DION – Your Recruitment Partner across Industries and Functions

Re-engineering the Recruitment Process

Jane — Tue, 25 May 2021 11:07:35 +0000

The Covid-19 pandemic has upended many traditional business practices. When it comes to recruiting, the crisis has not so much disrupted as accelerated shifts in the talent landscape that were already under way, leaving many companies poorly served by their current hiring practices. In a period of steep unemployment, it might seem that companies looking to add workers would be in the driver’s seat. But job openings have also been rising in recent months, meaning that competition for top talent remains keen—and in uncertain times, bringing on the right people is more important than ever.

A recent study from research and advisory firm Gartner examines those shifts in the workforce landscape and lays out a road map for navigating the new one. The researchers identified three trends that are rendering traditional recruitment tactics obsolete.

First, the skills needed in many roles have an increasingly short shelf life, owing in part to more-frequent and disruptive technological breakthroughs. A 2019 survey of 3,500 managers found that only 29% of new hires have all the skills required for their current roles, let alone for future ones. The research finds that in key functions such as finance, IT, and sales, positions filled today will require up to 10 new skills within 18 months. It also documents rising uncertainty about what skills will be needed in current and future jobs as the surge in remote work sparks the redesign or automation of many tasks.

Second, the talent pools recruiters have routinely tapped are becoming outmoded. Highly gifted candidates can now be found outside traditional talent clusters, such as leading universities and technical colleges. More and more people are acquiring critical skills informally on the job—or even in their own basements. “Work lulls and layoffs have driven a boom in virtual learning, giving workers new autonomy in developing skills outside their day jobs,” the researchers write.

Finally, candidates are increasingly selective about whom they work for, so firms need a compelling “employment value proposition,” which might involve anything from competitive compensation and benefits to career-development opportunities and a reputation for stellar management. Talented candidates, particularly at high levels, are weighing opportunities differently. Factors such as meaningful work and proximity to family have taken on added importance during the pandemic. The freedom (often the imperative) to work remotely and to manage one’s own schedule has increased employees’ expectations that they can exert considerable control over the design of their jobs. Especially in a period of high unemployment, the researchers say, when people are reluctant to leave a secure position and take a chance on a new one, companies need to offer employee experiences that candidates truly value.

To adjust to these trends and build the workforces they need, companies should focus on two key courses of action.

Hire for potential, not experience.

The first step in adjusting to the new landscape is to stop thinking about hiring as a matter of replacing specific employees, the researchers say. When looking to fill a vacancy, too often managers simply put together a profile mirroring that of the person who has left, perhaps tacking on a few new requirements—the equivalent of saying, “I want Sally plus these three other qualifications,” the researchers write. At best, this yields candidates who are prepared for yesterday’s challenges but probably not ready for tomorrow’s.

Human resources leaders should push hiring managers to look beyond the immediate needs of their business units and consider what skills the larger organization must acquire to succeed in the future. “The first question HR asks a hiring manager shouldn’t be ‘Who do you need?’ The better question is ‘What do we need?’” says Dion Love, a vice president in Gartner’s HR practice. “HR executives are positioned to drive this conversation because they should have an understanding of long-term talent gaps at the organizational level.”

Hiring for skills presents its own challenges, of course, including designing assessments that reliably identify potential. “Employers are asking, ‘How can I test for curiosity? For learning agility?’” says Lauren Smith, also a vice president in Gartner’s HR practice. “They are scanning résumés for indicators such as success in a variety of roles and for transportable rather than industry-specific experience. It’s no longer a question of ‘Is this person credentialed?’”

When hiring managers place less emphasis on academic degrees, certifications, and formal experience, they will naturally look beyond traditional talent pools—the second course of action. Recruiters should target the “total skills market,” looking at in-house talent with adjacent skills, candidates whose skills are self-taught, and—especially with the ubiquity of remote work—people in different geographic locations. Recruiting outside high-priced talent clusters can reduce costs. It should also boost diversity, because nontraditional pools tend to contain more women and people of color than are found in the usual recruiting hot spots.

Move beyond Ping-Pong and free snacks.

It’s critical that companies understand how candidates view them, the researchers say, and if necessary, find ways to boost those perceptions. Prospective hires are scrutinizing organizations’ responses to the pandemic and looking to see how companies have helped—or failed to help—their employees find a comfortable work/life balance. In a survey of 2,800 job candidates conducted as part of the research, 65% reported halting the application process because they found some aspects of the job or the company unattractive. “The increased scrutiny and workers’ demand for more influence…make it difficult for recruiters to rely on their usual incentives,” the researchers write.

