EverydaySpy Podcast - Skills That Can Kill

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

If you have been struggling to find the perfect job -- or pulling your hair out trying to find the right employee -- get ready to be shocked when you find out why! Employees and employers have a lot more in common here then you think. Join Andrew as he explains the flaw in the human brain that makes you feel these professional frustrations, and get a simple HACK you can use to start enjoying your career again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Andrew Bustamante, and this is everyday espionage. My daughter, Alai, is an absolute force of nature all by herself. And she's turning six this summer in July. Now, she loves to make arts and she loves dancing and she loves roughhousing with her brother. But the most special thing about her is that she's always telling me how she is the best at whatever she does, even when it clearly isn't true. She'll look me dead in the eye and say, Daddy, I'm the best driver. When did you drive a car, girl? Daddy, I'm the best of chopping food. When did you use a knife? She even looked at me the other day and said, Daddy, I am the best at growing

a beard. I'm pretty sure I have you beat there, little girl. Now, I was recently working with an ultra-high net worth client of mine in L.A. who was telling me about hiring struggles that he was having in his company. And hearing his story immediately made me think of my little girl who's the best at everything. Now, my client and his HR folks were frustrated and confused because they were struggling under some high turnover, turnover in excess of 40%. Now, as I worked with the client, I discovered that many of the recent turnover cases he was explaining had a common factor. The candidates were submitting resumes and cover letters that seemed to focus on the candidate as a person. Honest or proven under pressure, committed to the job.

But they did not talk about the candidate's skills. Even though my client's HR team was looking for very specific skills, skills like outside sales across state lines, or inside sales with self-contained distribution channels, or IT enterprise implementation management, I mean, these are very specific skills that they were looking for. but these were not the skills that candidates were writing about in their cover letters and in their resumes. So when I asked my client how the candidates were being interviewed, he said that his HR team was focusing on strategic ideas and cultural questions to try to find people who have initiative and drive and growth potential personal motivation and are likely to be a good fit for the company now

and in the future, according to company culture. Now, I totally understand where this client was coming from, because I have lots of clients who come with the same kind of issue. You see, the problem is that all of your best-selling books and all the viral TED Talks out there talk about culture and vision and a million other buzzwords that look good on the front cover of a book or on a big screen and back of a stage. But the fact is that businesses are operations. They don't need buzzwords.

They need capabilities. And the act of hiring or getting hired is much more of an operation than people think. Now, the challenge of finding the right person for your company, or if you're looking for a career change, the problem with finding the right job, is actually tied to something called the Daning Kruger effect. The Daning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that makes people think they are more capable than they really are. It's what makes us all overconfident.

Now, yes, some individuals tend to think they are better than they really are day to day, but this bias is relevant to all people. And this bias can actually be magnified during a hiring process. When an overconfident candidate interviews with an overconfident supervisor, and then that supervisor recommends the candidate to an overconfident hiring manager, you can see how this problem is amplified at each step. The candidate's skills were never part of the equation. Instead, it's just overconfident person, after overconfident person, driving this candidate who may or may not have the skills up the chain.

And then this is an even worse problem if your hiring is happening during a high pressure time, like a time of growth or seasonal employment, or if you have some sort of corporate timeline for hiring, or you guessed it, if you're struggling from high turnover like my client was in L.A. Now, the Duning Kruger effect is a cognitive error, but it is also totally natural, as was expertly demonstrated by my five-year-old daughter, who claims to be better than me at driving and beard growing. So you can't erase the Dunning-Kruger effect. You can't just erase this flaw from your brain. The trick instead is to bypass it, to find a way around it so you don't have to take it head on. For business owners, you can bypass the Danin-Kruger. Krueger effect by building your job ads and your interview process or your candidate screening process around the specific skills that you need. Try to avoid generalized ads that ask candidates

if they have integrity or personal motivation or strong communication skills or whatever. Every candidate is going to say they have those skills, even when they don't. That is the Danine Kruger effect at work. Instead, talk about what specific skills you need for the job opening. Like strong customer-facing writing skills, or the ability to complete monthly P&L statements in quickbooks without supervision, or maybe even direct marketing experience using bulk mail. These specific skills force a candidate's brain to ask a binary question. Do I have this skill or not? And that question actually bypasses the Deneen-Kruger effect of overconfidence.

Now on the other side of the equation, if you are a professional looking to get hired, you want to feature your skills up front and fight the urge to generalize your talent when you apply for jobs or sit down for interviews. You have real skills. And those skills really matter. But you've been conditioned not to talk about your skills because culturally your parents told you it isn't polite to brag. So now as an adult, you whitewash or understate your specific skills and talents, even though those skills and talents are exactly what employers are looking for. Imagine if you had a clogged drain in your kitchen and you couldn't use your sink. You're going to go to your phone and you're going to pull up your favorite app and maybe that's Angie's List or Facebook or Google or who knows. And you're going to use that app to hire someone to help you.

Now you tell me, whose ad are you more likely? to call. The first ad that says, hey there, I'm an awesome plumber, hire me. The second ad that says, I'm a master plumber with 30 years experience. Or the third ad that says, I fix clogged drains in your kitchen same day. Of course, you'll call the third person first because they led with their skill, not with some generalized statement. The Danin Kruger effect is what makes people call themselves an awesome plumber. The Danien Kruger effect is what makes you think someone with 30 years of experience is actually talented. Neither of those statements, I'm an awesome plumber or I have 30 years experience, is a qualification in any way. You are looking for a skill to help you unclog the sink in

your kitchen. So you should look for the person who says, I fix clogged drains. That is the skill. That's what it means to lead with the skill, because otherwise you run the risk of getting sucked into a cognitive flaw in your brain called the Deneen-Krooger effect. Now, I get it. And I want you to understand this too, because we all spend our childhoods being corrected, criticized, maybe even condemned for saying what you are good at. You may be you're fast, maybe you're strong, maybe you draw well, maybe you make good music. You were never allowed to say it out loud because if you did, you had your hands like, and you were told not to brag.

But now that you are an adult, all of that conditioning from your childhood makes you understate the skills that you actually possess and overinvest in what other people say they can do. By cutting out the buzzwords and focusing on specific skills, you can build an operation. And having an operation gives you an advantage at every point in your career, from employee to owner. And that is Everyday espionage. Everyday espionage is dedicated to one thing, educating everyday people. I know that not everyone will listen, but those who listen will learn. If you learn something new today, click subscribe, review, and share the podcast with a friend. Find me on social media at EverydaySpy

or on my website, Everydayspy.com. If you are up for a special challenge, Visit Everydayspy.com forward slash operations and join me for an authentic spy training mission. And above all else, remember that knowledge is freedom.