The Boston Globe has released their annual list of Top Places to Work and we are thrilled to see PI Worldwide Predictive Index® client Bright Horizons Family Solutions honored as the #1 Large Employer for the second year in a row.

According to the Globe, “Bright Horizons employees cited an engaging environment that promotes individuality and flexibility, which has created a deep loyalty among the company’s 19,000 workers.”

The article notes that in an industry that typically sees about 50% turnover, Bright Horizons has less than 20%. Undoubtedly, the company’s high retention can be attributed to its focus and care for their most valuable asset—their people. From a management consulting perspective, having a leader at the top who understands the importance of knowing what drives and motivates employees to come to work everyday can make it possible for any organization to become a top place to work. At Bright Horizons, Chief Executive Dave Lissy echoes this sentiment, telling the Globe he believes “he can get more out of people when they feel inspired and engaged.”

Lissy continues: “It allows people, when they pull into the parking lot, to not leave behind half of who they are…[I]f employees don’t feel they can be themselves at work, you as an employer aren’t getting the full contribution of that person. ”

Congratulations to Bright Horizons Family Solutions for their recognition as a Top Place to Work for the second year in a row!

Whether you are the CEO, COO, CFO or any other manager how often and how close do you come to meeting your annual objectives?

A great majority of executives (64% of a recent Booze & Company Inc. survey) say that their biggest frustration is "having too many conflicting priorities." followed by these executive challenges:

          (a) Ensuring that day-to-day decisions are in line with the strategy (56%)

          (b) Allocating resources in a way that really supports the strategy (56%)

The Harvard Business Review estimates the ROI from traditional planning approaches is 34% or less.

The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that organizations realize just 60% of the potential value of their strategies.

Kaplan and Norton research suggest that 90% of organizations fail to successfully implement their strategies.

If strategic planning is as important to success as business experts’ claim, why aren’t they being done?  Or is the better question why are the strategic plans that are put together not working? 

Factors to Correct

While the above statistics suggest a disconnect between the ideal and the reality, strategic plans can be vastly improved by understanding the discipline of the planning process.  This and stretching the process further into the operations layer where execution takes place can increase success. Failure to execute on strategy has several root causes, which include:

      • Failure to challenge underlying assumptions (critical evaluation)

      • Poor prioritization or taking on too many initiatives

      • Lack of detail planning to support goal achievement

      • Poor communication and coordination

      • Strategy and culture misalignment

      • Strategy and operations misaligned (including disconnected budgeting)

      • Plan goals lacking accountability

      • Not having the right people in place who can and will execute

     • Not inviting lower-level stakeholders

     • Lack of risk identification & mitigation strategies

Given the opportunity to better leverage the art and science of strategic planning, why would leadership not endeavor to understand strategic planning and unlock the competitive advantages it can bring them?

Quite often it is seen as a waste of time.  The leadership team schedules a “retreat” and immediately Brainstorm Island rises from the depths of freedom from the restraints of a hectic office.  Lots of great ideas are generated; lists and plans are laboriously captured on flip charts, a plan is born and everyone feels refreshed, inspired and can’t wait to get back to office to get started.

The reality of Brainstorm Island is as soon as everyone gets back to the office all the good ideas and initiatives begin the slow death of drowning in day-to-day demands of corporate life.  It becomes clear too many goals were set, not enough detailed planning was created, and the right people are lacking to make it possible, so on and so on.  Before long the notebook gets shelved and operations go back to the way they were. 

It doesn’t take but a few of these failures to get everyone beginning to believe strategic planning is a waste of time or something consultants made up to create jobs for themselves.  Any further attempt at strategic planning are viewed with suspect. 

But strategic planning does work.  It just takes practice, a method and yes, sometimes a consultant to get the ball rolling in the right direction.  For starters, begin with one or two objectives –the fundamental issues that will keep your business alive and thriving.

 At a minimum, for strategic planning to yield competitive advantage, it must address three key questions:

1. "What do we do?"
2. "Who are our customers?"
3. "How do we, or can we, do what we do better than our competitors?"

All other discussions directly revolve around those three answers.

Certtainly it goes without saying that you cannot swallow an  entire elephant in one gigantic bite.   Start with an issue that can have the greatest impact on your organization’s overall success, such as talent management.

As Cass Wheeler (past President of the American Heart Association) said “you cannot underestimate the importance of surrounding yourself with the best people.”

And Martin Davis, author of Take No Prisoners: A No-Holds Barred Approach to Corporate Excellence says in his book, “the difference between a company operating at sub-optimal and optimal is the people".

Wouldn’t it make sense to start there – with the people on your teams?  First, know what you are looking for and second, know when you have found it.

Predictive Index™ is a talent assessment tool that has been around since the 1950s.  We can help get you started.

Cindy Mallard | July 31, 2011

How productive would you be with that amount of disorganization and risk? How would you feel after being verbally chastized when you failed? Believe it or not, some people would relish the opportunity. Not only that, it would satisfy primary needs they have for risk, independence, urgency, and influence to name a few. The disorganized environment wouldn’t bother them because they their ability to function isn’t based on keeping things organized. Rather, it’s based on their need to accomplish and assert themselves in a broad and uninhibited way. We call them entrepreneurs.

