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Get guts: Strong leadership can turn your practice into a winner

Radiology Administrator's Compliance and Reimbursement Insider, August 1, 2005

One employee with a bad attitude can put a damper on production, so stop hiring people based on skill and start hiring them for personality, says Kevin Freiberg, a motivational speaker who gave at presentation during June's Radiology Business Management Association 2005 Radiology Summit in Las Vegas.

Freiberg, coauthor of the book Guts! Companies the Blow the Doors off Business-as-Usual, says one bad employee can sour an entire workplace, drag down the culture, and harm your bottom line.

Turn your culture around by hiring positive people who will bring an entrepreneurial spirit to your facility and go out of their way for your customers.

"Bad attitudes suck the life out of practices," Freiberg said. When you hire a new employee, look for someone who will be positive and motivate others. Many organizations make the mistake of focusing on skill instead of personality.

"Hire for attitude, train for skill," Freiberg said, adding that you can bring someone up to speed on the technical aspects of the job, but you cannot give someone a new personality. In the end, an individual's personality will define his or her job performance. "You will hire people for what they do, but you will fire them for who they are," Freiberg said.

And getting rid of a bad employee is a potentially expensive and difficult task. "We all do more with less. Can you really afford to make a bad hiring decision?" Freiberg asked.

To avoid hiring missteps, focus on the character of your job candidates. Freiberg separates employees into four main categories, including those who add, subtract, divide, and multiply.

The adders and multipliers are your go-to employees, those you can count on to get the job done. The subtractors and dividers are the ones you need to weed out. Keeping them on staff will bring everyone else down.

Although it may seem impossible to hire for attitude and only choose adders and multipliers based on short interviews with people on their best behavior, Freiberg says it is entirely possible--if you ask the right questions to get an inkling about attitudes (See a list of suggested interview questions below.)

There are several attributes to watch for when interviewing potentially employees, but the most important one to look for is the fun factor.

You want people on staff who are pleasurable to work with, Freiberg says. We all like to have fun at work, and hiring fun people will help boost your facility's spirit.

Establishing an enjoyable workplace environment may have the added benefit of bringing in better employees because a positive place to work will increase the number of people who want to work at your facility. Making solid hiring decisions can be difficult if you don't get a decent pool of applicants. But if you define your organization as a great place to work, candidates will come to you.

The Southwest story

Consider Southwest Airlines, an organization that Freiberg says has an outstanding corporate culture and has established itself as a great place to work. Last year the company interviewed 33,000 people for 5,134 new jobs. "It's easier to get into Harvard than it is to get into Southwest Airlines," said Freiberg.

How can you create an attractive work environment? "Help your people feel heroic about what they do," says Freiberg. "Those types of work environments are so rare, which makes them so appealing."

Remember to focus on your own attitude and how it affects your business. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What am I learning today that will add value tomorrow?

  • What have I learned in the past three weeks that would add value to the people that I serve?

  • When is the last time I studied the winners in areas where I need to improve?

  • What was the last best practice I adopted?

    If you can't answer these questions, ask yourself another one: "Why shouldn't my employer outsource my position?"

    Remember that happy employees will help your organization perform better. "At the end of the day, the thing that separates your practice from others is your people," Freiberg said. n

    Insider source:

    Kevin Freiberg, EdD, president and chief executive officer, Freibergs.com, San Diego.

    Hire for attitude, train for skill

    The following questions were developed by Drs. Kevin and Jackie Freiberg to help interviewers ferret out positive employees who will add to an organization and weed out negative candidates who have the potential to sour the work environment. The words inside the brackets indicate what type of information the question seeks to elicit from the candidate.

    Questions you can ask to screen for attitude

  • Tell me about the last time you broke the rules to serve a customer in need. [flexibility; judgment]

  • Tell me how you recently used humor to diffuse a tense situation. [fun]

  • Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty to assist a coworker when you received no recognition or no credit. [unselfishness; teamwork]

  • Give me an example of how you work with an extremely difficult coworker. How did you handle it? [adaptability]

  • Describe a time when a coworker failed to pull his or her weight. What did you do? [adaptability]

  • Tell me about a time when you made a serious mistake with a customer or coworker. How did you reconcile it? [ability to admit mistakes]

  • Tell me how you handled the most difficult customer you've ever dealt with. [service focus]

  • What's the most important thing you have learned in the past six months? What new skills, knowledge, or experience have you gained? [willingness and ability to learn]

  • Tell me about the last time you tried something new or took on additional responsibility when there was no guarantee for success. [willingness to take risks]

  • Tell me about the last time you asked someone for feedback. What did you do with that information? [willingness to be coached]

  • Tell me about the last time you had to work with others to accomplish a critical result. What did you do? [collaboration]

    Another exercise you can use to screen for unselfishness and teamwork begins with asking interviewees to prepare five-minute presentations about themselves for a group interview.

    As each presenter comes up to share his or her personal story, watch the audience members to determine whether they enthusiastically draw the speaker out and encourage him or her [unselfishness] or whether they make last-minute notes for and prepare their own presentations [selfishness].

    Notice that these questions are not hypothetical (i.e., what would you do?) questions. These questions ask for previously demonstrated behavior as a means to determine future success.

    Your questions will become more powerful and targeted if you first identify your star players in a particular function and then build a profile of the key attributes that are common to each of them. Successful screening begins with knowing precisely what it is you're looking for.

    Editor's note: The Freibergs are professional speakers and authors of the recently released GUTS! Companies That Blow the Doors Off Business-as-Usual and bestseller NUTS! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. To read more about Drs. Kevin and Jackie Freiberg please visit their Web site at www.freibergs.com .

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