FACTOR III: COURAGE
CLUSTER I: MAKING TOUGH PEOPLE CALLS
56 Sizing Up People
Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply
cannot conceal himself! Confucius (551-479 BCE) – Chinese philosopher
Section 1: Your Development Need(s)
Unskilled
 Isn’t accurate in his/her appraisals of people
 Does not evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of others well
 Biases and stereotyping may play too much in his/her appraisals
 May have simplistic models of people
 May make instant judgments on almost no data
 Doesn’t change after the initial appraisal
 His/her estimates and projections of what people will do in certain circumstances turn out to be wrong
 May be such a poor listener to and observer of others that he/she really doesn’t know what they’re like
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to use as a substitute for this competency if you decide not to
work on it directly.
Substitutes: 7,21,23,25,32,33,35,46,51,55,64
Skilled
 Is a good judge of talent
 After reasonable exposure, can articulate the strengths and limitations of people inside or outside the
organization
 Can accurately project what people are likely to do across a variety of situations
Overused Skill
 May be hypercritical of others
 May be unwilling to alter an initial judgment about others
 May not look for or be open to further evidence
 May miss on slow starters and quiet and less expressive people
Select one to three of the competencies listed below to work on to compensate for an overuse of this skill.
Compensators: 19,21,31,33,38,41,46,48,60,64
Some Causes
 Anti-elitist; want all people to be equal
 Avoid making tough calls on people
 Impatient
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 Inexperienced
 Only accept the moral equality argument; all people are the same
 Poor listener/observer
 Reject a science of people
 Time management; don’t have the time to study people
Leadership Architect® Factors and Clusters
This competency is in the Courage Factor (III). This competency is in the Making Tough People Calls Cluster
(I) with: 25. You may want to check other competencies in the same Factor/Cluster for related tips.
The Map
Except from a moral viewpoint (everyone is equal in the eyes of their creator), all people are different. There is
a rich variety and diversity of people. Physical is easy to see. Height. Weight. Speed. Strength. Some personal
characteristics are easy as well. Smart; not so smart. Articulate; not so articulate. Warm; cold. Composed;
emotional. Good presenter; poor presenter. Other human characteristics are harder. Motivated; not so
motivated. Good values; not so good values. Integrity? Decisive? Fair? One key to getting anything of value
done in the world of work is the ability to see differences in people and to manage against and use those
differences for everyone’s benefit.
Section 2: Learning on Your Own
These self-development remedies will help you build your skill(s).
Some Remedies
 1. Biases getting in the way? Read three texts on how people differ. Go to a college bookstore and get
an introductory textbook on the theory of personality. Find a copy of Gifts Differing by Isabel Myers, a book
about the background of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (Ask someone in the Training or OD
department.) It outlines 16 different types of people, why they are different, and what those differences
mean in the world of work. Find Competence at Work by Spencer and Spencer which outlines 40 years of
study on the differing characteristics people need to be successful in different jobs. Watch out for your
personal biases—do you think you have a tendency to favor clones of yourself? Do you have a preference
for people who think and act like you do? What characteristics do you value too much? What downsides do
you ignore or excuse away? People good at this competency can see, describe and value the
competencies of people not like them.
 2. Lacking internal benchmarks for assessing others? Leverage self-awareness. Understanding
others starts with understanding self (see Socrates!). Learn all you can about yourself. Volunteer for a 360°
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feedback process. Ask others to help you get the best picture of yourself that you can. As honestly as you
can, outline your strengths and weaknesses as others see them and how you see them. Once you
complete your assessment, you can use the level of your competencies as a benchmark in understanding
others. Do they have more than, about the same, or less of this than you do? What difference do the
differences make in behavior or effectiveness? (How does poor listening play out, for example? How does
it affect results? How about excellent listening?) Watch out for personal insecurities as well. Sometimes we
don’t size up people different from us well because we’d rather not face how much better they are at
something than we are. This is true—since no one has all possible strengths, chances are everyone you
work with is better at something than you are. The key is to take this natural fear and use it as a positive.
