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Raising the Bar with Character

Does doing things the same way we did in the past push us to higher standards and greater achievement?

Danny Galdo joins the KANNY blog as a guest author. Danny grows commercial and operational success as a leader in the BioPharma space. Connect with Danny on LinkedIn

It’s a truly unfortunate fact that we so often get pushed to do things the same way.

In your career, you’ve probably been challenged with a mandate to “be more efficient,” “do more with less,” & “be more innovative.”  Then, you go off and diligently try to come up with a novel approach… Only to be told “show me some best practices on this” or “what are our competitors doing” or “what does the benchmarking tell us.”  

Looking Backwards

Inevitably, and with much frustration, we can easily get stuck doing something the same way we have in the past – because one of the primary ways we support our recommendation is to look backwards – so, we end up going with “this is what others do” or “this is what we have always done.”  It’s truly a shame that we do this with talent acquisition too… Knowing full well how crucial motivated, high Character people, aligned with a shared vision are to any organization’s success.

Predictable Patterns

I’ve played a variety of roles in the process to hire literally hundreds of people around the world.  The broad outlines of how we go about sourcing, screening & interviewing people for most positions follows a very predictable pattern these days, based on historical norms, with maybe a few exceptions – depending on the role/level/system.

This seems to miss the most important point.  Yes, you check all your job description boxes and hire for what appear to be the right levels of attitude, brains and competence, but if you miss the mark on Character, then whatever people or project that person touches has the potential to suffer greatly.  

Character is critical 

Character is the badge of honor that great leaders wear – the ones we all would follow through a brick wall.  Character is clear in those outstanding colleagues we’ve had the privilege to collaborate with – the ones that motivate us to achieve more than we ever thought possible.  Character is the one “intangible” that we have to find a way to assess reliably that doesn’t cost our company $2-10K per role before pulling the trigger on an offer. 

Looking Forward

Strong Character has been a common attribute for all of the best hires that I’ve had the privilege to on-board… Conversely, a lack of Character has more often than not been the driving force necessitating off-boarding someone that hurt the team.  It’s time to move forward with new approaches to reliably & efficiently assess Character.  This key attribute is worthy of renewed focus!

This is why I joined KANNY as an advisor.  I was attracted to the mission to make Character count!   

Connect with Danny on LinkedIn.