In managing their employee value propositions, organizations might take a page from the playbook of consumer goods companies. “Firms must understand candidates’ expectations” and craft positions accordingly, “in the same manner in which they tailor their products to customers,” Love says. HR departments at some leading companies hold focus groups to assess job seekers’ expectations, benchmark their offerings against those of competitors, and scour social media and job-review sites such as Glassdoor to understand how they are viewed by current, past, and potential employees.

The pandemic is challenging companies to rethink traditional ways of doing business—thus providing an opportunity to reform outdated recruiting practices. “In my conversations with clients, I’ve found that the pandemic has opened their eyes,” Love says. “The world was already transforming, but now the changes are much easier to see.”

– Read the full article on Harvard Business Review

How Midsize Companies Can Maximize Growth and Efficiency

Jane — Thu, 06 May 2021 04:27:42 +0000

A few months into 2021, middle-market companies are eager for growth and sense unique opportunities, including the chance to profit from pent-up demand and the momentum of a rebounding economy — and, for some, to take share from or acquire a weakened rival. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting U.S. economic growth at 6.4% this year; companies would be foolish not to position themselves to catch that kind of tailwind.

But how can they fund the growth they seek? Even in normal times, middle-market companies are reluctant to dilute equity and anxious about getting out over their skis by taking on debt. Today, almost half of middle-market executives say that coping with Covid-19 has made them more risk averse than before. Many drew on lines of credit last year or got federal Payroll Protection Plan support; they would prefer not to call on their banks again. But without capital, they risk missing out on a historic growth opportunity.

Many of these companies have the solution at hand but don’t know it. Data and research from the thousands of members of AchieveNEXT’s CFO Alliance show that middle-market companies can fund much of their growth through efficiency. Indeed, increasing productivity and efficiency, our 2021 Sentiment Study shows, is the number-two strategic priority for middle-market CFOs, just after growth. The trick is to make them work together, rather than have the pursuit of one handicap the other. Ours and members’ experience shows that growth and efficiency can be allies, not antagonists. Properly managed, the push for efficiency can free up capital and direct it to where it will create revenue, generate strategic growth options, and increase enterprise value.

One of our CFO Alliance members faced that challenge from their position overseeing finance for a midsize trucking company with a fleet of more than 500 tractors and upwards of 1,500 trailers. As an essential business with broad diversification of customers across industries, it grew moderately in 2020 and entered 2021 with ambitious plans, supported by strong demand. The company had enough capital, but not enough human capital thanks to a shortage of drivers — a problem which affects the whole industry and has been intensified by increased regulation and the introduction of the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. But the impact and imperative are the same: The company cannot reach its growth goals without big gains in productivity and efficiency. Every dollar lost to inefficiency is a dollar that could be used for growth.

Often, however, companies look for efficiency by cutting costs in ways that actually defund growth and leave an enterprise anemic and stressed. This member’s experience has revealed three approaches that feed efficiency and growth at the same time.

Attack all the variables in the productivity equation.

In many companies, the search for productivity growth becomes a cost-cutting exercise. But productivity is simply outputs divided by inputs. And inputs aren’t just labor inputs, but also capital equipment, inventory, technology investments, materials, and more. Looking at the complete productivity equation encourages leaders to discover opportunities to maximize outputs, as well as reduce inputs, and to get more from all their assets, not just the workforce.

One way the trucking company gets more from less is to focus on profitable customers. Marginal customers syphon off a surprisingly large amount of time, energy, and assets and deliver less to the top line. The company now separates customers into “strategic” and “transactional” groups and makes sure the former gets first call on its resources. By linking sophisticated load-planning software with its ledger of customer commitments, the company is able to ensure that customer service teams don’t inadvertently tie up capacity that could create more value if it were used for a different opportunity.

Raise your working capital game.

The cheapest capital you can get is money that’s tied up in bills you pay too soon, receivables you collect too slowly, and inventory you don’t need. Middle-market companies underestimate how much working capital they use. Data for publicly held middle-market companies reveals a four-times performance difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles in payables, receivables, and inventories. For example, a $100-million-in-revenue materials company that moves from the median to the 75th percentile would free up more than $17 million in capital every year — interest-free money to use for expansion or any other purpose.

Mismanaged working capital can starve a company. We know one company that decided to pay its bills in 25 days instead of its usual 40 as a favor to pandemic-stressed suppliers. They soon discovered that they were running out of cash. Middle-market executives often fear that they’re at the mercy of trading partners — forced to accept discounts in return for timely payment from big-company customers, for example. In fact, middle market companies have more leverage than they think, especially if they’re providing critical components or raw materials.

