While providing an orientation to new employees recently I had a realization about something that makes Cloverleaf’s company culture unique.
Around the room was a UX Designer that was most recently a Spanish teacher and a Product Marketing Manager that was previously an attorney….or at least passed the bar even if he didn’t practice law.
While a fun story that may not be a spectacular indicator of a great company culture but when you consider that the person that runs Customer Success for our coaching community spent 10 years as a construction accountant or our VP of Engineering was a former architect or that even I started my career as a Risk Manager then you have a trend that communicates something about how we see talent and could inform how you should think about talent.
When we started Cloverleaf, to communicate what we wanted to create I would draw 3 circles in a Venn diagram. I would talk about how the market would focus on just experience, but that there were these other factors that were key to success in a role. This near single-minded focus on experience has the effect of shrinking the candidate pool and keeping organizations from top talent. Instead, we wanted to create a way to provide insight into all areas of human performance including values, behavior, and strengths.
Why do we have all these people that have undergone somewhat extreme career transitions? That isn’t a prerequisite to work at Cloverleaf, but rather it speaks to how we let core values be a driver in the hiring/selection process.
One example of this is using exercises or challenges as a part of the hiring process that looks at how candidates solve problems. Candidates that have had multiple careers often look at problems differently. They don’t fall into the same patterns of how things were solved previously and they always ask different questions. They are truly curious about problems and potential solutions. This is a necessary trait when building a new market segment or dreaming up approaches to new problems.
Our product helps bring transparency and data to areas of individual, team, and organizational performance. And you can literally see this curiosity for growth when you look at our team on the Cloverleaf product. The Learner® strength from CliftonStrengths® is our second most prevalent strength with a full third of our team having this as a top strength. A full half of the team has either Love of Learning or Curiosity as a top VIA strength and a third of the team has Critical Thinking as a top Strengthscope strength.
If you want to be more strategic about the culture you are creating for your team get started with a free team trial.
