Shadowmatch

Increasing average individual sales performance by 40% through introduction of Shadowmatch

2011-09-27T03:34:00.001-07:00

“We were faced with a sales team who were performing at an average level at best. When confronted with a new, out of the ordinary sales pipeline, we realized this conundrum would result in us being unable to reach our targets, with a direct impact on business growth, capital budget allocations and staff recognition and rewards. Shadowmatch was introduced into the business to assist with recruitment of new employees as well as understanding where current sales consultants would be best suited. Shadowmatch had a major impact on the sales consultants performance, once introduced into the business."

- Director - Global Technology Company

The introduction of Shadowmatch into this business as a recruitment and career management tool has contributed to an increase in morale amongst the sales consultants, and greatly assisted in placing employees in the right positions. It further facilitated sales targets to be met, contributing to the overall financial results in the last financial year.

Customer Background:

The sales team of this Global Technology business was in place for almost three years, with some sales consultants performing on average, whilst most achieved below average sales results. Some of the sales consultants performed poorly, whilst some of them were unhappy in their positions. With an unprecedented sales pipeline introduced into the business, a real dilemma ensued, as the sales team was not adequately equipped to perform at the levels required. As is the case with most businesses, the role of the sales team is imperative in ensuring the success of the business in future, and the business wanted to look at how they could improve the quality of the sales consultants, as well as redeploy those consultants who were not well suited in their existing roles. Various instruments were evaluated to identify whether these gaps could be filled.

Shadowmatch used to identify Leadership potential

2011-07-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

by Lizette Bester,

A leading South African Bank was faced with the challenge of identifying and fast tracking young, upcoming leaders. They wanted to invest in these individuals’ training and up-skilling in order to prepare them for future leadership positions in the organisation.

The next hurdle they faced was who to choose and what criteria to use in identifying these individuals. This type of investment is expensive and one doesn’t want to waste time and energy on someone who doesn’t intend staying in the organisation for a long time or who will never become a successful leader in the specific environment. It is significant to note that they were not looking for future managers, but rather for future leaders. Shadowmatch came to the rescue!

They were advised to identify the top most influential leaders in the organisation. These individuals didn’t necessarily have to be from the top management levels, they just had to be individuals who have a real influence on their environment, the task at hand and the people they work with.

Once these individuals were identified, they were all given a Shadowmatch access code to complete the online worksheet. A benchmark was created and the Bank now had a profile of the habits of the most influential leaders in the environment. They now had the opportunity to search their Shadowmatch database of almost 1 000 people to find those people who have similar behavioural patterns to the benchmark. Close to a hundred individuals with an 8, 9 and 10/10 match to the benchmark were identified. In other words these individuals had an eighty, ninety and almost hundred percent chance of becoming as successful as the top leaders in the Bank. They might be in need of the technical training, however they have the same behavioural patterns that would lead to successful leadership in that specific environment with that culture.

The Bank was now in a position to spend money and time wisely, training people that had the natural ability to become successful leaders in their environment.

Shadowmatch: New Developments - By Lizette Bester

2011-05-31T03:24:00.000-07:00

Dear user, we are on a continuous drive to enhance the system and to make it even more user friendly and comprehensive. We have a couple of new developments going live during June. These are:

1. Automated Benchmark reliability and validity checking: The system has been updated to automatically check the reliability and validity of the benchmark. The benchmark strength will be indicated by either a green, amber or red bar and the system will prompt the user indicating which individual needs to be removed in order to improve the benchmark stability.

2. Standardisation of reports: All the reports (short Personal Report and Matching Report) will be standardised to carry the same look and feel. Both the Matching Report and short Personal Report will now be sent as an attachment in pdf format. The e-mail that accompanies the short report will explain that the report is only an abbreviated report highlighting the strongest habits and that a full integrated Feedback Report is available. The Matching Report development will only be completed towards the end of June due to the fact that the Matching Report will also now include the Shadowmatch results page.

3. Multimove and copy: We have upgraded the system to allow the user to move or copy more than one Shadowmatch result at a time.

Other developments that you can look forward to, are:

1. The functionality of receiving a confirmation e-mail once an individual has completed a worksheet.

2. The functionality of e-mailing the full integrated Personal Feedback Report directly from the system.

With the continuous enhancements and new developments we strive to make Shadowmatch even more user friendly and empowering.

Shadowmatch USA

2011-04-08T01:39:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch USA has recently gone live and we are very impressed with what our colleagues in the States are doing. They have created their own website www.peoplesync.com and the information they have available on their website is very different to the information on www.shadowmatch.co.za/about . Shadowmatch clients in South Africa with a curiosity to see what they have done, can visit the PeopleSync website.

They have also done some fascinating work to explain the working capabilities of Shadowmatch by means of a range of YouTube videos. Click on this link to see any of the videos they’ve created: www.youtube.com/peoplesync .

In addition to the USA presence of Shadowmatch, we have also done some work towards creating multiple language worksheets for the international market. We’ve gone live with French as a first additional language. The market for French speaking clients are primarily in central Africa and we are looking forward to see the first batch of results from the French speaking business communities in central east Africa. Most interesting will be the possible difference in the time aspect of completing a Shadowmatch worksheet in French. Our early gut feeling is that there will be no difference.

HABITS, DIVERSITY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: A CASE STUDY

2011-01-27T00:20:00.000-08:00

-by Heidi van Schalkwyk (MA. Industrial Psychology) -

"Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps all within bounds of ordinance… It keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at the sea through the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and hails the countryman to his log-cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow… It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted…"

- William James, Principles of Psychology, 1890

Introduction

Habits are learned behaviour or automated response dispositions that are repeated regularly without thinking. These actions are triggered by aspects of the context such as the environment or preceding events (Neal, Wood & Quinn, 2006). ShadowMatch has been developed to specifically measure the habits that are triggered within a specific working environment. These habits are usually necessary behaviours for an individual to be able to perform in that specific context.

People with the same habits can still be diverse regarding their backgrounds. Diversity is defined as the differences and similarities that exist among people. (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2001). Three major areas of diversity are identified namely demographic characteristics which includes culture, ethnicity, language, age, gender, religion, etc; personal characteristics such as values, beliefs, lifestyles, etc; and abilities and skills from a variety of different disciplines and areas of

work (Johnson & Johnson, 2003). Finally, emotional intelligence has become a buzz word in the last couple of years. It is an integral part of psychometric testing and personal development in the workplace. Emotional intelligence represents the understanding and managing of our emotional responses. It is the ability to deal effectively with daily environmental demands and pressures. Now, how do these three areas fit together?

Rationale

The purpose of this case study is to illustrate that people from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, ethnicities, age and gender as well as different emotional intelligence abilities can still share the same habits which make them successful in a specific working environment doing a specific job.

