Critical incident technique: True success is missed by dishonest people
AN OLD couple, both in their 80’ s was celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary at their home when, suddenly, she had an urge to live in the past. “You used to kiss me.” So he leaned over and kissed her. “You used to hold my hand.” So he reached out and held her hand. “You used to bite me on the back of my neck.” He got up and walked out of the living room. “Where are you going?” She said. “I will get my teeth.” That’s a story you can use to assess our relationship with people— whoever they are—spouse, employees, friends and business partners. How about you? In the case of performance appraisal, you can do a lot by using the Critical Incident Technique ( CIT)— an excellent, common-sense tool of keeping a running log of your employees’ major success and failure job behaviors.
When I was active in the corporate world, I used to keep a small notebook that records the work pattern of people under me. It was an effective memory jogger to rediscover the employees with effective and ineffective performance.
CIT was popularized by John Flanagan (1906 to 1996), an American psychologist who did an exhaustive research collecting examples of human behaviors for its potential uses in predicting how a person can solve problems and make decisions. Col. Flanagan was in the US Army corps during World War II, when his work was carried out in aviation psychology.
During my early years in corporate human resources, we used a lot of Flanagan’s testing materials to assess the potentials of job applicants as fast-tracking employees. IQ testing was only one of the several hurdles that we used to hire people. But more often than not, I had to validate the result of the job applicants’ psychological tests by conducting a series of job interviews with the help of the requisitioning department.
In particular, I would be looking for people who are willing to accept their weakness. As you can imagine, one killer job interview question towards this end is—“What is your greatest weakness as a person, if any?” It is no longer a difficult question to answer but degenerated to become a trite subject matter as job applicants have already mastered the answer, except for one peripheral perspective.
Is this person willing to reveal anything negative about him? If yes, then I’m more than inclined to hire his services. Why not? People who reveal something negative about their character and past experience are credible. Psychologists, including Flanagan, insist that people who reveal a weakness are inclined to tell the truth— nothing but the truth even without them being required to swear before a stack of Bibles.
Revealing a weakness (or secret) also charms and disarms prospective employers, at least to some extent. It helps to establish the common ground upon which good relationships are built. In other words, honesty is often the best strategy towards a fruitful, perpetual working relationship.
In assessing the work performance of people, I respect those who can readily admit their mistakes. If they cannot deliver, then I must seek to discover why. Regardless of their reasons and they vow not to commit the same mistake, I give people the chance to redeem themselves out of the rut. Conversely, I hate those who refuse to apologize even in the face of mounting hard evidence.
As you can imagine, there are many people out there who know very little on how to be honest with their customers. This can be frustrating. This happened to me in the recent past when I contracted one freelance website developer. More than anything, I wanted to help this young man who is afflicted with polio because he appears sincere of
earning a decent living.
That was a short-term belief. As soon as he passed on to me a haphazard work after a month’s delay and got my hard-earned money, he degenerated into a zombie who stubbornly fails to do minor adjustments of his work. I waited for another three weeks until I had enough to tell him that he can keep my money.
All I want for him is to give me the details of the program used so that my newly-hired developer can do the revisions, except that he persists in his own stubborn ways. He gave me an undeserved silent treat- ment, which is one of the hardest things to refute.
Now, I’m left with a useless website. My lawyer is telling me to bring him to court, but I don’t want to go to that extent. I’d rather charge it to experience. I learned my lesson. It was a critical incident that I will not forget. Although he was recommended by an acquaintance, still it was a mistake to meet and agree with someone who comes from nowhere out of my Facebook pages. Rey Elbo is a business consultant specializing in human resources and total quality management as a fused interest. Send feedback or any comment to elbonomics@gmail.com or follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter for his random management thoughts.