Archives For Hiring

Amazon’s Culture: How to Shape an Enduring Organizational Culture

March 23, 2012 — 2 Comments

The growth and success of Amazon.com is remarkable. There’s a good chance you’ve ordered something (or many somethings) on Amazon. You might even be a loyal customer taking advantage of Prime Membership with free 2-day shipping. But what you might not know is how Amazon created their organizational culture.

Recently I’ve been reading Change or Die by Alan Deutschman. In his book, Deutschman shares the story of David Risher, a marketing executive with Microsoft who interviewed with Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, in 1996. At the time, Amazon was was only one year old and losing money. They were renting space in “an old brick building on Seattle’s skid row, a dismal block with a needle exchange, a defunct pawnshop, a grocery store with barren shelves, and an outreach service for troubled youths” (p. 46).

Bezos was very frugal, refusing to spend money on things that simply were not important. His desk was a wood door from Home Depot with two-by-fours for the legs. Despite the glamour-less looks of Amazon’s headquarters, Bezos had assembled a team of 30 employees. They were just like Bezos…incredibly smart, frugal, risk-takers, and information analyzers. Bezos told Risher, “I’d rather interview fifty people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.”

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In Leadership, Organizations Amazon, Hiring, Leadership, Organizational Culture, Organizations, staffing
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7 Types of Questions to Ask During an Interview

February 15, 2012 — Leave a comment

Every church comes to that important moment in their growth where they begin hiring staff. When a church is small, a bad hire can severely handicap your ministry. But regardless of your church’s size, you never want to make a bad hire, which, honestly, is nearly impossible to completely avoid. No matter how many layers there are in your hiring process, and no matter how many assessments you do, there’s always a gamble when hiring new staff.

In a previous post I shared 8 Ideas for Creating an Effective Hiring Process. Today, I’d like to share seven types of questions to ask when conducting an interview.

1. History Questions - These questions address education, work history and responsibilities, why they are leaving their current place of employment, what they found most fulfilling and demotivating in their work history, and general information about the candidate. It’s like a “get to know you” aspect of interviewing.

2. Spiritual Journey & Personal Growth Questions - These questions explore the candidates spiritual journey, when and how they came to Christ, significant highlights in their spiritual journey, understanding how their beliefs resonate with your church (and denomination), whether or not they’ve ever been involved in a church split, and gauging their commitment to personal and professional growth.

3. Character Questions - Character is obviously a non-negotiable when hiring staff. Character questions address integrity, greatest character strengths and weaknesses, how the candidate has handled past moral or ethical dilemmas, and whether or not the candidate has ever been involved in adultery, theft, child abuse, pornography, etc.

4. Chemistry, Values, and Philosophy Questions - This is one of the most difficult aspects to evaluate in a candidate. Honestly, the more time you can spend interacting with them  the better you’ll be able to assess their fit. Do a personality assessment and an emotional intelligence assessment. Furthermore, there should be opportunity to see them interact with your team face to face. Ask them questions about their core values as well as if there’s a particular model of ministry that they resonate with most (purpose-driven, emergent, seeker-sensitive, multi-site, cell church, traditional, missional, etc.). If your church operates by one model but they are passionate about a different model, they may find themselves frustrated in your system. Furthermore, two good question to ask are:

  • What are two ways I would find challenging in leading you?
  • What would other people who have worked with you say about you (boos, peers, direct reports)?

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In Church, Leadership, Organizations Hiring, Interviewing, Questions, staffing
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One-Sentence Job Descriptions

June 17, 2009 — Leave a comment

Today I came across a blog post from Kem Meyer–Communications Director at Granger Community Church. Her post is titled, “We Scrapped Our Job Descriptions”, and in it Kem articulates the following exercise that helped each staff member on their team summarize their job description in one sentence.


1. Answer the question: “At the end of the day, if I’ve done this, then I’ve done my job.”
2. In your answer, remember to demonstrate the benefit to others trumps the task.
3. Keep your answer simple and short enough to easily remember and recite.
4. Include your individual strength theme to help maximize impact.

As a result, Kem and the team came up with this great one-page list of everybody’s job descriptions summarized in one-sentence along with their top five Strengthsfinder talent themes. Really good stuff. Check it.
In Church, Leadership, Organizations Hiring, Leadership, Organizations, staffing, Teams
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Four People Needed on Every Team

May 10, 2009 — 1 Comment

Effective teams are united by a common goal.  But reaching that goal is the real test of the team.  Unless a team, as Jim Collins asserts, has the right people sitting in the right seats on the bus, the ministry or organization will likely fall short of its vision.  So that raises an important questions–who should be on your team?  While a team needs people with unique talents, skill sets, and passions to fulfill its vision, few teams will succeed without the following four people:

1. Innovators - Innovators are rich in idea capital.  They bring to the team innovative strategies, creative ideas, and fresh thinking.  Innovators keep teams focused on the possibilities and help the organization dream boldly.  They color outside the lines, help leaders challenge assumptions, and enable organization’s to break out of ruts of irrelevance.

2. Influencers - While innovators come up with great ideas, they often need somebody else to sell the ideas for them.  That’s where influencers come in–they are the leaders.  Because leadership is influence, it always takes a leader to influence a group or an entire organization in new directions.  And because innovators are usually associated with “change,” it takes a good leader to help others embrace the change that comes with new ideas.  Leaders are rich in influence capital.

3. Initiators - Innovating and influencing can only get you so far–somebody has to do the work.  Initiators possess a strong work ethic and are not afraid to get their hands dirty.  These team members have the extraordinary ability to execute.  They can take an idea that an innovator has dreamed and an influencer has sold and turn it into action.  Without initiators, every dream would remain nothing more than a dream.

