Newsletter: From a psychological perspective...

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From a psychological perspective...

Contents
1. INTELLIGENCE
What should you look for when you assess intelligence? It might be broader in “scope” than you thought.
2. Craigslist generation
A new generation of young people are joining your organization. Can you keep them?
3. NLP Update
“Sell with NLP!”, the bestselling book on applying NLP to sales is now available as a video of a live workshop.
4. Selection ratio
It may take 100 applicants to find one good one. Stay patient.

Everyone wants to know a candidate’s intelligence.
...Is “intelligence” enough?
Some people are very smart. They talk well, and they do well on intelligence tests and tests of analytical thinking. But when assessing a candidate for a supervisor, manager, or executive role, looking for “traditional” intelligence is not enough. The successful candidate also must demonstrate judgment and scope.

Judgment is the ability to set and maintain the right priorities in the right context. This is typically assessed by asking about past decisions and by carefully looking at the thinking processes involved in past decisions.

A recent candidate for a senior manufacturing management position was asked to explain, when taking his most recent job, how he had decided what needed his attention first and how he began the process of change. His answer, “I just looked for ways to cut costs and make more profits. That’s all.” He did not explain how he made his decisions or set his priorities. He was a firefighter and only responded to obvious crises.

Intelligence also includes people judgment. By asking about past projects, how others were involved, people hired and fired, and performance issues that were handled in the past, it is possible to assess how well a candidate exercises sound people judgment.

People judgment includes the ability to build and maintain relationships. A successful candidate must demonstrate empathy and the ability to understand and respect the needs of others. All of this is part of “intelligence” assessment.

Success in a leadership role also depends on cognitive scope.

What is “scope?”

Cognitive scope is a concept introduced many years ago by Elliot Jaques. Scope refers to how a person handles information complexity. But instead of expressing it in terms of the kind of processing a person uses (assertive, cumulative, serial, or parallel), it can be expressed in terms of the time span or scope that matches the person’s style of processing. The greater a person’s ability to handle information complexity, the greater his/her ability to think ahead and work with more complex problems. This is critical, because different jobs in an organization require the ability to work with issues that may span six months or several years, depending on the job.

As complexity of thinking grows, a person moves through major thinking changes that reflect scope increases. That is, an individual significantly changes how far into the future s/he can think and anticipate. The ability to use concepts and to see multiple possibilities expands a person’s scope level. The same is true for the complexity of a job in any organization. As jobs become more complex and managerial, different time orientations (scope) are required. A supervisor is not asked to do strategic planning, and a CEO must look beyond next year’s budget.

As Jaques’ research discovered, the scope of a person’s thinking and the time-span demands of jobs in an organization fit the same pattern. The discreet levels of human thinking AND the time orientations needed at different levels of responsibility within an organization are the same. The levels of scope and typical corresponding jobs are as follows:
      One day (production workers)
      Three months (supervisor)
      One year (unit manager)
      Two years (general manager)
      Five years (President)
      Ten years +(Chairman)

Therefore, when looking at a manager candidate, it is important to estimate the scope of the job and then determine if the scope of the candidate is a good match to the job in question. Listen to what s/he says and how the future is seen. Can s/he plan and anticipate interactions of concepts and multiple possible outcomes? Are answers concrete and limited or fluid and conceptual? What is the longest scope of a project the candidate has successfully led? How did s/he determine the anticipated length of the assignment at the start? What possibilities were considered?

In addition, by knowing an individual’s scope and age, it is possible, according to Jaques, to predict how fast an individual’s scope may grow and, therefore, predict when an individual is apt to be ready for a greater managerial level of responsibility.

A $70 million family-owned business asked Dr. Lakin to assess the children of the two brothers who were running the company. The hope was to develop a succession plan that would enable the brothers to exit the company in the short term. An assessment of the children determined that, while very talented, their individual scope levels would not develop to desired levels for senior management for at least 3-5 years. Therefore, the brothers should not plan to disappear for at least that timeframe. New transition plans were developed and are successfully being implemented today.

In addition, a manager or executive with a scope level higher than his/her subordinates must learn how to “chunk down” when communicating concepts and visions to make them meaningful to the audience. In other words, a five-year plan must be explained in terms of a three-month perspective of an audience of supervisors who are apt to have a three-month scope. Otherwise, the words sound fine but there will be little recognition of how the supervisor’s role will fit into that vision. “Sounds like a great idea, boss, but what does that have to do with me? I’m just trying to get the widgets over to Shipping by the 18th of the month.” Often a failure of an individual to appear engaged or committed to an idea may be simply due to a failure by the manager to have explained the idea in a way that can resonate with that individual and match his/her scope of thinking.

