Chapter 9

Are You a Frustrated Maverick in the Workplace?

Freedom and Change

The Freedom Component is different from the typical measures in the Birkman assessment in that it offers a much broader perspective and addresses individuality. Freedom and Challenge are the only two Components that offer such a long view. Where you fall on the Freedom spectrum is a powerful clue to the way you perceive others and yourself, and it is the strongest indicator of your idea of yourself as an independent and individualistic personality.

Those with high Freedom scores revel in marching to the beat of their own drum. They don’t know, and don’t really care, how most people do things. You often can tell them by the creative way they dress or decorate their offices or homes. High Freedom people can be valuable in workplaces where creative thinking is needed. They can see unique approaches to a sticky problem, and they delight in the unexpected.

Many people are quick to call themselves mavericks. Popular culture, particularly in the United States, often romanticizes and encourages the idea of being a free-thinker and even rebellious. The Birkman helps you discover what level of Freedom truly puts you in your comfort zone.

Those who score lower on the Need for Freedom value traditions in society and understand how most people tend to think. They will be more agreeable and go with the flow. They see importance in fitting in with the majority of good people in society and don’t seek ways to be different just for the sake of being different. In the workplace, they will be attuned to policy and procedure, as well as to their colleagues. These folks can readily support team thinking and well-established rules.

Although Freedom has a unique function in the Birkman, it is considered here with the Change Component, which is a measure of restlessness. Are you always on task, or do you prefer plenty of variety in your workday?

High Change people, like high Freedom people, enjoy the unexpected. They prefer shifting and variable schedules. They would probably say they like to multitask, and although this is a topic that has been hotly debated—that is, whether people can ever truly multitask—it is fair to say they are energized by moving rapidly from one focus to another.

Those who report a lower Need for Change accomplish their goals—and even recharge—by being left to stay focused on one endeavor at a time. They prefer fewer distractions and get ruffled and fall into Stress by too many interruptions.

As with each of the other Birkman relational Components, most of us tend toward the average range, meaning that we prefer a balance in our life and work between these two extremes. And as with each Component Need, the Birkman gives a reading on the intensity to which each of us prefers one style or the other for our optimal working conditions.

THE BOSS CLOSES IN

A partner in a large New England accounting firm confessed to his consultant that he had found himself at work becoming “as mad as I’ve been in several years, and it happened twice in the past few months.” The consultant, Richard Rardin, of Connecticut, discovered his client was “off the charts on Freedom.” After the two discussed the score, the partner realized that what was upsetting to him was that his manager, who typically had a hands-off, delegative management style, had started to get more involved in all his projects. That insight gave the employee the information he needed to have a healthy discussion with his boss.

“They came to a much better understanding of what was at first a fairly unsettling situation for both of them,” says Richard.

THE FREEWHEELING BOSS

The new chief executive at a large Houston hospital was in his post only one month when he realized his direct reports started to become dysfunctional. He asked Birkman consultant Patti Corbett Hansen to help him and his executive team of nine vice presidents and directors get through the leadership transition. “We need to get to know each other better,” the new boss told her about his immediate goal.

The CEO knew the staff had to learn how to work effectively with him, but he didn’t see any big problems. The staff members, for their part, were feeling unhappy and unproductive, but each was thinking it was his or her own individual dissatisfaction. No one saw a broader issue.

Things had been busy at the hospital when the new chief executive came on board. It was seeing a lot of crisis cases, and that tended to preempt organizational functions, including setting aside time for meetings, allowing staffers to form their own conclusions. “They didn’t think their new leader wanted them to be successful, so they started the usual business logic—that he wanted to bring in his own people” and fire the current employees, Patti says.

That defeatist attitude was aggravated by the boss’s feeling that a good leader should hit the ground running at a new post. He had decided what his staff needed before he even did any observation or homework on the job.

“The big surprise came as everyone shared their Freedom scores,” says the consultant.