Understanding how these levers work may stretch the skills and knowledge of CFOs and their teams. It’s no wonder CFOs in the AchieveNEXT 2021 Sentiment Study told us that financial planning and analysis is their number-two skills gap in their departments, just after critical thinking. Global enterprises often have teams of hundreds doing this kind of analysis; in the middle market, the job might fall to the CFO and an overtaxed analyst or two. In addition, if the finance team lacks the right capabilities and tools, it can spend a significant amount of time on fixing data issues, creating reports, undertaking strategic planning, and explaining variances after the fact instead of driving real-time analytics for stronger insights and more informed business decisions.

Seize the moment to get creative about costs.

This year offers three unique cost-management opportunities. First, take a look at all the improvisation and adaptation the pandemic provoked (“pivoting,” in the jargon du jour) to see what to keep, what to toss, and what to clean up. (Does anybody know how many Zoom accounts your company has?) Sales teams chafed at pandemic travel restrictions, but many have adapted brilliantly to virtual selling and new modes of lead generation, realizing both sales gains and reduced customer acquisition costs. Among clients of Delancey Street Partners, an investment bank focused on the middle market, many CFOs are having serious discussions with sales and marketing departments to determine if these new practices can be retained or expanded in an attempt to capture a meaningful portion of these savings permanently.

Second, rethink real estate needs and act fast on what you learn. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, in the third quarter of 2020, office vacancy rates in New York were 32% higher than they had been a year before; they were 23% higher in Chicago and 12% higher in Los Angeles. Now is the time to negotiate lower rents, but, more important, it’s a chance to examine long-term real estate needs — before the market rebounds in landlords’ favor and your employees settle into a less-than-productive “old normal.”

Third, get more strategic about digitalization. Many middle-market companies are stuck in what we call “first-generation digitalization,” such as automating routine work. But there are at least two other stages. One is digital integration across functions, allowing companies to optimize operations, HR, logistics, marketing, and other systems as a whole. For example, by tying together IT stacks that once were separate, the trucking company is now able to coordinate customer commitments, load planning, and route optimization — and even buy commodity hedges on fuel costs. Optimizing the whole system generates productivity gains far above what can be attained by improving each element alone. Not long ago, tools like these were out of reach for middle-market companies; today, one out of seven middle-market CFOs see cross-functional IT integration as the biggest challenge and opportunity they face.

Even bigger productivity gains can be found by imagining how digitalization can transform your business model and balance sheet as well as your income statement — for example, by offloading assets like warehouses and fleets, IT servers, and swing production capacity.

Each of these approaches to productivity improvement can feed and fund growth more easily than mere cost cutting. They have an additional advantage: They significantly enhance enterprise value, which will put your company in a better position if you choose to fund expansion with outside capital, or if you choose to enter the M&A market as a buyer or seller. Capturing productivity gains, working capital management efficiencies, and other operational improvements are best done well in advance of approaching the capital markets. In Delancey Street Partners’ experience, clients that are able to show several quarters of enhanced profitability due to material changes in productivity, working capital efficiencies, etc., are more likely to get credit for these improvements during a sales process or capital raise. The ability to evidence two to three quarters of improvement gives potential investors and buyers confidence that these efficiencies are sustainable and not short-term practices put in place as transaction-related window dressing.

None of these things can be done in a vacuum or by functional leaders acting by themselves. Whether managing working capital, reshaping cost structures, or driving digitalization, CEOs and CFOs from middle-market enterprises must overcome misalignment among leadership, build buy-in across their organizations, and organize this effort for growth by focusing on change management. Achieving buy-in is not a one-time exercise for them, either. They must communicate to all stakeholders the growth strategy, the value drivers of change, the phases of the digital journey, and the expected outcomes. They must clearly demonstrate and communicate success through validation points along this productivity journey. The long-term and ongoing culture change activities and interventions that will come will help shape a culture that celebrates cost management and growth simultaneously.

by Nick Araco, Jr. and Steven Higgins

– Read the full article on Harvard Business Review

Get Ready for Your Next Assignment

Jane — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 06:10:55 +0000

When Bruce Wilkinson, an executive in World Vision International’s Zambia operation, learned that he was going to be promoted to regional director for southern Africa, he immediately started reading performance reviews of key staff members and talking to his peers, other national officers in the $2.6 billion organization. In doing so he uncovered a serious weakness: A host of critical positions in the region had gone unfilled for as long as 16 months, leading to lost contracts and deterioration in the programs WVI undertakes to empower poor communities. Human resources needed to step up its game.

