When recruiting and interviewing candidates, the goals are simple: find the best people for the job as efficiently as possible, with an accepted offer at the end of the process. Often, however, we spend so much time focusing on trying to find the best people that we forget the critical steps that will get us there. Recruiting is an expensive and time-intensive process, so here are three areas that, with a little planning and intention, can go a long way toward ensuring that your organization is making the right hiring decisions the first time. 

Top Five Items to Prepare for the Interview

Successful interviewees usually spend days, if not weeks, preparing for their interview. Yet, too often, interviewers have the candidate’s resume and no other guidance or resources to prepare. While interviewers often say they feel confident in their interviewing skills, many organizations have no clear way of measuring an interviewer’s skill in the recruiting process. Ensuring interviewers are just as prepared for the interview as the candidates sets the entire process up for success.Here are some steps to take to make sure your interviewer has everything they need.

1. Define Candidate Success

Far too frequently, reliance on a gut feeling determines our belief in whether a candidate would do well in a role. But, our guts are unreliable and tend to entrench biases. Usually, someone passes the “gut test” if they seem similar to the interviewer or to folks who are already in the role. Relying on the “gut test” means candidates with diverse experiences are often passed over, and homogenous cultures emerge.

The first step to breaking free of the “gut test” is to specifically define success for the role. Identify the core competencies that someone would need to demonstrate in order to perform at a high level. Once those are identified, get even more concrete. Specify the actual behaviors that make up each competency. For example, if pro-active ownership is a core competency for the role, behaviors to look for are examples of the candidate taking on projects that were outside of the scope of their assigned work or of identifying an issue and proposing a solution before being asked. These behaviors, also known as success indicators or positive indicators, define success in the role and give your interviewers and decision-makers a road map of what to look for.

2. Write Impactful Questions

Interviewers are often left on their own regarding what questions to ask. This can result in interviewers asking candidates to repeat information already contained in their resume or asking candidates obscure questions (the infamous, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?) that illuminate little about potential success in the role.

Once core competencies and positive indicators have been identified, give your interviewers questions designed to elicit the behaviors you’re looking for. Behavioral interview questions (e.g., Tell me about a time when…) will bring you to the heart of the candidate’s experiences. Their answers will either demonstrate that they’ve engaged in desired behaviors or not and will give you a much better baseline to judge potential success than knowing that this person sees themselves as a sugar maple.

3. Listen Carefully

Asking great questions isn’t the only role of the interviewer. They also need to listen to the answers. And this is where our brains often trip us up. Our brains are designed for interpersonal communication through storytelling. We love a good story! And asking behavioral interview questions results in hearing a lot of stories. But unless we’re interviewing for the role of a professional storyteller, we want to resist the urge to get sucked into a story. Someone might tell a riveting and entertaining story that exhibits none of the positive indicators we’re looking for. If we aren’t careful, we might move them through to the next step because we had such a great time listening to them. With each question, the interviewer should have a list of key success indicators they are listening for and check them off as they hear them. This keeps the focus on the skills needed for success rather than on entertainment value.

4. Capture the Feedback that Matters

Conducting an interview takes time, and the last thing an interviewer wants to do after the interview concludes is complete an onerous feedback form memorializing their experience. But if feedback isn’t captured shortly after the interview, the specifics get lost, and we’re back to relying on our memories and (oh no) the gut.

Ideally, interviewers should be checking off success indicators as they move through their prepared questions, which makes feedback collection significantly easier and more effective. The feedback now directly answers the question of whether the candidate demonstrates behaviors that indicate success in the role instead of whether the interviewer “liked” the candidate. The feedback should also include a few quantitative questions asking the interviewer to rate the candidate on key core competencies and a few open-ended questions so that the interviewer has the opportunity to include any other relevant information. The feedback form should take at most five minutes to complete, and the interviewer should be required to submit it within one hour of interview completion.

5. Make Cleaner Recruiting Decisions

Finally, we get to the point we’re all waiting for – making a hiring decision. This is where having objective information about a candidate’s potential success in the role makes all the difference. If interviews were conducted using questions designed to elicit behaviors that indicate success in this role and feedback was collected from each interviewer in a timely fashion, the decision-makers are set up well. But there are still a few pitfalls to avoid.

First, groupthink is real. An interviewer might come out of an interview with a very strong opinion, but once they hear that their colleagues have opposite views, suddenly that opinion goes right out the window. Be sure to capture folks’ conclusions before they have the opportunity to confer with each other. Set the expectation that the feedback form should be completed and submitted without speaking to anyone else involved in the process.

