Author: Formium

Strength-based Recruitment

Capp founder Alex Linley defines a strength as ‘‘something that you do well and enjoy doing. When using a strength, people feel authentic and energised as they deliver successful performance.’’

We asked Gurpal Minhas, Head of Customer Solutions at Capp & Co Ltd (www.capp.co) , to explain strength-based hiring. Capp work with a range of UK and multinational corporations across the FMCG sector to banking, helping them hire for what applicants are great at doing alongsidewhere their energy passion and motivation lies.

In contrast to traditional competency-based selection, a strength-based approach allows companies to focus on more than just what candidates have previously done or on their competencies, and to consider their potential, engagement and energy. Minhas outlines the business benefits as shorter time to competence, improved engagement, improved performance and reduced attrition. On an individual level, employees are more engaged, and “there’s an increased level of self-esteem because they’re able to work on things that they enjoy and do well.” – he adds.

A strength-based approaches are also shown to create a level playing field between applicants with different social or cultural backgrounds, to improve the employer brand and to attract better-matched candidates.

The process starts with a Success Analysis. The Success Analysis identifies what the best people currently do in that particular role within the organisation. It also considers what the future of the job entails, for instance, how it will look in 2020 or 2025. The requirements are established through stakeholder interviews, focus groups and a review of the existing job description. Where a company has a competency framework, assessments using the competency framework and the strengths framework can be jointly applied. “That’s where that makes a big difference because you continue to be able to use existing language in the organisation, but you’re getting a lot more specific to what you’re looking for” adds Minhas.

The Sucs Analysist establishes a number of core strengths and potentially some role-specific strengths, such as ‘relationship manager’ or ‘Technofinity’ – all of which will be used in attracting and selecting the best candidates, based on a balance of performance, energy and use.

Candidates are assessed against the required strengths through assessment centres, the Situational Strengths Tests and Strength-based Interviews. “A strength-based interview is quite different from competency-based interviews in the fact that assessors are not probing candidates and likewise applicants can’t necessarily prepare for the questions. We may ask 12 questions in 45 minutes, whereas in a competency interview we might ask 6 questions in half an hour. The questions are shorter and significantly more varied. Candidates are having to share a bit more depth about what they do and how they approach tasks. We ask about how you feel about working on tasks- something that with a standard competency response, you can’t necessarily answer,.” explained Gurpal.

When using strength-based interviews, 74% of assessors felt they could better distinguish between low, average and high performers and 85% of candidates agreed the strength-based interview allowed them to show who they really were. In particular Generation Y and Generation Z candidates are eager to learn about themselves, gain more self-insight and feel recognised as individuals. Working in partnership with EY, Capp found in a representative sample of over 1000 students, 65% of graduates would select a job that would allow them to use their strengths rather than a role that paid them a higher salary.

Ultimately strength-based recruitment allows the selection of employees who are naturally, authentically good at the role and are energised by it, which in turn leads to better performance.

Founded in 2005, Capp have an established academic background in positive psychology and an extensive experience in the provision of strengths-based talent management solutions.

The Capp vision is “To match the world to their perfect job” – whether that’s an individual seeking a new challenge or someone growing and developing with their current employer.

You can benefit from the opportunities presented by better understanding applicants’ unique strengths by incorporating strength-based questions into your current selection practice. 9 Strengths-Based Interview Questions for you: Click Here for Your Copy

19th April 2016
Positive Change Management webinar replay

In today’s fast changing environment agility and the ability to make change effectively is a key organisational requirement. According to research many change management initiatives fail, risking employee’s resistance and change fatigue.

View this webinar recording to explore:

• The key change management mistakes to avoid
• Successful approaches to effectively leading change
• How to minimise resistance, engage and motivate your people
• Positive change management methodologies

The accompanying guide to better understanding your stakeholders – and the presentation slides – can be found here.

12th April 2016
How to build a strong team

10 leadership actions to help your team flourish

1. Develop a team that is made up of people with different experiences and strengths. Successful teams are diverse, with a wide range of complementary strengths; each person performing in the role that plays to their strengths and in which they can thrive. This approach makes the most of the combined talents available to you, allows most individual weaknesses to become irrelevant, as they are compensated by the strengths of others. Diversity of perspectives is crucial for innovation.

