Deception #4 - Experience

When I was a manager responsible for hiring on the west coast, the two things we were taught to look for in the interview process was industry experience with the industry we were selling into and sales experience with a slight emphasis on the later.  But the truth was that some of our best people came with very little of either.

I’ll get help from Marcus Buckingham along with Co-Author Curt Coffman on this one from their management book, First Break All The Rules. This book is based on Gallop interviews with over 80,000 managers in over 400 companies. Buckingham and Coffman comment on the ill advised strategy of managers who select based solely on experience:  “Manager’s who place a special emphasis on experience pay closest attention to a candidates work history. They pore over each person’s resume, rating the companies who employed him and the kind of work they performed. They see his past as a window to the future.”

Buckingham and Coffman agree that experience can teach valuable lessons… but it fails to take into account the many kinds of talents required to get a job done. Conventional wisdom often suggests that somehow managers can teach talent, or at least teach skills that might somehow make up for talent.

From my perspective in managing for several years in a well known national company, this is acerbated by the fact that few organizations prepare their managers with tools that give any kind of a window into a perspective applicants actual talents. Work sampling would be one possibility. Having an applicant perform same or similar task simulations would be one way to get additional helpful insight. Strength oriented behavioral interviewing strategies would be another.

There is a lesson here if you in charge of hiring, but there is also a lesson when you seek work, promotion, or lateral movement.  What you've done isn't necessarily what you should keep doing even if you have been fairly successful at it.

Tom Rath in his wonderful book Strengthsfinder 2.0, shares an old Mark Twain story about a man who passed away and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven. Believing that Saint Peter was very wise, the man asked a question that he had wondered about throughout his life.
He began, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history most of my life. Who was the greatest general of all time?”

Saint Peter responded, “Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s that man right over there.”

Confused, the man said, “You must be mistaken, I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common laborer.”

“That’s right,” assured Saint Peter. “But he would have been the greatest general of all time… if he had been a general.”

Rath goes on to comment, This story illustrates a truth that is, unfortunately, all too common. Far too many people spend a lifetime headed in the wrong direction. They go not only from the cradle to the cubicle, but then to the casket, without uncovering their greatest potential.

I don’t know about you but this story sends an uncomfortable chill down my spine. How many of our kids, spouses, friends, employees, or co-workers are currently spending most of their days engaged in those activities God designed them for. As I look around my world, I’d have to conclude, not very many.

Figure out ways to try new stuff...you might stumble across the your world class arena!