THE FUN SIDE OF THE PEAC SYSTEM® EVALUATION
THROUGH ANECDOTES

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THE POWER OF STORIES!

        During a Read, many of our clients are told stories to help make the evaluation clearer. Those are anecdotes. Some have been around since we started nearly four decades back. But they help make sense of the sometime technial jargon. Something to watch out for is the ERL, a number identified at the bottom right of the center line. 45 is average, 55 and better is almost out of control. A great profile with a 60 ERL might have you for lunch, while the same profile at a 40 may not have enough spark to get going. Consider these as we continue. Here are some of our favorites:

THE RACEHORSE

     If you have a profile with Power higher than zone 3, and Conformance lower that zone 3, you have the makings of a strong willed racehorse. If the Analysis is even a zone or more to the left, you have speed, and sometimes disastrous results. The racehorse that leaps out of the gate with the others, screams down the track and goes right over the fence at the first turn and lands on the freeway. You will lose them, most of the time. With Analysis on the Norm Line or a little to the right, that tendency is tempered, but not by much. It will take a strong manager to handle them. Analysis more than two zones to the right makes them willful and independent and they do not listen well.

       Now, if the profile leads with Conformance to the right, no matter the rest of the traits, you have a cautious runner. With high Power and low Analysis, they want to run, once they are sure of their surroundings... which might take weeks. They step out of the gate, check their footing, the fences, the disappearing racers out front, and then they might take off. Might not. With low Power and that high Conformance, they are afraid to run at all until they really know what they are doing. That can take a year. Most do not last that long.

SEABISCUIT-The Scattered Racer

       In the 2003 film, Seabiscuit, the trainer, complete with a long grass stem in his mouth, watched the yearling horse Seabiscuit on exhibition to see if he had potential. He looked like a runner, he was built like a runner, but he just could not get it together. The trainer said those magic words I have repeated for managers with strong TYPE A employees: "He can really run... in all directions." He was referring to the future champion's total lack of control of his feet, which went all over the place instead of in the pattern required. Once the trainer got those 'feet' trained, he had a real racehorse. High ERL (energy reserve level) obove 55 with Type A above 70 on the graph tend to be that scattered racehorse. They are definitely not wind-up racers. They need training, matrices and supervision for sometimes six months before they suddently get it together. If an owner/manager has the time and money, it may be worth it. These profiles have to listen, they have to practice, and they prefer not to do either. Most will fall out before those six months, unless the manager keeps close attention on them from the beginning.

LIP SERVICE

      It is a known fact that there are fast thinkers, slow thinkers and those who learn to mask that which creates communication difficulties. I was providing a mentoring/in-house training program in a southern state, where many speak a great deal slower than I do. But they could think quickly, and those that did became far more productive with training. On one occasion the Marketing Consultant stepped in for his morning meeting with the owner, and yes, she could talk fast. She gave him all he needed in about two minutes, with minimum discussion. He said, "Yes, ma'am," and turned to go. Now, knowing he was high Analysis, I stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder and asked him sit with us a moment. I asked him, "What did she tell you to do?" There was a pause for half a minute, then, straight out, he said, "I have no idea." Wow! A great management lesson for the owner, but more important is that high Analysis profiles require time and explanation to handle the why of everything until they get it. It taks a lot of time that most managers do not have. High Conformance, on the other hand, is not so concerned with why, but how. The only answer is many hours of role play. Expensive time, but if you are willing to do the work, or have my excellent Mentor Program in place, and done right, you might rescue thirty percent of them. Ouch.

WATCH EVERYBODY YOU MEET

       Where do you find them? Here are two of our favorite anecdotes:
        Having survived a hurricane while sleeping on the floor in a shelter for four days, I elected to find a pair of cots for the next one. I am too old to sleep on floors. I went to a large department store, walked around lost for five minutes and a polite Latina asked me if she could help. I told her what I needed. She asked me to follow her to the farthest corner of this huge store, then showed me the choices, laid out one for me and put it back. I bought two. She carried one actually the way to the register, what seemed like a half mile, and I chatted with her a bit. She sounded like the perfect profile. I referred her to a local staffing firm and she was their number one producer for two years running, before they sold out and she went to another, more stable company.

        The second one had to do with a surprise to me. I was doing CASE Studies at the time, before my voice was disrupted by radiation, and I rarely gave out high marks. Most people do not have the instincts for the job. But after it was over, I asked the man how long he had been in the business. I could not trip him up. His response? "I am not in the business. I have been a bartender for five years." It was only two weeks earlier that I had explained to the manager the theory of keeping an eye out everywhere he went. And he liked the bartender and saw what he needed. He was right. Another high producing star for several years!

