Hidden Potential

Hidden potential

[In this article, I will focus on presenting my perspective on how unveiling hidden potential can be a game changer for an organization to thrive and achieve excellence. Given the nature of this topic, the text will be somewhat long. However, it is not my intention to justify the regards made in every single paragraph; they serve as complementary thoughts to help building up the main topic, like a side note. Hope you find value in the following remarks.]

The belief that one is a depository and replicator of information has been around for a long time and is yet to be deconstructed in many of us. Contrary to common belief, we are not like computers where programs can be installed as one pleases. In my opinion, each and everyone of us is innately designed to have predominant types of intelligence and it is the unique combination of one’s specific features that defines the potential on which one will produce optimally and experience the sensation of flow (we can also consider it a certain type of happiness or a sense of deep satisfaction). If you don’t believe it, observe how children spontaneously do things they never had the opportunity to learn from their specific surrounding environment; or, preferably, remember how doing certain things came naturally to you as a child yourself.

Historically, however, we have not built societies that had as their priority and goal positioning people in tasks that suit their innate design (we can name it vocation or calling) - most of the times, people were forced to become professionals in fields they were not talented at or had no calling for. They were given no other chance but to learn from their parents and follow their trade or, if given the chance to gain some social mobility, they generally aimed at doing things that would bring them some sort of financial advantage and material resources. There were, of course, exceptions to this, but these exceptions could never form a vigorous trend that would lead to a change of paradigm.

When the public schooling system (that has, approximately, 200 years and lasts till today as the main educational paradigm) was added to this equation, this reality began transforming itself - let us not forget that its dissemination was gradual and different from country to country, and that a country’s industrialization level was very relevant to this as well. Though a transformation that allowed big social mobility opportunities in some societies, it did not bring the decisive change required to help each and every one of us achieve our own true potential. Much on the contrary, we notice that its effects are very damaging to the human nature, distorting the process of self-discovery and self-awareness by means of the imposition of a very one-sided indoctrinatory approach that leaves no space for the individual’s innate design to choose the path that best befits its nature. Studies show (and I believe we can all give individual testimony on what our personal relationship with this system was) that such an approach kills curiosity and hinders the will to experiment to a large extent. There are and will always be those who “survive” this system, but one cannot deny that when submitted to humanized paradigms of schooling (which are very rare but do exist) people, very naturally, blossom early on and without needing more than average material conditions, revealing extraordinary performances that owe nothing to the geniuses of the Renaissance. This happens because the natural and innate design of these individuals is respected, nurtured and incentivized without attempts of distortion, making their talents flow freely and coming to fruition without demotivating them. It does not mean that the people that go through the most widespread schooling paradigm “lose” their innate design or potential; it means that it is kept dormant, though always possible to be awaken if it happens to match a certain dynamic that resounds with such innate design. Whenever it happens it comes out naturally, just not as matured as it could be had one had been given a chance to do it for longer in the past. That path can always be pursued, so don’t give up!

But why is this important at all? For the simple reason that when people’s innate design fits the type of intelligence required by a certain job, they naturally light up and embody it effortlessly. One is inundated with immense joy and the fulfillment felt by striking the right strings of one’s purpose fills the individual with a surplus of energy and motivation that boosts one’s productivity. And to have such people as workers is gold for any organization, not only for the service they provide but because it becomes contagious. Of course excellence doesn’t happen overnight. People need to gain momentum in order to achieve it, and that happens when they also accumulate practical experience with the tasks themselves. The difference between people who fit naturally and those who don’t is that their growth is exponential, quick and solid, because they are just adding “construction material” to a blueprint that matches ideally that same material. On the opposite of this, people that may not be talented in the fields they build careers in, often hit an average performance plateau early on their path. Even with complementary efforts, like enrolling in courses and getting diplomas, they will never become excellent in what they do, simply because their innate design (that would achieve excellence in a profession that matched it) won’t allow them to transcend in that field they are forcing it upon. Normally, these people tend to learn routines that allow them to solve their tasks in a way that is enough to “survive” the expectations without significant leaps in their performance, being good enough not to be fired but never excellent - which means that the organizations who have them as workers will be at the same level in the sectors they are keeping them as workers.

