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THE
PERFORMANCE EDGE - FEBRUARY 2010 - www.calipercanada.com |
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Hiring
Innovation
is the buzz word in the board room - find out how hiring can
transform an idea into reality. You’ve got a team to
hire |
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and
limited resources? Patty Houle, Director Small Business
Strategies at Sun Life, reveals her strategy. And client
advisor Michael Dunn reveals what NHL draft best practices can
tell us about hiring a top performer. |
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Profile
of an Innovator
Many
traits can lead to innovativeness, but no one needs all of
them. There's one quality, though, that should never go
missing.
Innovation is the word that's been on everyone's lips for
years. In a world of constant change, the ability to change
ahead of the competition has become the most prized quality in
business. The urgency of the call for innovation has only
increased with the recession, and has not abated with the
easing of economic conditions. When it comes to putting
innovation into action, though, it's proven an elusive
quality.
One thing for sure everyone has to agree on, though:
innovation is carried out by people. And that applies to more
people than ever before, because there is a push to extend
innovation, once the province of white coated scientists in R&D, throughout the entire organization. |
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So it makes sense that if you want to have innovation
throughout your organization, one thing you have to do is
identify and hire innovative people. Is there any one trait
that defines innovativeness?
One of the reasons innovation has proven elusive is that it's
often hard to define. Innovation means many things to many
people. Some see it as incremental improvement; others as a
giant leap in an entirely different direction, radical
innovation.
This makes it a little difficult to decide on the
characteristics you need in a person who will prove innovative
for your organization. Or combination of people, because
innovation is a team sport. Someone who's creative,
collaborative, a good communicator and trouble shooter, risk
taker - the list goes on. And what about the implementers of
innovation?
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Obviously,
these are things all organizations have to strategize, to
decide where they want innovation to take them. And to set up
structures and channels that encourage and enable the people
who will pursue these goals. Given this imperative, let's
return to the question we asked above: is there any one
quality that an innovative company should look for in hiring
and developing people?
In
fact, there are many traits that can contribute to being
innovative, and they don't all have to be present in each
individual. There is one quality, though, that's universally
required for any of the others to be able to function for
innovativeness. It's also the one that's essential to have in
a difficult economy.
That
quality is resilience. It's the bounce-back capacity that
needs to underlie all the other desirable traits that go into
innovativeness.
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"How
they handle failure is the best illustration of whether or not
they're an innovative thinker."
- Susan Docherty
General Motors US sales, service, and marketing team leader |
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Whether
the employee is a Thomas Edison style R&D person or a
customer service person testing out a radical new approach to
customers, with innovation comes inevitable failures. An
organization dedicated to innovation will make sure these
failures are managed, but the nature of trying new things is
that, big or small, some of them are bound to fail.
The
question is, will the employee shake off the setback, and come
back even more determined to succeed? Or will she start to
play it safe, curtailing open expression of her views or her
work on a new process. Even worse, will she be so shaken by a
failure that it affects her confidence in carrying out even
established processes?
Susan
Docherty, head of the US sales, service, and marketing team at
General Motors, is always looking for innovative potential in
candidates she interviews. "One of the first questions I
ask is, 'Can you describe a decision that you made, or a
situation that you were involved in that was a failure?' And I don't need to know how they got to the failure. But I
need to know what they did about it. How they handled that is
the best illustration of whether or not they're an innovative
thinker and are comfortable taking some risk."
Given
that resilience is a key factor in innovativeness, the next
question is, can resilience be developed in people or is it
innate? As with all human traits, the answer is a qualified
both. Some people are naturally resilient, but circumstances,
training, and influence can enhance this quality to some
degree.
What
makes sense is to establish a culture that supports the
development of resilience, but at the same time, to find a
tool, such as the Caliper Profile, to identify naturally
resilient candidates for hiring. The bonus in emphasizing
hiring in building an environment of resilience is that the
forward-looking attitude of people who are naturally resilient
will permeate the culture and act as a positive influence on
those less inclined to respond well to setbacks.
Having
resilient people in your camp has another bonus, one that goes
beyond their potential to innovate. At the Toronto launch for
Caliper's bestselling Succeed On Your Own Terms, someone asked
a question. Which of the twelve success factors outlined in
the book is the most important?
The
answer - resilience.
After
all, what's the purpose of innovation, anyway? Success, of
course.
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Client
Perspective: Patty Houle - Director Small Business Strategies
at Sun Life Financial
Working
in Sun Life Financial's Group Retirement Savings division,
Patty Houle is responsible for a new initiative focused on the
small business market. She explains how, with limited startup
resources, she met the challenge of finding talent that wasn't
priced out of the market.
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Caliper:
What has been your biggest hiring challenge at Sun Life?
Patty Houle:
As a new business with cost constraints, we didn't necessarily
want a junior sales person with no industry knowledge. On the
other hand, we were willing to consider candidates in the
industry that had experience in administration or operations
and were interested in moving into the sales arena. We needed
to know if these individuals had what it takes to succeed in
sales - the talent, intuition and skills.
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Caliper:
How did Caliper Canada help you?
Patty Houle:
Actually, when it comes to Caliper, I wasn't the easiest
person to convince initially - not until I did my own Profile
and [Caliper Client Advisor] Michael Dunn interpreted it.
There are all kinds of assessments out there, but without
accurate interpretation there's no value to them. Michael was
95% accurate on who I was. That made it real for me, and
provided evidence that this was a tool I could trust to back
up my choices and decisions in the selection process.
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"There
are all kinds of assessments out there, but without
accurate interpretation there's no value to them. The
Caliper Advisor was 95% accurate on who I am."
