Strong Organizations Hire for Potential

Hiring for potential can be a great way of developing a diverse and well-rounded team. Leaders tend to want to hire people based on experience. Experience-based hiring is a safe bet to make in most organizations. Few organizations will question a leader's judgment if they hire someone with previous experience doing the job, especially if that individual has worked for a prestigious company. While this approach might be safe, it has flaws. Prior experience does not equate to an individual's job mastery. It also does not predict how well an individual will perform the job they are being hired for. Relying too heavily on prior experience may also limit the size and diversity of the applicant pool. When making hiring decisions, employers should consider the employee's potential for growth in addition to their prior experience. Employers considering growth potential when making hiring decisions better position themselves for long-term growth.

Benefits of hiring for potential.

Companies broaden their application pool by shifting their primary focus from experience to a broader focus on potential and experience. Macroeconomic shifts and changes in individual employees' preference for where they work create an opportunity for employers to hire individuals who started their careers in one industry but are looking for opportunities in others. These potential employees have developed skills and knowledge within their current field that, with some training, could be easily transferred into other industries. For decades, large corporations have recruited retired military veterans to transition into corporate America. Companies have hired veterans based on their leadership potential and taught them the fundamental of their industry. Companies could do the same for teachers, retailers, artists, and other professionals who have developed management, communication, influence, creativity, and teaching skills but need training on applying those skills within a different industry.

Define the ideal candidate.

The first step to hiring for potential is to define the ideal candidate. For every role, there is a minimum level of knowledge and experience that an individual needs to succeed. For some positions, this will mean particular licenses and or certifications. In establishing your minimum, it is prudent to leave the minimum requirements low enough to include individuals that could gain the necessary knowledge and experience within six months of working with the organization.

It is also beneficial for companies to define what type of person does well within the organization. All companies have organizational cultures; some candidates will fit better than others. Organizations that are clear about their values are more likely to attract candidates that share similar values. Communicating the company values on the company's website and during the interview process will increase the likelihood of attracting candidates who will be a good fit.

Build rapport with the candidate.

At the beginning of the interview process, managers should focus on building rapport. Interviewers should use the first 10 minutes of the interview to participate in small talk and begin to learn basic information about the candidate. The goal here is to reduce the candidate's stress or anxiety and to get a baseline understanding of who the person is. Hiring for potential requires you to learn the individual's capability for growth. The interviewer can gain valuable insights by getting the interviewee to open up and share their story. Candidates will be more transparent if there is a comfort during the interview process.

Ask behavioral questions.

Hiring managers should spend most of the interview asking open-ended questions that allow the applicant to talk about the skills they have developed and how they learn. As hiring managers listen, they should look for examples of the applicant

• taking on a new task

• learning from experience

• growing from mentoring and coaching

These stories will give the hiring manager clues into the environment in which the employee thrives, their learning ability, and adaptability.

Identify the applicant's values.

During the interview process, seek to understand the applicant's values. Values play a significant role in motivation and how people engage with others. An individual's values will help to drive their behavior. In addition, employees perform best when their values align with the company. Hiring candidates whose values align with the job's needs and the organization's values is ideal.

Be unconventional.

One of the best ways to get to know someone is to see them in a different environment. Polished interviewers rehearse sitting in an office and discussing their past accomplishments. Often, hiring managers are amazed by scripted answers presented by applicants that present whom they would like to be, not who they are. One tactic for mixing the interview process up is not completing the entire interviewing process in a traditional office environment. Doing something as simple as going on a walk, standing in a conference room, or going out for lunch can shift an interviewee off script so that the interviewer can see a less rehearsed, more authentic version of the candidate.

Get a second opinion.

Hiring managers should seek out the opinions of others when making a hiring decision. Including team members in the interview process helps the company gain different perspectives on potential employees. One effective best practice is to have potential employees engage in "day in the life" activities to shadow future peers. Shadowing days accomplish two goals. First, it allows the employee to learn more about the company and the job to discover if both will fit them. Second, it allows future peers to meet the candidate and provide the hiring manager with a different perspective on the candidate. Using multiple interviewers can shed additional insights into the candidate's interests, capabilities, and potential.

Identify what makes the person unique.