Observe people for different talents, study how they think, watch how they go about exercising their
strengths, and use this knowledge to improve yourself.
 3. Surprised by others’ actions? Become a student of the people around you. First try to outline their
strengths and weakness, their preferences and beliefs. Watch out for traps—it is rarely general intelligence
or pure personality that spells the difference in people. Most people are smart enough, and many
personality characteristics don’t matter that much for performance. Ask a second question. Look below
surface descriptions of smart, approachable, technically skilled people to describe specifics. Then try to
predict ahead of time what they would do in specific circumstances. What percent of the time are your
predictions correct? Try to increase the percent over time.
 4. Not sure what differences make a difference? Identify differentiating competencies. For each job,
role, task or assignment, try to create a success profile of what would be required for success. What skills,
knowledge, and competencies would be mission-critical to getting the job done? This means that they
differentiate superior from average performance. Don’t include competencies that, while important, most
people on a job would be expected to already have. (For example, integrity is a must, but if people already
have it, it can’t predict success. Similarly, time management and planning are important, but most people
have demonstrated a reasonable proficiency in those in order to be employable. They wouldn’t distinguish
superior from average performers often.) Go for the critical few, not the important many. Which
competencies don’t make a difference?
 5. People out of alignment with their work? Match people to task requirements. People are different;
tasks are different. People have different strengths and have different levels of knowledge and experience.
Instead of thinking of everyone as equal, think of them as different. Equal treatment is really giving each
person tasks to do that match their capacities. Look at the success profile of each assignment and line it up
with the capabilities of each person. Assign things based upon that match.
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 6. Difficulty delivering bad news? Recognize your responsibility to make tough calls when
necessary. All people have positive and negative qualities. People have the most trouble making public
calls on the negative side. Most don’t like giving people negative feedback. Negative reads on people have
real-life consequences. People could miss out on promotions or could even be released from the
organization based on your negative read. If you are a supervisor or a manager, part of why you get paid
more is to make those calls. It’s just part of the requirements of management.
 7. Need to better align your perceptions with others? Volunteer to be part of an assessment center
team. You will be trained to observe and assess people as they are going through a number of tasks and
assignments. As part of the process, you will compare your notes and assessments with others on the
team. That way you will learn to calibrate your assessments.
 8. Uncertain of how you are reading others? Find two or three people in your environment with
whom you can trust to share your people assessments. In what areas are you different? What did you
miss? What areas of behavior do you tend to misjudge? Apply your insights to reading other people.
 9. Missing out on obvious characteristics? Read a book and/or take a class on how to interview
others. That training will sharpen your observation skills and make you a more attentive listener for the
signs of strengths and weaknesses in others.
 10. Too quick to decide your view on others? Be cautious about early or rigid reads. You may make
a decent effort trying to read a person and form a reasonable judgment, but it may be wrong. Be willing to
look at additional data. Be flexible; be willing to change as the information changes.
Section 3: Learning from Feedback
These sources would give you the most accurate and detailed feedback on your skill(s).
 1. Direct Boss
Your direct boss has important information about you, your performance, and your prospects. The
challenge is to get this information. There are formal processes (e.g., performance appraisals). There are
day-to-day opportunities. To help, signal your boss that you want and can handle direct and timely
feedback. Many bosses have trouble giving feedback, so you will have to work at it over a period of time.
 2. Human Resource Professionals
Human Resource professionals have both a formal and informal feedback role. Since they have access to
unique and confidential information, they can provide the right context for feedback you’ve received.
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Sometimes they may be ―directed‖ to give you feedback. Other times, they may pass on feedback just to
be helpful to you.
 3. Natural Mentors
Natural mentors have a special relationship with you and are interested in your success and your future.
Since they are usually not in your direct chain of com-mand, you can have more open, relaxed, and fruitful
discussions about yourself and your career prospects. They can be a very important source for candid or
critical feedback others may not give you.
