Process #1 = People process
How do you know you are hiring the right people? I was speaking with the CEO of a managed service provider not long ago and he told me that they had just hired “a great guy”, “this guy knows everything about servers” he said. I responded “that’s great how does he fit in culturally?” He seemed surprised by my unwillingness to talk about the technology strengths of this individual as I focused on his cultural fit. His response was along the lines of “I don’t know I don’t really participate in our hiring.”
In my mind this is one of the biggest mistakes managed service providers can make. Creating a service culture and successfully delivering value to your clients depends directly on the people you hire – now I know this is an obvious statement but you would be surprised how many smart people will yes you on this and then go out and hire the “smart tech guy” that just doesn’t mesh with what their organization is about.
Everon’s people process
1st we spend a good deal of time defining what our culture is and what core values are important to the organization. We are very clear that we are first and foremost a customer service organization, we just happen to be really good with this technology stuff.
We have created a culture to empower our people by giving them simple decision making guidelines for every situation:
Is the decision the right thing for the customers business?
Is it the right thing for Everon?
Will you be willing to stand by your decision if asked?
If you can answer yes to all three of these questions we will always be behind your decisions.
2nd we educate our leaders to always hire for cultural fit first
We look for hires with great people / service skills as we truly believe we can teach the technology stuff. Have you ever tried to do it the other way around, total disaster!
3rd we value critical thinking skills above knowing everything
Don’t get me wrong we have some people that think they know everything but in reality no one can be smarter than the team and no one knows everything. If you can work from a base of knowledge to find your way through a problem (technical or people problem) that you have never been exposed to before then you will be successful in this business.
It is important to create a repeatable hiring process that allows you to get at the heart of the things important to your culture. Design questions, scenarios, puzzles, and situations that give you the answers to hire the right people. Spend as much time and energy as it takes to educate your leaders and get them bought into the system and reap the benefits of cultural alignment.
JC
