DataDome Blog

Art Schoeck will speak September 19th to YoungBucks, the premier young professionals club of the Buckhead community (Atlanta). The topic is on leadership development using behavioral style analysis.

The mission of YoungBucks is to “bring together young professionals to foster leadership development, personal enrichment, netweaving and community involvement.”

YoungBucks meets the third Monday or Tuesday of each month from 6:00-8:30PM, and their events have included some of Atlanta’s most highly regarded business & political leaders.

Leadership Behavioral Insights

“What You Need to Know About Yourself to Get to The Next Level”

Please join us as we welcome Art Schoeck with Data Dome Inc. Art will explain how to “Know thyself”. To achieve your fullest potential you must first objectively analyze yourself by understanding your strengths, weaknesses, behavior, motivation level and intellectual aptitude. This inevitably will lead to better ways to strategize your career plans.

This seminar includes instructional opening, shared reports with group participation and other targeted exercises, from role playing to ‘consensus’ round table discussions.

BONUS: Attendees have the opportunity to take on-line Behavioral Insights questionnaire which takes 8-12 minutes to complete and produces over 380 different narrative profiles as well as a visual analysis.

DATE: September 19, 2006

TIME: 6pm – 8pm

LOCATION: Soleil – 3081 Maple Dr. NE, Buckhead

ADMISSION: FREE members, $10 guest (cash or check)

Complimentary: Hors d’oeuvres, Martinis specials (2for1 price), Membership & Guest Raffle
Educational and Fun

** Please note: Attendees who complete the on-line questionnaire will receive a complimentary personalized 22 page Narrative Report when you attend the event.

**Must RSVP to receive the on-line questionnaire instructions.**

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The collaborative process of developing an objective behavioral job description benefits management and employees. Often for very first time, managers understand exactly what employees are going through, and employees understand what management really wanted – all in user-friendly behavioral terms. The behavioral job description has a number of valuable applications beyond benchmarking a position or even defining positions for increasing team synergy.
A round-table session discusses any differences in perceptions (answers) and establishes consensus (not compromise). We use a questionnaire as a guideline for discussing all aspects of the job – including all tasks and skills involved.

What exactly are the optimum behaviors for the particular position? We prefer to use DISC theory to map out the behavioral sectors.

• D How does the job itself require someone to respond to problems and challenges? Scope of authority, urgency, decisiveness, patience may be key areas.
• I How does the job itself require someone to influence others to a particular way of thinking or method of doing? Trust, openness, facts and data (oral and written), discussion, and communication are key areas.
• S How does the job itself require someone to deal with the pace and activity levels? Change, persistence, consistency, and listening skills are key areas.
• C How does the job itself require a person to respond to the quality of rules and procedures set by others? Is there a manual, and is it effective? Key areas to consider are rules required to maintain quality, accuracy, precision, and company policies.If you accurately assess a person’s behavioral preferences and match them to a compatible position, the payoff is enormous. When you love what you do, you have more to give.

From a leadership perspective, you’ve not only landed a productive employee but freed the employee’s manager to do constructive, rather than remedial, coaching.

The behavioral job description has a number of valuable applications beyond benchmarking a position or even defining positions for increasing team synergy.

We adjust all the time to changes in the work environment. Are you still on the same map and headed in the right direction?A quick re-alignment can be achieved simply by going through this kind of exercise, comparing the manager’s and employee’s scores. The more the resulting graphs deviate from each other, the more misconception, miscommunication and misunderstanding exists.

We use the same instrument to guide clients to those areas needing discussion and resolution.

Unlike most traditional performance evaluations, this exercise is a positive, objective approach.

“Painless Enlightenment” is what we call the productive, nonthreatening experiences that result from the optimal application of validated assessment tools.

With our guidance, leadership can use assessment tools as a resource for sculpting a realistic, effective visioning plan for optimal performance across diverse positions and departments throughout the organization.

Call 404-814-0739 for your consultation.