Section 4: Learning from Develop-in-Place Assignments
These part-time develop-in-place assignments will help you build your skill(s).
 Go to a campus as a recruiter.
 Construct a success and derailment profile for a unit or the entire organization, and present it to decision
makers for adoption.
 Go on a business trip to a foreign country you’ve not been to before.
 Train and work as an assessor in an assessment center.
 Manage a temporary group of ―green,‖ inexperienced people as their coach, teacher, guide, mentor, etc.
 Manage a group of people involved in tackling a fix-it or turnaround project.
 Handle a tough negotiation with an internal or external client or customer.
 Work on a team that’s deciding whom to keep and whom to let go in a layoff, shutdown, delayering, or
merger.
 Resolve an issue in conflict between two people, units, geographies, functions, etc.
 Build a multifunctional project team to tackle a common business issue or problem.
Section 5: Learning from Full-Time Jobs
These full-time jobs offer the opportunity to build your skill(s).
 1. Fix-Its/Turnarounds
The core demands to qualify as a Fix-it or Turnaround assignment are: (1) Clean-ing up a mess. (2)
Serious people issues/problems like credibility/performance/morale. (3) Tight deadline. (4) Serious
business performance failure. (5) Last chance to fix. Four types of Fix-its/Turnarounds: (1) Fixing a failed
business/unit involving taking control, stopping losses, managing damage, planning the turnaround, dealing
with people problems, installing new processes and systems, and rebuilding the spirit and performance of
the unit. (2) Managing sizable disasters like mishandled labor negotiations and strikes, thefts, history of
significant business losses, poor staff, failed leadership, hidden problems, fraud, public relations
nightmares, etc. (3) Significant reorganization and restructuring (e.g., stabilizing the business, re-forming
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unit, introducing new systems, making people changes, resetting strategy and tactics). (4) Significant
system/process breakdown (e.g., MIS, financial coordination processes, audits, standards, etc.) across
units requiring working from a distant position to change something, providing advice and counsel, and
installing or implementing a major process improvement or system change outside your own unit and/or
with customers outside the organization.
 2. International Assignments
The core demands to qualify as an International assignment are: (1) First-time working in the country. (2)
Significant challenges like new language, hardship location, unique business rules/practices, significant
cultural/marketplace differences, different functional task, etc. (3) More than a year assignment. (4) No
automatic return deal. (5) Not necessarily a change in job challenge, technical content, or responsibilities.
Examples of International assignments would be: (1) Managing local operations for an office located
outside your home country. (2) Leading the expansion into new global markets. (3) International sales
position. (4) Country/region head. (5) Managing transition for outsourced operations at an international
location. (6) Head of supply chain or manufacturing for global business. (7) Global compliance manager at
an international post.
 3. Significant People Demands
Core demands required to qualify as a Significant People Demands assignment are: (1) A sizable increase
in either the number of people managed and/or the complexity of the challenges involved. (2) Longer-term
assignment (two or more years). (3) Quality of people management is critical to achieving results. (4)
Involves groups not worked with before (e.g., union, new technical areas, nationalities). Examples of
Significant People Demands jobs would be: (1) Downsizing a department—making staff changes. (2)
Leading an organization through a reorganization or restructuring. (3) Managing a newly merged business
unit comprised of people from disparate units/cultures. (4) Rebuilding a team that has a history of conflict or
hardship. (5) Mentoring and coaching inexperienced people. (6) Leading geographically distributed teams.
(7) Absorbing a new team/unit into an existing structure. (8) Leading a company or function with a rapidly
growing employee base.
 4. Staff Leadership (Influencing Without Authority)
The core demands to qualify as Staff Leadership are: (1) Significant challenge (e.g., start-up, fix-it, scope
and/or scale assignment, strategic planning project, changes in management practices/systems). (2)
Insufficient direct authority to make it happen. (3) Tight deadlines. (4) Visible to significant others. (5)
Sensitive politics. Examples of Staff Leadership (Influencing Without Authority) jobs would be: (1) Leading
a support function without P&L responsibilities. (2) Managing an internal consulting function for the
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organization (e.g., OD or HR consultant). (3) Project manager of a cross-functional or cross-departmental
initiative. (4) Managing a cross-functional, matrixed team.
