Ever needed to find staff for your group, organization, church, board, committee, business, etc? So how do you go about it? I've noticed that many organizations do well at this and others fail miserably. The best advice for recruiting team member I've heard is from Bill Hybels, found in his book "Courageous Leadership." He calls his philosophy "The Three C's of Team Selection:"
1. Character (first). Hybels needs to have confidence in a person's personal walk with Jesus Christ. They are committed to spiritual disciplines. He needs to see evidence of honesty, teachability, humility, reliability, a healthy work ethic, and willingness to be entreated. People lacking in character tend to breed distrust and alienate team members. They also de-motivate the team leader who must spend time dealing with them. Every time Hybels hired someone who was extremely competent but a little shaky on character, it ended in disaster. Now it's always character first. Always!
2. Competence. Get the best. Sometimes we are so motivated to fill a spot that we will take anyone! But really, you should be looking for the absolute best there is. When I was a camp director I would pray not just for staff, but "excellent staff." The way to team success is to surround yourself with people who are outstanding. Even if it takes longer to find them. Even if they already work somewhere else! The kind of people you are looking for are probably making huge contributions or setting records somewhere. So get character first, and then shoot for the moon when it comes to competence.
3. Chemistry. Hybels mentions how Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager counseled him to never invite a person onto his team who doesn't have an positive emotional affect on him the moment he/she steps into his office. At first he thought this was extreme, but not any more! Mostly because he spends so much time working with his team. If two candidates for a position both have high character and competence, he'll give the one with whom she shares more chemistry the job every time. That's why he's having so much fun!
Create a team with sky-high character, off-the-chart competence, and extra-ordinary chemistry and watch how God will bless your team, ministry, or business. Good luck.
May Light increase!
Testing
3 weeks ago
2 comments:
While reading the "Chemistry" entry, I thought back to a conversation I had back at Gull Harbour Resort when I worked there.
The question put was "Who would make up your dream serving team?" of the current staff. There were two schools of thought on the matter.
The person I was discussing this with picked the strongest servers we had to make the team, whereas I picked out the team I thought would work best together.
Our teams were pretty similar, but there were differences (I'm happy to say I made both lists :)). Which would be better? It's hard to say. I felt that team chemistry was more important.
Jay
Hey Jay. Which is better? I think you are right, it is apparent sometimes that chemistry trumps competency. I think of certain NHL playoff's when a team who had way more star players is defeated by the team who has great chemistry. In this case I would say there was lots of star power, but TONS of chemistry, thus chemistry wins. Often with teams like this, they don't make it all the way, because eventually they meet a team who has TONS of star power and lots of chemistry and they are defeated. It all goes back to the point that for true success, you need all three things. If you have a serious deficiency in any of them, you will not be successful . . .
P.S. Of course you made both lists!
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