How To Build A High-Fidelity Picture of What Your Employees Are Like

Read Time: 3 Minutes

I grew up in Rochester, New York, a town most famous for camera maker Kodak.

As a kid, we had these instant photo cameras. You took the picture, and an pictureless white frame came out.

Over the next 90 seconds, the image slowly came into focus.

It was truly magic.

Managing new people is similar. 

You'll interact with them but won't truly see them immediately. Their strengths and weaknesses will emerge. You'll uncover their superpower and bump into their blind spots.

And there are a few things which can make this picture fuzzy:

1. They want to make a good impression. They will contort themselves into all sorts of positions to impress you. A fresh start can be good for them, but it can also slow your ability to size them up accurately. 

2. You want them to be great. The best thing that could happen to you is you hire or inherit a team of absolute rockstars. Unfortunately, the chances of this being true are probabilistically low. So we must be careful not only to see your team through rose-colored glasses. 

3. You change the equation. You probably have a readout from interviews or performance reviews from the previous manager. And there's probably some useful info in them. But you are a different leader. You will bring out the best (or worst) in different types of people. 

The best path I've found through this is to make "Player Profiles."

Here are the 5 key components that bring your people into focus.

Summary

Don't skip this. Your people are not defined by their last 6 months of work.

Put their current state in context:

• How long have they been with the company? 

• What roles have they played? What have they accomplished? 

• Are there notable professional accomplishments prior to joining?

By capturing this look back, we can now focus on moving forward.

Competencies

These are the set of behaviors required for the role.

They are more than just abilities.
They are abilities applied to produce specific outcomes.

I've seen many talented people who can't get the job done and just as many who don't fit the mold on paper but deliver above and beyond. 

Answer two questions:

• What are the 3-5 competencies needed to thrive in this role? 

• Is there evidence of them displaying these competencies? 

Hint: Where the answer is No, you might want a development plan. 

To build my picture quickly, I'd triangulate between:

• Having them self-evaluate,

• Data from prior performance reviews (if available),

• And early tests to get my own independent assessment.

None of these can be definitive, but the three should point you to where you can trust people and where you might need them to develop. 

Tip: And if you see gaps across people, this is a high-leverage place to level up the whole team at once.

Preferences

These tell us what people are like. They impact how they think, interact, and apply themselves. Understanding this will let you get more from them individually and construct teams where 1+1=3.

It also gives us a language to appreciate where we are alike and different. 

Here, I'd want to get their self-assessment and perhaps use a basic psychometrics test to get a second data set. My preferred one is PrinciplesYou (I know it's robust, statistically backed, and best of all, it's free), but there are plenty of other options. 

The key here is not to be exhaustive but to identify those stronger preferences that will most naturally support their missions (fuel) and which may undermine what they're trying to achieve (friction). 

Note: Strengths in one context can be a weakness in another. That's why they say, "What got you here won't get you there."

Tip: Traits are not fates. People can flex. Introverts can enjoy parties. But they'll likely seek refuge in their natural preferences in moments of stress and change.

Expectations 

We’ve covered these before in detail, but you want the profile above to come together with the expectations. 

One tactic that's worked for me is using the Underperform/Outperform section to nudge behaviors based on the rest of the profile. 

Character & Values

I saved the biggest one for last. That is because you do not weigh the pros and cons or hope they'll change. This assessment is binary.

You need to know your company's non-negotiable behaviors.

Hopefully, your interview process or predecessor assessed everyone effectively for these values. 

But if you discover someone who is not aligned, you'll likely need to move them along quickly. While people can change, values change at a rate far too slow for the speed of business.

When you try to win with bad characters, there's a good chance you lose.

Podcast Alert

This week’s podcast: Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur

This was a fun on for me. It was equal parts leadership and talking about our own business. A few highlights:

• Finding your Top 1% talent when you can’t afford Top 1% talent

• The value of letting employees own their 1:1 meetings with you

• Duopreneur lessons from co-founding a business with my wife

Find it on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

What You Missed

Here’s what you missed from me on LinkedIn:

• Why We Built The MGMT Accelerator

• How To Manage Your Underperformers

• Become a Top 1% Leaders In An Hour Each Day

Here’s what you missed from me on X/Twitter:

• 12 Books That Radically Improved My Leadership Skills

• 3 Underrated Careers Skills (Accessible To Anyone)

• Why Your Best People Quit

I’d also love to know what playbooks would be most helpful to you. Hit reply and tell me your biggest management challenge.

You’ll always remain anonymous unless you tell me otherwise.

Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave