Dismiss, hire, promote - the culture of your company
Some time ago I came across a fascinating article on the topic of corporate culture, the translation of which I decided to share with users of Habr. The author of the article, in my opinion, managed very clearly, albeit a bit brutal, to formulate a state of affairs that is relevant for most companies in the modern world, regardless of geography, age of the company or its current capitalization. We in the bank often face similar situations, and, as in any large organization, we have representatives from all four blocks of the quadrant “Productivity - Values”. I will not be cunning, we are just learning to work with each of them, the recommendations of the author of the article, though not new, seem to me quite useful. The main thing is to invest your time and energy in the development of employees.
Article author: Dr. Cameron sepah
A source
Every time when I am invited to advise a new company, I find a set of perfectly sounding noble values ​​hung on the walls. From the first moment I try to abstract from them and to observe how the employees of the company behave in reality, because this is exactly what helps me to understand the real state of affairs.
The point is not that most companies are hypocritical about the values ​​they promote. Honesty was one of Enron's “loving values”, and this perfectly reflected the company's aspiration at the very beginning of its existence. However, some time later, this did not reflect in any way the “practiced values” of the company, which became known thanks to one of the largest frauds in history.
')
So why is there a gap between the desired and practiced values ​​in companies? One might think that in order to mitigate cognitive dissonance, most employees should feel a real need to behave according to the values ​​they preach. The problem is that most of the desired values ​​almost always come down from above.
According to Behaviorism theory, no behavior in a company can exist in the long term without the influence of one of two forces: either positive reinforcement (praise, promotion, recognition), or negative (punishment, transfer to a probationary period). Thus, when creating a company, leaders define a set of values ​​not by what they write on the walls, but by how they behave in everyday life. For example, are they staying at work or leaving home at 6:00 pm to stay with their families? According to the theory of social learning , such behaviors are quickly becoming popular in the company, and ordinary employees very easily read the corresponding signals from the leaders; one can say that these values ​​are leaking from top to bottom.
Over time, the company grows to the size when it becomes difficult to observe its leaders, from this point on, employees begin to behave according to the framework that managers define: either they actively support certain lines of behavior, praising and promoting employees, or passively allow for other lines of behavior. After some time, employees begin to understand the reasons for layoffs, hiring and promotions among their colleagues. Did they hire Joe because the recommendations from previous jobs were brilliant? Jill got fired because she wasn't a team player? Jamie was promoted because he hangs out a lot with company leaders? Company employees quickly learn these “rules of the game”, this is necessary in order to survive and be successful in the company, all you need to do is to behave accordingly, and it’s not a fact that this behavior will be at least somewhat similar to written on posters with values.
In order not to transform your company into a corporate version of the Hunger Games, leaders should do one very important thing: to put emphasis on the behavior that corresponds to the values ​​of the company.
First, you must make sure that all the final candidates for open positions correspond to the values ​​of the company. For example, I rate candidates according to 7 characteristics: perseverance, thoroughness, influence, teamwork, possession, curiosity, courtesy (I recommend replacing them with your corporate values).
Another key characteristic (more precisely, its absence) was popularized by Professor Stanford Bob Sutton. The rule “Without radishes” (note. This is our free translation of the brighter word asshole) dictates to us the following: no matter how cool and expert the candidate is, if he behaves like a radish, this automatically means a refusal to hire. I call it the “single red flag rule.” It is based on the observation that the pathological elements of behavior appear sporadically, i.e. from time to time, not constantly.
For example, a narcissistic candidate may not behave arrogantly all the time, but may make statements that will sound 10 times more arrogant than someone without such a characteristic (for example, vs several times a day several times a month).
The problem is that assessing these characteristics during a quick interview can be difficult and inaccurate. Therefore, I recommend doing the most thorough reference checks: there is an opinion that the best prediction of an employee’s future behavior is based on his past behavior. Based on the best practice of the lead investor, Andreessen Horowitz, I collect up to 6 recommendations from previous jobs in order to more clearly assess the “falling into value”.
