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Accurately predicting human behaviour is seriously challenging, even when you know someone intimately.

Which is why successfully hiring leaders is so hard!

When you’re hiring, you typically work with a limited amount of data. In most instances, organisations make a decision as to whether someone is going to be successful after spending a matter of hours with them in an artificial environment – people are naturally inclined to present the best version of themselves in an interview scenario 😇. It’s no wonder that 46% of leadership appointments fail in 18 months (that’s according to Forbes but I suspect the actual failure rate is far higher).

Consider choosing your spouse/life partner as a comparison. You probably spent lots of time together while dating. You’ll likely even co-habit for a period to give yourselves every opportunity to deeply understand the nuances of the other person’s personality. And yet a quick Google search will tell you that 42% of UK marriages end in divorce.

When you hire someone, you get far less time and access to far
less information before having to make a decision – a decision that can also
have massive cost implications. And yet, most organisations do not equip their leaders to be successful when recruiting (despite the emphatic claims of every business that people are their most important consideration).

I am on a mission to help organisations hire better. So, I thought I’d share why some companies and their leaders are better than most when it comes to predicting human performance.

There are 4 things that great companies and their leaders ALWAYS do when hiring:

✅ They set themselves up to succeed by creating clarity from the outset
✅ They recognise the significant difference between hiring a leader and a
practitioner
✅ They consider the whole human, rather than purely their knowledge and
experience
✅ They never rely solely on interviews as a method of assessment

If anyone cares to understand more, I will happily elaborate on each of these 4 things and share deeper insight into how the best businesses approach hiring people who enhance their business performance and culture…