…today’s secret…Human worker robots.

Today organizations believe in growing their organization through exceptional service delivered by extraordinary people.

This is a fourth growth option behind buying out or merging with others, or just cost-cutting to the bone to stay competitive.

That’s why some organizations still urge their human resource directors to utilize the well-worn OCEAN model in their hiring practices.

It’s been believed for a while now that there are five basic personality traits employers want in their new hires.

Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

The alphabet soup term OCEAN was bred from the first letters of these five traits. Some HR people say CANOE. Thankfully, there are no more five letter words that can be scrambled from these five letters.

The OCEAN hope is that the more of the five traits a new hire has, the better they will go along and get along. Properly enforced systems, methods, policies, and procedures then will get the desired exceptional actions from these ordinary people.

Personally, I think OCEAN hires are just human worker robots. Organizations infiltrated with OCEAN robots get mechanical results at best.

Here’s the deal as I see it…

Organizations are entitled to hire people who accept an organization’s vision and meld into its culture.

Organizations are entitled to hire people who have positive traits, can deal with authority, and works well with others.

Organizations are entitled to hire people who create success, not heartache, for the organization.

One way these three entitlements are accomplished is for an organization to identify its culture and match their hiring protocols to that culture.

Most organizations are in the dark about how to do this.

That’s OK. Most organizations are not aware this can even be done. The answer is yes it can…and it’s intensive, time consuming, and could become= expensive.

I will be glad to share the process with you if you so wish. It’s a good education. No commitment on your part, promise.

But, here’s an out-of-the-box idea. Forget OCEAN and trying to identify and hire to an organization’s culture…

…wait for it…

…just match the applicant’s personality with the personality of their potential supervisor.

What you’ll get here is a permanent honeymoon that is not intensive nor time consuming nor expensive. Supervisors love supervising people with like personalities. New hires stay because they love their supervisor.

Here’s a Willie truth: It’s not what an organizations does “to” their people or “for” their people – it’s what they do “with” their people that creates their impossible-to-copy competitive advantage.