- Patty Houle
Director Small Business Strategies
Sun Life Financial |
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To answer your
question, Caliper helped us identify the traits needed to
succeed in a sales role in our division. After narrowing the
field of candidates down to our final choices, we got them to
take the Caliper Profile assessment. Once the results had been
analyzed and interpreted I sat down with Michael and reviewed
all of the candidates' Profile results.
This turned out
to be a very valuable exercise from a leadership standpoint.
Michael alerted me to some behavioural tendencies that I would
have learned about over a period of time. But with the Caliper
results I was able to become aware of these early on and
change how I managed the sales executives at an individual
level. This made me a better leader and enabled the sales
executives to perform at a higher level.
The Profile
results were shared with each candidate. As well, they were
given the opportunity to meet with Michael for an individual
review, which made them aware of areas of opportunity for
growth. Caliper made it possible for us to jointly set
personal and professional goals with our new people. And that
way, we were able to create an engaged team of sales
executives.
Caliper:
What is your hiring philosophy?
Patty Houle:
Finding someone with the skills to do the job is important, of
course. But passion is critical. You need individuals that
love the industry and the role. This enthusiasm comes through
- they're energetic, someone you want to be around. If we are
going to be successful, this is imperative.
In selling, you
need to align and reframe people's thinking to see the
opportunity in the service you have to offer. Passion and
excitement go a long way toward this. I also look for passion
in partnerships, which is one of the reasons I'm working with
Caliper - they have passion and an understanding of people.
Caliper:
What do you see as a top priority in hiring for your
organization?
Patty Houle: A
top priority for any company is putting the right personality
in the right role. If you don't do that, you are constantly
changing your team, which impacts the dynamics, your client
relationships and, ultimately, your budgets and targets.
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Michael
Dunn
Caliper Client Advisor |
Caliper
Canada Client Advisor Michael Dunn grew up cheering for Les
Canadiens, but now he's happy to help a variety of NHL, NBA
and MLB teams make winning draft choices - in either official
language. He shares what he's learned about the similarities
between the draft pick process of a successful sports
franchise and best corporate hiring practices of Caliper's
clients.
Client
Question: We do a lot of team work. How can we make sure our
new hire will fit in with the existing team?
I think the
first thing you should examine is whether you need a team.
As great as it
is to bring an "A" player on board, if they don't
fit in with your team dynamics it can wreak havoc and
significantly impact momentum. In working with many NHL
franchises, as well as our corporate clients at Caliper, I've
seen they both need teamwork to succeed - most of the time.
While
most organizations talk about teamwork, the best don't leave effective teamwork to chance.
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While most organizations talk about teamwork, the best sports
franchises and companies don't leave effective teamwork to
chance. Every one that I can think of takes the time to
articulate their organization's goals, strategy, structure and
culture and consider these elements along with the attributes
of their new hire. They also put significant time and effort
into on-boarding new team members.
For example, one
of the most winning franchises in NHL history has a dedicated
person who helps integrate new players and their families into
the team, the city and the franchise. Management go well
beyond identifying the player's talent. They also learn about
his character traits and motivations and work with the player
to ensure that they are leveraged to their potential with his
teammates.
The results of a
player's Caliper Profile provide a base of objective feedback
that helps management gain a more accurate understanding of
their player. They know that without a strong fit to the team,
their top draft pick's potential may never be realized.
Part of
realizing potential, however, requires an understanding of
what you need for success. Sometimes, team has nothing to do
with it. Recently, we worked with a commercial real estate
firm who had a desire to differentiate its offerings in what
is clearly a highly competitive, but homogeneous industry.
They wanted to
take their "team" to new heights, but on examining
their Caliper data, I quickly discovered that they did not
have a "team" to begin with! Not unlike their
competitors, they built their firm client by client, employing
disciplined business development tactics. They were largely
staffed with "alpha" males who measured their
success by how many deals they closed and, of course, the size
of their commission cheques.
In sports
vernacular, they were playing golf or tennis. They were a
"group" of individual contributors, not a team.
Several years earlier the leadership had begun to move the
game to a team sport like hockey or basketball, where each
player takes on a role to contribute to the greater success.
In this case, it was a complex basket of services that
surround the traditional deal making service.
While they
designed fantastic offerings for their clients, they failed to
recognize that they would require team synergy vs. individual
contributor effort to make a success of their new strategy.
The group of very similar individuals with similar jobs were
not cut out for team play.
Actually, it
became apparent that their prior success as a sales
organization came in part from hiring people who needed to be
the superstar even over the bodies of their own company peers.
This reinforced for me the importance of understanding team
fit, and whether team fit is necessary for success in every
case, especially when you come across that next superstar!
If you'd like
further insight on making the right hire, talk to me or your
Caliper Client Advisor. We're here to help you maximize your
people potential.
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For
more information on Caliper's Solutions:
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www.calipercanada.com
110
Sheppard Avenue East, Suite 620
Toronto,
ON M2N 6Y8
Canada
Toll
Free 1-888-701-0069
Fax.
416-640-5527
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Andrew Case
Managing Director
acase@calipercanada.com
Phone: 416.640.5550 ext. 223
Cell: 416.999.4132
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Jason M. Kipps, H.B.E.S.
Talent R.O.I. Specialist
jkipps@calipercanada.com
Phone: 416.640.5550 ext. 7
Cell: 416.938.4411
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About
Caliper: Caliper
is a global research and assessment organization with offices
in 14 countries and services available in 17 languages. For
over 45 years, Caliper has assessed the potential and
motivation of more than two million individuals and advised
28,000 organizations worldwide. |
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