IN the book Way of the Shepherd, authors Dr. Kevin Leman and William Pentak shared valuable insights as to how leaders should manage people. Of the seven “ancient secrets” to managing productive people in that book, let me share the part where leaders have to “discover the SHAPE” of their sheep. SHAPE stands for Skills, Heart, Attitude, Personality, Experiences. Using how shepherds choose their ewe as an example, Leman and Pentak said leaders must know and choose the right people for the position. They said that the “choice of the sheep can make flock management easier or harder”, as leaders would not want to inherit someone else’s problems. Ideally, at the start of the recruitment process, leaders should be able to identify and unearth the SHAPE of its employees.
Instinctively, human resources managers look at the educational background, training and experience and significant accomplishments as bases for hiring and placement. Applying the SHAPE of Leman and Pentak, the recruiter principally looks at skills and experience and, perhaps, gives less importance to things, such as heart and attitude. After all, having the passion to work and having a positive attitude are not taught in school and cannot be readily seen in one’s resume nor easily determined during interviews.
When my very close friend Irwin Montano left his high-paying corporate job, I managed to convince him to try out government work. At the Bureau of Immigration (BI), he personally assisted the Selection Committee in the implementation of a merit-based recruitment and selection process to minimize the undue influence of a phone call or a letter endorsement from a powerful person in the hiring process. As we initiated nationwide qualifying exams to insure we get a cross section of society in our candidate pool, the Committee Secretariat assigned points per skill and per experience while Irwin took care of assessing the personality and the attitude during the panel interview. In my case, I tried to find out where their heart is.
By choosing to remain in government despite the recent and drastic pay cuts, some good immigration officers have shown their heart. It takes that much passion to consider what they do in border control “more as a service than a job” and “more as a cause than as a place to draw a paycheck”.
It is very difficult to assess the personality of the candidate during a short five-minute interview; much more one’s attitude. But Irwin, owing to his many years in human resources management, has developed a knack of detecting whether a candidate has a customer-oriented personality or a negative or positive attitude. What I saw in Irwin during his short stint in BI is that he really takes the time to know the condition of his “flock” and the status of his “sheep, one sheep at a time”. In the BI, he exhibited this hands-on approach, where he practically went around the bureau premises to engage both employees and clients to get direct feedback and observed the process flow in terms of time, resources and actual physical steps to complete one transaction. I always saw Irwin happily talking to people, engaging them to get feedback, eliciting as much information from them. When he briefly worked in Philippine Airlines (PAL), Irwin had to create his own Facebook account so he could monitor not only the passenger complaints and compliments but more to get the pulse of his sheep, the personnel in the Customer Management Office. In the Bible, Psalms 23:1–3 tells us that the shepherd meets the sheep’s every need: food, water, rest, safety, and direction. Like a good shepherd Irwin tried to find out each and every need of the people he was entrusted to take care of.
Leman and Pentak used sheep as comparable to employees. Other authors liken the sheep to believers of Christ. Sheep are one of the dumbest creatures who do not only have poor eyesight and hearing but also run very slowly. They are defenseless animals for they have no weapons, such as sharp claws, piercing hooves, or powerful jaws. Simply put, sheep cannot survive long without a shepherd, upon whose care they are totally dependent. Likewise, like sheep, our employees look upon their leaders for guidance and inspiration. Likewise, like sheep, Christians ought to be dependent on Christ for all their needs. So the challenge of every leader (and shepherd) is to know and understand the needs of his employees (his flock). It has been said that believers will always be given their necessities in life, for He knows exactly what we need.
I recently attended a coaching workshop where the facilitators shared both theoretical skills and practical exercises for leaders in PAL to understand interaction essentials. Among others, the workshop mentioned five key principles of esteem, empathy, involvement, share and support to address the personal needs of their followers. The need to rest, to be understood, to have respect and recognition, to have resources and so many others will have an impact on the individual’s productivity and the company’s profitability. That one day coaching workshop can be reduced into one leadership principle—Be a SHAPE-herd; know the SHAPE of your herd.
For questions and comments, please e-mail me at sbmison@gmail.com.