Jane McGonigal had ultimately believed that the long-term success of the business she created would be having smart hiring practices. For too long, the company had relied on standard recruiting metrics (e.g., school, major, GPA, experience, personality) to decide upon who to hire. Their track record of making good hiring decisions needed improvement.
“I want you to change our hiring practices,” she instructed Gayle McCormick. “We need to be better in the hiring choices we make.”
For Gayle, this was a data mining challenge she looked forward to. She was able to get a list of high performers and those whose performance was lacking. From this data set, she was able to isolate 10 pairs of high/low performers with nearly identical hiring metrics. Now the challenge was to discover what was missing.
Unfortunately, the additional data she collected told her nothing. What she decided to do was engage in a series of discussions with one pair. These discussions were far ranging and without focus. But for Gayle, a series of generalizations emerged.
- The high performing employee had several role models who they learned from. Some of these role models were individuals in their lives, while others were ones they learned from by reading. The low-performing employee rarely learned from others.
- The high performing employee learned how to interact with others. This involved an understanding of how they could use their personality to connect with others. The low-performing employee had a fixed approach in dealing with others.
- The high performing employee had the ability to frame a sense of their worth through self-reflection. And they could learn from experiences to improve on how they viewed their self-worth. The lower performer rarely did any self-reflection.
Gayle concluded that the high performers had developed the power to face challenges with confidence and make choices that allowed for their continuous growth. The low performer tended to blame others for their shortcomings and led a life of downward spiraling grievance.
With these insights, Gayle had discussions with other pairs of employees and found virtually the same things. Based on her findings, she proposed a new process for hiring based on the open-ended discussions she had used.
What Gayle discovered for herself is a concept called self-efficacy developed by Albert Bandura, a psychologist. Self-efficacy is a mindset that can be developed. Unfortunately, it is one that schools spend limited time developing. It’s not something that’s measured in public school progress reports or higher education rankings.
As a result, the individual is responsible for their own self-efficacy development. Those who have good parenting, supportive mentors, and positive role models develop into adults with self-efficacy. Others may not be so fortunate.
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“Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations.”-Albert Bandura