When put together these ingredients - the how we, generally, have been perceiving people and their potential, how society has been educated and engineered, etc. - and let them “ferment”, the result is a society that twists things to an extent that detours people from finding the path to professional fulfillment and incentivizes extremely harmful trade-offs in search for money, lifestyle, acceptance, sexiness, etc. This creates a resistance state in the individual and one can never expect inspired outcomes from such a scenario, leading, instead, to self-destructiveness like, for example, burnout. Many times, burnout derives from one forcing oneself to perform well at things one is not naturally designed to perform well at. There are, of course, other factors of overwhelm that can lead to burnout or depression, even in individuals that befit very well a certain work dynamic, such as too many working hours and not having enough time or energy left for the other essential dimensions of life (family, friends, romantic life, hobbies, etc.), creating unmanageable stress and imbalances; but I would say that the majority of cases of such unfortunate states of self-destructiveness are due to the mismatching between the type of work one does and one’s innate design. ? ?

Without understanding how these variables are so misaligned - and normalized in its misalignment, which makes it worse - one cannot avoid but perpetuating the most common mistake that almost all organizations do, which is recruiting according to the wrong criteria. How does this happen? Typically, the selection and hiring process is led by the owner of the company or by the HR department. And what normally happens is a simplistic two-phase selection method: first the candidates are evaluated by their CV and then, from those selected, led through an interview. If conducted in this manner, both approaches tend to a heavily biased outcome and won’t tell you much about someone’s innate design. At best, they will tell you a little about professional history and provide you with the persona the interviewee decides to present - let us not forget to mention that a CV is a document written by the candidate himself, where he can substantially lie about his work experience and expect the person that is reading it to take his/her word for it, which normally happens. But even assuming he is not lying, a candidate’s professional history may tell you he was in certain places, doing certain types of tasks, for a certain period of time. It says nothing about how talented they are at performing them, even when they have recommendation letters or certificates - who could have been obtained in a very unethical way, like having been written by an employer with whom the candidate had a close personal relationship, or was a result of a personal favor, like the candidate having had the work experience in a company owned or ran by a very close friend or important client of the candidate’s family. I know so many personal stories of people with wonderful CVs in a given field that had never achieved an inspired flow state during their working years. And when I got to know them better, the backstory that explained why they pursued that field was manifold but almost never because they befitted it in the first place, but because “life pushed them to that job” and it was never reasonable to risk a change because of family, financial security or other commonly fundamental reasons. There are so many doctors that pursued medicine due to “family lineage” (“granddad was a doctor, mom and dad were doctors, I had to become a doctor”); so many people with desk jobs that took those jobs because “it paid well back in the day” and had children to feed and so happened to live in a time where there was a shortage of people in the sector so they were promoted not for being outstanding but because there was no one else to promote; so many people that work in jobs that people in geral don’t want because of external factors like hading to become emigrants, refugees or were born in very complicated contexts where there was no opportunity to progress and develop their talents; so many corporate leaders that were given no choice but to take over the family business or had the right connections that opened the right doors (many times, with innate profiles other than those of inspiring leaders) and it just snowballed into accumulating work experiences in very well-reputed work places, which in turn translated into being promoted to the top, like a self-fulfilling prophecy; so many people that chose certain work fields when they were adrift during their teens without a clue about who they were and just followed the family’s or friends’ advice, never changing route later on in life so they wouldn’t “throw away all the progress made so far.” And the list goes on and on.

So, in a way, this approach based on CV face value or professional history may mostly be elusive and tends to increase the probability of missing extraordinary hires, as well as fostering mediocrity, by funneling according to misleading criteria, which ends up in a dynamic where CV generates opportunity and opportunity generates CV, resulting, logically, in CV generating CV, and talent, possibly, not making part of the equation.

