What if I told you I knew ONE WEIRD TRICK for doing a better job hiring?
Anyone who hires employees wants to do it better. Even if your hiring record is superb, you must realize you are living on borrowed time. Your very next hire might be the toxic, culture-crushing mistake you had evaded thus far.
I oversaw a lot of hiring in my day, and I am pretty proud of my record. Sure there was the occasional challenging case, but even those few had their virtues and most worked out just fine with some guidance. I took hiring very seriously, but my approach was somewhat novel.
Since I worked in academia, credentials were king, but I was less interested in degrees and pedigree than in other factors. Don’t get me wrong, though! Credentials are crucial for a host of reasons. But credentials are never more than a piece of the puzzle of good hiring. The same goes for experience and technical skill. There is one factor, though, that no employer can afford to underestimate.
One Weird Rule
In my early days as a dean, I ran across a book that helped shape my leadership philosophy: Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. Sutton is a renowned Stanford business professor and a serious academic researcher. Despite its title, The No Asshole Rule is a sober and well-documented argument aimed primarily at exposing the horrors of toxic bosses, which is why it sings to my heart.
But it is also a fabulous tool for hiring. Sutton does a thorough job explaining the measurable damage assholes do in the workplace and makes a convincing case for blocking and removing them from wherever decent humans want to gather to get stuff done. In short the rule is don’t put up with dicks, and that includes yourself. There is a lot more to it, of course, but that principle is the bottom line.
While the No Asshole Rule is about creating a culture where assholes are not tolerated, Sutton is careful to distinguish between situational or temporary assholes and “certified assholes.” The former you might say “acted like a jerk” while the latter “is a jerk.” Everyone behaves like a jerk sometimes. Apologize to those affected, forgive yourself, and try to do better. That is very different from someone who is just plain jerky.
When it comes to hiring, The No Asshole Rule or NAR posits a deceptively simple premise: Don’t hire assholes.
Now, how can you tell if someone is an asshole? I happen to be blessed-slash-cursed with a highly sensitive assholometer. This woo-woo-based, analog system can detect assholes on sight. Is it perfect? Hell no. It is prone to false-positives, which fortunately are way easier to correct for than false-negatives. My guess is you have a pretty refined assholometer as well even if you don’t know it or are reluctant to use it.
The NAR in Practice
Since most hires in academia are vetted by committees, I always made sure to instruct my hiring committees in the NAR. I had an NAR PowerPoint lecture at the ready, an NAR one-sheeter to hand out, and copies of the NAR book for everyone. Indeed I used to keep stacks of Sutton’s book in my office and would gift them liberally. The No Asshole Rule even includes a handy self assessment quiz, which you can also find online. I suggest you do so immediately. Yes, you! Do not delay!
The NAR cuts through tough situations, such as choosing between a candidate who looks great on paper but is arrogant and another who is less experienced but would make a great colleague. The No Asshole Rule eliminates any need for rumination or regret. Dump the first and pursue the second.
Ultimately, it all comes down to fit. Fit is paramount. If the person doesn’t fit your culture, if they don’t share your core values and support your mission, if they don’t seem like someone you can get along with, they should not be hired no matter what box they check or how stellar their resumé appears. Of course, the same is true in the other direction. If someone is a good fit but lacks required experience or credentials, goodbye.
Fit has its own perils, of course, since some folks just can’t resist hiring people who most remind them of themselves. Fit, too often, is a substitute for bigotry. We know that men tend to hire men; whites tend to hire whites, and so on. I had other strategies for countering identity bias, which mostly had to do with intentionally building and maintaining a culture of openness and acceptance. In that environment, we could be aware of our biases and choose not to act on them. Not a perfect solution, but our culture helped us build and maintain a more diverse workplace.
It is important to understand that while you must be discriminating in your hiring, you cannot discriminate in your hiring, a subtle but key distinction. In other words, use your judgment, not your prejudice. Some advocates argue for utilizing computers and AI to eliminate racial and other prejudices in hiring. While such tools could prove helpful in assessing technical qualifications without undo bias, I doubt they can filter for assholes, at least not yet.
By the way, a person can be quirky. A person can be of a different race or ethnicity from you. They can be a lot older or younger than everyone else. The person can be overweight or undersized. They can have an accent you find unpleasant or a voice you find grating. They can have a same-sex spouse or unpopular religious beliefs. A person can be gender nonconforming or be a Trekkie. A person can require a wheelchair ramp or eat foods we find foreign and strange. They can have a perversely fervent belief in the value of the designated hitter rule. The person can have annoying but harmless foibles or have bad hair. None of these factors and many other factors as well is a matter of fit as I mean it. They and their ilk are and must remain immaterial factors in hiring.
What the person you hire cannot be, no matter whatever else they are, is a certified asshole. Disagree? Consider the alternative.
If you are intrigued by the No Asshole Rule, you will want to read it and check out Sutton’s two follow-up books: Good Boss, Bad Boss and The Asshole Survival Guide.
Sutton’s A.R.S.E quiz online: https://www.electricpulp.com/guykawasaki/arse/
How attuned are you to jerkish behavior in others and in yourself? What do you do to prevent it?
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Use This ONE WEIRD TRICK to Hire Better