Employee Screening for Demons in High Achievers????

Interesting podcast at Harvard Business Review today discussing the potential pitfalls with high achievers. Clearly, when we hire, we are always looking for those people who have exhibited the behaviors that we deem successful. Hiring someone with a clear pattern of success and achievement would always be a positive right? Maybe say Dr. Tom DeLong at Harvard. Personally, I think this is why a pre-employment test or automated reference checking system matter so much (but maybe I’m biased )

Listen to the podcast (it’s pretty short) and see what you think. Here were my comments:

“I listened to this podcast and keep saying “high achiever in what?”. When we generalize what the characteristics of a high-achiever (or a low achiever for that matter) we ignore the situational component. For instance, many people are high achievers and extremely goal oriented in certain areas of their life or career, while in others they are clearly lacking and know it. At its core, that comes down to a degree of self-awareness this is essential in any type of achievement. The most capable and accomplished executives (or athletes, clergy, etc.) have understood clearly their strengths and weaknesses. When they failed to perform in an area they deemed a strength, they would exhibit some of the behaviors that Dr. DeLong mentions. However, when they didn’t perform in an area of perceived weakness they let it go. It is very hard, in my opinion, to really generalize achievement in all aspects of life without factoring in situations and motivation. That is why, when hiring or developing, understanding the characteristics of success in a given role and business culture is so critical.”