The Organisational Psychotherapy Solution for Easier Hiring

I’ve hired many people in my time, and every day it seems to be more difficult finding the right people. 

Most organisation still have the mentality that says they’re doing people a favour by considering them for an open position. Not that hiring for open positions is too smart, in any case.

The Bus

The old adage goes, “get the right people on the bus, and only then sort out where they might sit”. In other words, don’t hire into open positions, hire into the organisation at large, and then find the best fitting role for each new hire. There may not even be an existing position for the best candidates, in which case new positions must be created. 

Employer Branding

Gone are the days when a simple ad or commission for a recruiter would attract suitable candidates. These days, unless your organisation is well known and highly regardsed in the jobs market, you’re highly unlikely to attract the candidates you seek. 

Deming’s 95:5

Deming’s 95:5 implies that there is no such thing as “best candidates”. It’s the system (the way the work works) that dictates 95% of the productivity/performance of each new hire.

Collaborative Knowledge Work

The future of work is collaborative knowledge work (CKW). Potential new hires know this instinctively, and studiously avoid organisations that seem unaware or ill-adapted to this new reality.

The Organisational Psychotherapy Assist

Organisational Psychotherapy can assist in making hiring easier in a number of ways:

• By helping the organisation build a culture that actively attracts candidates (much better to having candidates queuing round the block for positions, rather than having them ridicule your organisation as a cultural dinosaur). See also: Rightshifting and the Marshall Model.
• By surfacing your organisation’s existing collective assumptions and beliefs – assumptions and beliefs which most typically lead to hiring the wrong people, and missing out on the candidates you really need.
• By identifying the cognitive biases which lead to exclusion of much of the available talent pool.
• By convincing potential candidates that your organisation takes them and their needs seriously, and that you are determined to build an environment in which they can do their best work (see also: Harter & Buckingham, 2016). 
• By adopting well-established management practices, best suited to CKW.
• By awareness of Management Monstrosities and how to avoid them (potential new hires can spot these monstrosities from a mile aways, even if the hiring organisation in blind to them).

Further Reading

Harter, J., Buckingham, M. & Gallup Organization (2016). First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. Gallup Press.