2. Involve your team in co-creating an aspirational vision, so members have a clear stake in the organisation’s success. Seeking your people’s views generates immediate engagement and a stronger connection between activity and outcome.

3. Talk about “why” as well as “what”. Foster the team’s shared aim by describing the impact of their work so that members understand the link to a greater purpose. There is a stakeholder, a customer, or even society at large that benefits as an end result of the work they’re doing.

4. As part of planning and managing challenges, identify and communicate a clear outcome. Review past similar successes and identify the factors of that success. You can then use these to shape your response to issues.

5. Specify and agree clear metrics and targets and agree shared performance outcomes. This establishes each person as responsible for their own performance, seeing growth opportunities, owning mistakes, and setting and reporting against their own SMART objectives. This investment of time benefits the leader by allowing you to spend less of your time spent on ongoing monitoring.

6. Discuss performance at all levels, all the time. This means the organisation’s performance, the team’s performance, customer responses, and individual contributions and actions. All of these elements contribute to the outcome, satisfaction, and experience.

7. Take the role of facilitator, rather than team manager. Ensure that you give thinking time and space to staff members when discussing projects or challenges. They may need time to think issues through, explore options, or identify likely obstacles.

8. Create successful team conversations by encouraging positive communication. The ratio of positivity to negativity is a fundamental driver of good relationships as well as productivity. A successful team looks to have between three and six positive statements for every negative statement, expressing more agreement, and engaging with others’ viewpoints. Successful teams also listen more than argue – they spend more time seeking to understand rather than asserting their own point.

9. Use “Yes AND…” rather than “Yes BUT…” in discussions and meetings. This indicates that you’ve heard the other person’s point, and allows you to build on the previous statement. It is a small language tweak, which generates collaboration, rather than argument.

10. Expect accountability and at the same time practice visible forgiveness to defuse blame when things do go wrong. This will allow you to move on to resolve issues and safeguards the team’s willingness to try new things, take risks, make mistakes and learn. Apologising and showing forgiveness are some of the most important ways of building trust, and encouraging open communication.

If we can support the development of your team, look at our organisation development offer or contact us.

6th April 2016
5 of the best…influencers on Twitter

Exceptional leaders hardly ever stop learning, they know they can always improve themselves. Twitter is a great resource for thoughts, ideas and good examples. Here are just some of the top influencers that we follow and retweet on leadership skills or company culture. Check out our selection:

Through Alison Green’s Ask a Manager profile you can ask her a question like ‘this is what my boss says, what does it mean?’ Send her your questions or learn from others’ cases.

Based in London, David Shepherd tweets tweets about Human Resources, employment law, pay, benefits, the labour market, data services, b2b media, and a whole lot more.

Aadil Bandukwala is a social recruiting consultant with a history in Talent Acquisition and Social Media. Worth your while following him if you want to know everything about recruiting.

Lolly Daskal’s Twitter feed is about coaching, management, leadership, consulting. You can find truly informative posts, inspirational quotes and pictures shared by her.

Dan McCarthy , self-described leadership and management development geek. His profile has everything that has to do with leadership and management.

Who is missing from our list? Let us know in the comments below!

23rd March 2016
Women in leadership

A summary of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Facebook, presented a TED Talk on why are there so few women in leadership positions. Her book, Lean In started from that 15 minute talk. Sandberg’s argument is that excuses and justifications will not get women anywhere. In her book she provides useful suggestions to urge women to take their place in the working world while taking ownership of a leadership concept. Women have to take a seat at the table, even if they feel uneasy at first, says Sandberg.

They have to lean in and have the will to lead. She says women have to break with internalised attitudes that hold them back. Throughout the book, Sandberg carefully weighs the double binds, internal and external, that hold back women from achieving their goals, their potential at the workplace.

