Welcome to the April 13, 2005 issue of The Total View

Your resource for cutting-edge news, tips, and tools to help you hire, manage, and motivate top-performing employees.

If you are receiving this issue as a forward, and want your own subscription, visit
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In This Issue
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1. Should Employee Tardiness be Overlooked for Great Customer Service Skills?
2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #381 to #385.
3. What Would You Do if You Could Get Inside The Head of Your Customers?
4. Have You Downloaded our Complimentary DISC E-booklet Yet?
5. How Can You Score Some Easy Brownie Points With your Colleagues?

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The Total View is written and published each Wednesday by Ira S. Wolfe, founder of Success Performance Solutions. (Yes, Ira writes every article, every week!) and is distributed with permission by The Chrysalis Corporation.

Ira S. Wolfe 2005 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

To learn more about The Chrysalis Corporation or to read back issues of The Total View, visit our web site at
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=12&c=9

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1. Should employee tardiness be overlooked for great customer service skills?
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A few days ago, an employee recently fired from her job called me. To protect confidentiality, let’s call her April. Here’s the conversation:

“I think you’re the person who came to our office the other day and spoke with all the employees. Well, I was fired today and would like to talk with you. I don’t understand why. All of a sudden my manager decided I wasn’t doing my job. I think she had a personality conflict with me.”

I hung up the receiver and thought for a moment. I know her manager fairly well and had an inkling that what I heard was part of the story. I called the manager to learn all the facts. My instincts were correct. April was not fired out of the blue.

I learned that April had been late for work twenty times in the past six months, plus a few other things. In fact, April was late for work the day she was fired. Apparently that was the final straw. But the decision was not capricious. Her manager documented all her late arrivals and other performance issues, including several verbal, written and final warnings, with employee services two weeks prior to her termination date.

Everyone I spoke with agreed that April had a great personality, one of the best for customer service. Patients loved her. In her defense, April had documentation from a few staff, management, and physicians praising her customer service skills. One supervisor said she wished everyone had April’s personality.

Out of courtesy, I returned April’s call fully expecting anger or tears. Was I ever surprised! April answered with top-notch professionalism. She showed a great phone manner — articulate, with a friendly, almost perky voice that gave no hint of a problem. I now understood why she received high marks for customer service.

During the course of the conversation, April mentioned again that being fired was an unexpected shock. When I asked if she was made aware of any performance issues, the answer caught me by surprise.

“It happened, all of sudden, in April 2004”, she replied. “You mean last year, almost twelve months ago?” I asked. “Yes, I had no idea there was a problem before that,” April continued. “Since then, the practice manager has had it out for me. My supervisor and a few other staff members suggested my manager and I had a ‘personality conflict’.”

Wait a minute. All of a sudden twelve months ago? A personality conflict or poor performance? What was the root of April’s being fired?

April was fired because she was tardy too often. How can the root of what is clearly a time management issue be caused by a personality conflict? It goes back to “core personality.” Allowing that generalizations can be misleading, it safe to say that people who prefer ordered and predictable lives favor timeliness and planning. Then, there are the folks who place value on other things. That’s what makes life interesting.

Sadly, what makes life interesting can cause chaos in the workplace. When the company culture, or personality of a supervisor, favors order and discipline, a laid-back person may be seen as sloppy and disorganized. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, changing these basic traits isn’t easy and won’t happen unless the person is highly motivated.

That’s why I chuckled to myself when April complained about being caught off guard by the firing. Yes, she admitted to being warned for the first time more than a year ago, and repeatedly during subsequent months. April, who is gregarious and easy-going, defines customer service as being nice to people. Her manager, however, considered that just one component of good customer service, with timeliness and initiative sharing importance for necessary satisfacory performance.

Given the difference in how these two people behaved, the decision to fire April could be considered, at least in part, the result of a personality conflict. Had April worked for another manager in another practice, her tardiness might have been tolerated, even excused, because of her good customer service skills. This employer, however, placed high value on time management. April had to change her behavior which would require her to change her basic personality to succeed.

April’s experience highlights the importance of personality assessments when making hiring decisions. A good job fit means matching the person to the job, the team, and the company culture. April, who had the right personality for the job, was a bad fit for the team and the practice culture.

April suffered from being fired. So did her employer who has to go through the time and expense of recruiting, interviewing, hiring and training a replacement. Here are some low-cost, high-benefit solutions to this problem:

1. Use attitude and work integrity pre-employment tests to screen out candidates prone to counter-productive behaviors such as absenteeism, tardiness, theft, substance abuse, computer abuse, aggressive tendencies and poor customer service attitudes. Examples of these pre-employment tests include Counter-Productive Behavior Index: http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=4&c=9 and SELECT Associate System: http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=6&c=9

2. Pre-screen candidates to avoid hiring those whose work integrity values don’t fit your culture. Use personality tests http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=28&c=9 to evaluate a person’s disposition toward organization, planning, detail-orientation, and customer service. These tests also assess the importance a worker will place on teamwork and team participation.

