factor vii: trouble with people

cluster x: doesn’t inspir build talent

inspiree or buil talent

vii x
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111 Failure
Failure
Fail
ailure to Staff Effectively
The toughest decisions in organizations are people decisions—
hiring, firing, promotion, etc. These are the decisions that receive
the least attention and are the hardest to ‘unmake.’
Peter Drucker – Austrian-born American writer
and management consultant

A Problem
▫ Does not assemble skilled staff either from inside or outside the

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organization
▫ Uses inappropriate criteria and standards
▫ May select people too much like him/herself
▫ Is not a good judge of people
▫ Is consistently wrong on estimates of what others may do or become
Not A Problem
▫ Good judge of people
▫ Hires for diversity and balance of skills
▫ Describes people in a textured manner
▫ Uses a broad set of criteria in staffing
▫ Objective track record better than most on selections
▫ Takes his/her time to find the right person
Some Causes
▫ Impatient
▫ Narrow perspective
▫ Non-strategic
▫ Poor people reading skills
▫ Unfocused
▫ Unwilling to take negative people actions
Other Causes
BEING UNSKILLED AT: 3,7,12,13,17,21,25,31,32,33,34,41,55,56,64
OVERUSING: 2,16,22,25,55,56,60,64
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Leadership Architect® Factors and Clusters
•

This competency is in the Trouble with People Factor (VII) (S1). This competency
is in the Doesn’t Inspire or Build Talent Cluster (X) with: 110, 117. You may
want to check other competencies in the same Factor/Cluster for related tips.

The Map
There is no substitute for a talented team all pulling in one direction
accomplishing great things. Anything less than that is inefficient and ineffective.
Getting there is a combination of hiring people against both a short-term and
long-term staffing plan and having people with the necessary variety of skills
and talents to do today’s job with reserve to tackle tomorrow. You need the
variety because no single profile or person is going to have it all.
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Some Remedies
▫ 1. Need a process? Use an established and proven process for sizing
up people. You try to hire good people but you keep getting negatively
surprised when they come on board. You need to develop one or more
models of people to use in reading and sizing up others. There are a
number of acceptable models available. More help? – See #56 Sizing Up
People and #64 Understanding Others. Use the Leadership Architect® Sort
Cards to learn how to think in terms of competencies.
▫ 2. Going with your gut? Use proven interview techniques. You just
can’t seem to make accurate appraisals based upon interviews and
reference checks. Sound interviewing is a known technology. Read a book
on interviewing techniques and successful practices and go to a course
that teaches interviewing skills, preferably one with videotaped practice
and feedback. Also, have others interview the candidates using standard
competency rating scales and seek their counsel.
▫ 3. Not sure what you’re looking for? Define the skills that are required
for success. You don’t have a feel for what skills and talents are required.
Ask someone from Human Resources for help. Ask other bosses of units
like yours what they look for. Benchmark with peers in other firms to see
what they look for. More help? – See #25 Hiring and Staffing.
▫ 4. Shortsighted? Make sure your success profile takes a long-term view.
Your people choices work out in the short term but become less effective
longer term. This usually means you are using a success profile that is
too narrow over time. More help? – See #46 Perspective and #58 Strategic
Agility. It could also be that your organization only pays for current skills
and you have trouble hiring the best people. In this case, try to hire people
who have the current skills needed and are eager to learn new skills. More
help? – See #32 Learning on the Fly. Add “What did you learn?” and “How
 vii x
•
have you applied that?” questions to your interviews to try to hire current
doers and future learners.
▫ 5. Hesitant to take action? Address people problems promptly. You
inherited the team and some of the people are just not up to standard and
you don’t want to pull the trigger. If you don’t, it just means more work for
you and the rest of the team. The sooner you address people problems,
the better off everyone will be, even the people involved. More help? – See
#13 Confronting Direct Reports and #16 Timely Decision Making.
▫ 6. Impatient? Give yourself a choice of candidates. You are impatient
to fill empty spots on your team and tend to take the first acceptable or
near acceptable candidate that comes along. That means you will make

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compromises and probably never meet the best candidate. Always try to
wait long enough for multiple candidates and a real choice. More help? –
See #41 Patience.
▫ 7. Need diversity? Avoid hiring clones. You tend to hire too much in your
own image. You prefer working with people who think and act as you do so
the team ends up skilled in only a few areas. You may load up on friends,
people you have worked with in the past, or favorites. If you clone yourself
in terms of skills, beliefs, background, or orientation, you and your team
will not have the variety and diversity for truly great performance. More
help? – See #25 Hiring and Staffing.
▫ 8. Ready to learn the best practices? Study high-performing teams. Look
to teams around you that you feel are the best-performing teams. What
does the talent look like? What does the hiring model look like? Are the
team members more the same or are they different from one another?
Do they have the same background or come from a variety of situations?
How do those team managers hire? Ask them what they do when filling
an opening.
▫ 9. Not challenged? Stretch yourself and your team. You spend too
little time worrying about improving the team. You may as well just do
the important things yourself and let the team fend for itself. This is a
very short-term strategy—one that will usually get you in more trouble
as the situation continues. A good rule of thumb to follow is that your
team should spend 20% of its time working outside its, and perhaps your,
comfort zone. Stretching assignments are the prime source or reason for
improvement. More help? – See #18 Delegation, #19 Developing Direct
Reports and Others, #50 Priority Setting, and #62 Time Management.