“Innovative” tops the list of attitudes today’s companies say define their top performers. But one of the biggest problems in hiring for innovation (and other similarly abstract concepts) is that every company defines innovation a bit differently. Your definition of innovation may include taking big risks, or maybe it involves building support for your big ideas. You may focus on the ideational parts of innovation while other companies are concerned with the implementation.
One of the best ways to define a concept like innovation is to look at the glaring differences in how your high and low performers actually do innovation.
Here’s a real-life example. This company took a hard look at their best and worst employees when it comes to innovation and found the following:
High Performers On Innovation: Our high performers on innovation love big, high-risk goals. Tight deadlines increase their passion and they are happy to work without much input from management. They are finely tuned in to where the company is headed and take initiative to reinvent themselves by gaining new skills to stay relevant in the job. These high performers are team players when it comes to creative problem solving and they don’t need personal credit for success.
Low Performers On Innovation: The people we consider low performers on innovation need creative handholding. They’re afraid to do something new or take a risk without first getting leadership approval. They resist change efforts and ask, “Why do I have to do this?” when given new work assignments. Innovative low performers also prefer to go solo in attacking challenges and they want all the credit for success.
Now that you know what innovation looks like, you need to ask an interview question that is so open-ended that candidates are forced to reveal their true personality on the topic of innovation.
Here’s the question that I recommend:
Could you tell me about a time you lacked the skills or knowledge to complete an assignment?
It’s a very simple question, and that’s by design. It’s so open-ended that there are no giveaways about the right and wrong answer. And that’s why it’s so effective at differentiating high and low performers. You can see more questions designed like this, and how tough they are to answer correctly, with the free online test “Could You Pass This Job Interview?”
Now, once you have your definitions of innovation and a truly open-ended question, you’re ready to assess actual candidates.
The following are responses given by real candidates applying at this company, note how easily you can identify the potential high performers based on how the organization defines innovation.
Question: Could you tell me about a time you lacked the skills or knowledge to complete an assignment?’
Candidate A: I was asked to cover for a coworker on a critical project where there was an ongoing issue. I lacked a lot of the details but knew I had to move fast so I reached out to the account owner and the employee who had been working on the project to get any existing information. Then I got access to the client's systems and researched the problem. I jumped in and used my relationships inside and outside the office to address the problem.
Candidate B: I had an end of year project given to me by a manager that focused in a very different direction than anything we had ever done before. I spent several days just trying to understand the information I was given to input and why it even mattered to the company.
Candidate C: I see it as a promotion of sorts to be given challenging assignments that require me to flex new skills. There was no formal training or transition process at my last company, so this happened a lot. I kept up to date with industry news and happenings and I worked with diverse teams within the company to understand more and to learn something new every day.
Candidate D: I was given the task of formulating a pricing structure for a new product where I lacked the required expertise. I built a team of people from several departments to come up with a solution.
Candidate E: We implemented new software and no one on the team could understand the best way to utilize it. I took it upon myself to play around with it after work to discover its capabilities and I mastered the software. I earned the informal title of the “go-to” expert in the organization, even my boss had to come to me whenever he hit a problem.
Candidates A, C and D show some of the hallmarks that define the organization’s innovative high performers. But there’s still some work to do with Candidates B and E.
If the success of your organization depends upon innovative new hires, don’t leave anything to chance. Start by formalizing your company’s unique definition of innovative as it applies to both high and low performers. And make sure every person involved in the hiring process knows it by heart. Then use a truly open-ended question to reveal the candidates’ true personality on innovation.
Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestseller, author of Hiring For Attitude, and founder of the leadership training firm Leadership IQ.
