The Golden Triangle of hiring is an interesting concept. We say there are three key elements to consider when hiring someone for your company results, skills, and personality. You might call this the Golden Triangle. Most of your problems with staff will come from a shortfall in one of these three areas resulting in skills and personality.
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Number one. Be Result-Oriented during the Interview. You first make a list of every result that you want the new person to produce. Always focus on results rather than activities. Take 100 points and allocate them over your list of desired results divided based on value. This allocation will help you decide on the most important results required. By the 80/20 Rule, if you have a list of 10 desired results for a job, two of those tasks will be worth 80 points, and the other eight tasks will be worth only 20 points. Once you\’ve determined exactly what you want the person to do and the results he or she is expected to produce.
Number two. Emphasize Candidates’ Core Skills. The consideration in hiring is skills. You look for someone with a proven track record in that area. You\’re seeking a candidate who has already successfully demonstrated the skills necessary to achieve the results you\’re hiring him or her to achieve for your company. You always hire people based on their past performance and proven results rather than your future hopes and ambitions or theirs. Many business owners make the mistake of hiring a completely inexperienced person for an important job. They hire based on what the person thinks that he or she can do in the future, rather than what he or she has already done successfully in the past. Occasionally, this approach will be successful, but in most cases it. Will either fail or be a great disappointment.
- Rule. You should never hire an inexperienced person for an important job.
The only real predictor of future performance is past performance. In your interview with a candidate and your follow-up work and checking references. Your most important concern is whether or not the candidate has successfully mastered the job you are hiring him or her to do for you.
Number Three. Analyze Candidates’ Interpersonal Skills. The element to look for is personality. In studies of many thousands of job failures, it\’s been found that the cause of most of them was the wrong fit. This means that the person does not have the correct personality to fit in with you and with the other people who work on your team.
- Rule. One of the basic rules of human nature is that people don\’t change. Over time they become even more of what they already are. They don\’t change their basic personalities, temperaments, or work habits.
You should never hire a person with a personality problem with the hope or fantasy that the person will change once he or she starts working in your company. It simply won\’t happen. I had a woman working for me some time ago who did her job extremely well. She was in charge of mailing, shipping, and delivery and was quite competent. She had only one problem. She was short-tempered and irritable, and she used foul language and would snap at other staff members for the slightest reason. My role and goal in my business are to achieve and maintain harmony among my people. I won\’t allow a negative person to work in my company, complaining and criticizing our grounds for immediate termination. When my staff told me about their problems with this woman, I sat her down privately and told her that no matter how good she was at her job, her behavior was unacceptable at my company. To my surprise, she replied by saying, Look, I\’m a bitch. I\’ve always been a bitch. I have no intentions of changing. If you don\’t like my personality, it\’s your problem. I just go somewhere else.
Her honesty and candor were refreshing since I did not expect her to change or be other than who she was. I thanked her for her openness and promised to help her get another job if she would help us to train a new person. This arrangement worked perfectly. I found her a job at another company working on the loading dock with people who didn\’t mind if she was short-tempered and used foul language. In return, she helped us to hire and train a new person. We parted the best of friends, and she is still working successfully at the other job years later.
You can ensure a high level of fit with a new hire by having the person meet with at least three other people before you decide. Job candidates will always be at their best when they are talking with the boss for the first time. But when they talk with potential coworkers at their level, they usually let it all hang out. Their true personalities emerge. They reveal themselves more open to people who might be their coworkers in the future.