Recruit for Future Performance
(Refer to the past, but test for the future)
Recruitment decisions are always key decisions, quite literally. No one should have access to your organisation’s front door unless they are worthy of that honour.
Getting inside your organisation should be hard, really hard. Your culture and values are at stake every time someone new joins you.
Who are you allowing in, with access to everyone and everything that's important to you? How exacting are your standards?You should always recruit like your organisation's life depends on it, because it does. Unsurprisingly, poorly run organisations, recruit poorly. At the other end of the spectrum, Super-tribes1 do the opposite. They are built by your people for your people.
When recruiting new people, you should focus our efforts so that you make the right choices. A meandering chat over tea and biscuits isn't ever going to be thorough enough. But what exactly should you focus on?
Surely it should be on the candidate's past successes. That will tell you how good a performer the persons is. Won't it? The answer is an easy 'No'. What happened at another organisation is almost irrelevant to you. What's going to happen at your organisation in the future is all that matters.
For example, selling is a skill, but how does selling different products to different customers, using different systems at different companies help you to predict a candidate's ability to sell for you? Instead of looking backwards, ask them to sell your products to you. If they aren’t good enough now, can you help them to become good enough?
Employers need to focus on the things that make the biggest difference to a recruit’s future success with your organisation (the winning controllables). The past should stay there.
The future is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambitious (VUCA). A clear vision, purpose and set of values is crucial to success. Don’t water it down or let it drift to suit new arrivals. Be inclusive, but not at your organisation’s expense. Instead of taking the mountain to each potential candidate, only recruit the people who suit your organisation’s vision, its purpose and its values. That can and should still produce a diverse and inclusive workforce, but one which is focused on the same end results.
Every organisation has to be highly discerning about whose hands you let on the steering wheel. And that means recruiting very, very wisely.
Recruitment should focus around six core competencies. They may not seem the most obvious and there’s almost nothing to help you in their CV, but since when did you rely on a CV to judge a person?
The six are:
1. Cultural fit (someone with complementary values & motivations).
2. Mission fit (someone with complementary life purposes & goals).
3. Existing skill set (because multi-skilled people can cover for others; and have more techniques to bring with them).
4. Adaptability (because flexible people are happy to cover for others). Always test for a candidate’s ability to solve a range of technical, process and people problems.
5. Tribalism (a willingness to put the team first and do whatever’s needed to get the job done), together with Super-tribalism (a willingness to build relationships with other stakeholders to make your vision reality).
6. Cognitive diversity (to widen the breadth & depth of decision-making your organisation gets from different perspectives).
Recruitment is only the beginning. Organisational support, care, training, mentoring & rewarding are all critical to the success of any new recruit. How much do you do to make someone successful? What do you do after the first week?
Your organisation’s future is in its own hands. So try not to drop the recruitment ball.
Simon Rhodes is the CEO of Red Heart Blue Head Limited. Simon is the author of ‘Build Your Super-tribe: How tribal rituals and traditions can change the modern world’. Simon is also the author of ‘Lead Your Super-tribe: Become the Pathfinder for your tribe’ and ‘Get Win Ready: Master the Winning Controllables.’ All three books are available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.
Red Heart Blue Head Limited is a management consultancy specialising in organisational strategy, culture and performance. We work in all sectors including business, sport and education. Please visit https://www.redheartbluehead.com/ to find out more.
Super-tribes are a modern tribe within a tribe. Please see other articles to follow about this subject; and the book ‘Build Your Super-tribe: How tribal rituals and traditions can change the modern World’ on Amazon for more details.