"When a collaborative rather than autocratic culture reigns, and companies can adapt to changes in their market and environment, the information technology team is much more likely to be aligned with company goals and culture. The alignment riddle can't be solved by focusing solely on the IT department; it requires cultural change throughout the company."

• 93% of executives with a collaborative management culture say IT is aligned at their company.
• 68% of companies are good at insuring mutual understanding of IT and business strategies.
• 60% of respondents said IT spending is "completely aligned to our business strategy."
• 37% of business executives say their IT department's culture conflicts with their company's culture.

Using DISC Behavioral Style Profiles
Why use behavioral style profiles?
Online Delivery and Software Collection

DISC Graph Reading 101 Lunch and Learn:

Self-Insight and Knowledge-based Style Adjustment

• Understand your native tongue, your most natural communication style.
  
• Send the messages you mean to send - how we deliver verbal and nonverbal messages
  
• Become aware of the adjustments made in response to the work environment, streamlining them into more natural and fruitful responses.
  
• More effectively capitalize on the strengths of your style.
  
• Decisively navigate the areas which are not naturally your strengths.
  
• Identify your behavioral style liabilities, and compensate for them.
  
• Make blind spots visible with specific feedback.
  
• Productively differentiate between task management and relationship building.
  
• Appreciate your unique contributions to leadership and decision-making.
  

• How to identify those with different behavioral tendencies.
  
• Decode visual and verbal signs of behavioral language.
  
• Utilize communication and motivation style preferences.
  
• Adjust behaviors to optimize your approach toward different styles.
  
• Avoid communication mistakes such as misinterpreting others.
  
• Successfully direct behavior-based interactions.
  
• Influence and motivate others who don't seem to think the same way you do.
  
• Separate behaviors and intentions to create dynamic responses to what you see and hear.
  
• Translate strong emotions into workplace intelligence.
  
• Recognize and practice interpersonal skills that promote success with others.
  

Ask us about specialty products!
Teeshirts and full-color magnets of DISC characteristics are great for retreats and workshops!

Spotlight on TotalView

TotalView is much more than an assessment. It gives you customized Job Match patterns, suggests relevant interview questions, yields a percentage match when comparing a candidate to your top performers and provides a detailed positive analysis of the individuals you assess. TotalView is the assessment to use for a thorough analysis of people, job responsibilities, and job match. It is an extremely valuable management tool that will help you build a stronger, more productive organization and reach your important goals because you are putting the best people in the best jobs. The pre-employment version identifies the best applicant for the position. The post-employment version is a valuable coaching and development tool.

• Workers are worried about their company hiring plans. The percentage of workers nervous about losing their jobs rose to its highest level in more than a year at 22%. Nearly one-fifth (19%) of the workforce expects layoffs in the coming months, up from 17% in March and April.
• Younger workers and those earning less than $40,000 per year also saw a considerable decline in optimism, with job loss cited as a primary concern among these two groups.
• More workers are pessimistic than optimistic about their finances for the first time in over a year. Continuing a trend for the last few months, the percent of workers expecting their financial situation to improve fell two points in May to 39%, while the number anticipating it would worsen rose two points to 42%.

Organizational change - correctly managed and implemented - can be exciting and motivating for all involved. Organizations today continually need to optimize, address critical situations and opportunities, and become more streamlined and effective. Organizational change has become constant - ubiquitous - permanent. However, "busywork" changes made simply for the sake of change itself will not further your goals. Change at the organizational level has to be smart change, leveraging your people and your processes to achieve competitive advantage.

One of our nation's greatest accomplishments, the Apollo moon mission, succeeded despite the fact that we were off course 97% of the time. If you understand your starting point and your destination, and you know your position, you can correct your course as you go to arrive at the right place at the right time.

"Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm." - Peter F. Drucker

Best Change Processes

Employees are all too aware of today's trends toward downsizing, reorganization, doing more with less - and many companies seem to have made it as painful as possible. How can you manage change and help workers to cope with change? One way to find out what to change - and how best to change - is to make your workforce part of the visioning team.

