4/4/20101

Examining The Strengths-Based Approach From A Person-Job Fit Perspective

Guangrong Dai

Kenneth P. De Meuse

King Yii Tang

Korn/Ferry Leadership & Talent Consulting

April, 2010

The Success Trap

“Perhaps the greatest failure factor of all, however, may be what I call the ‘success trap’ to which both may be what I call the success trap to which both individuals and organizations succumb, because it can be as seductive as it is destructive. In effect, it boils down to overreliance on strengths and past successes and reluctance to admit and overcome weaknesses and limitations.”

Sl 1994

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Sloan, 1994

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The Research Foundation of The Strength Movement

• Research on the relationship between employee perceptions of work characteristics and performanceperceptions of work characteristics and performance outcome

• One survey question shows consistent links to the performance of the team– The opportunity to do what you do best every day at work

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The Simplistic View of Motivation

The Opportunity to Do One’s Best

Motivated and Engaged

High Performance

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A Consistent Survey Finding

• Which will help you be most successful: building on o r strengths or fi ing o r eaknesses?on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?– About 40 percent “building strengths” in North

America– The number dipped down to 24 percent in East Asia

(Japan and China)

• Why?

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y

Research on the Implicit Theory of Intelligence

• Two types of implicit theory of intelligence (Dweck, 1986):– Incremental theory: Intelligence is malleable

– Entity theory: Intelligence is fixed

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Implicit Theory of Intelligence and Goal Orientation

• Incremental Theory of Intelligence– Learning orientation: A desire to increase one’s competence by– Learning orientation: A desire to increase one s competence by

developing new skills and mastering new situations. – Tend to attribute performance outcome to effort.

• Entity Theory of Intelligence– Performance orientation: A desire to demonstrate one’s

competence to others and to be positively evaluated by others. Tend to attribute performance outcome to stable personal

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– Tend to attribute performance outcome to stable personal characteristics.

Goal Orientation and Motivation

• Learning Orientation– Motivated toward the situations where individuals are– Motivated toward the situations where individuals are

challenged and stretched.

• Performance Orientation– Motivated toward the situations where individuals are most

capable of.

• The Culture Difference

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– People in East Asia are more likely to hold the belief of incremental theory of intelligence (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1997; Nisbet, 2003; Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993).

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A More Complete View of Motivation

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Strengths-Based Approach and Its Outcomes

• The outcomes are mostly attitudinal and affective. Its impact on performance criteria is weakimpact on performance criteria is weak.

Customer Satisfaction

/Loyalty

Turnover Safety Productivity Profit

.33 -.30 -.32 .25 .17

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Source: Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002

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Strengths-Based Approach and Person-Job Fit

• Person-job fit is the traditional foundation for employment staffing (Werbel & Gilliland 1999)employment staffing (Werbel & Gilliland, 1999).

• The underlying philosophy: Manpower utilization will be maximized when individuals are placed in job which demands full and efficient use of their talents (Owens & Jewell, 1969).

• The strengths-based approach represents f d ll h i f P J fi l

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fundamentally the practice of P-J fit to employment staffing.

The Consequences of Person-Job Fit

• The outcomes are mostly attitudinal and affective. Its impact on performance criteria is weak and inconsistentimpact on performance criteria is weak and inconsistent (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005).

Org. Attraction

Job Satisfaction

Org. Commitment

Intention to Quit

Org. Identification

Overall Performance

.67 .56 .47 -.46 .36 .20

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The Problem

It’s a Static View of Person-Job Fit

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• The content of jobs change frequently, because of shifts in corporate strategies and technological innovations

The Dynamic View of Person-Job Fit

in corporate strategies and technological innovations.

• A significant consequence is that skills individuals possess are subject to continual obsolescence and displacement.

• Selection and placement is not sufficient to manage and maintain P-J fit. It requires ongoing learning and

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q g g gdevelopment.

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• Vertical Transition– Upwardly mobile managers must let go, add on, and preserve

Some Examples of Dynamic Person-Job Fit

p y g g , , psome skills at each of the transitions (Freedman, 1998).

