping individuals and organizations eliminate self-sabotaging behaviors, this must be high on our “ism” eradication list. Right? Well, not exactly.

Amid all of the “ism’s” today–we believe that workaholism is the least of the evils.  In fact, we believe that workaholism can be a positive trait. Think about it. How often do you hear and associate the word “workaholic” with entrepreneurs and leaders? Most entrepreneurs and leaders are passionate about their work. They have a deep commitment and drive for excellence in what they do. And they are willing to do whatever it takes (that is as long as it is moral, legal and ethical) to succeed. Most believe that lives will change for the positive because of their work. They have more than a job; they have a mission. Grandiose? Perhaps. But let’s hold that thought for a moment as we look at the flip side of workaholism.

Workaholism can result from your need for perfection. It can also be an excuse to hide from yourself or your family. How convenient – you can’t spend time with your husband, wife, family, friends or significant other because you have to work. Well if you don’t want to spend time with them – either consciously or subconsciously – workaholism is a socially acceptable excuse. In fact you get a twofer -you don’t have to spend time with them and some even feel sorry for you because you have to work so hard and so much.

We do not categorize people as workaholics if they have to put in long hours because they have more work to do then one person can reasonably do, if they have to work forced overtime, which we see too often in healthcare, or if they have an irresponsible boss who has little regard for their wellbeing.

Workaholism becomes an issue when balance in overall wellbeing is overlooked and compromised. Or when it begins to adversely affect your health and relationships that are important to you. The trick is to be keenly aware of where you are vesting your precious (and unrenewable) time and energy, and how (and that) you are rejuvenating yourself and sincerely striving to be your best.

We do not see workaholism among mediocrity.

If great joy and fulfillment come from your work, and you spend a lion’s share of time there, and if it is not damaging your health, relationships and responsibilities, how is that bad?

Copyright 2009 Kubica and LaForest