If you’ve been invited to join a Vistage group, it won’t be long before you’ll hear one member warn another “we hire people for what they know, and fire them for who they are.” Measuring what people ‘know’, call it ‘vocational skills” are easily tested, measured, or validated.
But according to one of the best management writers of our generation, Seth Godin,: “What actually separates thriving organizations from struggling ones are the difficult-to-measure attitudes, processes and perceptions of the people who do the work….The foundation of all real skills is this one: the confidence and permission to talk to one another. “
In short, measuring “who they are.”
Mr. Godin’s concise and compelling commentary warns “We persist in hiring and training as if we’re running a bowling squad, as if easily measured skills were all that matter.”
