The Place of Experience in Hiring Decisions

Sometimes someone in a group email discussion says something so well, you have to wonder why they haven’t been blogging about it.  Mark Talaba, blogger at Talabesian-Coordinates had this to contribute on the issue of experience as an indicator in hiring decisions:

“Some people – in the process of acquiring experience – have made lot of other people miserable, and have caused teams to underperform.  Such persons may yet have a ‘history of success’ – but as success can arise from many factors, not the least of which is a team’s ability to perform despite handicaps, even successful exploits are not a reliable indicator.

“One real tragedy of making “experience” a primary indicator in hiring decisions is that, during the past 20 years, there has been such fluidity in the job market that some really bad team players have had the opportunity to turn a series of short-term jobs (which used to be a red flag) into an enticing story of “broad-based experience.”  (A good topic for some investigative reporting!)

“As the concept of Coherent Human Infrastructure takes root, and as organizations come to realize that Coherence and Role are the ‘missing pieces’ of the Quality-of-Hire/Talent Management puzzle, I believe that demand for a pre-hire assessment of ‘teaming characteristics’ will grow exponentially.”

I have to agree.  It’s pretty well known in entrepreneur circles that many of the CEOs who’ve failed in that job a few times are more desirable recruits than the virgins, at least to less Coherent VCs.  In contrast, the interns, collectively, have virtually no experience.  It’s their teaming and their Coherency that make them so amazingly productive.  (Another episode of The Intern Diaries will be here shortly…)

The Intern Diaries: Week Four

Around the fourth day after Mr. Sperm meets Miss Egg, differentiation begins.  (If you slept through high school biology, differentiation is when cells start to get specialized.)

Ok, biology lesson is over.  I was just mulling over how week four of the Interns could be subtitled, The Week of Differentiation.  It isn’t that they weren’t fully formed individuals when they arrived.  It’s how we see them and assign work to them that’s undergone some subtle changes.

Lindsay is continuing to work on social marketing optimization because she’s a star Communicator.  Not surprising.  This line from her Role-Based Assessment pretty well covers why I wanted her for this project:

She will quickly make contacts throughout the organization and get to know almost everyone. She is especially cooperative and will also try to do almost anything she is asked to do. Her focus is on interpersonal interaction and trying to get everyone to work together harmoniously. She won’t do this by direct means but by attempting to broker the arrangements that bring people together in a positive manner. As a result, she is likely to be respected by those she has contact with.

But we needed to get the database cleaned up so despite the fact that she also had this in her report: “She will not want to do organizational tasks…”, there she was in the conference room with some others, working on exactly that task, with music emanating from someone’s laptop, a pile of snacks, and the sunniest of good natures.

Meanwhile, Kartik, the Action Former, whose report included the following, managed to reorganize, clean up, and optimize my consultant certification files.  Here’s Kartik in a nutshell:

This candidate is the type of employee who can be found in the front of the group with marker in hand, developing a list of things that need to be done or important points or assignments. He is the consummate organizer. The key is that he does not organize for the present but as a way of getting things ready for the future. His style is one of handling many things simultaneously. He believes that multi-tasking in a rapidly evolving environment is essential to keep on top of everything.

The others too have their unique qualities and it’s amazing how much more productive they are when we recognize them, give them work they enjoy, and celebrate the results.

It just makes good business sense.

Happy ending: Lindsay has a project beginning Monday that is totally about communicating with people, while Kartik will get a great new organization project!

The Intern Diaries: Week Three

Another amazing week with the Super Six.  Watching them become a subculture is fascinating.  They work intensely on their own, then pair off, then they cluster.  They draw each other in and something wonderful happens.  You can see the attachments as if they were drawn in the air above their heads.  And because they are all so very Coherent (such a special quality, we have begun to capitalize it,) this crazy entrepreneurial world we inhabit doesn’t faze them, even when we are approaching warp speed.

After only two weeks, during which the first five were oriented, given assignments, put through our standard four hour consultant/agent training, and let loose, we asked them to present their projects at our weekly management meeting.  (Our sixth, only being with us for two days operated the technology – they integrated her into their subculture right away!)  And present they did, PowerPoints and all.

So what did I learn from them this week?

