The Biggest Mistake When Hiring Internally

Have you ever wondered why you can be completely energized one day and completely drained on another day?

There are certain activities in your environment that will energize you and certain other activities that will drain you. The reason you’re energized (or not) is tied directly to your natural wiring. As my clients discover, your natural wiring is biological. You’re born with it and it stays with you your entire lifetime and will affect every part of your business from hiring to daily activities.

In last week’s article, How to Hire Awesomeness, I covered how to hire the right person for the right job the first time. To improve the success rate of your hiring, I recommend looking at how a job functions before hiring someone.

My recommendation not only applies to a new hire, but also to your existing positions. As your business expands, you’ll also find that not all positions function the same even though they may have the same titles. A sales manager in one area of your business may do very well in that environment; but when put into a different situation, fail miserably, leaving you scratching your head wondering what went wrong.

For example, one of my second-stage clients decided to move a successful Sales Manager into a different Sales Manager role. Historically, he oversaw an existing business unit and an established book of business. He spent years cultivating these long-term relationships and was wildly successful in maintaining and growing this division over time. He created an efficient and predictable way of staying in touch and in also growing this division.

They assumed that, with his experience, he would do well in a newly created position. So, they reassigned him to a new position over a brand new division. He now needed to create from the ground floor a brand new division and penetrate an entirely new market.

They called me several months into his new position wondering what went wrong. The employee was extremely stressed, entering the new market was behind schedule, and the product that was in production was now sitting in inventory rather than on the store shelves.

One look at how this employee was hardwired and the type of activities of his new role was all I needed to understand the complete mismatch. On one hand, you have an employee who is hardwired more methodically and creates sequence in his environment. He thrived in his previous role because the elements of the position required methodical follow up and follow through. There was a cadence in this established, predictable environment. He created long-term relationships and had an established way of doing things.

Suddenly, they place this once thriving Sales Manager of an established division into a position requiring creation of a brand new division and juggling multiple priorities with increasing levels of speed. When he attempted to use his more methodical methods in contacting new books of business, he wondered why they weren't working.

However, to succeed in this new environment, that person needed to have a high sense of urgency, focused on face-to-face selling, and aggressively carve out new and innovative ways to get their product on store shelves.
These activities alone were completely opposite of this employee’s natural wiring, which caused a significant disconnect. What made it worse was the more pressure management put on this employee, the more stuck and stressed out he became.

This is why it’s so important to understand the match between the position functions and your employee’s wiring. When you match the right position/environment to the team member’s hardwiring, your team member will be easier to manage, satisfied, and happy. They will also remain consistently engaged and thrive in their role with increased levels of productivity and profitability.