SPG Blog

Although we typically have low turnover as a company, because we are growing we are currently adding to our team. For a fairly small company this feels big. Will we hire the right person to do the job? Will they fit with our existing team, a group that is currently functioning so well?

We use our values to hire. In support of our “science and technology” value, we use a hiring tool that helps us consider the potential candidate’s thought preferences and their “fit” with our existing team. We use behaviour-based questions to try to really understand our prospective employee’s background, education and experience. To support our “quality” value, we test the competency of the candidate: we administer a coaching test to coaches, check references for administrative help, and, wherever possible, observe trainers at work. We use group interviews to make sure everyone is onboard with the hiring decision, which supports our value of “teamwork and collaboration”. We probe to try to understand whether the candidate will fit with our value of “absolute integrity.” (People sometimes tell us some crazy stuff in interviews!)  But the most important value of all is our “frog pond” value—this is the one that for me encompasses so many things. It is the right fit so that the person will be fulfilled in the work he or she is doing at Sage Portfolio Group. It is the understanding that we really care deeply for our clients and need every team member to carry that forward. It is the blend of self-care and passion for the company that our employees share. This is the intangible part of hiring. We have done well so far, and I will hold the vision that we will continue finding amazing people to build Sage Portfolio Group.

This is food for my soul! I have been making variations of it since I made it the first time to impress a guest while I was at university. It nourishes my spirit and my body; whenever I attempt to eat healthier, it is the first food that comes to mind.

Ingredients:

Preparation time: 1 hour (30 mins. chopping time, 30 mins. cooking time). (more…)

Teams exist to produce results more efficiently and effectively than is possible when individuals work alone. In order to maximize productivity over the long term, teams need training and skill development in two key areas: thinking and feeling. Since this isn’t really the place to wade into the ocean-deep Cartesian dualism debate (are the mind and the body really separate?), suffice it to say that Sage Portfolio Group offers a unique, integrated training product that is able to simultaneously strengthen a team’s head and heart.

Thinking (or head) skills are information-based: the knowledge and application of the objective steps, tools, resources, disciplinary underpinnings, and paradigms that constitute the work that is being done. These skills are in continual need of updating, thanks to changing local or global context, research findings, process innovations and more. Feeling (or heart) skills are relationship-based: the ability to understand and enhance the team’s purpose, norms, roles, and processes and to create a team environment of trust, constructive interaction and respect for diversity, among other qualities. The innovative combination of training and coaching, offered in the same engagement with the team, allows team members to learn and practise the thinking and feeling skills of greatest relevance to their success. (more…)

We have devoted so much time in this column to communicating the ideas of well-known thought leaders and management gurus who have published best sellers that we’ve started to wonder: maybe it’s time to toot our own horn in our own newsletter. This month we’re profiling Ileana Vassiliou, a certified professional co-active coach and member of the International Coaches Federation with over 25 years of progressively complex leadership experience with a range of US-based and global Fortune 500 corporations. Ileana, we’re very proud to say, is one of Sage Portfolio Group’s coaches. She works one-on-one with executives and helps to develop and deliver team training.

Ileana is one of those people who keeps you on your toes. Perhaps it has something to do with her first career as a professional ballet dancer, a formative experience which she states best prepared her for a coaching career. “I learned early on how to be a champion and bring out the greatest potential in people,” Ileana explains. (more…)