Category: Skills Improvement

“Don’t let your organization become a cultural museum. Stop emphasizing culture fit; start valuing culture contribution.” – Adam Grant, author of Originals

During a recent phone interview I had a candidate ask me how the organization I was recruiting for (who is currently going through a rapid growth period) planned to keep their culture intact as they grow. I explained that the company goes to great lengths to ensure that they are not only hiring the candidate with the right skills, but also the candidate who will best help to carry their culture forward as they grow.

Most job interviews revolve around a candidate’s experience, skill set, and ability to apply that to the role they are seeking. While the candidate’s behavior during the interview is also evaluated, most candidates put their best foot forward during the interview. So how can organizations truly assess cultural contribution?

The Zappos hiring strategy is a great example of an organization that goes the extra mile to assess cultural contribution of candidates. Zappos has developed a hiring process that includes:

• Requiring candidates to attend company social events to evaluate how they interact with employees at all levels.
• Having team members interview the candidate in an unformal setting such as meeting for coffee.
• Talking to company drivers who pick up candidates from the airport to see how they were treated by the candidate.
• Requiring new hires to spend their first four weeks manning the phones and responding to customer service calls.
• Offering new hires $3,000 to quit after their first week in the customer service call center.

While many companies can’t go to the extensive length that Zappos goes to when evaluating candidates, there are strategies that organizations can implement to evaluate candidates’ culture contribution. I spent almost two years managing human resources in a long-term care facility. When interviewing candidates from Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) all the way up to Directors, there were two strategies I used to evaluate the candidate for cultural contribution. First, I would wait behind the reception desk and watch the candidate before going out to the lobby to introduce myself. I would evaluate how they interacted with visitors, staff, and patients. Sometimes I would ask the receptionist how she was approached when the candidate arrived. Second, if they passed the interview, I would take them on a tour of the facility. Again, I was watching to see how they interacted with other staff members and patients. There were many instances when I chose not to hire a candidate based on their interactions, or lack thereof.

The interview doesn’t start when the candidate is standing in front of you, it starts when they get out of their car at your facility, or in Zappos’ case, when the driver picks them up at the airport. The true test for cultural contribution is how the candidate presents themselves when they think no one is paying attention.

To read more about the Zappos hiring strategy, click here.

So far, #SHRM18 has proven to be an inspiration of ideas and people.  My top takeaways from the Windy City include:

“Drama is emotional waste.”  @CyWakeman

I love Cy Wakeman and her book, Reality Based Leadership.  In her presentation, Cy described how our brains are binary.  We toggle between the lower order brain, our ego, where drama exists and our higher order brain.  Our higher order brain allows us to focus on reality in order to respond in creative, innovative ways.   Cy’s message is that a leader’s main job is to toggle people up to the higher order brain by focusing on facts and eliminating drama that comes from gossip, venting and assumptions.  We toggle people up by getting them to self-reflect.

 

Jeb Bush was the opening general session keynote.  He challenged the audience to consider what you would focus on if you were the head of HR for the United States.   His three key focus areas, which I agree with are:

1. Comprehensive immigration reform and policy as an economic development strategy.
2. A change in how we see learning and education to focus on career readiness, personalized learning and reform in higher education costs.
3. A second chance society where people who have made mistakes (like having a criminal record) can contribute meaningfully through work. SHRM is focused on this.  A great white paper to read on this from SHRM can be found here.

 

Key takeaways from my session on ROI as seen through the live tweets activity were:

 

Shared by Coretha M. Rushing, SHRM Board Chair, CHRO at Equifax:

 

From Paul Endress @paulendress about Reflective Listening:

“The less you talk and the more you seek to understand meaning from others, the better communicator you will be.”

The key thing I took away to set yourself up for reflective listening is body posture/physiology.  Don’t cross your hands across your chest or put them back above your head.  That is not setting yourself up to listen.  Instead nod your head, put your hands on your desk or on your knees in a neutral position or have a reflective posture where one hand is on your chin and the other propping up your elbow. Maintaining these postures while you speak is just as important when you are listening.

 

The session I have been the most excited about is Neuroscience in HR. Led by David Rock @davidrock, Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, his biggest reminder for me was something we often ignore when it comes to connecting brain science to individual and organizational behavior and that is the issue of capacity.

Capacity of the brain is the first issue that people ignore. For example, how many numbers can you add in your head?  Once you get past adding three numbers at once, most people reach their capacity.  Following this rule in the workplace is important.  If you try to get people to focus on more than three things you lose them.  Identify the fewest possible paths to drive individual change (through habit creation) that can drive organizational change.

 

What are your Top Takeways (so far) from #SHRM18? Have you been inspired too?