Courtesy animaltown.com

I was watching one of my favorite old movies the other day “The Edge” with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin wherein they spent most of the movie trying to stay alive in the wilds of Alaska and avoid a hungry Grizzly bear. It reminded me that I should use it as an example to re-enforce the principle of the Back Azimuth. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays a billionaire who is married to a much younger model Elle Macpherson. They go to Alaska to do a photo shoot and Alec Baldwin is the photographer in charge. Alec decides that they need the help of a Native Indian who lives 50 miles up the coast and so they go off in one of those Airplanes with the pontoons for landing on the water. They are flying and run into a flock of birds and crash. Skip forward to a point where they commit to walking south over the mountain to get out to safety. They set out toward a mountain top and in one scene Alec Balwin looks up at the mountain and then swings around and points at a landmark behind him. He is checking for a rearward landmark for his back azimuth.

So they set out and walk all day and spend the night in the woods with a Grizzly Bear following them. They come around a couple of trees and walk right up to the campfire they lit with a flare the previous day. They are exasperated and want to give up. Well during their walk Sir Anthony Hopkins tells them that the Vikings used to have two pegs on the back of the boat sticking up and they would tie a very long rope to the middle of the back of the boat. The idea was that they made sure that the rope was always viewed between the two pegs and that they were still pointed at the direction they intended to go. I found this example of the two pegs and the rope very visual and effective.

In my book “Check Your Drawers” I mentioned that the Back Azimuth approach to management would change your management style and results forever. I believe that and want to give it some more legs here for those who haven’t read the book. In navigation, particularly in the military missions set out in specific directions and before the use of computerized GPS devices the military personnel involved had to manually keep track of where they started from and verify through the use of landmarks that they were continually on the way to the next objective. Basically moving as the Crow flies as much as possible.

In the preface of my book I mention a conversation in a Monday morning management meeting where the owner of our company (Xpert Tune a chain of 25 stores) Tom Flournoy heatedly mentioned his frustration that “ can’t we have some new problems for a change. “ “ We keep dealing with the same problems over and over!” this is a great time to point out that if you are constantly dealing with the same problems over and over you are definitely not benefiting from the practice of tracking your back azimuth. How do I know that? because if you were you would be solving problems with the insight of what contributed to them and resolved them once and for all so you can move on to a new one.

Let’s talk about one common area where this could be happening and how to overcome it.

Repeated turnover in a particular position

So we begin to evaluate the actions that may be the cause creating the problem of repeated turnover in a particular position. This is how I go about solving problems by backtracking and seeing where I may have veered off course.

1. Backtracking the process of hiring,

Do you keep a log of every applicant, day of the week, who interviewed them, who referred them? You should and if you did look for a pattern of who interviewed first in case there is someone making hiring or rejection decisions that lacks commitment or training. Then look at what day of the week they came in because it may turn out the people who applied on your busiest days got through without the proper amount of scrutiny due to the urgency of filling the position. Also look at who referred them, if you have a particular employee who repeatedly refers people who don’t work out for you then you need to take that into consideration.

2. Compensation

Have you checked to see if your compensation is on par or above what other people pay for the same or similar work? If so go on to the next item, if not research and match the competition so that you aren’t always getting the leftovers who couldn’t qualify with the other companies.

3. Working conditions.

Are your working conditions similar? Are you working the same hours that would affect the employees’ quality of life? Are your facilities run down and broken? Malfunctioning equipment? Find out if this is contributing to frustration. You may be constantly working overtime and think that it’s a great deal for the employee but they may resent the long hours.

4. Do you keep track of the applicants?

Are you keeping a file with all the applications past and present? If so compare and have someone make a list of common attributes of the people who are or were successful in your company and look to see if the recent hires have veered away from that standard. Look through the rejected applications and see if there are people who did meet that criteria and re-interview them.

5. Do you do any kind of profile testing to see the common attributes of success are?

There are many brands of employee testing tools but I prefer the Forte’ communications style test because it will show you how this person interacts with others as well as the typical Dominant, Non Dominant/ Extrovert , Introvert/ Patient, impatient/ and conformist , versus non-conformist. These tools can be invaluable for studying and acquiring an optimum profile range for the best performers of the past and present in your company. This can help you to identify the best likely candidates and over time raise the level of performance for the whole company. This is critical, easy, low cost and good business.

In the interest of brevity and time I  just left it at this one example of the several we could have done, but the critical point of the Back Azimuth is that where you are going is determined by where you just came from and whether you did or are doing anything to correct that direction. If you have peaks and valleys, repeated problems with the same categories there is a strong if not 100% chance you are not looking back at what you have been doing to control the direction and outcome of where you are headed.

When you keep having the same problem over and over, your back azimuth must be 360 degrees.

Why don’t you take the other categories of problems mentioned above and have yourself or a team work backwards to identify what is causing it and see if you can’t move on to a new problem for a change!