Mark Murphy explains why uncoachable employees fail: 89% of hiring failures stem from attitude, not skills. Listen for absolute words like "always" and "never" in interviews. Low performers use 103% more absolutes than high performers, signaling they won't take feedback.
A lack of coachability is one of the biggest reasons why new hires fail. And you can spot someone with a lack of coachability just by listening to how many times they use words like always and never in a job interview. Hi, I'm Mark Murphy, founder of Leadership IQ, and let's dig into this. First, our landmark Hiring for Attitude study discovered that 89% of hiring failures result from poor attitudes, not a lack of technical skills. The problem is that candidates with bad attitudes generally try to hide those attitudes, so we've got to get a lot more sophisticated. Another of our studies analyzed over 20,000 job interview answers to identify the words that predicted likely hiring failures, and it turns out that low-performer candidates used 103% more absolutes than high performers. Absolutes are words that indicate a black or white thinking style. They include words like always, never, all, impossible, absolutely, unquestionably. Imagine you asked a candidate, "Could you tell me about a time you got tough feedback from your boss?" In an ideal world, you would hear wonderful specifics about the exact feedback given, what they learned, and how they improved going forward. But low performers are likely to give you an answer filled with absolutes. Lacking the details and nuance of a high-performance response. Let me kind of read to you some real-life answers from low performers when they were asked the question, "Could you tell me about a time you got tough feedback from your boss?" "I've never really had this experience. I've always only had positive feedback, but never anything that was hard to hear," one candidate said. "My last boss gave me feedback, but it was impossible to learn anything from it because it was so vague," Another candidate said, "Unless the criticism is unfounded and not constructive, I would never react in a negative manner. All feedback is good feedback. Without feedback, positive or negative, you will never be able to gauge how the work you do impacts customers." Notice how each of those responses lacks detail and nuance, not to mention self-awareness and critical self-reflection. The use of absolutes like "always" and "never" can stem from insecurity, a need to show off, black and white thinking, or frankly, a lack of intellectual flexibility. Think of it this way: when was the last time you experienced a situation that was always or never a certain way in the real world? The best candidates deliver answers loaded with details and specifics, and it's because they have wonderful experiences they can't wait to share with you. For example, suppose you asked a high performer, "Could you tell me about a time you faced a tough challenge at work?". It doesn't serve that person to say, "Oh yeah, that always or never happened to me." Instead, a high performer is going to tell you, usually in great detail, about any number of times they experience that situation. For example, here's a real-life answer from a high performer when they were asked, "Could you tell me about a time you faced a tough challenge at work?" What they said was, "I put out a report without checking it, and I sent out false information. My boss called me on it. I was in a hurry and I skipped a critical step. He was right to talk to me about it. No matter what kind of deadline, it's better to do the job correctly than to give incorrect information. While high performers will offer details, low performers are more likely to sprinkle their language with absolutes to try and sound like a high performer. Now granted, it takes some practice to pinpoint this type of language in an actual job interview, but one of the fastest ways to get competent at listening for absolutes is, well, listening for absolutes. I mean, really listening. You're not talking, interrupting, or interjecting. Instead, you're fully present and attuned to every word that comes out of the candidate's mouth, especially words like always and never. Let's go next level with all this. Companies are desperate for highly skilled leaders, and we've got several award-winning leadership courses about to start. Go to leadershipiq.com or look at the links below and check them out. You're going to get the most practical, complete, and research-backed leadership training available anywhere. There are courses like Hiring for Attitude, The Science and Practices of Managing People, The Leader as Coach: What Great Communicators Do Differently. They're all starting soon, so check them out at leadershipiq.com or look at the links below. Listen, thousands of your leadership peers are making 2022 the year to skyrocket their careers. Why don't you join them? Bye for now.
