Hiring for Traits: Attention to Detail vs Sense of Urgency
Everyone I'm max flark. This is 20 minutes max got a little bit of a head cold here So hopefully I don't sound too crazy actually maybe I'll sound crazy it'll be better want to riff a little bit on hiring and and hiring for traits a conversation I've been having and asking about is what to look for and how to and how to find it when you're talking with a candidate and you're you're out looking for somebody to bring into your business and the first part is we can talk about you know experience expertise You know past past history These are all things that you would look for in a resume and something that you can talk about and you can ask have you done this thing I need to hire you for you know second to that you get into character traits that are really important to you in your business and really important to you anyone that you're going to hire that's going to have any sort of interaction inside your company and outside of your company now top of those lists we talk about is, you know integrity people skills communication can they you know?
Speaker 1:Very common for a while was this idea of you know interviewing by written are they a good writer? Can they communicate? Can they express a thought? Can they cons you know, consume information? And in today's world of async and and, you know, more work from home, being able to write well and communicate is is a massive, you know, huge thing that you should be looking at and thinking about before you hire.
Speaker 1:You know, whether it's email or Slack or Teams or project management, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Google Docs, or I don't care what it is. Right? People have to be able to write, express ideas, and communicate with each other. Now something that I've been thinking about really that's been a friend of mine for a while. I've been trying to understand a little better is this idea between attention to detail and sense of urgency can you hire if one is lacking can you coach it or train it or teach it and which would you actually prefer and my thought on this has actually changed I I used to kind of think that the the idea was, you wanted to try to find and and hire more for a sense of urgency, you know, somebody who's, you know, a killer and persistent and is gonna take a task and attack it right then and there and really understand, you know just how important is for you know time to market with certain things and the reason why I've changed recently to actually believing that attention to detail is more important and something that you should index toward in in hiring and in trying to understand in a personality and character trait of the person that you're talking to and the person you're that you're considering to hire is it will make you absolutely crazy if you've got somebody on your team that is really fast to turn around you know a task turnaround work but it's never correct, you know, you know with the defined input and a relative and you know if you're doing it right you should have a process that has a defined input and a defined output and and maybe the in between is spongy and or not defined or maybe you're hiring somebody for expertise to help you develop.
Speaker 1:You know, I need to create a process or I need to create something. And I I kind of understand what my input is, but I don't understand what the output is or I know what my output should be, but I don't know what the input is. And any sort of situation, right, you either have a process that you want somebody to, you know, repeat and and and follow with and produce a predictable output for you, or you want somebody to create an input and process to to achieve an output for you. Right? You know, this is this is the goal.
Speaker 1:And if if that that teammate has a really high sense of urgency with a really low attention to detail, you fall into a situation where, you know, you you're repeating work too much. You know? You can't hand off and delegate and let go of tasks because everything keeps coming back to you. You're in a pattern where things are going out to another department or things are going out to a customer you have to check that really closely before it goes out and there is a line where this becomes detrimental and and like I said earlier will absolutely just make you crazy the holy grail would be you know finding a high attention to detail with a high sense of urgency and ownership but I've actually you know changed my thought process a little bit around this to indexing toward more attention to detail and sense of urgency I would much rather have something take longer, but only be done once you know now this isn't a Expecting perfection every single time. I mean there that doesn't you know we tell our kids all the time perfect doesn't exist you know Carly Fiorina has a quote in her book from from when she was with HP of perfect enough you know the idea is not perfection the idea is you want mistakes or errors to be the exception not the norm and you still want it fast but within mice you know within that sense of urgency for most processes within a business you know client communication and response to clients should be very very high you know if if a client reaches out to you the response should be as quickly as possible But not necessarily with a completed.
Speaker 1:We're done. It could just be an acknowledgement We've got it. We're gonna start working on this right away or we're gonna work on this tomorrow or we're going to this will this will be get back to you on Wednesday. It's Monday It's gonna be back to you on Wednesday what communication with clients is absolutely paramount and that should have a really high sense of urgency something comes in fast response time out clear You know understanding of what actually needs to be there But the actual delivery at that point to that client, you know it should be good you know if you deliver something back to a client and it's not good the client then it's gonna kick it back to you and you're getting it and and and that's that's actually even worse for you it's it's probably better to say it's Monday afternoon when do you need this Do you need this tonight? Do you need this on Tuesday?
Speaker 1:Can I get this to you on Wednesday? You know? And actually involve your customer a little bit, your client a little bit, in in what sort of delivery and what sort of urgency the client actually has. So that way, you can figure out what sort of urgency you should have and not make assumptions along the way. Something that that, like I said, you know, I'm I'm now understanding that attention to detail for me is more important than the sense of urgency and trying to index towards, attention to detail it's gonna be the preferred and the more important thing over You know over a sense of urgency, so you know I'm curious what you think about this and and what you've experienced I'd really love any tips or tricks that you've found to you know help instill 1 or the other right?
Speaker 1:You know have you been successful at teaching attention to detail or coaching attention to detail with somebody with a high sense of urgency? Please tell me your secret or vice versa Do you have somebody with a phenomenal attention to detail that you've been able to coach up on sense of urgency? That's amazing as well you know the idea and the goal now going forward of course is a mix of both high attention to detail with a strong sense of urgency versus the other way around I'm max Clark this was a short 20 minutes max Hope this helps you in some way, and you know Talk to you soon