Sandberg’s work is a combination of hard data, academic research, her own experiences, observations and life lessons with a hint of humour. Lean In is more than a book, it’s kind of a feminist manifesto as she calls it; part of a movement to create a more equal world.
The book is available at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

Agi Galgoczi

16th March 2016
3 ways to create a high performance culture
Does culture matter? Recent research carried out by James Heskett at Harvard Business School suggests that 20%-30% of corporate performance can be attributed to a positive, strong performance culture. As Edgar Schein, probably the most prolific and oft-quoted researcher and author in the area of culture, suggested: “The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

High performance cultures embrace innovation and empower people to contribute to that innovation. They espouse values on taking calculated risks, being innovative, being supportive, and being a learning organisation. Amanda Whittaker Brown of IDeA identified four specific signs of a performance culture and a culture where high performance is an integral part of how the organisation works:
- People feel comfortable talking openly about performance.
- Individuals know how what they are doing makes a difference.
- People share a commitment to achieving shared objectives.
- When there are problems, people work together to resolve them.
There are three specific actions leaders can take to create a high performance culture in their organisation:

1. Co-create the desired culture
Involve others in designing and shaping the team or organisational culture. In order for you to be able to identify and articulate what a desired culture would be, you need to understand and be able to communicate the vision for the organisation, its purpose and how individuals and teams can contribute. Your team need to be able to understand the difference that they are making.

Once the vision for the organisation or the team is clear, consider whether the current culture, norms, and behaviours serve it, or whether you need to make some changes. Talk to your team, customers, senior management or board about how they see those objectives and aims being delivered, what your core values are and what type of underlying culture is need.

Invite your colleagues and stakeholders to co-create the desired culture through conversation. Identify what works well and where changes are needed to enhance individual and organisational performance. Teams and staff can take part in this conversation and feel ownership and accountability, which in turns underpins a performance culture.

Once you have identified the desired culture, make sure that you are modelling, not just communicating new values and behaviours. If you’re asking other people to change, you need to remember that that will require quite a significant change on your part as well. Agree and describe what high performance looks like, agree how people will work and behave as part of the culture.

2. Replace a culture of blame with empowerment and accountability
Develop a culture of empowerment instead of blame, which stifles innovation and creativity. Enable people to take responsibility, to make decisions, to take action. At an organisational level, empowerment is supported by management commitment and relatively few layers of hierarchy. It’s important that people are supported with the right skills so they can take advantage of empowerment. Provide development on teamwork, communication skills, decision making, and risk management or other appropriate areas.

Ensure that your team has clarity of objectives and corporate priorities and that they are rewarded for doing the right things. Accept mistakes and ensure that people learn from their mistakes.

Accountability is equally important. It’s not quite enough, from a cultural perspective, for people to be accountable to you because you’re their boss. They actually need to be accountable to each other, so they can say, “We each understand what everyone else’s role is and we each commit to delivering our individual role for the benefit of the team.”

3. Set high expectations and enable people to meet those expectations
Maurizio Freda, Estee Lauder CEO said: “You need super talented people who know they need to do fantastically well. When your leadership team takes the same attitude, you create a culture where each one can give his or her best. In particular, you have to find the strengths of each individual in the organisation and then you can create magic.”

Choose people with lots of potential who have some of the strengths that you’re looking for, and allow them to play to their strengths.

Provide a combination of high support and high challenge. Set the expectation that people have to do well in this organisation, that you are aiming for excellence and that you trust that people can meet these expectation as they are supported and set up for success. People can meet those high expectations because they get to play to their strengths, they get the development that they need, and if they make mistakes these are looked at as learning opportunities.

These three leadership activities help you embody Schein’s statement that “Leaders are the main designers and builders of an organisation’s culture.”

Eszter Molnar Mills is a strength-based leadership and organisation development specialist and founder of Formium Development. A qualified executive and team coach, she helps organisations and individuals reach enhanced performance by reflecting on what works, and developing skills and strategies for improvement. Through team coaching and facilitation Eszter also helps organisations and teams work together to develop positive and productive cultures.
9th March 2016
The business starter pack
The First Mile by Scott D. Anthony

Many people think about starting their own business. Lots of us started a business in childhood – do you remember the cliché of the Lemonade Stand from American movies? Yes, some people stop right there, but some try again and run their businesses for years.

But how to start? The first mile of an innovation is that critical stretch when your idea moves from concept to the real world. Hidden traps, risks and challenges are everywhere. Scott D. Anthony’s book will come and give you a hand. The First Mile is a practical and easy-to-follow guide to starting a business.

