Skills-First Hiring: Exploring Mindsets and Motivation with Bev Kaye

I think we have to look at attitude and the other things I bring to the party other than the skill itself. And maybe we don't know how to talk about that unless somebody asks us, well, how did you think to do that and what made you move to B instead of see and you know, what went through your mind as you thought about that? And maybe it's the art of managers or my, even my peers or my friends helping me identify the, the skills that I use that are part of me. So I don't call them skills. It's just the way I am.

Hi and welcome to the show. I'm Johnny Campbell, CEO and co founder of Social Talent. And this week on the podcast we're talking with the fabulous Bev K about Skills First Hiring and Skills First Organizations. Bev has been a frequent visitor to the podcast. She is a presenter on the Social Talent platform and I'm glad to counter as a good friend. Bev's the author of eight books on career development and career management. She's a world renowned speaker and she's just a beautiful person. Bev, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us here this morning. For those folks who haven't had the absolute pleasure of hearing you, seeing you or reading one of your books, could you perhaps just give our audience a quick summary of the area that you found yourself specializing in over the last few years and why you're so passionate about.

Okay. You know, I am lucky because as a consultant entrepreneur, I found two areas early that have been evergreen for all of my career. I've been at this for over four decades. I'm 81 and I'm not stopping yet. And the first was career development. And I wrote my doctoral dissertation, UCLA on how do careers get developed inside of organizations. And that was in the, gee, the late 70s, early 80s and no one had done it. And so I was really jazzed by understanding how do employees think about their careers, how do managers support them and how does the surround sound or the system that the organization has help it or hurt it. So I developed workshops and training and wrote the book up is not the Only Way based on that work and later wrote other books on career development. Helped them grow and Watch Them Go just came out in its third edition. And then I morphed into luckily the area of retention and engagement because I saw noticed that if you are happy in your career, if you had a manager who seemed to care about that happiness factor, that you stayed longer. And McKinsey had just published its study about engagement. And they said, people don't leave organizations, they leave managers. And everybody nodded their heads. That's right. But nobody was saying, okay, managers, what do you do? So I've come to believe over all these years that my work is around the how behind the why. We keep giving the why, all the bullets that go with the why, but we're not giving simple hows. And that's what I think is important. That's what I've done for all these years and will continue to do.

I love that you framed it that way, Bev, because as we record this podcast, there's a lot of talk, and I mean a lot of talk, about skills first, organizations, skills first, hiring, skills first, everything. It seems that you cannot be not skills first because you must be missing out. Right? There's so, so much conversation about it. But, you know, partly when I think of everyone talk about skills first, you know, it's coming from this. I believe it's coming from this recognition that we do not have enough of the skills out there or enough people to fill all the roles with all the requirements and all the skills that are in demand. And so organizations are looking at how do we still deliver on the needs of an organization, still deliver on all the results we have to achieve, but maybe think differently about how we hire, how we move around our folks and trying to break the perhaps traditional view of job titles and break people not into job titles. What you do today that, you know, I'm a designer, I'm a writer, I'm an accountant, instead focus on collection of skills that I might have, which allows me maybe to transfer those skills into other roles. So that's where I think it comes from. Right. So from maybe a good place, but perhaps it's, you know, you know, maybe in doing so, what you are doing is you're breaking down all these wonderful, beautiful people into a collection of skills, of words on a page, when we are much more than that. So, Bev, what are your thoughts around this general skills first movement as it's come about today, its roots, what's right, what's right or good about it? What's maybe wrong or negative about it?

You know, having been in the field for so long, I think we've always hired for skills. We've always looked at, what do you bring to the party? You know, what do you have to offer us? And yeah, years ago, we called it competencies. We've called it other things, but I think the emphasis on skills as opposed to where did you go to School and, you know, what did you major in and what did you do? It's bigger than that. And from my career work, I don't think people have the list of skills they use at their fingertips. Like, I'll tell you what I was remembering in my. In the workshops that we used to do in the old days when there were a lot of face to face workshops, we used to do something called success stories, where we put people in a small group and we have one person be it, and that person would talk about a project that they just finished doing. And the group would ask questions like, well, how did you know to do that? And how did you know to do that? And what did you do first or second? And the group would write down all the skills they heard embedded in that success story and then read them aloud to the person who was it? And the person always went, oh, my God, I never realized it took all of that to do what I did. And maybe everyone needs to think more deeply and broadly about the skills they use, you know, unintentionally or unknowingly to. To make something happen. So that's why I think an emphasis on skills is important. And we have to help the individual name them and we have to help the manager ask in such a way that those skills can be talked about. Maybe.

I heard the CEO of LinkedIn get up on stage at Talent Connect this year and say that every job is a collection of tasks, fundamentally, which I really like the idea of, you know, saying you can have a fancy job title, but really it's just the tasks you do in a given day. And when you look at those tasks, you see skills that are required to deliver the tasks, and you can begin to decompose and break down those tasks. And as you said, you know, maybe there is a challenge around just identifying the skills. We're not all brilliant at it, but even if there was a world where, Bev, everybody was great at understanding their tasks, and then the skills associated with those tasks can rate themselves. In one of your recent articles, you quoted Zig Ziglar and I love this, you said, it is your attitude more than your aptitude that will determine your altitude.

Right.

Talk to me about that in the context of a skills first world.

All right. I wish that that was not mine. It was, in fact, I think.

Are you sad? Wasn't it?

Right, right. And it is. You know, I think we have to look at attitude and the other things I bring to the party, other than the skill itself. And maybe we don't know how to talk about that unless somebody asks us, well, how did you think to do that? And what made you move to B instead of C? And, you know, what went through your mind as you thought about that? And maybe it's the art of managers or even my peers or my friends helping me identify the. The skills that I use that are part of me. So I don't call them skills. It's just the way I am. And I think it's great to be able to name them and great to look at skills as separate from the jobs I've had, the tasks, you know, I've done, and look wider and deeper, what the person brings naturally.

And, Bev, you've described this quite well as mindset. Can you explain that concept of mindset and how it interacts with skills, how it's different to skills?

It's kind of like that quote. There's skill set, which is the specific things I put together and deliver, and there's mindsets, and there's a long list of them that kind of are how I see the world. Like one mindset might be. Do I see other ways of attacking that problem other than the one I've been trained to do? You know, do. Do I think of how would Johnny have approached that differently than how I am approaching it? Do I think outside of the box? You know, I know we talk about, you know, the box, and I remember a friend of mine named his creativity program. What box? Like, not only do I think outside of it, I throw out the box. And maybe we have to help people, and maybe it's the manager's job, maybe it's a colleague's job to get down to, how did you know to do that? What did you pull on to get you to ask that question? What came to mind? And that's where we begin to name more than just what's apparent.

So when you. When you talk about these mindsets or headsets, Bev, you know, maybe. Maybe they can be used interchangeably with other HR words like behaviors or values. You know, it's the. You know, rather than the skill you have, the way that you would approach maybe using that skill. Right? Your headset, your mindset, your behaviors, your values. Are they fixed, Bev? Or can they be adapted or trained, or can you change them over time, do you think?

You know, I think if we get more curious with one another, we might name those headsets or mindset. You know, the headset I define as the skill, the mindset is what's behind it. What do you pull on? Who have you read that stuck in your mind and now you're trying to emulate. So maybe it takes a savvy partner, whether that partner is your manager or a colleague or a friend, to ask you those questions that make you take a step back and say, how did I come to that? And maybe you pull on people you've read. Maybe you pull on instances that did not work, that you learned from. Like, I love the question, tell me about a project that failed and what did you learn from it? Tell me about a project you led and it failed and you could have led it differently. Maybe we don't take the time in this busy, crazy world of ours to stop and say, how did you get there? How did you ask that? What made you do that? We move right on to the next thing.

