It’s a common question in companies today. Is it better to have a leader who developed over many years within your organization, or one who held leadership positions at multiple stops in her career and is now a leader in your company? Which makes your company stronger? Is there one answer to this question about your employees?
Of course not. There are advantages and potential concerns for both.
I had a professor once tell me, “You should change companies every 2-3 years in order to get a broad base of experience in your career.” At the time I was finishing college that was the freshest thinking. Change jobs frequently so you’ll have the widest experience set. It was the new way to create corporate leadership.
Since I started my career at a time when the idea of loyalty to one company was on the wane and company hopping was on the rise, I was conflicted by this advice. I leaned toward the loyalty school of career strategy, probably because it was more congruent with my own personality. Nonetheless, as I later looked back on my first 10 years of my career, I had held jobs at 4 different companies, building my experience base and forming my own personal career strategy from those experiences. I had unwittingly followed his advice, even if it wasn’t my deliberate path.
When I began my career with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in 1995, I had no reason to believe that the pattern would change. As was the case with other jobs, the attraction at the outset was positive, and I envisioned staying with the company for a long time. Several things converged however to make me begin thinking this was a long term landing site for me. There was a positive energy and culture in the company. I was able to access learning opportunities easily. I was in an environment where everyone seemed aligned in the desire to be successful and support each other to grow and develop. I liked almost everyone I met. Before I knew it, I found myself to be among the longest tenured employees in the company. I now look back on the 20 years I spent there with fondness and appreciation for the rich learning I experienced and the people I now call friends.
So over my 30 years I’ve lived and seen both sides of the question. It’s impossible to say which is better, although I could line up a long list of folks who would argue either side’s merits. But here’s what I do know as it relates to rising leaders.
Balance seems to be important in understanding how hiring decisions affect your company’s culture, and your team’s culture.
In organizations where the balance is biased toward long tenured employees, interesting things happen. The organization tends to rely more heavily on the way things have always been done here. These organizations may undervalue your experience from previous companies in your industry or even your experience from outside the industry. Nobody has read your resume, so they don’t know where you worked previously or about the rich perspective you bring. You landed in your current company, and on earth for that matter, from another planet. Your prior knowledge doesn’t matter that much. Just try to catch on to the way we do it here as quickly as you can and don’t rock the boat along the way.
In this environment, your voice is muted. Your insights are not incorporated into problem solving. It can be frustrating. It isn’t until you have a few years under your belt that people really start listening to you, because you are now considered someone who’s been here long enough. For a new employee, it can feel like starting your career all over.
In organizations where new employees come into and exit the organization more frequently, another dynamic exists. New employees are hired because, in part, they have been exposed to the latest, cutting edge business thinking. They’ve seen how it works in those companies who really know how to succeed. Companies that your organization aspires to emulate. In meetings, others hang on the words of these employees, as their perspective must reflect the direction the company wants to pursue. These are the companies where change is constant. Plans are short term. Objectives are chased with intensity, and sharp turns are common when it comes to the strategic direction of the organization.
In this environment, the heritage of the company can be forgotten, even trivialized. Problems get solved without the context of history or their overall impact on the company. Individualism takes hold. The way things were done back in the day aren’t relevant today. If you are an employee who tries to raise those traditions while working to solve a current problem, you’ll get labeled as someone who is unwilling to embrace change. You can’t let go of the past. You are a liability, not an asset.
Culture is most commonly defined as the way things get done here. It is one of the most difficult things to articulate in any organization. Many companies spend countless hours trying to understand the company’s culture and get it down on paper and presentation decks for their employees to digest. Expensive initiatives are happening in countless companies right now. The reason this is so difficult is that culture is one of the most dynamic elements of a company, or even a team. It is literally alive and changing moment to moment.
Culture is not a five bullet summary. It isn’t the story of your company’s founder. It isn’t a craftily written mission or vision statement.
Culture is quite simply the up to the moment way you solve things. As individuals, teams, departments, and executive teams. It evolves every time a person or group takes an action to solve something.
For leaders, it’s important to understand this when you are making hiring decisions. Should I promote from within, look horizontally across the organizations for candidates, or hire from the outside? What is the proper blend of employees that will sustain a winning, thriving, and evolving team culture? How does that fit with the desired culture within my company?
In the hiring process, the effect on company culture is rarely explicitly considered in the candidate selection process. It may be just below the surface in the way you screen resumes or craft interview questions. It should however be deliberately considered as an essential element of how you staff your team, and you should be advocating for that consistency elsewhere in your company.
Typically, hiring teams focus on functional capabilities when filling open positions or hiring for newly created roles. The softer skills like ethics, leadership and communication, don’t receive the same weighting and often come into play only as tiebreakers. The candidate’s potential effect on the company’s culture are rarely considered or discussed.
This is not to say that your candidate needs to fit into your current definition of your company’s culture. Remember, it changes every day. Every time somebody takes an action in your company, the nature and outcome of that action changes your company’s culture by some small measure.
You need candidates who understand their role in the long term success of your company. On the lasting identity of your organization. On the distinctive brand of your own team. On the way it is seen by people inside and outside of your company’s walls. You need candidates who appreciate the traditions and keep them alive as you tackle new opportunities, and who are completely open to embracing new challenges.
Seek balance when it comes to the candidates you select and hire. Talk about it with your hiring team with the same importance as the functional requirements of the job you are filling.
Embrace your own role as a rising leader by intentionally defining your company’s culture.
Lead well.
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