If you asked Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush about their feelings on winning, do you really think you would get the same response? What about Colin Powell and Ralph Nadar? Magic Johnson and Dennis Rodman? Barbara Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Building a winning team requires a clear vision of what winning means in your organizational culture. For some individuals winning means the winner is the only competitor left standing. For others everyone's a winner as long as you played fairly and with all your heart.

Managers toss around the term "team building" without much thought to the how different employees view winning. But before you go out and attempt to recruit winners, beware the Dennis Rodman's and or Mike Tyson's if you expect these winners to play by your rules.

Rodman and Tyson definitely knew how to win. Both of them at one time were the best in their field. But you might say that they never really learned how to lose. Rodman's career was cut short by his temper tantrums. Tyson took the cake - or should I say ear. When losing was inevitable in one of his most famous fights, he resorted to taking a chunk of his opponent's ear off with his teeth.

When we are asked to evaluate potential or existing employees, one of the most commonly sought characteristics is "team player". My thoughts immediately go to the traits and values that we can accurately assess using TotalView Assessment System and Business Values and Motivators.

In the TotalView(tm) Assessment System, we can determine whether an individual prefers competitiveness or cooperativeness. We can also identify an individual's inclination to play team sports (group-orientation) such as basketball and soccer or "team sports" (self- sufficiency) such as wrestling, gold and swimming. How do individuals react to winning and losing? TotalView also assesses something called stability, or how individuals react to criticism, rejection and stress in general. Obviously Mike Tyson, while the epitome of competitiveness, also was not a poster child for decorum and coping skills. If we had assessed Tyson, his stability scores would likely have indicated more restlessness and excitability than a poised and relaxed demeanor.

Likewise using the Personal Interests, Attitudes and Values(tm) assessment, we can understand why an individual might be competitive. If his or her dominant value is Power and Authority, competition and being in control drives the behavior. However, if Social is dominant, these individuals may get as much enjoyment out of watching the other team celebrate as they would their own. The Conceptually motivated will value winning with their minds while the Economic-driven individual ties winning to dollars and toys. Where do you think the saying "whomever dies with the most toys win" came from - the Economic and Power/Authority driven individual!

What's the point of all this? Building a "winning" team takes much more thought and foresight than just recruiting a bunch of people with a lot of ambition, drive and motivation who don't like to lose. If your organizational culture supports a cut-throat, winner takes all attitude, finding fierce competitors will do the best. But attempt to reign in this fierce competitor in an environment that values respect for others and you'll likely end up with a primadonna or two and a huge dose of resentment.

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Counter-Productive Behavior Index(tm) takes no more than 15 minutes for a candidate to complete and can be scored on paper in less than 60 seconds to score or online. Online reports include a structured interview guide with recommended interview questions.

SELECT(r) Associate System is a pre- employment screening tool to identify work-related behaviors such as Positive Service Attitude, Accountability, Frustration Tolerance, Acceptance of Diversity, Multi- tasking and more, plus a Validity Check and Integrity Index.

Each customized report includes a step by step interview guide including recommended interview questions.

Source: Interview for Success Behavior-based interviewing has been around for 25 years, but the practice has recently been gaining momentum with the increasing demand for skilled and competent employees.

To conduct a behavioral interview, interviewers need to know what to look for in a candidate's response. Online Interview Generator(r) pairs specific "target behaviors" to over 60 competency based interview questions.

Online Interview Generator(r) (IG) allows users to create company and job specific customized behavioral interview guides in minutes. Satisfied IG users include hiring managers, employers, human resources professionals, and consultants.

As an IG user, you can choose an already- developed interview guide from our Job Library of over 40 standard job titles (from Administrative Assistant to COO), then quickly and easily edit to fit your open job. Or, you can choose to design your own interview guide from "scratch" using our extensive database of 65 competencies, and over 1,500 different target behaviors (interview "answers"), and corresponding interview questions.

IG is extremely versatile and flexible - it can be used for selection in every industry, business and organizational environment. IG is inexpensive and cost- effective; clients can purchase interview units separately, or through a site license.