Second, resist the urge to ignore the success indicators. It can be all too easy to let a candidate’s lack of positive behaviors slide once the hiring group gets together and reminisces about how “cool” the candidate was or “how much fun” they had during the interview. When hiring conversations head in this direction, hold firm to the positive indicators. Those are the road map for success, so don’t throw it away and let the “gut” take over at the last minute.

Third, remember that the skills and behaviors that lead to success in the role occur independently of one another. Even if a candidate was really strong in one core competency, it doesn’t automatically mean that they have the full package. If you’ve previously determined that this set of core competencies is key, don’t let a high score in one reduce the importance of another. Assess each candidate holistically on the metrics that were agreed upon in advance.

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Ultimately, to ensure that the right hiring decision is made and the best candidate is chosen for the job, it is essential to be intentional about the interview process. By defining success and using carefully crafted questions and corresponding feedback forms, the recruiting process is more likely to be based on facts and evidence rather than on memories and gut feel. This will not only ensure that the right candidate is chosen for the job but also provides a much more systematic approach to identifying potential high performers. With the right tools in place, you can have confidence that you’re making the best hiring decision possible.

Interested in training for your interviewers or a total overhaul of your interviewing process? Schedule a meeting with us today to learn how our team of trainers and consultants can make your recruiting process more inclusive and effective.

As a communications coach, I’m a staunch supporter of companies having a robust professional development curriculum. Yet even I will agree that corporate training on inclusivity and unconscious bias have their pitfalls and limitations if employees don’t — and aren’t expected to — practice what they learn when their decisions matter most.

Enter the annual review process. Our conscious and unconscious inputs inform some of the most important decisions we face at work: Who deserves to advance in their career? Despite what we learn in a classroom setting, research shows that bias still creeps into performance evaluations if we’re not paying attention. This is especially true if the message isn’t reiterated and enforced within and among our leadership structures, as well as by middle management and down on the front lines — both visibly and behind closed doors.

Bias is a big problem. Our smallest words on a feedback form can lead to decisions that affect not only a person’s livelihood this year but their career trajectory for years to come.

All it takes is a single bad review to halt someone’s rise to rockstar status, leaving their career dreams hanging by a thread. In cases where the employees being held back are disproportionately from underrepresented groups, as is common in many professional services industries, the issue of bias can compound into visible trends across a company.

So before you sit down to tackle this year’s performance paperwork, consider the following tactics for putting the lessons you (may have been forced to) learn about bias into practice when writing performance reviews.

1. Make your structure work for everyone.

Your organization’s performance review form shouldn’t be open to any interpretation. If you find yourself unclear on the expectations and what they mean for your feedback, then talk to someone in HR about how you can improve the performance form. When reviews are vague, bias can thrive, and if your forms aren’t soliciting consistent data from all users, then an adjustment is warranted — for the sake of a level playing field for all employees, no matter their background.

We strongly recommend a numerical scale that assigns ranks to clearly defined behaviors, providing concrete examples of the performance. This approach guides evaluators in their recall process when they might otherwise lean on subjective beliefs. The result will be a more uniform application of your organization’s performance criteria, as well as staff who can focus their performance on what matters to your company’s values.

2. Think twice about your word choice.

The language you choose matters more than you might think — and it matters especially more during employee evaluations than during your normal course of business. When studied across many industries, unfair gender-based trends emerged related to word choice in performance reviews. Generic language like “good” was shown to vary widely in terms of meaning. As pointed out earlier, this lack of clarity invites ambiguity, introducing subjectivity into what should be a mostly objective process.

As one example of the impact of word choice, the constructive feedback delivered to female and male employees often differs in their framing — as a weakness versus a growth area, respectively. Then finding doesn’t change even when women are the ones doing the evaluating, suggesting this is a social construct more than anything else. Women in the workplace might be criticized for “their inadequate relationships with clients,” while men modeling similar behavior are encouraged to “strengthen their client relationship skills.” This subtle difference between positive, actionable language and static, negative language is important.

The reviewer’s good intentions are not in doubt — but the details and nuances that ensure you understand the person’s behavior and performance do not translate when your written comments are shared with unfamiliar readers. The meaning gets murky, and others may interpret the performance of these two people differently. Unfortunately, this misinterpretation will likely compound over many years in that person’s career too.

3. Quit with the creativity!

Inspiring, compelling narratives may win over your clients and move target audiences to action. But performance evaluations are not the venue for showing off your extensive vocabulary or top-shelf writing skills. Variation is the opposite of ideal in the case of evaluations. Repetition across evaluators may be boring, but being consistent is much more vital. See tip No. 2 for the rationale on being clear on your meaning and employing the same language when you do, in fact, mean the same thing.