Managing change works better and is more effective when it is not accomplished via a top-down totalitarian method. The worst-case scenario is when circumstances require a move from current point A to future point B, and then one of the organizational leaders sends down the 'law' that has been decided upon - rigid, inflexible, uninformed - thinking that this is decisive vision and good leadership. Without comprehensive and accurate information, many of these decisions will not be the best ones.

Survey your own employees (and customers) for their opinions! You will get better solutions and less resistance. It is disconcerting that in this day and age, with an educated and aware workforce, that so few companies actually ask the people who really know:

• What could we be doing better for our company R.O.I.?
• What could we be doing better for our customers?
• What could we be doing to make our teams work better together?
• What could we be doing better to make my team work better?
• Would I take a comparable offer from another company? Why would I leave?
• Where would I prioritize differently in my area?
• What are my solutions?

Some of our best workers, though they are supportive and loyal, may have a hard time sharing criticisms. They have valuable information that needs to be brought to the table. Likewise, surveying customers is not only crucial, it is also a form of advertising.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by asking the people who spend most of their waking hours working for you. You just can't get better information. Anonymous and confidential surveys administered by an outside entity enable open, honest and constructive feedback.

Most importantly, if you do ask, the changes are our changes. If you do not ask, they are your changes. Changes that are perceived as "yours" rather than "ours" (especially if they seem softheaded to the people who actually have to live them) will almost always provoke disengagement, passive resistance and even outright hostility.

How to Implement Organizational Change

So if change is inevitable, do you have the right crew for the journey? As has been repeated often, you need to "get the right people on the bus and in the right seats" - and the wrong people off the bus. Unfortunately, deciding who gets off too often relies on hunches, emotions, scattered opinions, and flawed processes. There are user-friendly tools and simple processes that assist in objective decision-making, but most corporate leaders are still unaware of these tools and how they can best be applied.

The biggest advancements in HR tools over the past few years have been in the area of objectively identifying the optimum behaviors and motivations for each position. This is information that goes well beyond simply the technical requirements of the position covered by a traditional job description.

The most effective process will include these assessments to:

• Examine what it is needed to get to the next level
• Use assessments to find the exact talents needed
• Objectively apply existing talent
• Identify the missing competencies to be acquired
• Recruit, retain and motivate the best talent, with the most targeted competencies, in the best-fit positions and in the most productive mix for productive teams.

Effective and ethical application of validated assessments at all four stages of this process is proven to increase productivity, build working teams, encourage effective communication, reduce conflict, promote mutual understanding, and develop an environment for self-motivation even during times of organizational change.

But then, what is the best way to help those leaving to discover they are "on the wrong bus"?

Best practices include not only getting the "wrong people off the bus," but getting those very people to really understand why they would not be happy with where this bus is going. If the position and the person are incompatible, it is a lose-lose situation for both. If that is properly understood, they can choose - voluntarily - to walk "off the bus" with respect and dignity. That is a win-win result.

Outstanding organizations require a variety of styles to accomplish all that needs to be done. Effective communication between different styles requires a common understanding of what value and competencies each member brings to the table. Communication is also very important to understand how to introduce and implement change, especially for those in the workforce who do not tolerate change very well. We provide assessments and seminars to facilitate such communications.

It's all about vision, expectations and communications.

Over the years, we've learned a great deal about what works and what doesn't, and we've translated that experience into processes involving assessment tools, training programs, and improvement initiatives. Our approach is to partner with our clients in diagnosing problems, designing solutions, implementing programs, and measuring improvement in their organizations. We will work with you to target the assesssments and tools that are most effective for the context and situation. Each package is designed for the specific requirements and needs of the individual organization, and can be as focused or as comprehensive as you need it to be. Possibilities include the following:

• Free initial needs assessment (call us at 404-814-0739).
• Consultation with Art Schoeck, Behavioral Style Strategist
• Cultural vitality, satisfaction and 360-degree surveys as needed.
• Redefinition of job positions using the working environment tool, behavioral style profiles, and other assessments as needed
• A customized "Coping With Change" Seminar - based on your actual context and needs - to facilitate the transition
• Other seminars and assessments for performance improvement, time management, better communication, sales, customer service, and team engineering.