In a recent Inc Magazine article, Kate Rockwood describes several companies and their efforts to find a good culture fit when hiring. Some of those companies attempted to find a culture fit by identifying similar hobbies, education, and other shared background data. She aptly titles the article, “The Biggest Mistake You’re Making When Hiring.”
While attempting to find a good cultural fit does pay off, using hobbies and shared video game interests don’t begin to reveal what matters most. The key to a good culture fit is not personality and hobby similarities but shared values. The great thing about using shared values as a hiring sort is that it still leaves plenty of room for differences.
Fit Gone Rogue
The Inc article was based on the research by Lauren Rivera, which you can read here in the New York Times. Her research showed “fit had gone rogue.” Her findings were that the attempt to ensure cultural fit had morphed into whether candidates would be nice to hang out with late into the night or when stuck in an airport.
Alarmingly, hiring managers sometimes use similarities such as college attended, sports team experiences or leisure pastimes as a selection criteria. If these interests are similar to other successful hires, the reasoning goes, perhaps they will be a good fit. Those are fine ice breakers to put the candidate at ease when an interview begins. However those clues are just a tip of the iceberg. Using them as selection criteria is not predictive and may have the untended consequence of being discriminatory. More importantly, rich data about what makes a candidate tick lies deeper.
Articulating Values
The key to productive corporate cultural fit is the deeper shared values. These may manifest in many different ways so the good news is, done right, a corporate cultural-fit sorting and matching process still leaves plenty of room for diversity. Differences, while sometimes challenging to navigate, enrich the thinking, designing, planning and implementation of organizations.
Shared values can show up in many different ways, allowing for fit as well as differences. Think about entrepreneurial as a value. There are entrepreneurial organizations in every kind of industry, with many different personality styles, and many different cultures. Entrepreneurial may describe a kind of innovation and energy, but does not limit potential matches by socioeconomic level, education level, gender, race or ethnicity. Leisure activities would not necessarily be a good indicator of that value. Selection criteria that go beyond learned skills can be very revealing, but shared games won’t get you there.
Culture is the values, beliefs and behaviors of an organization. To ensure a good culture fit for starters, it is helpful for companies to articulate what their values are, and especially illustrate them with real examples. That helps bring the focus to actual “ways we work together” rather than only what is a theoretical values goal. If entrepreneurial is part of a company’s corporate culture DNA of values, then some examples of behaviors help bring that to life. “We encourage thinking outside the box and remain open listening to new ideas before introducing obstacles and risks.”
Values and Ethics
An assessment of ethical behavior is sometimes confused with values. There are some values one would hope to find in all organizations:
- Integrity
- Quality
- Competence
- Authenticity
However if someone does not share values, it is not necessarily accurate to conclude that they are unethical, perhaps just not a good fit. It is possible for equally ethical companies to have very different values. Consider these potential opposites:
- Conservative and Risk Taking
- Methodical and Spontaneous
- Competitive and Collegial
- Artful and Scientific
- Serious and Fun-loving
- Intense 24/7 and Work Life Balance
Your Values are Showing: Comments
One way to pin down values in your organization if they have not been formally articulated is to notice common comments. What do people often say in your organization?
- I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.
- We tried that once before and it didn’t work.
- We have to make good on that promise.
- Let’s build it based on SWAG (silly wild guess).
- We need the 20-page contract signed first.
- The proper approvals aren’t in place.
- That community service project was so satisfying.
- Let’s make sure this is sustainable.
Your Values are Showing: Stories
Another way is to notice values is to notice what are the stories are told over and over? These may be successes, near misses, or even failures (overcome), which have reached mythic proportions.
- We didn’t even have the prototype, it was all smoke and mirrors but once we sold it we made it.
- We got stuck in the airport due to the snow storm and it turned out the client was there, too.
- It took us two years to close the deal but we stuck with it until it came through.
- We thought there would be ten prospects but 50 people showed up.
- You have to build a solid foundation before you start the project.
Interview Questions
If hard work and long hours are core values, start with concrete information:
- How much did you work this week? Is that typical? How do you feel about that? What about it is rewarding?
If innovation is a value, ask:
- What is your proudest accomplishment in your last job? Can you tell me more?
You get to decide if you think that was innovative.
If competitiveness is a core value:
- Tell me about a big win in your last job.
If continuous learning is a core value:
- Tell me about an important new skill you developed in the last year (or a big mistake and what you learned from it).
Using Hobbies and Interests
Generally I recommend interviews be focused on work experience, because that is the most relevant background when hiring. There is plenty of rich, personal information in a person’s motives, sense of accomplishment, need for recognition, and need for community at work. However interviewers can use hobbies and interests as a potential source of values-related information. Two people could have been on basketball teams for very different reasons. That is an interesting conversation, which can reveal relevant data about values:
- Tell me what influenced joining that team? What was meaningful about your participation? How did your participation (or satisfaction) change over time?
The purpose of interviewing is to be able to predict the future, in terms of compatibility and contribution. If hobbies and interests can be used as a window to values, then fine. Otherwise, stick to job related information for culture and values fit, and bring on the differences.