So how would you go about. Because I like what you're saying, by the way, Bev, because you know, you're talking about, you mentioned, start there. You know, what have you seen? How are you doing that? Let's say maybe it's coaching. You know, coaching is a skill perhaps, maybe that's a headset. But maybe the mindset is, how have I seen one of my leaders coach? Because there's different ways of having a mindset around that. The behavior of values that would take in terms of, are they, you know, how they listen, are they positive, are they reinforcing certain skills? Are they really open minded? Do they have that learning mindset? For example, all these different ways you could have a mindset and perhaps you would learn that from emanating what you've seen in your career with previous colleagues or a boss. That's how you might learn the behavior of how to implement a coaching skill, combining those two things. But how, you know, how would you recommend, first of all, who would you put the responsibility on to develop and define and understand these things? Is it the employee, the. The employers and the boss both? And do you have any tips in terms of how either party could start to just even evaluate those? Name them, write them down, discuss them.

You know, I go back to this one exercise we used to do and when we talk career development called success stories, and we'd say, name a project that you're working on now. And then my audience and the audience could be colleague appear. You know, a boss has to ask the question, well, what did you do next? And how did you know to do that next? And what went through your head so that the individual thinks more deeply about how they move to solve that problem? And maybe those are the attributes and attitudes that help me become a make a success of that particular project. But I don't think we stop to say, how did I get there? How did I do that? I think it needs someone else asking because we don't stop to ask ourselves.

I love that. So from an employee perspective, it's having an environment or a scenario where you can safely examine those behaviors, right? To understand your mindset a bit more, maybe having someone help you ask the questions to get through that, to uncover your own mindset, to write it down then, and have better understand yourself. And I guess from an employer slash hiring manager perspective, it's designing structured interview questions that would understand what are you trying to see? What are the values you're looking for, the mindsets you want to hire for that you think will succeed in your team, in your organization, or that your organization values? And then designing good structured questions that will uncover in candidates whether they fit that mindset or could adapt to that mindset. Is that the way we could see it?

Perhaps, yeah. And maybe it's giving managers some. Some clue sheets to say, try this question or try that question. Like, here are some questions that I remember using when we're trying to invent good questions that employees might not have thought about. Like, what's the most unexpected thing you learned this year? How did it surprise you and what was it to get to? Are you aware of what you're learning every day? Or a recruiter could ask, tell me a time when your strength turned into a challenge and wasn't a strength anymore? How did you handle it? Or what's a small win that meant the world to you and why did it matter so much? It was a small win. Tell me more about that or I love this one. Describe a moment when you thought, did I really just do that in a good way? Of course. Like, sometimes when I am asked a question, I want to say, thanks, mouth. I didn't know it. My mouth knew the answer. So when does that happen and in what settings? The other question I think that's really interesting is what is the most useless piece of knowledge you have that ended up being surprisingly helpful at work and get someone to say, gee, I remember when I built that thing with my kid and how I went through the steps and I applied it with my own employee. It's a way to get to know employees deeper and see the skills that they pull on. Like, I love the question, if we could pick one superpower that embodies your best attribute, what would it be and how does it show up in your work? You know what is a super like I, I'm a big. How do I make this simple kind of thinker? How do I rhyme it? How do I make it memorable? Because there's too many things that we have to remember, especially in a new job. So that's been what I've tried to do, I think, with all my work. So that a manager thinks about an acronym and the acronym reminds that manager. Oh, those are the choices for jobs.

You remind me of lever with two Rs at the end.

I was just going to say that.

Which comes to mind every time. I would never remember. I'm always talking about up is not the only way. And I say, Beth case, fantastic works. You have great course. And they go, so what are the other ways apart from up? And I go, hang on a second. L, E, V, R, R. I start taking people through because without that I'd be lost. I would struggle. And you're right. I love what you said there around the different question types. Obviously some of those will be good ones for interviews and depending on the values or behaviors you're recruiting for. For example, I imagine that comment, the question you made about your mouth kind of running off before your brain kicks in, maybe that's about testing for self awareness, right? As a, as a value or behavior, is the person self? Aware? Can they see in themselves when these things happen and correct that or understand what it's happening? So I guess it's about understanding those values. But I think from a career development coaching perspective, it's also about our managers having these regular conversations with their team, not just in an interview situation because obviously that's obvious, but maybe in a career development better understanding of someone's potential and opportunities, which is just exploring these, these conversations regularly so that both you and your, your colleague or a team member have a more, more better understanding of their strengths. On the, on the mindset, not just the headset skills.

