PAPERONE xPAPER2 x
- Write a brief review for each paper, approximately 300 words for each review
- each review could include which views do you find interesting, why do you think it is interesting, and what parts could be improved
- anything that relates to regular “review” is fine, thank you
3
If there was ever a case study that puts textbook concepts into application, it is Patrick Lencioni’s The Ideal Team Player. Various concepts surrounding staffing are addressed in the story of Jeff and Valley Builders construction company and their hiring process during a crucial time of growth for the company. At the core of the issue: the company landed two large jobs that have the potential to determine the company’s future success or failure, but in order to proceed with the jobs they will need to add sixty people to their staff in nearly all areas of the company, ranging from foremen and project managers to engineers and contractors (Lencioni, 2016, p. 30). They address the issues that accompany staffing a new project, such as turnover and trying to hire only team players while encouraging a more positive and team-centered environment within their existing employees. One of the major issues the company faced was the urgency of such a large hire and the fact that they needed to better balance their standards of expectations and hiring process. Because the owner, Bob, had allowed people who did not fit the company culture to stick around, he had inadvertently promoted a culture that did not align with the truth of the company. They began the process of identifying characteristics and employees that needed to be changed in order to promote team work, and from there went about addressing the teamwork issues within the company. By eventually promoting an employee, Craig, into an administrative position and launching a simply training process for those working on hiring, the company was able to finally find ways of pushing their company culture of “humble, hungry, and smart” into interviews and training (Lencioni, 2016, p. 144). They were able to hire solid people and keep turnover at a minimum, all while promoting company culture. A year into Jeff’s stint as CEO, recruiting had shifted to a more internal structure, morale improved, and client satisfaction was through the roof. Few things could indicate a successful shift more than these three accomplishments.
Although one of the main focuses of the story was the importance of the three virtues, humility, hunger and smarts, I think one of the other main points is the importance of using a hiring process that best identifies the needs of the company. These needs could be company culture, preparing for growth, evaluating current employees, or many other things; however, one of the concepts I believe this book best explained was the importance of strategic staffing. As we have discussed in class, strategic staffing involves much more than just getting a new hire to stay on board, but rather it identifies the strengths and shortcomings of the organization and then staffs to improve and combat problems. Strategic staffing incorporates future planning and goals to support a strategy which promotes the organization’s overall health and wellness. In this situation, the team at Valley Builders used strategic staffing methods at each step along the way, from the initial stages of planning all the way to retaining talent. They took their time to address the qualities they deemed necessary for their staff in the planning stage, sourced potential employees from other similar businesses, and although it was not talked about much, they must have been strategic with their recruitment and selection processes in order to choose employees who promoted the business’ values and mission. In the end, many of their employees were recruited through word of mouth by their current employees, which further supported their company values and lessened the burden of those involved in the hiring process because they knew that they had hired a solid core staff already, and that their staff would recommend people with similar values. Finally, they were able to reach the goals they set and retain much of their strongest talent. The team identified their strengths and weaknesses in order to create the strongest and smoothest-running company possible and revitalize and grow the company during a difficult transition and potential period of development.Overall, the Valley Builders case study was an excellent example of thoughtful and thorough strategic staffing.
If there was
ever a
case study
that puts textbook concepts into application, it is
Patrick
Lencioni’s
The Ideal Team Player
.
Various concepts surrounding staffing are addressed in the
story of Jeff and
Valley Builders construction company
and their hiring process during a crucial
time of growth for the company. At the core of the issue: the company landed two large jobs that
have the potential to determine the company’s future success or failure, but in order to proceed
with the jobs they
will need to add sixty people to their staff in nearly all areas of the company,
ranging from foremen and project managers to engineers and contractors (
Lencioni, 2016, p. 30).
They address the issues that accompany staffing a new project, such as turnover
and trying to
hire only team players while encouraging a more positive and team
–
centered environment within
their existing employees.
One of the major issues the company faced was the urgency of such a
large hire and the fact that they needed to better ba
lance their standards of expectations and
hiring process.
Because the owner, Bob, had allowed people who did not fit the company culture
to stick around, he had inadvertently promoted a culture that did not align with the truth of the
company.
They began t
he process of identifying characteristics and employees that needed to be
changed in order to promote team work, and from there went about
addressing the teamwork
issues within the company.
By eventually promoting an employee, Craig, into an administrative
position and launching a simply training process for those working on hiring, the company was
able to finally find ways of pushing their company culture of “humble, hungry, and smart” into
interviews and training (Lencioni, 2016, p. 144).
They were able t
o hire solid people
and keep
turnover at a minimum, all while promoting company culture. A year into Jeff’s stint as CEO,
recruiting had shifted to a more internal structure, morale improved, and client satisfaction was
through the roof. Few things could i
ndicate a successful shift more than these three
accomplishments.
