Referral Bonus Offered

Receive a $50.00 Starbucks, Mortons or Borders Gift Card for referring someone to one of our summer series programs at the College of Southern Nevada. They get great learning and skills and you get a gift card.For program information, check the event at www.soaringeagleent.com.

Summer Classes Accepting Registrations

The College of Southern Nevada and Soaring Eagle Enterprises are currently accepting registrations for the following Summer, 2009 programs:

Supervisory Leadership Excellence Series

Human Resource Professional Excellence Series

Customer Service Professional Excellence Series

To learn more about these great programs or register on-line, please visit http://www.soaringeagleent.com/

The Case for Training and Development NOW!!

It is sure easy to delay, defer and cancel training programs in this economy. As a lot of training professionals will tell you, it is one of the first line items to be axed from any budget.

Unfortunately, reductions in training also carry a significant penalty. It will prolong the length of time needed to recover from a downturn. It will limit the ability to capitalize on the faltering of competitors (in fact, they may prey on you). It will reduce your ability your ability to perform at the high levels required when staffing is cut. It will harm your ability to attract and retain good talent when the economy recovers.

Below is a brief synopsis of some types of training that are most necessary in an economic downturn:

1. Leadership, Supervision and Management
More is asked from the leadership team and they must rally troops in time of difficulty. Innovation is needed. Fresh outlooks and a critical view is required. This takes skills and competencies obtained in training.

2. Customer Service
The one proven factor to retaining market share in a down economy is service quality. Doing it right requires a training commitment.

3. Sales and Marketing
To capitalize on competitors when they fail, your sales team must be poised with axes sharpened. This honing can only be accomplished through learning and growth.

4. Teamwork
Never has the ability to work together been more important. The synergies needed to produce more with less is critical in difficult times.

More Places to Find Soaring Eagle Enterprises

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All coaching program descriptions are updated as are most of the class and seminar descriptions. The DiSC profile pages have been completely redesigned for ease of use and a better appearance.

Please take a few moments and review the changes at: http://www.soaringeagleent.com/

Talent Management in Difficult Times

Talent management is always an important functionality but it difficult or lean times it becomes even more critical. Good talent management and talent managers will make the following adjustments in difficult times:

1. Recruiting for Fit, Flexibility and Performance
It is imperative that hiring and recruiting efforts turn to a fit based model that emphasises flexibility, innovation and accountability for performance.

2. Synchronizing Organizational Objectives with Recruited Competencies
In hiring and recruiting, the competencies and skills that are most needed by the company must be sought and tested. If your organization values integrity, recruit for integrity. If your organization needs customer service skills, hire bona fide customer service stars. Move away from any dependence on years of experience or education level and focus on the skills that are dictated by organizational need.

3. Synchronizing Training Elements to Organizational Objectives and Performance
Skills and competencies learned in a training environment are not things that should be warehoused. There must be a direct connection between skills gained through training programs and the impact on organizational success.

4. Elimination of Fuzzy Performance Expectations
Clear up an misconceptions or lack of clarity in performance expectations. The clearer and more concise the better. Insure all team members understand what is expected and how that contributes to the success of the organization.

5. Promote Critical Thinking and Innovation
During difficult times, the most needed recovery skills are critical thinking and innovation. Critical thinking allows leaders and team members to look at processes, core products and delivery mechanisms to find waste and unneeded efforts. This lean approach much be encouraged, hired and promoted. Critical thinking will also find redundancies and overlaps needed to be lean and survive any downturn. Managers of the status quo are not valuable in difficult times.

6. Highlight Intrinsic Benefits and Value
Provide regular value updates about often overlooked benefits and value provided by your organization. Point out things like covered parking, free bottled water, training programs, job shadowing and other inexpensive benefits and the value they provide.

In-N-Out Burger: Stressing Team Member Retention

By Stacy Perman

If you live in California or Arizona, you know In-N-Out Burger. Otherwise, the 232-restaurant chain may ring a bell only because of Paris Hilton. She was famously on her way to satisfy an In-N-Out urge when she was charged with DUI in 2006. Foodies may be aware that star chefs Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller are big fans. But even devotees may not know that the company, founded in 1948, has resisted both franchising and going public, and beats Burger King (BKC) and rivals McDonald's (MCD) on per-store sales. BusinessWeek writer Stacy Perman brings the secretive company to light with In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules. This excerpt tracks how Rich Snyder, son of founders Esther and Harry Snyder, expanded the chain, focusing closely on the quality of the food—and the staff—before he was killed in a plane crash in 1993.

Rich Snyder was 24 when he became president of In-N-Out Burger after his father, Harry, died in 1976. He shared Harry's belief that running a successful fast-food business wasn't about cutting corners or using the right equipment. What it boiled down to was the people on the front lines.

