The Path of Least Resistance to Building a Peak Performance Team is easy to follow when you know where to look for it. So what are the major staff issues faced by most companies?? Various studies have examined this question and have all procured similar answers, the two biggies being:
1. Staff retention.
2. Staff recruitment.
Recently, I found myself chatting with a gent who is the Occupational Health and Safety officer for an Australian based mining company. His company is currently losing 60% of it’s staff every 3 months. Feeling better about your retention issues yet?? A few days and several phone calls later I was booked to speak at the international drilling expo in NZ. We had a stack load of fun kicked some major goals (see testimonials).
As luck would have it the problem of building a peak performance team is not unique to the mining industry. My Peak performance Team Building program which guides employers down the path of least resistance to building a peak performance team is based upon profiling the positions within a team and matching the profile and technical skills to the correct candidate.
In addition, each of the profiles is quite different and as part of the program I fully explain each of the profiles to all program participants so that they better understand their colleagues in terms of:
1. Tasks they enjoy.
2. Ideal roles.
3. The communication style they will use.
4. The communication style they will best respond to.
5. What frustrates them.
6. Things they will not do well.
7. Their optimum learning environment.
8. The fact that each will lead differently and defining their style of leadership.
9. Their preferred operating environment.
Many companies use various profiling tools to profile staff prior to, and following initial employment. Unfortunately, many of these tests are flawed in one way or another. In my opinion the two most common problems are:
1. You need a post grad in psychology just to understand and utilize results.
2. Many of the tests analyse the individual and essentially say…. “This is what you are good at…. and this is what you are not good at…… what you have to do now is focus on those things that you are not good at”.
Imagine a tool that when you received your results essentially stated “This is what you are good at…. and this is what you are not good at…… what you have to do now is focus on only those things that you are good at. With the correct team around you, you will excel. Furthermore, here are the profiles of the team members you need, you just have to go find them.”
Such a tool exists and no I didn’t invent it. The basis of this profiling system goes back 5000 years the Chinese system of I Ching. The ancient Chinese philosophies define five natural “energies”. Each of us has a mix of these energies that contribute to the whole of who we are. This tool will attribute a percentage value to each of these “energies” and the resultant relative percentage defines which one of the eight profiles is your profile. It also defines two other profiles which are your secondary or lesser profiles.
In summary, and without any explanation as to the mechanics of how the tool categorises individuals into their profile, there are eight profiles. It should be noted that all individuals fit into one of these, but building a peak performance team and surrounding yourself with the right team is much more involved than just reading the results of a profiling test. As previously stated, our program takes into account and provides pertinent information on the following points:
1. Tasks they enjoy.
2. Ideal roles.
3. The communication style they will use.
4. The communication style they will best respond to.
5. What frustrates them.
6. Things they will not do well.
7. Their optimum learning environment.
8. The fact that each will lead differently and defining their style of leadership.
9. Their preferred operating environment.
10. Each will be most likely to ask 1 of four questions: What Who When How