|
|
|
Does Your Customer Service Suck?
As a customer, I know what it's like to be on the customers side
of the counter. You want to turn over your hard earned money for
goods or services. You are then confronted with attitude,
rudeness and utter disregard for just how hard you have...
Effective or Irritating: The Use of Pop Windows in Internet Marketing
A few years ago, pop-up windows were all the rage in
Internet marketing. It seemed that every time one
opened a web page they would be bombarded with offers
for this or that. It had gotten to the point where
surfing the Internet was almost like...
How to Stay Motivated - Part 1
How to Stay Motivated - Part 1 by Dr. Zonnya First Lady of Motivation As a "Motivation Trainer" for over 20 years, I have researched the subject of "Motivation." It is talked about a lot, but not very much is taught or written about it. It seems...
Once Upon a Conflict
Once upon a time there lived an innocent, hardworking manager. One day he dared to wander from the safety of his open-concept office to speak out at a team meeting. He was immediately challenged, nay attacked, by another team member and his...
The 11 Best Money Saving Ideas of All Time - Part 3
At any time in history, no matter what the current state of the economy, no matter what the current trends, no matter what the unemployment rate is or where interest rates lurk, some money-saving ideas stay true.
Some of you may have heard of...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hire The Person, Not The Resume
“… [get] the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats (and the wrong people off the bus) and then [figure] out where to drive it.” - Jim Collins – Good To Great
"Hire the best staff you can find, develop them as much as you can, and hand off everything you possibly can to them.” - John C. Maxwell – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
____________________________________________
Here's a simple tip - hire the person, not the resume.
Confronting negative behaviors is an important skill for leaders to develop. But there's a step beyond that for building a high performance team. You hire the right person.
The subject of hiring the right person comes up frequently in my work with various clients. It comes up when they need to fill a position. It comes up when they realize they have the wrong person in a position. Sometimes it comes up as a question in a training session. Sometimes it comes up in a private conversation. But it almost always comes up.
The most common mistake that I see people make - one that I have made myself - is ranking the person’s technical skills ahead of their “soft” skills. I agree that technical skills are important. I don’t want to hire a CPA who knows nothing about accounting, and I don’t want to hire a nurse who knows nothing about nursing. So, I am not suggesting that you ignore a person’s resume. I am suggesting that their experience and training (i.e. - their resume) serves primarily to qualify them for your time investment to interview them. It gets them in the door, but it shouldn’t give them the job.
Consider this situation.
You hire a person with outstanding technical skills. They know everything about the industry, the legal environment, and many other technical aspects of their position – but the rest of your staff cannot stand to work with them. This “technical expert” demands special attention, resists every change, speaks negatively about management and other team members, pushes the limit on workplace rules, etc.
Are they worth the trouble? Does the positive contribution from their “technical expert”
status justify the damage they do to overall team performance? In most of the situations I’ve been involved in, the answer is no.
In the above scenario, I created a situation where the person under consideration is truly a “technical expert”. Among the best, technically, in their field. But, what about the more common situation? The situation where the person is good technically, but they’re not necessarily among the best in the industry. Now, how does their behavior with other people balance against their technical skills? It only gets worse.
I assume that you will only consider hiring people with at least the basic technical skills to do the job. So, faced with a choice between two candidates:
1) Great “attitude” and acceptable technical skills (for this article, my definition of attitude includes work ethic, drive, initiative, ability to work with others, and other “soft” or difficult to measure skills), and
2) Outstanding technical skills and a poor attitude
I choose number one. I find it easier to help people strengthen their technical skills than to improve their attitude.
What if you have difficulty finding a person with the right attitude? I suggest you keep looking until you find them. It is better to work short-handed for a short time than to work with a problem employee for a long time. As Jim Collins states in his landmark study Good To Great – “When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking.”
Copyright 2005, Guy Harris
You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media.
About the Author
About the Author:
Guy Harris is the Chief Relationship Officer with Principle Driven Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders build trust, reduce conflict, and improve team performance. http://www.principledriven.com
Guy co-authored "The Behavior Bucks System TM" to help parents. http://www.behaviorbucks.com
|
|
|
|
|
|