• Leadership Complexity– Leadership complexity requires corresponding behavioral

complexity. Behavioral complexity has two components: behavioral repertoire and behavioral differentiation (Hooijberg, Hunt, & Dodge, 1997).

M i P d

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• Managing Paradox– Effectiveness requires one to accommodate multiple opposing

categories simultaneously and possess the behavioral capacity to react to paradoxes or dilemmas in their environments (Yukl & Lepsinger, 2004).

Reputational Effectiveness Theory (Tsui, 1984)

• Each individual is embedded with a role set that contains multiple role senders (e g boss peers directcontains multiple role senders (e.g., boss, peers, direct reports, customers).

• Each role senders have unique expectations of the same target individual.

• These expectations may be incongruent and in extreme case, they may be conflicting.

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, y y g

• Effectiveness depends on maintaining a delicate balance of incongruent (or conflicting) role behaviors.

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The Current Research

• Archival 360-degree competency rating data, N=1251

• 67 competencies (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2004)

• Dual scales: skill rating and importance rating

• Rater sources: self, boss, peers, and direct reports

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Moderate Correlations Between Skill and Importance Ratings

Position Rater SourceBoss Peers Direct Reports All

Individual Contributor (N=138)

.28 .31 .33 .35

Supervisor (N=320) .28 .26 .30 .34

Manager (N=399) .25 .24 .27 .31

Executive (N=213) .27 .29 .29 .34

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( )

All (N=1251) .27 .27 .29 .33

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The Skill Gap

I di id l S i M E tiIndividual Contributor

Supervisor Manager Executive

Priority Setting

Time Management

Directing Others

Informing

Planning

Motivating Others

Building Effective Teams

Hiring and Staffing

Planning

Motivating Others

Building Effective Teams

Hiring and Staffing

Managing Vision & Purpose

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Timely Decision Making Strategic Agility

• Consistent with Leslie and Chandrasekar (2009) research finding

• A strengths-only approach isn’t viable

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Person-Job Fit and Overall Effectiveness

R t SRater Source

Boss Peers Direct Reports All

High P-J Fit 3.67 3.70 3.93 3.76

Middle P-J Fit 3.54 3.54 3.69 3.61

Low P-J Fit 3.25 3.28 3.18 3.33

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Low P J Fit 3.25 3.28 3.18 3.33

Note: The numbers are mean skill ratings across all 67 competencies. One-Way ANOVA indicated that the differences among high, middle, and low fit groups were statistically significant for each of the rater sources, p<.001.

Moderate Consensus between Rater Sourceson Importance Rating

Boss Peersoss ee s

Peers .33

Direct Reports .28 .35

Numbers are average correlations between rater sources on importance rating.

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Consistent with previous research that different constituency groups associate different role b h i t fbehaviors to performance effectiveness (Hooijberg & Choi, 2000; Salam, Cox, & Sims, 1997)

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The Strengths-based Approach to Resolving the Discrepancy

• Free your strengthsFree your strengths

• Speak up, change the expectations of others

• Steer your job toward your strengths and away from your weaknesses

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It’s a Self-Oriented Response Strategy

• Distortion of Reality

• Avoid thinking about the problem

• Hope the problem will go away

• Escape from the situation

• Lower one’s standards

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• Effective managers use adaptive, constituency-oriented strategies and ineffective managers use self-orientedstrategies and ineffective managers use self oriented strategies in response to conflicting or incompatible role expectations (Tsui, Ashford, St. Clair, & Xin, 1995).

• Managers who are able to gain reputational effectiveness from all the constituencies are more successful than reputationally ineffective managers (T i 1984)

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(Tsui, 1984).

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Conclusion

• A simplistic view of motivation.

Th i t tl ttit di l d ff ti• The impacts are mostly attitudinal and affective.

• A static view of person-job fit.

• There exists skill gap. Not a viable strategy to build high performing system.

• A self-oriented strategy in response to the role

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expectation discrepancy.

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