But Wilkinson also saw that his appointment offered an opportunity—to both fix broken functions, such as HR, and create new ones, such as quality assurance, that could improve his region’s performance. He developed a plan of action that would involve laying off the top two tiers of managers—about 20 people—and asking them to reapply for their jobs. “You want the elements of your vision to take shape before you start,” Wilkinson explains. “In my case, I was redefining the role of the regional office as a true service center, and managers got the message.”

Most executives know what their next project or promotion will be well before the day it starts, but too few take advantage of their insider status and the time beforehand to prepare well. That is an opportunity lost.

Your next assignment is your next chance to create results—for your organization and for your career. A smart investment of time and effort up front can make the difference between simply getting by and truly excelling, between a dead-end move and a stepping-stone to bigger and better things.

A key factor in your transition will be knowledge—not only substantive information about the project or field, but an understanding of how others inside and outside the organization have tackled similar assignments, what challenges and opportunities lie ahead, and what resources are available and how you can mobilize them to overcome obstacles. Combining insights from our ongoing study of how knowledge is best captured and shared, our experience with consulting and executive search clients, and interviews with successful leaders across different types of enterprises, this article identifies three practical steps for building your knowledge capital to excel in new roles throughout your career. We call them phase zero, learning tour, and affinity groups.

Wilkinson used all three to implement his plan, reinterviewing staff members and translating his network of former peers—the national directors—into a source of feedback. This enabled him to upgrade the HR leadership, add a director of quality, and rapidly fill open positions. Let’s look at each step in detail.

Phase Zero

This is a chance to use your insider advantage to become familiar with a new unit’s people and performance and to discern the opportunities and challenges of your assignment—before it begins or is even announced. In the weeks leading up to the assignment, carve out and hold sacred at least 30 minutes a day to prepare. You may find ways to increase effectiveness, reduce costs, or even reassess a business model. In phase zero you can identify problems and develop a hypothesis for how to solve them—as Wilkinson did in southern Africa. And your solutions can be tested and adjusted as you move into your new role.

Among the likeliest places to look for objective data in this step are company documents—such as performance reviews and reports on services and operations—and feedback from customers and suppliers. For qualitative input, turn to colleagues who have supervised the role, interacted with it, or previously filled a similar role. Push to understand the story behind the story—for example, ask “What challenges might I encounter that aren’t apparent from the description of the assignment?” Finding these people and getting the information you need, without fanfare, will help you understand expectations and possibilities, think through a plan of action, and prepare personally for the transition.

Consider the experience of Todd Hoddick, who in early 2011 became vice president of the North American entertainment division of Barco, a global visual solutions company based in Belgium, in January 2011. Having joined the firm in 2008 as vice president of digital cinema in North America, Hoddick had developed a strong reputation for building a profitable single-business unit. In 2010 he was approached for the new position, which would add rental and staging, digital signage, home cinema, image processing, and corporate audiovisuals to his plate.

It would be a big leap. “I wanted to understand the challenges of the role I was about to assume compared with what I was already handling,” Hoddick told us. He began gathering information from a colleague then in the role who would be moving to another position, as yet unannounced. “He and I were in similar strategic meetings for the company, so I was able to ask questions about the business without seeming odd,” Hoddick said. He learned, for example, that the division had significantly streamlined the sales force while maintaining ambitious revenue targets.

His next stop was Barco’s worldwide head of sales, to whom he would be reporting. Hoddick had one pressing query: “What constitutes success, and what do you expect me to accomplish that others haven’t been able to?” The answer: “Help Barco to be the number one projection company in the world.” That clearly meant more travel and some long hours up front. So Hoddick spent time preparing his family for the change and getting their support for his additional responsibilities.

Learning Tour

Phase zero involves solitary study and under-the-radar conversations. The learning tour involves systematic dialogue with the people who can help you do your new job, including direct reports, suppliers, and customers. You’ll be testing your definitions of problems and your hypotheses for solving them, identifying leverage points, building relationships, and tapping into diverse perspectives to help you understand how to energize support and convert opposition.

Hoddick’s learning tour started with a big meeting in Austin, Texas, where he asked key salespeople what they needed to be successful. The answer was less paperwork and a specific back-office resource: a jack-of-all-trades named Carlos who had been laid off during the recent retrenchment. Hoddick told them that he would fix both problems if the reduced sales force would commit to hitting its numbers. Six months later the group was ahead of plan.

You should use your change of role as an excuse to meet with all the important stakeholders—even those you already know. But remember that your “first 90 days” will differ from those of an external hire, because both your reputation and your biases are established. We recommend two tactics for making the most of this step: Be mindful of your reputation in the organization, reinforcing your positive attributes and acknowledging where you will need help. And approach your team members and their ideas with an open mind. Ask inclusive, open-ended questions, such as “If you could make one change in this area tomorrow, what would it be?”