Description

A prominent South African Mining Company has decided to roll out six new learnership positions in their Information Technology Department, specialising in the configuration and maintenance of information technology programmes used by the company. As part of the selection criteria ShadowMatch was used as a screening tool in the process. It was done specifically to establish whether candidates had the same habits of those people that were successful currently within that job environment.

It was required that the top performers in the Information Technology Department, ShadowMatch worksheet in order to establish the benchmark for the learnership applicants. Two employees were identified as top performers; a white Afrikaans male, late 20s and a black Tswana female, mid 20s. After completion of the worksheet these two totally diverse individuals; regarding age, cultural background, ethnicity, language and gender matched each other’s habits 92%! This means that they were 92% the same regarding the measured behavioural outputs in the working environment.

Five critical habits were also identified. These were their strongest habits and of great necessity in the effectiveness of their work. Both the individuals have indicated strong habits regarding responsiveness (the habit of acting immediately), discipline (the habit of working in an environment where adherence to structure, rules and regulations and time frames are imperative), resilience (applying one self relentlessly to solve problems and overcome challenges), self confidence (the habit of acting with a high level of trust in your abilities, qualities and judgement, knowing who you are and what you can and can’t do) and simplification (the habit of breaking complex scenarios down to linear challenges that can easily be solved).

doing the specific job mentioned, should complete the What interested me was the fact that even though these two individuals shared the same habits, their emotional intelligence composite scales were markedly different from one another. Both individuals completed the Bar-On EQi previously for developmental purposes. The most significant difference was evident in the interpersonal realm. This realm is concerned with what is known as people skills. It indicates that when a person functions effectively in this area, this individual tends to be responsible and dependable. They understand, interact with and relate well to others in different situations. These individuals inspire trust and function adequately as part of a team (Stein & Book, 2006).

The white Afrikaans male indicated effective functioning in the realm of interpersonal skills, where as the black female indicated this area as an area of enrichment. Referring back to the habits of ShadowMatch, habits regarding people skills are also measured. These areas are called people positive, altruism and team inclination. I would also like to include the habit of conflict handling because a combination of emotional intelligence scales; including some of the subscales in the interpersonal realm; makes up effective conflict handling abilities.

Both individuals assessed on ShadowMatch demonstrated the habit of working with people in a positive way, building positive relationships, influencing others in a positive way, willingness to assist others without expecting something back as well as working with others as part of a team. The habit of conflict handling, taking on a problem or situation and dealing with it also registered as a strong behavioural outcome.

The results from the Bar-On EQi demonstrated that the black female lacked effective coping skills regarding the composite scale of empathy. Empathy is the ability to emotionally read other people, to be able to understand others and give consideration to their perspectives (Stein & Book, 2006). It might also be an indication that she behaves very selectively regarding empathy towards others. Her social responsibility scale also indicated limited or restricted ability towards being a cooperative, contributing and constructive member of a team or social group (Stein & Book, 2006). Regarding her ability towards interpersonal relationships, she seems to be just barely effective, indicating that there is still room for improvement in this particular area. Handling conflict in an effective and constructive manner ties closely in with these three composite scales.

Taking all the results into consideration, I took the time to speak to these two individual’s line manager. I asked her about their behaviour at work and how they handled tasks. Her answer verified the test results. Both individuals were extremely effective at their work, always reaching targets and outperforming what is expected of them. However, the white male was seen as a more approachable individual, whereas the black female was seen as more of a “hard”

individual, sometimes battling to cooperate effectively with the team.

It was evident. Even though both these diverse individuals shared the same habits; e.g. dealing or assisting people, being part of a team and handling conflict; the effectiveness thereof; emotionally; was different. The one (white male) had effective, constructive skills and abilities to deal with these types of situation, where the other (black female) also dealt with these situations but sometimes in an ineffective and destructive manner.

Conclusion

From this case study it can be concluded that people from diverse backgrounds regarding demographics, personality and skills can still share the same habits that can make them effective in a specific working environment. However, these habits are restricted to only output, the effectiveness of the specific output seems to be tied into the degree of emotional intelligence.

Therefore ShadowMatch seems to be an excellent tool to measure habitual outcomes, and what is needed in a specific work context. These habits can then be built on by using other developmental psychometric tools.

References

James. W. 1890. Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, F. P. 2003. Joining Together: Group skills and group theory. USA: Allyn & Bacon

Kreitner, R & Kinicki, A. 2001. Organizational Behaviour. 5th ed. USA: Irwin, McGraw-Hill.

Neal, D. T., Wood, W. & Quinn, J. M., 2006. Habits – A Repeat Performance.

Association of Psychological Science. 15 (4), 198 – 202.

Stein, S. J. & Book, H. E. 2006. The EQ Edge. Jossey-Bass: Canada

2010-09-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch Personal Development Programmes (PDP’s):

Interesting Facts and Case Study

by Pieter de Villiers and Lizette Bester

The PDP’s provided by the Shadowmatch system have been designed to help people develop the habits that are critical for success in a specific environment doing a specific job. Habits develop when a person has a meaningful goal or purpose and they experience the behaviour towards reaching this goal or purpose as successful. When this behaviour is repeated over a period of time, it can develop into a habit. All the PDP’s have been developed with the aim to repeat a specific behaviour in such a way that this behaviour develops into a behavioural pattern, strong enough to become a habit.

During the process of testing the success of the PDP’s, the following important observations were made:

1. The success of the PDP is very reliant on the fact that the development programme must be a continuous process without any disconnectedness in terms of progress. In simple terms, the individual doing the PDP must not stop for a period and then continue later.

2. The role of the mentor is critical. The positive, motivational participation of the mentor with interest and inspiration is a pivotal part of the success. This is why the PDP’s come with a mentorship guide.

3. It is critical for the individual to choose a mentor that he/she is comfortable with. A mentor should not be forced upon an individual – the individual must choose someone that he/she is comfortable with and that he/she experiences as approachable and knowledgeable.

4. The individual doing the PDP must be part of the process to select the right PDP. If this doesn’t happen, the individual tends to not see the meaning in the PDP. This in turn can lead to the individual not developing the specific behavioural pattern because some critical building blocks are absent, these being: Having a meaningful goal and seeing the behaviour towards this goal as meaningful.

5. The business must have a positive approach to the PDP’s. It must be done as a positive growth and development opportunity for all participants.

Where all the above dependencies were present, 60% of a population doing a PDP under these positive circumstances has shown a change in behaviour (as acquired through the specific PDP) of between 22 and 28 points on the Shadowmatch system. 20% of the population has shown a positive change of between 15 and 22 points as measured by the Shadowmatch system and the remaining 20% has changed their behaviour with less than 15 points. The overall performance improvement of this population was 17%.

The best results ever was a 39 points change in behaviour with a 27% overall performance improvement.

It must also be kept in mind that 10% of people do not change their behaviour, immaterial of the efforts and development investments made by themselves and or their mentors.

