Top three qualities for hiring

Posted: February 1, 2019 | Categories: Leadership, Team Building

About a year ago a client introduced me the book, “The Ideal Team Player” Patrick Lencioni.  Jim is a business owner and he liked the way the author broke down the “Ideal Team Player” into three key characteristics and qualities:  Humility, Hunger, People Smarts.

At first I thought this was gimmicky and an over-simplification.  I decided to take the scientific approach and prove the theory wrong.  I did not succeed.  What I discovered was that to build a top-performing team it is critical to look for and evaluate candidates according to these three pillars.

Humility:  When we possess and practice humility, we admit our mistakes and welcome input from others.  We subordinate our ego in favor of building others and also teamwork.

Hunger:  Without strong desire, we can be shy on initiative.  If we want something badly enough we go through much discomfort and challenge to achieve it.

People smarts:  Tactfulness removes barriers and opens dialogue.  It is essential in building team trust and setting the table for strong collaboration and teamwork.

With the past month, I worked with someone who was interviewing candidates to fill a position.  He wanted to know the best qualities to look for in his conversations.  I shared these three qualities with him.  After the first interview, h determined that the person was highly skilled, hard-working, and articulate.  He was only missing one quality…Humility.  It was a no go.  Here is how it works based on my coaching experience:

If a person needs more hunger, you can find out what motivates them, and create that hunger.  If they lack people smarts, tact and human relations skills can be learned.  I have helped people with that all my career.  How about humility?  That is a tough one.  Without humility, there is no team synergy or collaboration.  Be careful.