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The One Critical Reason Why We All Need A Coach!

March 27, 2009 By 2 Comments

And how without a coach we often don’t see the bigger picture.

The one critical reason why we all need a coach is because sometimes our perception of a situation is skewed and one dimensional. We all need someone to assist us obtain a more balance perspective in life. I have true story to explain exactly what I mean.

James Bond, Fawlty Towers, Pirates of the Caribbean

This story actually occurred to two associates of mine. The two men earned a living building film sets. They had worked on James Bond, Fawlty Towers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a host of other well-known programmes and films.

My two friends had just arrived from England and one of their first projects was to build a wooden tunnel under one of West Australia’s oldest heritage houses. They built this fabulous tunnel that children could crawl through, and see the wildlife that lived beneath this old house. Everyone loved the tunnel, except that it hurt people’s knees as they crawled. So the two English craftsmen returned to the house, to glue matting to the tunnel floor.

Fire Ball!

Whilst gluing the matting to the floor, one of the men shouted to the other “fire!”

The man inside the tunnel scrambled out just as a fireball flew passed him, singeing much of his face and hair. The two then ran outside, and stood watching the house.

Everything seemed fine, and they breathed a sigh of relief. Then suddenly the windows blew out, and the house burst into flames. The two newly arrived immigrants stood watching one of Western Australia’s houses burn to the ground. The two craftsmen didn’t have any insurance, and they were convinced they were about to be thrown out of Australia for burning down one of its most prized houses.

The two men, one with half his hair and eye brows burnt off and the other with his briefcase smouldering from the fireball, got into their van and returned home to pack their bags.

The House Now Lay In Ruins

A short time later the fire brigade rang them. Fearing the worse, they returned to the house that now lay in ruins. The fire chief asked them to follow him and he took them to the room where the fire had started. The only thing left intact was the pot of glue they had been using. The fire chief asked them if the glue was what they had been using, they replied “yes”.

He then asked them if they knew it was a banned product, and had been banned for the last twenty years, because of the fireballs it creates. My two associates said they just arrived from England, and had purchased the glue from a company in Osborne Park, a Western Australian industrial precinct.

There Are Always Two Sides To A Story,

The company in Osborne Park was sued for the loss of one of West Australia’s oldest buildings. The two smouldering Englishmen remained in Australia and purchased insurance.

The morale of the story is there are always two sides to a story and even the best of us can become a little one eyed and potentially make some critical career damaging decisions, and this is why we all need either a mentor or a coach.

Committed to hiring the right person the first time round and recovering all the costs of the campaign!
.

David Osborne

David Osborne

David Osborne


www.profitablepersonnel.com


Filed Under: Training

The Two Rules To Apply To Make More Money From Your Training!

March 23, 2009 By

And how improve your profit margins by thousands of dollars.

The world has gone qualification crazy! Colleges and Universities are creating a plethora of courses to sale to keen and eager students who want and need something tangible to prove they are worthy of a certain role, but do certificates and Degrees really make the recipient worthy?

Consider this fact: Education has only a 22% validity rating in predicting job performance. In other words to expect someone to be successful in your business based on their education is foolish and irresponsible.  

So what really predicts someone’s likelihood to be successful in the workplace?

Answer: A track record of the behaviours they consistently exhibit and the results they achieve from the use of these behaviours. This alludes to one of the secrets to obtaining a great return on investment from training, and that is:

Rule One: To obtain a GREAT return on investment from training, you need to link the training outcomes to a workplace procedure that has to be used. This will give you the business owner and the trainer a precise measurement of how well the student has applied the knowledge.

Daniel Goleman says from his research, the studies of management training in a supermarket chain found very little correlation between manager’s knowledge of the competencies they were trained in, and how they actually behaved in the store. This indicates that competencies need to be linked to a procedure that is used every day so that the true impact of the training can be measured.

“The world does not pay for what a person knows.
But it pays for what a person does with what he knows”.

 
Laurence Lee

Unfortunately most trainers struggle with trying to measure the impact of their training. In many cases workshop feedback forms and students undertaking various activities to meet a “competency standard” creates the foundation of current training practices. But would a top sports trainer get away with such a flimsy measurement, NO! Professional sporting teams are measured every weekend by the results they achieve, and if they don’t achieve the required results after a number of games the trainer is given their marching orders.

So why isn’t this practice followed by many businesses?

Answer: Often business see themselves as very different organisations from professional sporting clubs, but are they?

“There’s a complete parallel with running a successful company as there is running a successful sports team. You need the same skills”.

Sir Clive Woodward
Manager of the 2003 Rugby World Cup Winning team -England

Interestingly in many businesses trainers undertake the training program but if the employee utilises or doesn’t utilise the knowledge then that’s the employee’s issue not the trainers, but is it?

Confucius says:

“Tell me or I’ll forget
Show me, I may remember
Involve me, I may understand”

This quote reveals the second secret to obtaining a GREAT return on investment from training.

Rule Two: Training only occurs when the student is not only educated about the subject matter BUT they are then trained to consistently apply the knowledge. The real value of a trainer is the money they save or make the company from their training activity, not just obtaining good comments on their workshop feedback forms or passing students as competent.

Competence is the consistent application of the newly acquired knowledge to save the company money or make the company money. Never lower your training standards to the point you can-not obtain a financial return on investment from every training session.

