Is Your Company Recruiting Football Players Or Basketball Players??

Legacy. Life. Lessons:? Navigating 50 Years of Experiences

Emma looked fantastic on paper, just the person we needed.? I felt very lucky to get her on our Team.? Her technical skills and 10+ years of experience seemed top-notch.? She seemed to have ?effectively managed teams of people and her personality had shone brightly during three interview visits with partners, management, and staff.? Everyone liked her.? Emma had all the right answers around development of staff, managing clients and bringing in business.? We had a team-first, high-touch client service culture and she seemed to share our values.? But on this cold, dreary winter morning, I was in my office depressingly rehearsing how I was going to fire her.? She had been with us only nine months.? Why had it come to this?? How could I have been so wrong?

It seemed that since her first day, there had been nothing but turmoil in the office. ?She was dissatisfied with her assigned office, protesting that it wasn’t big enough. She found her client assignments not important enough for her.? She gossiped about members of our Team: A no-no in our culture.? She continually complained that our client service was poor and staff work shabby. While we prided ourselves on being open to review of our procedures and new ideas, nothing seemed to calm her, at times, withering criticism.? She disrupted staff meetings by interrupting presentations of staff, criticizing their thoughts and ideas.? She was abrupt, unempathetic and condescending to co-workers, even dressing down one of her team members for poor work, in front of the client!? We had complaints of bullying from staff.? Important business functions which meant new work for the company were ignored by her.? Emma’s great personality during the interview process seemed to have vanished.? Every day seemed to bring a new issue which took hours to address.? When these issues were discussed with her, she angrily denied them or simply blamed others. Team morale suffered. No one wanted to work with her.????????????????????????????????????????????

A Basketball Player On A Football Team

Years earlier, a team building coach we worked with, Dr. Sharon Tiger (@Sharon Tiger ed.d), had once told me that sometimes companies hire basketball players when they should be looking for football players.? They obviously do not belong on the same team.? While both participate in a team sport, all similarities end there.? Football is a contact sport where every play brings ?expected violent collisions between players. Basketball is a non-contact sport.? Yes, there can be brutal contact in basketball, at times, but it is not planned every play of the game.? The balls are different, the playing surfaces differ, lengths of the game are not the same, one is played in an open stadium subject to changes in weather and one is enclosed in a stable environment arena. There are certainly different rules among many other contrasts.?

Imagine, she said, lining up a football team, with a couple of ?basketball players on the field, behind the ball at the line of scrimmage in a game.? The quarterback barks out the signals, the center snaps the ball, the quarterback pulls back and quickly hands it off to …the basketball forward??? And then what?? Chaos, a busted play, turmoil on the field and possibly an injury.? Certainly, there is no winning this game.? Is this what you want when your company is calling “plays” for clients every day?? No.? Basketball players belong on basketball teams and football players belong on football teams.? They just don’t fit “playing” the game together.? Accordingly, if you choose the wrong player for your team, it won’t work out for you either.?

When You Hire The Wrong Player

This does not mean that the “basketball player” you hired is a worthless person.? Emma still seemed to have great technical skills and experience, though there seemed to be a problem with meeting work deadlines, at times. ?But importantly, she did not demonstrate the values of our culture: Respect for team all the time, empathy, no gossiping, no bullying and when dealing with co-workers, giving them “compliments in public, criticism in private.”? There seemed to be a lack of maturity when these and other issues were discussed with her.? She refused to accept any responsibility. In many meetings she had with an assigned mentor or with me, there seemed no way to change her attitude.? In the end, I could see that I just simply made the wrong choice.? She? was just on the wrong team.

Dealing With Hiring The Wrong Player

I use to accommodate them, probably too long, hoping they would eventually fit in. Also, I dreaded the termination conversation, much like a coach who hesitates to drop a player from the team. I felt sorry for them or maybe I just did not want to admit I made a mistake. I came to realize that replacing people who are not a good fit as soon as possible is not only beneficial for the company's team but for them too! By being honest and open with them and parting ways, this will allow them find a place where they might truly excel and where their skills would be in sync with that team's dynamics.? It may sound odd, but I wound up with the attitude that I was doing them a favor.

What I Learned

Over the years, I also hired a lot of good people. But I hired enough “basketball” players to finally ending up learning some lessons:

1.???? Have a strong recruiting and interview process to weed out the wrong players

a.???? Revisit the process at least annually and make changes when needed.? After all, it is a continual learning process;

b.???? Ensure they know the culture and fit before receiving an offer.

2.???? Establish a probationary period with all new hires:

a.???? Evaluate them honestly at the end of the probation and make sure:

???????????????? i.???? They are a fit for the company culture;

????????????????ii.???? They welcome feedback;

???????????????iii.???? The Team continues to welcome them.

3.???? If they do not fit, terminate them immediately.

4.???? Repeat cycle.

A business is never going to hire all the right people all the time.? How about your Team?? Do you have players who really don’t belong and maybe might thrive on some other Team?? How and when are you going to start assessing this? While the Philadelphia Eagles (my team!) are soaring now, there were many lean years too.? Finally new management took over the team.? They replaced players and kept on doing it until they had the team, the culture they wanted. And the management, like all good management, replaces players every year, finding the best they can.? They know it is a continual process. Make it your continual process. You want players that are aligned with the culture and work style of your company. Have players that feel proud and happy to be part of your Team.? Like with any sports team, achieving this will lead to outstanding performance and success and become what I call a “Championship” Team.? Now play ball!?