The book has two parts. The chapters of the first part build the First Mile Toolkit – a 4-step process for managing strategic uncertainty. You will learn how documenting an idea helps surface hidden assumptions; how to evaluate that idea from multiple angles; focus on the most critical strategic uncertainties; then test rigorously and adapt quickly. DEFT, the easy-to-note acronym is a reminder that you need to be adroit at handling the twists and turns of the first mile.

Part two describes four common challenges, signs that you may have not followed the ‘yellow brick road’ and tips for getting back on track and get to your ‘Emerald City’.

The challenges:
- Making a wrong turn
- Running out of fuel
- Picking the wrong driver
- Spinning out
Anthony explains why each challenge happens and what the questions are that need to be discussed. He summarises this in a table, on a single page but I highly recommend reading the detailed versions. He speaks about interesting examples and in a very reader friendly way, highlighting the key messages of every chapter.

Scott D. Anthony shares real-life experiences in his easy-to read and follow guide. The First Mile is a great a starter pack with a toolkit, tips and tricks to starting a business.
2nd March 2016
The magic of freedom?

British training company Happy Ltd has been rated best for customer service and work/life balance among many other awards. Henry Stewart, Chief Executive, has written a book about the story of Happy and its achievements. The book has a clear tone, comes with real-life examples, provides evidence where required and poses thought-provoking questions – overall an enjoyable read. From the title you can guess you will find a public declaration of the methods, views and motives of the author.

Stewart’s Happy Manifesto is based on ten points:

Most of the points are about giving freedom to your people and trusting them. With his book Stewart aims to help the reader put in place the structure that makes freedom and trust possible in his/her organisation.

The Happy Manifesto shows an aspirational alternative, it can help some managers and organisations but it is still not a panacea which will “Make Your Organisation a Great Place to Work – Now!” Don’t get me wrong, it is a great book, the idea has potential but I can’t see how it could be applied in every case. I find it hard to believe that all employees can work without rules, and in my experience not every manager has the freedom to influence the structure, choose their people and put together a dream-team. If managers don’t have the freedom to choose people for their team, or if they inherit an existing team with set preferences and habits, further work will be needed before they can provide the level of freedom suggested.

It is apparent throughout the book that Stewart believes in guidelines rather than rules. He says managers don’t give enough freedom to their staff and it could be much more effective if your people made most decisions themselves. Stewart describes the hierarchy of management needs, based on Maslow’s well-known pyramid, which highlights workplace safety, comfort, reward and communication as necessary but insufficient for motivation.

Stewart proceeds to expand on organisational approaches to develop challenge, support, trust and freedom as the management behaviours leading to high performance.

Book details:
Henry Stewart: The Happy Manifesto: Make Your Organization a Great Workplace;
Kogan Page; 1 edition (3 Jan. 2013)

24th February 2016
5 of the best… leadership blogs

We believe that great leaders are made not born. We have brought together a list of 5 thought-provoking blogs which can give you ideas to develop your skills and guidance on your leadership journey.

1. Lead ership Fr eak: Dan Rockwell empowers you in 300 words daily. Enjoyable and makes you think, reading this blog could become an important part of your daily routine.

2. Dr Wayne W Dyer: If you would like to focus on your personal leadership or self- development, this blog could give you some great tips and ways to motivate yourself.

3. Tanveer Naseer: This blog’s main focus is on helping managers to improve their leadership and team management skills, helping them identify the fulfilling purpose of their work.

4. Management Excellence: Art Petty’s blog focuses on developing leadership skills by concentrating on professional presence. Critical thinking is also a central theme on this site.

5. Three Star Leadership: This blog is aimed at leaders at all levels. Tips, lists, strategies to help managers to perform at a higher level.

We could not complete this round-up without including Go rdo n Tr edgol d ‘s leadership blog. Hear more from Gordon in our interview.

17th February 2016
Showing your appreciation

Whatever you think of Valentine’s Day, it is mid-February and love does seem to be in the air. In this article we look at the five languages of appreciation you can use to show your ‘love’ to engage and motivate your colleagues.

Making your employees feel valued is an essential skill for any manager – but what is the best method to express appreciation for a job well done or gratitude for a commitment to quality? Length-of-service awards, employee-of-the-month recognition and merchandise rewards do not always appeal to everyone in the whole organisation.