The new boss was happy with his score—high Freedom in Usual Behavior and Need scores—and proudly explained that he had a very independent leadership style and wanted a culture where each person who reported to him was trusted to do whatever he or she thought the situation called for to be successful. “After all,” Patti recalls him saying, “nobody wants anyone telling them what to do.”

In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. Most of the team members had low Freedom Needs and wanted to have a stable environment with a clear vision, where everyone is kept informed about the rest of the team members’ actions and they know where they are headed. They felt the CEO was sabotaging their success by refusing to tell them what he wanted them to do. In the best of times, things worked collaboratively, but when the staffers felt they didn’t have what they needed to succeed individually, it became every man for himself in a quiet and desperate way, Patti says.

The Birkman also showed that the group tended to be low Authority, which signifies low verbal dominance, and so they were silent in their suffering, acting separately outside the workplace. “Several had their résumés in order and had begun a job search,” Patti says. “People were worried that the ship was sinking.”

The consultant had the group sit around the conference room table and asked each person what he or she needed to be successful. Ninety percent asked that the new CEO give them more clarity, more detail and direction, and more face time.

The CEO’s big mistake was one we all often make: assuming that what he needed was what everyone else needed—in his case, a high degree of personal Freedom, Patti says. After that session, she says, the new leader’s whole demeanor changed to one in which he wanted to give the team the support they needed, not what he thought they should want. “Hearing the Birkman message helped turn them around,” she adds. “I applaud new leaders who take the time to know the individuals. I like the CEO who says, ‘And what do you need from me?’”

Afterward, every time a major post was filled, the affected team would be given Birkmans and asked to talk about how the dynamics of the team might change. “It’s an organic thing,” Patti says about making sure employees’ needs are being met, especially during transitions. “The Birkman helps get your attention. It’s an early warning system. You have to know what to do to counter blind spots.”

AIDING THE RED CROSS

The Freedom Component played an unexpected role in helping the American Red Cross with a herculean hiring problem. The organization was reeling from a series of leadership failures in its operations division for the United States, particularly how to lead its many chapters across the country through needed changes in programs and preparedness. Over a year and a half, the group had hired three vice presidents of operations, who for various reasons didn’t work out. The friction was causing huge disruptions at the group’s national headquarters in Washington.

“They were developing programs in DC and pushing them out to the different chapters,” says consultant Peter Capodice. “They got no chapter buy-in. They just said, ‘Here is the new program; implement it.’ The relationship was marginal at best.”

The organization has a good reputation and an interesting leadership culture, Peter says, in that a lot of its executives are from top private industry positions who have gotten to the point in their careers where they want to give back. Peter saw it as an opportunity to lure talent with broad, high-level experience.

He aligned the Red Cross job requirements for the head of operations position with certain Components, and that led him to zero in on Freedom, which he sees as a key attitudinal Component. His reasoning was that in a highly political and reputable organization, you have to make sure you talk to the right people and go through the right channels, something a low Freedom person might be more likely to do. In contrast, “the high Freedom Usual Behavior scores say, ‘I’m just going to go do it and ask forgiveness later.’” That is risky in an organization like the Red Cross, Peter adds.

Peter then gave the Birkman to the hiring team, the executive who would be the new hire’s boss, and future team members. In the end, the successful candidate had a rock-bottom low Freedom score for Usual Behavior of 1, and a Need score of 22, “so he had a strong communication style,” the consultant says. The candidate, of course, had other good qualities, including good instincts about what the organization needed and how to balance those needs with his strengths in Authority—that is, “when to stand up and when to back down,” Peter says.

Scott Conner was that successful leader. He retired in 2010 after a long tenure that included a promotion to senior vice president for preparedness and health and safety services. “The use of the Birkman helped provide a good fit,” Scott says. “For me to be at the Red Cross for eleven years at that level was highly unusual. During my time there, I must have had ten bosses and seven presidents.”

Before Scott joined the Red Cross, he had spent thirty years in the food industry, working in top-level executive posts in marketing and operations at Campbell Soup, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Burger King. It was his experience with franchises that caught the attention of the Red Cross leadership.