The PDP’s must be seen in the same context as an official learning process through a university or a college. Some people attend a specific course, succeed in the exam and learn next to nothing in terms of long term competencies. Some people go to the same institution and become professionals. The Shadowmatch PDP’s have been tested and validated in terms of learning content as well as behavioural repetition. The way this process is facilitated is critical to the end result.

Case Study

A manager in the Human Resources department of one of our very active and loyal Shadowmatch customers completed her first Shadowmatch worksheet on 29 May 2008. Her score on the Discipline habit was 31 points, which is on the border of the category: Contextual habits (30 – 50 points). Compared to the benchmark, the system recommended that she develops a stronger habit in this area of behaviour. She chose a mentor and started with the Personal Development Programme on the 13^th of January 2009. She followed all the outcomes as per the PDP and her mentor took responsibility of assisting her in reaching all the desired outcomes.

She successfully completed the PDP on the 10^th of March 2010. As per the recommended Shadowmatch process, she waited a couple of months before completing a second Shadowmatch worksheet. It is important for the newly formed behavioural pattern to settle properly through the day-to-day activities at work as well as in a personal capacity. She completed the second Shadowmatch worksheet on 16 July 2010. The results were fascinating: Her Discipline habit now came out with a score of 43. This is a much stronger contextual habit and indicates a behavioural pattern in Discipline that is now 39% stronger.

Other related habits that showed a stronger pattern after completion of the Discipline PDP are: Routine, Frustration Handling and Resilience.

Her feedback regarding the entire process was very positive and she acknowledged that the PDP was tough however worth doing. She emphasised the importance of having the correct mentor – someone who you trust, who is supporting, reliable and approachable.

Workforce Optimization

2010-09-22T03:18:00.000-07:00

Precision Recruitment

A business and job unique benchmark made up of top performers is used to recruit and develop individuals for best performance in a job. The system provides interview packs and system based comparisons between the behavioural patterns (habits) of an individual compared to that of top performers in the business doing a specific job under specific conditions.

Self Motivation

2010-09-06T01:05:00.001-07:00

This programme will assist you in developing the capability to motivate yourself and not necessarily depend on external factors to keep you motivated and positive. Upon successful completion of this development programme, you would have set personal aims for yourself as well as designed clear action plans for the implementation of these personal aims.

Shadowmatch Interview Pack: A case study

2010-08-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

One of our respected Shadowmatch clients recently realised the value of the Shadowmatch

interview packs. He had two candidates shortlisted for a specific job. The one was a good match

to the benchmark group, however, on face value, he liked the one who wasn’t such a good match

more. Upon advice from his superior, he decided to interview both, hoping that the one that he

liked more will come out strong during the interview process.

He requested the interview packs off the system and invited both candidates for an interview. The candidate who was a good match to the benchmark group, scored particularly well in the interview. The other individual, who didn’t match the benchmark well, struggled to give proper examples during the interview process. It was evident that the areas in which her habits didn’t match those of the benchmark, were the areas in which she struggled during the interview. The interview pack enabled and empowered the manager to explore the behaviour patterns of both candidates in more detail. It also allowed him to spend time in a face-to-face situation with both candidates.

After interviewing both, he decided to appoint the person who was a good match to the benchmark. Although he liked the person who didn’t match the benchmark, he realised that she will find it tough to be successful in doing that job in that specific environment. He commented that the interview was a very good reflection of the Shadowmatch result and it confirmed what he has observed by studying what Shadowmatch indicated. The interview pack assisted him in making his final decision with confidence.

New Shadowmatch Functionalities!

2010-07-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

Once an individual has completed the Shadowmatch worksheet, the system has so much data available that numerous reports can be generated off the information the data represents. During the first seven years of Shadowmatch, the development team didn’t anticipate the need for a full detailed individual report describing the detail meaning of all the habits identified by Shadowmatch. The number of requests received for individual feedback and requests from administrators for detailed feedback to individuals, convinced the research team to rethink the need for a detailed full report to the individual. About two years ago the team started with the research to create such a report. This full individual feedback report is generated by the system and it is as complete and accurate as the interpretation feedback provided by any of the Shadowmatch specialists.

The Shadowmatch development team is close to being ready to release this new functionality and final testing is currently being done. Once testing has been completed, training material will be sent to all clients. Without labouring the detail of what this new report will be like, herewith a short outline of the new system capabilities.

With the click of the mouse the current graph, representing the habits of an individual, will change to become an interactive graph with mouse-over capabilities, explaining the detail meaning of each habit and where applicable, how these habits integrate with other habits. This will be a value add to all Shadowmatch users without any additional cost. Further to this, the system will be able to generate a full report for the individual with a full outline of all habits, what they mean, how they integrate with other habits and how to read and understand the graph displaying the relative intensity of the behavioural patterns / habits o the individual. Because the system provides all this information as an interactive graph on the computer screen at no extra cost, the full printed feedback report will cost R165.00 (plus VAT) per individual report.

This new release will carry a number of benefits. Firstly, the Shadowmatch user can now give individual feedback without the fear that he / she might forget something. Everything will be on the screen and reading it will be just as good as anyone’s individual feedback. Secondly, users who have not been working with the system for a few weeks or even months can now give feedback without the need for refresher training. Thirdly, users do not need to call a Shadowmatch specialist for feedback and in this way delay the process. It can be done professionally and immediately without effort.

We have developed the system in this way because it is our intention to empower all Shadowmatch users with access to the smartest information without being dependant on any of the Shadowmatch specialists. We want you to be free to manage your employees in a positive and properly informed manner in order to maximise their success as well as the success of your organisation.

The going live date will be communicated in due course!

Shadowmatch Overview

2010-07-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

It is a question as old as industry itself and one that is growing ever more important in the South African employment landscape. How do you match the right employee to the right task under your prevailing corporate culture, to ensure success for company and individual? This is the question that a South African designed online tool called Shadowmatch is answering for their users in areas as diverse as banking, construction, agriculture and the motoring industry.

But what exactly is Shadowmatch? The Shadowmatch website defines it as a “sophisticated worksheet that enables corporate users the ability to determine what the critical success factors are for people working under particular or general working conditions in a specific area of an organisation.”

In short for those of us who are not industrial psychologists, Shadowmatch can discern between those job applicants that have the chosen skills and the work habits to adapt to a specific corporate environment, and those that may have the right resume but lack the ability to adapt.

Shadowmatch does this by grouping work teams into two groups. Firstly, the top performers or existing “benchmark employees” and secondly first-time applicants or employees that do not fit the “ideal” company benchmark. Top performers or benchmark employees in this context are defined as those team members who achieve their targets or goals regularly but in doing so contribute positively to the team and the company.

Each identified benchmark employee then completes an online questionnaire which relates to general life situations and has been tested for both the South African and international markets. The system then generates a combined map of this top performing group on 18 work habits that range from self-motivation to how disciplined the person will be, called the Benchmark Group or Shadow.