So I contend the fallacy that underlies this entire discussion and hence the reason for it is the traditional paradigm of most businesses. It’s a paradigm that is exclusively predicated upon hiring based on the needs of the company. When is the last time any one in this discussion based a hiring decision on what the needs of the individual in question where? Well, why would you? You don’t work for the individual. You work for the company you’re hiring for.

Although most understand that happy employees are productive employees, employees that aren’t often involved in conflict, and employees that have a significant positive impact on the bottom line, it is not understood by most, nor is the effort given to understand what makes people happy. It is simple! It is the satisfaction of their behavioral needs.

Unfortunately, there has not yet been enough exposure to this “radical” concept within the business world. This concept of employees who are happy are also productive is often generalized as “what works for one will work for all”, as well as undoubtedly the most detrimental “the paycheck should suffice”. However, this distorted perception couldn’t be further from the truth and the companies that view their people as their most monetarily invested resource so critical to their success are coming around to this realization.

The data presented by psychometric assessments, if used properly, tell an employer what the specific behavioral needs (a.k.a. motivations) of the individual are relative……AND THIS IS KEY…….relative to “The Job They Are Hiring For”. In other words, will the primary demands of the job satisfy and work harmoniously with the primary behavioral needs of the individual in question?

If the individual’s behavioral needs, as identified by the assessment, are in line with the primary demands of the job, as identified by a separate assessment taken by the company, the individual is called for an interview. The interviewer now has the ability to further investigate via questions centered on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual identified by comparing the two aforementioned assessments. If the applicant’s behavioral pattern does not fit the outlined job pattern then the applicant is not called for an interview.

Using the assessment by itself as part of the hiring process without knowing the objective criteria with respect to what a particular job and its environment demands is grossly insufficient. I suspect the results of doing so is more than likely a very large contributor to the distorted perceptions many in this discussion have with respect to the overwhelming amount of benefits these assessments offer companies.

As we venture forth in this highly competitive age of economic globalization and emergence of new economies it has become so critical that companies not only have the highly validated data on their most important assets and resources but also, that they know how to use it.

Brian Boswell
PI Consultant

"Psychometric testing has been proven to work better than interviews alone. This is particularly useful for as this means there is less emphasis on the skill of the interviewer, who may not be a recruitment specialist. The reporting suite offered by psychometric testers is generally jargon free. The practical information allows an individuals strengths and development can be seen at a glance."

Complete article

(1) thinks things through before they make a decision,

(2) puts together a plan,

(3) when a problem arises looks for creative ways to solve their problems or overcome their obstacles,

(4) reachs out for help along the way because they know that no one accomplishes anything great alone!

Mark LeBlanc

Jacksonville, FL: The 49th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona is now in the history books and Brumos Racing's highly anticipated GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series GT debut didn't disappoint their fans. In keeping with Brumos tradition, the team fought back through serious setbacks to deliver a top five finish, establishing themselves as serious championship contenders for 2011. Starting the race in 9th position, the Brumos #59 Porsche 911 GT3 led the race in class for 79 laps, as all four Brumos drivers took their turn in the lead. The Daytona endurance classic played out under picture-perfect Florida weather to record crowds, including a large number of Brumos friends and family who turned out for the 29th Brumos Boosters Brigade.

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The report stated that "one in seven hospitalized Medicare patients is harmed during their stay.   About 1.5% of those patients, about 15,000 people a month, suffer a complication that contributed to their death..."  The report goes on to suggest that on average over  40% of adverse events are preventable based on a one month study of 134,000 Medicare patients during October 2008. 

This is serious folks... and expensive!  Not only in terms of hard costs, but loss in patient and family confidence, scrunity from outside agencies,  and a typical managerial reaction that pushes down hard on the levels below creating stress and fear in the work environment. 

There are several things you can do if you aren't already:

1. Make safety a top priority. Make it part of compensation packages, annual reviews and bonuses.  If it's not on your scorecard, add it.
2. Create policies and procedures that work.  Ask for input at the front line level ensuring buy-in and a feeling of appreciation for your staff.
3. Improve communication between all levels.  As a leader, if the people aren't following you, it's your fault, not theirs.
4. Reassign, or remove, employees within the organization that do not follow processes and procedures that demand safe practices.  Sometimes you have to force turnover.
5. Hire people that will consistently follow the rules and do the right things.
6. Make sure you have the right person in the right job.
7. Develop managers who can effectivley interact and communicate with employees. 

We know that when you hire the right people, they do the right things - like complying to rules.  We also know that employees don't quit managers, they quit companies.   When you get these two things right, many company objectives fall easily into place.

Running an optimal organization takes more than hiring the right people, it takes people who know how to communicate and motivate them to do their best day in and day out.  When workers feel treated with respect, fairness and understanding, they tend to stick longer with the organization and perform at higher levels.  You can do the math on that one.

What are you doing to ensure you are hiring the right people?   If you are still relying solely on interviews, background checks and experience you are already way behind the curve.  If you haven't consider adding a behavior assessment, like Predictive Index®, you should.  Not only will it make your hiring faster and easier, it provides a tool that your administrators, directors of nursing and other key staff can use to help them be better managers.  

I encourage you to take proactive steps now before more regulations are forced on you by our well-meaning bureaucrats.