Today, Gretchen Dougherty is one of the top sales people in her company, but this wasn’t always the case. Her company sells home security systems, and Gretchen’s job as an inside sales agent is to prospect over the phone to schedule home visits where a field sales representative gives a security consultation (otherwise known to you and me as a sales pitch). She spends her days sitting in a cubicle dialing out to homeowners trying to get them to schedule a home evaluation. Gretchen gets paid a sales commission for every security system that is sold as a result of appointments she sched-ules.

When she first took the job, she was taught that sales is a num-bers game. Management told her that she had to make a specific number of outbound calls every day in order to beat the odds. The best sales people in the company made approximately ninety to 100 phone calls per day and ended up scheduling three to five field appointments, out of which one would normally sign a contract. Management really stressed to her the importance of making a high volume of calls. Each sales person even had a daily call quota.
The problem is that Gretchen had a very different talent set than most of the other sales people. Unlike the majority of them, she had a very high natural talent for empathy. It was this empathy that actually got in her way, because while other sales people would spend no more than a few minutes trying to push for an ap-pointment, Gretchen found herself talking to people for five, ten, even fifteen minutes or more. She knew she had to generate a high volume of calls, so she was constantly turning left and trying to fix herself by suppressing her natural empathy and not connecting too much with the person on the other end of the phone.

When she did this, she was not being true to who she was. She was awkward and preoccupied with watching the all-holy clock that sat next to her computer. The more she tried to ignore her natural tendencies and think differently, so she could follow the script and stick to a time limit, the more awkward and ineffective she became.

Gretchen was in trouble. She wasn’t performing well at all, and the top question on her management’s mind was whether she would quit before they fired her. She was definitely ready to quit when I first met her.

After I spoke with Gretchen, it became clear right away that the issue seemed to be a poor fit between her natural talents and her role. Because of this, I gave her a battery of assessments to help understand what her true talents were and how well they were aligned with her existing role. One of these assessments was the Attribute Index that we used in the Genius Project.

The moment I saw the results, it was obvious to me what the problem was, and Gretchen confirmed. Her extremely high empa-thy was causing her to want to connect with people too much, at least too much to allow her to meet her daily call quota. The rest of the sales people in the company didn’t have anywhere near Gretchen’s level of empathy. Getting on and off the phone as quickly as possible wasn’t a problem for them, but it was proving to be a big problem for Gretchen. She felt bad about talking at peo-ple instead of talking with them. The result was that Gretchen was trying to be something she wasn’t, and it was negatively affecting her performance in a big way.

Luckily, her company was pretty open-minded about how to fix the problem. They had spent a lot of money training Gretchen, and given that they were already suffering from a high human turnover rate, they gave me the latitude I needed to attempt to correct the problem.

What did I do? I simply told Gretchen to turn right and figure out how to be true to who she was. Once she opened up to the possibility that she could change the way she worked instead of the way she naturally thought, she was able to make adjustments to how she went about achieving her goals.
I asked her how she would do the job if she were in charge. I said, “Just do you.” As a result, Gretchen turned right and sought to change her role—not herself. She decided she would not put any time limit on the calls she made to prospects. She got rid of the clock on her desk and decided that she would not have a daily call quota, or any call quota for that matter—just a single quota for how many appointments she scheduled.

When she did this a very interesting thing happened. Gretchen, instead of suppressing her natural tendencies, started letting them guide her. She spent much more time with those she talked with. She got to know them and to understand their needs much better. She once even told me about a call where she learned about the caller’s teenage daughter, what her name was, how often she was home alone, where she was going to college, and even what she was majoring in. This was typical of the level of communication Gretchen was having with the people she talked with. She was really connecting with these people.
Instead of trying to force herself to ignore her empathy, Gretchen was now using that natural talent to connect with people on a much deeper level than the rest of the sales reps were. Doing so meant that she spent a lot more time with each person, and made only as few as twenty to twenty-five calls per day. But doing so also meant that she was establishing relationships with people; rela-tionships that were returning results. Despite the fact that Gretchen was making less than 20% of the calls the other reps were, she still averaged to book three to five appointments each day. Even better than that, instead of the company average of one signed contract for every five appointments, Gretchen was averaging two signed con-tracts for every five appointments.

Pretty soon, the field sales people were fighting to see who would get to call on the appointments that Gretchen had scheduled, because they knew their odds of making a sale were a lot better.
The lesson here is that by turning left and becoming inauthentic Gretchen was hurting her performance. When she started turning right, though, and became authentic, not only did her performance reach the expected levels, but actually exceeded them. When she was inauthentic, she was no more satisfied with her job than the job was satisfied with her. Now that she is authentic, she views her job as a vehicle for her passion for meeting and helping people, and now she is as satisfied with the job as it is with her.
If you ask the field sales representatives whom they want booking their appointments, they will tell you, “Gretchen, man, she is a genius at finding people who buy.”