Every person has something unique and special about them. Through the interview process, a hiring manager seeks to understand what makes an individual unique and how their uniqueness can help satisfy a need within the company. Employees can maximize their contribution to organizations by adding something unique and special currently missing from a team. Managers that can identify and close current gaps by adding new talent position their organizations for success.

Summary

Too often, hiring managers rely too heavily on experience to guide their hiring decisions. A focus on hiring for experience limits a company's application pool and can result in hiring individuals with limited growth opportunities. Hiring for potential requires more judgment because there are no quantifiable measures to predict how much someone will grow once they are in the role. Hiring managers must rely more on subjective analysis of candidates' ability to communicate how they take on new challenges, learn new skills, and expand their capabilities. While hiring for potential may carry some additional perceived risk for managers, it also brings the potential for many more rewards. Having a broad range of individuals with diverse talents and experience strengthens organizations. When organizations can add talented individuals with high growth potential, they expand the possibilities for their entire organization.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching services for managers, executives, and small business owners.

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Create Performance Development Plans that Really Work

Developing people is one of the most critical responsibilities of a leader. Whether running a multi-billion-dollar retail company or a small local restaurant, a company's success is directly linked to its ability to help its employee acquire and master new skills. As the capabilities of employees increase, so do the organization's capabilities. When employees improve their technical and soft skills, they enhance their company's ability to generate revenue, cut costs and improve customer satisfaction. There is an old saying that a general goes to war with the army they have, not the army they want. While this is true, a leader's army tomorrow can be better than the army they have today if they invest time, focus, and attention in helping their employees develop.

Establish Trust

Trust must be in place to help your employee establish an effective personal development plan. Trust is essential because it enables you and your employees to be honest about short- and long-term goals and what is necessary for each of you to help others achieve their goals. The employee, boss relationship works best when it is mutually beneficial. When you take the time to show your employees that you care about them and that you are looking out for their best interest, they will be more likely to care for you and to look out for your best interest. Leaders build trust over time through small acts such as listening, showing concern, holding confidentiality, and providing support.

Commit to using the tool

Once leaders establish trust, they can work with their employees to create personal development plans. Personal Development Plans are a highly effective tool for defining the areas that an employee wants to focus on developing, along with what actions they are committing to take. Much like any tool, it is only effective if used as intended. Hours are wasted annually by employees and supervisors working on Personal

Development Plans that are talked about once and then put away and forgotten for a year. Developing Personal Development Plans and not using them is like purchasing a shovel to help you plant flowers and then keeping it in your shed for an entire year. At the end of the year, you will have a shovel but no flowers. For this reason, leaders should re employee's personal development plans need to be a living document that is reviewed monthly. During each meeting, the supervisor and the employee should discuss every year by

• What was the plan?

• What results were generated?

• What did you learn?

• What changes need to be made to the plan?

Developing the plan

As leaders develop a Personal Development Plan, it is important to clarify the goals of the plan. First, there must be clarity on what the employee needs to improve to best help their career and the company. Many times, there are areas of employee performance that leaders would like to see improvements in, that the employees are not aware of being an issue. Before a leader ventures into the developmental opportunities, start the conversation by talking about what the employee is currently doing well. This is an important step because it helps to build the employee's confidence. It will also help to put them into a positive state of mind. Studies show that people are more engaged and creative when they have a positive mindset.

Next, a leader needs to discuss the areas of development that would best help the employee reach their goals. As a rule of thumb, a leader should share three positive areas that an employee is doing well in, for every developmental area that is discussed. During this discussion, it is important to make the distinction between what development can help them to excel in their current role, in addition; to what could help them prepare for their next opportunity.

Note, some employees will communicate that they are not interested in career advancement. They may do this for various reasons including previous disappointment around not receiving promotions in the past, lack of confidence in their ability, or a host of other reasons. If a leader believes an individual has the potential for career advancement let them know you believe in their potential and encourage them to be open to taking on more responsibilities. A leader may see something in them, that they do not see in themselves. By the leader communicating belief, they can inspire the employee to consider possibilities that they previously could not imagine.

Once there is alignment around the areas of focus, it is important to make sure there is a shared understanding of the urgency that opportunities should be addressed. As a leader, it is important to be clear with employees about the areas of their performance that need urgent attention. If an employee has a critical deficiency that is negatively impacting the company, and potentially putting their employment at risk this should be clear to the employee. There should be no ambiguity when it comes to performance deficiencies, and those should be handled through performance management conversations. When it comes to Personal Development Planning, the urgency should be driven by the employee. A leader can frame up the benefits of them moving fast, for example, if a promotion opportunity is coming, and it is in the employee's best interest to learn a new skill to qualify for the opportunity. But in general, the employee should own the pace of implementation of the plan.

