I am a natural enthusiast. Anytime I get caught up in something, I go deep and sideways looking for additional information, original context, and fun facts. As Spring rolls around, my enthusiasm for March Madness kicks in. And this got me going down a path of wanting to know the origin of the term “First String.”
The origin of the term “First String” goes back to the time of Medieval archery when a man needed more than one string for his longbow in competition. If his first string broke, he could take out his second, reserve string, and then proceed. Today, when we refer to the first string in sports, we are referring to a top player of the team and distinguished from a substitute. The first string is made up of the “A-Players” who start the game. Second-string players are rotated in strategically and typically not all at once. Depending on the level of competition in the game, a few first-string players may never leave the game. Clearly, picking your first string wisely, and having a strong second-string roster to substitute in, is key to building a winning team.
There is something to be said for putting your top players in your starting lineup, but the true strategy comes in playing the long game. Whether on the court or in the office, it is important to think of both the immediate impact and long-term effects of hiring and retaining the right team members. While filling roles as soon as possible may seem like the best strategy, it is more important to find the right fit. It is estimated that hiring the wrong person for a position costs a company around 30% of the annual salary of that position, so finding the right fit for key roles in your starting lineup is essential.
Your starting lineup cannot only be made up of new hires, nor can it consist solely of seasoned veterans. You must have a healthy mix to ensure diversity in thought. This is where the magic of pre-employment assessments comes into play. When maintaining your team, using assessments like the Omnia Assessment can help to find the right mix of all the desirable traits for your first-string players.
Benchmarking your top and most successful talents within individual positions adds another layer to your pre-employment assessments. Think of it this way: if you were able to hire a second Lebron James, would you do it? In 1992, the US Olympic men’s basketball team was led to victory by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. They were known as The Dream Team bringing home the gold medal in a stunning upset win against Croatia. Imagine if you could replicate the capabilities of these members over and over again to fulfill their positions? There may be some ethical grey areas when it comes to cloning your team players, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying to find the perfect matches.
One of the greatest women’s college basketball coaches of all time, the legendary Pat Summitt, once said, “Teamwork is what makes common people capable of uncommon results.” She knew how to coach her team to perform uncommon results, and she did it by adapting her coaching style to the individual players on her team. She assessed the strengths and weaknesses of every player on the team and ensured they all received the specific, individualized attention they needed to succeed. The same is true in the workplace.
By identifying the strengths and areas in need of improvement for individual team members (and on a larger scale, teams as a whole), organizations can customize and configure strategies to get the desired results. Leadership that uses a data-driven, analytical approach to relationship management in their team can set expectations more clearly, deliver feedback in a more transparent and direct manner, and set measurable and achievable goals.
In terms of coaching to weaknesses (though we like to call them focus areas), using assessments to learn about the personalities, motivators, and defining characteristics of your talent can aid the customization of improvement plans and setting up milestones for growth. Pat Summitt said it best: “You can’t always be the strongest or most talented or most gifted person in the room, but you can be the most competitive.” Use the assessment results to your advantage and bring out that competitive, can-do attitude in all your team players.
The only way to win a game, truly, is to be prepared to adjust your strategy based on the other team’s defense. You can watch all the game tapes of past performances you want, but that is only going to prepare you for half the battle during the actual game. The same goes for your hiring and retention strategy. Every person is an individual with their own wants, needs, goals, and dreams. So, what worked for one might not work for all.
Having detailed profiles on your team is like having all the components of a playbook. You can change things mid-game with knowledge and insight into the inner workings of your team dynamics. Additionally, being armed with the assessment data and role benchmarking allows you to move players into the right positions on your team as backups and redundancies. Life is inevitable. There is always going to be another curve in the road, so have plans in place for team members that can step up and fill gaps as needed.
If we are trusting the Rule of 10,000 Hours, there is a lot of practice and development before “the big game.” The rule says it takes 10,000 hours of practice, arduous work, and experience to become a professional in anything, and many studies show that is true in basketball as well. While we do not necessarily think it takes as many hours to become an expert in reading and understanding assessment results (especially with how easy The Omnia Group has made it to interpret the data), it requires some skill and experience to build the perfect, high-performing team. Effective leadership takes practice and time.
There is no March Madness to our method — just real, actionable data and results. Are you ready to get started? To learn more about how The Omnia Assessment can help you select top talent, improve your retention rates, and make you a better and more prepared leader, schedule a demo. We look forward to showing you how our solutions provide the right elements for building a winning team.