Where the two differed, however, was that Harry had hoped his "associates," as he and Esther insisted on calling employees, would work hard, save money, and leave. Rich had another idea: "Why let good people move on when you can use them to help your company grow?" Rich also wanted to establish a much bigger footprint for In-N-Out Burger.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_16/b4127068288029.htm

Article from Business Week-How Proctor and Gamble Retains Great Team Members

By Roger O. Crockett

Few employers spend as much time cultivating their workforce as Procter & Gamble (PG). The consumer-products company expects to get 400,000 applications for entry-level management positions this year. It will hire less than one half of 1% of them, selecting only those most likely to fit the P&G culture. "We actually recruit for values," says Chief Operating Officer Robert McDonald. "If you are not inspired to improve lives, this isn't the company you want to work for."

The careful vetting, training, and career development pay off. P&G boasts 23 brands with at least $1 billion in annual sales and is the market leader in everything from detergent to diapers to razors. True, the company's renowned marketing skills and deep pockets help. But another important edge is personnel management—bringing in and promoting creative thinkers.

INTENSE INTERNAL TRAINING

The P&G strategy starts on college campuses. The Cincinnati company dispatches line managers rather than human resource staffers to do much of its recruiting. They home in on schools whose earlier graduates have moved up at P&G, such as Harvard and Stanford. Interviewers look for what they call a candidate's "power," including leadership ability and empathy. Innovation skills and values are measured in an online assessment. "Our managers are skilled at probing for the right fit," says William Reina, director for global talent. "The people they identify score well on the assessment."

For the few who get hired, their work life becomes a career-long development process. At every level, P&G has a different "college" to train individuals, and every department has its own "university." The general manager's college, which McDonald leads, holds a week-long school term once a year when there are a handful of newly promoted managers. Further training—there are nearly 50 courses—helps managers with technical writing or financial analysis.

Career education takes place outside the classroom, too. P&G pushes every general manager to log at least one foreign assignment of three to five years. Even high-ranking employees visit the homes of consumers to watch how they cook, clean, and generally live, in a practice dubbed "live it, work it." Managers also visit retail stores, occasionally even scanning and bagging items at checkout lanes, to learn more about customers. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, says this level of involvement by executives is rare. But that's what separates P&G from the pack.

Everything DiSC Pulse: Training in Tough Economic Times

A survey of recent trainees shows 77 percent of their organizations continue to put a strong emphasis on providing training, despite the current economic climate.
By Mark Scullard and Jeffrey Sugerman

With millions of potential learners looking for jobs and organizations everywhere cutting budgets to stay afloat, we postponed our originally planned topic for this month’s Everything DiSC® Pulse to look at something more critical: the role and relevance of training during tough economic times. We assumed that learners would be highly critical of the quantity and quality of their learning experiences. While this may be the case in many companies, it is far from universal.

Admittedly, our sample is biased. All of the 7,476 participants surveyed were participants in classroom training from January 15 to February 11, 2009. The people polled here work for companies that not only value training but also spend money on people-skills training during an international economic crisis. In fact, when asked if their company puts a strong emphasis on providing training, 77 percent said yes. Clearly, this sample is not representative of everyone or every organization. But for those companies that are committed to training, your employees will notice your commitment. And you are getting it right.

Now more than ever, your employees see the relevance and the value of training. Of those surveyed, 69 percent said they tend to value training more than they used to. In addition, more than half—58 percent—said that given the economic uncertainty, they spend more time thinking about the marketability of their skill set.

We found that among these training-centric organizations, learners felt they were receiving an adequate quantity of training. Of those surveyed, 84 percent said their organization offered many training opportunities. And 72 percent said they had the chance to choose from a variety of training opportunities.

Participants also felt they were receiving quality training. When asked if they had the skills to be competitive if they had to find a new job tomorrow, 90 percent said yes. Participants also gave high marks to the quality of their training, with 86 percent saying it was effective. And they were equally positive that if they asked their boss for additional training, it would be made available (86 percent). But for the majority of our sample, management was already in touch with the types of training its employees wanted. Seventy-one percent said management was aware of the real training needs of employees.

Perhaps the best piece of news was that the learners we surveyed did not see a decline in their company’s commitment to training. Only 26 percent said their organization seemed to be cutting back on training because of the economy. It is doubtful any organization will come out of this recession unchanged. But it will be interesting to watch how a commitment to training during this crisis influences these changes.

It is easy to expect the training industry to suffer during difficult economic times. At the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, we hope to have illuminated a bright spot, and we congratulate those companies who have the foresight to maintain an investment in their people during this time.


Mark Scullard is the director of research at Inscape Publishing, a leading provider of training materials for the corporate market. He has more than a decade of research and data analysis experience in the development of psychological evaluation tools and methods. Scullard received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Minnesota, with a supporting program in statistics.