As you conduct the personal development plan conversation with an employee, it is always good to ask them what areas of development they would like to work on. Many times, employees will demonstrate more energy and in persistence working on items they have selected on their own. For this reason, consider swimming with the current, and leveraging their existing energy towards achieving a developmental goal. As a leader discusses with them the items they would like to work on, it is beneficial to help them to understand how working on those items will help their career. For example, if a leader has a salesperson that would like to work on building on presentation skills, they can discuss how developing these skills will help them in their current role, in addition to helping them in future roles. This will help to give more incentive to pursue developing those skills.

Once a leader understands what the employee believes they should be focusing on developing, it is time to share with them the developmental areas that they believe could add value to their career. As a leader does this, it is important to communicate to them the benefit that they believe this developmental action will have on them in both the short and the long term. Going back to the example of the salesperson, if this individual has the desire to be a manager in the future, then one of the skills that they will need to develop is coaching and training skills. As the leader is talking with them about potential areas for growth. They can tell them that training others is a key skill for leaders to develop. The leader can encourage them to reflect on what makes them good at selling and ask if they would be interested in developing training for new hires. In developing this training, they would have the opportunity to work on putting together presentations, in addition to gaining experience training others. In this way, you are killing two birds with one stone. The employees get an opportunity to work on developing their presentation skills, while also gaining new experience in training others.

As a leader conducts personal development conversation, it is beneficial to identify 4 potential areas of development. One aspect of human nature that is universal is a desire for control. By a leader working with an

employee to identify multiple areas of development to work on, they empower them to choose where they want to focus their attention. As a leader and employee discuss the 4 potential areas, they should rate each on two variables. The amount of effort believed necessary to build the new skill or behavior and the amount of value it will generate.

The effort here is a very broad term. Effort should be considered in proportion to the time, money, and resources required to make progress on the desired skill or behavior. For example, if the employee decides that they want to improve their coaching skills, they could consider doing this by becoming a certified coach. It would be important to understand that the process generally takes a year, can cost over $15,000, and requires around a 180-hour commitment. Clearly defining the amount of effort required can help the leader and the employee discuss any constraints that might get in the way of the employee reaching their goal. This will help both parties determine if the effort required is worth pursuing.

When it comes to value, it is important to discuss the predicted value that will be added to the individual and to the company through the development activity. Value can be determined in many ways, but revenue growth, time savings, and improvements to customer experience are great places to start. For

example, if an employee is already very competent in developing presentations, they might want to take a new course on building power points. This course might be fun and interesting for the employee but may provide little incremental value to the company. It is important to discuss with the employee what value will be generated by the employee pursuing the activity.

Once the leader and employee have discussed the amount of value and effort related to each potential area of development, they can now work with the employee to prioritize which development opportunity to pursue first. The prioritization activity should help to guide the employee to identify what focus area would benefit them the most. Since this is not a perfect science, the leader and employee should not get stuck feeling like they have to execute the items that are low effort and high return. Logic would say the employee should focus their energy on these items, but the reality is that humans are not logical beings. Emotions drive behaviors. If an employee is dead set on doing an activity that falls in one of the other quadrants, don’t fight it. The most important thing is that the employee is growing professionally. Leaders frequently get stuck trying to get employees to develop in areas that they have limited interest or motivation to work in. When this happens time and energy are wasted trying to influence change vs accepting the employee for who they are and leaning into their strengths and passions. Follow the natural energy the employee has towards the areas they want to develop. This will allow the leader to help the

employee develop, while also building additional trust. There will always be another opportunity to revisit other developmental opportunities.

