Mirror, Mirror, on the Office Wall...Who is the Most Perfect of Them All?

Dear Corporate Friend,

As managers, we are always in a position where we need to make decisions; one more important than the other. These decisions will affect the team’s morale and contribute to creating a specific work environment that will lead to progress or decline.

One of the most challenging decisions that managers constantly make throughout their career is choosing the right candidate for their open roles. Your team members are the foundation of your success so making the right decision is vital.

While there are multiple theories and important aspects to take into account, today I would like to dispute one particular sub-topic: hiring...or not...those challenging candidates; the profile that stands up and will surely do the job well but, at the same time, they might stand up in front of you as well: the overachiever.

Most managers are completely frightened by the overachiever profile. They are the ones that will tell you straight from the beginning that they’re extremely ambitious, tenacious, that they won’t settle for less, that they want to reach the highest levels and so on. Even if they try to hide it and answer the interview questions in an „interview appropriate way”, you will still be able to see beneath the surface and instinctively feel that, sooner or later, you, as a manager, will have some sort of trouble with them. They might challenge you, they might refuse to follow blindly, they might have more questions than you were ready to answer and they most certainly will be very straight forward and just ask anything they want to. They won’t hesitate to tell you that they’ve covered the current role in a matter of months and that they would like to discuss growth opportunities.

In my early days in the corporate world, during a debrief session related to an internal role I had applied to , I had a rather unexpected conversation with my manager. Ever since I was junior, I was anxious and wanted to grow quickly as I knew I had what it took. The results said I could and I felt ready. In this conversation, my manager asked me a question that I got encrypted in my mind ever since. I was explaining all the reasons I believe I am a good fit for the role and he stopped me and asked: „If you would manage a team that would be composed only of people like you, do you think you would like that?”.

This resonated with my beliefs profoundly. Don’t be fooled, he was not saying that diversity is important, he was insinuating that I am too straightforward and that if I had a team just like me, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So even then, with much less experience than I currently have, I didn’t need more than 2 seconds to respond: „Yes!”.

I said it then and I will keep saying it: Yes! I would love to have a team of overachievers. I would fight for them in HR meetings to ignore the normal distribution and be able to give everyone an „overachieves” rating. I would constantly support them and remind them of how good they are, even if they know it. I would be so proud!

Just like all the other managers, it’s quite easy for me to spot in an interview which of the candidates present this profile: these are the people that you’ll have a hard time managing. They will not follow my every word and we will have multiple conversations and conflicts. However, their strong personality comes with the best results so, as a manager, I will never be afraid of a challenge or of a potential „competitor” to my role. In fact, I strongly believe a managers number one task is to create his successor.

So this is for all other managers out there: please stop rejecting great candidates only because you are too scared! They are good people that want what’s best for them but also for the people around them. It doesn’t have to be a lose-lose game, it can be win-win if you chose it. You can build an incredible team and grow with them or you can keep the "house from falling apart by adding a bit of glue here and there".

Just think of it this way: how do you want to be know as; remembered? The most amazing manager who’s grown all of these other managers, directors, VP's etc? Or that average manager that nobody remembers but he’s always there...in the same place...running the same ordinary team?

Let’s hire those amazing people because...remember...you’re only as good as your team is! Good luck!

From my cubicle to yours,

The D.