It shouldn’t be surprising that a company as driven by data and analytics as Google reflects those traits in its job interview process. Here’s a peek behind the curtain:

1) How Many Interviews?
After assessing the success of past hires Google found that four interviews is the optimal number. Any more didn’t lead to signifcantly more confidence in a candidate’s fit for a position.

2) Who Should Interview?
Interviewers are much more objective if they don’t have a stake in a candidate’s selection. So Google uses panels of varied employees to select workers – not direct supervisors or peers.

3) But Can They Interview?
Sure, if you train them. Which is exactly what Google does since hiring is part of almost everyone’s job. They often conduct an extra interview with a candidate solely to give employees experience at interviewing.

4) Can You Analyze Cultural Fit?
To fit in at Google you have to be innately curious. Admittedly, determining that can be as much art as it is science. But it’s important enough that Google willingly looks beyond analytics … for now.

Data and analytics. Even in the job interview process. If you’re not riding that wave, eventually you’ll get crushed by it.

Your thoughts?

Michael

Football coaches use a tool that is helpful in displaying not only who fulfills what roles, but also to spotlight where talent is thin and how they would respond if they should lose somebody.

The depth chart.

The depth chart is simply an org chart expanded to show who “backs-up” each “starter.” Of course, unlike sports teams, your business can’t employ people simply to hang around in the event that a starter gets sick or leaves. But creating a depth chart does allow you to ask and think through some important questions:

In which positions would losing a “starter” create a major problem?

How could we mitigate it? (Cross-training? Splitting and re-allocating responsibilities? Doing without?)

How do we make sure we retain our critical talent?

Many organizations have an org chart. Now go one step further: develop, monitor and manage your depth chart.

Your thoughts?

Michael

When you’re hiring, regardless of the position, you want a candidate to be confident. But how confident?

Not enough and they might not stretch themselves; they’ll underperform. They won’t constructively challenge or inspire confidence in others. Too much confidence, though, and they’re likely to create conflict. And they could underestimate obstacles and expose the organization to undue risk.

A realistic level of confidence must be best, right? Not so fast. According to social scientists, overconfident people outcompete realists in many situations.

So what is the right balance between too little and too much confidence? It’s when a person is slighltly more confident than is warranted. Enough that they stretch and probe their limits. Yet not so much that they continually go too far out on a limb … that breaks.

Now are you confident you’ll hire the right amount of confidence?

Your thoughts?

Michael

The candidate was polished. You were wowed in the interview. And his last organization sure produced some impressive numbers. This person is obviously a successful leader. It’s a no-brainer, right?

Maybe not. When a candidate for a leadership position interviews well, beware. It’s easy to get lulled and you could be making a costly mistake. Dig deeper.

Were the impressive results because of the person or despite them? Did they actually do something or were they an innocent bystander? One test: ask them about their plan to achieve the results and the actions that produced them. What was their role in developing the plan and taking action? To what extent did external factors – economic or market factors – contribute to the results? What challenges did they face while implementing the plan and how did they deal with them? Did they have to put together a team or was the right team already in place?

Many candidates for leadership roles are impressive on the surface. They’ve learned to interview well and they’ve been associated with strong results. But being associated with strong results isn’t the same as producing them.

Your thoughts?

Michael

Your organization is facing a critical challenge. And if you don’t take action NOW it is likely to be the limiting factor to your growth over the next 18 months.

People. Finding, attracting and securing strong talent.

There’s no shortage of people looking for work, but there is a shortage of top-tier talent. And whether it’s sales reps in Seattle, welders in Winnipeg or managers in Manhattan, the competition for talent is only going to get more intense.

Compete for talent.

When you come across someone – a server in a restaurant, somebody selling to you – who just might be a good fit for your organization, give the person your business card, your 10-second pitch, and invite them to call you. If you know of someone in your industry who is a top performer then make them an offer they can’t refuse. Create contests for your employees to refer great people. Make your company a great place to work so word-of-mouth recruiting attracts great people.

This isn’t an HR job. It’s every manager’s job.

If you’re truly committed to winning, then posting “Help Wanted” signs isn’t going to cut it. Compete for talent.

Your thoughts?

Michael

Surround an employee with highly motivated people and what happens? Their drive and performance increases. Surround an employee with less motivated people and what happens? Their drive and performance decreases.

Motivation is contagious. That was a key finding from a series of studies by researchers at the University of Rochester. We are influenced by and mimic the people in our environment. For better or for worse.

Two big surprises: 1) Workers were unaware of the influence that others had on their performance. 2) Inserting even a single highly motivated or less motivated individual in the workplace can impact the performance of others.

Hire, cultivate and reinforce highly motivated people. People who are driven to achieve. You’ll find it’s contagious.

Your thoughts?

Michael

You’re recruiting for a key position. You want to get the best person you can. Finally, you find a sure-fire candidate and bring him on-board with great expectations. And he fails.

Why? Because he didn’t mesh with the team. Because his traits, style or values somehow undermined his ability to get things done with and through people.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Success requires collaboration and cooperation. Recruit individuals but select team members. As a football coach I learned a valuable lesson that holds true in business much as it does in sport: The best players don’t necessarily make the best team. But the best team usually wins.

