Leading Strategies LLC, premier management consulting in leadership and systems

By Mike Friesen

When hiring and growing employees within an organization, it is essential to consider both character and competence traits. The single best strategy for helping a company improve results starts with hiring the right people for the right business needs. It is far better to leave a position unfilled rather than fill just because “any warm body in the chair will help.” The pain and cost of making poor hiring decisions is unnecessary. Sprinkle the hiring process with a bit more deliberation and patience and watch the long-term results take an upward course.

Too often, managers or would-be leaders blur the lines between character and competence partly out of fear and partially out of ignorance. The fear factor comes from our litigious society that promotes fudging or hiding the truth. The ignorance comes from a lack of intellectual curiosity that leaves us with too few leadership thinkers. For best use to any organization, character and competence need to be viewed in all their distinctiveness of meaning and application.

For our purposes, character attributes refer to the foundation an individual uses to make decisions, especially in difficult or thorny times. Number one on my list of preferred skills in this category is integrity. This is all about doing the right thing in public and private settings. This also includes consistency as a main theme. Another character trait on my short list of favorites is excellence. Doing a task well, diligently and thoroughly is imperative for enterprises to thrive. It is related to work ethic but goes farther in the sense of working AND thinking at the same time. In other words, this means employing more than just my hands to complete a job. Of courses there is a long list of things to consider in the character area.

A second critical category to consider for employees is the competence. I could fully trust a new hire but if this person does not possess or cannot readily attain the skills required for the position, I have done the enterprise a disservice by bringing this new one on board. Examples of competence traits include trade skills, computer abilities and communication attributes to name a few.

One of the interesting phenomena is the tendency of managers to hire mostly based on competence and later judge by character. Perhaps this is based on a naïve assumption that most people possess higher character quality than reality or maybe on the fact that it is harder (although still possible) to measure character. Whatever the reason, this process of hiring based on competence while expecting high levels of character often leads to misunderstandings and unnecessary conflict. Usually, the casualty will be the new hire and the company suffers in the lost productivity, wasted payroll and training dollars and, ultimately, organizational results.

Let’s consider the two theories from the previous paragraph on why managers mistakenly hire for competence while wishing for better or different character. Number one is naivete. This is a killer in today’s fast-paced marketplace. Either not asking appropriate questions or making too many assumptions will result in a more expensive cost model although the impact is usually insidious and not easily split out from other expenses unless a senior manager decides this is important. The manager may assume that things like honesty, respect and teamwork are innate traits for many seeking new positions. Do not make these or similar assumptions. A famous man once said “trust but verify.”

The second possible reason that managers hire the wrong people for the wrong positions are they gravitate toward measuring competency because it is easier to immediately see than character attributes. For instance, if your resume says you can run a drill press, I can easily test your skills in a matter of minutes. If you insist you are honest, I must be more creative to verify your statement. One method to test for character traits is to constantly ask for past examples of behavior in a variety of situations.

It is bad enough to make a poor hiring decision. Any of us who have made this mistake (including yours truly) know about it within a short time after the new person begins work. However, it is worse to compound this large mistake by then trying to “reform” an individual’s character through a competency lens. For instance, I once hired an individual who interviewed very well. He was articulate, respectful and knowledgeable. I thought we had a winner. Within the first 30 days of work, I knew I had blown the hiring decision. Here was the observed behavior.

Low productivity and high social behavior (little work and much talking)
Hit and miss customer service skills
Excellent interactions with those in positions of high authority
A need to do things other than in his job description

Since I was in a government system at the time, terminating this person would require a mountain of paperwork based on significant time in position in order to document any shortcomings. Sadly, my first inclination was to move this person to another functional area thinking we had simply mismatched his skills with the area. At the time, I was frustrated that the behavior did not improve. Soon after the first internal move, we started down that long road of performance review, standards communication and ad nauseam documentation. I brainstormed and coached with the supervisors in an effort to “diagnose.” In reality, I was in denial of the character problem we were facing and continued to try and salvage the employee all the while going down the government discipline road.

It was not until I could adequately realize and communicate to the problem employee what were character problems. I eventually summed it up as, “you are unwilling to take direction and instruction.” I then followed with several clear examples to support the opening contention. Clearly, these were more character traits rather than competency obstacles. They had little to do with his past job experience and knowledge because they were part of who he was as a person. While it is never wise to rush to judgment on a person’s character, it is still critical to go there at least in analysis.

I can just hear all the HR people out there wringing their hands because this character discussion is what lawsuits can be made of (slander, liable, discrimination, etc.). Be smart about how you verbalize your thoughts during an interview discussion with other selecting members but do not dodge character issues. Focus on behavior rather than making conclusions. “When you do A, B suffers” or “On such-and-such day, you did X and at this company we seek to makes decisions based on Y.” You could also use the opener from the previous paragraph as well.

If you are “stuck” with an employee for a time or, more importantly, think this person can be salvaged, you must tackle the character concerns rather than dance around the issues through a competence paradigm. You may want to ask your HR or legal sections for advice on how to say it but you must exercise courage and tackle this challenge. You are not impugning the person but are seeking better alignment with the values your section, division or company hold dear. You owe it to the entire company to work through these issues authentically yet compassionately. By doing so, you can create a long-term employee, increase morale and build your own credibility all at the same time. You may also discover in this process that value alignment is impossible. If this is the case, it is time to learn a lesson for next time and respectfully show the employee the door

Character and competence. Both are essential traits to a highly effective team member but it is essential for a leader to understand both categories and how and when to apply them in any given situation. Otherwise, you can be sure your prescription will miss the mark and prolong problems within the organization.