Hire an Optimist and Make Your Team More Successful!
Hank Boyer
Executive Coaching | Strategic Planning | Leadership | EQ | Engagement & Retention | B2B & B2C Sales | Assessments | DISC | Hiring/Onboarding | Career Coach | Talent Development | Management Training | Behavioral Science
A new study shows why optimists do better over the course of their careers, make more money and are more likely to be promoted.?How do you find them and hire them, and how do you become more optimistic yourself?
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This is the second of a two-part series.?In Part 1 we uncovered the habits that help us become more optimistic and enjoy greater career success.?In Part 2 we’ll explore how to recruit and hire optimists and build more successful teams.
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You gotta love Dilbert!? Nobody captures a caricature of corporate culture like Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. If you identified with the cartoon above in your own work experience you realize that teams with optimists are a lot more fun to work on and seem destines to accomplish great things.
“When you’re hiring, make sure to hire optimists,” Frank Kalinoski told me in 1977.?Frank was my boss and in charge of the Harrisburg PA district where I served as one of his managers.?It made sense, so I followed his advice and was rewarded amply by working with some fantastic people who taught me the best practices of hiring
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In Part 1 I cited an outstanding Harvard Business Review article by Michelle Gielan entitled The Financial Upside of Being an Optimist.?It’s well worth the read!?According to her research and the research she cites, there’s proof that optimists are better people to hire, compared to their non-optimistic peers:
Why it Pays to Be an Optimist
People in the top quartile of optimism are:
Optimists outperform their peers during their job search
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If Optimists Make Better Hires, How Can I Identify One When Interviewing?
When an 8 ounce glass has exactly 4 ounces of water in it, some people see the glass half-full while others see it as half-empty. That’s the difference between optimists and pessimists. Optimists first notice the positive side of something while non-optimists first see the negative side of the same thing.?
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If you ask someone if he or she is an optimist, what do you expect to hear, “No, I’m a terminal pessimist in search of my next disaster?”?Of course not!?Even the pessimists among us will represent themselves as optimists in order to sell themselves, especially in a job interview.
In order to figure out who among applicants for a particular opening is and is not an optimist, you’ll need to develop a set of behavioral interview questions
Brilliant Hiring Interview Question One: "Tell me about the kind of people with whom you work - what are they like?" ?Ask this open-ended question in a neutral tone of voice with a neutral expression on your face so you don’t tip the candidate on how to answer. Optimists tend to describe people in generally positive terms, while pessimists more often focus first on negatives before describing any positives.?
Brilliant Hiring Interview Question Two: "Reading the press about today’s employers, you tend to see some employers have negative cultures.?What have you found to be true in the employers for whom you have worked?"???The way this question is asked allows the candidate to express his/her true feelings.?Optimists will focus on the positives, or how they took advantage of their opportunities, while pessimists may agree with the “negative culture” premise and provide examples of negative cultures in which they worked.
Brilliant Hiring Interview Question Three: "Who was the supervisor who challenged you the most professionally? Give me three examples of how this supervisor specifically challenged you, how you felt, and how you responded."??Optimists tend to tell you about the positive impact challenging supervisors
Brilliant Hiring Interview Question Four: With a list of the candidate’s employers at hand, ask: "As I give you each employer or supervisor’s name, give me three to five descriptors - words or phrases - that immediately spring to mind about that employer or boss."?Optimists will tend to offer more positive or complimentary descriptors while non-optimists will be neutral or negative.?Watch for the level of conviction and enthusiasm (or lack) they use when they share the list of descriptors. ?
Brilliant Hiring Interview Question Five: "Tell me about the specific goals you are working on right now and give me your top three, why you chose them, and what accomplishing them will do for you." ?I love this question because you’ll hear whether or not the candidate believes he or she can make a difference (a trait of an optimist).?Listen to their rationale – do the answers show intentionality, resolve, and discipline??Watch their body language – do they get energized by their answers, or do they seem defeated??And beware the candidate who struggles with this question!
The candidate’s answers to other questions you ask will also give you a sense about their optimism. Here are some additional best practices to find the optimists:
Of course, optimists want to work for optimists.?That’s why you might want to re-read Part 1 of this post and take one of the suggested positive steps towards becoming more of an optimist.
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Bottom Line.?Optimists make better candidates for hire, are more engaged at work, and perform better over time.?If you have positions to fill, hire an optimist!
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I love working with people and organizations who want to improve their effectiveness!?Here are several outstanding resources that can help you and your organization to go to the next level:
About me: For the past 25 years I’ve worked with some of the world’s top employers by helping them get the most out of their talented people. My company's extensive?leadership development course catalog provides effective skills-building for everyone in the organization, from the new / developing leader to the seasoned C-level executive.?My company's coaching programs produce significant results in compressed periods of time.?I also help job seekers, higher ed, and employment services connect people to better jobs faster.?My company's acclaimed career development tools help people navigate the ever-changing landscape of conducting a successful job search.?To find out more, please visit us at?www.boyermanagement.com, email us at [email protected], or call us at 215-942-0982.?