Next Practices

Lewis, Chuck, Patti & Jeff

I’ve had the good fortune of working on a couple of outstanding teams in my 9+ years at Humana.  One year ago today I started with the Enterprise Social Media Team where I love being responsible for our internal enterprise social network and where I share responsibility for some of our external social networks.  We are a small team consisting of our manager Lewis and my colleagues Patti and Chuck.  We work hard, do our best, enjoy one another, have fun, and hopefully make a positive difference inside and outside out company.

Our team is expanding by adding another community manager/moderator which is the same role that Patti and I each have.  Lewis made the picture shown here for posting about the job, inviting interested applicants to join our “rock star” team.  How can you not like a manager with that mindset and creativity?  He even put me in as the drummer on the right of the photo.  How did he know I always wanted to be a drummer?

Beyond the initial review of applicants on paper, our team will have a group interview of those in whom we are most interested, meaning our team will jointly meet with one candidate at a time – not that multiple candidates will meet with us in the presence of other candidates (been there, done that, not fun).  As I shared in a January blog post, I look for three C’s when hiring: competence, character and chemistry.  Team interviews of candidates easily answer the chemistry question.

Given the quality of the others on the team and the expectations we have, I am certain of this… that we will bring on the right person with the right attitude, the right skill set, the right passion, the right personality and the right fit for the team.  Some may hire with lesser goals in place, perhaps focusing only on subject matter (competence) regardless of character or chemistry.  But those hires usually don’t last long, and if they do, they cause more trouble than they’re worth.

If you’re going to add someone to a team, you need to follow leap year lesson #352: Hire the right person.

(By the way, if you think you may be the right person for the job, go here to check it out and apply.)