Most of the time, Role trumps age and experience.

In plain English, who you are is more important than what you’ve done.  Yes, I did know that in the intellectual sense.  But it never ceases to amaze me, and amazement is the substrate within which you get new appreciation.  You no longer just know.  You *know*.

The Intern Diaries: Week Two

Week two and all our five interns are hard at work doing their thing while I marvel at how unique each one is, just as predicted by their Role-Based Assessment.  And today we agreed to bring on a sixth starting next week.  Another strong Action Former, the perfect addition to our Intern Action Team!

These Action Formers are the organizers on the team, the detail people, those who revel in the chance to learn to do everyone’s job.  What better for our Vision-oriented exec team than those who want to carry out our dreams?

This newest intern started another internship, but instead of giving her a project to manage, they sent her outside to meet people.  Now there are some Action Formers who might like that but not this one – she is strictly an ‘inside’ person.  No wonder she’s asked for a chance with us.

I’m sure they interviewed her at length and certainly read her resume.  (I don’t bother with either.) People who are of each Role will tend to have certain things as typical in their career history and behavior, but the only way to tell for sure what Role someone is, what style they truly have mastered and are comfortable with, is to use Role-Based Assessment.  People can go into jobs and do things because of necessity or outside pressure.  They can make mistakes and be unhappy.  They will vary in their level of coherency.  The ONLY way to cut through all the distractions and find out what the person is really like is to assess them using Role-Based Assessment and save yourself the grief of finding out too late that what they seemed to be in an interview or on a resume is not what they are really like where the rubber meets the road.

Rubber meets road on Monday and new intern will join her peers.  She’ll fit in well and maybe even make some friends in the process.  Most important, she, like the others, will get to play on a team where the coach doesnt tell you what you’re doing wrong, but what you’re doing right.

And I’ll have that market research I’ve been wanting.

Recognizing Women

Last week was a nice one for women in business.  Xerox named Ursula Burns the successor to Anne Mulcahy, effective keeping the magic number of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies on an even keel.  This is no small thing for my generation, the ones who gathered in ‘consciousness raising’ groups and thought about how our sons and daughters lives should give them the same freedoms and responsibilities.  We were not as happy when eBay’s Meg Whitman was replaced by a man.  Back then in the early seventies we’d hoped by the new millennium  it wouldn’t matter.  We thought things would even out more than they have.

But enough of this whining, Dr. Janice.  You got recognized this week too.  Jayson Saba, a top analyst in the human capital industry, cited your company’s product in a LinkedIn discussion of assessments and integrity.

When I read this, my first thought was, score one for women CEOs!  Then I came to my senses.  No one does any of this themselves.  It’s the team that was recognized and the team has no gender.

Ursula, I hope your team, too, has no gender, no race, no age, no singular culture.  And I hope you get to feel like it’s great to be a CEO when you have a great team that celebrates with you every moment of recognition.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Just when you think HR has learned that some assessments aren’t right for hiring, you open today’s Wall Street Journal and there’s an ad for a COO position being recruiting by a major search company that asks for a resume and “complete Myers-Briggs personality type test results.”  Then they refer to a free online knockoff of the original, which the publishers of clearly state is not appropriate for hiring.

Enough agony. Now for the ecstasy.

For those of us who are highly motivated by mastery, there is nothing better than the triumph of person over technology.  And for those of us who are highly motivated by affiliation, there is nothing better than doing it as a team.  Today our team finished our first videos on Role-Based Assessment and teaming characteristics!  And this was our first ‘review’:

Speaking as a performer who pays attention to production values kudos on the quality of the clips!   It captures very visually  the Gabriel Institute competitive differentiation.

Overall, that shifts the balance clearly in favor of ecstasy for today!

PS: If you are on Facebook, you can see them here:
A New Way to Know
People as Teams

Visions of Succession

Every so often I think about succession planning.  My own.  But I’m not planning on leaving.  I’m planning on sharing.  Let me explain.

I’m thinking that a lot of CEO problems are caused by people who think they can do a huge job well, all by themselves.  Up till now, our company has been small enough that I could do a credible job myself.  But as we grow bigger, I find it makes much more sense to work with someone else as sort of an extender.  If it was on a shelf at the supermarket it would be called CEO Helper.  I prefer the term VisionMeld(tm).

