Your Company Culture Is Who You Hire, Fire, and Promote
notes date: 2018-06-17
source links:
source date: 2017-03-03
https://medium.com/s/company-culture/your-companys-culture-is-who-you-hire-fire-and-promote-c69f84902983 Your Company Culture Is Who You Hire, Fire, and Promote How Leadership Can Align Culture With Values
Using the Performance-Values Matrix to build happy, competent teams Dr. Cameron Sepah
Part 1, the Performance-Values Matrix
Why Behaviors Persist (Do As I Do, Not As I Say)
- According to the theory of behaviorism, no behavior will persist long-term unless it is being perpetuated by either a positive reinforcer (providing a reward, such as a promotion or praise) or a negative reinforcer (taking away a punishment, such as a probationary period or undesirable work).
- According to social learning theory, […] behaviors become socialized, and rank-and-file employees take their cues from leaders and act accordingly (what I call ‘trickle-down behaviors’).
- Your company’s employees practice the behaviors that are valued, not the values you believe.
How to Assess (Values During Interviewing)
- I’ve created an interview template to evaluate candidates on 7 traits: grit, rigor, impact, teamwork, ownership, curiosity, polish
- The “No Asshole Rule” [by Professor Bob Sutton of Stanford …], being an asshole is an automatic deal breaker. The way this can be implemented is through what I call the “One Red Flag Rule.” This is based on the observation that pathological traits are sporadically, not continually, expressed.
How to Reward (Values During Performance Management)
- The moment that leaders start weighting values-congruent against values-incongruent behavior, as if they balance out, is the moment when they have compromised their values.
The Performance-Values Matrix
1) Incompetent Assholes (Fire Fast)
2) Competent Assholes (Remediate or Separate)
- The solution for competent assholes is what I call “remediate or separate”. Despite the fact that these folks are strong performers, it should be made clear that value-incongruent behavior is not tolerated and they will need to remediate their behavior in a measurable way within a limited time.
3) Incompetent Nice Guys (Manage or Move)
- it is nearyl as much of a sin to tolerate incompetent people as it is to tolerate assholes. Giving free license for someone to underperform just because they are kind or likeable sends the message that your company is not a meritocracy, and that it’s more important to be socially skilled (or at worst, be a brown noser).
4) Competent and Outstanding Nice Guys (Praise and Raise)
- They are what Sarah Tavel of Greylock calls the “mitochondria” of startups, because they are the company’s power plants–adding value beyond their job description and responsibilities by asking and doing what is best for the company.
- Even if one engineer could possibly do the work of 10, if they are an asshole (especially in a management position), they will decrease the performance of the people around them to such an extend that their team’s net productivity will break even or be at a loss long-term.