Finding The Right Fit

If you are trying to find the right candidate to occupy a role, you need to establish what qualities top performers in that role typically have. For example, if you want to determine what behaviours you should be looking for among candidates for a sales position, you should collect data on what behaviours and abilities your top performers in sales have. Are they decisive? Extroverted? Patient? By gathering data, you can then work backward and see how candidates may measure up to the ideal qualities of top performers in your organization.

When considering how an employee will fit with your organization, there are four areas that need focus:

1. Fit to the role
2. Fit with the manager
3. Fit with the team
4. Fit wit the work culture
   
   

Each aspect is essential in developing productivity from a new hire. But I want to briefly dive into what we can learn from making sure that team members are the right fit for each other. Much of the work that I do with clients is focussed on helping leadership manage the variety of skills, abilities, and behaviours among employees. No two employees have the same behavioural qualities, but there are certainly similarities and styles that collaborate better than others, and this is the point. Recognizing this process is where leadership must exercise a sense of awareness.

Teams must understand the differences amongst themselves because conflicting personalities among individuals can sometimes lead to feelings of intimidation or alienation. When this happens, teams will not produce optimal results. The point is not to vilify one personality and praise another. Instead, managers should accept that there are natural differences in people and that these differences are suited for specific tasks within any organization. Recognizing these differences will allow you to identify blind spots within your organization and work towards better managing the differences among those working for you.

Forget the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule would have you treat others as you would like to be treated, but such a formality is irrelevant to management. In fact, it is ineffective in managing. Instead, managers should focus on how employees need to be treated. We know that employees all have different abilities, all of which are capable of contributing to productivity, so consider how you can harness the strengths of each employee and help drive their long-term success.

Management is not easy. It involves hard work and dedication to every aspect of the employee life-cycle from recruitment to post-hire. And part of that engagement with employees requires understanding
what drives them, how they behave, and how they fit with others. Skills can be learned. But abilities are more complicated than that, and they should be understood better by those who hire and guide employees to success.

To learn more about how you can find the recruit that will benefit you most, and how you can manage teams to meet high-levels of productivity, get a copy of my new book Talent Optimizer. In it, I take you through how you can implement essential recruitment tools that will find you talented professionals who produce the results you need.