The Answers are NOT in the back of the book!

I am sure we all can remember grade school Math class where we’d work on problems and then check our solutions with the answers in the back of the book. For the honest people, this was a way to struggle with difficult problems before checking the accuracy of their work. For others, it was a way to find out the answer first and work backward to determine how to arrive at the correct answer. This kind of exercise has merit – it helps us learn problem-solving techniques and allows us to check our results. However, this approach is insufficient and incomplete for the real world. It’s akin to learning how to dribble a basketball with your non-dominant hand in your driveway by yourself. In other words, it’s only one step (in a series of steps) conducted in a controlled environment. The real world is anything but controlled. Most of the problems we face in the business world do not come with the ‘right’ answers. The ‘right’ answer is usually not determined until after the fact. Hindsight is 20/20, right!

From engineers to service technicians to real estate developers to software programmers, over the past 20 years, I have had the opportunity to work with a number of different and unique workforces. The one common challenge across each of these workforces was finding and then developing people who loved struggling with problems that don’t have the solutions in “the back of the book.” There are very bright people, in senior positions in high paying occupations, who are fantastic at executing solutions. However, my experience is there are way fewer people who have the ability and the desire (whether learned or innate) to consistently figure out solutions to problems with unknown ‘right’ answers. 

What does it mean to be someone who thrives on working on problems without having the answers in the back of the book? It means you see barriers as opportunities; you embrace ‘the struggle’ of the problem as much if not more than the result; you are constantly interested (as opposed to being interesting) in understanding without judgment; you are resourceful in overcoming obstacles; and you understand the context or big picture.

Hiring people with initiative, big-picture thinking, and resourcefulness is nothing new or cutting edge. Growing entrepreneurial organizations have for a long time experienced the value of team members with these capabilities. Finding these types of people is the challenge. Can you grow them from within the organization? Are these innate skills? Do certain people have more potential than others? What are the best ways for identifying these skills? What does the environment look like that allows for this type of person to thrive?

I think it safe to say your organization’s environment plays a critical role along with the skills, capabilities, and attributes of the individual. Again, nothing new here to say it’s a combination of nature and nurture. The challenge is how to identify these types of people either in the interviewing process or within your organization. And once identified, how to develop them and tap into their potential. This is the hard part. These are the people driving the success of your organization or team. They are the ones who allow your organization to innovate either through the service they provide customers or the product they help develop to satisfy customers or some combination of both. 

Behavioral interviewing is likely our best tool for trying to identify these people during the interviewing process. Having an open, trusting, communicative environment that appreciates ideas and allows for mistakes will attract and retain these valuable team members. Having managers equipped to identify and coach will be key to development.  

Here at NIMBL, we are still trying to figure out the best way to identify, retain and promote the behaviors associated with actively solving problems without clear answers. It’s a constant struggle mainly because articulating these behaviors using day to day tangible, relevant and contextual examples is difficult. “We know it when we see it” and “the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” apply here. 

What have we done to address this?

·       We have tried to be honest about what it takes to be successful here at NIMBL. A set of values that guide us with tangible examples is provided to all new hires.

·       We conduct behavioral interviews. (Past behavior is one of the best predictors of future behavior.)

·       During interviews we do hands-on real-life demos where we ask candidates to struggle through real problems related to our business.

·       We continuously look for opportunities for on the job training, stretch assignments and mentoring.

·       We put a lot of focus on manager/team member relationships in hopes of building trust.

·       We try and allow and account for mistakes as learning opportunities.

Again, nothing new or earth-shattering. But there isn’t much new or earth-shattering in the field of behavioral science and organizational development. Most concepts have been around a long time – perhaps packaged differently. And most concepts are easily grasped cognitively.  Knowing how best to apply these concepts to your specific domain is much harder. I would like to think we use an iterative process and are constantly looking to improve. I would like to think that we are improving each day in our quest for problems solvers who love the struggle of an ill-defined problem. We probably won’t know if we have been successful until after the fact.