Missional & Cultural Fit vis vis Technical and Team Fit. - Random thoughts on hiring and designing interviewing templates

 

In my leadership and consulting roles with various organizations over my tenures, I am sometimes amused, shocked, and not the least surprised by the lack of structured interviewing methodologies hiring managers or director-level leadership uses. Over the years, I have developed a simple template for non-profits that could be easily tweaked and replicated for a profit organization equally. The idea is to have interview panelists divide the questions on the interview questions among themselves and have each member of the interview team score all questions irrespective of who is asking the question. The idea is to have some structure (so panelists are not struggling to ask questions or the right questions) to get to know the prospective candidate to capture observations and score each question answered. 

The template assesses the candidate in four areas: Missional Fit, Team Fit, Cultural Fit, and Technical Fit. 

After the interview, the panelists collectively review their scores and discuss. This allows them to understand each other's scoring rationale and share qualitative observations, fostering a collaborative and unified decision-making process.  It is recommended that someone from one or two departments' key leaders or stakeholders also participate with the hiring manager and the panel interviewing the candidate who has applied. This provides an interesting vantage point for observations and scoring, allowing us to collaborate more and overcome biases as much as possible. 

In the past, it's incredible how different scores and qualitative observations from various team members give the hiring manager different perspectives and foster a sense of unity that is part of transformative cultures. This simple tool can easily be plotted on a four-quadrant or two-quadrant x-y model, with the x-axis measuring missional and character scores and the y-axis plotting Team fit and Technical fit components. We have scores plotting more to the upper right-hand corner, and the cluster of new hires who form the team increases. You are on your way to building great teams that have closer congruency within your team and your own organizational cultures. 

I have noticed there are times when a prospective candidate may not be a very high missional fit but scores well on the other three vectors, and this is where managerial and leadership decision-making becomes an art rather than a science where discernment, unity, and collaborative discussions enable you to come to sound decisions. It is an opportunity to gauge if a prospective candidate (internal incumbent) or an external candidate can provide opportunities and challenges in providing mentorship, coaching, and encouragement or allowing the team to pause before making an offer. The opposite could also be true if the individual exhibits a strong missional and cultural fit but lacks the core competency of technical acumen needed along with being a team fit (jelling well with the team they are going to be on)- discussion between the panelists of pros and cons will allow them to come to a place of unity and sound decision-making. 

After all, you, as a leader, are only strong if you have a great team and team members who support your organization's vision, mission, and strategies.