Ignoring the Obvious – Why Profiling Works
By Jennifer Munro
I became one of the very few women in the retainer based executive search business in the l970s. There were many women in the industry, but not acting as actual search consultants. I was one of the first four to own my own firm. I was given the opportunity by successful search partners initially because I delivered exceptionally compatible candidates to the search process and the search consultants felt that I made their jobs much easier. Once I started my own firm, I continued to have success in each and every search assignment that I obtained, often against strong competition from the major firms of that era that defined forever the difference between authentic search and placement or recruiting firms. We were true “headhunters” in the sense of the term coined at that time; we specialized in identifying the best and brightest executives and leaders and attracting them to our clients for very generous retainer fees. “Headhunter” today has a totally changed meaning often being used by contingency and placement firms and forever confusing the marketplace and reducing opportunities for the sheer excitement and achievement of the true hunt to match up the best performers with the best companies.
I confess I was always just thrilled with my success in that business because I heard incessantly all the reasons I should not have been given the opportunity, or should not have been successful. I didn’t have 20 years of management experience, nor technical or manufacturing experience, and I really only had a degree in Philosophy, as a member of the great Gator Nation at the U. of Florida, and some kind of instinct about why people succeeded, matched, performed or didn’t. I did have 4 years as a Pan American stewardess and purser, lots of dancing in my background, good office skills which my mother insisted upon during high school so I could “always support myself”, but nothing that would indicate brilliant, multi-degreed, stellar performers and captains of industry would listen to me regarding their companies, their people and their strategies.
Twenty years after I opened my firm, my mother visited her home town in Tennessee with me for the first time since her childhood while I attended to business with two different companies in that town. She went to dinner with both presidents on successive nights and on the way out of town, she said “Sugie, (southern nickname), I just could not get over those important men asking you all of those questions and hanging on your every word.” This was not surprising to me because for 20 years she had been lamenting that she wished I would get a “real” job which meant something that didn’t require me to be on an airplane several times a week.
I told her that I had never gotten over it either! In truth, I have always been thankful and joyful at the place and access my exceptional clients have given me in their marvelous organizations and always have been mindful of their trust, support and how colorful and rich my experiences with them have made my life. As any good life should be, I learned and gained far more from those experiences than they could have possibly have gotten from me.
It was the drive to always deliver what I promised and what they needed that lead me to the most important discoveries of my life. Hundreds of the people with whom I have worked over the now 25 years, tell me that this discovery was equally important to them as well. But, 25 years later, I continue to be incredulous at how much effort and how many obstacles are created out of thin air to keep everyone from making the same discovery.
I am speaking about the art AND science of behavioral temperaments and personal traits; I was motivated to find a way to quantify what I observed in people who performed well and those who didn’t. The more I competed with the more established search firms, the more the question was asked, “what do you base your selections on, it is just a “feeling” and instinct, or do you have something you can measure?” I did notice they didn’t seem to ask the establishment in the search industry the same thing. But knowing I was bucking the system and would have to come up with something else than just my nerve and instinct, and knowing I could observe these differences, I searched for the best measurement of this potential. That search changed my life, and I spend many happy moments just enjoying all of the benefits that have come from my knowledge of why people do what they do and what they need to do well in their work, their families, their relationships and their sports and pastimes.
I have been involved with people and performance for more than 3 decades, and at the beginning of my consulting career, there was a scary statistic that 75% to 80% of all employees were dissatisfied with their jobs. I was stunned at that back then because I could not imagine going somewhere every day that you didn’t want to be. In December of 2006, Kiplinger reported that 75% of employees surveyed at the end of the year planned to find a new job in 2007. So, after all of the money, effort, time and psychic energy spent on management gurus, perks, training, motivation, empowerment, quality and the like, we have not come very far. I wish I could say I was stunned by this, or surprised, but I was never in doubt that this would be the case.
Most expensive and time consuming programs that enter our institutions, our companies and our homes rely on our stubborn refusal to deal with the obvious. Who we are determines what we like to do, what we do well, whom we enjoy, how we vote and how we parent. Observable behavior tells us how that is going; how well we are matching ourselves to our environment and gives all the signals we need. The development of a Human Resources empire has had a terrible effect on our human resources; and all of their certificates, programs, legislation, intimidation have nailed one foot down in business while the other runs in continual circles and cycles and still has a negative pall on 75% of the workforce. This has immeasurable downside effects in the families, production, quality and performance through ever layer of our culture. The latest assault has come through the guise of diversity training and laws ignoring at every turn the fact that organizations and families of homogeneous composition suffer the very same conflicts, interactions, emotions and behaviors as the most heterogeneous.
I firmly testify that those who become knowledgeable and comfortable with the insights of accurate and objective behavioral profiling make better decisions for themselves and others, enjoy the peace of mind that comes from the ability to build and retain meaningful and sincere relationships and spend far less time in conflicts and negative emotions generated by ignoring these principles. I have joked for years that once this knowledge is learned, the recipient has a choice to use it for good or not; obviously, a motivated person will consider more pointedly the viewpoint of another as they do their own and make decisions on the outcome they would like to see. When asked why I didn’t always use my insights to extend the relationship with an ex husband, for example, I laughingly answered “because I didn’t like them well enough at that point to make the effort.” So, profiling is not a magic potion, but it is a powerful tool to create the outcomes and environment one desires. Nothing worthwhile comes with no effort, but this site will identify many examples of when the effort actually delivers the desired outcomes in stark contrast to those “established” and “accepted” programs that have not and will not.
Comments