SuperManager: Hiring a Cultural Fit

How much you and your team enjoy coming to work can depend on the company culture and whether or not your team is a good fit.  What is your company culture and what do you look for in a new employee to ensure it's a match?

Listen in on our discussion with:

Host:
Samantha Naes - CN Video Production

Guests:
Kim Baker - Vivid Performance Group
Mary Kutheis - MCK Coaching
Victoria Wors - Wors Consulting

Transcript

CN Video Production:   0:02
You're listening to SuperManager.  The podcast with a diverse panel of experts discussing what goes on in the office.  And your host, Samantha Naes with CN Video,  corporate video production.  Your businesses video team on call.  

Samantha Naes:   0:16
I was actually having a conversation with a friend, we were doing a walk and talk, and she does recruiting.  And she was bringing up someone that wasn't a good fit for a position. It's a company that I think I mentioned this in a previous podcast, a company that's very relaxed. And on Fridays they turn off the phones at three o'clock and sit around and have a beer together. And you would think, Oh, I want to work there. How do I get a job at that place? But this person hated it. They didn't drink, they felt left out. And it was just a bad fit for that particular company culture. And so that kind of brought about the topic of hiring the right cultural fit for an organization. So this week we're gonna be talking about hiring the right cultural fit, and I have my team of experts with me. We have

:   0:19


Kim Baker:   0:55
Kim Baker, Vivid Performance Group and I help companies being able to align and synergize their culture, human capital and organizational agility.

Mary Kutheis:   1:04
And I'm Mary Kutheis with M C K Coaching.  I'm an executive coach. And I work with leaders who want to improve leadership skills, communication skills, conflict management, time management and the like.

Samantha Naes:   1:15
And I'm Samantha Naes with CN Video. We do corporate video production, video on boarding, training and company culture scouting videos.  

Samantha Naes:   1:24
So hiring the right cultural fit. I think if you don't hire the right cultural fit, then obviously you've gone through the entire hiring process, the training process, all of the expenses that go along with that. And then that person is not happy. And you have to start back from square one again because they didn't like whatever the company culture is.

Vicky Wors:   1:43
Well is it an appropriate culture?

Kim Baker:   1:46
So we have toget to how do we define culture.

Samantha Naes:   0:00
Yeah

Kim Baker:   1:48
The academics and different folks have different definitions, but a simple one is how we do things around here.  And a lot of times you walk into an organization and you'll see their core values there guiding principles.  The thing is, is that this tends to be aspirational and doesn't look right. Good If we truly live our values, we can define them in anchoring behaviors. So when I work with organizations and we do core values development, we actually then develop behaviours that define that. So if it's accountability, if it's communication, if it's collaboration, we define the behaviors that reflect that, and we've even pulled it through and performance appraisals. If we really want to make it happen, that's why so frequently you see in organizations that their value's integrity. But yet the CEO has just gone to jail, all right, there's a real disconnect between the value on the wall and that nice little word and how we actually act. So, first of all, you know, if you really wanna live an intention culture, you define your values and then you find the behaviors and then you hold people accountable. I do a lot of work with competing values framework.   We go into our organization and we put them through an assessment and then define their culture in one of four types. We can  even look it to agility. But if your culture isn't reflecting where you need to be a business strategy that we need to change that The fact that matters is that once we define culture, then we start to understand better. If we understand the behaviors we looking for, we can actually assess that in personality and things like that. That's how you really make it work. Very few organisations do that. 

Samantha Naes:   3:24
One of the things that Art [Snarzyk] talked with me about is really being realistic about what the culture is.  I had in my mind, this is how I want things to work. This is how things should work. This is how things could work. But when you really sit down and talk about, well, how does it need to be in order to accomplish the job? Like, for example, one of the things that I've added to the job description is that you must be able to handle stressful situations, and nobody wants to think that my company culture is high stress. But when you do video production, you are going to a client site. You're bringing equipment, you have to get it right. There's a certain amount of pressure. There's a certain amount of stress that is involved in that, and so I have to be realistic and say you have to be able handle high pressure types of situations.

