People and Pressure
Apply enough pressure to carbon and what do you get….diamonds. Apply significant pressure to people and what do you get?
It depends.
Stress strengthens metal. It can strengthen or weaken relationships. I’ve found that you find out what someone is really made of in these situations and have experienced both the good and the bad in circumstances that were very stressful.
When all hell is breaking loose, you want people on your team that you can trust, who you know have your back.
How can you determine what someone is really like before having to go through an existential situation to find out?
- Create stressful situations, intentionally, and see how they handle them.
- Before promoting someone, ask thoughtful questions of peers and subordinates to understand how the candidate is motivated and better discern their ability to handle stress. If they’ve worked for your organization for some time, you should have a strong history that you can reference.
- The Hiring process can uncover helpful details:
- Have a candidate describe a very stressful situation and how they handled it or ask them what their coping method or strategy is when everything seems hopeless.
- Meaningful references can be very helpful. Ask them the tough questions you asked the candidate to see how their answers compare.
- Hire people that are known. The best candidates are known by you and your team, or by someone your team knows that you respect, who shares your values and beliefs, someone you know has worked with the candidate through ups and downs.
How have you proactively determined if someone can handle the heat before trusting them with responsibility?
