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300 words.
Reading
time: 1 - 2 minutes.
How
to Avoid the Biggest People Mistake.
by Dov Gordon
Comment on
this issue:
http://ceotp.blogspot.com/
How to Avoid
the Biggest People Mistake.
The biggest
and most unnecessary people mistake in business stems from our tendency
to evaluate a candidate’s ability to handle a new job based on his or
her performance at a previous one.
This practice
is the very antecedent of what we lovingly call The Peter
Principle. And so, we continue to promote people until they
no longer perform.
We forget that
past performance is not indicative of future success.
Nevertheless, past performance is the primary criterion we
consider when hiring or promoting.
Continued
below…
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Praise for Dov
Gordon’s Strategy work:
“...The two
day program Dov Gordon led assisted us in setting certain priorities
and objectives
for the near and mid term future.
“Dov made a
number of significant observations and comments which
assisted us in
achieving our program objectives. We were very pleased with the job he
did and I would look forward to engaging him in the future for
additional assignments...†- Robert Ehrlich,
Chairman/CEO Arotech Corporation
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Continued…
The right
approach is to begin the other way around.
What are the non-negotiable qualities a person must posses in
order to excel at this job?
The criteria
will always be a combination of both skills (knowledge plus experience)
and behaviors. For example, it isn’t enough to know HOW to
give a subordinate painful feedback – the skill – if you fail to do
it.
Doing it is the behavioral factor, the element that
is often ignored.
Dov
Gordon’s CEO Thought-Provoker™ Questions:
1.
Do
you or your HR people arbitrarily define job requirements based on
input rather than the based on the business results you want the
candidate to achieve? For example: “Must have at least
seven
years experience in marketing†when it should be “Can lead a
marketing
team and bring the best out of each team member.â€
2.
Take
out the written job descriptions for three key people in your
organization. Have you defined the three or four
non-negotiable criteria for each position?
3.
Think
back to a time when you hired someone to a position that turned out to
be over their head. Did you a) define the non-negotiable
criteria for the job and b) investigate his behavioral tendencies as
well as his skills?
The Gordon
Group works with
organizations like yours, helping them make the right decisions in the
most important area of all: hiring talented people and
creating an environment and culture where they consistently perform at
their peak. Ask us how we can help you:
dov@gordongroupec.com.
****
You can comment on this and
other CEO Thought-Provokersâ„¢ at our blog:
http://ceotp.blogspot.com/
Archives of The CEO Thought-Provokerâ„¢ are
here:
http://www.gordongroupec.com/articles.html
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Dov
Gordon
helps senior
executives at small and mid-sized companies around the world to earn
the respect and admiration of their marketplace. Clients
benefit from clarifying their strategies, sharpening their focus,
better decision making, improved teamwork and growing into great
leaders.
Management and
Strategy Consulting.
Executive
Coaching.
+++++++++
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may republish and redistribute this article provided that you
include (1) the full article with the attribution at the end, (2) a
link to
www.GordonGroupEC.com
in the attribution and (3) You must notify us before
you use this piece to confirm this
is still available.
Please
email me your
thoughts and feedback.
See our
recommended reading list at:
www.GordonGroupEC.com/books.html
Copyright 2006
© by Dov Gordon. All rights reserved.
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