What you should be sure to ask job candidates
If you want to take your team to a higher level in a sustainable way, you should ask yourself and the job candidates three crucial questions before accepting new team members.
Few things are as critical to your long-term team success as deciding who belongs on your team and who doesn't. Although this fact is common knowledge, too few of the questions asked in most recruiting decisions are those that will bring you closer to a winning team in the long term.
How winning teams work
What do I mean by that? Well, winning teams function by different rules than mediocre teams. The demands on team members are sometimes quite different from the demands on people who function well in average environments.
This becomes very clear in a comparison with team sports: the players on a team in the Champions League can not only play football better on average than others (that goes without saying), but above all they have different demands on themselves and the environment in which they operate. This encompasses much more than just the activity (in the example of soccer) itself.
Three questions for job candidates
So if you want to take your team to a higher level in a sustainable way, you should ask yourself these three crucial questions before accepting candidates into your team:
- Will the person help us get closer to the vision? Too often, people look only at professional and human qualities, rather than primarily at the extent to which this person will help us get closer to our vision. To do this, of course, you must have a strong and clear vision and be clear about how the team will contribute to achieving it. True winning teams have that. If your vision is too fuzzy, you should work on it first.
- Does the person have the highest standards for things that are important to us? Our standards (and what you don't tolerate) define our identity. As a winning team, you only want people around you who can exemplify the defined high standards. Tolerance of low standards is one of the sure guarantees of mediocre performance at best.
- Does the person bring positive spirit and joy to the team? This is much more than simply a soft factor. A positive attitude is always extremely important when it comes to achieving outstanding results. And: negative and positive behaviors are contagious.
Bottom line: ask yourself these three questions with every potential new hire to your team and look closely at your answers. And maybe you need to work with your team on vision, aspirations, and positive spirit first so that you attract the best job candidates. After all, that would be a good effect in itself.
To the author:
Volkmar Völzke is a success maximizer. Book author. Consultant. Coach. Speaker. www.volkmarvoelzke.ch