4. Spread the word about bias.

Even if training won’t solve the problem entirely, any attempt at improved understanding about bias is worthwhile. Ask your HR team for resources about feedback and bias. At the very least, make sure all your direct reports and their reviewers know about its effects — and I mean “all” literally. The phenomenon of bias isn’t isolated to a single gender, seniority, generation, or industry. It’s a human thing.

Everyone at your organization should be held accountable for having a baseline understanding of bias and its surreptitious way of tipping the scales in the (ideally) objective annual review process. Clarity of language is the key. Only when people throughout your organization take what they know about bias and actively apply it will the trends about diversity and inclusion on a large scale start to change for the better.

Yet this same principle is rarely applied to the rules of engagement between co-workers. An isolated slip-up of questionable language, for example, can lead to HR action, and a one-off lapse of judgment is neither encouraged nor welcomed as part of the chaotic process of growth. 

But should it be?

Like a virus, today’s “cancel culture” has progressed from a feeding frenzy happening on our Twitter feeds to a way of engaging with each other in our boardrooms. This outright dismissal of people with differing opinions is simply not sustainable for our organizations, or our mental health! 

Instead, I’d like to echo — but reframe — a suggestion made by outspoken entertainment critic Louis Virtel, who recently suggested moving to a “consequences culture.” I agree with him and would add one more bit of alliteration, I would like to see us move to “conversation culture.” 

Before exploring this concept further, let me be clear that in no way am I encouraging giving a pass to colleagues who exhibit consistent or egregious behavior toward others. This article is meant to explore the far more common experience of interacting and communicating with others who have no idea the effect of their words and, more important, would be horrified if they did know. 

Seize the Awk

As we embark on a new year and a new decade, we have an opportunity to redefine our expectations of one another on our collective journey toward societal progress. The fatigue with political correctness — including among a surprising 79% of Americans younger than 24 — means that the sweet hope of universal respect has curdled into the bitterness of pseudo-censorship. This is where the idea of conversation culture comes in.

As individuals, we should consider adjusting our automatic reaction to comments in the workplace to be forgiveness instead of outrage. Rather than righteous backlash, we might welcome the “offender” into conversation and offer our perspective on the issue — how certain words or actions might make us feel diminished as competent professionals based on our personal experiences. We might even seek out awkward conversations that help us better understand our differences.

As organizations, we need to train our leaders to handle disagreements between staff with an understanding of the unintended consequences of public shaming. While overtly malicious or repetitive actions should be treated swiftly and seriously — including with legal steps, if necessary — the more innocuous behaviors or language that tend to displease those of us in the “woke” population might be treated as mistakes worthy of guidance on a better approach. 

Calling out a manager during a teamwide meeting for some version of an all-Millennials-are-all-entitled joke, for example, might fuel the flames of ageism rather than put out the fire. Taking a public stance adds highly influential social pressure to a situation that can be more effectively addressed through a one-on-one conversation. Even worse, this approach can lead to a phenomenon called the “backfire effect,” where opinions become even more entrenched when overtly challenged. 

In workplace cultures where conversations claim top priority, the power to change minds starts with giving the other person enough respect to trust their ability to listen, learn, and grow. As I’ve advised elsewhere, the best way to handle an emotional reaction, such as one that results from minor outrage or offense, is to neutralize it … and then quickly move on. 

Saving Grace (Not Face)

My experience is that education through the style of grace demanded of us in a conversations culture will move us further down the continuum of respect than the current status quo of vocal divisiveness. It acknowledges that we’re all fallible humans, and — so long as one’s intentions are good (which, of course, isn’t always the case) — it encourages honest conversations that build unexpected relationships.

In contrast, bringing down the hammer of Thor every time an error is made will backfire against your goal of creating a more civil, modernized workplace. Instead, these outsized actions will foster anger and distrust, shut down the possibility of an open dialogue, and deepen divisions among groups that would benefit from learning more about one another.

Tension and conflict are so 2019. Let’s commit to doing 2020 better — recognizing that real greatness will require real mistakes. Will we be resilient enough to achieve it?  

Add the glitter explosion that was my Instagram feed to the mix, and the outpouring of support for the LGBTQIA community suggested that Corporate America had finally turned a corner in embracing diversity and respect. It was inspiring to witness (albeit hard on my social budget).

Enter July. 

In a matter of weeks, things have returned to business as usual. Independence Day has dethroned Pride as the marketing theme du jour and my clients with nontraditional and underrepresented backgrounds for their fields are feeling the resurgence of exclusivity as the unspoken status quo. This whiplash effect has left me wondering: Where did all the “woke” go? 

