When something in my company goes badly wrong I always ask, “why did we handle this issue in this way?” It’s always the first step in my mind, kind of like a “logic path.” What I like about this question is it gets to the bottom of things quickly. It either “goes south” rapidly or it leads to quickly resolving things.
The veterans on my team warn newer team members early-on that, “When asked ‘why did we handle this issue in the way?” to never respond with “apparently because we’ve always done it this way.” New members to our team are warned that using the status quo as any type of an excuse when things go wrong is not acceptable here. No, that’s a sign of dysfunctional thinking, or even worse, unacceptable group-think.
Our team always assumes that any new team member is both skilled an experienced at solving interesting or complex problems. They assume this because they know the 3 things I’m always looking for when I’m hiring. I look for Hunger, head-smarts and humility.
Many potential team members look “skilled and experienced” on paper, and ‘yes’ should be the initial filter. So yes, I only look at people who appear skilled and experienced on paper. But when we sit down, my mission is to see if any 1 of the 3 things I’m seeking might be missing or insufficiently low.
Hunger means a person is willing to make the effort to achieve the goals of our team. My responsibility is to explain our team’s objectives in a clear, concise, coherent way. If you can’t do that, then tighten that up first. I’m looking for people to join us who “light up” when they hear the outcomes we’re working to accomplish, and their language makes it clear they’re willing to bring their “A Game.”
Head-smarts in my mind means the candidate has the intelligence and experience required to think creatively about how we can accelerate progress to the goals we’ve set as a team. I work hard to eliminate people who “go along to get along.” I recognize the value, and brilliance, in thinking differently, but in a way that’s collegial within a team effort.
Finally, I look for humility. Someone who’s not trying to grab credit, or shift blame. Just the opposite, I look for people who can lead and develop others on our team. I look for talented people who are happy when others succeed, and consistently helps the team stretch and grow. This type of person is a “class act” and everyone produces more because of them.
Tell me how you feel about the following team culture instead? When something goes wrong, and we accept that things will occasionally go “off the rails” even on well-planned teams, the response to my initial question is, “We unfortunately don’t have a process for this precise situation, so it went bad. However, I’ll interview everyone involved and will create one by the end of the day so this will never happen again.”
How does that feel, as compared with, “We’ve always done it this way?” Instead, ask your team to think, “what would resolve this?”
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