Once on the job, Scott says he treated the Red Cross chapters as he did his food franchises. He made no executive order until he traveled the country and got to know the chapters and their needs and got local management to buy into headquarters’ goals. “Later, I brought in a few people from the chapters for important jobs,” he says, “so within a year I had established good relations and credibility. Then we could develop a strategic plan on how to grow the business. It was a terrific experience.”

LOOKING FOR CHANGE

People with high Change scores often find office culture stultifying and see interruptions and unplanned events as invigorating. They like having plenty of different things to do throughout the day and hope no two days are exactly the same at work.

In Vancouver, Canada, an associate pastor at a Canadian Baptist church had to find a way to meet his strong need for variety and new experiences without disrupting his professional and home lives. He enjoyed teaching—his high Empathy score highlighted his ease with connecting to people—and he was well liked—for the short time people got to know him. But he had a hard time staying in one job.

“He was a teddy bear,” consultant Jonathan Michael says, “but he switched churches a lot, mostly out of boredom, and so no one was sure if he’d stick around.”

The pastor’s constant comings and goings made for a résumé that sent up a red flag despite his successful hires. At home, his wife asked, “What’s going on? I’m tired of moving.”

What was going on was the church worker had a Change Need score of 90. “He needed people who understood him,” Jonathan says. “He needed new challenges and new projects for him to be happy in his job and to stay put.” Because the consultant had an established working relationship with the church, he was able to help the pastor negotiate job duties that included a variety of responsibilities and leading the new projects coming up at the church. He took over more counseling tasks from the senior pastor, who, as a strong Yellow, was happy to take on more administrative functions.

“Both are happy doing what they are wired to do better,” Jonathan reports. “Rather than focusing on the job description they had to fit, we fit the job description to their Interests and Needs.”

KEEP THE CHANGE

Celia Crossley had to coach two low Change executives through some tough restructuring. The leaders of a Midwest manufacturers’ group adopted the Birkman after the organization began to feel the strains of the loss of income due to another organization taking away their clients. The membership-driven group was suddenly shrinking in revenue as the economic landscape shifted for small suppliers. The association’s office had to trim the pay of the staffers without eliminating any positions.

The chief executive and chief operating officer were beginning to show the signs of stress at work. They were dealing harshly with one another, and that lack of cooperation was making it hard for the staffers to get their work done. The reduced pay added stress and anxiety. Staffers were losing their enthusiasm for work, and overall productively was falling.

Celia gave the executives—and subsequently their entire leadership team—Birkmans. The results showed the CEO and COO were particularly vulnerable to workplace disruptions. The chief executive had an extremely low score for Change, and the operating officer’s score was not much higher. That pointed to an extreme desire for predictability—something that was in short supply at the time. The Birkman “differences to watch” segment helped the two executives pinpoint particular problems in their dealings with each other, such as the fact that the CEO appeared to be a flexible planner but in fact needed to have a detailed plan to follow. (His Structure score was Usual Behavior 29 and Needs 66.)

Once the team members began to understand the nature of their emotional strain and were able to identify the behavior that was driving office tension, they could work on an even keel together even without the stable environment they craved. They started to put in place a plan to regain the association’s lost income.

“They are in a much better place,” says Celia, “not only with a greater understanding of their own behavior, but also of the behavior of their team members. They two led the organization back into stability and it is once again in growth mode.”

THE BIRKMAN AT WORK: NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

The Birkman is used by a number of nonprofit organizations. Some 10 percent of the business at Birkman International is in nonprofit activity, including a variety of faith-based groups and large multinationals such as Heifer International. Much of that work is the same being done at any for-profit endeavor: team building, improving work efficiency, and helping bring harmony where conflicts are forming among employees. But clients also have taken remarkable and creative initiative to use the Birkman in ways where finding out a person’s true Interests and Needs is of critical importance. These service-oriented organizations use the assessment to get a life back on track, take some of the load off public services, and bring a degree of harmony to a chaotic environment.

