Hiring Step #9: Write a (Draft) Executive Summary, page 147.
- As each tandem Topgrading Interview is completed, you’re eager to get on with reference checks, but please push the pause button.
- When communicating with A Player executives, the first principle is, “State the bottom line succinctly, first, and then make your case.”
- The “bottom line” argument for completing this step is this: the value is in the careful analysis of candidate data, and now is the time to do it; writing the draft Executive Summary is just the byproduct.
- There is an enormous amount of research showing that relying on gut feelings without systematically analyzing all available candidate data leads to bad hires.
- Systematic analysis of the information you have about the candidate is the skill that allows you to arrive at valid, correct conclusions about all competencies.
- As soon as a candidate reveals something so negative that you definitely won’t offer him or her a job, writing an extensive report is a waste of time.
- However, for candidates that you are still interested in pursuing, you will improve your hiring batting average if you and your tandem partner analyze all the information you have so far, which is a lot.
Why Not Wait On Analyzing Information Until After Reference Checks?
- The analysis sometimes leads to asking [the candidate] more questions before reference checks.
- It sometimes requires analysis to figure out exactly which people you want the candidate to contact to arrange reference calls.
- After systematic analysis of a seemingly good candidate, two other candidates might seem so much better, resulting in the rejection of this candidate.
- By going through all the notes, the interviewers figure out how to probe for specifics, particularly regarding weaker points during reference checks.
Key Principles for Interpreting Candidate Information
- Look for Patterns
- Patterns revealed across an entire career, across 50 competencies, are what enable you to know what the person’s strengths and weaker points are today and are likely to be in the next few years.
- The patterns of responses across the chronological interview reveal how a person evolved from high school to today.
- By asking about highs and lows throughout the person’s life and career, by delving into every success, failure, key decision, and key relationship, it will be abundantly clear who the person is.
- The patterns in all of the data, but mostly in the tandem Topgrading Interview, will reveal what people are strong or weak in and also what might be done developmentally to help you manage them toward improvement.
- No one is an A Player with Excellent ratings on all competencies; it is extremely useful to understand a person’s complexity so that you can best manage people to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaker points.
- The genius of the Topgrading Interview lies in the patterns it reveals across all of those dimensions – success patterns, failure patterns, patterns for decisions made, patterns for relating to people, and patterns for motivation.
- Patterns across the candidate’s entire life and career make it easy to predict exactly how the person will function in the near future.
- Any interview process that asks what a person did in only the most recent job, or what would be done under hypothetical situations, misses the boat big-time and will lead to costly mis-hires.
- Just because a candidate gets along with one boss for reasons relevant to your leadership style does not tell you why they might not have gotten along with previous bosses in ways that do not bode well for your relationship. By asking for appraisals of all 10 bosses they have had, you’ll learn a lot more.
- Suppose, in going through the details of a candidate’s entire career, he has nothing positive to say about even one of eight bosses? Such a constant disrespect for bosses, no matter how great potential bosses might be, almost certainly they will not be respected by the candidate.
- In short, only the chronological Topgrading Interview uncovers all the job-relevant information and the emergent patterns and shows how the person has succeeded (or not) and learned from mistakes (or not).
- Assume Strengths Become Weaker Points
- The Topgrading Interview asks for accomplishments/successes and then failures/mistakes.
- Candidates naturally reveal what they are good at, and you’ll note that for most people, strengths are at times overused and become weaker points.
- Under pressure, we all tend to overuse our strengths, and they can become shortcomings.
- During interviews, entertain this hypothesis frequently.
- Understanding the Recent Past Behavior is the Best Predictor of Near Future Behavior
- Just getting recent past behaviors leaves you with almost no patterns. It may lead you to shallow insights into the patterns you think you are seeing, but might be totally wrong.
- By conducting the full Topgrading Interview, you see much deeper patterns and can predict what aspects of recent behaviors are likely to exist in the near future and which are not.
- Deep patterns from the full chronological interview will reveal if someone has the same weaker point year after year…or if the person gains the self-awareness and motivation to actually change.
- As you review an individual’s chronological history, weigh the most recent behaviors most heavily, but only if the recent past is fully convincing.
