Who’s Got Game?

RISMEDIA, Sept. 23, 2008-This was the question Glen Jaffee posed to the audience at a recent Judy LeDeur event where Jaffee, VP of AlignMark was a featured speaker. If that was not enough to confuse his audience, bringing in a real basketball game similar to the ones you might find in an arcade sure left the group wondering where this speaker was headed. Given the audience was there to go through a recruiting event; many were wondering what a basketball game had to do with them.

Jaffee first talked about the real estate industry, describing the concept of Human Capital, the importance they have on any business, which is a topic his company has a long history of expertise in, and then he set out to help the audience understand the benefit and value of assessment.

“So what does a basketball game have to do with assessment and us?” asked one audience member. What perfect timing to have his first volunteer.

Jaffee asked two audience members come up to the game, for a timed assessment of their skills and abilities to be successful at this job (make baskets). After the assessment, the shooters would be placed in two different teams. One team was made up of those participants that won the game, shot the most baskets, scored the most points and overall, had the skills necessary to be successful in this job of making baskets. The other team was made up of people that did not do so well, did not make as many baskets and clearly demonstrated a lack of skills necessary to be successful (in basketball). But before Jaffee placed the participants on a team, he talked to them about their results of the assessment, he explained to those that were placed on the team without skills, that the placement was not a personal thing, in fact he liked them very much, it was not about who they were and in fact, maybe there would be a time one day where they would make a great member of his success team, but the time was not right now as he did not have the program to develop them and help them succeed at this time.

Do you see the parallels to what we do as recruiters for our organizations every single day? Do you think by putting anybody on your team, you increase your odds of being successful in this market place? Do you really believe because you don’t pay a salary, there is no cost to your organization for a bad hire? Are you kidding yourself? We should be assessing for skills and abilities to be successful in a position where the title is agent, but the position is sales. We want to build a team that we know has the abilities to be successful, to win this real estate game and we can’t be afraid to let someone know they might not be a good fit. As a company and an industry, we can no longer afford to place people in positions for which they do not belong. We owe it to them and we owe it to our existing businesses.

When this was all over and Jaffee asked the audience to pull out their wallets; it was time to make a bet, using their own hard earned money. Not one audience member would place a bet on the team chosen lacking the skills and abilities to be successful. Not one. So Jaffee asked, then why do we do this as a company every single day? You put your hard earned money every day into people who just don’t have what it takes to be successful in this Game. And not just your money, your time, your resources, your business get’s placed in the hands of people who touch 100% of your clients and generate 100% of your revenue.

AlignMark, Inc. specializes in a company’s Human Capital working with the Fortune 1000 and real estate companies from around the world. With products such as Real Estate Simulator and iNTELAGENT, they have products and services to bring your company solutions to help manage your human capital business.

For more information, visit www.alignmark.com.