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According to the recent Accenture High Performance Workforce Study, corporate executives surveyed say there is a problem with skills in the workforce. Critical functions are reported as not performing as strongly as they should:

• Only 14% of respondents described the overall skill level of their organizations’ entire workforce as industry leading.
• Just 20% of respondents said the majority of their employees understand their companies’ strategy and what’s needed to be successful in their industry.
• Among those who rated these functions among the top three, just one-quarter (25%) assigned the highest rating to the performance of their sales function, and under a third provided the same rating to their customer service, finance and strategic planning functions (25%, 19% and 33%, respectively).
• Only 11% were very satisfied with the performance of human resources (HR) functions. Only 10% very very satisfied with the performance of training functions. Only 36% of respondents said their companies tailor their HR and training support to each function’s needs and contributions to the organization. More than 40% percent do not even evaluate the impact of their HR and training efforts against profitability. About 50% do not evaluate those efforts against revenues and sales.
• 42% of respondents described capturing and sharing knowledge as a challenge or a severe challenge for their companies. 38% report a lack of a common business culture across different locations. 37% report no knowledge support infrastructure with dedicated people. 32% report that knowledge sharing is typically not rewarded in the organization.
• 60% expect to begin feeling the impact of the aging workforce and the impending retirement of baby boomers within the next 5 years. Of those, 28% said they are feeling the impact now.
• 43% described talent sourcing as a challenge or a severe challenge, primarily because of a smaller or shrinking talent pool from which to choose.
• Only a small percentage of respondents said the heads of customer service (29%), finance (31%), sales (34%) and strategic planning (37%) at their companies are highly involved in human capital management initiatives.

“The lack of essential skills is a vital issue for senior managers,” said Peter Cheese, global managing partner in Accenture’s Human Performance practice. “As the competitive environment grows more demanding and as markets become increasingly commoditized, the need to cultivate these skills – particularly in the critical functions – should be at the top of every corporate to-do list. Those companies that fail to develop their workforces risk losing their competitive edge.”

One the other hand, this research did identify “human performance leaders” among the companies, who are more likely to be successful in addressing the organizational issues that contribute to strong financial performance. Characteristics among these companies include:

• Acquiring new customers and increasing market share (reported by 43% of “human performance leaders” vs. 14% of “laggards”)
• Encouraging strong customer loyalty and retention (52% vs. 17%)
• Responding to changing market conditions (52% vs. 14%)
• Finding and developing talented leaders (39% vs. 7%)
• Attracting and retaining skilled staff (30% vs. 12%)
• Generating superior business value from technology investments (35% vs. 15%)

Data Dome Inc. can address many of these issues for your company.

We Assess
We assess people.

We Analyze
We analyze jobs, positions, roles.

We Apply
We apply processes that maximize everyone’s potential – matching personal strengths and preferences to job requirements, uncovering blind spots/challenges, optimizing teams, and improving the quality of the work environment.

Call today for your free needs consultation at 404-814-0739 or email us at service {at} datadome {dot} com.

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Career Counseling Myths

1. Most people get useful career counseling in high school and college.WRONG! In a survey of 17,000 corporate employees, less than ½ of 1% say they received any useful help in deciding their careers while in school.
2. Career decisions should ideally be based on solely on our skills (what we’re “good at”).WRONG! People get degrees and jobs every day that they can do quite well. The problem is they don’t actually want to do what the job requires day in and day out, every day. They might be very skilled and well-trained, but the “personality” of the job is a behavioral mismatch to their own strengths. This can happen to anyone, in any profession. You’ll be more fulfilled – with more success and less stress – if your job actually requires what you naturally prefer to do, the way you prefer to do it.
3. Useful, targeted career help is only available from high-priced consultants and psychologists.WRONG! Advancements in assessment analysis over the last few years have resulted in excellent career-planning instruments, which are based on years of research on behavioral compatibility. Many of these are now available online. Our Career Insights assessment produces a detailed (but very readable) narrative profile. It is an advanced analysis tool, not one of the for-fun “internet quizzes” that you might have seen.

What would be your most fulfilling and satisfying job role?

Do you want to know what kind of job roles or careers you’d be most comfortable doing – before spending your time, money and energy on the wrong education, training and job?

What are your behavioral preferences and strengths? Where are your challenges and blind spots?

How do you respond to the pace of the environment and to problems and challenges? How do you influence others to your point of view? How do you respond to rules and regulations set by others?

What jobs actually match the behaviors you prefer?

To find out, take advantage of our web special: The 20+ page Career Insights profile, along with a 15-20 minute debriefing session with a certified behavioral style analyst.

Great for new graduates, job transitioning, re-entry into the workforce, high school and college career guidance!

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