Gary Chapman took a learning tour in early 2011, when he was promoted from vice president of field operations to executive vice president of the national network at Communities in Schools—a $225 million nonprofit singled out by the White House as one of the most effective youth mentoring organizations in the nation. “I had two sides to my new team,” Chapman recalls. “Field operations, where I had worked before, and research and evaluation [R&E, which audits field operations]. I had a lot of work to do to understand the latter.” Right away he met with staff members to learn about their responsibilities and what motivated them. “A number of people told me there was a disconnect,” he says. Audit teams worried that field teams weren’t learning from their research, and field teams thought they weren’t getting enough feedback and felt too busy to elicit it themselves. Although Chapman came from the field, he listened to both sides as an honest broker. He decided to introduce weekly meetings between field and R&E directors in an effort to promote collaboration.

He also reached out to the four other members of CIS’s executive team and realized that he could work more closely with communications, government relations, and the development team on advocacy and fundraising. “These teams needed more information on certain groups of students so that they could make our case on the Hill, with the right data at the right time, and plug us into education dollars we hadn’t accessed in the past,” Chapman says. He encouraged his field and audit staffs to engage with those colleagues as well—in effect taking his unit on a learning tour of the organization and giving everyone a chance to participate in change with an open mind.

Affinity Groups

Chapman’s initial check-in with other leaders on the executive team led to ongoing relationships that made him part of an internal network of influencers he hadn’t been able to reach in his prior position. Finding and staying in touch with colleagues who can sharpen your thinking and connect your role to your organization’s broader mission is essential not only to getting smart but also to staying smart in your new job. Many managers tap existing peer networks to share experiences, or get assigned to a working group on a specific initiative. But too few intentionally construct and hone support networks that will help them garner the skills and fresh ideas they need to succeed.

Two mind-sets can help you get the expertise and perspectives necessary for your new role: Be open to the idea that the affinity group you’re looking for may not exist—and if it doesn’t, then create it, either formally or informally. And recognize that the right affinity group at the start of an assignment may not be the right one over time; be willing to make changes to the composition of your internal network. Rather than asking yourself “Who can help me get this done?” as you did in your learning tour, continually ask “Whose perspectives will keep me on the right footing to advance my organization’s mission, and how can I connect with those people?” Your answers may lead you to other unit heads, former leaders, or even the board.

That’s exactly the question Austin Rothbard asked when he moved from vice president of strategy and business development for bowling and billiards at the leisure equipment company Brunswick to president of its Cabo Yachts division, which makes premium boats for sport fishing. His answer—after pre-assignment preparation that included fishing trips, dealer visits, and a switch from business attire to khakis and boat shoes—was to become familiar with dealer networks and create ties to the two founders of the business, who had sold it to Brunswick and were three weeks from the end of their contractual obligations. Staying in touch with those two men was critical, because dealers had great respect for them and because they continued to be innovative and bold. “As long as I could keep the founders involved,” Rothbard says, “especially since I was limited in what I understood, we were able to build the best boat in the business.”

Rothbard also connected regularly with the chief financial officer and the vice president for HR of Cabo’s sister company, Hatteras. They gave him advice about financial and personnel decisions at Cabo. “They were extremely willing to help me understand the business and make decisions about handling challenging employees,” he says. “They helped me grow as a leader.”

In a very different enterprise—Maine Medical Center, in Portland—Peter Bates, newly promoted to chief medical officer, built an affinity group of senior administrators, including the CEO and the board, and tapped their wisdom for a project that represented a huge bet for MMC: developing a medical school to strengthen the hospital’s talent pipeline.

“I had to understand the board’s needs and interests and ground the vision in a progression of strategies that people could agree to,” Bates told us. Ultimately, the CEO and key directors became passionate advocates, and the vision resulted in a partnership with the Tufts University School of Medicine, in Boston, to build a branch campus at MMC. Bates also helped create a network of community hospitals, which provide innovative educational experiences for medical students, including up to nine months in a rural facility during the third year. Throughout, he has continued to see patients, which keeps him connected to the front line. “I still practice one day a week,” Bates said. “Others see that I’m not just a guy in a suit. I walk through the hospital and make myself accessible.”

