So what did you have for breakfast today?
Being a Director of a niche SME, I am often asked what my main gripe is within the working environment.
Before I totally reveal my hand on this one, I feel compelled to let you know why I felt it necessary to blog on this topic.
Everyday millions of business decisions are made, millions of transactions take place and millions of interactions are created. Out of these various business scenarios, I often wonder how much time and money is lost due to factors such as sickness, inefficiency or plain incompetence.
Several countries release data giving indicative figures on the millions of dollars lost out due to employee sickness. However how can one seriously substantiate the cost of lost business when it comes down to inefficiency or incompetence?
This leads nicely to my next point. Focusing on efficiency and inefficiency a little more. What actually makes someone more efficient over someone else? Can efficiency be taught/learned? How does someone actually recognize that they are acting in an inefficient manner? How does one substantiate the true cost of inefficiency in the work place?
This blog by no means aims to offer answers or solutions to any of the above questions. Instead I simply offer my personal viewpoint on the matter. Whilst I’m not in a position to discuss the effects of inefficiency on business worldwide. I think I’m fairly qualified to discuss the cost of inefficiency to our company 3C Synergy Asia.
As you may have guessed, my main gripe in business is inefficiency. Thank fully we run a fairly slick machine in our company, so try not to allow room for major errors. Inefficiency (I’m sure) has different meanings to different people. For me (without over complicating things) inefficiency simply means doing things the ‘long way round’ and missing key information. As recruiters we are trained to ‘ask the right questions’. It was only when I became a Director of 3C Synergy Asia, that I realized the true cost of ‘not asking the right questions’ in our industry. For me, failing to ask the right questions, costs us time, which in turn costs us money. Simplistic view I know, but why flower things up. This is fundamentally the base of inefficiency for me.
Put simply, not asking the right questions in recruitment can cost you dearly, and I’m fairly certain this is the case within all other industries. For us, we could potentially lose a candidate if we don’t find out what their key motivators are, what their ambitions are, what sort of company they do/don’t want to work for, what their personal commitments are, so on and so forth. Where our clients are concerned, we may loose out on sourcing for key job opportunities if we fail to find out why the position is vacant, what key attributes they are looking for in a person, what the structure, career progression opportunities, training and development structure is etc If we miss any of these details, if can cost us a valuable opportunity in finding the right talent for the right job. This is commercial suicide for a boutique consultancy such as ours.
Missed opportunities caused by the lack of asking the right questions is a huge problem for companies/industries world wide. But I wonder to myself, how many companies actually realise this? Let alone do something about it?
For us it is simple. Becoming more efficient and operating in a ‘slick’ manner can be learnt and is taught within our small yet punchy outfit. Right from the outset we play a very fun, yet informative game with our potential recruits during their final stages of their interview. As employers, this light-hearted game (which I will reveal shortly) gives us an opportunity to ascertain training areas for our new recruits. We also get a closer look into their questioning technique. The tool helps us make a final decision on hiring the Consultant, but also indicates the training required to bring the candidate up to speed.
OK so what is this game? Well it isn’t anything scientific (or is it) or anything overly technical or fancy, but aside from playing a full game of monopoly with our potential new recruits, we find this exercise is stimulating, fun and it gives us additional insights into how our Consultants ‘think’ and process information.
Just before I reveal our exercise, can I add that I read somewhere (perhaps someone can verify this) that we are no more than 7 questions away from getting the information we require. I don’t know if this is true, however I keep it in my mind as an ‘average’ when I go about my daily duties.
Armed with the above ‘un-confirmed’ knowledge, we set about to play the exercise which I call ’Who am I’?
‘Who am I’ is played by 2 players (can be played by a group, however in our interview scenario we play it one on one). Player 1 (Employer) starts by writing down the name of someone famous, male/female, dead or alive, human/animated character etc on a piece of paper. This paper is then folded and put away (Player 2 should not be able to see it) Player 2 then proceeds to ask a series of questions, to which Player 1 can only respond with a Yes or No. The objective is for Player 2 to find out who Player 1 is (or the name which Player 1 has written on the piece of paper)
Now, we are not ‘meanies’, so we don’t set a time limit, nor a question quota, on the questioning task. However in the real business world, It is often the case that you have a limited period of time to gather information correctly. This may be during a meeting with a client or customer, or during a phase of a project etc. In business you most definitely do not have an endless period of time to complete a task, make a decision, or conduct research. So time is key! Therefore utilising time correctly by asking the right questions in the first place is paramount to being efficient.
Going back to our game, It becomes fairly evident early on if Player 2 is struggling to at least ‘narrow down’ the shortlisted names. For example, using an over simplified version of ‘Who am I’, lets say Player 1 writes down George Bush on the piece of paper. The following transcript between Player 2 and Player 1 could narrow down the answer:
Player 2 “Are you a human” (this clearly rules out all animated characters, Micky Mouse, Daffy Duck etc could all be eliminated from the equation)
Player 1 Yes
Player 2 Are you Male? (kiss goodbye to the ladies)
Player 1 Yes
Player 2 Are you from Europe? (Clever question tries to pin the geographical location of the person, by eliminating entire continents)
Player 1 No
Player 2 So are you from America? (Trying to narrow down the location)
Player 1 Yes
Player 2 Are you an entertainer on the screen? (This question covers movie and tv stars perhaps)
Player 1 No
Player 2 So are you a sporting personality? (now trying to pin point the profession on this individual)
Player 1 No
Player 2 Do you work in Politics?
Player 1 Yes
Player 2 Are you George Bush?
Player 1 Yes
So the example above shows that 8 questions later, Player 2 gets the desired response. Now apply this to business. Are you/ your staff applying careful questioning techniques when you go about your daily tasks? Are you using time efficiently by preparing intelligent questions which gather the information correctly. This form of questioning is often referred to as the ‘Funnel’ technique. I personally don’t care much for the text book titles, however the cost of not using the right questioning technique, I can only imagine runs into its millions.
For us, we think it is time well spent, understanding (as much as we possibly can) how our Consultants gather and disseminate information they are presented with. We then proceed to offer training for those who need to focus on their questioning techniques. We strongly believe that this is the foundation of working more efficiently. So far, it has worked for us, identify the training issue, train the person, evaluate the response, and monitor the work, then re-train if you have to, until the service offering is sharpened.
I don’t by an means suggest that we have got it 100% right, but I can say with some integrity that we do make a conscious effort to recognise that our Consultants operate at different levels of efficiency, and to create a sharp yet flexible approach, we take a dedicated approach towards improving the efficiency levels of each individual Consultant, which begins with their ability to ‘ask the right questions’, and build rapport with individuals and organizations we come into contact with.
My business and recruitment mentor from old, trained me to ask the right questions. She had it drilled in me to ultimately find out ‘What my candidate & client had had for breakfast’. She may not have meant this literally, but what she was ingraining from an early point in my career was to extract quality information by asking questions and developing a rapport. I do this till this day.
How well do you and your employees know your customers, suppliers and associates. Would you say you know ‘What they have had for breakfast’? Or are you operating on a superficial shallow platform which has no foundations for growing relationships?
I would be interested to know everyone else’s thoughts on this? Since questioning techniques is an age old adage, what other factors do clients consider make their employees more efficient/inefficient?
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