Leaders Letter 201 - The 4 Levels Of Cultural Fit
1. Company Fit - 2.Sub Culture Fit - 3. Department Culture Fit & 4. Team Culture Fit
Dear leaders, leaders letter 201 comes from a rainy and autumnal London.
Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who requested and joined me for the (free) power hour slots I offered in leaders letter 200. I learnt a tonne and I know there was a great value exchanges.
Today’s LL BLUF (bottom line up front) is going to give you a different way to consider culture fit and how you can consider the culture and cultural fit at the levels it requires.
Culture Fit Was Never Explained Or Written Down
Culture fit is something companies used to hide behind when hiring, phrases like “I'm sorry you just aren’t a cultural fit for us” used to be commonplace.
When pushed no-one could actually explain what it really was and why you weren’t actually a fit.
I was once told by a headhunter that the company said “my approach and high-demanding work style wouldn’t align and I was not a culture fit’.
I asked if there were any more layers of feedback on cultural fit and why demanding high quality output did not align, I did not receive further feedback.
In my coaching I speak to c-suite leaders who struggle to hire, they struggle to select a candidate or worry that this senior hire might not work inside their business and it often is mislabelled as cultural misfit.
I often suggest you hire more than just on skill and interview skill, you are better hiring towards a profile you have shaped and then you hire on 4 different cultural levels.
Introducing The 4 Culture Fit Levels
Level 1 » Company Culture Fit
How will this candidate fit within the company, how will their skills and personality match the demands of the business and do their values align well enough or compliment those around them.
Level 2 » Sub Culture Fit
This is a level or tier I associate with their Management Tier, what level of management or leadership will they be on and will they be additive to the company, will their values, skills and behaviours be a driver towards success.
Level 3 » Department Culture Fit
Departments all have their own unique set of people, skills and requirements. Some departments have high levels of output, they are close knit and can demand more than others departments. Many candidates struggle with departmental rounds of interviews and its not a match or the candidate does not ask or push for more specifics.
Level 4 » Team Culture Fit
Most teams have a different subculture, they might be friendlier, they might work later or start earlier, they could be a think-for-me team, not a deliver-for-me team within their department set-up.
These cultural factors are all critical.
When 3 of 4 Might Not Be A Good Fit
I have had a brilliant candidate who would have taken over a number 2 role within a company, and would have ticked 3 of the 4 cultural fits, their shortcoming was their own leadership style and digging into that, it meant their hands-off management style wouldn’t have addressed some of the issues and helped to rebalance the existing department issues.
Their leadership style would have been challenged constantly by the other execs and caused issues within every leadership meeting.
When you hire execs or the next generation of executives you have to understand org design alongside how they will interact and drive the business forward with their behaviours and styles.
Such situations are where you have to be straight up and explain the scoring.
There is then no challenge of cultural fit.
This particular candidate was deliberate in their approach and was confident enough not to want to change it and to this day I fully respect their conviction and leadership decision not to change for that role.
Leader Culture Fit
I’ll speak from a leadership hiring perspective, when you are hiring a fellow C-suite exec, you need to understand the person:
What makes them tick
What truly motivates them on the darkest of days
What demotivates them
How they are wired for fight, flight or do they freeze (freezing can mean taking a beat and letting something play out or actually holding the company up)
When they have to step up or defend their section of the business
The leadership candidate needs to understand:
You (leadership team) and your business
Why your leadership team is set up and configured in this way
Why your onboarding process might be set up in a certain way
How they will be successful (and the steps that ensure success)
How the company culture is shaped and rewards/punished and then their potential new departmental culture and how it operates.
This hire has to work both ways, in hiring leadership team members you have to think about how they will add something extra to your leadership team, how they will complement the existing members and potentially where they could add some clarity or create some healthy tension.
It is vital to remember combat is short-term and addressable, conflict (long-term conflicts and fighting) is long-term and often toxic.
A Critical Cultural Value Can Be Time Constrained
There are some values that will be prove to be show stoppers and time x impact is one that everyone wrestles with.
Some cultural fits will take a while to embed, adjust and adapt and that is ok if this time period is managed, if not then good luck proving your value quickly enough and this is often at the root it is cultural.
Being from a large company and going into a startup is a huge adjustment often nearly impossible to catch up and keep up.
Going from a startup to a larger organisation can be going from a high end speed boat to an oil tanker going in reverse and the majority of times it does not work out.
You have likely experienced this or experiencing this now.
Good Cultural Hire 👍 Vs Bad Cultural Hire 👎
A good hire can accelerate the company, boost team morale and build a strong rapport with the department and cross-functionally drive collaboration for instance.
A bad hire can knock the department and teams back months, and the lasting impact of a bad hire can take years to overcome, re-hiring, re-energising the department, re-building trust etc all impacts the bottom line and employee happiness.
Hiring Is Hard! Hiring brilliant candidates is hard and dedicated work, hiring high-class executives can feel like an impossible task, however, moving forward you have a potential framework to hire against and question are my team members a good fit across the 4 cultural fits and if they aren’t, question can you work it through with them or is this critical and they may need to move on.
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Have a great week ahead.
Thanks,
Danny Denhard