Happy Together

Cy Farmer, an international consultant for Cru, has been working for nearly forty years in Africa and Europe for the Christian evangelical group. He uses the Birkman mostly to facilitate training and developing staff, and to help people prepare for jobs in other countries. It also has been invaluable, he says, in helping people “be more effective with the public.”

Because one goal of organization members is “to share their faith with others,” the Birkman helps individuals understand how they may come across to others and teaches them to be respectful of the other person’s needs and perspective. Otherwise, Cy says, “people tend to relate in terms of their own autobiography: ‘if it works for me, it should work for others.’”

“The fact that you have five people who love the Lord doesn’t mean they work well together,” he continues. He can recall one time when two missionaries in Germany were going on a mission trip to an Eastern European country. One was ready to go in an instant; the other wouldn’t leave until all the planning was done. One, in other words, was high in Freedom and low in Structure; the other was low in Freedom and high in Structure. The first person would say, “Let’s leave early tomorrow; we’ll get there about 11:00 p.m., and we can knock on the pastor’s door and he will find a bed for us.” The second person would reply, “We aren’t leaving this town until we have a written confirmation of a reservation at a local hotel at least three days before we get in the car to go.”

Their Stress modes exaggerated how they saw the other person. One saw the other as too anxious and too conforming. The other thought the first person was too unpredictable and individualistic and didn’t think things through. Once they saw their Birkman results, they understood what the other person’s concerns were and knew they could deal with the differences. “Then they shook hands and walked out of the room with a renewed desire to work and accomplish their mission goals together,” Cy says.

The Road Back

Mark Hadley spent most of his adult life in prison on charges including possession of drugs, burglary, and driving while intoxicated. More than a year before his release in 2012 for his fourth sentence, he joined a reentry program at a Texas prison and was given a Birkman by consultant Tommie Dorsett. He was solid Yellow and had high Structure scores, signaling a deep affinity for process and logistics, Tommie says.

It made sense. In prison, Mark was given administrative work, including working for the state highway department as a production clerk, and he always did the work well and happily. He preferred it to any of the construction work he had done on the outside. When he looked at his Birkman results, Tommie recalls, all the prisoner could say was, “Now it makes sense.”

“The Birkman showed me way, way more than what I knew about myself,” Mark says. “It kept me from thinking I was crazy. All the jobs in my life were blue-collar jobs. I learned that you find yourself a good trade and keep it, and I couldn’t get past that. I started drinking to counter the boredom. Then I’d get into trouble, and then I’d have to start all over again. Now I see it.”

The consultant works with InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a nondenominational ministry of prison fellowship based in Houston and working mostly in Texas and Minnesota. The organization helps people transition back into society from prison. In Mark’s prison, that meant starting with a Birkman. Tommie says he also uses the assessment to help prisoners deal with the stresses of incarceration. “People don’t understand their needs and how to communicate that to others,” he says, adding that the Birkman helped some prisoners drastically change their behavior.

After Mark was released, at the age of fifty-three, he got help finding a job in charge of operations with a Houston company that does commercial millwork. He is responsible for ensuring that all parts and equipment are ordered properly and arrive on the correct job sites each day at the proper time. “I did procurement for a project for a security desk in an iconic historic building in downtown Houston,” he boasts.

He feels the Birkman not only pointed him to the right job, but that it also helped him land it. He says he handed his Birkman results to his prospective boss so he could see his profile, which showed the applicant’s preferences as well as suggestions on how to manage him and how he reacted to stress. It showed, for example, that when he began to feel overwhelmed, he would start to do busy work and become unproductive, something Mark says “is so true.” More important, he says, it was an independent verification that the type of work he was asking to be hired to do “was my natural ability.”

“The Birkman got me to feel that I am capable of doing a job that I have to do,” says Mark. His employer agrees, and at his last performance review, Mark got a raise. He has done well enough after eight months on the job that the company is looking to hire another worker from his prison. On a personal level, Mark says he feels relieved. “Since I’ve been out, I know how to meet my needs,” he says.