Great Doesn’t Happen By Accident… It Takes A Carefully Planned And Ruthless Assault On “Good”

What Does It Take To Build And Develop A Truly Great Team?  Part 2 of a series…

So here we are back with part 2 of this series.  We are starting with hiring hourly team members, everyone from no experience/entry level to Store Team Leaders.  When hiring for this level we are hiring almost exclusively for Leadership qualities.  This is because those qualities are the things that make people clone worthy, as opposed to skills.  We can easily train for pretty much any skills needed, however we cannot train qualities.  So let’s continue…

Before we get too far, we should talk for a minute about the actual interview.  I've seen it happen enough times that want to state very clearly that the interview process is no place for us to 'exert our authority', make sure 'they know who is in charge', or work to make the applicant uncomfortable to see how they react.  If you are doing these things you are doing it wrong, at least if you want to call yourself a Leader by any stretch of the imagination.  Interviewing with this attitude is pretty much guaranteed to give you mediocre workers who will do what they are told to do, and little more.  Mkay?

Hiring for qualities is a bit different from hiring for skills, as at least in my experience, the best way to determine what Leadership qualities our applicant has been developing is through conversation, rather than simply questions and answers...  I find "tell me about a time..." much less useful than getting my applicant comfortable enough to tell me all about the things in her life that she is proud of, where she puts her energy, what kinds of things frustrate her, and what gets her into a 'flow' state, to name just a few.  I believe that we all have Leadership qualities within us to one degree or another.  The key is finding the people who have been developing these qualities throughout their lives.

I know that a large percentage of our applicants have been interviewed many times now, so a good number of them know just what we want to hear.  If they are smart they probably have already thought about how to answer many of the questions they have heard before.  This is another reason why I prefer the conversational approach... it doesn't allow the applicants to stick with their 'script' or preformed answers.

I believe the best way to find Leadership qualities in others is to determine whether or not they show the behaviors that describe those qualities.  Qualities, by their very nature can be difficult to pin down, however I think we could easily come up with a list of behaviors that describe each quality or trait.  Read more about behaviors that describe Leadership qualities starting here.

For instance, I believe that the ability to hear and respond to feedback is on of the most important qualities a new hourly team member can have... In my experience it is perhaps the best indicator of future success, maybe because it means they are trainable, coachable, and humble.  So... how will we determine whether or not our applicant has this quality?

I try to get them to tell me all about their experience of school, trying to get into college/grad school, involvement in sports, or any other way they may have received feedback.  I don't ask specific enough questions to allow them to fall back on any prepared answers.  Since no one else ever asked them what they thought about their performance in that pick up game last weekend, how they responded to the feedback they got from their high school football coach, or the grade they got in that college class when they thought they deserved better, I generally get honest answers.

Any instance in our lives when we get feedback is fair game.  What makes you think you are a good driver?  On what do you base that opinion?  Do you follow the advice of the personal trainer at the gym, or do you think you know better?  What have you learned in your personal relationships?  I can easily give many examples of when I have hurt the feelings of people in my life, and how I reacted to that feedback.  Is that their problem?  What's my responsibility, if any?  These are all roads that out applicant has never been down in an interview, so we are likely to have an honest and genuine conversation.

I know you are all screaming at me... how about feedback from another job?  Of course this is appropriate, and can be very useful.  However, remember that our applicant has been asked about this many times already, so again, if they are smart they have learned what to say about feedback from work.  I also feel that my personal experience has some bearing here.  I've worked for, and with, some really poor bosses, and at work places where honest feedback was not the rule.  There are a lot of people out there who have been forced into the bottom, middle, or top third simply because that’s the way the company did things, so bosses had to come up with some reasons for assigning a person to this rung.  Because of the way this is set up, the feedback that many people get at work is often not honest feedback, with the intention of helping that person learn and grow.  If it happened to me, it happened to a lot of other people, so I feel we have to take feedback from past jobs with a grain of salt.

What about another quality before we call it a day?  How about self-responsibility?  Since we are already involved in a friendly, casual conversation with our applicant, we probably already have some example of something that didn't go as planned.  So we just need to find out a little more about the outcome... who was at fault?  Did our applicant have any part to play?  What about that feedback you got from your guidance counselor/coach/parents/friends/boss?  What did you learn from that?  How were you responsible for what happened? 

Have you been late for work or some other appointment?  What happened?  I need to hear the applicant take responsibility... yes the train was late... not your fault.  And… what, if anything did you do?  Did you start taking an earlier train since we know trains will be late?  Did you find alternatives, like friends you can call when the train is late?  These are simple examples of self-responsible behaviors.

To spell it out, I need to hear that our applicant, at least at some point recently, heard feedback and understood that the other person’s experience of them is that person’s reality.   To be coachable, the applicant needs to have changed their behavior in response to that feedback. For self-responsibility, I need to believe that our applicant takes responsibility for the things that happen in their lives; that their choices determine what happens (not everything that happens of course) and that they are responsible for the choices they make.  If I don't hear these things, I'll thank them for coming in and move onto my next applicant.  

Self responsibility, teachability, honesty, some level of emotional intelligence, some level of self awareness, and feeling that quality work is it's own reward are some of my make or break qualities.  If I do not believe that my applicant is developing these qualities I will not hire them, no matter how skilled they might be.  Remember, this is just a quick synopsis… you can find my whole 16 part series on hiring, with a lot more detail, starting here.

Wow… this takes so long to discuss doesn’t it?  That has to be long enough (probably too long many will tell me) for today, and we’ll pick up next time with what to do once we decide to hire the person sitting in front of us.  No… if we want great we cannot simply shake their hand and send them off to have another person take over.  We need to indoctrinate them.  Yes… I understand that many of you don’t like that word, and all of its connotations.   And… I don’t believe that we can get ‘great’ by using the same process (welcoming and training, the same onboarding that gave you the average team you have) you’ve been using.  Great doesn’t happen by accident.  It takes a planned assault on Good.  Hey, that’s catchy… maybe I’ll use that for todays title huh?