Phase zero, learning tours, and affinity groups can help any manager prepare for the next promotion and keep learning and growing in the job. Sometimes the steps neatly follow this sequence, and sometimes they don’t. An existing affinity group may inform your approach to phase zero, for example, or an inflection point in the job may become a good excuse to take a renewed learning tour. Whatever their order, these steps are critical for role changers who want to have greater impact in their organizations—and greater success in their careers.

by Katie Smith Milway, Ann Goggins Gregory, Jenny Davis-Peccoud, and Kathleen Yazbak

From the Magazine (December 2011)

– Read the full article on Harvard Business Review

How to Play to Your Strengths

Jane — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 05:42:16 +0000

Most feedback accentuates the negative. During formal employee evaluations, discussions invariably focus on “opportunities for improvement,” even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. Informally, the sting of criticism lasts longer than the balm of praise. Multiple studies have shown that people pay keen attention to negative information. For example, when asked to recall important emotional events, people remember four negative memories for every positive one. No wonder most executives give and receive performance reviews with all the enthusiasm of a child on the way to the dentist.

Traditional, corrective feedback has its place, of course; every organization must filter out failing employees and ensure that everyone performs at an expected level of competence. Unfortunately, feedback that ferrets out flaws can lead otherwise talented managers to overinvest in shoring up or papering over their perceived weaknesses, or forcing themselves onto an ill-fitting template. Ironically, such a focus on problem areas prevents companies from reaping the best performance from its people. After all, it’s a rare baseball player who is equally good at every position. Why should a natural third baseman labor to develop his skills as a right fielder?

The alternative, as the Gallup Organization researchers Marcus Buckingham, Donald Clifton, and others have suggested, is to foster excellence in the third baseman by identifying and harnessing his unique strengths. It is a paradox of human psychology that while people remember criticism, they respond to praise. The former makes them defensive and therefore unlikely to change, while the latter produces confidence and the desire to perform better. Managers who build up their strengths can reach their highest potential. This positive approach does not pretend to ignore or deny the problems that traditional feedback mechanisms identify. Rather, it offers a separate and unique feedback experience that counterbalances negative input. It allows managers to tap into strengths they may or may not be aware of and so contribute more to their organizations.

During the past few years, we have developed a powerful tool to help people understand and leverage their individual talents. Called the Reflected Best Self (RBS) exercise, our method allows managers to develop a sense of their “personal best” in order to increase their future potential. The RBS exercise is but one example of new approaches springing from an area of research called positive organizational scholarship (POS). Just as psychologists know that people respond better to praise than to criticism, organizational behavior scholars are finding that when companies focus on positive attributes such as resilience and trust, they can reap impressive bottom-line returns. (For more on this research, see the sidebar “The Positive Organization.”) Thousands of executives, as well as tomorrow’s leaders enrolled in business schools around the world, have completed the RBS exercise.

In this article, we will walk you through the RBS exercise step-by-step and describe the insights and results it can yield. Before we proceed, however, a few caveats are in order. First, understand that the tool is not designed to stroke your ego; its purpose is to assist you in developing a plan for more effective action. (Without such a plan, you’ll keep running in place.) Second, the lessons generated from the RBS exercise can elude you if you don’t pay sincere attention to them. If you are too burdened by time pressures and job demands, you may just file the information away and forget about it. To be effective, the exercise requires commitment, diligence, and follow-through. It may even be helpful to have a coach keep you on task. Third, it’s important to conduct the RBS exercise at a different time of year than the traditional performance review so that negative feedback from traditional mechanisms doesn’t interfere with the results of the exercise.

Used correctly, the RBS exercise can help you tap into unrecognized and unexplored areas of potential. Armed with a constructive, systematic process for gathering and analyzing data about your best self, you can burnish your performance at work.

Step 1 – Identify Respondents and Ask for Feedback

The first task in the exercise is to collect feedback from a variety of people inside and outside work. By gathering input from a variety of sources—family members, past and present colleagues, friends, teachers, and so on—you can develop a much broader and richer understanding of yourself than you can from a standard performance evaluation.

As we describe the process of the Reflected Best Self exercise, we will highlight the experience of Robert Duggan (not his real name), whose self-discovery process is typical of the managers we’ve observed. Having retired from a successful career in the military at a fairly young age and earned an MBA from a top business school, Robert accepted a midlevel management position at an IT services firm. Despite strong credentials and leadership experience, Robert remained stuck in the same position year after year. His performance evaluations were generally good but not strong enough to put him on the high-potential track. Disengaged, frustrated, and disheartened, Robert grew increasingly stressed and disillusioned with his company. His workday felt more and more like an episode of Survivor.

Seeking to improve his performance, Robert enrolled in an executive education program and took the RBS exercise. As part of the exercise, Robert gathered feedback from 11 individuals from his past and present who knew him well. He selected a diverse but balanced group—his wife and two other family members, two friends from his MBA program, two colleagues from his time in the army, and four current colleagues.

