The In-House Prophet

Employees Won’t Go It Alone

I have learned over and over and over again and again that individual employees need the help and guidance of management or staff to realize the treasure they possess and how what is embodied in their soul will guide them to productive and successful careers if they seek to be faithful to what they have been given. Even when made aware that they possess a unique pattern which can measurably enrich their toil, most of us need to live or work with a person for whom giftedness is the frequent topic of conversation, particularly to explain behavior or attitude.

We have approached the issue of building an in-house capability to use our MAP or patterning process (aka operationalizing giftedness) many ways. Ultimately, the ideal is to have giftedness woven into the life blood of the organization; the daily decisions and problem-solving of those who are supervising and managing the enterprise and those who are doing the work. This objective can only be accomplished gradually over time by 1) assuring that both the supervisor and the employee derive benefit from the exercise; and 2) that the knowledge so gained is assimilated into their ongoing relationship. The ideal end game finds practical use of the knowledge in solving problems, work distribution, work assignments, team building and management, explaining glitches and planning objectives, providing both the language and a venue for possible changes and strategies for coping with voids or weaknesses.

Introducing the in-house Prophet

Of critical importance to so making employee giftedness the coin of the realm, is the need for what I call in-house Prophets; each a really great HR person, highly relational, problem solver, strong influencer, strategic, results oriented, gifted with business acumen. The Prophet is physically officed in the organizational unit for which s/he is responsible and reports to the same Vice President as does the head of the unit being served. The very significant point here is that the services provided involve critical issues so the performance of the Prophet should be highly esteemed by line management.

The Prophet, likely a female in my experience, is infrequently in her office, spends most of the day out and around, listening, observing, sniffing around for gathering storms, confronting when needed, encouraging, tough-minded, understanding of complaints but clear about priorities, going from one session with a department head about two candidates for an opening, to a distraught new employee, to an exit interview…rarely entangled with paperwork (absolutely ceded to a motivated administrator).

All that, but the gut responsibility of the Prophet is to provide no-nonsense specific advice to operating managers and supervisors about making sure that the Patterns of employees are fully engaged in their jobs. Deep participation in hiring and promotion decisions of course, but more continuously, auditing the job fit of certain employees, identified by their supervisor as ‘marginal’.

Putting the Prophet to Work

When significant misfit is identified, the Prophet will work with the employee to identify other jobs in and outside the current employer which could be a better match. If the employer feels partially responsible for a bad job fit and wants to assist the employee to relocate, we can do outplacement counselling and train the Prophet in the process. This weeding out process must be mingled with patterning hi-potentials and other favored employees to avoid being seen as purveyors of doom. In this regard, a few testimonies of marginal employees who found and landed their dream job inside or outside the current employer, can work wonders.

In what can become outplacement counseling, the Prophet brings Patterns of Giftedness into play (or if a Pattern is not available, recommends securing one) in diagnosing performance and behavioral problems, refereeing disputes, arguing for and against candidates considered for promotion or team assignment, and anticipating motivational declines. Frequent communication with the manager supervising the department, and the building of a close working relationship of trust and respect is vital.

The initial amount and pace of patterning would be gradual, limited to hiring and promotion and reducing job misfit. Human Resource Prophets have a party line to promote which can make a significant difference to those they serve. It greatly benefits the business; gives a sound, reliable basis for managerial decisions, enhances productivity and positive attitudes, releases pent-up giftedness and the freedom which comes from its expression, makes work exciting and a source of rich satisfaction to the employees.

As an added bonus, it automatically thrusts HR into the middle of helping run the business, making a unique contribution which adds value every time their insight is requested and their knowledge of giftedness is drawn upon.

Taking Inventory of Available Giftedness

The Prophet could provide the supervisor with a readily accessible means of determining which employees were motivated and gifted to do the following:

( Suggest the super put initials on a crib sheet shared with employees)

Who can innovate?
Who is good at defining the problem?
Who is good at solving problems?
Who can get others to work together?
Who is good at fact-finding?
Who is good at turning failure around?
Who can build a better system?
Who is analytical?
Who is able to see trends?
Who can diagnose the cause of the failure?
Who really relates to the customer?
Who can plan how the team will work?
Who has good organizing ability?
Who can define the work to be done?
Who will sort through all… I mean all the detail?
Who is a quick study?
Who sweats the detail?
Who is a big picture person?
Who understands the process?
Who is good at putting out fires?
Who can sell our solution to the customer?
Who won’t let the sucker go until it’s resolved?
Who worries about cost issues?
Who steps up to tough decisions?

