IN THIS ISSUE:

Talent Audits: How to Hire and Inspire. Whether we’re talking insurance salespeople or business execs, a talent audit is a worthwhile investment in your employees. Read article

Frog Pond: Reflections from a Values-Based Organization. Using DISC with a Team. Customer service woes become an opportunity for team members to learn about their aptitudes. Read article

What’s Out There. The Starfish and the Spider. Discover the unstoppable power of organizations without a leader and centralized control. Read article

The Culinary Coach. Eggplant with Balsamic Vinaigrette. A simple but delicious recipe featuring this royal purple vegetable. Read recipe

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Talent Audits: How to Hire and Inspire
By Jennifer Dawson

There once was a company that sold insurance. Turnover in the sales team was upwards of 45%, with many employees leaving prior to reaching maximum proficiency. There was a growing awareness among management that the people being hired for the job weren’t a good fit. And the company wanted to become an employer of choice in their city.

Enter the talent audit, a remarkable tool that is used to develop job profiles, hire the right people and improve the existing workforce.

The principle is simple. Discover what you’ve got. Determine what you need. And develop a plan to get from the ‘got’ to the ‘need’. As with so much of organizational development, however, simple principles can become a complex and unwieldy process without the right support and guidance.

Using a validated assessment tool and a skilled facilitator, the insurance company developed a job profile for the sales position, compared the profile to their existing team of employees and developed a hiring process to find candidates who fit the profile. The results were impressive: turnover was cut in half, employees felt valued and were more productive, and the money that was saved in hiring and training new employees (a cool $2.8 million) was available for ongoing training, team building and celebrations.

Executive coaches who are certified to administer appropriate psychological assessments are very well-suited to facilitate a talent audit. A questionnaire provides information, but it is the interpretation of the information and the ensuing discussion that will result in an accurate job profile. How does the profile generated by the assessment compare to top performers in the organization? What areas of the profile would be considered priority in hiring and training? How can the profile be used to create a development program for existing employees? What process will help ensure candidates who best fit the profile are hired? Since no hire will be ‘perfect’, how can the organization compensate for the specific ways a new employee may not fit with existing culture or job requirements?

Sage Portfolio Group coaches can facilitate this process so that generic job profile information is customized and incorporated into hiring and training initiatives, whether it is for sales reps, middle management or the leadership team. To discuss a talent audit, call Melanie Parish at 800-592-2303 or email info@sageportfoliogroup.com.

 

Using DISC with a Team
By Melanie Parish

DISC is a personality profiling system that takes its name from four personality attributes: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. DISC can be used in development and training, to elevate communication, to raise self-awareness and increase team cohesiveness.

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a company whose product requires considerable collaboration with clients. The product is beautiful, and it really fills a niche. Unfortunately, the company also has a problem. Clients are repeatedly unhappy with the customer service they receive. Essentially, clients have a low perceived value for the product they are purchasing because their experience of the process is not optimal.

I worked with the production team to really hear what was happening and suggested we use the DISC system to bring clarity to the situation. I chose DISC in this case because the team seemed to be aligned and functioning well; it was their interaction with the customer that was problematic. Each team member filled out a DISC profile. We followed this with some training about the tool and then the profiles were shared with fellow team members. We discovered the person with the lowest natural aptitude for connecting with people (lowest on the ‘I’, or ‘influence’, scale) was the client’s primary client contact—the project coordinator. This explained the clients’ perception of poor customer service.

After taking some time to digest and understand each others’ profiles, this team rolled up their sleeves and came up with some solutions. Their solutions seemed to fit two categories: 1. Coach the coordinator on some of the behaviors that create higher connection with the client and 2. Have the other team members who had more customer service-oriented profiles (high ‘I’ profiles) connect more directly with the client.

This team was able to address a serious issue with no blaming or finger pointing. They were able to find solutions that were both specific and comprehensive and they were able to begin implementing the solutions immediately because there was universal buy-in from the team. The coordinator didn’t have to be defensive; he was a valued part of the team and was a part of the solution.

What about your team? Are you hitting the Hi C? Do the Hi I’s strut their stuff for great results? To find out how the DISC assessment can work for your team, call Melanie Parish at 800-592-2303 to schedule a complimentary consultation, or email info@sageportfoliogroup.com.

