Best-Selling Author Mary Abbajay: Successful Partners Focus on Culture First
… a cultural competitive advantage. High-performance organizations are rigorous about hiring first for culture and second for skill. Hiring highly skilled employees who are a poor cultural fit is a bad bet and usually ends up with one of three outcomes: 1) They never fully achieve of high levels of performance due to their inability to feel engaged and motivated by the culture; 2) increased turnover as employees who are unhappy with the culture are more likely to leave; or 3) the highly talented “brilliant jerk” disrupts your culture and creates dysfunction and demoralization among the ranks.
CF: How can business owners ensure their employees and new hires are a good cultural fit?
MA: Culture is only as effective as the organizational and human capital processes that surround it. For new hires, this means that recruitment and interviewing must incorporate culture. Hiring managers must be taught how to assess candidates for cultural fit. Once hired, organizations should consider the “90-day” rule — which means that new hires should be reassessed for culture fit after 90 days. Those who aren’t a good fit should be encouraged to move on. Keeping people who aren’t a good fit is bad for them, bad for the team and bad for the organization. Additionally, to ensure that all employees (and leaders!) adhere to cultural norms and values, performance management systems must reflect desired culture. Employees must be evaluated and managed on both performance and cultural behavior!
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