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Menu:
Updates:
April 2010:
Expert Insights - Creating a Team-Building Culture
March 2010:
Executive Briefing
February 2010:
Join other leaders who are maximising business performance
September 2009:
JobFit Assessments
August 2009:
Managing Human Capital in Unprecedented Times
June 2009:
Is your Organisation "Best-In-Class"?
May 2009:
Now is the time to Review your Screening & Selection Processes
March 2009:
Candidate Screening & Downsizing - How to make it effective!
January 2009:
All Managers can be Great Coaches
December 2008:
Study proves that Managers rarely understand the Success Factors of their employee
November 2008:
Perhaps if I starve the patient
that will make them stronger
October 2008:
Developing Courageous Leaders
September 2008:
Low Cost Employee Perks that won't punish your bottom line
August 2008:
Lessons of the Square Watermelon
Lessons of the Square Watermelon
Maybe this story about square watermelons will make you challenge the way you currently recruit and performance manage your people!
If nothing else you will be asking yourself:
"Is there a better way?"
How ingrained "culture" can limit success!
The parable of the classic experiment conducted in the 1970s demonstrates the power a culture exerts on its individual members that they may be unaware of.
Experimenters placed four monkeys in a cage. In the middle of the cage, metal steps led up to a bunch of bananas hanging from the roof. As the monkeys walked up the steps, a very strong, cold jet of water hit them, keeping them from reaching the bananas.
After two days the monkeys stopped bothering to walk up the stairs - they developed the attitude that it wasn't okay to grab the bananas.
The researchers then removed the water sprayer, took one monkey out of the cage and put in a new one - one that hadn't had the water hit him before. The new monkey saw the bananas and started up the stairs. But the other monkeys pulled him down - fearing that he would be hit by the blast of water.
Pretty soon the new monkey didn't bother to go for the bananas; he didn't enjoy being pulled off the ladder.
Over the next few weeks, the researchers removed all of the original monkeys one by one, replacing them with monkeys who had never seen a jet of water. But the same thing kept happening - the monkeys in the cage would always pull the new one down before he could grab the bananas.
In the end, not a single monkey in the cage had ever seen a jet of water, but none tried to climb up the stairs - following the clear unwritten rule that:
"you don't grab the bananas around here!!"
If nothing else these two stories should make us all question and challenge the processes and "givens" that can dominate the work environment.
There is no doubt that everyone understands the importance of their people if they are to achieve the highest organisational success and most, if not all, would agree that the best computers and the most efficient processes are worth very little if the people who are required to use them are under-performers.
Why is it then that so many managers and business owners only pay lip-service to improving their people capital when the rewards are so high?
The answer, I believe, is quite simple:
1. Most managers do not have the BELIEF that people are the most important asset in their business and they rarely ask themselves "is there a better way" to select, retain, manage and coach.
2. Most managers do not allocate the TIME to coach and performance manage their direct reports and therefore do not ask themselves "is there a better way" to increase individual and team performance.
3. Most managers do not ask themselves "is there a better way" to spend the MONEY that is allocated to improving the performance and productivity of their people. Let alone the organisations that allocate minimal resources to improving the performance and productivity of their most important asset, even though there is a far greater ROI benefit than that derived from process improvement.
If you would like to explore how Profiles International can provide you with a better way to select, retain, manage, coach and develop your most important asset, please email or alternatively call us on (02) 9936 9000.