This idea has been on my mind a lot recently.
Why is it that people say they want team members who are creative, innovative, disruptive, will do things differently and then yet, never want to seriously look at bringing those candidates onto the team?
Why do organizations continually seem to make the "safe" choice?
Square pegs for square holes.
Now more than ever, companies are looking for innovation from their employees. Three quarters of CEOs in a recent survey said that innovation was a critical top three priority why hiring; yet they also stated that they don't feel like they are getting it.
Often, this is because they are hiring the wrong people!
If the problem seems so simple to fix (just hire differently), why then do people don't do it?
Recruiters & HR:
What's in it for them?
No honestly, what is in it for the HR partner / manager to speak to enough "outlier" candidates, to be able to understand them, to get where they are coming from and connect the dots on how they could be a huge benefit to the organization?
Often organizations hire either in significant numbers or with a decent cadence, which means that the HR person has multiple different requests they are working on at any given time (different departments, different needs, different levels of urgency). They simply don't have enough time to look at that many candidates to that level of depth.
Secondly, not all HR business partners have specialized knowledge for the roles they are recruiting for ... so sometimes, they literally aren't able to even understand what a unique candidate can bring to the table. This is why as a hiring manager, you are asked to provide a detailed job description, task lists, preferred history, etc.
These are ways to generate a checklist, with a perception that by checking these boxes, they will find the BEST candidate for you (don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that this doesn't work or doesn't have value, "profiling" definitely saves time and you will get candidates from the right type of group the better you do these things - what I'm saying however is that this 'checklist' will never help understand why an outlier candidate applied and felt that they could bring value to your team).
Hiring Managers
This will probably ruffle some feathers but here it is.Most hiring managers are not great leaders. That is a bold statement, but I think most of us can relate. Think of you own personal professional history, how many "amazing" bosses have you really had?
For the majority of people, they will name one or two people over their career, and probably have had quite a few more bosses than that.
Now, the hiring managers are probably that ... good or maybe even great 'managers', keep in mind however that a good manager isn't necessarily a good leader.
(More about Leaders & Managers)
If you are a hiring manager, and you aren't the type of person that is visionary, that looks beyond the horizon, that is looking to change things up and create something new, you won't be able to see the value in that outlier candidate in front of you.
Fear
Fear is another piece to the puzzle.As a hiring manager, most people want to protect their status, authority and position ... they've earned it dammit! How could they possibly feel comfortable with someone in front of them that might be smarter, more visionary, more charismatic, have "better" ideas, etc.
Even if they do consider hiring the person, there is the fear and uncertainty of how they could possibly manage this person effectively.
From a HR business partner's side, there is the fear of making a mistake or looking "stupid". Our society rewards success, we reward and praise each other for creating situations where we have a reasonable sense of being able to predict the outcome.
The challenge with creating situations where you can easily (or quite confidently) predict the outcome? Creating outcomes that are similar to the "successful" ones you have seen in the past!
Alas, the wheel of mediocrity keeps turning.
Social Conformity
We like people that are like (or that we believe) us.People that we see like us, or like our tribe/group/community/organization make us:
- Feel better and more confident about our own attitudes and paradigms vis a vis the world
- I will feel more positive about you if I identify easily with you (because hey, I feel positively about myself right!)
- If you are more like me, then you will like the people I like
- It's easier to 'be around' people that you believe share your views
There is a lot of 'leadership' that believes that a team working at its peak is a team that is so in sync, harmonious and hand holding each other while always smiling.
(this Utopia may exist, if you know where it is, please share!)
The reality is, real teams are the ones who feel safe enough together and trust each other enough to say "sorry, I don't agree".
The best recipes are the ones that use different ingredients, pair them in ways that complement each other and create something new that is better than the individual ingredients themselves.
Think about this, the last time you really want to WOW your guests at a dinner party, did you serve skinless boneless chicken breast and rice without any spice or sauce?
Didn't think so ... so why do you do it when hiring?
Complexity Bias
Ok, this one will be a bit of a stretch on how I use this vs the traditional definition, but I think it clicks (and it's my blog anyways!)We love to make things more complicated than they need to be.
I love this quote from Confucius:
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.When look at hiring for our teams, we love to create and believe that our work and our world is more "complicated" than it needs to be, because that means we feel smarter, better, more 'worthy' for being able to do it.
So when we are hiring, we don't want to hire someone who hasn't taken the same education we have, who hasn't had the same career path we did, or hasn't slaved away in this "complicated" world long enough, because they simply can't get it!
(The reality is, what does that say about us if they do get it?)
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely professions and industries that you do required a lot of specialized knowledge and understanding ... but for each one of those, there are probably 10 areas where it's just not that complicated.
Humans are a wildly adaptable animal, we can overcome such adversity, the majority of people are able to learn, adapt and evolve ... given the chance (my proof? Our species has done well up to now, and these social barriers we have created for ourselves are really not that old).
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