Another Dimension To Hiring Beyond Skills

Last week, we talked about hiring and the fact that, generally speaking, hiring for attributes like passion, values, expectations, and talent rather than basic skills will serve you, your team, and your entire organization better in the long run.

In writing last week’s post, I was reminded of an article that Dave and I published some time ago on the ECI Learning Systems website. I think that article, which I’ve shared below, adds another important dimension to our hiring discussion..….

We were recently working with a client and were discussing the fact that he was preparing to do some hiring. He had only hired a few people on his own in the past and frankly, wasn’t all that happy with the people that he had hired. Our client has a technical background and was good at spotting technical talent but he found that just because people had the talent to do the job, didn’t always mean that they could or would work for him successfully.

The truth is that there is much more to hiring and building a successful team than just hiring people who have the talent and skills to do the job. You don’t have to think hard to identify some talented under-achievers in just about any field. Likewise, you can probably think of many examples of over-achievers who seemingly lacked the natural talent, yet somehow always managed to rise to the top.

When you are hiring for specific skills, you need to make sure that your candidates have the right talent and skills to succeed. If you’re hiring an accountant, you want to make sure your candidates have the accounting degree or equivalent experience to do the job. The same would be true of a salesperson, programmer, or customer service representative. Step one in the hiring process is always, “Does this person have the skills and talents to do what I need them to do?”

But what happens after that? What else do you look for when you are making the critical hiring decisions?

The list of attributes can be long, but let’s focus on four things:

Integrity – adherence to a moral or ethical code

Energy – will take action and make things happen

Coachability – can be further trained or developed

Team Oriented – willingness to put the teams’ goals ahead of their own goals

If you hire somebody without integrity, you really want them to be dumb & lazy. ~Warren Buffett

If we could choose just one attribute to be used for hiring, it would be integrity. When an employee has integrity, you know that this is an employee you can trust.

Trust to tell you when they can’t accomplish something.

Trust to tell you when they don’t think you are right.

Trust to do the right thing for your customers.

When you can trust your employees and your employees can trust you, you have then truly built the foundation for a great team.

I think this article expands our discussion of hiring attributes even further.

Beyond skills…beyond having a passion for your organization’s mission…beyond having values and expectations that are a critical fit with your organization’s culture and values…and beyond having unique talents that will make them an invaluable long-term employee…there are other, more personal, attributes that are important to your organization and should not be compromised in the hiring process.

We mentioned 4 of these personal attributes above: integrity, energy, coachability, and team-oriented attitude and behavior. Do these attributes resonate with you? Are there other attributes that we did not mention, which are critical to your organization’s values, expectations, and mission? Do you currently explore these attributes in your hiring process? If so, how do you determine if a potential employee has “the right stuff”?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on hiring and how you handle this critical process in your organization.

At ECI Learning Systems LLC we are dedicated to improving productivity and profitability by creating engaged organizations. Our unique combination of training and personalized coaching, combined with our expertise in assessments allow us to create a development plan tailored for your success.

Until next time….

Laurie Valaer

ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ECILearning.com

Is there Hiring Beyond Skills?

The topic of hiring has come up in several recent discussions on our radio show, The Leader’s Edge.

Hiring can be a tricky subject, as there are different schools of thought on the process. HR departments often insist that hiring must be done based on a person’s skillset and their ability to immediately perform the tasks at hand….with no forethought to how this person will perform long-term, or in other roles, or as a team member or leader.

Wise leaders (including those we’ve talked to on our show) and many great leadership experts believe that there is a better way!

In September, Steve Cooper, CEO of the Hospice of St. John, was a guest on our show. His non-profit staffs a combination of paid and volunteer personnel. Steve talked about how important a person’s passion for the hospice patients and families is to their ultimate success there. Similarly, several months ago I read an article in the Denver Post about the Autism Society of Colorado. Their executive director also mentioned that true, authentic passion is the key to hiring successful, long-term employees in their organization. The common message from these non-profit leaders: Hire for values and train for skill.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself…. “well, I can see how that makes sense in the non-profit world…but it really doesn’t apply to my business.” Again, several of our radio show guests would disagree with you. Heidi Hollenbeck, John Scarborough, and Richard Battenberg are all high-level executives in high-tech industries. All three talked about how important it is to determine if a candidate’s values and expectations match the company’s values and culture. The message from these successful business executives: Hire for fit and train for skills.

Are you starting to see a theme here? Let’s look at one more perspective. In this excerpt from the Hiring and Interviewing chapter of “The Engaged Manager”, my business partner, Coach David R Meyer, shares thoughts from his personal hiring experience:

Finding the right players for your team, not only for today but also for the future, is one of the most enjoyable tasks that you will perform as a manager. Searching for talent and improving the quality of your team can only serve to make your team stronger and your own job easier.

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The purpose of this chapter is to help you find the best talent for your organization. Ultimately, hiring for talent, while more challenging and time consuming than hiring for skills, is one of the keys to your long-term success.