The Shadow can be described as the collective habits of the group that would be the best fit for the job, the team and the company. Anyone within or outside the organisation can then complete the same worksheet and Shadowmatch will match the results of these individuals with the Benchmark or Shadow. Thus by creating a “Shadow” of top performers one can “match” anyone against it to see what their chances of success are thus a successful “Shadowmatch” is created.

The critical success factor of Shadowmatch is the fact that each company generates its own benchmark with its own people for each department. No external or international benchmarks are imposed on any company structures so it is truly a South African tool for the South African context.

The South African motoring industry has long since been acknowledged for its innovation and creativity. It seems that supporting industries in the form of Shadowmatch have heeded the call for products that are just as innovative as well distinctly local. It is safe to say that soon Shadow-matching will not just be a term that is misconstrued for online dating.

By Theo Bezuidenhout

Discipline

2010-07-13T00:21:00.001-07:00

Discipline can come cheap

by Roger Parker

Discipline can be as simple and inexpensive as setting up a free online Google Calendar that sets aside time each day for you to devote to planning, writing, promoting, and profiting from your book.

An online Google calendar permits you to assemble your day around your book. It translates your dream of getting published into specific activities you commit to during specific times of the day.

The advantage of a Google calendar is that you can share your calendar, and writing commitments, with family and friends. When they realize how serious you are about your commitment to daily progress, they will be less likely to interrupt you, or schedule other demands during your daily writing time.

2010-07-12T03:23:00.000-07:00

7 Habits of the Successfully Published, Part 2: Discipline
Discipline puts focus to work by Roger Parker

Discipline is “focus in action.” Discipline transforms dreams and intentions into daily habits that result in consistent, sacrifice-free progress toward your goal of writing a brand-building book.

Discipline involves breaking the habits of “busy work,” and replacing it with the habits of daily progress on your book based on short, scheduled, working sessions.

Brand-building books are the result of research, organization, writing, re-writing, and on-going marketing. Discipline comes from:

· Market and reader research, so you can write a book that your intended market wants, rather than a book that simply profiles your knowledge.
· Building your days around your book, rather than trying to “fit your book time” in wherever there’s left-over time.
· Realistic expectations, like being by satisfied when you write 2 pages during a 30-minute, daily writing session, rather than trying to “spend the weekend” writing your book–sacrificing valuable family time (and setting yourself up for disappointment if it doesn’t work out).

A Case Study (Author: Guy Krige)

2010-06-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

(For confidentiality purposes, the company name has been changed)

Keys to Success: Unique People with Unique Habits in Unique Jobs: A Shadowmatch Experience

'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is then not an act but a habit.'Aristotle

Company X is committed to people succeeding within the environment. As part of this years leadership programme, Company X decided to explore and understand what behaviours of successful people in Company X contribute to performance excellence. This was achieved by partnering with Shadowmatch to map the behavioural habits of people. The process involved identifying top performing Company X leaders in different divisions that had previously excelled on the leadership program and who have since gone on to achieve even greater levels of success and excellence in the workplace. Each of these individual's were asked to complete a Shadowmatch worksheet mapping the presence or absence of habits. By habits Shadowmatch means those actions of the individual that repeat themselves with no (or minimal) conscious planning. The Shadowmatch worksheets were 'matched' to each other in order to identify shared or what we term 'congruent' behaviour habits contributing to excellence. The results are termed 'benchmark shadows'.

The ultimate purpose of these benchmark shadows is to enable a business to 'match' an individual's shadow to the benchmark shadows in order that the organisation can recruit individuals with a high propensity for success, can implement personal development plans for existing employees to lift their performance relative to top performers, can undertake proper succession planning and can implement effective career paths.

The 'benchmark shadows' offer fascinating and deep insight into how the unique repeated actions of different individuals deliver excellence that contributes to Company X’s as well as their ongoing success. Five unique benchmark shadows contributing to excellence in Company X as a function of the job at hand and the division were identified. These five unique approaches are: 1) the problem solver, 2) the people solver, 3) the team player, 4) the calmer and finally 5) the obsessive.

Each of these unique approaches towards excellence as mapped by Shadowmatch are discussed in turn.

The Problem Solver:

Problem solvers succeed in Company X due to an excellence in problem solving. When challenges present they are first to engage their minds and energies towards finding and implementing credible and effective solutions with speed. They do not need to motivate themselves to do it. It is part of their framework of meaning to successfully deal with the problem at hand. And it is the only acceptable way forward for them such that virtually all obstacles presented are overcome.

The People Solver:

These people have wonderful and well established behavioural habits towards equipping them with an excellence at ensuring that people around them succeed. They continuously (and are generally first to) engage with people such that they experience high levels of meaning, fun and success in the workplace. No stone is left unturned in ensuring people will succeed. People solvers experience meaning by ensuring those around them experience success. They are always very positive towards others, investing significant amounts of time and energy into people. It comes naturally to them. We typically experience them as wonderful people.

The Team Player:

These individuals live, breath and sleep team. They can knit a group of disparate individuals into a team before you know it. They succeed in Company X off the back of their ability to create and sustain teams that deliver excellence. The team is king (or queen). They approach business with a team mindset and naturally design work such that it fits hand in glove with a team. Whenever a team approach is required, these people come to the fore. Their actions are geared towards fostering and building teams of excellence. Asking them how they do it unfortunately doesn't help. Most don't know.

The Calmer:

They calm troubled waters and find paths through forests where others cannot. These are the individual's that call for reason and a let's take a look before we leap approach to business. They do not have dominant and pre-defined habits. Rather, they naturally choose their actions based on the unique set of circumstances within which they find themselves. They can do this because of the absence of dominant behaviour patterns. Being flexible in the current situation is what is king. These individual's have an excellence at weighing up different possible approaches to a need. They can choose one way today and another tomorrow without emotional stress at the change. This results in a much broader set of options being considered and implemented than would normally be the case. It also promotes an environment with a relative lack of conflict. The calmer will find a way around the situation without turning it into an obstacle.

The Obsessive:

Finally, there are people who have such extreme habits that we call them obsessive. These individuals obsess about delivering excellence. They have a wonderful capacity for achieving outcomes in extremely efficient, quick and direct ways off the back of radical conceptual applications, high levels of resilience and nothing short of legendary problem solving skills. They have personal energy and a level of independent thought that enable them to overcome obstacles that would stump others. They flourish in environments of stress. If you bring your part in delivering success, they are wonderful. If not, we tend to experience them as very tough and direct.

The evidence is clear, Company X embraces excellence by appointing unique people with unique habits to unique jobs. These individuals come together in a way that delivers success into the market. Each individual is necessary. Company X fully embraces the diversity on offer, elevating people that solve problems naturally and efficiently, as well as people who invest their energy into ensuring people around them succeed, whilst promoting those that can create and sustain teams despite challenging circumstances and simultaneously including a mix of calm voices that will promote flexibility and proper deliberation when dealing with challenges. And let's not forget, Company X also offers a home to those who obsess all the time about Company X's excellence.

