Why You Should Stop Comparing Candidates When Hiring
Of all the difficult decisions leaders must make, hiring and firing are certainly toward the top.
Finding the best people for an open position is always challenging. Often we interview many people looking for that perfect fit. During the process, often two candidates rise to the top. When this happens, something dangerous is right around the corner:
The Personnel Comparison Trap.
In this NEW POST, I unpack the trap and give you some tips to avoid it when you are making your next hire.
Two Steps to Make Everyone Else the Hero
As a leader, have you ever played the role of hero?
Perhaps a difficult decision needed to be made and you stepped in? Or maybe an employee made an error and you took the public blame? You played the part of hero by delivering great news or offering a job or increasing a budget.
Point leaders often have opportunities to be a hero, but what about the other “leaders” in the organization?
It’s an important question. There are lots of people in every organization leading something or someone. There is one point leader, but there are numerous other leaders.
What I see too often (and maybe you’ve seen this a lot, too), is point leaders hogging the hero moments while lower-level leaders are forced to handle the day-to-day, non-hero stuff. And unfortunately, there are not enough “hero” moments day-to-day.
I’m guessing the hero-hogging is mostly accidental. In leadership, there are few things more rewarding than feeling like a hero, mostly because leadership can at times feel more like the “art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand (John Ortberg coined that little gem)!” So hero moments — although few and far between — are to be cherished for sure.
But here’s a thought: The lower-level leaders in every organization — those involved in the more day-to-day tasks — are leading people more directly than anyone. They are closer to the action. If Ortberg is right, then these leaders are disappointing people more frequently than anyone. Pushing people more frequently. And saying “no” more frequently. If anyone needs “hero” moments, it’s these leaders. That’s exactly why point leaders need to ensure they are never “hero hogging.”
Here’s an easy way to avoid being a hero hog: As a point leader (of a company, department, etc.):
1. Choose to own the disappointing stuff.
2. Choose to pass along the good stuff to other leaders in the organization.
Literally, that’s it.
Read the rest of this article to discover easy ways to allow other leaders to be the hero.
3 Reasons You Should Learn From People Different Than You
Here’s a questions I’m working through:
Does the breadth of your learning impact the depth of your learning?
I know… I think in tweets. But to say it a little less 140 character’ish: How much more could we learn by expanding the context of our education? And I don’t mean studying more people in your current industry. Granted, it’s not natural to study other industries and organizational leaders unlike us, but I think finding breadth could be a hidden ingredient to accelerated growth.
This idea hit me recently while at a conference. It was a great conference full of wonderful leaders – who I’ver heard from too many times to count. I saw an advertisement for another conference. Guess who was speaking? Basically the same people. Don’t get me wrong. I love and respect these leaders. They’re my mentors – some directly. But I wonder – does a homogenous learning community stunt growth at some point?
As a pastor, I primarily learn from other churches, church leaders, and church models. As a younger leader, that was a great place to start. Seeing other perspectives and approaches to church helped solidify how I wanted to create and lead a local church. There was great clarity found in watching those who were already doing it. Yet, the more comfortable I got as a leader in my church, the more critical I became of leaders in the church. I accidentally replaced learning with critiquing.
Of course, that’s not a healthy dynamic, but it is a natural progression. When we visit other organizations within our industry, we are hyper-critical of what we understand (or think we understand).
Unplugging the Microwave of Success
Have you heard the soundtrack to the hit broadway musical “Hamilton?” If you’ve seen the actual musical, just keep that to yourself — intentionally causing envy is tantamount to envy, itself.
The music is quite spectacular. And historically insightful, too. My kids are way more knowledgeable about the Founding Fathers due to our time in the car together. It makes me question everything about my school upbringing! Hip hop trumps note-taking all day long.
Production aside, Alexander Hamilton was quite an amazing guy. He accomplished much, including establishing one of the first banks in America, the Bank of New York. Here’s what made me take a step back while jamming along to the soundtrack — it took Hamilton seven years to establish the bank’s charter. I know, the local community bank went up in a months time, and that seemed like forever in today’s world, but think about that for a moment. Seven years. That’s a long time to focus on something. Anything.
Always Content, Never Satisfied
I love this sentiment: “Be content, not satisfied.”
I can’t remember when I first heard it. It sounds like something John Maxwell would say, but I’m not sure. It’s certainly not a new idea. But for many leaders, mastering the power of this statement is novel and can provide new innovations and invigorate change.
At Woodstock City Church where I lead, we are constantly fighting to remain content, but not satisfied. Content because we are partnering with God and his church. Unsatisfied because the mission of God’s church is too big to every feel like it is complete. We take this so seriously around our church that we even labeled it “Make it Better,” one of our six core staff behaviors. “Make it Better” means never fall prey to believing we have arrived.
