day 47: Heart Of The Matter

Core to the way we live and work is our ability to assess other people and ferret out who is who and what is what when it comes to people. At work we end up doing it continuously with interviewing, bringing on new members of our teams, getting a new boss or transfer subordinate, meeting a new external partner, or evaluating a new vendor, etc. Being able to make good people assessments and decisions is part and parcel to success in the workplace. I would argue that most times, it is this ability that separates the great from the good. So, we get trained and we come to our own assessment process whether it is formal or informal. At the end of the day we more often than not will choose to like those people who are most like our selves. That can be good and that can be bad. I have spent most of my career with a focus on becoming great at spotting, attracting and promoting talent. The number of people I have personally interviewed is in the thousands for sure. And even then, after all of these years, it is still an art for me, not a science. So, still today I look for the better ways to be able to assess people and talent. God gives us a word on what is really important about people. Of course, we are not God and so we are not capable nor are we to think that we can judge other people, but the example that God gives us in the book of Samuel does say something to us about what is really important about people. We are told in I Samuel 17:7: "But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Don't judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." Think for a moment how differently we would assess and evaluate people who are looking to join the company or the team if we were capable of looking beyond the outer appearance and instead be able to delve into what is in someone’s heart like the Lord can do. We know that we can’t see into someone’s heart, but we can surely, through the way we assess and question, get past the superficial things and get to the core of who someone is and who they want to be. We can spend our time and energy with someone around their values, principles and dreams. It has been my experience that we want to work with, hang with, and go to battle with, those who are aligned with our own values, principles and dreams. In fact, we can be very, very different in our personalities, our experiences and our approaches, but if we are aligned at the core with each other, that it all works out to the best. Might today or this week be a time when you are going to be assessing someone else on behalf of the company or for some other reason outside of work? Would this be a good time to change your approach and spend more time trying to get to the heart of the conversation, to the heart of the person, to what is really, really important?

Reference: 1 Samuel 16:7, (New Living Testament)