When your ‘superstar’ does not play well with others

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could gain deeper insight into potential hires?

Ronald J. Bourque

OK, let’s say you’ve got an open req.

You’re looking for a key guy in a senior position, and the performance of the company will largely depend on his performance. Let’s say he’ll be your vice president of operations or something like that.

You’ve advertised, your people and/or your machines have sorted through a hundred resumes, and now you’re down to the short list of five. You interview them all, and two of them stand out, might even be perfect fits, but how do you decide which one?

Let’s say they both go to a local gym, as they’re trying to stay healthy. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had an employee who was not part of the interview team, someone neither of these applicants have seen in your company, and who also goes to the same gym? If you gave him pictures of both guys, he could discretely observe their behaviors.

Why would you want to do this? Well, it would be interesting to see how they behave when they think their behaviors are inconsequential, when they think they don’t matter. How do they treat the other members? Are they considerate and polite? Are they neat and orderly? Do they create messes and leave them for someone else to clean up?

You see, I have a back problem. I swim a mile five mornings a week to mitigate the pain; I don’t take any pain killers. In fact, I get some of my best ideas while swimming, but it’s in the locker room where I learn an awful lot about the people around me. I am truly amazed, sometimes horrified, at some of the things I see.

Yes, I know some of the regulars, and have become friends with them, but I must admit these “friends” are all good people whose company I enjoy. In fact, I’d probably like working with them.

The people I avoid, on the other hand, are rude, inconsiderate and routinely exhibit behaviors that would cause any manager interested in hiring good people to walk away, maybe even run away.

Many people can exhibit wonderful personalities, ingratiating behaviors and competence in their professions for short periods of time. After a while, the pretense tends to wear off. Have you ever thought you were hiring a superstar and a few months later wished you had hired someone else?

Now, before I get into too much trouble, I know I’m talking only about men. You see, I’ve never been in a women’s locker room, so I can’t speak for what goes on in those places. I’ve heard stories, but that’s awfully risky …

I might also mention I’ve done work in 12 foreign countries as well as all over the U.S. Yes, I try to swim regardless of where I am, because my back pain doesn’t care where I am. In fact, long plane flights can be very effective at exacerbating that pain, so I can tell you, in my experience, locker rooms and the behaviors therein tend to be quite similar in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and of course here in the U.S.

But even so, even when you can’t speak the language, these behaviors are so evident, it takes very little time to decide who might be a helpful friend and who to stay away from.

Now, I don’t even know if this is actually legal where you are, but wouldn’t it be nice if the hiring process was good at providing that kind of information? Admittedly, if you’re looking for someone incredibly specialized in some scientific discipline, you might find that likable candidates just don’t exist. If you have to hire one, at least you know what you’re getting in advance.

For instance, the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, comes to mind. He had an incredible ability to develop products we didn’t even want until we saw them, and then we couldn’t live without them. I’ve done some work in Silicon Valley, and he was legendary at being incredibly difficult and hard to work with.

At one point, Apple fired him, but then they got him back. Reportedly, nobody else could do what he did, so they put up with him.

Most of us just aren’t that good, so our behaviors have to be acceptable, even delightful, if possible, and it’s great if we can hire someone who does this while meeting our technical requirements as well.

Ronald J. Bourque, a consultant and speaker from Salem, has had engagements throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He can be reached at 603-898-1871 or ronbourque3@gmail.com.