Right. Right now it's like, I love the play on words like that, but you use the word self awareness. You know, I read recently that the number one skill that managers need is to be successful is self awareness. So I don't know that self awareness appears on any skill list. You know, but it is something that the research says is essential that I.

Is it a skill? Is it a behavior? I guess this is, you know, for me. I don't know what you think, Bev. I wouldn't get caught up on the words and the language. I'd say just call it what you want, but people want more of it. You know, whether it's a skill or behavior. I'm not too sure where the lines cross, to be honest with you, in the conversations I've had. But if we take those two first concepts, obviously the skills, first organization, which obviously skills is really important. We need to have certain skills and it's all good. Looking for the actual skills and breaking them down. We talked about not just let's call that the headset. We talk about the mindset, which would be maybe the behaviors, the how you put that into place, face the type of maybe mindset or approach you take and why maybe it's learned from. From what you've seen and how other cultures you've worked in. But you also talk about a concept. I'm going to use this. You have several phrases for it. But I love the legit fit, which is a different concept. Again, walk me through legit fit, Bev. And maybe that more motivation piece. I think this is fantastic too.

And again, from my readings and my own work, I know that skills alone doth not the marriage make that you can't just say perfect. You've got the perfect skills for the perfect job that demands these skills done. It is more than that. So a legit fit is it's skills like what do I do well and. And. But it's more than that. It's what do I enjoy doing. So it's skills, it's interests. Like I'm passionate when I get to reinvent something or I'm, you know, so it's skills, it's interests and its values. So I could be in a job demanding certain skills of me and I could be bored silly using those skills. So I'm going to flatline. So, and it's not just so. It's skills, interests. I'm passionate about that or I'm bored silly using that skill. Help get. Get me out of here. You know, do managers notice? Do employees know enough to say I am bored silly on this project. Get me on, you know, and so it's skills, interest in its values. Is this something that I really do care about? And I think if any of those three are missing and they're this very simple, then you're not a good. It's not a good fit. So hiring for skills alone and not asking about interests and more about values, I think could maybe mess you up and mess your employee up more.

I think the, the interest one is that one that really jumps out at me because a. With all the talk of mapping the skills organization, every job is broken into skills, not jobs and then when we have a project or a role, we'll just look for someone with the right skills. It really ignores this interest piece. Nobody's talking about mapping interests. Like, you could have an accountant who has great Photoshop skills. Brilliant. And you think, brilliant. We're going to give her this role that requires Photoshop. She's going, I'm good. I'm amazing at this. I don't want to do Photoshop every day. It bores me. I'm very good at it. But. No, but maybe it's the thing, and I don't know. I don't know about you, Bev. Often it's the thing that you're not brilliant at that you want to do more of. It's almost that kind of. I'm on the edge of something and I want to push it so I'm not there yet. That's where my interest most.

I want to learn more to get better at that. Right, Right. Yes, right. Right.

Yeah. It's like, almost like if you have somebody who has 10 out of 10, all the skills, I'd argue they have no interest in that job because what did they get out of it? They could do that job in their sleep. And so therefore, from a hiring perspective, you're like, awesome. I can map everyone who's perfect. I think perfect is not what you want to hire for because you got to flip to the candidate going, what is she getting out of it? She maybe wants, I'll give you six out of 10, you give me the four back. I want four new skills from this role. That's why I would take it if. If it's 10 out of 10 for me, as in, I can do them all. I don't want that job because you've got nothing to give me, which is maybe that missing piece. No one's talking about mapping that. No one talks about how we fit that into the equation, do they, Bev? I'm not hearing it, are you?

