By Andy Bailey
Finding team members who not only perform well but also align with your company’s culture isn’t easy. As a business coach for more than 30 companies, and a small business owner myself, I’ve seen firsthand the repercussions of poor hiring. It’s not pretty.
The Labor Department estimates replacing an employee can cost, on average, one-third of a new hire’s annual salary. Money aside, losing team members greatly affects overall morale.
Building your team—and doing so with purpose—is crucial to the overall strength of your company. When bringing on new team members, I recommend recruiting individuals who:
- Can do the job
- Will do the job
- Fit in well with your team
Once you find and hire members who fulfill those three criteria, it’s your responsibility to identify and assess their strengths and use them to grow your business.
According to a recent Gallup poll, employees are six times more likely to be engaged in their role when they’re able to operate from their strengths. So assign team members to roles they are good at and enjoy doing.
I recommend using a personality assessment like DiSC to accurately identify their strengths. It’s a series of questions that measures individuals’ tendencies toward Dominance, Influence, Steadiness or Compliance.
While everyone possesses all of these traits on some level, each person naturally favors and performs best from one primary quadrant. The idea is to understand each individual’s personality strengths to find the role he or she is best suited for.
For instance, if a team member favors the Influence style, he or she is typically social and favors team collaboration, face-to-face meetings and group activities. Because of these inclinations, an Influencer is typically most comfortable in a sales capacity or a role that requires significant client interaction.
On the flip side, an Influencer’s spontaneous proclivities may make him or her less suited for a position as an accountant that requires thorough attention to detail.
For an overview of the DiSC styles, visit: http://petracoach.com/resources/disc/.
The point of identifying which behavioral style each individual favors is not to put him or her in a box, but to better understand that team member’s comfort zone and assign him or her tasks that lie within that arena.
I’m not saying never challenge your team members by assigning them responsibilities outside their natural proclivities, just make sure their primary roles are aligned with their strengths.
Overall, DISC will give you better understanding of your team so you can better assign, better communicate and better manage—all of which will help you grow your business.
Andy Bailey built and sold a multimillion-dollar business and is now lead entrepreneur coach with business coaching firm, Petra, and president of Nashville’s EO chapter. Reach him at andy@petracoach.com.
