Business researcher and author Jim Collins stressed the importance of getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats if your business is to drive from good to great. But most managers are less than stellar in their hiring. A study by the LeadershipIQ consultancy found 46 per cent of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months. Only 19 per cent achieved unequivocal success.
“Can you imagine accepting those results in any other aspect of your business?” serial entrepreneur David Dodson, a member of the faculty at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, asks in The Manager’s Handbook.
The reason we fail, he argues, is that when we hire people we’re more obsessed with getting the chore off our to-do list than with rigorously selecting gems. We also tend to pick the person we click with.
Mr. Dodson says improvement begins with committing to hiring on outcomes not gut feeling, using a standardized approach across your organization. The outcomes selected must be realistic for the job. Helping one transportation and trucking company find an operations manager, he was distressed when it was suggested a candidate not be interviewed because he had misspelled referral with only one “r.” They weren’t looking for a copy editor or English teacher, Mr. Dodson pointed out, but someone who could direct a fleet of trucks, improve gross margins and lead a blue-collar workforce. As that individual did – impressively – when given the post.
For each outcome you want, figure out how you will know the person can produce it. Do they, for example, have a track record of hitting sales targets that suggests they can meet the one you are seeking? Have they been hiring and training others well? It’s not how long they have worked in the field or where they went to school but whether specific past experiences suggest they can excel.
Then push further, determining the attributes – qualities, characteristics and traits – that indicate someone is likely to achieve the outcome. The best way to do that is identifying excellent people in your organization in similar positions and listing common attributes. You might find, for example, the keys for this job are emotional intelligence, being a continual learner, having a will to win and being a strong leader.
Again ask: How will I know? For emotional intelligence, you might watch for self-awareness during the interview. Continual learners will have been investing in their own learning. Look to their record of hitting targets and goals for assessing will to win. Are they a strong leader? Check whether they attract A players to their team.
Mr. Dodson recommends team interviewing, because it allows for better listening. When we interview one-on-one, a portion of our attention is diverted to figuring out the next question or managing the candidate’s response and the interview time. Instead, designate one person as the primary questioner, who will ask if anybody else has anything they want to know before moving to the next section of the interview.
Review the resume in chronological order in the interview, because the early years may provide some clues on the candidate’s attributes. A person who had to work nights for the tuition to graduate from college may be more notable than someone who went to a more elite college on family money. Ask the month of each job change to avoid gaps between jobs being hidden. For recent jobs draw the organizational chart, getting the names of supervisors and subordinates, which will be the basis for your reference checks.
Don’t ask hypothetical questions in the interview such as “How do you like to manage people?” You’ll get their best guess of what you want to hear. Instead, focus on actual performance, which will mean probing deeper when they give you answers to questions like “what has led you to do so well in your current job?” Key words on your part, repeatedly, as they respond will be “how” and “tell me more” and “what’s an example of that?” Keep pressing.
Twenty minutes before the scheduled end of the interview adjourn so your team can decide if there are any other questions that need to be asked. Keep it to that task, he warns, rather than any discussion that borders on reaching a conclusion. Also give the candidate time to ask you questions.
Mr. Dodson recommends in the next interview with the candidate offering some questions in advance, to avoid having your decision skewed toward people quick on their feet, which is not a skill used often in work settings, over a more thoughtful person who may be more effective in the job. And carry out your reference checks while still evaluating the final candidates rather than after the winner has been chosen, when you may succumb to confirmation bias, seeking corroboration. To make it easier for the reference to be critical, position the conversation away from whether the person is capable and accomplished to identifying their best next career move.
Some of that may be new to you. It may help you to get better people on your bus.
Cannonballs
- To better incorporate diversity and inclusion into decision-making, ask managers to hire for more than one job at a time, a report in Harvard Business Review says. When teams hire multiple people at a time, research shows they select more diversity. Also helpful: Asking managers to watch a short diversity training video right before formal people decisions; the same video months earlier would have faded from their memory.
- Toronto-area consultant Donald Cooper recommends an “Idea fest” three times a year with each team member responsible to come with one idea to operate more effectively, work more safely, create a better culture, serve customers more wonderfully, save money or be more environmentally friendly.
- Hard work, trust, respect and looking out for one another are all essential to great teams. But a critical quality often overlooked, according to Basecamp co-founder and chief executive officer Jason Fried, is admiration for each other’s talents, skills, character and contributions. “Great teams are mutual admiration societies who get to work together,” he says.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.