Process Used; System for Identifying Motivated Abilities(SIMAr) Number of Engineers: 227 Motivated Abilities Patterns (MAPs) Period Covered: 8 Year Information Covered
DID WE HIRE THE RIGHT ENGINEERS?
Mindful that management wants reports to get to the point, the data paints the following picture of most of the 227 engineers participating.
- Respond to emerging needs and problems — rather than initiate action on perceived, latent opportunities and openings.
- Require definition of work, structure of organization, and goals/standards to reach — rather than ambiguity of purpose, fluidity of organization, and generalized expectations.
- Want to tackle and complete a defined effort (e.g., project) which results in improved effectiveness — rather than explore for new knowledge or develop new ways/processes/products without target
- Gather knowledge and facts through one or another hands-on or personally involved process: doing, probing, observing, interacting — rather than studying written material or conducting in-depth experimentation or research.
- Most do not have a motivated ability to make a timely, risky decision/judgment — although most can makejudgments where standards, numbers, issues are clear — and I out of 3 are analytical and can thoroughly take apart an issue, problem or proposed action.
- A respectable minority (39%) have conceptualizing abilities and are motivated to deal with concepts, ideas, and other abstractions — in addition to working with things.
- A lesser minority (25%) can define and structure how a new job should be organized — as contrasted with lesser organizing abilities where the structure is clear or you need to mainly categorize into existing classifications
- Few (13%) have the motivated ability to establish the direction or goal for an organization/ effort; more (27%) can set a strategy once the goal is clear — as contrasted with the more limited abilities of the majority to plan detail.
- Although most all want to be engaged in a developmental process, few are significantly creative in designing or conceiving (15%), or innovative (5%) -as contrasted with quite modest creativity (adapting, blending, extending, refining) enjoyed by 75% of the engineers.
- Most all had some ability to oversee the work of others, which when broken down reveals an interesting range of Overseeing abili
Facilitate/Lead 38%
Coordinate/Hub Role 26%
Monitor/Check 19%
Manage Talents 8%
Direct in Detail 7%
For now, the only point which needs emphasis is that each type oversees in a quite distinctive way from the others, so individual assignments need always to examine this and related points to assure that how the engineer will perceive and perform the job is essentially what’s needed.
- Most all have Influencing, Communicating and/ or Teaching abilities
and are well equipped to convince and inform and influence others.
These engineers would be good at impressing others of their
capabilities. - On a closely related point, 90% are motivated to work with people;
53% want to work with individuals; 20% want to work with groups; 24% want to work with either. The powerful attraction to working with people, when combined with the predominant influencing and communicating abilities raises a question about the Smile Factor and the extent to which the Company has acquired people handling abilities but at the expense of what?
- The conclusion that these engineers are well-suited to operate in a teamdominated environment is premature. Although close to 11 out of 4 want to work through a group or team of people, they are predominantly individualistic in nature when functioning as contributors to the work. (115 or 82% of those who function as Contributors.) Clearly, they can play on the team but want a defined role and results for which they are responsible personally.
- Beyond this, the role they play with others falls into an Influencer category (1 out of 2). Mainly they want to cause others to do things but do not want overall or continuing responsibility for others. One of the implications of this type of person, as contrasted with a Management type, is that they tend not to confront subordinates about performance or other issues which require an exa’mination of what’s not going too well. They prefer to influence, their way (e.g., enable, facilitate, coach.)
- Two other marked tendencies in Operating Relationships are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One grouping centers around facilitative, collaborative and leading (mentioned 178 times in descriptions of individuals) and the other grouping centers around control, regulative, engineered, directive and coordinator (mentioned 165 times.)
- Finally, these engineers are only moderately interested arid skilled at developing others, collaborating with others, and are not motivated around issues of profitability/business.