The interview phase is, normally, not used in a better way either. In my opinion, it is where most biases surface and influence the final decision more significantly. Several experiments conducted in the field of psychology have pointed out how impartiality is, commonly, an illusion during a traditionally-led interview. An interviewer may easily fall into the trap of letting his/her personal sympathy or antipathy for the interviewee interfere with the selection process, leading rationality to turn off and more subconscious filters to turn on - this happens in the first few seconds of interaction, be it in person or online. It can happen in many ways, like simply considering the other person’s vibe appealing; or by projecting a familiarity dynamic on the interviewee - for example, when the interviewer sees his/her features reflected in some way on the interviewee, both currently or when he/she was younger, or remembering them of some relative, possibly their young/adult sons, daughters, nephews, etc.; or even by finding the interviewee sexually attractive, letting the desire to have that person around (maybe, who knows, with intentions of getting “closer”) take the lead of the selection process, among other possible scenarios. Despite having in consideration all these possibilities of misleading information, the personal impressions made by the interviewer are one of the most determinant aspects of the hiring criteria. In my experience, it comes from the need to be seen as someone whose instincts are so naturally attuned for detection that the recruiter comes across as a refined intuitive machine of selection, resulting in the vain exacerbation of their pride and ego. When you combine the above described CV evaluation practice with the latter delusion-based impression as result of subconsciously biased malpractice by the interviewer, you get a perfect storm of randomness - which, spoiler alert, will not make excellence possible.

At this point, you may be asking what is the alternative? My short answer regarding the selection process is: add better filters to the process, use profiling and dig deeper. Every person will validate different tools according to their beliefs. Personally, some of the filters I use envolve handwriting analysis, body language and physiognomy analysis, personality tests and other less orthodox methods that allow me to create an in-depth profile of the candidate. Having this information, I can build the first layers of a candidate’s profile. I use CV analysis and the interview to build the candidate’s profile as well but in a very different way from its traditional form. Though certain organizations try to have multiple interviews with their best candidates (normally for top positions, not so much for lower ones) and try to run them through different interviewers, the absolute most common practice is to have only one direct contact with the interviewee before deciding. In my case, I meet twice: the first time to ask the person to let me run the tests I mentioned above and a second time for a very thoroughly customized inquiry and conversation adjusted to that specific candidate. These questions are never standardized and my advice is to never run them in that manner, because they will show you are not invested enough and so people tend to, subconsciously, answer with the same level of consideration. And this will lead you to being misled or kept in the dark. To make people engage truthfully and drop the mask is mainly in your control as an interviewer, so if it doesn’t go right most likely the fault is yours. [As a side note, I run a more exhaustive investigation if the candidate is applying for a leadership position but in general my profiling process is quite comprehensive for lower-ranking positions as well.]

Notwithstanding being a major step towards improving an organization’s hiring policy, this approach won’t be fulfilling its utmost positive effects if not applied internally to the current staff as well. The right answer is not always hiring for new job positions from outside of the organization. Even when all job positions are filled and the performance is reasonable, one loses immensely from just expanding the operation by hiring new workers for next-level expansion positions without first investing in knowing the potential and inner design of the already in-house staff and rearranging it before growing bigger in team size. Not doing so, tends to lead to hitting a performance plateau in the core team, which, in time, may bring stagnation and mediocrity to the culture and final product.

