INSIDE YOUR COMPANY’S DNA IS YOUR GUIDE TO SUCCESS
Companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Archer Daniels Midland often make rounds on social media for having a highly engaged workforce and policies that routinely propel them to the top of the “best of” lists. They both are multinational food and beverage companies but turns out they have more in common than just that. They know their company's DNA in and out. Yes, a company’s Deoxyribonucleic acid - a phenomenal macromolecular molecule complex that repelled most of us out of our science classes. What do I mean when I say that a company has, like any other living organism, a DNA of its own?
COMPANY-EMPLOYEE MISMATCH: AN ISSUE OF TISSUE REJECTION?
What you add to your organization permeates outwards – your business becomes a wave that inhabits your vision, mission, and values which you forged so carefully into its core. The wave soon develops into flecks of human-like DNA, as a colleague of mine so eloquently put it, that becomes intrinsic to the organization. Your company becomes very much like a complex, demanding, self-producing, living entity. Give it a pair of mismatched employees - and as a living body reacts to mismatched tissues - it would underperform its peers in the metrics that are relevant to the particular industry; it would begin draining cash.?
IT’S NOT JUST JOB FIT, IT’S JOB FIT AND DNA COMPETENCIES
Now that I have ‘scienced’ you enough, let's put it terms that are less Bill Nye: Your organization has an inherent DNA and for it to work optimally, the employees you bring to it must have a complementary DNA. Hiring executives and Talent Acquisition teams so often misplace their focus on a vague sense of job fit, because the phenomenon has been so often cited in business journals, that they forget to focus on natural competencies and DNA - underlying personality traits,? reaction to challenges, attitude towards the job -? of the employees they recruit.?
VALUE-SET TO LOOK FOR?
Each company’s DNA is forged in the crucible of its needs and potential, therefore; it varies from company to company. You must be in tune with what YOUR company demands from its employees. Without knowing your company through and through, one can not enlist the personality traits you must look for when hiring, but to help you get started on deciphering your company’s core values based on its unique DNA, I have taken value-sets from the likes of Anheuser-Busch InBev and? Archer Daniels Midland in food manufacturing markets. Meta-analytic studies prove that most of these are personality attributes that are consistent with all the top performers across all the industries: ?
Courage, Conscientiousness, Resilience, Perseverance, and Excellence. These are the big fives of a gritty, A-player personality. Top players' courage shows in their ability to manage the fear of failure, in their ability to learn valuable lessons from downfalls. They are conscientious, painstakingly careful, and meticulous. They are perseverant and exert endlessly towards their goals. The A-players your company needs are resilient: a dynamic combination of confidence, optimism, and creativity. They don’t seek perfection, they strive for excellence.?
Generally, top players which can potentially complement your company’s core genetics are independent decision-makers. They make decisions by generating an array of possible solutions, evaluating the pros and cons and financial implications of a proposed solution, implementing the best option available, assess the impact of the decision, and modify it as per the need. This does not mean that they do not believe in a consensus-based approach when making important decisions.?
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They are willing to do whatever is necessary to get the goal accomplished; they would take on more responsibilities if need be. They quickly adapt to new circumstances which arise internally in the organization, locally in their part of the world, or around the world, globally. They try to remedy their current practices according to the status quo instead of carrying on with what is outmoded.?
Generally, intellectually curious candidates would match your organization's value-set. Their intellectual hunger fuels self-directed learning, innovation, and process improvement. They go to lengths to seek out knowledge when needed and are likely to come up with innovative answers to problems at hand.?
The star organization players tend to have higher levels of likability which is incredibly important for their career and your organization.? Likability is mainly associated with their high emotional intelligence and people-skills - their power of communication and ability to take everyone on together.?
Motivation can be trained and enhanced at will - that is a bold assertion but just partially true. It is crucial to understand that motivation is in the DNA of a person, it has a strong genetic basis. So it may not be as easy to change the level of your ambition as most people think, hence; it is important to find someone with a stable personality whose motivation towards work is high from the very beginning
YOUR TURN TO DEFINE YOUR COMPANY’S STAR DNA?
In any given organization, only a handful of star players will make a disproportionate contribution to the collective output. One of the most replicated findings in business research states that in most cases, only 20% of the employees are responsible for 80% of the positive output produced by a company. Well, fun fact: this Pareto Effect is realized by those top-players whose DNA aligns perfectly with the DNA of your company. This is why you must, as quickly as possible, start defining your company’s DNA to look for generic value sets mentioned above, specific value sets especially required by your company.?