Frog Pond: Reflections from a values-based organizationis a monthly column that explores our development as a company, with particular emphasis on how we express, honour, model and grapple with our organizational values. The title for the column comes from the last, but perhaps most profound, of the five values upon which Sage Portfolio Group has been built. We call it “frog pond”. Sitting beside the frog pond at Sage Portfolio Group’s head office in Dundas, Ontario on a warm summer evening with a glass of wine and meal made from locally grown organic produce has taught us to value local roots and global consciousness, quiet contemplation and sharing with others, dreaming big and common sense. Articles written for this column take the abstract principles of Sage Portfolio Group’s “frog pond” value and make them both real and useful. Dip your toe to test the water … or dive right in!

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
By Jennifer Dawson

What do Napster, Alcoholics Anonymous, Wikipedia, the Apaches, Skype, the abolitionist movement in Britain, the Animal Liberation Front, and al Qaeda all have in common? According to Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, authors of The Starfish and the Spider, they are all examples of “starfish” organizations: open, decentralized systems that achieve globe-changing outcomes, all without a front-and-centre call-the-shots leader. A starfish doesn’t have a head. Cut off its leg and it grows another. And sometimes a second starfish grows from the severed limb. This is in stark contrast to the “spider” organization: a coercive, closed, top-down system that dies when its (figurative) head is chopped off.

Brafman and Beckstrom propose that, with the advent of the Internet, starfish organizations have incredible capacity to engage individuals on a planet-wide scale, sometimes at a great cost to large, multinational spider companies. They propose a vision for a new, “hybrid” organization that blends the democratic, decentralized, community-minded spirit of the starfish organization with the structure, control and profitability of a spider.

What's Out There is a monthly column highlighting thought leaders and trail blazers in the business world today -- people, organizations or subjects that push boundaries, break down barriers or build bridges in novel or unexpected ways.

 

Fresh Eggplant with Balsamic Vinaigrette

I have always loved the look of eggplant; when else do we get to eat a purple vegetable? Lured in by its shiny skin and intriguing shape, I used to bring an eggplant home from the market, admire it from afar, and eventually throw it away because I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Then I discovered this recipe, which has become my favourite way to eat eggplant (even though by now I’ve discovered babaghanouge and other eggplant-based recipes!) This is a delicious accompaniment to grilled chicken or seafood.

Ingredients:                       

Extra virgin olive oil
1 medium or 2 small organic eggplants, sliced & quartered
1 clove garlic, minced
1 white onion, chopped
8 organic mushrooms, quartered
2 tbsp high quality balsamic vinegar           

Preparation time:                        About 25 minutes

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat until it is quite hot. Olive oil has a lower “flash point”--or temperature at which it will burn—than some other vegetable oils, so you don’t want it to be too hot for long. Add the eggplant. Let the slices cook well on one side and then stir them so they can cook awhile on the other side. When the eggplant is lightly browned on both sides, add the onion and garlic. Cover and cook for 15 minutes or until the eggplant is soft and fully cooked. Add the vinegar and stir. Add the mushrooms and cover again. Serve when the mushrooms are done. 

The Culinary Coach is Melanie Parish, founder and CEO of Sage Portfolio Group. Good food is about culture, community, family, physiology and fun. Each month we share one of Melanie's tried-and-true recipes, or some of her kitchen wisdom, in celebration of the power of food to strengthen, nurture and inspire. Cheers!

This month's contributors:

Melanie Parish, CPCC, PCC, is an accomplished speaker; executive and team coach; entrepreneur; and is the founder of Sage Portfolio Group. She has a 20 year background in sales, marketing and business development. Melanie regularly works with business owners who want to create incredible, profitable businesses. She has been a coach since 1999. Melanie is certified through the International Coach Federation and The Coaches Training Institute.

Jennifer Dawson is a cultural anthropologist, researcher and writer for Sage Portfolio Group.

About The Leading Edge:
The Leading Edge is published monthly by Sage Portfolio Group and written for a readership that includes coaching clients, human resource professionals, business leaders, fellow coaches and the occasional aspiring gourmand. Our goal is to offer a combination of wisdom and wit--sourced from our own in-house experts and other respected leaders in the field--in an easy-to-access e-zine format. A hard copy version is published bi-annually. We welcome editorial questions, comments and story ideas; please direct these to the editor, Jennifer Dawson, at jen (at) sageportfoliogroup.com. If you find value in the articles we invite you to pass them on to a friend with the recommendation to sign up directly for The Leading Edge at www.sageportfoliogroup.com. Articles from The Leading Edge can be reproduced in an in-house publication provided that Sage Portfolio Group is credited for the article.