Earlier this year, Eliza Gray, a staff writer for Time magazine, wrote an article about the “era of optimized hiring.” In it, she explains that many companies today are requiring job applicants to submit to personality tests. And we’re not talking about just applicants for upper management jobs, we’re talking about everybody from the executive suite to the loading dock. According to proponents of such testing, if we can understand the psyche of job applicants . . . their likes and dislikes, fears, aspirations, motivations, etc. . . . we can select those who will be the happiest and most successful in the jobs we have to offer, and who will thrive in our environment (our company’s culture). As a result, so the argument goes, employee turnover will go down while both productivity and customer service will go up. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? After all, it’s in keeping with business guru Jim Collins’ admonition to get the right people on the bus (people who fit the company culture) and to put them in the right seats (jobs). But is it really that simple? Maybe not. Maybe there’s another side to this personality stuff we ought to take a look at. If you want to take that look, please continue reading below.
“How High Is Your XQ?”
That’s the question posed by the Time magazine cover story. “XQ” is a term coined by Eliza Gray for her Time article. If IQ tests measure intelligence and EQ tests measure emotional stability and sensitivity, then there should be a term for tests that measure someone’s fitness to perform well in certain jobs. Finding none, Gray decided to call it “XQ.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I myself have written many times about the benefits of looking beyond a person’s skill sets and taking a close look at their behavioral and personality traits . . . benefits in terms of job satisfaction, retention, productivity, and so on. And I am an ardent believer in getting the right people on the bus and putting them in the right seats.
The problem comes in defining who these “right” people are. How high an “XQ” does someone need to be considered “right?”
If by “right” we mean someone who thinks and acts just like us . . . if in fact we want clones of ourselves . . . that can be a real problem. As General George Patton once said, “If everybody’s thinking alike, somebody’s not thinking.” If we hire people who are just like us, where will innovation and creativity come from? Who will be the maverick who will shake us out of our comfort zones once in awhile?
So how do we balance our need to hire people who “fit” our culture with our need to bring in innovation, creativity, and fresh ideas? It’s a conundrum. Either we want people who think and act like us or we don’t, right?
The answer lies in how we define our company culture. Done correctly, our culture is defined by our values and by what behaviors we tolerate or don’t tolerate. It doesn’t say anything about what we do, only about how we do it. For instance, if our culture requires that we treat everyone with dignity and respect, that doesn’t do anything to screen out people who think differently or who bring fresh, creative ideas. But it does screen out people who would try to push their own ideas by belittling others who may disagree with them. What vs. how. We don’t want to restrict what ideas people bring to the table, only how they bring those ideas.
What vs. how. We’ve all seen it happen. Someone could have an absolutely brilliant idea, but presents it in a way that is so repugnant to the organization’s cultural norms, the idea gets lost, and everybody suffers. The individual bringing the idea loses the opportunity to see his or her idea implemented, and the organization loses whatever benefit the idea may have brought. When we keep the what vs. how in balance, the exact opposite happens and everybody wins.
So is all this XQ testing worthwhile? Yes, but only if it’s aimed at the way people behave, not at the way they think . . . only if it is focused on how, not what.
