Designed for Life

If the selection of your management has been subject to the same tools and tests used by many high tech corporations, your management capabilities probably resemble this frequency study of 1,234 managers and executives from a number of high tech companies. Most organizations have hired or promoted what we call INFLUENCERS, not MANAGERS or LEADERS.

The picture which emerges is that the great majority of these executives...

are not team players
are not proactive or opportunistic
are not creative
are not oriented around profitability
are not motivated to manage
are not risky decision-makers
are not confronting

Instead, the majority of these executives...

have significant planning abilities
are excellent communicators
have strong influencing abilities
want well defined jobs
are responsive to emerging needs and problems
embrace a collaborative process
are good with people
are good with details
rely on systems, methods and controls
wants some form of measurable result

For somewhat more detail and precision about the same participants (Directors and higher) the same 1,234 participants are competent and motivated to:

Make risky decisions (22%)
Set goals (21%)
Deal with abstract concepts (27%)
Strategize (31%)
Manage (30%)
Lead (12%)
Function Tactically (40%)
Employ Controls (25%)
Seek Growth/Improvement (97%)
Influence (100%)
Communicate (89%)
Need Requirements/Definition of Work (48%)
Take Risks (3%)
Achieve Results (21%)
Solve problems (38%)
Meet Challenge/Competition (54%)
Make a Profit (4%)
Project Oriented (33%)
Thrive Under Pressure/Difficulties (26%)
Function as Team Members (28%)
Retain Individualistic Contributor Role (54%)

The concept that you can access the metaphorical heart and mind of a person through any kind of assessment process and then change them to conform to your assessment is actually a nutty idea once you realize the nature of the person. Consider the ways some of our finest thinkers have proposed understanding and predicting the nature of the individual human being:

Understand the person as an individual - identify the purposes and goals of the person (Maslow)
Predict future behavior by a study of past behavior (Owens, Schmidt)
Hold to the structure of a life as lived - man exists only in concrete, specifiable and unique forms (Allport)
Derive a picture of the person in action (Super, Crites)
Describe the internal driving forces of the person (McClelland)
Capture the structuring principles of the ordering personality (Rappaport)
Determine the central unique elements of a holistic striving after achievement or success. Living beings can be known only in terms of success or failure (Polanyi)
Rely on meaningful samples of behavior rather than signs or indicators of predispositions, as predictors of later performance (Wernimont, Campbell)

Management Mismatch Examples