One last implication: The bottom scope of thinking is ONE DAY! Not one hour or one morning but one full day. Regardless of education or experience, a normal working adult can think about a goal for a day. Within that day, dozens of decisions and judgments must be made by that individual.

With that in mind:
    How many of your frontline workers (office, production, and field) know their goal for the day?
    How much training have your frontline workers been given in how to make those decisions and judgments that they face each day and that have a profound impact on the results of any given day?
    How clear are one-year and two-year plans to frontline workers who think in terms of one day? Can they relate to the plan, or is it someone else’s problem?

A worker in a corrugated box factory has a daily production goal. But during the course of the day, setup delays, machine stalls, lack of raw materials and other interruptions leave him with nothing to do from time to time. Should he sweep the area? Empty the trash bin? Restock binding wire? Get more pallets? Let someone know he smells something hot? Clean up a wet spot that could cause someone to slip? Check the last few boxes for quality? How does he decide what is most important and what will have the biggest impact on his daily production goal?

If the shortest scope of thinking is one day, a plant could experience significant change if:

1.Every worker knew his/her goal for the day (This is likely to be very different from hourly productivity measures.)
2.Every worker has been trained to make good decisions in support of the day goal. This means that critical decision points have been identified, and people have been trained. These goals could be production related or safety-related.
3.Every worker’s boss has a scope level one step above the work team and can translate longer-term objectives and goals into goals and visions that make sense to someone with a one-day scope.

Scope, judgment, people judgment, and analytical skills are part of “intelligence” and need to be included in what you look for in any assessment of an individual’s fit to a position in an organization. In addition, the implications of scope go beyond hiring or development and raise key questions about organization design and personnel training.

Are you going to keep them?
Craigslist Generation

The new generation of employees are different from past generations in many ways. One example is the way the young people use the Internet. You all know that recruiting has significantly changed in the last ten years. Instead of running ads in newspapers, you increasingly run ads in Monster, CareerBuilder and Craigslist. Today’s young workers do not look at newspapers or traditional job postings. They go to the Internet.

But we recently discovered that many of these young people do NOT take their names and resumes off these lists when they begin to work for you. As a result, they are constantly being offered new opportunities. They get called every week. They leave their names on because they like to” see what is out there” or “stay in touch with what is happening”, as some have told us.

This has two important implications:

1.You must begin to ask yourself, “What factors within my organization might push a young employee out of my company?”
2.What are you doing to prevent other companies from drawing your young employees away from your organization?

Today, young employees are going to want a clear picture of their opportunities in the future. Even though they have not demonstrated their ability to add value, they want to talk about promotion opportunities. In addition, the new generation seems more determined to have roles that allow more autonomy, even if the breadth of the role is somewhat limited.

Also, expectations are often unrealistic due to a lack of work experience. New employees need a lot of mentoring and coaching in the early days of employment to help them adjust to the reality of working in an organization. “What do you mean I have to show up on time and I can’t wear my Marley t-shirt?” Because they have grown up being told that doing their best is good enough while getting praised for everything from potty training to getting a C+ in Today’s Television 101, they have a high need for recognition and a feeling of being appreciated. They want their input to be appreciated, even when they have little to no experience.
The new work generation is not bad or wrong. Just different. We must learn to adjust, because Craigslist is going to be calling. You need to help your young employees have a reason to hang up on that call.

Quote for the day “Psychology is a science…except when it is an art.”

The Unfair Advantage: Sell with NLP!
NLP Update

The video version of the workshop, “Sell with NLP!” is now available for $99 from Lakin Associates and will soon be available through Amazon. Dr. Lakin’s book is still the top selling book on the application of NLP to sales, and the audio version of the book is also selling well.

If you have an association or professional group that would like an introduction to NLP, please give us a call and see if our program might be something they want. Also, consider offering a workshop for your sales people AND your distributors’ or customers’ sales people. An NLP workshop would be a great “thank-you” to your strategic partners.

Be patient
Heard in the Field

A sales manager recently told us he screened 100 people to find two strong candidates. This ratio is similar to what Dr. Gates experienced in her years with CNW. Good people are employed and not the first to respond to ads. Perseverance is necessary to find good candidates. Do not settle.


Reminder
Our business depends on referrals. If you see someone who may want help in doing a better job of hiring managers and sales people, please tell them about Lakin Associates. Thanks. (If you'd like a "referral guide", please click HERE for a .pdf file.)


October, 2006

Lakin Associates
Wheaton, Illinois
630-871-2996
800-541-2818

Last modified: October 20, 2006
Copyright©2006 Lakin Associates
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