Tip: Hire for attitude, not for skill.
Most of us are aware of the importance of having a good attitude but we may not realize how vital it is for happy, healthy relationships. A sour, negative, bitter person will be avoided by others like the plague. However, a happy, optimistic, and positive person will attract people like bees are attracted to honey. It is just that simple.
The Carnegie Institute research studies have shown that technical skill, beginning with intelligence and developed through education and experience, accounts for only 15% of success in the workplace. The other 85% of workplace success comes from people skills!
I realize that technical skills are important also. If I ever need surgery on my heart or my brain, I want a highly skilled surgeon to do the work! Under those circumstances, although I would care about their attitude, I would be more concerned about their technical expertise at the time of surgery. However, even then, I would also want one with a good attitude so that they would work in the best way possible during recovery.
If you are in a position to hire workers, let me encourage you to look for someone with a good attitude. In a recent article I read about the success of Southwest airlines, it pointed out they always hire for attitude first. The necessary skills to meet a job’s requirements can almost always be learned, but it is next to impossible to instill a good attitude in someone if they have not already developed it. I would rather have someone who had a good attitude and let them learn the needed job skills than to hire someone who had the best job skill set in the world with a poor or marginal attitude.
Perhaps you are looking for a job yourself. I believe you will have a much greater chance of finding the kind of job you are looking for if you look your prospective employer in the eye and say, “I know that I may not have all the necessary skills for this job, but I can learn them. I do, however, have the best attitude of anyone you have ever met. I will show up early, stay late, work hard and always have a positive, upbeat attitude that will be contagious to those who work around me!” If you were an employer and heard something like that, wouldn’t you sit up and take notice? (Of course, I am trusting the fact that this is already true about you!)
I know that there are some exceptions to every rule. I have personally hired several hundred people over the years. I have been in education work, church work and am a business owner. I can say without exception that the people who always do the best job are the ones who have the best attitude.
This Tip is simple to understand. The trouble comes in putting it into practice. Let me encourage you to focus on attitude first and foremost. If you think back on the people who have influenced your life the most, I am confident, for the most part, it will be because of the attitude they had toward you rather than the skills they possessed. It is true of them, and it will be true of you as well.
When other people think of you, do they think about the great attitude that you have about life and your relationships? If they do, then you are on your way to success because you understand that attitude is really the key that encourages others accomplish their dreams. I once heard someone say, “When people see you coming, they either say to themselves, ‘Oh no!’ or ‘Oh boy’!” I want to be an “oh boy” kind of person. Don’t you?
Tip: Hire for attitude, not for skill.
Have a great week! God bless you!
Dr. Robert A. Rohm
