The three key ingredients to a good hire - Part 1

Have you or your HR manager ever hired someone who looked like the perfect candidate? They had the background and the experience, and they dressed the part. Everything looked good. Until it didn't. Then they left, or you had to tell them it wouldn't work out.

Unfortunately, this is a recurrent issue that plagues hiring managers and MDs/CEOs - it is expensive and it frustrates the company and the employee that didn't work out.

To solve this common issue, I believe there are three essential ingredients to help you hire well. This week, we will focus on the first: cultural fit.

Cultural Fit

Your organisation has its values, whether implicitly or explicitly, and they must have real consequences for how you run your business. Hiring people who align with your values is crucial!

If you believe your company already has a clear set of values, I would do two things to double-check them. First, I would ask a few people in the company what they think their two or three core values are. Second, I would ensure the values are truly?core, even if everyone is already aligned around them.

I find Patrick Lencioni's explanation of values and distinguishing between core values and other types:

• Permission-to-play: these are the values that everyone expects you to have. Typical examples are honesty and integrity. You shouldn't have to say that your company has honesty and integrity - it is already expected.
• Accidental: these are the values that come about almost by accident. For example, you might find that everyone in your organisation are of a certain age or have particular likes in common, but this doesn't necessarily mean it's an intentional value.
• Aspirational: these are the values you aspire to as an organisation but which you don't already already have. This distinction is one of the most important we can make! People become cynical when you don't live by your values. If you call the aspirational type for what they are - something you want to work on as a company - people will forgive you more readily for not living them out.?
• Core: these are the values that most people in your company showcase; one of my clients came up with "team spirit" as one of their core values. When you walk into their company and spend time with the staff, you just know it's true.

So, what does discovering your core values and distinguishing them from others have to do with hiring good people? Well, everything! If you can find creative ways to test people you are interviewing to see if they live out the same?core?values, it will go a long way to make sure you hire people that fit your core values and reinforce them in your company.

Alan Lewis, an entrepreneur who in 1985 acquired?Grand Circle Travel, a travel company that targets Americans 50 and up, came up with a very creative way of hiring according to their core values of open and courageous communication, risk-taking, thriving in change, and others. Part of the interview involves group exercises where people must work as a team to solve a problem or complete a task. As the candidates go through the exercise, the interviewers intentionally look for the candidates who exhibit those values.

If you hire people who espouse the same values as your company, they will feel like they belong. On the other hand, City of London Economic Research found that 98% of people would not work for a company they did not share values with. They will find out sooner or later, so you might as well be upfront, even if you feel?