Know yourself

Before you hire, you need to truly know yourself. Understanding what you bring to the table, and more importantly, what you don’t, is critical to business success. You need to be very clear and brutally honest about this or be prepared to accept mediocre performance at best. Even as a fledgling business owner, your time and money will be much better spent if you can hire the talents that you lack. You can even trade for them, if money is really tight. For example, get your neighbor to do your taxes while you cut their grass.

Identify your Unique Ability

Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach™, has coined the term “Unique Ability” to explain this concept. Everyone has something that they do that no one else does in quite the same way. If you can identify and then leverage this Unique Ability, you can create a successful business around it and charge a premium for it. Think of the difference between a star athlete and the rest of the players. They are good, but not as good as the star. See Dan’s article on the concept of Unique Ability.

Don’t be a “rugged individual”

Once you are clear on your Unique Ability, it is vitally important to surround yourself with the talents you lack and then trust those talents. You will achieve much greater success by explaining the desired result and then getting out of the way and letting your hired talent loose. This is one of the most difficult concepts for business owners to truly accept. Entrepreneurs are often what Dan Sullivan calls “rugged individualists”. They think they are weak if they don’t do everything themselves – if they need help. They could not be more wrong. It takes a truly confident person to allow others to exercise their talents and share in the glory. This is a perfect example of a win-win situation. By allowing people to do what they do best, you have bound them to you because you truly appreciate their talents and what they offer.

Kolbe™ and other tools for identifying Unique Ability

One tool we have found very useful in identifying Unique Ability is the Kolbe™ index which measures striving instinct. There are many other tools available to assist with this process (DiSC, Strengths Finder, etc.) but Kolbe™ is our recommended starting point. We can assist with clarifying your Unique Ability for you through the use of Kolbe™ and the other tools. Here is more information on the Kolbe™ Index, DiSC, and Strengths Finder:

• Kolbe™ Indexes are fun and easy to complete in less than 20 minutes. Backed by more than 30 years of research and practical applications, they provide an amazingly accurate map of an individual's natural instincts, or modus operandi (MO). Index results are delivered in a full color print version.
• The Kolbe™ A Index measures a person's instinctive method of operation (MO), and identifies the ways he or she will be most productive. It need only be taken once, since these innate abilities do not change over time.
• DISC is the four quadrant behavioral model based on the work of William Moulton Marston PhD (1893–1947) to examine the behavior of individuals in their environment or within a specific situation (otherwise known as environment). It therefore focuses on the styles and preferences of such behavior.
• The Clifton Strengths Finder measures the presence of 34 talent themes. Talents are people's naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. The more dominant a theme is in a person, the greater the theme's impact on that person's behavior and performance.

The Employment Standards Act (ESA)

The employment standards act (ESA) is a very complex document outlining everything an employer can or cannot do. Understanding it can be a full-time job. We can simplify this process for you based on our extensive experience in ensuring compliance in our own business and in those of our clients.

The Talent Bus and the art of hiring, firing, and promoting staff

Similar to being in compliance with the ESA for the staff working in your business, there are defined rules around hiring and firing which you would be wise to heed.

Beyond compliance, many details around hiring must be accurately captured to ensure you get the right people in the right seats on your "talent bus".

It is imperative that you understand what talents each individual in your organization brings to the table. You must also understand what talents you need in your business. Only then can you truly leverage the talent you have on your team.

Documentation of procedures

You have an in-depth knowledge about how you want things done in your business. Have you taken the time to record this wealth of knowledge? Let us help you achieve this through our simple interview process. This not only lets others work in the business in ways you want them to, but it also opens the door for one day selling your business because the value is not tied to extensive knowledge that exists only in your head.