day 847: What Does Fit Mean?

"You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless."

One of the most overused words when recruiting and assessing new people for a company is the word, "fit". The word is invoked over and over, even when no one really knows what it means. Someone only needs to say to others after interviewing a candidate, "He just doesn't fit", and that will either start a debate or it ends the conversation and the candidate is rejected. The feedback that goes back to the candidate is just as vague; "There just wasn't a fit". Hiring is hard, of course, but there is more than just trying to finding fit like the trial and error of finding the right piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Every company has a culture and "fit" is certainly important, but knowing how to define the attributes of the culture to a level of specificity so that there can be a true definition of "fit" is typically where companies fall short. That leaves vast room for the continued guessing game of who fits and who doesn't. At that point, we continue on with always trying to circle in on what is "fit" and what is not. Probably the best definition of what is fit and what is not comes from the attributes that the successful people in a company take on, reinforce, and evolve towards. Since we hire in the likeness of ourselves it only makes sense that a homogeneous culture gets created and everyone ends up being more like the same. And so, "fit" becomes defined. This insular evolution, without discipline, can leave a company one day wondering why they have lost a creative edge, lost their external customer focus, or worse yet, have fallen into group think and can't make decisions. Companies can benefit by being open to people who "run against the grain" and push the envelope in their thinking and background. Companies can benefit in expanding their definition of "fit".

Those of us who are believers and spend our days on the job trying to live out our purpose, run against the grain each day and in our own way, should be defining our own "fit". We read in Matthew 5:13 that we are to be different and if don't then we have thrown away tremendous opportunity; "You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless." We all want to fit in the companies where we work. What God is saying is that we can both fit in our companies and also be different. And we can be assured that the saltiness and flavor that God wants us to have can be the exact ingredient that others on our job need to see to view the reflection of God in what we do. Today, as you think about your role and fit within your company and job, remember that the salt that you can bring can be a needed expansion of the definition of "fit".

Reference: Matthew 5:13 (New Living Testament)