One of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes is, "Don't send ducks to eagle school." In other words, don't hire the wrong people, train them and expect to transform an ugly duckling into a soaring eagle. When I mention the "wrong people", I refer to those who have no talent for the job at hand. Lacking qualities like drive, character, attitude and energy will also relegate them to "wrong" status.
Hiring fast and out of desperation will cause you to hire the wrong people. So will looking at an unimpressive track record and thinking, "things will be different when they work for me." Giving people who have done little or nothing in life the benefit of the doubt sets you up for failure because you're already making excuses for them and they're not even on the payroll yet!
Taking these thoughts into consideration, you should keep in mind the number one rule when developing others : "I can make you more than you are, I just can't make you something that you're not!"
If someone lacks the skills or knowledge necessary to excel at their job, you can make a difference in their performance through training. Skills and knowledge can be taught and learned. However, if they lack talent for the task at hand, you cannot help them become something that they're not. Nor can they carve out new talents in their life in arenas where they were never wired by the Creator from the outset.
This would be a good time to reevaluate your team and honestly determine whether or not you plan on sending ducks to eagle school in 2009. This is important because there is little more frustrating for you or for a mis-employed worker than training them longer and harder and continuing to realize poor results. No one benefits from this sort of misalignment. Train a duck all you like, but when you bring them up to award them their "eagle certificate," you'll notice that they'll still waddle off the stage.
Final thought on hiring and developing eagles: You're more likely to hire eagles if you paint a portrait in advance of what the ideal job candidate looks like. What would their track record look like? What positive traits would show up in their lives? How well would they score on the pre-hiring assessment you give them? What type of income level would they have attained? Take the time to do this because if you want to hire great people, you must first define what "great" means to you and your organization.
About The
Author:
Peak performance author, columnist, trainer, speaker and radio show
host for sales, management and leadership, Dave Anderson walks the talk
as a leader. He has led some of the most successful retail automotive
dealership in the country—the most recent dealer group he led
had over $300,000,000 in annual sales—and now gives 150 presentations,
workshops and speeches annually on sales and leadership development
around the globe.
Dave is author of
over 50 training programs on sales, management and leadership including
the books, Selling Above The Crowd: 365 Strategies For Sales Excellence
and No Nonsense Leadership: Real World Strategies To Maximize Personal
& Corporate Potential. Dave authors a monthly leadership column
for Dealer magazine, publishes a monthly leadership newsletter and hosts
the weekly radio talk show, Dave Anderson’s Learn To Lead Hour.
His books, cassettes, videos, newsletter, column, web articles and live
presentations pull no punches and provide real world strategies for
peak performance in business and in life.
Dave is a member
of the National Speaker's Association and is a featured speaker at conventions
worldwide.
Dave is president
of the Dave Anderson's Learn To Lead and LearnToLead.com, a cutting
edge web site providing hundreds of free training resources to thousands
of subscribers in over 30 countries.
Contact
Information:
The Dave Anderson Corporation
P.O. Box 1119
Los Altos CA 94024
Phone: 800-519-8224
www.learntolead.com
dave@learntolead.com
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