Section 6: Learning from Your Plan
These additional remedies will help make this development plan more effective for you.
Learning to Learn Better
 1. Use Objective Data When Judging Others
Practice studying other people more than judging or evaluating them. Get the facts, the data, how they
think, why they do things—without classifying them into your internal like/dislike or agree/disagree boxes,
categories, or buckets. Try to project or predict how they would act/react in various situations, and follow up
to see how accurate you are.
 2. Examine Why You Judge People the Way You Do
List the people you like and those you dislike and try to find out why. What do those you like have in
common with each other and with you? What do those you dislike have in common with each other and
how do they differ from you? Are your ―people buckets‖ logical and productive or do they interfere? Could
you be more effective without putting people into buckets?
 3. Study One Person in Detail
Pick one person you are around a lot. Study his/her actions and decisions. List what you think his/her rules
of thumb are. Begin to try to predict how he/she will respond to future situations and events. See how
accurate you can get; compare your analysis to your own methods of operating.
 4. Pre-Sell an Idea to a Key Stakeholder
Identify the key stakeholders—those who will be the most affected by your actions or the most resistant, or
whose support you will most need. Collect the information each will find persuasive; marshal your
arguments and try to pre-sell your conclusions, recommendations, and solutions.
Learning from Experience, Feedback, and Other People
 5. Using Multiple Models
Who exemplifies how to do whatever your need is? Who, for example, personifies decisiveness or
compassion or strategic agility? Think more broadly than your current job and colleagues. For example,
clergy, friends, spouses, or community leaders are also good sources for potential models. Select your
models not on the basis of overall excellence or likeability, but on the basis of the one towering strength (or
glaring weakness) you are interested in. Even people who are well thought of usually have only one or two
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towering strengths (or glaring weak-nesses). Ordinarily, you won’t learn as much from the whole person as
you will from one characteristic.
 6. Learning from Observing Others
Observe others. Find opportunities to observe without interacting with your model. This enables you to
objectively study the person, note what he/she is doing or not doing, and compare that with what you would
typically do in similar situations. Many times you can learn more by watching than asking. Your model may
not be able to explain what he/she does or may be an unwilling teacher.
 7. Consolidating What You Learn from People
After using any source and/or method of learning from others, write down or mentally note the new rules of
thumb and the principles involved. How will you remind yourself of the new behaviors in similar situations?
How will you prevent yourself from reacting on ―autopilot‖? How could you share what you have learned
from others?
 8. Learning from Bad Bosses
First, what does he/she do so well to make him/her your boss? (Even bad bosses have strengths.) Then,
ask what makes this boss bad for you. Is it his/her behavior? Attitude? Values? Philosophy? Practices?
Style? What is the source of the conflict? Why do you react as you do? Do others react the same? How are
you part of the problem? What do you do that triggers your boss? If you wanted to, could you reduce the
conflict or make it go away by changing something you do? Is there someone around you who doesn’t
react like you? How are they different? What can you learn from them? What is your emotional reaction to
this boss? Why do you react like that? What can you do to cope with these feelings? Can you avoid
reacting out of anger and frustration? Can you find something positive about the situation? Can you use
someone else as a buffer? Can you learn from your emotions? What lasting lessons of managing others
can you take away from this experience? What won’t you do as a manager? What will you do differently?
How could you teach these principles you’ve learned to others by the use of this example?
 9. Learning from Limited Staff
Most managers either inherit or hire staff from time to time who are inexperi-enced, incompetent, not up to
the task, resistant, or dispirited. Any of these may create a hardship for you. The lessons to be learned are
how to get things done with limited resources and how to fix the people situation. In the short term, this
hardship is best addressed by assessing the combined strengths of the team and deploying the best you
have against the problem. Almost everyone can do something well. Also, the team can contribute more
than the combined individuals can. How can you empower and motivate the team? If you hired the
troublesome staff, why did you err? What can you learn from your hiring mistakes? What wasn’t there that
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you thought was present? What led you astray? How can you prevent that same hiring error in the future?