Robert then asked these individuals to provide information about his strengths, accompanied by specific examples of moments when Robert used those strengths in ways that were meaningful to them, to their families or teams, or to their organizations. Many people—Robert among them—feel uncomfortable asking for exclusively positive feedback, particularly from colleagues. Accustomed to hearing about their strengths and weaknesses simultaneously, many executives imagine any positive feedback will be unrealistic, even false. Some also worry that respondents might construe the request as presumptuous or egotistical. But once managers accept that the exercise will help them improve their performance, they tend to dive in.

Within ten days, Robert received e-mail responses from all 11 people describing specific instances when he had made important contributions—including pushing for high quality under a tight deadline, being inclusive in communicating with a diverse group, and digging for critical information. The answers he received surprised him. As a military veteran and a technical person holding an MBA, Robert rarely yielded to his emotions. But in reading story after story from his respondents, Robert found himself deeply moved—as if he were listening to appreciative speeches at a party thrown in his honor. The stories were also surprisingly convincing. He had more strengths than he knew.

Step 2 – Recognize Patterns

In this step, Robert searched for common themes among the feedback, adding to the examples with observations of his own, then organizing all the input into a table. (To view parts of Robert’s table, see the exhibit “Finding Common Themes.”) Like many who participate in the RBS exercise, Robert expected that, given the diversity of respondents, the comments he received would be inconsistent or even competing. Instead, he was struck by their uniformity. The comments from his wife and family members were similar to those from his army buddies and work colleagues. Everyone took note of Robert’s courage under pressure, high ethical standards, perseverance, curiosity, adaptability, respect for diversity, and team-building skills. Robert suddenly realized that even his small, unconscious behaviors had made a huge impression on others. In many cases, he had forgotten about the specific examples cited until he read the feedback, because his behavior in those situations had felt like second nature to him.

The RBS exercise confirmed Robert’s sense of himself, but for those who are unaware of their strengths, the exercise can be truly illuminating. Edward, for example, was a recently minted MBA executive in an automotive firm. His colleagues and subordinates were older and more experienced than he, and he felt uncomfortable disagreeing with them. But he learned through the RBS exercise that his peers appreciated his candid alternative views and respected the diplomatic and respectful manner with which he made his assertions. As a result, Edward grew bolder in making the case for his ideas, knowing that his boss and colleagues listened to him, learned from him, and appreciated what he had to say.

Other times, the RBS exercise sheds a more nuanced light on the skills one takes for granted. Beth, for example, was a lawyer who negotiated on behalf of nonprofit organizations. Throughout her life, Beth had been told she was a good listener, but her exercise respondents noted that the interactive, empathetic, and insightful manner in which she listened made her particularly effective. The specificity of the feedback encouraged Beth to take the lead in future negotiations that required delicate and diplomatic communications.

For naturally analytical people, the analysis portion of the exercise serves both to integrate the feedback and develop a larger picture of their capabilities. Janet, an engineer, thought she could study her feedback as she would a technical drawing of a suspension bridge. She saw her “reflected best self” as something to interrogate and improve. But as she read the remarks from family, friends, and colleagues, she saw herself in a broader and more human context. Over time, the stories she read about her enthusiasm and love of design helped her rethink her career path toward more managerial roles in which she might lead and motivate others.

Step 3 – Compose Your Self-Portrait

The next step is to write a description of yourself that summarizes and distills the accumulated information. The description should weave themes from the feedback together with your self-observations into a composite of who you are at your best. The self-portrait is not designed to be a complete psychological and cognitive profile. Rather, it should be an insightful image that you can use as a reminder of your previous contributions and as a guide for future action. The portrait itself should not be a set of bullet points but rather a prose composition beginning with the phrase, “When I am at my best, I…” The process of writing out a two- to four-paragraph narrative cements the image of your best self in your consciousness. The narrative form also helps you draw connections between the themes in your life that may previously have seemed disjointed or unrelated. Composing the portrait takes time and demands careful consideration, but at the end of this process, you should come away with a rejuvenated image of who you are.

In developing his self-portrait, Robert drew on the actual words that others used to describe him, rounding out the picture with his own sense of himself at his best. He excised competencies that felt off the mark. This didn’t mean he discounted them, but he wanted to assure that the overall portrait felt authentic and powerful. “When I am at my best,” Robert wrote,

I stand by my values and can get others to understand why doing so is important. I choose the harder right over the easier wrong. I enjoy setting an example. When I am in learning mode and am curious and passionate about a project, I can work intensely and untiringly. I enjoy taking things on that others might be afraid of or see as too difficult. I’m able to set limits and find alternatives when a current approach is not working. I don’t always assume that I am right or know best, which engenders respect from others. I try to empower and give credit to others. I am tolerant and open to differences.