What a wonderfully diverse organisation, full of unique jobs, staffed by unique people with unique habits – the keys to excellence.

By Guy Krige

Altruism PDP

2010-06-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's

Altruism:

Is a persons’ ability to help other’s without expecting something back. These type of people are relatively free from the ‘What’s in it for me’ approach to helping others. They naturally do well in service driven jobs.

Self Confidence

2010-06-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

shadowmatch PDP

A person who is Self Confident is someone who acts with conviction and stays with a decision that was made. It is an individual who is not afraid to stand his/her ground and fight for what he/she believes is right, even if everyone else disagrees or feels differently. If you are someone who often feels insecure and uncertain of yourself, you might lack self confidence.

Time Management

2010-06-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's
Time Management is the ability to effectively make maximum use of your available time towards completing a task in the most efficient manner. People with strong time management capabilities are very efficient in what they do, they can do lots of work and they are always on top of their work and the things they need to do. It is a skill we can learn and practice very successfully. If you decide to embark on this programme, you will have to be very precise and you will have to attend to some detail in order to successfully complete every learning phase.

Propensity to hand things off

2010-06-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's
The way you tackle problems and handle difficulties can either be by depending solely on yourself or by depending on and involving others. Someone that depends on other people as well as involve others has a propensity to hand things off. This is very good as it will always ensure involvement by others in dealing with challenges. If your propensity to hand-off is not very strong, you will definitely benefit from doing this development programme.
For more information: shadowmatch.co.za/about

Team Conflict Identified and Fixed

2010-05-31T03:53:00.001-07:00

From time to time the Shadowmatch team is requested to help with all kinds of team related challenges in the workplace. Our approach is to get all the Shadowmatch results and then, with the assistance of the client, identify the top performers. Top performers are those who are the hardest workers, most productive, deliver the best quality of work with a positive spirit in the workplace. We then compare the rest of the team to the consolidated profile of the top performers to see if there are any serious mismatches. If this doesn’t provide us with an answer, we match the team individually to that of the manager. If that doesn’t provide an answer, we match the manager with the consolidated profile of the team. If that also doesn’t give us a conclusive answer to the challenge, we have a problem. This is exactly what happened a few weeks ago. A group of teachers working together at a primary school developed serious conflict in the team. The problem became so obvious that some of the parents helping out with certain school activities, became aware of it.

We did all the above without any conclusive answer to the problem. We studied the results to try and identify sub groupings with distinct habits that are different between the sub groups. Some very interesting trends were observed. The one group had an attitude of extreme unaggressive involvement towards their world and the people they work with. The second group was aggressive but uninvolved and two teachers were unaggressive and uninvolved towards the world and the people around them. These two teachers (unaggressive and uninvolved) didn’t participate in any activities. In fact, they were always together ignoring the events and everything that was happening around them. They were aloof and always left any event as early as possible. The six teachers with an aggressive uninvolved attitude always voiced their frustrations about the two discussed above but they never took it up with them. In fact, their attitude turned them to become very vocal about the situation. This escalated to a point where the unaggressive involved group (nine of them) became fed-up with the group that were frustrated with the uninvolved unaggressive group. This became such a negative spiral that the majority of the team couldn’t function properly.

What now? We discussed the findings with the Head Master and we all decided to handle the situation in an open forum in the form of a team building event. The fact that everybody became aware of the situation was in fact enough to change all the dynamics of the team and the three-way split amongst them. The two unaggressive uninvolved teachers made an active effort to participate as and when they can. The fact that all involved were relatively mature and intelligent turned the entire team dynamics into a positive one. Not because one or two individual have changed their behaviour, but because all of them could do something very small to address the situation. The result of all the mini efforts was enough to change the school.

Productivity can suffer seriously if you are not on top of the team and individual dynamics of the people in your business.

Discipline

2010-05-28T01:37:00.001-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP:

Discipline is the ability to work in a highly disciplined working environment where adherence to structure and time-frames are imperative. A person who scores high on discipline as an attribute is someone who can easily follow procedures and adhere to rules and regulations. A lot of times we are required to not only in the workplace, but also in our private lives, adhere to certain rules and regulations.

2010-05-21T01:28:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's: Leadership

Leadership is the ability to lead a group of people to a successful outcome. A true leader is a person who transforms the current reality into a better one for all. It is someone who drives change and moves people out of their comfort zones. A successful leader facilitates energy and connects people.

Shadowmatch.co.za

Match & move your people to success!

2010-04-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

The day Shadowmatch worked perfectly by not working.

The Shadowmatch team was asked to do an analysis of a team of specialized people. The problem was that the majority of the team members have been working together for more than ten years. They had three young employees in the team that were extremely frustrated. A further problem was the fact that the team were performing very poorly. Their work was not up to scratch. The team performed anything but acceptable in the quality standards of their work. The company then decided to appoint a new director with lots of energy to fix the team and get things back on track.

The new director soon realised that the managers were the problem. He asked for a full analysis of the situation by using Shadowmatch. He gave us all the names and went for a short holiday of one week. During this week we asked the entire team to complete the Shadowmatch worksheet and - not knowing the situation – we asked one of the managers to tell us who the top performers in the team are. He discussed it with his peer group managers and gave us the names of the top performers. Their habits were very congruent and the system approved the reliability of the consolidated top performing group. Now we have the facts for feedback when the newly appointed director returns from holiday.

During the feedback we used the top performing team (as indicated by the management team reporting to the new director) as the benchmark. We indicated that there is a very distinct difference when the habits of the team are being compared to that of the top performers and three team members were a very poor match to the ‘top performers’. He looked at the names of the team members who matched the top performers very positively and with a serious shocked face said: “Sorry guys, this is not working. These people that your system indicates as the ones that should be as successful as the top performers are the worst of all the people in the team”.

Because we know that Shadowmatch doesn’t make such mistakes, we asked him to verify the four individuals we have used as top performers. The names the managers gave us were their own names and they were the worst of all. The newly appointed director said that he has never worked with such a bunch of incompetent, lazy people. Ten of the seventeen members of the team were appointed by them and they were exactly the same. These ten were the best match when compared to the consolidated profile of the managers. The newly appointed director has appointed four young, dynamic and competent individuals to help pull the department out of its poor performing spiral. These four young energetic employees were the worst match to that of the managers being used as the benchmark. The top people were at the bottom of the list and the non performing employees were at the top of the list. The reason? The list was defined by a poor performing benchmark group and the system was precise in terms of matching similar people to similar people.

Have you ever wondered how many departments in business are performing sub standard because poor performers have recruited more poor performers? Like attracts like. Make sure you understand the dynamics of your departments and teams.

Conflict Handling

2010-04-23T03:45:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's

Workplaces are naturally stressful environments, and personal conflicts between co-workers can be both a cause and product of this stress.

