Is winning or losing in a recession your choice?


If you’ve chosen to be part of the so called recession then you won’t like this!


- You’ll be offended, do nothing and carry on subscribing to the doom and gloom. (Enjoy the recession!)
- This article will ignite the desire to adapt, acquire the knowledge and prosper where you competitors can’t. (Let’s hope the recession lasts a little longer)


What is a recession?


Is it not just another way of expressing lean times, hardship and scarcity? But if this is true then what is the difference between a recession and what we might call a drought, a famine, war or an epidemic?


So what happens when we look to nature or human behaviour in each of these contexts? Who survives? Who perishes and what behaviours are prevalent?


Let’s go back to the genius that was Charles Darwin and his well known and generally accepted theory of evolution. A phrase that most people have heard is; ‘the survival of the fittest or selfish genes?’ What does this mean and how does it relate to an economic recession?


The similarities are not only there for all to see but when looked at in this context can often be viewed as a little scary.


When food and water are at a premium, where animals and humans are at risk of total extinction, a strange but truly amazing set of behaviours come to the forefront. These behaviours are ones of adaptation, education and sheer cunning. There can not be many of us who do not marvel at BBC natural history programs such as life, or life on earth which graphically display how over time species have developed to take advantage of their environment and ensure survival.


When times are tough your company really only has two options:


1. Put you head in the sand, cross your fingers and hope that everything will be alright and carry on doing exactly what you’ve always done.
2. Look at the opportunities you have got and adapt to make sure it is you that secure them because lets face it, if you’re not thinking like this then your competitors will be!!!


So I will ask you a question… With the economic recession upon us, what are YOU doing to ensure your sales team are armed to claim the limited prizes, your management team is thinking strategically to maximise opportunities and your operations staff are increasing efficiencies and productivity? For most companies the only honest answer is…nothing or at best they’ve given the sales team a rocket up the proverbial and sent them on their way, increased the number and duration of management meetings and laid off a few in the back room to reduce costs, Yep, that ought to do it!


If you are a manager, team leader, or business owner and you do not know exactly the values, beliefs,talents, strengths and weaknesses of all your people, what drives and motivates them and how they can and will adapt with the right leadership, then you really ought to give up and get what you can for the business.


Just a passing consideration… How much have you spent in the past 3 years on IT equipment compared to understanding, training and developing the asset that will influence the future of your business – your people!


Anyone who has read ‘Good to Great’ will know that the great companies start with ensuring they have the best people, in the right positions then with these people confront the brutal facts about their business to achieve their goals.


It sounds easy when you say it like that, but the starting point has to be understanding your people, what makes them tick and how to get the right people in the right jobs in your business.


Many organisations have tried and failed at this with the outdated and now largely discredited psychometric tests which are self reports, mere profiles of behavior and neither scientific or objective.


AxiaMetrics are specialists in values based people analysis, using the Axia Profile technology, based on Nobel Prize nominated research and proven scientific theory we can quickly evaluate your people asset to ensure your evolution and success as survival of the fittest.
To find out more about how Axiametrics can help you contact us here.

Interestingly in a world awash with sales trainers, management experts and psychometric profiling most managers are still  unable to identify why despite having a similar qualifications and receiving the same training certain members of their sales team regularly and consistently outperform the others, despite having exactly the same opportunity. Thus making them the firms elite and most valuable sales people.

In most organisations an ability to replicate these ‘elite’ performers would have an incredible effect on their bottom line but until now the ability to identify what makes them ‘elite’ this has proved elusive.

Using the Axia Profile competency modelling tool we are able to accurately identify the specific traits and values that differentiate your elite performers from the rest. This information and the production of their job specific ‘success blueprint’ enables partner organisations to implement targeted training to replicate ‘elite’ performance levels across the team and to only recruit new employees that have what it takes to be an elite performer.

For companies that do not have the in house expertise we have teamed up with the Association of Sales Professionals and will produce together a  training & development program enabling you to replicate sustainable elite performance across your team.

Naturally, we expect demand for this service to be high as this knowledge will provide forward thinking organisations with a huge competitive advantage, imagine  the damage it will do to you if your main competitors whole sales force were ‘elite’ performers!

If a week is a long time in politics,  then one year is an absolute age,  particularly when it is the past 12 months where we have witnessed one of,  in not the,  most tumultuous periods in the history of the global economy.  Everything has changed,  no sector has been unaffected and,  in many ways,  this is a period when new ideas and propositions can prove their worth and help shape the way we will all conduct business in the future.

Which brings us neatly to our own journey over the last year,  the discovery of Axiology and its potential benefits,  and the launch of AxiaMetrics.  Back in the dark days of September 2008,  the Credit Crunch was decimating the lending market in which I worked.  As director of sales & operations at a specialist secured loan and mortgage lending arm of a major building society we were having to re-invent ourselves in a rapidly changing market place.

Our sales process,  which had been very successful for years,  needed to be adapted to a market where demand massively outstripped supply.  In order to meet this changing need I enlisted the help of sales guru,  Gary May,  to redesign our entire sales process.  Working on the project together we implemented some of Gary’s revolutionary techniques which brought about immediate benefits.  As part of this work-in-progress,  Gary asked me if we would like to trial the Axiology profiling system,  based on the works of Robert Hartman and one couched in science and values.

While I was intrigued by the system I was also rather sceptical at what appeared to be yet ‘another psychometric test’,  however I agreed to run a trial on our sales team.  Each member of the team took the profile test and,  while the outputs provided were hard to understand due to the need for significant manual interpretation,  the results for two individuals in particular provided incredible insights considering I had personally recruited and developed the whole team and considered us all to be quite close.

The profile for one team member highlighted a significant personal issue which,  only when it was revealed,  showed just how clearly damaging the problem had become to that particular person.  Were it not for the profile this problem would never have been raised let alone addressed.

The second individual had been head-hunted from a competitor where they had been the star sales performer yet having joined our team and despite many one-to-one meetings and discussions they had failed to meet expectations over the previous 12 months.  The information revealed by the profile confirmed our initial thoughts about why we had employed them – they had great access to talent – however the profile also revealed the circumstances that would frustrate them.  Armed with this knowledge,  we were able to make a small change in the team’s structure which allowed them to demonstrate their talent and following this they became the top performer in the team in the following months.

The use of the profile had clearly delivered results in my own business and it seemed apparent that many more firms would benefit from the use of the profile.  With my interest levels heightened I began to immerse myself in Axiology and the works of Hartman.  This provided me with increased personal understanding gained through a knowledge of how we value and what is important – not only did this provide many answers about myself and how I processed the world,   but most importantly my research brought me in contact with Dr K.T. Connor and Prof. Wayne Carpenter at The Centre for Applied Axiometrics in the US.

Their work with Axiology had progressed Hartman’s research to an even greater level and on seeing the huge value and benefits this could bring to business and individuals I took the decision to establish AxiaMetrics in order to bring the benefits of Axiology to the UK.  This is a journey we have just embarked on and it is clearly an exciting time – a lot can happen in a year.

Nigel Griffiths is Partner at AxiaMetrics LLP