One startup from San Francisco (Webby, 300 people) went even further: they are satisfied with
week for employees hired during which the hours worked are fully paid. Why? It's simple: it is almost impossible to suppress incompatible lines of conduct when an employee interacts with colleagues for a long time.
Their CEO puts it this way:
No matter how cool the interviewers are, any interview can end up with either a false positive (you thought that the candidate fits your values, but you understand that this isn’t the case with the results of the hiring), or a lost opportunity (you thought that the candidate doesn’t fit your values, but he would come up if he were hired). Companies, for which culture is a priority, agree to miss some opportunities in order to prevent false positives. If a false positive does occur, the solution is as simple as possible - to fire as quickly as possible. Very few people are so ready psychologically that they can apply for a dismissal on their own, understanding that they do not fit the values ​​of the company. Especially if they really want this job. The problem that I observed in a number of startups can be characterized as follows: despite the rule “without radishes” adopted by the company, they do not follow it. Excuses like these are included: "We decided not to dismiss him because he is superproductive" or "he has five good traits for this one bad trait" or "it’s very difficult to replace such niche specialists - we will tolerate."
The best way to avoid this trap is to include employee assessment by values ​​in your standard performance management process.
Here is a simple system that I created and implemented in my company. It all starts with the assessment of each employee on two scales: Productivity and Values. No matter what rating system you use, employees need to be assessed in terms of performance and value. Both scales should be digitized in a standard format of 1-10, but I have simplified this system to a 2x2 matrix so that it is more visual. Usually I try to be politically correct, but in this case the use of bright expressions makes the story more understandable:
Incompetent radishes are not only ineffective since then. performance, except that their behavior is fundamentally contrary to the values ​​of your company. In the matrix, they are located in the lower left corner and they can earn a maximum of 25% of the total assessment. I would like to believe that there are practically no such employees in your company, but it happens that such employees manage to stay in the company because of recruitment errors or because of the protracted degradation of productivity and compliance with values. It is important to note that they undermine the motivation of colleagues, because do not bring any benefit, and besides are toxic with tz. the moral of the collective. Of course, the task of each company is to identify incompetent radishes as quickly as possible and dismiss them.
Competent radishes are usually very effective. performance, but at the same time they often demonstrate behavioral characteristics that are not fully correlated with your corporate values. Taking this into account, “radish” is not a clinical term in this case, I would define it as someone who lacks empathy in behavior that causes interpersonal conflicts. The biggest mistake I see in companies is that they retain competent radishes, because they consider them critical to the success of the company, or they find it difficult to replaceable. However, by doing so, they not only passively support the behavior of competent radishes by agreeing with them and raising them, but also implicitly signal to the rest of the company that "you can act as you please, as long as management considers you necessary." You can imagine what kind of culture will grow in such a company after a while. In the clinical case, a competent radish can receive as little as 50% of the maximum possible score, since the second 50% is directly tied to a match with values.
The reason why the rule is called “without radishes” is simple: there should be no exceptions. Otherwise, your values ​​are desired at best. The solution to the problem of competent radishes is what I call “correct or separate.” Despite the fact that these guys are as good as possible with tz. performance, they should be clearly informed that behavior inappropriate to values ​​is unacceptable, and they will have to make a change in their behavior in the near future.
In other words, competent radishes should receive what I call the "Value Improvement Plan." 360 surveys involving managers, colleagues, and direct subordinates are great for evaluating improvements. The reason why I prefer to give a chance to such people is that basically they are not so inflexible as to not change at all, especially when they realize that their work depends on this change. In most cases, this change requires serious therapy and coaching support with a competent specialist, which is especially valuable if the employee wants to change.
Incompetent milas are role models from tz. cultures of your company, they all love them, but unfortunately, they are extremely inefficient with tz performance. Like competent radishes, incompetent cuties can get a maximum of 50% of the total score. All because, from my tz. almost as sinful to tolerate incompetent employees, how to tolerate radishes. To give someone a blank check to be ineffective, simply because they are nice in communication, gives your company a clear signal that there is no place for meritocracy. It is enough just to be socially savvy and everything will be ok. However, the solution in this case is different than in the situation with competent radishes. The correct line of conduct will manage them or move to another task.
