“It’s not about whether candidates have the right skills, it’s [more] about whether they have the potential to learn new ones.” – Claudio Fernández-Aráoz
To recruit, promote and keep talent, it turns out that adaptability, capacity to learn, and constructive use of imagination are more important than knowledge. Einstein was right. But the master skill of “learning how to learn” can be the ultimate win-win for both workers (whether employees or contractors) and companies.
We use a classic 2014 HBR article as a guidepost for successful team member recruitment: hbr.org/2014/06/21st-century-talent-spotting. The following traits, capabilities or aptitudes are more important than any particular domain expertise or skill. These are the true indicators of talent, and the characteristics we look for in recruiting and recognizing our team members:
- Curiosity – a penchant for seeking out new experiences, knowledge, and candid feedback [from and for others], as well as an openness to learning and change.
- Insight – the ability to gather and make sense of information that suggests new possibilities.
- Engagement – a knack for using emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision and connect with people
- Determination – the wherewithal to fight for difficult goals despite challenges and to bounce back from adversity.
Can these four traits be honed and developed or are they more innate? One key is knowing your learning style and ability to learn and apply learning in the heat of the moment, in cooperation with others (interpersonally as well as between groups or companies) and over time. In that sense, these four traits become core competencies and skills unto themselves, a useful indicator of future success.
The point is that experience can be overrated. Increasingly, the past just does not equal the future. Agility is more important than history. Certainly the interpersonal behaviors that are the so-called “soft” skills, such as the ones that enable us to flex and flow with what is happening in the moment, and serve as cooperative “team player” are required nowadays. The ability to move harmoniously with others, however, is just not enough. Key is to remain focused on True North and not get hooked or distracted when encountering obstacles, setbacks, unskillful actions by others, seeming conflict, adversity or if the world just seems to be “falling down around us”.
At times like these, and in efforts to collaborate well with others who just can’t seem to take responsibility for the whole, there can be even more learning, born of fresh insights gained from apparent differences, non-constructive attitudes, resistance or roadblocks. We humans are not immune to a certain type of myopia, born of experience, where the past experience is precluding the imagination needed to come up with an innovative solution. Why? Because it is easier to learn than to unlearn.
To envision something new, step one is to put aside the picture of what’s already known. But if someone else brings you a new idea that is radically different than what had been planned, what do you do? Listen for awhile then offer a “Yes, but [that’s not what we’re doing here]” push-back as a form of resistance to being thrown off track? Flowing at times also means self-correcting to regain focus at the right moments, or tying in seemingly disparate elements, or handling concerns and objectives without trying to ruin the idea itself. Otherwise, if you only go with the flow, you could end up drifting into a “pleasant distraction” that just wastes precious time. Allowing time for tangents is healthy, but how much is enough?
And how do you know the difference between imaginative, divergent thinking, headed toward value, and just getting off track? Most organizations have either a vision and mission plus a well- established set of core, governing values, or specific goals, critical success factors or strategic imperatives that can be referenced as True North. These serve as a tie-breaker when each party is being heard. The sense that others are listening to our ideas, even if they’re not yet convinced of the merit or utility of those ideas, keeps the perceived level of conflict low enough that cooperation is still possible.
If that’s not the case for you or your workplace, take time out to establish such guideposts and you’ll avoid having to figure out later why too many of the so-called “good ideas” end up becoming tangential time-wasters. Are you talking with or at one another?
Everybody has off days, so this isn’t about being perfect. If you react with resistance or get hooked by an idea that does not seem to have merit, do not lose momentum by letting that ruin the future value that such a moment contains. Get unhooked, get back on the horse, and keep riding toward True North. Blessed are the resilient as they shall inherit the earth. Or something like that.
Are these four talent indicators enough?
They’re a good start, but in practice they are very hard to assess. There is not a lot of psychological research to provide easy tests, like the classic 4-year-old’s one cookie now versus two cookies in 10 minutes, so on-the-job experience and performance reviews are where the truth is told. In other words, measure results over time and find out. Cultures vary, as do systems of rewards, with some committed to getting results “at any cost,” while for others the rules of engagement and principles come first, and not getting the desired results is fine if a sincere effort is in evidence.
Sometimes a highly valued trait (appreciation of flow and harmony, for example) can become a liability, as differences get swept under the table, and if left there, eventually become undiscussable. A strength becomes a liability, or at least a lost opportunity, if it gets overused, thus the notion of “playing to someone’s strengths” is only useful in theory. For example, capturing a vision with both emotion and logic but failing to communicate that vision effectively, to make it a shared vision, is the notorious downside of visionary leaders that don’t have their feet on the ground. Visioning may be a strength, prized and rewarded at times, but execution must accompany that strength, through the ability to connect with others, by leveraging the talents of others, as the full expression of the business trait.
Leaders that stop short of gaining widespread acceptance of a company-wide vision will often get frustrated when things go sideways. If they put harmony ahead of results, and do not go the distance to involve those who don’t easily share in the vision, at first, it can backfire, as underground competition, or “skunkworks” can get sparked up that drains resources unproductively.
In practice, there’s much more to successful hiring and development than the above four traits, of course, but you can get pretty far with building a culture that embraces and uses them as part of training and advancement criteria.
In addition, an alignment of mission or purpose and core values, mentioned above, is also essential, because you just can’t mandate caring. You cannot demand passion or perseverance. External rewards won’t do it. Motivation has to come primarily from within, based on a sense of contribution, shared priorities, or common principles. You or others might employ good parts of both emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision, but people will “walk into” that vision and make it shared (or not) in their own way, on their own authority. If they don’t support it, at best you can ask them to do some work to find a way to make it supportable.
Why? Not every vision reflects an alignment of values with the individual’s own sense of prioritie.s Values are not something you chose. They’re endemic. They pick you. Principles like honesty and integrity, or a vision of the future (say, climate change mitigation) makes some topics or industries almost sacred while others are completely uninteresting or even offensive. That’s the power of values. They must be aligned to an adequate extent, especially among senior managers, or there will be a falling out, eventually.
Other competencies include leadership, self-management, business skills like strategic orientation, awareness of how markets work, collaboration skills (see #3, above), developing others, communication of course, and change management, which is effectively the purpose of 1-4, the capacity to transform and align around a new goal or strategic directions.
How to manage complexities that seem insurmountable
It might not be possible to interview talent with a knack for finding the simple path through the often-convoluted landlines of most business dealings. But those that can simplify, aggregate, look for patterns, discover the keys, the core, the maker/breakers often also possess the business skills that can be beneficially applied as a leader of their own work or in leading others. These four traits underpin the personalities that have the best odds of success. Interview questions we often use to discover such talent, also key points for effective collaborators:
- How do you react when someone challenges you?
- How do you invite input from others on your team?
- What do you do to broaden your thinking, experience, or personal development?
- How do you foster learning in your own day, your team, your organization?
- What steps do you take to seek out to explore the unknown, to discover something novel?
We ask for examples and specific situations that capture the essence of inspiration, motivation, insight, engagement, and determination. Your conversations with managers, colleagues, and direct reports who know the person well should be just as detailed.
