Culture Hacker

3SelectionThe Right Fit over a Warm Body

Many companies don't have an engagement issue; they have a hiring issue.

—Bob Kelleher, thought leader¹

For the health of your organization and sanity of your people it is critical to select new people into your organization that are a cultural fit just as much as they are a job fit.

It's time to talk about selection. One of the most important roles a leader has is selecting the right people to be a part of the team. Although his work is controversial, a quote from Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli is appropriate to mention here: “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”² This is a powerful idea for any manager: how would you be judged if I looked at the people you hired?

We all know that selecting the right person is important. Plenty of research suggests that hiring the wrong person will result in lost productivity, increased turnover, and increasingly disengaged staff. Most important, merely putting a warm body in front of your customers will harm your reputation and brand very quickly. It will also frustrate every single one of your current employees who have to deal with the wrong person. The dispositions of the people you hire says a lot about what you think about your other staff members and yourself. Yet many managers focus on getting someone to fill a role as quickly as possible without any consideration for the person's cultural fit.

And that is often the situation ...