Incompetent milas must go through a standard “Efficiency Improvement Program”, receiving a constant feedback and the necessary set of training to improve their skills. One solution is to transfer such an employee to another role, where his competence will be enough to be effective.
I want to believe that the majority of your company's employees are competent and lovely, and it is important to note that in the Productivity-Value matrix you must project both in order to be in the right upper square. Competent milas can get up to 75% of the assessment, and of course they need to be praised publicly, and given opportunities for growth within the company. But, in order to keep the bar high, employees must be able to get 100% marks only if they demonstrate outstanding results in terms of both performance and value. Taking into account how rare such employees are, company owners should not interfere with them and do everything to entice and keep them inside the company. These are the current or future leaders of your company, and they need to be cherished and nurtured, taking into account that they are the main productivity and culture for your company.
It is worth noting that despite the fact that I share the competent and outstanding milas, I do not do the same with radishes. The reason is simple: I believe that it is almost impossible to be an outstanding radish.
The culture of any company may develop or degrade depending on the vector of its development. Engagement indices in companies decrease as they scale, it is necessary to hire employees in conditions of constant haste and a limited pool of talents, and it is difficult to dismiss because of heavy workload — this is not an unresponsive task. Culture can only be improved if there is a basic level of openness, when people feel that they can share their thoughts on how to improve the world around. If you want to create a holistic and honest culture in the company that corresponds to noble statements from posters on the walls, you should constantly evaluate the behavior of employees for compliance with the values, as well as strive to bridge the gap between the desired and practiced behavior.
Article author: Dr. Cameron sepah
A source
“The real, not fake, values ​​of the company can be seen by looking at who they are raising, rewarding and parting with”
- Netflix Culture: Freedom and Responsibility
Every time when I am invited to advise a new company, I find a set of perfectly sounding noble values ​​hung on the walls. From the first moment I try to abstract from them and to observe how the employees of the company behave in reality, because this is exactly what helps me to understand the real state of affairs.
The point is not that most companies are hypocritical about the values ​​they promote. Honesty was one of Enron's “loving values”, and this perfectly reflected the company's aspiration at the very beginning of its existence. However, some time later, this did not reflect in any way the “practiced values” of the company, which became known thanks to one of the largest frauds in history.
')
“The gap between the desired and practiced values ​​shows how much your company's culture needs to be improved. The actions you take to bridge this gap show how much improvement is possible. ”
Why behavior is preserved (Do as I do, not as I say)
So why is there a gap between the desired and practiced values ​​in companies? One might think that in order to mitigate cognitive dissonance, most employees should feel a real need to behave according to the values ​​they preach. The problem is that most of the desired values ​​almost always come down from above.
“Despite the fact that the majority of employees bother about what the leaders of the company think of them, in reality, what matters is how leaders behave, not what they say”
According to Behaviorism theory, no behavior in a company can exist in the long term without the influence of one of two forces: either positive reinforcement (praise, promotion, recognition), or negative (punishment, transfer to a probationary period). Thus, when creating a company, leaders define a set of values ​​not by what they write on the walls, but by how they behave in everyday life. For example, are they staying at work or leaving home at 6:00 pm to stay with their families? According to the theory of social learning , such behaviors are quickly becoming popular in the company, and ordinary employees very easily read the corresponding signals from the leaders; one can say that these values ​​are leaking from top to bottom.
Over time, the company grows to the size when it becomes difficult to observe its leaders, from this point on, employees begin to behave according to the framework that managers define: either they actively support certain lines of behavior, praising and promoting employees, or passively allow for other lines of behavior. After some time, employees begin to understand the reasons for layoffs, hiring and promotions among their colleagues. Did they hire Joe because the recommendations from previous jobs were brilliant? Jill got fired because she wasn't a team player? Jamie was promoted because he hangs out a lot with company leaders? Company employees quickly learn these “rules of the game”, this is necessary in order to survive and be successful in the company, all you need to do is to behave accordingly, and it’s not a fact that this behavior will be at least somewhat similar to written on posters with values.