Shadowmatch work sheet plot the following habits; Propensity to own, propensity to hand-of, to simplify, resilience, propensity to change, frustration handling, team inclination, self motivation, routine, problem solving, responsiveness, innovation, people positive, discipline, conflict handling, altruism, self confidence & leadership.

Shadowmatch work sheet plots your habit in categories; situational habit, strong habit, very strong habit & a radical habit.

People who score high on conflict handling are very rarely surrounded with conflict for the simple reason that they have learned to deal whit conflict by preventing it.

People, who have a situational habit in conflict handling, prefer to ignore conflict, hoping it will go away without an effort from their side.

Shadowmatch.co.za/about

Conflict Handling

2010-04-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

Shadowmarch PDP's

"Conflict”: This is a word that causes a degree of discomfort, anger, frustration, sadness, and pain with most of us.

The dictionary defines "conflict" as "a struggle to resist or overcome; contest of opposing forces or powers; strife; battle. A state or condition of opposition; antagonism; discord. A painful tension set up by a clash between opposed and contradictory impulses." No matter how hard we try to avoid it, conflict periodically enters our lives.

This is the question:

What is the difference between the following statements?

1. We have different viewpoints.

2. We have different needs.

3. Conflict.

4. Act of aggression.

Conflict handling is a habit that you learn early in your life. Shadowmatch PDP’s helps the individual to develop the habit of conflict handling. All the Shadowmatch Personal Development Programmes (PDP’s) are interactive and outcomes based. Learning these habits can change your life!
shadow match.co.za/about

Conflict Handling

2010-04-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch PDP's

Conflict Handling indicates your ability to handle conflict within yourself, between yourself and others as well as conflict between people.It must be done in a positive and meaningful way. Running away from and avoiding conflict is not regarded as a positive way to deal with it.

Conflict is a reality of our existence as humans. Shadowmatch is specifically concerned with the patterns we show towards dealing positively with conflict. Dealing positively with conflict is a specific behaviour. You have to engage with the people that you are in conflict with, work through the issues and get to a positive outcome whereby all parties are at rest, with minimal feelings of frustrations in the relationship. This is a tall order. The habit of dealing with conflict this way is a learned habit that starts at a very early age.

Shadowmatch provides Personal Development Programmes for the development of a new habit. Visit our website for more information:

http://www.shadowmatch.co.za/about/node/11

2010-03-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Shadowmatch Dynamics!

Many of our clients are successfully using Shadowmatch for recruitment purposes. Certain clients have started with an extensive roll-out of the Personal Development Programmes and this proves to be a huge value ads, not only for the individual completing the programme, but also for the direct team, division and business as a whole.

Besides recruitment and development, Shadowmatch has many other successful applications. It can be used for team building, identification of talent, identification of leaders, leadership development and succession planning. Shadowmatch has, in more than one business, successfully been used to do a skills audit on a division/department. Such an audit assists in identifying why certain people are struggling to become successful, why certain individuals are negative towards others or even sometimes destructive in the team. It empowers the manager to precision manage and develop employees and allocate tasks according to the natural behavioural patterns of individuals. It also provides information with regards to the skills development of each employee.

One of the powerful applications of Shadowmatch is the role it plays in understanding and facilitating a conflict situation between team members. Shadowmatch was recently used to identify why a manager and a staff member, both working on a high level in the business, were battling to work together and successfully deliver the required outcomes of their performance contracts. This specific manager and direct report where constantly in conflict situations, leading to the discomfort and detriment of both. Upon matching the habit patterns of the staff member to that of the manager, the areas of conflict became very clear. The manager displayed strong behavioural patterns in the following behaviours: Working with others, building positive relationships and involving people. The employee displayed strong behavioural patterns in working as an individual. She has shown an absence of the habit of working positively with people. The way they applied themselves to problems were radically different. Shadowmatch made it clear that the manager had to move away from actively engaging with the employee as she had strong habits towards working as an individual. This insight led to a change in reporting lines and both the manager and staff member ended up being more productive and happy in their respective roles. By Lizette Bester

For more information regarding Shadowmatch please visit our website: www.shadowmatch.co.za/about

Results in the tournament [8/8]

2010-03-03T10:48:00.001-08:00

Statistics on this tournament indicate that the team involved won 92,5 out of a possible 132 points against 11 other provinces over five days of competition. That equates to a win ratio of 70% in one of the toughest inter-provincial tournaments on the SA golfing calendar. The team had six of its players chosen for national squads at the end of the tournament and this team had only lost to one other team by the slim margin of one point. Statistics however can be misleading.
What differentiated this team from the rest was how they dealt with disappointments and
challenges throughout the week. This became very apparent when the team lost on the second day. This loss was only by one point but it could have been the end of the tournament. However true to the predicted habits on Shadowmatch, the team did two things that ultimately ensured success. They pulled together as a team and they kept their involvement un-aggressive.

The golfers in this team were tested as predominantly team-inclined and this shone through on the day they lost. The evening after the loss, the team and their captain set the target of not losing one more game. This they achieved with distinction. At no stage did any of the players become problematic in their behaviour and it was extremely interesting to see how, after the loss, the team seemed to gel even better and performed to their true potential.

Conclusion
Shadowmatch has been used in many industrial settings that include many different teams and groups. It has now however crossed over into mainstream sport in that it has helped a team ofaspiring young golfers win the national championships they had been striving for.

In looking to the future in the golfing industry in South Africa, it would not be surprising to see more teams use this tool to pick teams and to match their teams to the trophy - something that is becoming more and more important in the world of golf and the world of sport.
- Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist) -

Teambuilding [7/8]

2010-03-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

In the lead up to the tournament, time was also spent in analyzing the combined Shadow of the team. This was done to show the team its strong habits and areas where they don’t display such strong habits. This made them aware of how they looked as a team. At this stage no individual results were made available.

This was done to ensure that the players did not face criticism from team mates if they did not match the Shadow, or that players who were a good fit to the Shadow looked down on teammates. It was purely a teambuilding exercise where all the players were made aware of strong habits and behavioural areas where they didn’t display strong habit patterns.

A lot of hard work was put into the testing and the development phase of this teams existence, but the question still remained: What would the players do in the heat of battle? They did exactly what Shadowmatch had predicted and what they set out to do.

Conceptual ability and attitude scale [6/8]

2010-03-01T00:58:00.001-08:00

On conceptual ability this group of junior golfers achieved a combined score of six out of ten. This is a high score for a group of young people and it is postulated that this is due to the nature of the game of golf. When these players engage in a game of golf, their conceptual ability is tested and developed.

This is due to the fact that various forms of information is put to the golfer on the course before playing certain shots. This information includes score card information on how long the hole is in meters and yards, how far the player is from the green, which club will allow the player to hit thebest shot, what external influences such as wind are present and how this will affect the shot.

