How will you measure your new hire's potential this week? (Part II of III)

So, how do you measure the potential of a future or existing team member?  Here’s some guidelines to assist you.

START WITH:  Your vision for your organization’s culture.  Be sure that anyone involved in the hiring or promoting process clearly understands the types of values, characteristics and behaviors that will you want.  Marisa Keegan, our Executive Coach in Richmond, wrote a great book on company culture that you can find HERE.

Here’s 5 qualities to keep in mind when measuring a new hire’s or future leader’s potential:

1. Motivation:  How committed are they in the pursuit of unselfish goals?  Motivation can be an almost unconscious quality.  Someone with a great deal of motivation has a strong ambition and wants to leave their mark AND aspires to collective goals.

1. Curiosity:  How open to learning and change are they?  Do they normally look for having new experiences, knowledge, and do they seek candid feedback?

1. Insight:  Do they gather and make sense of information and suggest new possibilities?

1. Engagement:  Do they connect with others easily?  Are they able to use logic AND emotion to communicate a vision?

1. Determination:  How well and quickly do they bounce back from adversity and recalibrate after missteps?  There’s a great article that was one of the most popular in HBR’s history entitled “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently “.  They explain it as “grit”.  We need it to have the determination to overcome the challenges we are sure to face during any change initiative.

Checking references and conducting the right kind of extensive interviews are critical to this process.  Here’s 5 questions the article on spotting talent suggests that you ask during an interview rather than something like “Are you curious?”

1. How do you react when someone challenges you?

1. How do you invite input from others on your team?

1. What do you do to broaden your thinking, experience, or personal development?

1. How have you fostered learning in your organization?

1. What steps do you take to seek out the unknown?

(HINT:  These are great questions to ask yourself.)