Years ago, I bought my dream car: a three-year-old 1984 BMW 528e. Suddenly, I started noticing other BMWs just like mine on the road everywhere.
Psychologists tell us that this is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, otherwise known as frequency illusion or recency illusion. This occurs when the thing youโve just noticed, experienced, or been told about, suddenly seems to crop up constantly.
Look At The Numbers
My clients begin to experience this phenomenon shortly after we start working together. Once they understand โRight People/Right Seat,โ they begin to see them inside their company. They also begin to see โWrong People/Wrong Seatโ combinations.
A typical company with 100 people may have 10 to 20 โRight People/Right Seatโ and 10 to 20 โWrong People/Wrong Seatโ or even โWrong People/Right Seat.โ I have no hard statistics, but whether you have 10, 50, 100, or 300 people, this has been a consistent pattern among my clients.
In the middle, you may have 60 to 80 people who youโre not sure which way they will go. And this can be scary. Clients start thinking, โCan we afford to lose this person? That person?โ We immediately begin a triage process and prioritize our new employee searches.
At this point, I immediately say, โExpect turnover.โ And basically, expect a type of war. Our goal with our Core Values and over-communicating our Vision will be to champion those Right People in the Right Seats and convert the hearts and minds of as many of the other 80+ people to acceptable levels of behavior on our Core Values.
But some will simply NOT make it, and thatโs OK. This is to be expected.
Embrace Good Turnover
One client said, โIโm upset and not sure if EOSยฎ is working for us. Weโve had a lot of turnover lately.โ So I said, โLetโs IDSโข the issue.โ
We did a People Analyzerโข on the 10 people who had left the company. Eight of them were Wrong People who were not a Core Values fit. One was a โRight Person/Wrong Seat,โ and we did not have another seat for them. Only one was a โRight Person/Right Seat,โ and as hard as it may feel, you will lose some of them every now and then. In the end, the client felt much better after seeing that 80% โ 90% of the turnover was โgood turnover.โ
So, is it worth it? YES! When you weed out the Wrong People, the Right People tend to thrive as they never have before. I have had several clients report that theyโve seen an overall 10% โ 20% reduction in their workforce while doing the level sales volume year-over-year. In other words, they have 90 people doing the work that it used to take 100 to do. Having the Right People in the Right Seats could save you 10% โ 20% of your total payroll cost!
Yes, it can be aggravating to have to hire and on-board so many people. But if you ask them if itโs worth it in the end, my clients all say a resounding โYES!โ
Next Steps
- Download a copy of the Accountability Chart from the EOS Toolboxโข to help you discover the right structure for your company.
- Check the strength of your company with the Organizational Checkupโข.
- Download the Issues Solving Trackโข from the EOS Toolbox to learn how to IDS (Identify, Discuss, and Solve) issues more effectively.