In the same way, to promote a worker based on wrong criteria - such as seniority, for example - is, commonly, very damaging, because it doesn’t implicate a profile based approach to the people that are being promoted, leading to not evaluating in advance if they are a good fit for the new position or not. There is a very widespread and wrong assumption that someone who is a good accountant, for example, being the most senior in the accounting team, is the natural choice for leading that same team. Job position specialization plus being the most senior, professionally, in the team does not equal ability to lead well; the natural profile to lead plus enough maturity gathered from work experience does. Another wrong criterion is “politics” - which is another word for power principle and influence games - because people with greater levels of psychopathy and “social game” are generally the ones thriving promotion-wise, turning the work culture into a minefield environment that very good workers don’t want to be part with, incentivizing them to leave by their own foot, and, thus, putting excellence out of the equation for that organization. To not safeguard these dangerous possibilities, will have very profound mid to long term consequences. [If you read my former article, you can take the case of the “inspired climber” as reference, as such individuals are naturally attuned with the environment that this positioning tends to create.]

If an organization is expanding, it is essential to optimize the current organizational structure before anything else, so the process towards excellence does not get compromised. The root cause of this damaging deception is exactly this: to take “operational” for “the best possible version”. And if it so happens that most organizations aren’t doing this mistake, I would be surprised, given what I have seen to this day and comments made by workers in general. It comes to me as very unrealistic to expect excellence if the mindset is one where we let the eagerness of growing in size take over, just because things are operational enough to generate profit. There is no organization that being operational produces nothing - it will always produce something. The key question is to what level of quality is it producing - and, consequently, what place does it want to take in the field they belong to, compared to their competitors. There is an absurd difference between producing the minimum, the average, something above the competition, something extraordinary or something excellent - and it has a lot to do with optimization. Optimization and excellence must not be understood as the implementation of very unfortunate and common practices such as controlling people, demanding formally or pushing the workers in a stressful way - these are tools of desperation that contribute solely to ruining work culture and to make organizations implode. I am saying this because being strictly rational, heartless, machine-like and a harsh disciplinarian are indirect synonyms of optimization and excellence in the heads of many owners and directors/CEOs. And such idea couldn’t be farther from the truth - in fact, it will tear any organization apart.

If an organization wants to achieve excellence, it has to discover what kind of culture suits them best and then select people that not only fit that culture but are also innately talented at the tasks that make the organization excel. Knowing in depth who is already part of the organization is fundamental to place people correctly from the very beginning, which will make things way easier and save a lot of time, energy and resources by not causing a problem that would need intervention in the future, if one lets it snowball.

Many times - and I have witnessed this myself - the key people for the essential positions whose influence will lead to achieving excellence are already in the organization, they are just doing something they shouldn’t be doing and no one even considers them for the job, because they have no idea what is their innate design and potential. It is essential to invest in developing the skills of the people that are already working in the organization that have the potential to contribute in ways other than they are contributing at the moment. Knowing people in their core, one can approach them appropriately to support their process of development in parallel and accordingly to the goals of the organization. It is not advisable to provide standard tuition (like college degrees and whatever studies program that doesn’t fit the specificities required by their role in the organization), because it has no return to the organization in the actual performance of the worker. The development programs should ideally be created and provided by the organization itself, whether paying a worker already working there that suits the right profile and skills, or hiring someone temporarily from outside to provide that service. A very important aspect to bear in mind when designing the approach to worker’s development is understanding what kind of mistakes to avoid. The most common one may be believing that the traditional way of just passing information is all it takes to achieve development and adding the desired outcome to the organization; if done in this manner, it will be inefficient and the organization will be throwing away time and money. In order to be successful, the approach provided to the worker has to be based on what kind of dominant intelligence(s) he/she has. If profiling is already done, asking a short list of key questions will give the final details to design an adequate approach.

Despite everything that has been referred so far, the vast majority of organizations insist on a traditional approach, perpetuating very harmful actions towards themselves.

There are, of course, some examples of very good practices and also lucky shots. But till organizations acknowledge and accept that typical HR approach and intuition won’t suffice to make the difference, both workers and the organizations will lose…and lose big. The effective costs of bad hires and their consequences in the work culture of an organization are tremendous. It would be wiser to bring in professionals that understand how human nature works and can see through the surface of one’s character.

Thank you for reading, hope this article was useful to you. See you next time.