Your thoughts?

Michael

Successful leaders are smart enough to know that they’re not smart enough to know it all. And neither are their employees. So they surround themselves with a network of external resources who are vital to their success.

That was one of the main conclusions from The Breakthrough Company, by Keith McFarland. McFarland and his team looked at over 7000 fast-growing, mid-sized companies to determine which ones sustained strong growth, which ones stalled, and why.

Nine companies were identified as breakthrough companies. A common practice of those companies is that they regularly used external resources like advisory boards, customer councils, industry experts and consultants, and that they had high expectations of them.

Breakthrough companies are open to and value outside expertise. Non-breakthrough companies are more insular and don’t value outside partnerships as much.

Access the resources you need to access. It doesn’t matter if they’re not employees. What matters is if they can help you win.

Your thoughts?

Michael

What do you need from the emerging leaders on your team? Author and professor Howard Gardner has identified five minds that must be mastered to meet future demands:

The Disciplined Mind – mastery of an applied discipline (such as marketing) and the underpinnings of that discipline (such as psychology)

The Synthesizing Mind – the ability to organize and integrate extensive and varied information

The Creating Mind – the drive to ask “what if” questions, and take action to explore the possible

The Respectful Mind ‚Äì understanding, appreciating and working effectively with diverse individuals 

The Ethical Mind – a sense of obligation to act as a responsible worker, colleague and citizen

To successfully deal with increasingly complex environments and challenges, these are the minds you should test for and select for.

Your thoughts?

Michael

At some point, the realization smacks every entrepreneur in the face. For your business to continue to grow and thrive, it has to evolve beyond you.

The more your business depends on you the greater its exposure. Is the vision and roadmap locked in your head? Are you the sole keeper of key customer information? Do critical supplier relationships depend on you? Are you the brand? So if a bolt of lightning strikes you, what happens to the company?

Need more convincing? You’re not scalable. You can’t do it all. At some point your business will outgrow your capacity to do it all. And that’s good.

That’s why you need to extend your company’s leadership beyond you to a true leadership team. People with the right skills, traits and motives to oversee and transform the various aspects of the business. Yes, you’ll need to relinquish some control. Yes, they might not do things exactly as you would. And, yes, for some things they simply might not be as good as you. But you still can’t do it all. So find the best people you can, support them, develop them, and then let them help you win.

Your thoughts?

Michael

One of my favorite principles is converging evidence. The idea that when evidence from different sources points toward the same conclusion, you can be confident in that conclusion.

Take selecting a new hire. How confident are you with your selections? Ideally, you want converging evidence from different sources that tells you a candidate is a winner.

1) Interviews
What you want is multiple interviews by people at different levels including a candidate’s prospective boss, peers and direct reports.

2) Role Plays
Effective when the position requires exceptional interpersonal skills, like in sales or customer service.

3) Job Simulations
If technical skills are important, give the candidate a chance to demonstrate them. Put a CFO candidate in a room with mock financial statements and have them come back with their assessment and recommendations. Have a welder weld. Assess their speed and quality.

4) Assessment Profiles
There are a number of well-established instruments that reveal things like a candidate’s work preferences, interpersonal style and values – things that may be hard to extract from an interview.

5) References
Generally not that helpful although if the right questions are asked (“If there was one thing you wish you had known about Joe when you hired him, what would that be?”) they can help to uncover red flags.

6) Online Searches
Almost everyone has left breadcrumbs on the web. Just be careful how you interpret all that personal information you come across.

7) Substance Abuse Testing
Certain positions inherently involve such a level of risk to others that pre-employment substance abuse testing is desirable.

8) Verify Credentials
Don’t set false barriers (see my June 4 blog), but if a position legitimately requires some type of degree or certification, obtain a valid copy of that document.

Many leaders are finding that despite the quantity of talent available in the marketplace, there is a shortage of quality. Applying the principle of converging evidence can help you find the nuggets in the stream.

Your thoughts?

Michael

I’m all for education. I should be, I have a PhD. But I’m not for organizations saying a degree is a hard-and-fast job requirement when it’s not.

The best boss I ever had was Arthur at FedEx. Arthur was focused, bright and committed. He had impeccable integrity. He gave his people direction and support, and then let them do their jobs. He recognized people’s successes and held them accountable if they weren’t successful. Arthur got results.

What Arthur didn’t have was a university degree.

My Dad was a great boss. His people loved him. He was a savvy businessman and outstanding communicator. He was motivated, dedicated, confident and successful. His was a classic front-line-employee-to-senior-executive story.

My Dad didn’t graduate from high school.

I’m not against education. I’m not saying it’s useless, I’m not saying it isn’t important. If I ever have to have brain surgery I’ll feel a lot better knowing the surgeon graduated from Med school.

What I am saying is don’t make education a false barrier for a job. Say that a degree is preferred. Say that it’s strongly preferred. But unless it’s an absolute necessity to capably execute a job, don’t make it one.

Class dismissed.

Your thoughts?

Michael