How well do you know the people you work with? One in four people admit to dating a co-worker at some time in their career. Almost 30% go on to marry that person.
With that in mind I’d like to challenge you to a hypothetical situation – kind of a test of bias.
Suppose your company has been through some tough times. Your employees are unhappy and your customers are fickle. The executive director you hired is ready to retire and you want the next executive director to be prepared to bring customers back and build your team.
You hold interviews with the best candidates and talk it over with your advisors. Applicant 1 promises a similar strategy as preferred by the retiring director. Applicant 1 is favored by the retiring director who turned out to be rather disappointing. Yet you have reason to believe applicant 1 will not make some of the same mistakes leading to the current problems at your company.
Applicant 2 has a lot of ambition and presents as if already hired. But applicant 2 has an approach to management that leads you to think there might be a problem relating to some of your employees and customers. Applicant 2 in a previous project made enemies and their ambition ended in project failure. While applicant 2’s credentials seem technically accurate, you wonder if the company can afford to lose customers and divide your team.
Everyone thinks the third applicant is charming. Applicant 3 says all the right things and even prepared dazzling presentations. However applicant 3 is less known than the first two. You reason that possibly the greatest value is applicant 3 could win more customers, improve the brand the most, and build the strongest teamwork. You are inclined to choose candidate 3 except you are not sure if candidate 3 is all talk. What you do not know is if candidate 3 is as good as the presentations.
Today you get a letter from someone — a former co-worker of applicant number 3. The writer’s credentials appear to be solid but you never heard of the person before. The writer worked with applicant 3 for ten years. The writer knows a side of applicant 3 you do not.
This scenario is real. You’re the boss. Will his first hand observations help? If you want to know, please visit here.