As the leader and employee finalize the Personal Development Plan, it is important to discuss what activities will come off the plate. Leaders have the tendency of working with employees on identifying what new actions, behaviors, or skills they want to see a person develop but walking away prior to getting into a discussion around divesting activities. Employees only have so much room on their plates, and leaders provide a great service to them when they help to prioritize what they should and shouldn't be working on. Employees' things-to-do lists are like full plates at a cookout. There are a lot of good things on them, but before you can add more, you have to take something off. If an employee’s plate is full, a leader should help them to decide how to make some space. Space can be made in three ways. They can make room by eating some of the food, which means working on their current task. Once they end a current

project, they will have space to add another. They can give some food to someone else, by delegating some of their tasks. Or they can throw some food away, which means just walking away from a project. Depending on the importance of the task on their plate to them and to the company a leader can help to determine how best to make room.

Leaders give a great gift to employees when they help them with personal development. Employees trust their leaders with their careers. The better able a leader is to develop talent, the more successful they will be in attracting great leaders, and delivering against their own professional goals.

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The Umbrella Principle: How to influence employees to execute company strategy

A company’s success is dependent on two things. One, the company’s strategy. Two the company’s execution. When it comes to the latter, many times companies struggle because they are unable to get their employees to align and commit to the strategy. When it comes to leadership, one of your key roles is to define the company’s strategy and to gain buy-in around executing of that strategy. Over the last 15 years I have taught business leaders the umbrella principle which provides employees with a metaphor that demonstrates the benefits of executing within the company's strategy.

The umbrella represents the company strategy. If you stay under the umbrella, meaning inside of the company’s strategy you will have a different experience than you would by going out from under the umbrella. The umbrella provides both shade and protection. By being under the umbrella your movements might be more restricted, but you know rain or shine that you have something between you and the elements. If you decide to venture beyond the parameters of the umbrella, you may enjoy the benefits of sunshine (positive results) but you also open yourself up for the risk of being rained on (failure). When the weather is good, the need for an umbrella is lower. Delivering great results can provide its own layer of protection which will afford you some forgiveness if you are not strictly adhering to the strategy. But if your results no longer are meeting expectations, you are going to be in a lot better situation if you are under the umbrella of the company's strategy when question start raining in.

What I love about this analogy is the visualization of risk and reward. Going a little outside of the umbrella carries some risk, but not as much risk as leaving the umbrella at home. In addition, having a little sprinkle of rain fall on your head (having a small failure) is significantly different than a major down pouring (a big failure). In reality, there are scenarios that are similar to hurricanes where your adherence to the strategy will matter little because of the severity of the event. Things can be so bad that being under the umbrella (executing the company's strategy) will not make a difference to how you are treated. But in most cases if you are executing the company's strategy, and results are not coming, you will be in a better situation than if you had poor results and are also off strategy. By exploring this analogy with employees, you can help them to think more globally about the benefits and risk associated with going off strategy.

If your employees have never been in a board room, they likely are not aware of how much time and energy goes into debating a company’s strategy. Literally hours are spent by CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, senior executives and their direct reports, reviewing data, analyzing trends, and studying marketing conditions all with the goal of defining what is the “right” path for the company to pursue. Because so much time is spent developing strategy, those involved are typically deeply invested. For this reason, the company’s strategy is worth being followed provided that it is ethical and legal. It is important to help employees to understand that they were specifically hired with the purpose of executing the plans that leadership has developed. Everyone

within an organization has a role. Leadership generally defines what needs to be done, and they expect managers and employees to figure out the how to do it. If employees have significant objections to the company's strategy, they should voice their concerns. Great organizations excel at listening to the voices that are closest to the customer and leveraging their insights to inform strategy. But once a decision is made around what needs to be done, it is expected for employees to execute the strategy. If your employees are unable or unwilling to do so, they should consider finding a company to work for that has a strategy they can get behind. People do their best work when their values and principles align with their employer. Many times, employees stay in a job they do not enjoy out of comfort or fear of the unknown, not realizing that their life would improve if they found a place to work that better aligned with the work that they want to do. If they are consistently at odds with the company's leadership, they should ask whether their time and energy would be better served someplace else.

When an employee decides to pursue an action that does not align with the company strategy, they dilute the organizations focus and resources. Most companies hire highly compensated executives, MBAs and consultants to help them to identify ways to get the most out of the company’s resources. When your employees deviate from the strategy, they are basically telling leadership that they know better than leadership what should be done. In some situations, they are correct, but they should evaluate how to manage these situations. Leadership is not always right, and being highly compensated or highly educated does not automatically mean that you have all of the answers. But what it does mean is that a lot of money and trust has been invested into you, and the expectation is that you set the direction for the company and take responsibility for any successes or failure. It is important for employees to consider the different roles and responsibilities within the organization. The role of leadership is to define the strategy, and the role of the workforce is to execute the strategy. This is similar to the relationship between a head coach and a team. One is responsible for drawling up the plays, the other is responsible for executing the plays. Once the play is called, members of the team have the ability to innovate and do what they need to do to be successful, but the expectation is that the play that is called is run. Organizations work best when each member plays their role. It is important to help employees to understand that there can be multiple correct answers to the same question, but organizations are stronger when everyone is aligned and pursuing the same answer.