In their book The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, Dr. Paul White and Dr. Gary Chapman highlight that different people have different ways they find appreciation most meaningful. They suggest you will get the best results if you choose the approach to recognition most valued by the recipient.

According to White and Chapman, the five languages are:

Words of affirmation

Praise, thanks and specific positive feedback shared one-to-one or in front of a group.

Quality time

Time spent in conversation, mentoring or working together – some of your colleagues feel valued if you take the time to spend with them.

Acts of service

Supportive actions, helping out when needed – some of your people will strongly feel that actions speak louder than words.

Tangible gifts

Giving the right gift that the recipient wants, which may be time off or a development opportunity, can send a powerful message.

Appropriate physical touch

A handshake of congratulations or a sincere pat on the shoulder.

By showing sincere appreciation and personal recognition to your staff you can enhance engagement and motivation.

Our challenge to you is this:

How can you express appreciation more often – and in the ways that are most valued by your colleagues?

10th February 2016
Join us for the 2016 Strengths Challenge
Can you hear it? There’s a revolution occurring in our workplaces, and it’s being led by employees – want to join in?

If you’re fed up with a job that drains your energy, a boss who undermines your confidence and the financial handcuffs that rob you of making the choices you desire, there’s a campaign underway and it’s aimed at restoring people’s happiness.

It’s called the 2016 Strengths Challenge and we are delighted to be supporting it.

You see, a decade ago 63% of us believed we’d grow most at work in our area of weaknesses. As a result, only a third of us could name our strengths – those things we’re good at and enjoy doing.

But today it’s all changing.

Earlier this year it was discovered that 64% of us now believe building on our strengths will make us more successful at work. In the 2015 Strengths@Work Survey people who said they had the chance to use their strengths each day at work reported:
- Being more engaged and energized
- Believing what they do makes a difference and is appreciated
- Feeling like they are consistently flourishing
How are they pulling it off?

Join Michelle McQuaid, the VIA Institute, Live Happy and people from all over the world for a one-week strengths challenge and find out how just 11-minutes of doing what you do best each day can make all the difference in your job.

All you have to do is register your details here and get ready to feel more confident, engaged and happy at work starting on 8 February 2016.
7th February 2016
Book Summary: Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
Over the last few decades a dispiriting body of research has been amassed, which suggests that the vast majority of change programmes fail, or fail to reach their intended outcomes. In their book Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, academics Chip and Dan Heath address this challenge head on.

The authors argue that we all have both an emotional and a rational side, which they portray as the elephant and the rider – for their relative roles and power.

They suggest that the emotional (elephant) and rational (rider) sides have different needs and limitations that we have to address for change to be successful. Furthermore, we can also smooth the path to make change as easy as possible.

The Switch model outlines three sets of actions to support each of the elephant, rider and path. The aspects of the model are therefore to:

Direct the rider by
- Following the bright spots: ‘Investigate what’s working and clone it.’
- Scripting the critical moves by specifying the exact desired behaviours.
- Pointing to the destination, making the desired outcome, its purpose and benefits clear.
Motivate the elephant by
- Finding the feeling: allowing people to feel an emotion about the subject, rather than just think about it.
- Shrinking the change into a manageable size until it ‘no longer spooks the Elephant.’
- Growing your people to meet the challenges through development and encouraging a growth mindset.
Shape the path by
- Tweaking the environment so that it supports and encourages behaviour change.
- Building habits, so that the new behaviour becomes automatic and no longer requires willpower.
- Rallying the herd through modelling the new behaviour approach and building on social pressure to help it spread.
The Heaths have created a leadership book with great – but all too rare – balance. The Switch model and their recommendations are based on robust research from business, management, psychology and even international development.

These are then presented in a very accessible and readable book with lots of case studies and illustrative examples that both ‘point to the destination’ and allow us to ‘find the feeling’, resulting in an inspirational and immediately actionable read for leaders looking to make organisational or personal changes.

Switch – How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath is available at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. Additional resources are available from heathbrothers.com. The book is reviewed by Eszter Molnar Mills.

Eszter Molnar Mills is a strength-based leadership and organisation development specialist and founder of Formium Development. She helps organisations and individuals reach enhanced performance by reflecting on what works, and developing skills and strategies for improvement.
15th January 2016