You know that in an ever-evolving culture, we can never stop evolving our approach, our model, or our strategies. As my friend and boss (Andy Stanley) likes to say, “We must be married to our mission, not our model.”
How Leaders Can Stop Hogging the Hero Moments
As a leader, have you ever been a hero to those who follow you?
Maybe you were the bearer of great news. Or maybe you served or loved them in an unexpected way. Maybe you gave them a job!
Most point leaders have the opportunity to be a hero with their staff from time-to-time, but what about the other “leaders” in the organization?
It’s an important question, because there are lots of people in every establishment leading something or someone. On our church staff, nearly everyone leads a staff team and/or volunteer team. Not everyone, but nearly everyone. There is one point leader, but there are nearly 65 leaders.
What I see too often (and maybe you’ve see this a lot, too), is point leaders hogging the hero moments while lower-level leaders are forced to handle the day-to-day, non-hero stuff. And unfortunately, there’s not too many “hero” moments day-to-day.
Because Hiring Diverse Strengths Is Not Enough
Every leader knows that a well-rounded staff makes for a better organization. As a leader, you desire to have a diversity of skills, capabilities, and even personalities on the team. You want a leadership team to provide different perspectives. You want a leadership team to contain unique individual abilities. You want an overall staff built upon a healthy diversity of talent.
You want people with financial strengths, administrative strengths, people strengths, and creative strengths. You want leaders around you who are feelers, doers, thinkers, strategist, contemplative, and decisive. You need this as a leader. And your organization needs this to be successful.
That should be easy to accomplish, right? I mean, all you really need to do is hire for strength and personality diversity. Not diversity of chemistry — we all need to love the people we work along side — but diversity of talent. Diversity of abilities. Diversity of personality.
Do Labels Limit Potential?
Do you have a label maker in your workplace? Or maybe at home like I do? A small little printer with only one purpose in life: labels. My wife really loves label maker, which explains our pantry. She’s labeled every bin, which felt like overkill until I needed to distinguish between powdered sugar and all-purpose flour. A light dusting of flour on your pancakes isn’t a good as you probably imagine!
My wife isn’t alone in her love of labeling. People by nature love to label things. You have probably labeled something today — or many somethings. Not necessarily physically, but mentally. And that could be a good thing. Labels are helpful. And labels give context. A label describes what we know and what we can expect. Powdered sugar or flour. Black beans or green.
Here’s where labeling goes downhill. Unfortunately, as a leader, our propensity to label things often transfers to labeling people. We do it for the same reason as the bins in my pantry — labeling people gives us context. It helps us understand who people are and what we can expect. We label people through personality test, which is often helpful, as these types of tests give us context on how to best lead individuals individually. We label people’s roles though job descriptions and titles. Again, helpful for us and the person on the other end of the role. If we could stop the labeling there, maybe all would be fine. But we don’t. In fact, it’s as if we can’t. We love context too much to stop with personality characteristics and job descriptions.
Does Your Team Really Believe They Belong?
Have you ever felt you needed to prove yourself? Prove your worth? Prove you deserved to be at your company, church, or organization?
I guess that’s more of a rhetorical question, right?
We’ve all felt the sense of performance-based acceptance at play in our heart. It’s part of the human condition. We’ve all wondered if we really belong. If we are worthy of our role.
As leaders, we have to look outside of our own experience to see the bigger problem: The internal battle to belong isn’t isolated to us. If we have felt it, most likely everyone in our organization has felt it — or is currently feeling it. And it’s a problem on several fronts. I know, because like you, I’ve been there.
The Internal Battle to Belong Creates:
1. Sideways energy: When people are trying to prove their worth, their misapplied motivation moves their energy away from the good work and toward a good pat on the back. When people are focused on being noticed, their efforts cannot be fully dedicated to something bigger than themselves.
Filling Seats on Your Bus
If you lead any type of organization — company, church, or department — you probably have an organizational chart of some sort. It’s one of those necessary structures that help delineate chain of command and channels of communication, among others.
When I first began leading a church (a typical organization in many ways), I was encouraged to envision the org chart 5 – 10 years down the road. What departments would be necessary? What divisions? How many layers? How many staff? I even went as far as putting my name in most of the “open” positions in this hypothetical org chart. Visually, it looked impressive and strategic. Personally, it just looked like I had too much to do!
I think this is a valuable exercise for every leader. If you’ve never done it, you should. But a few years into leading at Woodstock City Church, this exercise created quite the conundrum.
Here’s the dilemma I began to ponder: Is it better to start with the org chart in place so you can then find the right people for each box, or is it better to find the right people and build the organization around them?