“It is a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Committed to hiring the right person the first time round and recovering all the costs of the campaign! 


David Osborne David Osborne

  

Filed Under: Training

Are Your Staff Slowly Killing You!

March 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

And four emotions you need to avoid if you want to survive.

How do you rate your health? If you rate your health as very good give yourself a five out of five. If you rate your health as very poor give yourself a one out of five.

Why is this important? It’s important because research indicates the lower you rate your own health, the earlier you will die even if you currently have no disease or risk factors. This self rating system has been research and validated by studying over 44,000 identical twins. 

So how does rating ourselves impact our health?

It has been discovered that how we feel about our situation in life has a big impact on us physically. Therefore if we feel bad about a certain situation for example lame and lazy staff who are unproductive and drain your energy, then your thinking will trigger an emotional reaction that may well be prematurely aging you and even slowly killing you.

 “Thoughts and emotions are interwoven: every thought, however bland, almost always carries with it some emotional undertone, however subtle”

Restak

How quickly thoughts can kill you.

In 1964 a newspaper headline read “Man Freezes to Death in Refrigeration Car”. The man had become trapped inside when the door accidentally slammed on him. When he was found the next day he had all the physical symptoms of having been frozen to death. Yet the refrigeration unit was switched off and at no time had the temperature been at or even close to freezing. The man had in one night talked himself into dying. Your thoughts have a dramatic impact on your body.

 

“Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 The emotional black spots.

There are four emotions that have the potential to send a flood of toxic chemicals through your brain that not only increase the risk of memory loss but also prematurely age you and reduce your life expectancy. These emotional black spots are depression, anxiety, anger and low self esteem. Since 1929 the life span of Oscar winners have been measured against other actors and the findings suggest that winning an Oscar increases your life expectancy by 3.9 years because it elevates the recipient’s self esteem and reduces the prevalence and the impact of the four emotional black spots.

 How business owners can protect their brain

Today no business owner should have to put up with prolonged worrying about staffing situations that make them prone to bouts of depression, anxiety, anger and low self esteem. There are now brilliant psychometric tests and selection processes that can eliminate the risk of ever hiring a stressful staff member and it makes more than complete sense to use them. The focus of the Profitable Personnel recruitment process is to assist business owners to find staff that will not only build their business, but will do so in a stress free manner that enhances the business owners quality of life both financially and emotionally.


Committed To Building Your Business With The Right Staff.

David Osborne

David Osborne

www.profitablepersonnel.com


Filed Under: Psychometric Testing, Recruitment

Who Wants To Know 9 Ways to Reward Good Work That Are More Effective Than Giving Money?

March 2, 2009 By 1 Comment

And two crucial secrets to making your team work.

Research suggests that non cash rewards are more effective and less expense than cash rewards. An example of non cash reward is time off and having the choice of working on projects they like. I recently visited a company in Melbourne whose staff set the production goals and all the staff wanted as their reward was to go home when the work was done. Believe it or not the staff set the production targets 25% higher than the management team had ever expected.

This small business is now thriving and has now become a thriving national business, EVEN IN A “RECESSION”. And here’s an interesting point, they don’t hire well trained professionals because professionals have “attitude” and believe everyone should be as knowledgeable as they are, and therefore they tend to talk down to people.

So here are two of their crucial business secrets:

Secret One: They hire based on behaviours not qualifications.
Secret Two: All the systems in the business were so well defined that anyone could come into their business and become productive after 5 days, as long as they had the right behaviours.

Would you like a 25% increase in your team’s profitability?

If you want to change employee behaviour research reveals that the reward will need to be between 5 to 8 percent of an employee’s salary…IF YOU USE CASH. The facts are the best rewards are not cash and they are far more effective. Non cash rewards that are effective are often only half the value of cash rewards, but believe it or not they are far more effective!

Here are nine cheaper and far more effective ways to reward staff that than money.

1. Recognition
2. Time Off
3. A piece of the action
4. Favourite work
5. Advancement
6. Freedom
7. Personal growth
8. Fun
9. Prizes.

Secret Three: The funny thing is staff are often far more satisfied when obtaining non cash rewards and the research suggests staff satisfaction drives your businesses profits sky high.

A recent survey conducted by the Gallup organisation looked at employee attitudes and the impact on business outcomes. They found that businesses where employees had high job satisfaction also had:

  • 22% higher productivity, and
  • 27% higher profits!

    • Do you want 27% higher profits?….if yes here are the steps.

    Step One: Hire your staff on their behaviours not their qualifications.
    Step Two: Reward your staff with non cash incentives.

    Are you great at picking the right staff the first time round?
    Are you able to focus on growing your business and not managing problem staff and their toxic behaviours?….If no then

    “Learn from the mistakes of others.
    You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

    (Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the USA 1933- 1945).

    The Profitable Personnel Recruitment Program has examined numerous methods of getting staff who have the right behaviours and through trial and effort we have refined a process that works. That’s why there is a double your money back guarantee. If you are not a selection specialist and you seriously want 22% higher productivity, and 27% higher profits then there is a way to achieve this and that’s by using Profitable Personnel Recruitment Program.

    “Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.”

    Ken Blanchard – Jim Ballard – Fred Finch
    Authors of Customer Mania

    Committed To Building Your Business With The Right Staff.

    David Osborne

    David Osborne

    www.profitablepersonnel.com


    Filed Under: Recruitment