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Talent Drain

Bobby is spectacular at identifying talented team members and using their strengths with the tasks at hand.  He loses talent at three times the rate of all other managers at his level in the organization.  Bobby's boss was given a report from hr which outlined the alarming rate of talent loss and the cost to the company.  The main theme from exit interviews was than"Bobby is brilliant and he is impossible to work for."  One exiting employee said, "I would not work for him again if he had the only job available."
Because Bobby had been heavily recruited and his sign-on bonus was significant, senior leaders didn't want to give up on Bobby's potential in the company. I had previously worked with the COO when she was in another company's and she called to discuss coaching possibilities for Bobby.  After considerable discussion about what a coaching engagement would be workable, Bobby was brought in to the discussions and he and I had a fit discussion.
Along with interviews of key stakeholders around Bobby, a highly personalized 360 multi-rater, and the Pearman.  And as you might expect, on job related and task related competencies, Bobby was stellar.  Relationship, team building, respectfulness, and understanding of others related behaviors were seen as nearly absent.  
On the Pearman, Bobby had high scores on Demonstrated Extraverted Thinking and high scores on a Natural pull of Extraverted Feeling. As we discussed this difference, Bobby shared that his strong Feeling function drove him to be mission oriented and passionate about being successful in his role.  He believed that the marching orders he had been given were about increasing standards, increasing efficiency, and driving action.  And in the environment he was in, he felt being hyper critical and analytical would achieve these goals.  
All of his flex scores were below the means (79-89). In discussions with Bobby, he revealed that he believed he needed to be super analytical to be successful--it was his mission. He began to see that his relentless criticism, fueled with a belief about his role wasn't going to lead where he needed to go.  And to add to the difficulty, he really didn't like this role he had made for himself such that he was super stressed---thus the lower flex scores.  In his distress, he couldn't see the long term outcomes, felt emotionally reactive and disconnected, and was doing almost nothing for renewal.
Bobby began to explore how the situation was in a downward a leadership death spiral.  And he could examine how his natural strengths could be used to help turn the situation around.  Carefully and systematically we looked at how his personality type system could be used to promote being an effective leader.  Through the Pearman, he learned that he could access and use:

Extraverted sensing gave him access to information in the moment 
Introverted sensing gave him clarity about information and how to verify it
Extraverted intuiting gave him opportunities to explore open ended questions to generate new ideas
Introverted intuiting opened the opportunity for examining scenarios useful when thinking through complex 
Extraverted thinking was a way to explore the logical elements of rationale
Introverted thinking was a resource if thinking through key elements of a situation 
Extraverted feeling was a natural resource for demonstrating empathetic regard
Introverted feeling invited looking st the ideals and vision critical to being passionate about the work
Bobby said that the discovery of all of his sources of talent was empowering and exciting.  He now knew he had the mental muscles to do what was needed for success.  We monitored how he was using his new found resources and the impact on the stress he experienced. Combined with the powerful recognition that motivating others and developing others were mission critical to his work rather than being the relentless critical ogre he had become, Bobby began to see immediate results.  He solicited feedback from his team and he talked regularly about how to employ his new found wisdom.  

The Pearman invites accessing all of your Natural resources and using them as appropriate to your situation.  With the FlexIndex you can see what you need to do increase the capacity to flex in your setting.  To take the Pearman, reach out to me at rogerpearman@yahoo.com.

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