Culture Fit Is Not About Personality Matching

The biggest risk in hiring someone into a team resides in whether they're the right 'cultural fit'. This is because skills, qualifications and past performance are easily identified but assessing experience, values and attitudes is far more difficult. It's the less obvious factors that differentiate and determine greatness in any role or career – the things that come out under pressure or temptation.

"Many people claiming to have ten years of experience, really only have two years repeated five times"

Experience and wisdom can be uncovered with the right interviewing techniques and there are many different profiling tools to identify personality. Here is a comparison of the most common personality descriptors. Hippocrates was first to identify the four basic types of personality in 400BC and his ancient terms of Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy and Phlegmatic are mapped in the illustration below. Florence Littauer worked with his model and created intuitively modern descriptors which help to paint the picture but I've highlighted  Dr Tony Alessandra's terms in bold because I think they are the most intuitive for business people.

If you've done Herrmann’s Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), the text line above is how his thinking model maps [loosely] into personality profiling.

Over three decades in selling and leading teams and companies, I've formed the strong view that Drivers are best for business development with Amiables to be avoided because they have a personality / operating style averse to creating any positive tension in a relationship or conversation. Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson found through their Corporate Executive Board (CEB) research that 'Relationship Builders' are least able to execute the Challenger method due to their amiable ways.

Success in business-to-business selling today demands that we lead with insight and a willingness to be positively provocative in creating value. We need to be the signal amidst the noise for customers who are seeking to be saved from the destructive forces of commoditization and disruption.

But in seeking Driver personalities for business development we then become vulnerable to the negative side of  Lone Wolf Hunter Warriors who can have negative secondary 'look at me, look at me' Expressive traits or manipulative Analytic characteristics. Yes, every personality trait has both negative and positive sides and my table below provides a summary.

"Personality traits do not define us. Our beliefs and values are far more important in determining alignment and cultural fit"

I've learned that personality is only one part of what determines success... intelligence, values, beliefs and attitudes are far more important. I've written about Leadership Secrets From The Inside and here is the illustration used in the post. You can see that personality is only one part of the equation.

Here is my main point. When we hire people or become involved with others in business it's very easy to be lured by the facade or stand-out factors. We must take the tome and effort to go deeper.  Psychometric testing identifies intelligence and personality type, and the better tools add operating style (which provides clues about values). We can test for skills and knowledge and we can validate track record. But in focusing on these things we fall into a horrible trap.

"We tend to hire based on skills, qualifications and experience, yet we fire based on poor cultural fit"

The biggest mistake a manager can make is to hire the wrong person because they consume huge amounts of time and energy while damaging your personal brand. It's not easy to find the real person behind the facade and it requires more time and energy to get to the truth... but hire based on their values, attitudes and work ethic. Yes we need intelligent people but they must also be committed to continuous unlearning and relearning. They must believe that their value in the workplace comes from the results they deliver and the positive difference they make through attitude and effort.

Whether they be employees or partners, we need values alignment with people with whom we share our cause. This does not mean that we surround ourselves with mini version of ourselves. The best leaders value diversity and surround themselves with those who bring a different perspective and positively challenge to ensure the team is not blind-sided.

Next time you are considering a new hire or a potential partnership in business... dare I say next time you're qualifying a prospective customer; ask yourself whether they share your values. You first need to clearly define your own values which are the behaviors you exhibit and the way you operate. It will make a world of difference in building the right team internally and externally and protect you from failure.

"Don't confuse personality matching with cultural alignment and remember that just one person in your team with poor values can destroy your personal reputation and corporate brand."

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