How to Avoid the Biggest People Mistake.
The biggest and most unnecessary people mistake in business stems from our tendency to evaluate a candidate’s ability to handle a new job based on his or her performance at a previous one.
This practice is the very antecedent of what we lovingly call The Peter Principle. And so, we continue to promote people until they no longer perform.
We forget that past performance is not indicative of future success. Nevertheless, past performance is the primary criteria we consider when hiring or promoting.
The right approach is to begin the other way around. What are the non-negotiable qualities a person must posses in order to excel at this job?
The criteria will always be a combination of both skills (knowledge plus experience) and behaviors. For example, it isn’t enough to know HOW to give a subordinate painful feedback – the skill – if you fail to do it. Doing it is the behavioral factor, the element that is often ignored.
Dov Gordon’s CEO Thought-Provoker™ Questions:
1. Do you or your HR people arbitrarily define job requirements based on input rather than the based on the business results you want the candidate to achieve? For example: “Must have at least seven years experience in marketing” when it should be “Can lead a marketing team and bring the best out of each team member.”
2. Take out the written job descriptions for three key people in your organization. Have you defined the three or four non-negotiable criteria for each position?
3. Think back to a time when you hired someone to a position that turned out to be over their head. Did you a) define the non-negotiable criteria for the job and b) investigate his behavioral tendencies as well as his skills?
This practice is the very antecedent of what we lovingly call The Peter Principle. And so, we continue to promote people until they no longer perform.
We forget that past performance is not indicative of future success. Nevertheless, past performance is the primary criteria we consider when hiring or promoting.
The right approach is to begin the other way around. What are the non-negotiable qualities a person must posses in order to excel at this job?
The criteria will always be a combination of both skills (knowledge plus experience) and behaviors. For example, it isn’t enough to know HOW to give a subordinate painful feedback – the skill – if you fail to do it. Doing it is the behavioral factor, the element that is often ignored.
Dov Gordon’s CEO Thought-Provoker™ Questions:
1. Do you or your HR people arbitrarily define job requirements based on input rather than the based on the business results you want the candidate to achieve? For example: “Must have at least seven years experience in marketing” when it should be “Can lead a marketing team and bring the best out of each team member.”
2. Take out the written job descriptions for three key people in your organization. Have you defined the three or four non-negotiable criteria for each position?
3. Think back to a time when you hired someone to a position that turned out to be over their head. Did you a) define the non-negotiable criteria for the job and b) investigate his behavioral tendencies as well as his skills?
posted by Dov Gordon at 5:37 AM
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