The player needs to take all of this into account before selecting a club and playing a certain shot. This equates very well to conceptual ability which asks the person to look at data, re-work it using their own frame of reference and then solve the problem to the best of their ability using the information provided. Success on the course also compares very well to players who have a higher conceptual ability as this allows them to make better informed decisions, and better execute their preferred solution.

On the attitude scale, players tested predominantly on the first quadrant of the attitude scale. This implies that this group of golfers are predominantly involved and unaggressive in their approach to their world and relationships. All the players involved, interacted predominantly in this way and there were very few altercations during the week of the tournament and in the weeks leading up to the competition.

This made the task of being the sport psychologist much easier and also made the interaction of the manager with the players a lot less strained. This also allowed the players to cope more successfully with disappointments and to work together when challenged.
- Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist) -

Critical Habits For Golf Player [5/8]

2010-02-25T00:38:00.000-08:00

The habits of responsiveness and the ability to simplify bare direct resemblance to the most
important abilities of the most successful golfers of all time. How can one make such a statement? Upon close study of not only this team but also successful golfers over the last three years, it was easy to see how responsiveness could be a critical skill for success on the golf course.

Responsiveness looks at the ability of a person to think on their feet and to react quickly. This often happens on the course where conditions can change in a matter of minutes and even more during the six hours it takes to play a round. So to adjust and to respond to a changing environment successfully is possibly a large key to success.

Secondly, in being able to simplify successful golfers avoid the propensity of some less successful golfers to suffer from what is jokingly referred to in golfing circles as “paralysis by analysis”. Simply put, this is what happens when a golfer has so many conflicting ideas in his or her head that they never come to the conclusion of hitting the ball.

In being able to simplify a problem or challenge, these successful junior golfers are better able to deal with them and to get better results. The reason for this is that they tend to not over-think the information presented to them by yardage books, caddies, their own experience as well as sensory input.

They have developed the habits of thinking and reacting quickly due to time constraints and they do this by only working with what they perceive the essence of the problem to be. A good example of this came to the fore in discussing the mental routines this group followed when faced with very long putts. The consensus amongst the group was that when faced with this tricky situation they only focused on two things, the pace of the putt and to get it as close to the hole as possible.

The reason ventured for this by the manager and our team is that on a 30m putt there are too many factors to take into consideration to get the ball in the hole. This includes slope, speed of the green, pin placement, input from the caddy, type of putting stroke needed, power on the stroke, visualization and a myriad of other data. Thus players have learnt to cope by using the habit of simplifying this whole process by focusing on only two of the most important aspects.

Whereas responsiveness and simplification are course directed habits the other three critical habits in this group proved to be more internally directed. Self confidence is probably one of the most important skills any person who is trying to perform in any environment and at any level can have. In this group it resulted in a team dynamic that was self-assured without being arrogant and a belief that no matter how tough the situation, the team could rise above the challenge.

This proved to be the case when the team lost one of its games on the second day of the tournament. Instead of the team disintegrating or a negative vibe developing in the team, all the players pulled together with a sense of confidence and made a promise to one another to not lose one more game. Something they achieved quite easily.

This tournament also tapped into the teams combined habit of resilience, something that is not only imperative in a tournament environment such as this but also in golf in general. The reason for the importance of resilience in golf is that one is faced with more disappointment than you are faced with success. Tiger Woods, the world’s number one player wins only roughly every four tournaments he enters. A very poor success rate if one takes into account that this is the way he makes his living.

Thus from a young age players have learnt the ability to bounce back after disappointments on the course. Something that is needed if one is to play top amateur golf or even just return for a next round after the disappointments of a bad round.

Lastly, discipline. If one looks at the sport of golf from the outside, such as I have done for the better part of the last three years, one is struck by the discipline one needs to compete at the top level. This does not only include discipline to practice the various important skills of the game, but also the mental discipline needed to put together a successful round after having played badly the day before.

Discipline is also a bed-rock of the rules of the game. Players will often mark their own score cards and if a player is not disciplined or honest in his scoring he or she can be a detriment to the game and to their team.
- Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist) -

Results [4/8]

2010-02-22T02:57:00.000-08:00

After having gone through the process of testing the players and after having studied their results the following patterns became apparent. The five top habits of golfers in this group proved to be responsiveness or the ability to react quickly,self-confidence, resilience, discipline and the habit of simplification. In many conversations with the manager of the side as well as the Shadowmatch team, it was
interesting to note that two of the most important qualities of these golfers were “thinking” habits,or seen differently by the manager of these players and other golfing experts, as Golf course management skills. - Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist) -

Testing process [3/8]

2010-02-18T04:57:00.000-08:00

The group of golfers was made up of nine members who were all teenagers and who ranged in age from 16 to 19. Any form of analysis or testing on subjects from this age group is generally met bysome apprehension and resistance. To break this resistance each player was given his Shadowmatch code to perform the assessment over the Internet at home.

The reason for this was twofold. Firstly, by not doing a centralized assessment players would not have the opportunity to “compare notes” and in this way feel inferior at all if they felt they may have got a question wrong. Secondly, by doing the assessment at home, players would be in a comfortable environment that would decrease anxiety whilst increasing ease of use. The reasoning for this is that players would do Shadowmatch on their own computers and this related to very few
administrative glitches in the testing phase.

The group of players selected was also an ideal team for computer and web-based testing. All of the players either have their own personal computers or have a family computer at home and are thus very comfortable with using a computer. Once again this decreased much of the normal anxiety experienced in testing in that players were using a medium they knew very well. Once the assessments were complete, each player received his two-page report back on the system. This report indirectly also helped in creating an early positive self-regard within each player. The reason for this being that each player’s strengths were highlighted to them and their parents, and this already put each player in a positive frame of mind not only towards the test, but to the whole sport psychology process that was to follow.
- Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist) -

Case Study [2/8]

2010-02-17T01:50:00.000-08:00

...The team involved in the testing was an interesting mix of age groups, experience levels and personalities. The team would be made up of nine players, eight of whom would play on each day.These players would compete against 11 other teams over five days for the title of National Junior Championships. To put the importance and strength of this tournament into perspective, one needs to look at the names that have competed for their provinces in this format of the game. These include Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and recent Sunshine Tour winners such as George Coetzee.
Five players from this side had competed internationally for South Africa. However, all the other players from the pool of possible selections had not played international junior golf and this presented the team manager with an interesting challenge. Excluding the obvious factors of skill level and form, how do you match five players of immense experience with four players of very limited experience at the same level?
Shadowmatch came to the fore as a way of comparing these players of differing experience levels in an equitable way. In sport this is often referred to as getting the mix right between youth and experience. By incorporating Shadowmatch into the team selection process, the manager got this mix right, not only in an intuitive way but also by using science and having valid and reliable results. How was Shadowmatch used and in which way did it contribute to the team’s ultimate success?

- Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counselling Psychologist)

SHADOWMATCHING THE TEAM TO THE TROPHY

2010-02-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

A Case Study [1/8 blogs]

Introduction
Shadowmatch has proven its worth as being a tool that assesses individuals in terms of their habits and how to best use and develop these habits to the benefit of the individual and the organization. The interesting fact is, long gone are the days where individuals work on their own, in isolation.

As a tool, Shadowmatch recognizes this and has measures such as team inclination vs individual
inclination and attitude scales that indicate the propensity of employees to act as contributing
members of a team. After having read some of the other case studies in this publication, no-one
will be under any misconception as to how Shadowmatch can contribute to the success of teams.

In this light, it is interesting to note that the recent focus of industrial psychology has been on how
to maximize the potential of work teams and how to put together these teams in a more productive and efficient manner. Although not commonplace in industrial psychology, teams and team-work have been studied in sport psychology for quite some time. This is also often one of the most important tasks sport psychologists are given when working with teams in sport.

With this in mind, it has been the aims of the Shadowmatch team to not only prove the usefulness
of the tool in teams within a working environment, but also within the related field of sports. Thus
when presented with the opportunity to get involved in the sport psychological testing of an under 19 golf side we “jumped” at the chance.

The golf team under the guidance of its manager had the ultimate goal of becoming the national
champions. After having seen the Shadowmatch system, the manager and executive committee of
the Golf foundation felt that Shadowmatch would be the secret weapon that would differentiate
them from some stiff competition. At the end of the process, this thinking proved right and the
team did in fact become the National under 19 Golf Championships. However, getting to that point was slightly more intricate and detailed as explained in the case study that will follow...

http://www.shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

Researched and compiled by - Theo Bezuidenhout (Sport and Counseling Psychologist)

A case study

2010-02-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

A CALL CENTER AGENT IS NOT JUST A CALL CENTER AGENT – THE SUCCESS OF PRECISION RECRUITMENT IN THE CALL CENTER INDUSTRY: A CASE STUDY

Shadowmatch was introduced to the top management team of a call centre and they immediately decided to start using it for the recruitment of their staff. They identified the top performers in each specific job area / function and created almost 60 benchmarks (in Shadowmatch also referred to as shadows) – one for each specific job area / function. Once all the benchmarks were created, they started to match every applicant that was provided by the staffing agency to the benchmark profile of the top performers in each specific job function. Where the call centre previously employed all candidates provided by the staffing agency, they now started to match them against the shadows in Shadowmatch and they only placed those candidates that were a good match to one of the shadows.

Shadowmatch immediately enabled them to employ people that were a match to the successful performers in one of the divisions. By having the luxury of almost 60 specific benchmarks and not just one generic call centre profile, they could now precision place people in the team / department where they were best suited.

Through this exercise it became clear that one cannot recruit successfully by means of a generic assessment. The assessment used must be specific to the job and the environment. The top performers in an environment need to indicate which habits are necessary to be successful in the specific job. This is the very reason why Shadowmatch has again and again proved to be the best way to precision employ and precision develop people

http://shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

Compiled by Lizette Bester

Congruency Habits

2010-02-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

Shadowmatch data, has indicated that when the habits of one team member differs radically from the rest of the team, whilst the rest of the team show high levels of congruency in their habits, the individual being different runs the risk of being rejected by the team.All people can be equally successful in the workplace. The key to success is that the individual must find the right job at the right place working with the right people. This is an enormous challenge that Shadowmatch has been built to address.

http://www.shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

Researched and compiled by Pieter De Villiers.

Staff turnover

2010-02-08T04:49:00.000-08:00

When De Villiers, Bester and Associates, owners of Shadowmatch, started dealing with the Call
Center in discussion, they where battling with an annual staff turnover percentage of close to 70%.
This was a huge challenge and had a significant impact on the service provided to customers. Why?
Because they almost lost all their trained, knowledgeable and competent staff on an annual basis.
The high staff turnover meant that they were continuously recruiting and training staff, just to lose
them again before they had stayed for 12 months. Keep in mind that the cost of recruiting and
training a call center employee is close to R100 000,00. If an employee leaves within the first 12 – 18
months, it is a loss to the business because he/she hasn’t yet started to be productive in excess of
his/her cost to the company. In other words, he/she has just been a cost and the company hasn’t yet
reached a point of break-even on the individual in terms of costs incurred as a result of recruitment
cost and salaries paid calculated against productivity.
http://shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

compiled by Lizette Bester

Shadowmatch

2010-02-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

Shadowmatch has been used to determine the possibility of a team of five specialists to work successfully together towards a common goal. Two team members have shown radically different habits compared to the other three team members. The three that were very similar eventually completed the task without the two identified by Shadowmatch as being radically different.

http://shadowmatch.co.za/about/get-the-book

Researched and compiled by Pieter De Villiers.

What is Shadowmatch?

2010-02-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

Shadowmatch is a technical term for an instrument designed to match the habits of an individual to the habits of top performing people doing a specific job/task under specific conditions in a specific environment. This is being done to predict the propensity of the individual to successfully do the same job/task under the same conditions in the same environment. Further to this, Shadowmatch provides development programmed to help individuals learn the habits displayed by top performers.

http://shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

compiled by Lizette Bester

Placements

2010-02-08T00:35:00.000-08:00

Shadowmatch has been used to do a placement audit determining correct placements in a company with 1400 employees. Shadowmatch indicated that only 23% of the employees were placed for optimal performance. When this was challenged, performance was compared with the Shadowmatch results. The conclusion was that the Shadowmatch audit was accurate.

http://www.shadowmatch.co.za/about/presentation

Researched and compiled by Pieter De Villiers.

Shadowmatch

Increasing average individual sales performance by 40% through introduction of Shadowmatch

Shadowmatch used to identify Leadership potential

Shadowmatch: New Developments - By Lizette Bester

Shadowmatch USA

HABITS, DIVERSITY AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: A CASE STUDY

Workforce Optimization

Self Motivation

Shadowmatch Interview Pack: A case study

New Shadowmatch Functionalities!

Shadowmatch Overview

Discipline

by Roger Parker

7 Habits of the Successfully Published, Part 2: Discipline

Discipline puts focus to work by Roger Parker

A Case Study (Author: Guy Krige)

Altruism PDP

Self Confidence

Time Management

Propensity to hand things off

Team Conflict Identified and Fixed

Discipline

Match & move your people to success!

Conflict Handling

Conflict Handling

Conflict Handling

Shadowmatch Dynamics!

Results in the tournament [8/8]

Teambuilding [7/8]

Conceptual ability and attitude scale [6/8]

Critical Habits For Golf Player [5/8]

Results [4/8]

Testing process [3/8]

Case Study [2/8]

SHADOWMATCHING THE TEAM TO THE TROPHY

A case study

Congruency Habits

Staff turnover

Shadowmatch

What is Shadowmatch?

Placements