Walking the Walk

As a communications coach in the professional services industries, I’ve seen the impact of exclusivity on people’s careers — and on companies — time and time again. Passing gestures of social enlightenment help, but we should be doing so much more.

That’s why I challenge companies to keep the momentum going from their month-long marketing campaigns — whether for Pride Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, or other efforts — for the rest of 2019 and beyond. 

I offer the following tactics to help your organization and its employees be more inclusive, respectful, and authentic all year long: 

• Turn your “readers” into “writers.” To build anything that truly helps and resonates with your target audience, it’s best to include them in the process of creation. This tactic is a page out of (new) Hollywood’s playbook — screenwriters with personal knowledge of the experiences that their characters face are better able to write authentically and navigate the pitfalls of stereotyping (or tokenizing) than writers who rely only on secondary research. For corporations, this might mean having new parents co-author your family leave policy and having professionals of color co-define racial discrimination in your employee guidebook, for example.
  
  
• Do as the Romans do. Similarly, you can improve your understanding of less familiar perspectives by (not surprisingly) walking in other people’s shoes directly. Rather than continue to embrace experiences and ideas that are comfortable for you, challenge yourself to seek out less-obvious choices. This might mean attending industry events where you’re the only person who looks like you — a shock for many white people but a common experience for many people of color — or reading trade news dailies that target readers outside your demographic. By expanding your personal inventory of experiences, you can become more open and receptive in moments that matter.
  
  
• Above all else, give grace. Finally, while the old guard shouldn’t be given a free pass to offend or ignore in the workplace, they should be given room to be curious and engage — to ask questions to their peers without fear of being written off as an idiot or bigot. After all, many of our more seasoned colleagues are experiencing a workplace culture that was the same for three decades (or more) but that in the last five years has transformed dramatically. A change this significant would be tough for anyone. Forgiveness, curiosity, and empathy at work can help smooth the journey for everyone involved.

As we all gear up for the next big observance, let’s commit to doing better over a more prolonged period. Respect should not be observed only when it’s convenient. Diversity should not be a pocketed experience. The path to holistic, authentic equality is not yet clear. But employers have an opportunity to help their employees feel pride year-round — not just in June — in their organization’s approach to inclusivity at work. 

For information about Fringe PD’s individual or company coaching, click here.

]]> https://fringepd.com/2018-10-04-performancereviewbias/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2018-10-04-performancereviewbias Thu, 04 Oct 2018 17:33:24 +0000 http://fringeprofdev.wpengine.com/?p=543 Read more]]> Be better than Selina Meyer when writing your performance reviews (well… and generally)

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

Fall has officially arrived, which means everyone’s favorite, most festive time of year is almost here: performance review season. Pour the pumpkin spice, and let the celebrations begin!

But before you sit down to write this year’s self-assessment, peer review, or employee evaluation, it’s worth taking some time to consider the impact that performance reviews have on a person’s career trajectory. While you’re at it, pay special attention to where bias might emerge and, more important, where it can be interrupted.

That’s because the review process is a well-documented breeding ground for the kind of unintentional, unobjective thinking known as bias. If managed improperly, a performance review can stifle the career of a promising employee, a setback that is proven to more likely happen to women or members of another underrepresented group and can lead to systemic disparities within your organization.

While we often begrudge the time commitment and effort that performance reviews take, it’s important to remember the stakes at play — both individually and organizationally — during this process.

To make things easier for you, Fringe PD has compiled our top tips for mitigating bias in the language you use (and will likely read) in performance reviews.

1. Provide a clear structure. If you’re left scratching your head about something in your performance review form, your company should probably discuss reworking the format. That’s because ambiguity is one of the greatest contributors to bias. And if your tools and forms aren’t clear at all levels — directive even — adjusting them or working with someone in your HR team to do so will make a big difference in reducing inconsistent or inaccurate reviews.

For example, rather than ask for a subjective 1 to 5 rating on a core competency, clearly define what each level of that competency means in terms of performance outcomes. Then, ask reviewers to respond to those definitions. This approach will both guide their individualized thinking and ensure greater consistency among reviewers. Score! (Literally.)

2. Use your words … thoughtfully! Research shows that gendered language in performance reviews can have a highly negative impact, with one powerful example focusing on the use of “growth opportunity” versus “weakness.” When studied across many industries, similar behaviors were presented as “weaknesses” for female employees but as “growth areas” for male employees. And yes, this finding holds true even when women review other women.

Similarly, common terms like “good” were found to mean different things to each reviewer and between reviewers — a big problem when your words go on an employee’s proverbial permanent record. Despite the wisdom of your high school English teacher, language variation is the opposite of ideal in the case of evaluations. Consistent use of well-defined terms is extremely important, even if it’s more boring. (Sorry, Mrs. Vaughan.)