Mary Kutheis:   4:07
Yeah, one of the challenges is that in the interviewing process, companies are putting their best foot forward and the candidate is putting their best foot here. And the difficulty with that is that it ends up sometimes being a bait and switch. This is what it's like to work here, and we're seeing a lot of that in these organizations that a lot of the Silicon Valley ones, where is We've got ping Pong tables and we've got free fro yo, and we've got all these things. But it's miserable because people are absolutely treated brutally in terms of mental abuse or hours that they have to work. So it looked really great in bright and shiny and one from the outside. But when you get in, it's very different. And when people realize that they've been sold a bill of goods about the culture, it's worse than not writing a culture at all,

Samantha Naes:   4:56
I had to say, but it's almost like dating, you know.

Mary Kutheis:   4:58
It is.

Samantha Naes:   4:59
if you're meeting somebody for the first time and you're not being honest about who you are and they're not being honest about who they are or you've got a 20 year old picture you know, posted on the site or what not. What's the point? Does it ever actually work out? And with employment, it's the same thing. What's the point in trying to trick someone into thinking the company culture is different than it is? And I wish I could get that through two candidates as well. What's the point in pretending that you're something that you're not your only not gonna fit in and be happy here.

Mary Kutheis:   5:25
Yeah, I do a lot of assessments for hiring and for communication challenges and building teamwork and all that kind of thing. And I saw something on LinkedIn once where someone was recommending that candidates find out the culture of the company and then answer the assessments in the way that aligns on on. And I said, I said, I like all the other stuff you said here, But please, please don't do that because there used to be that statistic from Gallup. But it was, I think it was. 82% of people are either disengaged or actively disengaged. It's gone down a little bit, but one of the reasons why people are not engaged is because they're in the wrong job. They're in the wrong fit. And so there's a lot of work to be done, starting with honesty and understanding on behalf of the company. Who are we?  Not just who are we in the marketing sense? The words were putting on the wall. But who really are we? What can we live up to? 

Samantha Naes:   6:17
Has anybody ever gotten on answer to the question What you like least about your current position, other than they don't keep me busy enough or I don't feel challenged?  B because that's what they're recommended. When someone asked you a question like that, don't say something negative. Say that you're not kept busy enough Say that you're not challenged. And so I never asked that question. Yeah, because if it doesn't, there's no point

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Kim Baker:   7:16
a good interviewer knows how to cut through that, you just start asking a lot of very pointed questions because they probably are not prepared for the fourth follow up about that. To Mary's point, choosing very good pre hire assessments is important. One that I use we actually look at will be called the dark side of personality and how somebody might behave under stress. And so if we see enough of those of an employer sees enough of those you really want to take that into account, you never use pre hire assessment is your sole method for making a decision

Vicky Wors:   7:16
that's illegal.

Mary Kutheis:   7:16
Exactly. I know that some of our folks on the podcast listening to this may not know? Yeah, absolutely. So has your brilliant. Yeah, absolutely. But it's also a mistake not to use that. Yeah, because what you mean you have to get some things that aren't gonna be at the surface because it is like the dating thing. The one thing about it being dating is you can date someone for a year and decide that we're not gonna get married. But you might go through a couple three interviews and get hired. Now you're married. Yeah. So you don't find out things and then you marry that with what was the interview? The in person interview like, and one of the references say, and that

Vicky Wors:   7:51
the assessment that I use is one that does the aggregate where you can get overall picture of the people that have taken the assessment. Then you can get a snapshot of what the overall company looks like.

Samantha Naes:   8:05
Vicky, that brought up an interesting question for me. It's the correlation between skills and personality types and how you'll fit into a company culture, because to me they are two different things.

Kim Baker:   8:16
Oh clearly yes.  your technical competence is completely different than soft skills. And, yes,  

Samantha Naes:   8:21
but you're gonna have a certain personality type. And Vicky was talking about diversity. You know, having different personality types, some people that are big picture people in some people that are

Vicky Wors:   8:31
well, some of this is educating the executives and management that you have to allow someone that may come into your office and not sing from the same choir sheet so that you can have a innovative creative environment. Now you don't need to have a rotten apple in the middle of your barrel. That's not what I'm suggesting.