3. Once you’ve made a hiring decision, make performance expectations clear. Maybe things would have turned out differently for April if her manager stated that tardiness was simply unacceptable. April always tried to be on time; it was just that things like alarm clocks, traffic, weather and sick children always upset her plans. Her best efforts just weren't enough and April continued to come in late.

4. Likewise, every employee needs to know how performance is evaluated. A performance review process http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=14&c=9 that identifies key performance areas and prioritizes their importance works best. Let’s go back to April. If she understood that being on time was as important as good customer service, April might not have tried to excuse her tardiness with praise from co-workers about her “people skills" or maybe would have not accepted the job in the first place.

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2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #381 to #385.
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Fact #381: 60 percent of managers and executives are happy with their pay, compared to only 44 percent of non-management workers. The pay satisfaction has widened by 45 percent since 1997. (Source: Sirota Consulting, 2005)

Fact #382: In a survey of HR managers and CEOs from 54 U.S. companies, respondents were asked the most common reasons for unscheduled absences in their organizations. The top 3 reasons were employee's minor illness (70%), child's illness (65%), and employee's chronic medical condition (35%). (Source: The Segal Co.)

Fact #383: The top traits of those most likely to succeed in the international business arena are: flexibility (97%), open-mindedness (97%), supportive family (82%), good listening skills (77%), and sense of self-direction (76%). (Source: RW3)

Fact #384: Despite management's best efforts to communicate business strategy, only 64 percent of employees think management has set a strategic direction and only 62 percent say they know what the direction is. (Source: Novations Group)

Fact #385: Unclear objectives, lack of team communication and ineffective meetings are among the top time wasters that workers around the world say make them feel unproductive for as much as a third of their workweek on average, according to results of an online Microsoft® Office survey (March 2005). According to the survey of nearly 40,000 people in 200 countries, U.S. workers clock an average of 45 hours per week, but consider 16 hours are wasted.

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Get a copy today - $7.95 includes shipping. Follow this link to learn more:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=7&c=9

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3. What Would You Do if You Could Get Inside The Head of Your Customers?
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Have you ever imagined how valuable brutally honest feedback from your customers would be to your company or organization? I'm talking about no B.S. feedback about how your customers REALLY feel about your products, services, and support. What would it be like if your clients provided you with suggestions that actually increased your profits and bottom line and eliminated the "hit and miss" approach to sales and marketing? Stop imagining and start knowing!

The easiest and most cost-effective way to get this information is to conduct a survey. A survey eliminates the psychological pressure for clients to tell you what they think you want to hear. Some people, regardless of how unhappy they are with a product or service, refuse to voice their dissatisfaction with a company because it makes them feel uncomfortable. They simply "vote with the feet" and tend to go away without you ever knowing the reason why. The end result -- you lose business without ever knowing the reasons why. Surveys neutralize a potentially awkward and uncomfortable situation for clients by providing a way for them to provide you with honest and direct feedback in an anonymous manner.

We have taken all the stress and hassles out of creating, deploying, inputting, and analyzing survey results.

Contact us today to learn about about real-time e-mail and web based surveys. No more hassles with entering results and creating presentations. Let us do the work for you. We can help you write, set-up, distribute (electronically), process and present in less time for less cost than you can imagine.

For more information about the survey solutions we can provide you with, including our Rapid Survey Option, follow the link below and type "Surveys" in the comment box. You can also contact us by phone at: 229-257-0665:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=20&c=9

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4. Have You Downloaded our Complimentary DISC E-booklet Yet?
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If you are new to DISC -- the observable language of human behavior -- or just want to brush up on your DISC knowledge, we invite you to download our complimentary e-booklet Teamworks: 42 Tips to Help Teams Thrive & Survive.

This easy reference pocked guide will provide you with a solid understanding of the DISC model in clear, concise language. You will learn:

--Four ways that people approach their work.
--Secrets to reading a person like a book.
--How to predict a person's behavior.
--What motivates your boss and coworkers

Follow this link to download Teamworks: 42 Tips to Help Teams Thrive:
http://www.chrysaliscorporation.com/cgi-bin/arp3/arp3-t.pl?l=2&c=9

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5. How Can You Score Some Easy Brownie Points With your Colleagues?
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If you found the information in this newsletter useful, chances are you have colleagues in other departments of your organization (as well as colleagues outside of your company) who would also benefit from receiving and reading The Total View.

Please forward this newsletter to them TODAY so that they can check it out and sign-up to receive it directly. Instructions for subscribing can be found at the beginning and end of this message.

They'll thank you for it and will appreciate you looking out for them!

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Contact Information:

The Chrysalis Corporation
2001 Hammock Drive
Valdosta, GA 31602
229-257-0665