Here’s the latest in what others are saying about What’s Your Genius. I’m also very excited to announce that it comes back from interior design today and will be off to the printer tomorrow for a speedy return and you!

Endorsements:

“What’s Your Genius will help you discover your natural talents and reach your peak level of performance—effortlessly! Jay does a great job of helping you learn the secrets of who you are and how you think, so you can create your own private revolution and unleash your greatest potential
today. Get ready to evolve.”
~ Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Author of New York Times
Bestselling, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

“Jay Niblick’s What’s Your Genius is an absolute must read. This book is more than an inspirational guide; it will transform the way you perceive abilities and limitations, revealing an entirely new scope of life options which are in complete alignment with your core motivations. Simply put, if you read one personal development book this year this should be it.”
~ Dr. Ivan Misner, New York Times Bestselling
Author and Founder of BNI

“I figured that if Jay was good enough to advise Tony Robbins, he was good enough for me, so I immediately dove in and began discovering the secrets to achieving my own private revolution. I found Jay’s work extremely revealing, insightful and most importantly effective. The lessons in What’s Your Genius have changed my life forever. Thanks Jay!”
~ Timothy A. McGinty, Co-author of wake up…Live The Life You Love

“This book is awesome—really awesome. Easily in the same league as The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, and Covey’s 7 Habits. When it comes to your journey toward greater success and happiness, What’s Your Genius is a serious tailwind.”
~ Michael Lorelli, Former President PepsiCo & Pizza Hut

“What’s Your Genius gives you permission to be confident in your God-given talents. Based on years of insightful research, there is wisdom in this book that will help you to recognize the value of your talents and give you confidence to employ them fully. Positive thinking and purposeful action are at the core of its universal message, and it is a book that will open your mind and enlarge your spirit.”
~ Garry Titterton, Author of Brand Storming

“As a coach and a person that is passionate about assisting people to reach their highest potential and play their biggest game in life, I found What’s Your Genius to provide a brilliant and insightful view on determining what drives us. With some great practical tools based firmly in science this book provides a solid method on how to identify where our Genius resides and unleash it.”
~ Gavin Friedman, Corporate & Executive Coach

“What’s Your Genius is the logical and practical application in determining your natural talents. The first step is understanding what your strengths are and then focusing on those strengths in what you do in your life. Jay definitely helps you learn to stop following the crowd and become authentic!”
~ Heather Williamson PhD., Professor of Social Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University

“What’s Your Genius is a fascinating journey into the real reasons behind individual peak performance. Jay shares some powerful and non-conventional lessons learned from some of the most successful people in the world. If you aren’t sure where to go, how to get there or are feeling blocked in getting to the next level of performance—you need this book.”
~ Dr. Tony Alessandra, Author of Secrets of Ten Great Geniuses

“What’s Your Genius works on a number of levels. Whether it is through Jay’s anecdotes, or the comments from other management luminaries or the wealth of research to support Jay’s proposition—where the book stands out is in the way that you are taken on the path to enlightenment and self-development. This is not just a book; it is a real process that engages you for the longer term. For the organizations of the world the implications are that they will need to realign their traditional views of people and performance if they are to tap into the genius of their employees.”
~ Graham Hackett, Senior Manager, BAE Systems UK

Let’s face it.  Whether you are looking to become the next VP of Marketing at Thecompany.com, or the newest programmer at your dream computer company, interviewing for any new job pretty much stinks.  Sure, it can be an exciting time, but the actual interview itself is stressful, awkward and usually something you would rather just avoid.

We all approach looking for work with a weird mix of excitement and anxiety. It is a challenge that leaves us feeling not quite in control of the result. Why, because we’re not in control because ultimately the decision to hire is in the hands of others. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t have some control as well.

There are certain truths about every interview. First, you will always be the novice in an interview. The person doing the interview may come off as a “good old boy” who isn’t very good at these “interview things”, but rest assured they know more about how to interview you than you do about how to be interviewed.

Second, recent research on over 40,000 workers reveals that you are naturally at a disadvantage in the interview process.  According to a 2004-2005 study, the average person is only 59% accurate at assessing their own strengths and weaknesses but is 89% accurate when it comes to understanding the abilities of others.

Finally, a recent poll of 1,300 hiring managers showed that level or preparation for the actual interview is now just as significant as are your history, resume and experience combined. What constitutes preparation, however, has changed.  It doesn’t just mean a clean resume and well pressed suit anymore.  As companies become more sophisticated in their hiring techniques more emphasis is being placed on qualifying a candidate’s “soft skills” (e.g., thinking styles, natural talents, attitudes, etc.).  If today’s employers are paying more attention to your soft skills, you should be too.

Behavioral Interviewing 101

One of those important soft skills is understanding how to communicate with the interviewer. How you present information may completely resonate with certain styles and completely alienate others. The trick is to be able to understand which kind of behavioral style your interviewer has, then tailor your communications to that style.