So how do you find someone to share?  Role-Based Assessment to start, for sure, but I think  asking the candidate to write a Vision Paper really should be part of every recruiting process.

The Vision Paper is a way of explaining to the leadership team of an organization what it is that they are expected to accomplish, the purpose for the venture.  It does not go into precisely how they to achieve it since that isn’t a problem for the CEO to solve alone.  It begins with a bit of the history behind the product or service and goes on to simply describe the end, the goal or the long-term, desired outcome for the organization.  Where most mission statements are vague and general, the Vision Paper is personal.  It’s the best measure of the ability to be an inspiring leader I have ever seen.  And the knack of inspiring and motivating others to follow your dream is the sine qua non of the successful CEO.

I asked a friend what he thought.  Ever practical, he concurred and pointed out that it’s a way of getting to agreement as to what the performance expectations will be.  “You’re just trying to find someone who can do the job.  To lead a company successfully, you need to know where you’re going and the Vision Paper is your roadmap,” he said.

I guess I’m just more mystical than he is.  For me, the energy that goes into writing a Vision Paper reflects back on the author in an almost magical way. If it resonates, you probably have a good basis for a VisionMeld(tm) – and for sharing and succeeding.

Learning From Interns

It’s like having a learning lab.  Not for them, for us. They apply online, take their Role-Based Assessment and we know where they’ll fit.  Then the surprises start.

Take Lauren, the Action Mover/Communicator.  Could there be anyone more suited to talking to customers and getting them what’s good for them?  So I figured she must be majoring in marketing or communications.  Was I ever wrong!  Some well meaning counselor convinced her that she should stay in accounting after she expressed her doubts.  No matter that she didn’t really like the work, though of course she is smart enough to do well in any course.  She’d already invested time, and her parents’ money, in the accounting track and it was the prudent thing to advise her to continue with it.

I knew she would be fantastic at any task involving connecting with people in a meaningful way and quickly getting what was needed.  And I have not been disappointed.  In a few months I’ve seen her do all manner of amazing things.  Even though I knew it was in her DNA – that she would inevitably do these things and do them well – it was like watching a bud bloom.

Now her internship is coming to an end and I wish I could get her and the counselor in the same room and remind them that real life is not always like in books.

Now that I think of it, this internship thing is just like speed parenting.

I Love You Just the Way You Are

The Wizard on our portal (www.RightFitToolkit.com) got another email from someone wanting to “confront my shortcomings” by taking a Role-Based Assessment and then “making strategic changes.”  Sweet, so why am I cringing?

I don’t know this guy personally so I’m just going to speak generally here.

YOU ARE FINE THE WAY YOU ARE.

Sorry for shouting.

You are probably in the wrong job.  You might even be in the wrong career.

There’s even a good chance that you are reporting to, at best, someone who is a misfit for their job or, at worst, is just a bully.

And, worst of all, if you want to eat, you probably don’t have much choice.  It’s the economy, dammit.

It’s affecting all of us, but I’m working on it.  Not the economy, just our product for people like you.

So if you’re really miserable in your job and you suspect it just doesn’t fit you, well, I’ve been there.

Many times. And I might be able to help you.

Write me – 25 words or less – why you need help and why you deserve it.

We’re Playing Tag!

Bloggers are so much fun!  HR Maven blogtagged me. It’s a new game, at least to me, where you tell your readers six random things about yourself and then pass it on, along with the rules.

Here’s me:

1. Between the old stuff I’ve done and the system I architected (www.RightFitToolkit.com) I’ve assessed over 10,000 people

2. I only like metrics that are meaningful.

3. I really am working on my sixth book.  None of the others have taken this long but I didn’t have a blog then!

4. I did not learn to network until a few years ago.  Better late than never, and now I love it.

5. There is nothing better than a slab of brie and a crisp red delicious apple.  This is equally true whether we are talking about breakfast, lunch or dinner.  And it does not require cooking.

6. My husband is really, really cute.  Sometimes he reads my blog.

And here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I tagged:

Simon Meth

Cathy Martin

Dave Elchoness

Gerry Crispin

Jenn Barnes

Laurie Ruettimann