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It's Time To Take The Cult Out Of Culture https://ift.tt/2LkMgg5 I’m about to make a statement for which I’ll take endless grief. You may vehemently disagree, and I can understand that. But I’m compelled to share my conclusion, after 25 years in executive search and building four companies. Here it is. Culture fit is one of the most overused and overhyped concepts in business today. Yep. For years, I bought into the conventional wisdom. I thought that culture was incredibly important and I worked endlessly to find people who “fit” my companies’ cultures and-more recently-my clients’ cultures. Now, 25 years into the game, I have a rueful confession: I still haven’t found a reliable way to assess a candidate for culture fit. More importantly, I’m convinced that striving to build a strong culture can backfire. Here’s what I do know: The fixation on culture fit often is at odds with building a team comprised of diverse backgrounds, thoughts, and ideas. When a team--consisting primarily of a certain gender, from a certain race, who went to a certain school--recruits for “fit,” they’re likely going to hire more of the same. And that’s not just bad for diversity itself; it’s bad for business. More diversity drives more profits. So what to do? Rather than recruit for culture fit, I’m convinced that it’s far better to recruit for DNA match. What is DNA? It’s the 3 or 4 characteristics that your top-performers possess. These qualities become the soul of your company. DNA is a powerful concept when you commit to never again hiring someone who doesn’t possess them in spades. No exceptions. And when you exit those mis-hires who snuck thru the recruiting process but demonstrate a lack of them. When I started my first company Career Central in 1996, my leadership team and I pinpointed 3 qualities that we knew our employees needed to possess: tirelessness, selflessness, and fearlessness. This was our DNA. Because we assembled a diverse--but like-minded--folks, we had near-perfect retention despite being located in the very hot Silicon Valley job market of in the late 1990’s. DNA can be defined and modeled. Articulating it was one of the first things I’ve done in the companies I started. And my most successful clients do the same. Culture is elusive. Culture, on the other hand, means different things to different people. It’s squishy. Do you want to entrust your most important business decision—hiring--to a subjective concept that everyone sees in their own way? If you think there’s a consensus about the meaning of culture, try Googling it. The opening section of “organizational culture” on Wikipedia contains 6 separate definitions from leading academics. Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs https://ift.tt/dTEDZf May 23, 2018 at 11:39AM
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