Ending a Vicious Cycle, Reaching Nirvana

"By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day."
-- Robert Frost

The eloquent American poet's words have a ring of truth to them – but they provide only one view of the boss's job. There are perspectives aplenty, and one in particular does not rely on the chief spending 12 or more hours every day toiling at work. It is this: The boss's goal instead is to develop employees so that everyone enjoys a productive, enjoyable and fulfilling workplace.

Let's pay a visit to an imaginary workplace. We will call it The Nirvana Company. Imagine a boss at Nirvana focusing energy and expertise on the quality of his or her relationships with employees. This boss would know, for example, whether an employee's decision-making style matched her own fast-paced method, or whether the worker preferred to ponder situations a while before making decisions. The boss would learn how best to manage that worker to get his very best decisions and the highest productivity. There's more – the boss would do this for every employee in the organization.

Does this scenario seem too good to be true? It doesn't have to be. In fact, Profiles offers an assessment that not only helps the boss work on relationships – it helps employees do the same thing.

Workplaces do exist in which supervisors and their direct reports know each other's work styles and use that knowledge to their own and the organization's advantage. And studies show that such managers and employees are highly productive and engaged. The reverse is also true: Managers who are out of step with employees often cause low productivity, low morale and high turnover. In fact, more people leave bosses than they do jobs.

The assessment that takes on this issue is Profiles Managerial Fit™, and it combines insight into the characteristics that affect the boss-employee relationship with information on how unique individuals can best work together.

The strength of Profiles Managerial Fit™ lies in two key areas: What it measures and what it provides as a result of its measurements. First, the measurements: Profiles WorkForce Compatibility™ is powered by the ProfileXT and examines seven important characteristics that define the relationship between an employee and the manager: self-assurance, self-reliance, conformity, optimism, decisiveness, objectivity and approach to learning. Once these are measured and analyzed for both boss and worker, each receives a report. The manager's report provides a detailed description of the differences between the two on each characteristic, as well as a "best-practice" working style for both the manager and the employee. A "Working Together" section gives ideas for managing this unique employee and a "Next Steps" section offers detailed instructions on how to proceed.

The Employee Report shows the worker his or her similarities to and differences from the boss, with ideas for making the work relationship smoother.

In short, Profiles WorkForce Compatibility™ helps both manager and employee to:

• Communicate better
• Spot conflicts before they occur
• Successfully resolve problems that pop up

This assessment is neither magic nor a fairy tale – nor does it support the view of Robert Frost expressed above. It does require hard work and a commitment to rely more on facts than assumptions. But its strength is in its personalization of management strategy. The one-size-fits-all approach to management is out the window – good riddance.