Hire Complements, Not Clones

Will Kenny, Best Training Practices

With the current downturn in the economy, many training functions will be looking to outside help to complete essential projects. When crucial training has to get done, or key employee communications must be developed, contracting the work with outsiders who require no benefits, payroll taxes, etc. can be quite cost effective.

At the same time, some departments will still manage to fill staff positions where the need is recognized by the company. It’s harder to do in these times, but it will happen.

And whether it is outside help or new staff, many of those people will be selected to work on projects mainly for one reason, although no one will ever say this is the reason: because they are similar to the people making the hiring decision, making for easy conversations on both sides.

In other words, there is a natural tendency to clone ourselves when hiring, whether filling a staff position or selecting a consultant.

Unfortunately, a clone is not what we usually need. We go looking for help because something is missing, because we lack a skill or body of knowledge to carry out a training project.

Let’s imagine you are launching a new product developed by your engineering department, or by your clinical staff, or by your programmers. And along the way, you realize that the experts who developed the product are not, by themselves, going to do a great job of guiding your employees in playing their roles, in launching and supporting the new product.

It isn’t because these internal experts aren’t smart, obviously. And they are no doubt enthusiastic, even passionate, about the new product.

But they may not be good at explaining things to people who don’t know as much as they do. We have all encountered experts who simply can’t seem to get their basic ideas across to us.

Once the need for help in effective communication is recognized, you are likely to see this selection process unfold:

1. A list of potential “helpers” (outside resources or job applicants) is identified and screened.
2. The finalists meet with a committee working on the launch, dominated by the experts who “own” the new product.
3. The experts choose whoever sounds most like them!

We all are more comfortable talking to people who are a lot like us. That’s why the engineers will pick the outside trainer who used to be an engineer, the programmers will pick someone who worked as a programmer and so on.

Picking people who know what we know and sound like we do isn’t filling in the gaps in a team, it is duplicating existing skills and resources. And there is always the danger (which I have seen played out many a time) that because the added resources sound and think like the experts, they won’t really improve communication, won’t break out of this expert box to connect with ordinary front-line employees, any more than the original experts did.

This is an easy trap to fall into—we aren’t even aware that it is happening. That’s why an important role of the training professional is to step back and be a little more objective about the candidate being hired. We have to notice when everyone is just staying in their respective comfort zones. We must speak out to advocate complementing the team’s skills and knowledge, hiring what we do not already have.

Of course, previous experience in the field can be very valuable. But it’s a big mistake to assume that is it enough, to take that experience as sufficient to generate results in employee communication situations.

If the people we hire don’t bring something new to the party, don’t offer something we lack with our current resources, those hiring decisions sacrifice enhanced effectiveness for a little comfort.