Jeffrey Sugerman is the president and CEO of Inscape Publishing. He has more than 20 years of experience in senior management, marketing, and business development in the technology, training, and publishing industries. He holds doctorate and master’s degrees in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Northwestern University.

Talent is Worthless; Performance is Priceless

by Stephen Blakesley

During the past 20 years, executives, consultants and educators have had a lot to say about how to discover, develop and keep talent. Discovering, developing or retaining talented people is of little value, however, unless the talent manager can engage them to perform at high levels.

People with talent fail at an alarming rate within organizations. According to Robert Kelley and Janet Caplan, researchers who studied workers at the once prestigious Bell Labs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most talented hires wind up as average or below-average performers.

Kelley and Caplan found that at Bell Labs and its competitors, 85 to 90 percent of the extremely talented people hired never rose beyond average when it came to productivity. They also found that 10 to 15 percent of hires who rose to “star performance” status were eight times more productive than the average or mediocre performers.

Let’s say you are responsible for the results of an organization employing 100 people. If your organization is average, seven of those people are star performers, 83 are average and 10 are slackers. Now let’s say, you encounter an economic climate that prohibits hiring and compels you to do better with what you have. What would be your strategy?

There are very talented people masquerading as average or mediocre performers. If you could convert just one mediocre performer to star status, the value of that conversion, according to the Bell Labs study, would be equivalent to adding seven average performers to the workforce at no additional cost to the organization.

To uncover why talented people underperform, begin with a simple premise: It is human nature to want to do well, to want to be the best you can be. Thus, if the talent manager “dangled the bait” of being a star performer in front of talented employees, some would take it.

Many talented employees don’t become stars because they don’t know how, or they have no real idea of what a star performer looks like in terms of achievements and accomplishments. If talent managers can address those two issues, they have a greater chance of catching a star.

When crafting a plan to address those issues, there are two possible applications. One would be as part of an on-boarding program or process for new employees, and the other is as remedial training and education of the existing workforce. Time spent educating talented people on how they can leverage their special abilities to become even more than they imagined promises an ROI beyond expectations. Lethargic and apathetic employees come alive, and people once without direction, move with more certainty toward a goal of superior performance. Essentially, the talent manager can teach a star how to become one.

Define Star Performance
Companies can improve their success in developing star performers by taking two actions. One, define star performance, and two, identify work strategies consistent among star performers and absent among mediocre workers.

Many organizations have not defined superior performance. Those that have not tend to be average performers in the marketplace. Companies that want to outpace the competition should commit to defining star performance, not just for one job but for all the key positions in the organization.

Many companies use something similar to a performance-based job description to define essential job tasks, minimum expectations and breakthrough outcomes in the job. A star performer will consistently achieve the break through outcomes.

How Do Star Performers Work?
The key to converting average or mediocre people to star status lies, first, in determining their competencies and, second, in coaching them in the application of those competencies. The Bell Lab study identified nine strategies star performers use to get their work done. They are as follows:

Taking initiative: Star performers don’t just inform someone of an error, they correct the error. The mediocre don’t.

Networking: Star performers anticipate their needs and solicit outside input prior to beginning a project. The mediocre wait until there’s a need and then look for help.

Self-management: Stars know that self-management goes beyond time management and includes management of effort and knowledge. The mediocre feel time management is all that’s needed.

Teamwork effectiveness: Star performers are comfortable being followers or leaders. The mediocre tend to push too hard for leadership roles.

Leadership: Star performers know small leadership roles are as important as bigger, more visible ones. The mediocre often are disappointed with smaller, less viable leadership assignments and, as a result, perform at a level expressing their displeasure.

Followership: Star performers are aware of the value of following, as well as leading, and understand the need to contribute to the leader and the team’s performance. The mediocre often are difficult in a team setting and more focused on getting individual credit.

Perspective: Superior performers understand how their immediate work fits into the “big picture.” The star performer is invested in taking on other viewpoints, such as those of the customer, manager or other team members. The mediocre often see a world defined by the length of their reach. They tend to have difficulty accepting others’ thoughts and ideas.

Show-and-tell: Star performers are master presenters. The mediocre are PowerPoint specialists.

Organizational savvy: Star performers understand how they contribute to the overall performance of the organization and are capable of navigating through an organization’s competing interests.

The mediocre often are perplexed with organization politics and hide behind the mantra of not being a “political person.”Understanding these strategies and defining them for the workforce is a powerful tool and is necessary to convert mediocre workers into star performers. It is not easy, but it is worth it. In these difficult times, adding the equivalent of seven average performers to the workforce by converting just one to star status is a strategy that addresses the pressing need to do more with less.

Stephen Blakesley is managing partner of GMS Talent LP and author of Strategic Hiring – Tomorrow’s Benefits Today.