Job description for the Prophet

The Prophet would be able to define and match job requirements with a candidate’s MAP (aka motivated competencies), identify any unmatched requirements, suggest coping strategies, and seek a solid job fit resulting in a highly productive and motivated employee, of significant and continuing benefit to the employer.
The Prophet would provide a Pattern on candidates for hire or promotion, and make clear recommendations to go or not, and would be available to explain the decision to the unsuccessful; if an employee, provide some career suggestions.
The Prophet would be able to sort out the motivational reasons for conflict between the employee and the supervisor or other employees, and suggest ways to avoid or minimize the conflict.
The Prophet would be able to explain the job misfit reasons for the employee’s feelings and emotional reactions affecting her or his performance, such as an attitude, hostility, anxiety, depression, boredom, fear or anger.
The Prophet would be able to facilitate an effective performance appraisal, career planning, and goal setting by positioning the employee’s MAP in the center of each such discussion, explaining how best to use the MAP.
The Prophet would be able to predict likely reactions of subordinates to a new boss, or other reorganizations, being considered.
The Prophet would be able to represent surplus employees to other divisions with openings, in terms of transferable competencies and motivations possessed.
The Prophet would be able to keep book on likely tenure of key employees before they run out of motivational gas and need to make changes; e.g. developers expected to maintain; over comers expected to repeat their feat.

Building Management Muscle

So if you the reader are high enough in the organization to gain access and control over a Human Resource person with the right stuff, give them the charter I just described … and stay personally involved. We can train you to use achievement interviewing informally when you have a need to quickly get at the root of some operating problem, performance issue, or conflict.

However, when a hiring or promotion decision is required, bring together your Prophet and a couple of operating managers, trained in SIMA, and achievement interview each candidate, collectively determining a rudimentary Pattern of Giftedness which ultimately is used 1) to give feedback to the candidate; and 2) after a careful check by outside experts (us) to make the decision.

Ultimately a corporation can build enough muscle in using SIMA to function independent from the keeper of the keys (i.e.us), if it wants to of course. Initially, we would do Patterns on every HR person proposed for the role of a Prophet, and make recommendations including how best to manage each one. Then, we would put the Prophets through one week basic training in achievement interviewing, conducting feedback discussions, and deepening their understanding of their Patterns. The Prophet would be in charge of HR for that operating unit. Any need for those who are dealing with issues having a near term affect on the Prophet’s operating unit would go through the Prophet.

Another way of portraying the seriousness and potential for great good if we hearken to the message of gifted Patterns, is that it is the only way to engage the hearts and minds of people over a sustained period of time. Consider the fact that any program attempted by management to improve productivity, quality, profitability, forms of organization, methods of thinking and learning, principles of success, and almost anything else that people would pay good money to acquire …would fail to achieve its objective, if it required employees to do the impossible; acquire new hearts and minds.

So, even so with Patterns of Giftedness. It can only find a permanent home in an organization determined to require that every executive, every manager, every supervisor, every professional, every worker occupy jobs which match their strengths. How to do it is straight forward. Having the moral fiber to do it and maintain it will require most exceptional human beings. But, for those who succeed, realize you’ve taken one of those large steps for human kind.

So Little for So Much—Once a Career

To demonstrate the patterning process with several employees; screen, qualify and train an HR Prophet, ride shotgun the first several weeks, would cost $25,000. Once trained, our charges would be occasional response at $250/hour. We would make a fixed charge of $2500 ($1500 for non-profit) for every Comprehensive Pattern we provided and $1500 ($750 for non-profit) for every Basic Pattern. We would charge an annual royalty of 8.33% of the Prophet’s annual salary to compensate for the use of our technology and Intellectual property ( standard royalty for all practitioners).

If things go as well as they should, you may want to have us train the prophet, or others, to perform the full analysis and become an in-house biographer. That training takes an average of 6 months of repetitive case work. Also, to make the patterning available for non-exempt or groups of employees we have group workshops using computer assisted patterning available at $750 a person.

For those willing to get their toes wet, we have a program called MCORE which will inform the employer about the several motivations which drive them in life (for under $100).