“Your employees practice the behavior that is valued in the company, not the values ​​you believe in.”
Valuation by Value (Employment)
In order not to transform your company into a corporate version of the Hunger Games, leaders should do one very important thing: to put emphasis on the behavior that corresponds to the values ​​of the company.
First, you must make sure that all the final candidates for open positions correspond to the values ​​of the company. For example, I rate candidates according to 7 characteristics: perseverance, thoroughness, influence, teamwork, possession, curiosity, courtesy (I recommend replacing them with your corporate values).
Another key characteristic (more precisely, its absence) was popularized by Professor Stanford Bob Sutton. The rule “Without radishes” (note. This is our free translation of the brighter word asshole) dictates to us the following: no matter how cool and expert the candidate is, if he behaves like a radish, this automatically means a refusal to hire. I call it the “single red flag rule.” It is based on the observation that the pathological elements of behavior appear sporadically, i.e. from time to time, not constantly.
For example, a narcissistic candidate may not behave arrogantly all the time, but may make statements that will sound 10 times more arrogant than someone without such a characteristic (for example, vs several times a day several times a month).
The problem is that assessing these characteristics during a quick interview can be difficult and inaccurate. Therefore, I recommend doing the most thorough reference checks: there is an opinion that the best prediction of an employee’s future behavior is based on his past behavior. Based on the best practice of the lead investor, Andreessen Horowitz, I collect up to 6 recommendations from previous jobs in order to more clearly assess the “falling into value”.
One startup from San Francisco (Webby, 300 people) went even further: they are satisfied with
week for employees hired during which the hours worked are fully paid. Why? It's simple: it is almost impossible to suppress incompatible lines of conduct when an employee interacts with colleagues for a long time.
Their CEO puts it this way:
“Radishes can easily disguise themselves during an interview, but whatever happens, they will not be able to disguise themselves all week. I do not know why, but in a week everything falls into place. ”
How to encourage
No matter how cool the interviewers are, any interview can end up with either a false positive (you thought that the candidate fits your values, but you understand that this isn’t the case with the results of the hiring), or a lost opportunity (you thought that the candidate doesn’t fit your values, but he would come up if he were hired). Companies, for which culture is a priority, agree to miss some opportunities in order to prevent false positives. If a false positive does occur, the solution is as simple as possible - to fire as quickly as possible. Very few people are so ready psychologically that they can apply for a dismissal on their own, understanding that they do not fit the values ​​of the company. Especially if they really want this job. The problem that I observed in a number of startups can be characterized as follows: despite the rule “without radishes” adopted by the company, they do not follow it. Excuses like these are included: "We decided not to dismiss him because he is superproductive" or "he has five good traits for this one bad trait" or "it’s very difficult to replace such niche specialists - we will tolerate."
“The moment in which company leaders begin to choose between whether they can only behave according to values ​​or not is a moment in which values ​​are compromised.”
The best way to avoid this trap is to include employee assessment by values ​​in your standard performance management process.
Here is a simple system that I created and implemented in my company. It all starts with the assessment of each employee on two scales: Productivity and Values. No matter what rating system you use, employees need to be assessed in terms of performance and value. Both scales should be digitized in a standard format of 1-10, but I have simplified this system to a 2x2 matrix so that it is more visual. Usually I try to be politically correct, but in this case the use of bright expressions makes the story more understandable:
1) Incompetent radishes (immediately fire)
Incompetent radishes are not only ineffective since then. performance, except that their behavior is fundamentally contrary to the values ​​of your company. In the matrix, they are located in the lower left corner and they can earn a maximum of 25% of the total assessment. I would like to believe that there are practically no such employees in your company, but it happens that such employees manage to stay in the company because of recruitment errors or because of the protracted degradation of productivity and compliance with values. It is important to note that they undermine the motivation of colleagues, because do not bring any benefit, and besides are toxic with tz. the moral of the collective. Of course, the task of each company is to identify incompetent radishes as quickly as possible and dismiss them.