THE CHATTERBOX

        Managers often tell the Reader that they enjoyed talking with the person trying out for a staffing position, be it contract, temp or direct hire, and it is difficult to get them to see the insecurity behind that profile. They do not like silence. They talk their way into a sale, and then talk their way out. The difference between a talker with purpose (higher Power with high Extroversion) is in trying to accomplish something in the call. The high Extrovert is 'hoping' something will happen, and may actually fail to see it when it does. High Extroverts with low Power, even with lower Analysis score dismally, overall. It takes a great deal of training and time from a manager to fix them. Time and training means money spent.


SEEING IS BELIEVING

      One of my favorite discoveries while I was validating the PEAC System® occured early on in the process, way back in the early eighties. One of the official screens in Wells Fargo Bank, a strong willed but polite young lady, was very good at fending off most of my approaches. She was difficult to get past, as I needed loan officers, vice presidents and such. One day, out of the blue, I invited her to come visit me and take my evaluation. I explained that I thought she was underutilised. She took the dare and came to the interview. The PEAC gave her a near perfect one to five, and I processed her into one of my client companies. When everyone in the company was praised for eighty thousand a year, she hit two hundred thousand!! Then she referred a loan officer she knew that was a lot like her. He, too, hit two hundred thousand in the first year. Both of them were suddenly making a lot more money and last I heard, he retired, and she was still at it. :

THE SHARK

        One of my clients in the southwest was running an IT recruiting firm and doing better after a couple of years following my guidance. However, though the manager knew what to look for, he only saw the shadow, and not the real person. The PEAC came back with very high Power, very low Analysis and equally low Confomance. Now, he had a room full of counselors, (High E and High A) and though they were doing better, they were like molasses to her boiling water. He hired her, and promptly lost two out of his stable six, then she stole a deal or two because everyone was too slow, and another quit. I got the call one day, "What do I do? She is destroying my company!" She made three placements in a month, with zero experience but cut his team in half, and the rest (good friends) threatened to bolt. To quote one of my competitors in that era, "Fire her," has a noice ring to it. She was not going to stop taking large bites out of people who could not compete, right?

FISHING

       Many managers are likeable folks. They like to hire people like themselves for they can relate better. However, managers and owners often arise because of outside circumstance, and some not so good producers make great managers, for they are more patient with people, and care. In any case, if they hire in that same mode, they can doom the company to failure. At least, desk by desk. There is a great story around that concept. When the market is hot, you can take your company full of high Extroverts out fishing among the water covered rocks and do okay. However when the market drops, the rocks are all that are left and the high Extrovert you like will suddenly be nonproductive. Just because you LIKE them is not a good reason to hire. Spend the time and invest in the screening to see if they really have the right stuff. Of course, if you do not like them, well, 'nuff said.

THE OLD HAND

        One would think that someone with ten or more years of survival would have it down well. Not always so. I have seen it far too many times. They have a pattern, a good team around them or a select client that has carried them for years. Take away the team or the client and suddenly, the pattern is mere baggage and it is darned hard to change those habits. Look closely at the background. Sometimes an old hand will have ten years with the first company, then a year with the next, then six months and so on. You can see that pattern, right? These are often BS experts, painting you with it and they sound good. Too many times, they did not even survive the first day of my typical three day in-house training program. Be careful.

THE CRASH

        This one hurt. I spent four years building a very successful contract recruiting company on once a month in-house training programs. They were stable, no new hires, so it was all reinforcement and redirection. And they were soon rolling in money. Not sure what happened, but one day I came in to find they had hired a good friend of theirs to supervise and manage the producers. He was an accountant, with the typical high Analysis and high Conformance of those folks. He and I clashed right away, and in his complaint to the owners, I was too pushy, the people were working too hard, and such. They can get by on ten contacts a day... My relationship with them ended. Two years later, they sold the company for a tenth of what it had been worth in its heydey. Finally, they admitted, that was a mistake. They were simply trying to save money. Good idea, what? My style is simple. I will do all it takes to make you and your people successful. But I will not waste my time on those that really don't care...

NO COLD CALLS?

        I hear it all the time. In your day, you had to make a hundred calls a day. We don't work that way! Actually, it was fifty contacts a day. Now, it is twenty to thirty and most do not even come close. So, if one is going to ask for a lead, and they should ask everybody, then that next call is a cold call. Knowing how to do it right makes it less threatening and more profitable. People who are guessing on how it is done hate to do it. Try training, help and role-playing. I have a great site for that, take a look.



HIPPIES?

        Every so often someone so odd, so determined that it is laughable at the time. And no, they are almost never hired. Instead of taking the evaluation as intended, with the answers of 1 for least like, all the way to 5 for most like, we get the lament: "I want to use X's and O's, how come I cannot?" Another was I am so unlike that I want to use a '0,' why won't it work? I have tried four times." You can see the nightmare of managing those profies standing out like a bright red light of warning.

George W. Tucker, MS
 President - The PEAC SYSTEM®
Finding 'Em, Training 'Em and Keeping 'Em

(941) 297-9197  (813)751-6759
www.peacsystem.com gxtucker@peacsystem.com

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