Samantha Naes:   8:53
How do you differentiate between someone who doesn't sing from the same choir sheet and a rotten apple

Mary Kutheis:   9:00
again I think it goes back to your core values.  And rotten apple, I mean, if it's someone who's cooking the books, that's a whole another thing, But but in terms of someone who's just not going to be a good fit. It goes back to the core values, and that's why it's so critical to know what those are. Sometimes people think, Oh, we can sit down and an afternoon we can pound it out.  No, It takes a lot of real introspection by top leadership, certainly, and then that has to be lived throughout the organization. And just one more thing. Before I forget this, it helps you determine who your clients should be, too. Because if your clients don't align with your core values, they won't align with your business. That's and that's okay because everybody can't serve everybody.

Samantha Naes:   9:41
How do you assess your core values, though I mean their assessments for people and personality types,

Mary Kutheis:   9:44
It's not an assessment, it's not an assessment. It's an activity. And this is something I think you do this, Kim and I do this is well, I mean, it's a facilitation where you're working with people and you're drawing things out. You're asking questions and you're listening to what they say, and you're sharing things back with them, what you've heard and you have to be ableto listen to what they're saying and draw things out of them that they might not have even realize we're there because we're so tuned into what is the right answer for marketing purposes.

Vicky Wors:   10:15
Well, it gets back to when we said You cannot make a go or no go determination on an applicant or a candidate with just an assessment in this to your point, you have to interview. You have to delve into what have been the most successful things you've done. Give me examples of that. And if they can speak to it and how did you do that? What? How did it make you feel? Once again, it's getting too assessment interview, and then what's been the experience? So you get a three legged approach

Mary Kutheis:   10:50
well in in terms of developing the culture, We We've talked about assessments in a lot of different ways. There are places where assessments are really good, even the state of a company, or what people believe about the company or three sixties. Not everything can be handled like an interview. Not everything could be handled with an assessment report. 

Vicky Wors:   11:06
and people want to do Just an assessment and you go, you're missing. That's a tool that is a tool in your toolbelt

Kim Baker:   11:11
Yeah, I end up seeing a lot of this. So sometimes it's during the strategic planning process where we're really looking at Mission, Vision, where is it? And as we look, if their strategic plan needs toe altar significantly, that could change their values. But, yeah, we look at the values, and then how are they lived? So it's one place I found at the other place, this whole concept of culture and values comes in. I'm doing a lot of work these days. I get called in by organizations who have done employee engagement survey after employee engagement, survey or employee satisfaction. And the answer keeps coming back. Issues the leadership team. So then I get called in, and now we're talking about a culture and the leadership team. And how do we change the culture? You know these things on the wall. They're not being lived. They're not being lived according to your employees, who are giving us a very, very tangible descriptions of behavior. 

:   11:13


Samantha Naes:   12:05
And to hire the right cultural fit, you have to have a realistic view of what the company culture actually is.

Vicky Wors:   12:10
Well, you have to find out who's driving that

Mary Kutheis:   12:13
well and to that point, the C suite there is room for improvement in many organizations there, and they have to realize it because no one wants to tell them that your E Q is really low. They might not know it in those terms, but the smart leader realizes they can always learn. They can always be better. They can always enhance their leadership skills because often it may not have been their ability to lead an organization that got them where they are, right? It's the ability to take care of the balance sheet,  

Samantha Naes:   12:42
right

Mary Kutheis:   12:43
And so you 

Vicky Wors:   12:45
they think they're doing this if they think they're doing this? But in reality, the employees were seeing this. There's a perception issue

Mary Kutheis:   12:52
and thir perception is the reality.  

Kim Baker:   12:54
There's a difference?  Yeah, yes, so I do a lot of work with leadership teams, and that's exactly it... We could do. A 360. And we can understand what your intention is, how you view yourself and then how you're viewed. The other thing I want to bring up about the culture is subcultures, and that's something we haven't talked about yet. But in your larger organizations, you don't have one culture. You have subcultures. So, for instance, Ford Motor, they don't have one culture. They may say they do, they have subcultures. So when you going to change a culture and I'm not gonna name a name. But we're in ST Louis, Missouri, and we have a very, very large employer in our area. You can talk to 10 different people who work in 10 different areas of that organization, and three of them love it. Six of them are so so and one hates that something like that, and you start to say why, you know? And actually, it's probably more like three out of 10 people hate it. Why do three out of 10 people hate it? Why do three out of 10 people love it? It's a different function. It's a different subculture, you know, and that's what's really important to understand. And that just proves So why is it different? It's because of behavior on the way people treat each other and the way the leader acts and that gives two behaviors that culture is all about the leaders.

