As part of our blog series on the benefits of MasterMinds Leadership’s benchmarking program, we have a guest interview with Troy Bussmeir, the CEO of Lone Star Ag Credit in Fort Worth Texas.
Lone Star is one of the country’s largest and most successful ag credit associations in the country, with 16 regional offices throughout Texas. Lone Star has been successful six times by benchmarking key positions using the MasterMinds Leadership system.
1) When MasterMinds Leadership first proposed benchmarking key positions to you, were you skeptical?
I was not, although I had staff members who were skeptical about the accuracy and cost-benefit analysis. Some people who just tolerated it eventually came to the conclusion that it is foolish to attempt to create a new position or even hire someone for an existing key position without a benchmark. One person wondered, ‘Can’t people game the system?’ After that person ran a full assessment on himself, he said, “Wow. I couldn’t hide myself.” And even the things you don’t like but are true, how valuable is it to know that I can get someone else to assess and get so much insight into who they are?
2) The benchmarking process that MasterMinds Leadership uses is robust and requires wide involvement. What part of the process has been the most challenging?
The most challenging piece was doing a benchmark for a position where the individual would lead a department with people already in it. In that case, we used people in that department as subject matter experts and gave them a voice. Every time we have done this, it has brought shared clarity about the expectations for the role. If I had tried to do that in isolation, it would have been incomplete.
3) When you worked with staff to benchmark their supervisor’s position, did you also see this process as a way to inform high-performers in that department on the succession planning requirements for this role?
Absolutely. Those who were involved in the process downline in the department or in another part of the institution received more appreciation for what was expected and transparency into what we are trying to accomplish. Now, we have a benchmark for succession. Down the road, if we have a pending retirement in that role, we can reach out well in advance, start looking at the next layer of folks primed for that position, and begin identifying gaps long before we need to.
4) You have also benchmarked against positions where someone is already in that job. That can be very sensitive. How have you handled cultivating that situation and easing concerns?
We have key regional positions that we benchmarked. We assured them it was to maximize our ability to invest in them, their future, their promotability, and help them become fully functional. We’re not looking for ways to eliminate people. We pressed the idea that it would help them collaborate better, determine who is more naturally wired for them to talk to, and how to round out their acumen for that role. There are also staff positions we have benchmarked, where we just wanted to know how to better cultivate communication between the supervisor and that person, so we used the profile to promote that.
5) What would you say to an executive who is intrigued but unsure of the cost-benefit of using a benchmark?
You can't put a price tag on it. Every employer has hired someone who they thought they wanted, only to end up 18 months down the road, and realize that they are the wrong person. Having to go through a rehire or invest significant time in an employee to find out that they aren’t the right fit is more costly than investing in the benchmark process. There are definitely benefits in reading resumes, references, and backgrounds, but most of that is the highlight list provided by the candidate. The benchmarking process provides so much more clarity and data. There have been multiple times where we received a resume that was seemingly spot on. But after looking at the benchmark, it revealed an underlying conflict between the person and the position.
6) What is your main takeaway for other executives considering benchmarking key positions?
This process blows away the cloud and smoke. I don’t think anyone has the capacity to just utilize the traditionally available information from a resume, interview, and contacts to give them the whole picture.
To me, outside some sort of DNA exam, this process allows us to ask the right questions and flush things out. Since we began benchmarking key positions, we’re 100% spot on with hiring the right people.
Learn more about our Job Benchmarking Process by clicking here or contacting us directly.
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