2) Competent radishes
Competent radishes are usually very effective. performance, but at the same time they often demonstrate behavioral characteristics that are not fully correlated with your corporate values. Taking this into account, “radish” is not a clinical term in this case, I would define it as someone who lacks empathy in behavior that causes interpersonal conflicts. The biggest mistake I see in companies is that they retain competent radishes, because they consider them critical to the success of the company, or they find it difficult to replaceable. However, by doing so, they not only passively support the behavior of competent radishes by agreeing with them and raising them, but also implicitly signal to the rest of the company that "you can act as you please, as long as management considers you necessary." You can imagine what kind of culture will grow in such a company after a while. In the clinical case, a competent radish can receive as little as 50% of the maximum possible score, since the second 50% is directly tied to a match with values.
The reason why the rule is called “without radishes” is simple: there should be no exceptions. Otherwise, your values ​​are desired at best. The solution to the problem of competent radishes is what I call “correct or separate.” Despite the fact that these guys are as good as possible with tz. performance, they should be clearly informed that behavior inappropriate to values ​​is unacceptable, and they will have to make a change in their behavior in the near future.
In other words, competent radishes should receive what I call the "Value Improvement Plan." 360 surveys involving managers, colleagues, and direct subordinates are great for evaluating improvements. The reason why I prefer to give a chance to such people is that basically they are not so inflexible as to not change at all, especially when they realize that their work depends on this change. In most cases, this change requires serious therapy and coaching support with a competent specialist, which is especially valuable if the employee wants to change.
3) Incompetent cuties
Incompetent milas are role models from tz. cultures of your company, they all love them, but unfortunately, they are extremely inefficient with tz performance. Like competent radishes, incompetent cuties can get a maximum of 50% of the total score. All because, from my tz. almost as sinful to tolerate incompetent employees, how to tolerate radishes. To give someone a blank check to be ineffective, simply because they are nice in communication, gives your company a clear signal that there is no place for meritocracy. It is enough just to be socially savvy and everything will be ok. However, the solution in this case is different than in the situation with competent radishes. The correct line of conduct will manage them or move to another task.
Incompetent milas must go through a standard “Efficiency Improvement Program”, receiving a constant feedback and the necessary set of training to improve their skills. One solution is to transfer such an employee to another role, where his competence will be enough to be effective.
4) Competent and outstanding cuties
I want to believe that the majority of your company's employees are competent and lovely, and it is important to note that in the Productivity-Value matrix you must project both in order to be in the right upper square. Competent milas can get up to 75% of the assessment, and of course they need to be praised publicly, and given opportunities for growth within the company. But, in order to keep the bar high, employees must be able to get 100% marks only if they demonstrate outstanding results in terms of both performance and value. Taking into account how rare such employees are, company owners should not interfere with them and do everything to entice and keep them inside the company. These are the current or future leaders of your company, and they need to be cherished and nurtured, taking into account that they are the main productivity and culture for your company.
It is worth noting that despite the fact that I share the competent and outstanding milas, I do not do the same with radishes. The reason is simple: I believe that it is almost impossible to be an outstanding radish.
What to do with it
The culture of any company may develop or degrade depending on the vector of its development. Engagement indices in companies decrease as they scale, it is necessary to hire employees in conditions of constant haste and a limited pool of talents, and it is difficult to dismiss because of heavy workload — this is not an unresponsive task. Culture can only be improved if there is a basic level of openness, when people feel that they can share their thoughts on how to improve the world around. If you want to create a holistic and honest culture in the company that corresponds to noble statements from posters on the walls, you should constantly evaluate the behavior of employees for compliance with the values, as well as strive to bridge the gap between the desired and practiced behavior.
“As the old saying goes, what you sow is what you reap. Leaders get the behavior they reward. ”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/333904/
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