3. Be alert to gendered language IRL. Let’s use fictional employees Sarah and Ben to illustrate this point. Over the past year, both of them have demonstrated a lack of follow-through with clients that has caused deadlines to be missed and some very grumpy bosses.

Whether intentional or not, the reality is that Sarah’s review is more likely to say that she “doesn’t proactively reach out to clients,” while Ben’s might say he “should focus on developing stronger client outreach.” The difference here is subtle but important: One offers a criticism while the other offers a solution.

When these comments are taken out of the overall context (for example, when being read by a partnership or leadership committee), the nitty-gritty details that add nuance to a person’s behavior get lost. Unfamiliar reviewers will make higher-level decisions that interpret these two people differently — likely over and over again during the course of a career.

4. Know better to do better. If possible, advocate for a training at your organization on the intersection of bias and feedback. You can also take action by educating your immediate team about biased language. Be sure to target your training programs across the spectrum of feedback by including anyone writing a self-assessment, as well as the people writing  and reading the narrative-style evaluations of others.

Regardless of gender, demographic, or seniority, everyone needs to be aware of the potential for ambiguity to sneak into the process and create an uneven playing field with major consequences. Bottom line? Language matters.

So, cheers to Review Season 2018! Take comfort in knowing that, in addition to a hearty dose of wine or eggnog, exhibiting some bias is also unavoidable — your brain would explode otherwise [David Rock, A Bias against Bias]. But only when everyone at your organization makes a greater effort to be aware of bias is real growth and success possible.

For hands-on support with addressing biased language or gendered communications, reach out to us directly.

]]> https://fringepd.com/2017-7-10-the-40-year-old-millennial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2017-7-10-the-40-year-old-millennial Mon, 10 Jul 2017 20:13:02 +0000 http://fringeprofdev.wpengine.com/2017-7-10-the-40-year-old-millennial/ Read more]]> A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a colleague that brought up the ever present topic of millennials at work. After some discussion, I reminded this person that I was a millennial and they looked shocked. “I would never have suspected!” they said as if I had told them a deep dark secret. As it turns out, I just didn’t fit the mold of what this person expected of a millennial. I wasn’t whiny, self-centered, entitled, lazy, shall I go on?

This interaction happens to me all too often and I have heard similar stories from colleagues in the same age cohort. Generational stereotypes are a tricky thing. We tend to identify generational behaviors early on and then stick people in that behavior like a character in a play or a younger sibling. Somehow we can’t imagine them maturing, gaining experience, or growing up. We know that as of 2015 millennials make up the majority of the American workforce and as baby boomers continue to retire at increasingly rapid rates, their presence in our offices and organizations will be felt more every year.

At home, millennials are becoming the next generation of parents. Forty percent of them have already started families and 9,000 millennial women give birth every day. We are becoming a group that is growing into responsibility and authority while still being seen as a generation of youth and immaturity. At work, millennials are no longer only the interns and entry-level members of your team. They are growing up and stepping into the leadership roles that they have always craved. This generation has graduated to the decision-making ranks of leadership and it is necessary for organizations to see them in this new, more pragmatic space so that they can be given the tools needed to succeed.

The fact is that by 2020 the oldest millennials will turn 40.  
They (we) are not children anymore. 

Millennial managers have unique challenges caused by the rapid retirement of baby boomers. Many of them are moved quickly to management roles with little to no training. They frequently manage people who are older than they are, and, if they are still seen as the 21-year-old whiny child, they are often perceived as lacking the experience to be a “role-model”.

[Related: What younger managers should know about how they are perceived]

So, how is your organization planning for these new leaders and how will you help them succeed? After all, the success of your organization will depend on their ability to keep teams and projects moving forward smoothly and successfully. If you aren’t sure where to start, why not meet millennials where they are most comfortable, with community and personal development.

Loop your emerging millennials into the broader mission and growth plan for your business. We all know that millennials are mission driven, so let them know what the future holds for them and the organization. This might mean including those identified as high-potentials in more strategic meetings so that they can see the bigger picture as well as what their future might hold.

We know this cohort loves feedback and training, so give it to them! Developing the professional skills, outside of any industry specific skill-set, will be critical to bringing about a strong generation of leaders and managers. These new managers will be the rock of your organization in future years. Take advantage of their desire for growth and learning and provide them with tools for management, communication, leadership, and organizational planning to help them and the organization succeed.

We help new and experienced professionals become better managers and business leaders. Looking for ideas on how to support these initiatives in your organization? Give us a call, we would love to chat!