What do you need to do to fix the situation? Quick development? Start over? If you inherited the problem,
how can you fix it? Can you implement a program of accelerated development? Do you have to start over
and get new people? What did the prior manager do or not do that led to this situation in the first place?
What can you learn from that? What will you do differently? How does the staff feel? What can you learn
from their frustrations over not being able to do the job? How can you be a positive force under negative
circumstances? How can you rally them to perform? What lasting lessons can you learn from someone in
distress and trouble? If you’re going to try accelerated development, how can you get a quick assessment?
How can you give the staff motivating feedback? How can you construct and implement development plans
that will work? How can you get people on-line feedback for maximum growth? Do you know when to stop
trying and start over? If you’re going to turn over some staff, how can you do it both rapidly and with the
least damage? How can you deliver the message in a constructive way? What can you learn from having
to take negative actions against people? How can you prevent this from happening again?
Learning from Courses
 10. Supervisory Courses
Most new supervisors go through an ―Introduction to Supervision‖ type course. They are designed to teach
the common practices a first-line supervisor needs to know to be effective. The content of most of those
courses is standard. There is general agreement on the principles of effective supervision. There are two
common problems: (1) Do the students have a strong motivation to learn? Do they know what they don’t
know? Is there any pain? Because motivated students with a need for the knowledge learn best,
participants should have had some trying experiences and some supervisory pain and hardships before
attending. (2) Are the instructors experienced supervisors? Have they practiced what they preach? Can
they share powerful anecdotes to make key points? Can they answer questions credibly? If possible, select
supervisory courses based on the instructors, since the content seems to be much the same for all such
courses. Lastly, does the course offer the opportunity for practicing each skill? Does it contain simulations?
Are there case studies you could easily identify with? Are there breakout groups? Is there opportunity for
action learning? Search for the most interactive course.
When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are. R.H.
Grant – American businessman and former President and Chairman of the Board of the Reynolds and Reynolds
Company
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Suggested Readings
Brinkman, R., & Kirschner, R. (2002). Dealing with people you can‘t stand (Rev. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Dimitrius, J., & Mazzarella, M. C. (2008). Reading people: How to understand people and predict their
behavior: Anytime, anyplace. New York: Ballantine Books.
Fulmer, R. M., & Conger, J. A. (2004). Growing your company‘s leaders. New York: AMACOM.
Goldsmith, M., & Carter, L. (Eds.). (2010). Best practices in talent management: How the world‘s leading
corporations manage, develop, and retain top talent. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Goman, C. K. (2008). The nonverbal advantage: Secrets and science of body language at work. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Greenhalgh, L. (2001). Managing strategic relationships: The key to business success. New York: Free Press.
Harvard Business School Press. (2003). Hiring and keeping the best people. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.
Lawrence, P. R., & Nohria, N. (2002). Driven: How human nature shapes our choices. San Francisco: JosseyBass.
Myers, I. B. (with Myers, P. B.). (1995). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Mountain View, CA:
Davies-Black Publishing.
Navarro, J., & Karlins, M. (2008). What every BODY is saying: An ex-FBI agent‘s guide to speed-reading
people. New York: Harper-Collins Publishers.
Pearman, R. R., & Albritton, S. (1997). I‘m not crazy, I‘m just not you: The real meaning of the sixteen
personality types. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing.
Smart, B. D. (2005). Topgrading: How leading companies win: Hiring, coaching and keeping the best people
(Rev. ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.
Tippins, N. T. (2010). Technology-enhanced assessment of talent. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wilson Learning Library. (2004). The social styles handbook: Find your comfort zone and make people feel
comfortable with you. Herentals, Belgium: Nova Vista Publishing.
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