WHAT DOES

EMPLOYEE
INFIGHTING
COST YOUR
BUSINESS?
WHO WE ARE
NEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE




By Professor Steven Reiss, Ph.D

MentorabIe GmbH Bahnhofplatz 1 - CH-6440 Brunnen - Phone +41 41 820 61 55 - www.mentorable.com - info@mentorable.com
ReIationships in Business I. Mentor matching
What does employee infghting cost your business?
PubIished on October 14, 2010 by Steven Reiss, Ph.D.
At work people spend quite a bit of
energy opposing each other. Some
people just don't like each. Busines-
ses take their employees on retreats
to get them in a relaxed atmosphere
where it is more likely they will bond.
They hire outside professionals to
build teams by teaching mutual res-
pect and tolerance. They hire coaches
to keep troubled employees whom
they need on board. Still, employees
not getting along on the job is a huge
cost factor for many organizations.
When it comes to relationships, have
a simple idea. Better to marry the
right person than to need counselors
to help you get along with somebody
else. Applied to business, this means
it is better to form teams with compa-
tible personalities and values than to
create work groups based primarily on
complementary skill sets. Businesses
should form work groups of people
who naturally appreciate and under-
stand each other.
think change has been oversold.
People don't change to anywhere
near the degree some psychologists
say. Change is hard work. t's much
better for a business to match people
than to just throw them together and
then hire life coaches or psychologists
to fx the problem.
The success or failure of a marriage
is largely determined the day two peo-
ple agree to tie the knot. f they have
compatible personalities, values, and
goals, they likely will have a long and
successful marriage. f they don't, they
will draw apart over time. n every re-
lationship two people have the same
quarrels over and over again. These
quarrels never resolve because they
are rooted in different values.
How shouId peopIe be matched to
give them the best chance of get-
ting aIong? n the 1970s and after-
wards, social psychologists tested two
hypotheses concerning the formation
of effective relationships. Hypothesis
was that similarities attract ("birds of
a feather fock together.") Hypothe-
sis 2 was that opposites attract. They
executed more than a thousand
studies, and the overwheIming ma-
jority showed that simiIarity is the
basis for matching peopIe in every
kind of reIationship studied. One of
the strongest and most consistently
validated principles of social science
is that birds of a feather in fact fock to-
gether and that opposites don't bond.
When forming a work group, or even
a marriage, complementary skill sets
are helpful. One marriage partner is
an expert at fnance, the other at fxing
things up. The principIe that "simi-
Iarities attract" is about personaIi-
ties, not skiIIs. Two people with com-
plementary skills have the potential to
work effectively, but only if their per-
sonalities are compatible. PreciseIy
because businesses put peopIe to-
gether with compIementary skiIIs,
they may not pay enough attention
to personaIities.
Some matching strategies are better
than others. I beIieve that vaIue-
based matching is best because it
is hard even to imagine how peopIe
with opposite vaIues couId appre-
ciate one another. Gregarious people
and loners have opposite values that
lead to misunderstandings, repeated
quarrels, and different lifestyles. f
Mentorable.com
One year that makes a difference
About the autor
Steven Reiss, Ph.D.
Steven Reiss was educated at Dart-
mouth College, Yale University, and
Harvard Medical School and is Eme-
ritus Professor of Psychology at The
Ohio State University. He has studied
human motivation, values, and perso-
nality from the perspective of clinical
psychology.
VALUE BASED MATCHING

Thanks to the unique VALUE BASED

MATCHNG

system, mentoring pairs

are put together on the basis of their
profles, which focus on personal
values and motives. These mentoring
pairs speak the same language and
have similar goals and preferences.
They often understand each other in
just a few words and are quick to get
to the root of an issue.
mentoreasy
The web-based Mentoring platform
mentoreasy supports and accompa-
nies both the enterprise (administ-
ration, coordination, matching and
evaluation), as well as the mentoring
pairs for a year or more. Thanks to
the continuing evaluation of this relati-
onship, sustainability is guaranteed.
VALUE BASED MATCHING

MentorabIe GmbH Bahnhofplatz 1 - CH-6440 Brunnen - Phone +41 41 820 61 55 - www.mentorable.com - info@mentorable.com
they must work or live together for a
long period of time, they might come
to disrespect each other. The gre-
garious person will think the loner is
unfriendly, and the loner might think
the gregarious person is superfcial.
Competitive people and confict avo-
idant people have opposite values. f
they must work or live together for a
long period of time, they might come
to disrespect each other. The compe-
titive person might think the confict
avoidant person is a coward, and the
confict avoidant person might think
the competitive person is angry.
At the second annual meeting of the
World Society of Motivation Scientists
and Professionals held on the cam-
pus of Franklin College September
15-16, Daniele Gianella and Brunello
Gianella, two business consultants
from Switzerland, presented a paper
on "Value-Based Matching in Human
Relationships. " They suggested that
businesses should assign people to
teams or small groups based on com-
patibility of values.
To take just one example, businesses
often assign mentors to new recruits
based on frst available. The two may
or may not like each other. f they hit
it off, the new recruit is likely to learn
quickly and form an initial favorable
attitude toward the job and company.
f they don't like each other, the new
recruit may learn the job much more
slowly and form an initial unfavorable
attitude toward the job or company.
The Gianella's believe that matching
mentors to new recruits is a cost-ef-
fective, easy, and quick way to impro-
ve mentoring outcomes. They have
created simpIe technoIogies that
assess the core vaIues of each
mentor at a company. When a new
recruit comes along, they assess the
individual's core values and then sup-
ply the company's Human Resource
or mentoring program manager with
a list of compatible possible mentors
working at the company whose core
values match those of the new recruit.
Since the mentor and new recruit
have simiIar vaIues, they are IikeIy
to bond and form an effective reIa-
tionship for Iearning.
This is the second of a 14-part se-
ries on translational models of human
needs theory. These blogs will com-
ment on innovative methods for apply-
ing human needs theory to business,
education, wellness, world-class ath-
letics, media psychology, and spiri-
tuality, everything from high school
guidance programs that assess the
needs of all incoming students, to
Olympic Gold medalists who use mo-
tivation science to train for competi-
tions, to multinational companies that
have innovated leadership training, to
parents and professionals who use
motivation science to plan the futures
of people with autism and intellectu-
al disabilities, to military armies that
evaluate risk of PTSD in new recruits,
and to new efforts to strengthen faith-
based counseling. Next up is how mo-
tivational science is being applied to
promote understanding and reduce
tensions among business executives.
The third annual meeting of the World
Society (www.motivationscience.org)
will be held in Vienna in Fall, 2011 (ex-
act date not yet announced.)
by Steven Reiss, Ph.D.
Mentorable.com
One year that makes a difference
Mentoring 3.0
Mentoring 3.0 (Value Based
Mentoring) focuses on the relati-
onship between the mentor and
the mentee, thereby creating a
good environment for the trans-
fer of tacit knowledge.