Studies conducted by various researchers over the past two decades point to the importance of hiring and promoting for certain attitudes (for example, empathy and a desire to produce results and foster success for others) while training primarily for skills at all levels in an organization. Further, to reengineer an organization to do more with less, high-performing organizations not only hire for attitude and train for skills, they provide outstanding support systems and then broaden the latitude given to front-line employees to deliver results to important constituencies—customers, suppliers, investors, lenders, etc. Finally, they recognize and reward these people for results. Consequently, fewer higher-paid people with bigger jobs are capable of achieving greater results in organizations with fewer levels of management and less hierarchy and bureaucracy.
Their "attitudes approach" has had time to get communicated far and wide. Additionally, the rigors of competing in an economy with constrained demand have given further impetus to this philosophy. In my own experience, even organizations that have been skill-centered in the past, such as medical services, now are beginning to subscribe to this idea as they encounter increasing numbers of malpractice suits bred primarily from failures of attitude (insensitivity leading to patient anger, for instance) as opposed to poor skills.
Yet the majority of organizations haven't been willing or able to take full advantage of these conclusions. Some obviously don't subscribe to them. Organizations continue to hire for skills or easily observable surface behaviors and struggle with the almost impossible task of developing desired attitudes on the job. Others have employed support systems, aided by significant progress in the development of more sophisticated technology, either to substitute for management judgement or to constrain managers' behaviors. Still others haven't clearly identified precisely the kinds of attitudes (and the behaviors they produce) that they need, typically because they haven't fully determined the desired mission and values that provide the context in which hiring for attitude can take place. These are all possible explanations for differences in the competitive behaviors and results achieved by organizations in the same industry. But there may be one more: There is an increasing scarcity of talent with the attitudes that organizations are seeking.
If one accepts these "hypotheses"—and clearly not everyone does—this leads to a number of questions. The most basic is whether and how attitude can be developed or taught. Such development begins early in life. Some would argue that it is at least partly genetic. But to the degree that attitude can be developed, to what extent are educational programs responsible for helping in this process? And are they doing their job? To the extent that programs providing the primary source of future management talent are focusing only on skills and knowledge, are they short-changing future employers? Do we face a future attitude shortage? What, if anything, can we do about it? What do you think?
Further reading:
First, Break All the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.
Chapter 7 in The Value Profit Chain, by James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Leonard A. Schlesinger, New York: The Free Press, 2003.