Early in my career I struggled with professional maturity. I frequently struggled with aligning myself around company strategy. I ran stores within an urban environment, and frequently pushed back on the company strategy because I believed that individuals within headquarters did not under the complexities of running stores in the inner city and asked us to do things that would result in lower operating earnings. For example, we were required to keep items on the sales floor that were frequently stolen such as health and beauty aid products. Instead of working with leadership to find creative solutions to the theft issues, I would direct stores to keep these items behind the counter. Keeping products like these behind the counter is inconvenient for customers and generally leads to lower sales. The impact of my decision to go against strategy resulted in lower sales within those categories.

In my mind, what I was doing was the right thing because my actions were leading to overall increase in profitability because fewer items were being stolen. From leadership’s vantage point, I was taking actions that reduced sales. This was especially troublesome to leadership because part of our strategy was to be a convenient alternative to pharmacies and grocery stores that also sold these products. What felt right to me, and the stores I supported was not what was right for the organization at large. When the topic of lower sales came up, because I was not executing the strategy, I was rained on. The organization had called a play, and they needed me to run it. My failure to execute the strategy left leadership with uncertainty around the type of sales that would be generated if I had just done what they asked.

How could I have handled the situation differently? First, I could have recognized that growing center of store sales was a key part of our company’s strategy. That revenue goals were set based off all stores following the recommended merchandising schematics. Leadership understood that some stores would have elevated theft as a result of this strategy and that they were taking a calculated risk that there was more benefit to having everyone execute the same strategy versus having a different approach in every store.

In fact, by individuals like me not following the recommended strategy an illusion was being created. Stores in urban areas did not experience elevated theft because they were not putting products on the sales floor. As a result, there was no data to confirm our statements that putting those items on the sales floor would result in higher theft. My failure to ask the right questions resulted in me taking action at the store level, that was ultimately hurt the company's ability to collect good information, and make informed decisions based off of facts. My thinking was short-term and local, while leadership was thinking long-term and global. In the end I was the loser because I was delivering the desired result that leadership wanted. The good thing is that I learned from the experience and got better about following strategy.

Fast forward five years. Through hard won wisdom, I learned that sticking to the company’s strategy gave me the opportunity to increase my level of influence within the organization. When employees execute the company's strategy at a high level, leadership pays attention. With this attention, employees can gain greater access which they can leverage to influence future strategic initiatives. It is a big counter intuitive, but the best way to fight against a strategy you disagree with is to execute it at a high level, and then to provide feedback on how it could be improved. This is because leaders tend to care more about facts than feelings. When employees say they feel that something might not work, there is always room for leadership say they are wrong. When an employee can present facts that a strategy does not work, they are in a better place to champion for change. One key call out here is that employees must execute the strategy to the best of their ability. Halfhearted execution will not give you the creditability needed to influence leadership.

The purpose of an organization is to bring a group of people together to accomplish a shared goal. There are multiple paths to accomplish any goal. Organizations function best when there is alignment around their strategies. The higher you are within an organization, the more influence you have on the organization's strategy. During the early stages of employee's careers, it is important to help them to understand that their primary role within the organization is to execute the task that they are asked to do, and to provide feedback

on what they learned from executing those tasks. As they move up the career ladder, and prove their ability to execute, they will gain more influence on the overall strategy. Over the course of this journey, they will learn how important it is as to a leader to have employees that they can trust to execute strategies. They will learn about the burden of leadership. How no one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, and that good intentions sometimes lead to bad result. When results are weak, it is a lot easier to learn, grow and course correct if there is clarity on what is causing the poor performance. Employee adherence to executing a company's strategy helps leaders to have clarity. With this clarity, leaders are better positioned to execute their role which is to set direction and ensure that the organization is moving closer to its overall vision.

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