According to one of the most accepted behavioral theory in the world, created by Harvard researcher William Marston, there are four primary types of behavior: Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness and Compliance. This DISC Behavioral theory argues that each of us has all four of these dimensions, but we also each develop our own unique preference for using them – our own behavioral style.

Here’s a short course on how to identify the behavioral style of your interviewer and how that affects your interview with them.

For the full story go here (Behavioral Interviewing Guide Genius File #6)

Question for you. If three frogs are sitting on a log and one decides to jump off, how many frogs are left? The answer is; three, because deciding to jump and actually jumping are two totally different things. From time to time I run into a client who has taken the first step (in their head) of deciding to change their lives in one way or another, but one of the hardest things for some people to do is actually take real action.  It’s one thing to decide to do something, but quite another to actually do it.

In order to unleash your Genius you must take action. You must leave your comfort zone and you must change your role to make it more authentic to your natural talents.

Tom Peters has a great quote that goes something like, “There’s a great strategic plan – it’s called DO SOMETHING.”

Go do something about becoming more authentic!

Previously I’ve talked a lot about the negative effects of a workplace filled with outdated beliefs about how best to manage people. My argument has been that a great deal of these beliefs are legacies left over from the industrial era, where most people were manual workers, not the knowledge workers we find occupying most offices today.

There is a whole host of problems associated with such outdated management beliefs, the most immediate being decreased performance and job satisfaction. The more disconcerting part of being mismanaged like this, however, is what it does to the individual beyond just limiting performance.

The stress caused by these workplaces starts with a lack of performance and on top of that you can add: self-doubt, job insecurity, uncertainty, lack of faith in leadership and reduced passion and enjoyment for the work.

Overall, being mismanaged is stressful, and I don’t mean healthy stress (eustress). I mean harmful stress (distress). And when you look at what modern medicine is just now learning about the impact of stress on the human body (let alone psyche), the effects are startling. Go here to read the whole starling truth (Genius file #8)

There exists a myth about strengths and weaknesses, one which states that we all naturally possess them. In reality, we don’t. What we do possess are natural talents and non-talents, but these are not the same as strengths and weaknesses.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those that thinks it is too negative to tell someone they have a weakness and wants to call it “an opportunity for development”. I actually hate this term because more often than not it supports the incorrect view that I can fix a weakness by developing a new natural talent. If one of my clients is suffering from a weakness I tell them so straight up, but the key is that this weakness isn’t natural, it is manufactured.

Weaknesses and strengths don’t exist naturally, only talents and non-talents exist naturally. It is only when I rely on a non-talent that I create a weakness for myself. Likewise, if I don’t rely on my talents, they never become strengths.

In other words, you are ultimately in control of your strengths and weaknesses. You may be born with talents and non-talents, but you are in charge of whether or not those talents and non-talents are used to become strengths or weaknesses. When you allow your success to depend on your talents, you create strengths. When you allow your success to depend on your non-talents, you create weaknesses.

To read the full story, download Genius File #5 here (the Genius Files)

The workbook is up. I don’t quite have all the tools and features on there just yet, but the free self-assessment is there so check it out. The Problem Self-Assessment is designed to help you evaluate your level of success and happiness in life and determine key areas where you may want to make some change. Just go here to create your own free account, then take the assessment (the problem self-assessment).

The Genius Files is a collection of writings and thoughts about the research behind  the book, the findings of the study and the impact it has had on individuals. Each “short” document addresses one specific aspect of the book or its findings. They are now ready for you to view and benefit from – just go here to find out more (The Genius Files Downloads). Thanks and I hope you enjoy them!

To quote the late great Dr. Robert Hartman, “Stop trying to put in what God left out and instead work with what he put in!” That’s hard enough, and that’s what the geniuses we studied do every day. Do you know what your natural mental talents are? If you would like some help feel free to take the same free profile the study participants used to identify theirs. Just go here to get your own free genius profile. When your email window opens just use “genius profile” in the subject line and a link will be emailed to you where you can complete it for free.

Welcome. This site is all about you, your genius and how you can leverage your natural talents to achieve greater performance, satisfaction and success. My name is Jay Niblick and I’ve spent the last eight years conducting a study of hundreds of thousands of individuals across twenty-three countries. The results of this research has helped us to better understand some of the key differences between those who achieve significant success and those who struggle. The exciting results of this work are the lessons each of us can learn from these hyper-successful people; lessons that are straightforward, understandable and surprisingly counter to the conventional wisdom on how can improve. As a matter of fact, the most successful people do very much the exact opposite of what must of us have been taught when it comes to finding success and personal satisfaction.  Enjoy this site and don’t forget to pre-register for the book that shares these lessons with you (coming out late May 2009).

Thanks!  J.