4. Investors - Ideas might be free but implementing them is not.  While initiators are the doers, investors are the funders.  They provide the finances necessary to make organizational initiatives come true.

These four team members work beautifully together.  Innovators come up with ideas.  Influencers assess the “sell-a-bility” of those ideas and serve as the leaders that help ideas get traction.  That’s when the initiators and investors step up to the plate.  They make those ideas become a reality by serving as the work force and the funding source.  So who is missing from your team?  Some teams have multiple innovators, influencers, initiators, and investors.  And many team members fulfill more than one role.  The key is to insure each role is well-represented.

 

In Church, Leadership, Organizations Hiring, Leadership, Recruiting, staffing, Teams
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8 Ideas for Creating an Effective Hiring Process

May 6, 2009 — 3 Comments

Have you ever made a poor hiring choice? Most leaders have and it can prove to be a great organizational setback. By the time you realize your new hire is not working out, retrain them, get them coaching, work through the process of firing them, and then hire a replacement, it’s not uncommon to lose at least two years of progress. The old saying goes, “hire slow and fire quick.” And leadership consultant, Dr. Sam Chand, asserts that the best time to fire someone is the first time you think of it.

Regardless of how you view hiring and firing, the truth is we all want to make the best hiring decisions. So how do you do that?    The following eight keys are a great place to begin:

1.  Know Why You’re Hiring and What You Need - Our tendency is to hire staff to fill roles that we’ve always had. But when hiring, it is always smart to ask, “Do we still need someone in this role?” “Does the role need to change?” “Can a volunteer or part-time employee fill the role?” “Is there a different role that would add greater value to the organization?” And whatever you do, don’t hire people to fill positions, hire them to fulfill responsibilities. Get clear about what you’re trying to accomplish and then staff around those responsibilities and your growth objectives.

2.  Develop a Multi-Stage Hiring Process – A single-stage hiring process is very prone to mistakes. I would encourage you to consider a multi-stage process with at least four interviews.  Here’s our detailed hiring process at Christ Church.  The four interviews should include:

  • The Character & Competence Interview – This is the first interview and focuses on a candidate’s character, integrity, work ethic, spiritual history, relationship with God, beliefs, abilities, gifts, passions, skills, and experience. The interview gives you an immediate gauge on whether the individual has the ability to do the job and the character and spirituality to start and finish well.
  • The Chemistry Interview – This interview focuses on whether or not the individual “fits” the chemistry of the staff as well as the candidates emotional and relational health. Think this is unnecessary? I once had a pastor tell me he fired someone because they were just plain weird–nobody on the staff liked them. Chemistry is essential to a healthy staff environment.  The chemistry interview should include a focus on core values, ministry philosophy, emotional stability, relational health, emotional intelligence, people skills, and family health.
  • The Compensation Interview – The compensation interview focuses on the financial health of the candidate as well as the financial package of the role being filled. While general financial issues should be addressed in the first interview to ensure you can afford the hire, the compensation interview provides a much more detailed analysis.
  • The Final Interview – The final interview should, if not already conducted, include an on-site visit. If the role is a key position in the organization, it’s best to have more than one on-site visit. This interview allows key leaders, staff, and board members to meet and interact with the candidate face-to-face.

Not every candidate will make it through all four interviews. Frequently it only takes the first interview to realize there is no need to move forward.

3.  Involve Different Leaders in the Interview Process – This is one of the biggest mistakes leaders make. Too often the interview process is limited to the human resource director, the leader of the nonprofit, or the senior pastor of the church. The problem with limiting the interview process to one individual is that it often leads to emotional or “mercy” hires. Each of the four interviews should be conducted by different people. This will help you consider the candidate objectively and will help you catch any red flags. It also saves the senior leader an enormous amount of time because they only interview candidates that are considered the very best.

4.  Reserve the Senior Leader’s Interview for the End – If you are the key leader in the organization, your interview should be the last. This will keep you from influencing others involved in the interview process and, again, will keep you from making a hire because you “like” the person. Emotional hires or mercy hires rarely work out. I can still remember one candidate that went through all four interviews at Christ Church before we pulled the plug. So what was the problem? While we all really liked this candidate, there were some red flags during the process. One of our staff nailed it when he said, “We’re all trying too hard to find a reason to hire this candidate.” We liked him so much that we were tempted to overlook the red flags. That settled it and we moved on. Emotional hires are often made when the likability of an individual gets in the way of their character or competence. Incorporating multiple interviews and saving the senior leader’s interview for the end will help guard against this.

5.  Make Reference Checks – This is a no-brainer but is still necessary to point out. Make multiple reference checks and if at all possible contact people not listed as references on their resume. Always ask, “Would you hire this individual if you were in my shoes? Why or why not? If not, who would you hire?” And if they have worked for the reference, ask, “Would you hire them all over again if the role was open on your staff?” Push for honest answers.

6.  Utilize Assessment Tools – Quality assessments usually don’t lie. Consider using a strengths assessment, personality assessment, spiritual gifts assessment, emotional intelligence assessment, and leadership style assessment. The results of the assessments will help you determine if the individual is a fit for the job and if their values connect well with the organization’s values.

7.  Include Appropriate Orientations – When a new hire is made, be sure appropriate orientations are made to cover issues such as policy and procedures, equipment usage, goals, personal growth planning, forms, financial issues, insurance, insider language, etc.

8.  Put Your Hiring Process in Writing – Having the process in writing will help you systematically follow it. You might even turn your process into a checklist.

These are just a few suggestions to get you pointed in the right direction.  Again, Here’s our detailed hiring process at Christ Church for additional ideas.

 

In Church, Leadership, Organizations Hiring, Interviewing, Leadership, staffing
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