Mary Kutheis:   14:04
There's a lot of leaders in an organization. There's the C suite, but there's a lot of other leaders who may not have leadership skills. 

Samantha Naes:   14:11
It's interesting you talk about kind of subcultures. I know that could be by department or that can be by other characteristics. I remember interviewing one time for a company. It was a marathon interview, and I may have brought this up in a previous podcast. I was there for eight hours and they wanted the interview one hour with eight different people, but one at a time. Seven of the people loved the company culture could not speak more highly about. It's a great company to work for the benefits. I love it. I love it. I love it all men. And then you had one female manager who had a completely different perspective of the company culture. So coincidence or, um,

Mary Kutheis:   14:51
Yeah, and that would be a really smart thing. I remember when I was just getting how to college. My sister's a little bit older than me, and she gave me some great advice. When you go into interview, you're interviewing the company as much as they're interviewn you.  But I mean, when you're right out of college, we know that now, when you right out of college, you're thinking, I need a job. I just need a job and I'll do anything. 

Samantha Naes:   15:12
I've had people say that to me in an interview. I'll ask the question. What interested you about this particular position about this particular company? And I've actually had people come back and it's a good, honest answer. They say, I just need a job. I just need my foot in the door. It's in video production and that's what I want to do.

Mary Kutheis:   15:28
Yeah, and I mean, I appreciate the honesty, Move that right. 

Kim Baker:   15:33
it should be a warning, but that's a whole  other topic.

Mary Kutheis:   15:38
entry level people too, how long they're going to stay is probably as good as.

Vicky Wors:   15:43
That's what I was gonna say, you know, as an employer, you have to be realistic about your jobs, too.

Samantha Naes:   15:47
So it sounds like we talked about Step one is being realistic understanding knowing what your company culture is being realistic about it not what's on paper, but what is your actual company culture and then being able to relay that message honestly to potential candidates. This is what it's like to work here. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I'm not gonna talk about the, you know, the basketball hoop in the cry rooms and you know, interesting things that we have here. This is realistically what the job is about. And then Part three is getting the candidate to do the same thing, doing assessments, to find out what they're really like, what they're really thinking if they really be a good fit. One of the things that I do to try to get candidates to be a little bit more honest and conversational with me is I like to do interviews over lunch. You would be amazed at how much more open and honest candidate is over lunch rather than in a conference room, because they feel like they're chatting with a friend. And I've had candidates sitting with me over lunch saying things, and then we'll say, Oh, I don't know if I should have said that and it's like You're fine, good, genuine, honest answers. Any other thoughts on hiring that right cultural fit?

Kim Baker:   16:57
I would say the number one key to getting the right fit is actually knowing  your culture.

Samantha Naes:   17:03
Can anybody give a good horror story about a bad cultural fit?

Kim Baker:   17:07
Oh, I certainly can share one so 

Samantha Naes:   17:09
and you don't have to give names, so

Kim Baker:   17:10
I won't look. I won't. So let's just say that this company is in the medical space and this organization sales organization very much run by men. Um, many would say the good old boys club. Yeah, the VP of sales was This is a made up name, Mike. And, um, people would be hired who were called FOMs. Friends of Mike, who did not fit the job description, you know, like education level experience. And those folks were protected. All right, now, here's what happens is that then there were a lot of women hired who saw what they thought was a good old boys club. And so they said, That's not the culture I want to be part of, you know? So there were some really talented women who left, so I don't know if that's a horror story, but it's certain. 

Samantha Naes:   18:13
Oh it is, I mean you're going to get a talented people that are gonna leave. You can't just hire your friends

Mary Kutheis:   18:17
Well, the things they had a bad culture, but they also hired people who didn't fit the culture.

CN Video Production:   18:23
Thanks for listening to SuperManager by CN Video Production.  Give us a call at 314-843-3663 That's 314 video me.  or visit our website at cn-video.com for additional episodes, information or to discuss video services.