For my book review I read the third edition of Topgrading by Bradford D. Smart. This book was all about what it means to be an A, B or C player as an employee and how to identify one while interviewing potential employees. A lot of times companies and organizations settle for B and C employees that do not have the potential to become “A” players, that all could have been identified and avoided if the company practiced the Topgrading steps to hiring an employee. Topgrading solves the three biggest hiring problems and allow managers to get superior talent and their organizations perform better. The three biggest problems with hiring consist of rampant dishonesty, insufficient information, and lack of verifiability. It solves these problems by having a “truth serum” replacing commonplace falsehoods in resumes and interviews with refreshing honesty. With the Topgrading system there are twelve very clear and effective steps to help hire an A player that will help and add to an organization. Some of these steps include measuring your baseline success hiring and promoting people, creating a very clear job description, recruiting from your networks, screen candidates with the Topgrading career history form and snapshot, conduct telephone screening interviews, providing competency interviews, use tandem interviews that way they can give each other feedback, drafting an executive summary, conduct reference calls, coach your newly hired A players, and annually measure your Topgrading success. Instead of just replacing the low performers in an organization, the Topgrading system needs to be adopted to solve the reason companies have 75% of mis-hires, and instead produce a success rate of up to 75-90% A players hired and promoted. A big problem with potential employees that interview for jobs is dishonesty on their resume that make them look highly qualified for the position. The TORC technique (threat of reference check), is a great tool used in the Topgrading system to scare candidates into telling the truth about the credentials and past experiences they have on their resumes. Threatening to call references and telling them throughout the whole interview process that they need to arrange personal reference calls with their past employers will then weed out C players and bring out the truth about all of the candidates. This system is not about removing C players but instead about hiring only A players or players that have the potential to become A players. A common misconception about Topgrading is that it is more expensive to hire A players, however you are paying the same amount regardless with A players existing at all salary levels, and end up with the possibility of loosing money by hiring an underperforming employee. Another great point about finding A players is to network through A players that already work for the organization. The bottom line of this book is all about how to improve your system of hiring A player employees through the Topgrading system to your organization and no longer settling for “good enough” employees.
This book relates to the course as the Topgrading system is all about strategic staffing and recruiting the right type of employees that will better your organization. This relates to selecting talent through the selection process of strategic staffing by putting applicants through activities such as skills tests and employment interviews to evaluate if they are qualified for the organization. The method the organization chooses to use for this process will then ultimately decide how well the company’s new hires, and therefore the company as a whole, will perform. With this being said, it is so important for the organization to choose and effective system such as the Topgrading system, to hire new employees that will act as A players and ensure the success of the company. Another important aspect that we talked about in class is which skills and what level of them should a company seek when hiring new employees. This relates to the Topgrading system by determining what an A player is or someone that has the potential to become one in their organization. One of the most critical staffing decisions concerns the types of skills a new hire should posses and the appropriate level of those skills for a candidate to obtain to be hired into the organization. This can all be determined about the candidate through the twelve steps of the Topgrading interview process to see if the candidate is qualified for the position. This also parallels the idea of competency modeling that we talked about in chapter 4 and deciding the necessary worker competencies required for high performance that can be identified through a job analysis. Another key point in relation to our class is the overall importance of recruitment and what makes a recruiter effective. Recruiters are the first and sometimes only representations of the company to the candidate, and therefore are the most important. Also they are the people who are putting into place the Topgrading steps and deciding who would be the best fit for their organization and ultimately become an A player in their company. All in all, the Topgrading system carries out the overall staffing strategy of the organization and can help the company be successful by reaching their goals with the help of their A team employees.
For
my book review I read the third edition of
Topgrading
by Bradford D. Smart.
This
book was all about what it mean
s to be an A, B or C
player as an employee
and how to identify
one while interviewing potential employees.
A lot of times companies and
organizations settle
for B and C employees that do not have the potential to become “A”
players
, that all could have
been identified and avoide
d if the company practiced the T
opgrading steps to hiring an
employee.
Topgrading solves the three biggest hiring
problems and allow managers to get
superior talent and their organizations perform better. The three biggest problems with hiring
consist of rampant dishonesty, insufficient information, and lack of verifiability. It solves these
problems by having a “tru
th serum” replacing commonplace falsehoods in resumes and
interviews with refreshing honesty.
With the T
opgrading system there are twelve very clear and
effective steps to help hire an A player that will help and add to an organization.
Some of these
steps
include
measuring your ba
seline success hiring and promo
ting people,
creating a very clear
job description,
recruiting from your netwo
r
ks, screen candidates with the T
opgrading career
hi
st
o
ry form and snapshot, conduct telephone screening interviews,
prov
iding competency
interviews, use tandem interviews that way they can give each other feedback, drafting an
executive summary, conduct reference calls, coach your newly hired A play
ers, and annually
measure your T
opgrading success.
Instead of just replacing
the low performers in an
organization
, the T
opgrading system needs to be adopted to solve the reason companies have
75% of mis
–
hires, and instead produce a success rate of up to
75
–
9
0
% A players hired and
promoted.
A big problem with potential employees t
hat interview for jobs is dishonesty on their
resume that make them look highly qualified for the position. The TORC techni
que (threat of
reference check
), is a great tool used in the T
opgrading system to scare candidates into telling the
truth about the c
rede
ntials and past experiences they
have on their resumes. Threatening to call