Finding the Right Match

In my experience, finding the right match is a combination of skills and value alignment. We erroneously spend most of the interview and recruiting process trying to find the right skill set and not enough time trying to find the right value set.

Values are a critical piece of the right employee. Most of the people I have had to be a part of letting go are people whose values didn’t align with ours – not their skill set. They could do the job but either they didn’t (didn’t possess the value of hard work), or did something else that detracted from their work (dishonesty, harassment, etc.).

No matter how good the work product, if their values don’t align with the company's, the net product is a bad product. How so? How is it that a wonderful seller who exceeds their numbers every month can actually destroy a department or company? If they hit their numbers but simultaneously cause a decrease in productivity in their co-workers, the net result is all the numbers are lower. Also, if their integrity is low, the service side of the business will spend the next year trying to fix the lies they told your new customer just so they could get their sale. Imagine a manager who is great technically but can't treat his staff with respect - the net result is higher turnover, lower productivity and a staff who may hide things from their boss in order to not be treated poorly. These are just three examples of a very real problem.

Value alignment must become a more critical piece of the recruiting process. It also must become a central piece of the business. If the business is to succeed, then recruit people with your company’s values and then live by them.