How to turn employee potential into performance

Imagine on Monday, you discover that your meticulous, rule-following accountant and creative, eccentric marketing person have switched positions. How likely is this to work out? In truth, some variation of this misalignment is common in most organizations.

Many business leaders say 80 percent of the work is done by only 20 percent of the workforce. These 20 percent are the top performers. They usually produce three to four times more than the others. The main reason for their success is job alignment, not attitude or drive.

Here’s evidence: It’s common for top performers to be moved or promoted and then become poor performers. Likewise, many poor performers become top performers when moved to appropriate roles. Bottom line: Everyone can be a top or poor performer based on how well their work aligns with their innate characteristics (often referred to as natural gifts or abilities).

How do you deliberately create an organization where people’s work is aligned with their natural abilities?

1. Shift your mindset from focusing on skills, experience and education to innate characteristics first. It’s common for people who are great on paper to get hired and become poor performers. In that same vein, many top performers start off lacking in the required experience and education. When people’s work aligns with their innate characteristics, they can use their natural abilities and unleash their passion for their work.

2. Select the right assessment tool. Many organizations use personality assessments in the hope of gaining more objective information about people. However, the results are usually disappointing. This happens because what you think of as personality is often mostly surface-level, observable behaviors.

What’s a better option? Select an assessment that delves beneath the personality into what is more core or innate with people. Taylor Protocols and Predictive Index are examples of companies that have assessments to accomplish this objective.

As the managing partner for PeopleMax, based in Atlanta, Georgia, Brad Wolff specializes in workforce and personal optimization. He’s a speaker and author of “People Problems? How to Create People Solutions for a Competitive Advantage.” Find two more strategies in Wolff’s Round the Table article

Learn more about working better with your team

• Read about the benefits of meeting with your employees individually
• See why one MDRT member only hires people he’s already friends with