- Understand Red Flags
- “Red flags” are warning signals to the interviewer that something has gone wrong. Rapport suddenly declines, something changes in the interview to suggest that you have touched on a raw nerve. The signals are as follows:
- Blushing
- Suddenly complex responses, when previously they were more straight-forward
- Loss of eye contact that had been quite good
- A significant change in pace (speeding up or slowing down)
- A significantly higher or lower voice
- Inappropriate use of humor
- Sudden changes in voice volume, pace (faster or slower), pitch (higher or lower), or pauses (more/longer or less/shorter)
- Twitching, stammering, drumming fingers when there had been none of that behavior
- Formality in style or vocabulary, when the candidate had been informal
- Inconsistency between nonverbal behavior and words (saying, “I was very happy in that job” while frowning)
- Heavy perspiring, when the person had been calm
- “Red flags” are warning signals to the interviewer that something has gone wrong. Rapport suddenly declines, something changes in the interview to suggest that you have touched on a raw nerve. The signals are as follows:
- It is the sudden change in the rhythm, style, and rapport of the interview that should tell you, “Pay attention, something is going on here.”
- Take note in your Topgrading Interview Guide. Then go on a “fishing expedition,” using follow-up questions to get additional information.
- “Could you tell me a little bit more about that?”
- “Could you give me a specific example of what went on then?”
- If it is early in the interview, don’t destroy rapport by probing too aggressively. You can always come back to it later in the interview.
- Bet on People Changing When They Have Changed
- Interviewers are suckers, believing people who look them in the eye and say, “I’ve learned my lesson, and believe me, in my next job I’m going to be a lot better.”
- The thing is, the candidate is usually sincere and intends to change. But we all know change is difficult.
- My Topgrading advice regarding interpretation is simple – believe people will change when they have shown they have changed.
- Look for the pattern of their becoming self-aware, recognizing the need to change.
- A Players open themselves up to change, request feedback, establish a plan, follow through, and get the results.
- Which Competencies Are Easy and Hard to Change?
- Tens of thousands of Topgrading Interviews by Topgrading professionals have given us terrific insights into how, when, and why people change.
- Here is a chart of all 50 competencies, organized into three categories of ease of change.
| Easy | Hard | Very Hard |
| Risk Taking | Change Leadership | Tenacity |
| Leading Edge | Conflict Management | Intelligence |
| Education | Compatibility of Needs | Analysis Skills |
| Experience | Balance of Life | Conceptual Ability |
| Organized Planning | Judgement/Decision Making | Creativity |
| Self-Awareness/Feedback | Strategic Skills | Integrity |
| Customer Focus | Pragmatism | Assertiveness |
| Team Player | Track Record | Vision |
| Communication – Oral | Resourcefulness/Initiative | Inspiring Followership |
| Communication – Written | Excellence | Energy/Drive |
| Political Savvy | Independence | Enthusiasm/Passion |
| Selecting A Players | Stress Management | Ambition |
| Training/Development/Coaching | Adaptability | |
| Goal Setting | Likability | |
| Empowerment | Listening | |
| Performance Management | Negotiation Skills | |
| Redeploying B/C Players | Persuasion | |
| Diversity | Team Builder | |
| Running Meetings |
- In a new job, there will be higher pressures, and under pressure, people tend to resort to their familiar behavior style, not a new one.
- So instead of people “turning over a new leaf” in a job, they usually try to be on their best behavior. When feeling a bit overwhelmed, they tend to resort to their old self.
- It’s prudent to assume that people are most likely to change their behaviors when the competency is relatively easy to change, when their self-awareness is high, when they are highly motivated to change, and when they show a pattern of having overcome weaker points in the past.
- Weigh Negatives More Heavily Than Positives
- People succeed not so much because of the full utilization of their strengths but because of their not having significant shortcomings.
- A candidate can be strong on all but one competency and be appropriately rejected if that person is Poor or Very Poor in one important competency.
- Topgraders minimize costly mis-hires by, more than anything, understanding the persons’ weaker points. So as you sift through all the data, pay particular attention to the negatives.
How to Write a Draft Executive Summary
- Read the Sample Executive Summary, Appendix G (p. 323).
- Don’t be shocked by how long it is.
- This is a combination final report plus a comprehensive Individual Development Plan (IDP).
- Your Executive Summary will consist of:
- Narrative Summary
- List of Strengths and weaker points
- List of developmental suggestions
- Write a draft Executive Summary.
- After reference checks, the final report will be written.
- You and your tandem partner review the Job Scorecard.
- You and your tandem partner review all your notes two times.
- Once to “get out of the weeds” and see the overall picture. Is this an A Player?
- You and your tandem partner compare ratings and notes and resolve any differences.
- Finally, write your draft, modeled after the Sample Executive Summary (Appendix G).
- Both tandem partners review the draft together and agree to any changes.
