Recruitment

Would you like to massively improve your recruitment success?

 In this series of articles, Gill Best, Language and Behaviour Consultant will give you language tools that will enable you to prepare more effective person specifications, write job adverts that only attract the right people and improve or transform your interview technique.

Article 3 - Do you need to recruit someone who can decide for themselves that they are good at their job or would someone who needs feedback be more suitable?  Does it matter either way? Yes, I believe it does - read on…

In the last article we looked at whether the best person to fill your vacancy needs to be goal focussed, future oriented and keen to build something new – “Towards” or, whether you need them to prevent problems, troubleshoot or fix things when they go wrong – “Away From”. This month we are going to examine another key element of motivation: what is the source of a person’s motivation; are they internally or externally referenced?  This stems from their own view of their performance at work. 

So, how do you know you are doing a good job at work? Maybe you just know; you don’t need anyone else to tell you or give you feedback; it is something you decide for yourself.  If this is the case, then I suspect that even if someone did try to give you feedback (your boss for example) you probably wouldn’t pay any real attention.   In the context of work you are internally referenced (Internal); it is your own judgement about your performance that is important to you and what motivates you. 

On the other hand when I asked that question you may have responded by thinking that you don’t know whether you are doing a good job unless someone else tells you, or you achieve some external target.  You need something or someone outside yourself to confirm that you are on track.  Getting feedback really motivates you even if that feedback is to say you need to improve.  Without this information you feel as though you are suffering from sensory deprivation, cast adrift not knowing whether your performance is excellent, mediocre or poor.  You find this lack of information very demotivating.  In the context of work you are externally referenced (External).

Now I can almost hear the shout from some of you saying that everyone should be able to judge for themselves and the more mature you are the more likely you are to be able to make that judgement.  We shouldn’t have to mother everyone.  I can hear another group of you saying that of course feedback is important; it is a part of good management and helps to keep staff motivated.

Well it may be part of good management but not everyone is motivated by it. If you an Internal person that they need to do something differently, they may think that your comments are interesting but they will not necessarily act on your advice, unless they also agree with your feedback; they take feedback, instructions or advice as information.

An Internal person, who is only motivated by their own view of their own performance is going to be a liability in any customer facing role where responding to customer feedback is a key part of the job. 

Now for External people who need feedback to get motivated (remember we are not talking about having the requisite skill or knowledge, we are talking about what motivates someone to produce excellent performance), if you don’t provide that input then you will not get the best out of them.  These people are often great at working with clients.  Just imagine if you employed someone in a business development or marketing role who was not motivated by positive feedback from the client – this would be a recipe for disaster.  External people will take information as an instruction, so if you suggest something to them they will go act on it as if it were an order.

Likewise, if you expect someone to work on their own without a lot of input from others then it is really important that they can judge their own performance so that they can get on and perform at a high level.

Case Studies

 Let me give you a small case study.  I was working with a coaching client helping him to develop a career plan.  After reviewing his career history it became clear that in some roles he performed really well and in other very similar roles he felt he performed badly, to the point that he had to take time off for stress.    Now no-one had told him in his last job that he was performing badly, but that is the point, no-one told him anything at all: he had very loose goals, no real targets to meet, no way, in his terms, for him to judge how well he was doing and his manager certainly didn’t give him any feedback.   The result was de-motivation and stress. Contrast this with an earlier position in which his manager met with him regularly to discuss progress, he had a set of targets to meet and a broad plan for the year as to what they wanted him to achieve.  He loved this job and made great strides for the company, increasing turnover by 300%.  My client was in a responsible position in both jobs but was obviously an External.

 Another case study, but for someone who didn’t need feedback, an Internal.  An Admin Support Assistant in a busy training company was great at getting her work done.  The trainers used to rush in and tell her what doing and rush out again without giving her the time of day – that was the nature of the company; so much work – too little time to do it in (sound familiar?).  The admin assistant just got on with it and was excellent in her job – she never got any feedback. For her it didn’t matter - she decided for herself how good a job she was doing.  Everyone appreciated her efforts but very rarely told her.  It was nice to hear the appreciation, but it wasn’t what motivated her.  She motivated herself and would have probably objected strongly if anyone interfered in her work by suggesting she do something differently.

 So, how can you use this information in recruitment?

 Does the job you are recruiting for have characteristics similar to the following:

• The culture of our organisation is that we give and receive feedback and we expect it to be acted upon.

• The job holder must care about what the clients/customers/colleagues think and need to respond to those needs.

• The customer is king!

If you answered yes to any of these items, especially if you have a customer facing role, then to achieve high levels of performance, you need to recruit someone who External.  Typical roles where this applies are marketing, business development, customer service and sales, where responding to the needs of the client is paramount. 

 If on the other hand you have a requirement that someone:

• makes decisions based on what they believe to be righ

• where they need to respond quickly, assess a situation and then decide a course of action

• be comfortable with their decision regardless of what others think

then having someone who is sufficiently Internal is really important.   People working in emergency situations, senior managers, army officers or anyone who makes decisions on their own, need to have the ability to make decisions, live with the consequences and enjoy that way of working.  If they don’t enjoy it they will find decision making very stressful. 

How do you find out if a person is Internal or External?

If you have read my previous articles you will know by now that your use of language is the key to understanding your motivational traits.

 If you ask an External “how they know they’ve done a good job?” they will ill tend to say: 

 “I don’t know unless someone tells me”

“My clients’ tell me

“When I achieve my targets”

 They will refer to things that are external to themselves.

 For someone who is Internal, when asked that same question they will tend to point to themselves and respond using phrases such as:

“I just know”

“I know within myself”

“I decide”

Sometimes people respond as if they are both internally and externally motivated by saying something like “I gather information then I decide”.  In this situation, if you are not sure if someone is more Internal than External then a good question to ask is “if you felt as though you had done a good job but some one else disagreed, how would you respond?”  The answer they give will tell you whether they are more Internal or External. 

Article 3 will address levels of motivation; “Proactive”, i.e. want to get things going now, if not sooner; great for getting things done; or “Reactive”, someone who thinks things through, considers and analyses, great for making sure all options are thoroughly considered.

If you have a recruitment coming up and would like to improve your success contact Gill Best, Language and Behaviour (LAB) Consultant, Caelum Coaching and Consultants on 0161 4916476, 07830 161880, email gill@caelumcoaching.com.