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If you want to hire the very best people, if you want to build a great team, if you want to be a great leader, then hire for talent and attitude and train for skill.

Certainly, there are some exceptions to this rule. If you were in a hospital and hiring neurosurgeons, then you would not hire a great guy or gal who did not have a medical degree. But being a neurosurgeon is a specialized skill that takes years to acquire. This is not true for most positions. In addition, as you interviewed neurosurgeons, you would look for the neurosurgeon with the most talent and the best attitude, NOT the one who had performed the most operations.

Skills are the most routine part of any job. Yes, you need to make sure that the basic skill-set exists in your candidate, but not the specific skills. Skills can be taught, talent cannot. When you hire based on skills, you are hiring based on the lowest common denominator of the job. When you hire for talent, you are hiring the potential to do so much more than the job requires. When you hire for talent, you are hiring for future growth.

When you hire for talent, you are hiring for things that cannot be taught!

Hire for talent and you will hire for greatness.

Dave’s message from this chapter: Hire for talent and attitude and train for skill.

Now, as Dave points out in this excerpt, skills do play a role in the hiring process and are certainly critical in certain professions. But, once you ensure that the person has the basic skills to do the job, hiring the RIGHT person for the job can depend heavily on their passion, values, expectations, and overall talent. Remember….skills can be taught, many of these other attributes cannot. And, these attributes could mean the difference between hiring a successful long-term employee and replacing someone who was not a good fit a few months down the road.

Take a look at your hiring processes. Is there room for improvement? Do you hire only for skill-set? Is it appropriate for your business to consider hiring based on other attributes? Besides passion, values, expectations, and talent….are there other attributes that make sense for your organization? If so, we’d love for you to share them here!

At ECI Learning Systems LLC we are dedicated to improving productivity and profitability by creating engaged organizations. Our unique combination of training and personalized coaching, combined with our expertise in assessments allow us to create a development plan tailored for your success.

Until next time….

Laurie Valaer

ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ECILearning.com

The Fallacy of Performance Appraisals: Birds Gotta Swim and Fish Gotta Sing!

During a recent radio interview I was asked about the tendency in the business world to focus on employees’ weaknesses rather than their strengths. This, of course, led to a discussion about Performance Appraisals and what their real purpose is. Most major companies today provide their employees with an annual review of their performance through a formal “Performance Review” process. This process generally involves a manager completing a highly detailed and often subjective document about each employee’s performance and display of “skills” that supposedly relate to their jobs. These forms are quite generic and the managers often receive little, if any, training as to how these reviews will actually enhance employees’ skills. The “Performance Review” is then based off of this form and, often, consists of a short discussion on what an employee has done well followed by a lengthy and well documented review of “opportunity areas” or “areas of potential development” for the employees.

The Performance Appraisal process is certainly a well intentioned one that often seems to fall short of its intended mark. Instead of helping employees grow and prosper in an organization, they often sidetrack employees from making great progress by focusing on perceived weaknesses and ignoring the employee’s strengths. This leads to an intense focus on an area where little progress can be made and ignores the employee’s greatest area of potential growth.

In this discussion I began to think of that old adage “Birds gotta sing and fish gotta swim”. I started to wonder what would happen if the animal kingdom performed Performance Appraisals the way the business world did. Picture the lion, the king of the jungle calling in the Nightingale for its annual performance appraisal.

“Overall you’ve had a pretty good year, Ms. Nightingale. Your songs are well known and appreciated by a vast audience. But, if you want to get ahead in the animal kingdom we’re going to need to spend some time on some of your other skills. For example, your hunting consists of a few small bugs and some worms. You need to think bigger. Over the next year, focus on taking down a monkey or two. That should help build your strength as a hunter and position you for future growth. Oh, and I’ve assigned the Sea Bass to help you with your aquatic skills. Learning to swim should really round you out.”

Does that sound a little silly to you? It might. But in reality, it is no sillier than taking a good accountant with no desire for leadership and assigning them the lead on some inter-departmental task force with the idea of developing their untapped skills. It’s one thing if the accountant has a desire to move up the chain and wants to stretch in new directions. It’s quite another thing if they don’t.

I once worked for an executive who was absolutely brilliant. He was a visionary with a creative mind and that rare ability to take widely disparate topics and find how they might mesh together.

But he couldn’t spell.

He couldn’t spell to save his life.

Fortunately, he was older and missed most of our well-intended but highly ineffective process of focusing on people’s weaknesses. Otherwise, I fear that his brilliance might have been overlooked and his weakness in spelling might have sidetracked his entire career.

Birds don’t have to swim to be the best bird possible. Nor do fish have to learn to sing. Before you sit down for your next set of Performance Appraisals identify whatever it is that your employees do well and figure out how to build those skills and make them more beneficial to the team.


At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees

When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com