Right. And we've talked about it, really, in the world of Career Forever, that it's, you know, did you ever ask your person, you know, do you love doing. Did you? What about that project. Maybe it's the simplest question. Turned you on, got you excited, made you go, you know, look up something to do it even better, or what made it feel so ho hum that you. You grimaced. Oh, not that again. Now sometimes you're going to have to do it, and sometimes me as a manager, just knowing that, you know, Sally over there loves that kind of work. So it means that managers have to be more astute, more aware, you know, I told you I love to rhyme things I've said managers need to notice. And what does it mean to notice? It means you recognize. Gee, I didn't know Johnny knows so much about that subject. Recognize. And then you have to verbalize, hey, Johnny, you know, you would be a great career coach. Recognize, verbalize, and then mobilize, you know, And I know someone who I think is getting tired of the coaching they're doing, and you would be great doing that. So it's recognize, verbalize, mobilize. And those are the components of how I notice you. And if you only do recognize and you store in your head, that's okay too. But if you speak it to the person to double check your assumption, that's even better. And then if you know where they could deploy that skill, that's better still.

I think that the piece about motivation as well, Bev, is that sometimes somebody will do the 10 things they can do in their sleep because the reason behind it, the purpose, is strong to them, which can be just had the. You know, when you understand someone's purpose, they may relish the tasks that on their own may not be terribly exciting, but the ends justify the means. They want to achieve some good for, you know, the product or the customer or the community or whatever that that serves, which can be the big part of the motivation. Hiring people are motivated to do that. I remember many years ago speaking with Leap, who at the time was running the recruiting team for Uber in Europe. They just started and he was telling me how when they, when they first set up in Amsterdam, that all these folks from Google and Amazon and Facebook, Facebook and, you know, LinkedIn applying for jobs to come work with them, they're inundated with really smart people like super on the skills, super on the behaviors. And they were hiring them, and then they were churning after six months because the motivation fit was all wrong. Because as he described it to me back then, Uber had no perks, no benefits, crazy long hours, you to give up your life, your weekends, your everything, because people wanted to work there, believed in this mission, that the home planet was dying and we had to get off it or make it better. And there was this whole concept that Musk kind of created back then, the business that the purpose was bigger than everybody. And so they cannot change their whole way of hiring to stop hiring the highly skilled folks because they weren't the right people, because they didn't share that common motivation. And they kind of doubled down on, you will not like it here unless xyz. So it reduced the amount of people, but they hired folks who only wanted to work for an organization with that purpose, that motivation, and that really got it for them. And it really struck me how you can't just be all about skills, you can't just be all about behaviors. This motivation piece is just so important. And organizations that have a clear sense of purpose, you will, you will be the only employer people want to work with. You know, if it's narrowly defined and clearly defined, folks will flock to you who share that purpose. And you'll get the skills, you get the everything else. But again, it's not the only thing.

And you get some passion, you know, in love them or lose them. I remember saying, when passion goes, so do they.

Yes.

And do you even notice when someone's, you know by their behaviors that they're getting to that no fashion line. And you know, the way I morphed into retention and engagement was that the data said everything I read, everything I saw said when, when I'm not getting what I want for my career, when I'm not being used fully, when I'm not being recognized, all those things, I'm going to look elsewhere. So that's how I got into engagement and retention. Because a lot of it has to do with my career happiness or unhappiness. And it's sad when, you know, I'm showing all the signs of turning out the work I have to turn out, but there's no joy in what I do. And maybe it's like two minute conversation talking about, you know, when I looked at you when you delivered that report, you just didn't like you, like you enjoyed the whole doing of it anyway, it's what do I see? And then asking you a question about what I see.

So, Bev, in a world where, you know, in the moment in time when there's such a fascination on mapping out skills and we're trying to see computers as being the solution for mapping all the skills in an organization. And I have this. You remember that noise from the 70s and 80s with the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep of the computer noise when the computer was computing, you hear this beep, beep, beep, beep. And all the.