As Robert developed his portrait, he began to understand why he hadn’t performed his best at work: He lacked a sense of mission. In the army, he drew satisfaction from the knowledge that the safety of the men and women he led, as well as the nation he served, depended on the quality of his work. He enjoyed the sense of teamwork and variety of problems to be solved. But as an IT manager in charge of routine maintenance on new hardware products, he felt bored and isolated from other people.

The portrait-writing process also helped Robert create a more vivid and elaborate sense of what psychologists would call his “possible self”—not just the person he is in his day-to-day job but the person he might be in completely different contexts. Organizational researchers have shown that when we develop a sense of our best possible self, we are better able make positive changes in our lives.

Step 4 – Redesign Your Job

Having pinpointed his strengths, Robert’s next step was to redesign his personal job description to build on what he was good at. Given the fact that routine maintenance work left him cold, Robert’s challenge was to create a better fit between his work and his best self. Like most RBS participants, Robert found that the strengths the exercise identified could be put into play in his current position. This involved making small changes in the way he worked, in the composition of his team, and in the way he spent his time. (Most jobs have degrees of freedom in all three of these areas; the trick is operating within the fixed constraints of your job to redesign work at the margins, allowing you to better play to your strengths.)

Robert began by scheduling meetings with systems designers and engineers who told him they were having trouble getting timely information flowing between their groups and Robert’s maintenance team. If communication improved, Robert believed, new products would not continue to be saddled with the serious and costly maintenance issues seen in the past. Armed with a carefully documented history of those maintenance problems as well as a new understanding of his naturally analytical and creative team-building skills, Robert began meeting regularly with the designers and engineers to brainstorm better ways to prevent problems with new products. The meetings satisfied two of Robert’s deepest best-self needs: He was interacting with more people at work, and he was actively learning about systems design and engineering.

Robert’s efforts did not go unnoticed. Key executives remarked on his initiative and his ability to collaborate across functions, as well as on the critical role he played in making new products more reliable. They also saw how he gave credit to others. In less than nine months, Robert’s hard work paid off, and he was promoted to program manager. In addition to receiving more pay and higher visibility, Robert enjoyed his work more. His passion was reignited; he felt intensely alive and authentic. Whenever he felt down or lacking in energy, he reread the original e-mail feedback he had received. In difficult situations, the e-mail messages helped him feel more resilient.

Robert was able to leverage his strengths to perform better, but there are cases in which RBS findings conflict with the realities of a person’s job. This was true for James, a sales executive who told us he was “in a world of hurt” over his work situation. Unable to meet his ambitious sales goals, tired of flying around the globe to fight fires, his family life on the verge of collapse, James had suffered enough. The RBS exercise revealed that James was at his best when managing people and leading change, but these natural skills did not and could not come into play in his current job. Not long after he did the exercise, he quit his high-stress position and started his own successful company.

Other times, the findings help managers aim for undreamed-of positions in their own organizations. Sarah, a high-level administrator at a university, shared her best-self portrait with key colleagues, asking them to help her identify ways to better exploit her strengths and talents. They suggested that she would be an ideal candidate for a new executive position. Previously, she would never have considered applying for the job, believing herself unqualified. To her surprise, she handily beat out the other candidates.

Beyond Good Enough

We have noted that while people remember criticism, awareness of faults doesn’t necessarily translate into better performance. Based on that understanding, the RBS exercise helps you remember your strengths—and construct a plan to build on them. Knowing your strengths also offers you a better understanding of how to deal with your weaknesses—and helps you gain the confidence you need to address them. It allows you to say, “I’m great at leading but lousy at numbers. So rather than teach me remedial math, get me a good finance partner.” It also allows you to be clearer in addressing your areas of weakness as a manager. When Tim, a financial services executive, received feedback that he was a great listener and coach, he also became more aware that he had a tendency to spend too much time being a cheerleader and too little time keeping his employees to task. Susan, a senior advertising executive, had the opposite problem: While her feedback lauded her results-oriented management approach, she wanted to be sure that she hadn’t missed opportunities to give her employees the space to learn and make mistakes.

In the end, the strength-based orientation of the RBS exercise helps you get past the “good enough” bar. Once you discover who you are at the top of your game, you can use your strengths to better shape the positions you choose to play—both now and in the next phase of your career.

by Laura Morgan Roberts, Gretchen Spreitzer, Jane E. Dutton, Robert E. Quinn, Emily D. Heaphy, and Brianna Barker

From the Magazine (January 2005)

– Read the full article on Harvard Business Review