Hiring for Innovation and Growth – Focus on Evolutionary Mindset

Pressure continues to mount for businesses, especially during a recessionary year, and the need for efficient and optimal growth is never-ending. For this reason, fostering a culture of innovation and growth is critical and requires more than just hiring qualified employees—it demands building a team of individuals with the majority having an evolutionary mindset.

Below we will discuss the key aspects of hiring for an evolutionary culture, emphasizing the screening process, the importance of soft skills, and ongoing strategies for organizational success.

Screening Potential Candidates

Identifying individuals with high evolutionary potential begins with a comprehensive screening process. Beyond just screening resumes, it’s important to delve into candidates’ social media and online presence to understand who they are, how they operate as well as their perspectives and values. Utilizing tools like the Science of Evolution (SOE) unified field is helpful to align employees’ vision, growth strategy, and values with your company’s vision, mission, and shared values.

The following four areas are key to explore when hiring for an evolutionary mindset:

1. Screening for Ethical/Moral Intelligence – Understanding candidates’ moral standards is crucial. Online tests and assessments, such as those provided by Individual Differences Research Labs and Moral Psychology Research Labs, can help evaluate their personality traits and ethical decision-making.
2. Screening for Emotional Intelligence – Empathy is pivotal for building complementary relationships. Evaluate candidates’ emotional intelligence through questions about their ability to understand and manage emotions, interpersonal skills, and self-awareness. Resources like Psychology Today and IHHP provide valuable insights and tests.
3. Screening for Building Value-Added Relationships – Conceptual thinkers contribute to innovation. Assess candidates’ ability to connect ideas and think strategically using questions that assess ethics, emotional intelligence, conceptual thinking, and adaptability. Conceptual intelligence enhances an individual’s added value, influence, strategic planning, and time management.
4. Screening for Adaptability – Adaptability is a cornerstone of an evolutionary mindset. Identify candidates with persistence, openness to feedback, and a growth mindset. Referencing psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on fixed vs. growth mindsets can assist in selecting individuals open to learning and overcoming challenges.

Interviewing with Quantitative and Qualitative Techniques

It’s helpful to consider a variety of interview formats, including online surveys, and phone and in-person interviews, to offer a holistic assessment. Using the unified field view is great for delving deeper into candidates’ evolutionary mindsets and ways of operating to see how evolutionary they are and where they are heading. It’s best to ask qualitative questions to evaluate their understanding of vision, mission, shared values, and how they propose to add value to the work environment.

Evaluating During Probation Protocol

During the probation period, assessing candidates for evolutionary fit and using this measurement as a key performance indicator is a good way to see how you are progressing. Prioritize an evolutionary mindset over technical skills and use feedback to refine your hiring strategy. Aim to reduce turnover and enhance company culture and performance based on increasing the company’s overall evolutionary mindset.

Supporting Evolutionary Culture with Employee Actions

Long-term success requires a holistic approach to culture building. Develop training programs that include evolutionary mindset skill development. Evaluate each employee, new or existing, for their evolutionary mindset and create tailored plans for their growth.

Evolutionary Leadership, Coaching, and Managing

Leadership plays a crucial role in shaping an evolutionary culture. Obviously, you want to hire leaders with an evolutionary mindset and aim to have 100% of your leadership team with high levels of evolutionary mindset. Ensure leaders possess high emotional intelligence and the desire to learn and grow so that they will evolve toward a higher evolutionary level. Leaders with evolutionary intelligence will enhance employee morale, retention, productivity, and decision-making long-term.

Keep in Mind What Evolutionary Intelligence is Not

Low ethical intelligence and morals, lack of conceptual thinking, inability to demonstrate empathy, and a low tolerance for learning and change will hinder growth. Being aware that micro-managing, the need to control, bullying, discrimination, and other destructive behaviors are not evolutionary and will damage the long-term success of an organization. It is critical for long-term success to evaluate employees continuously and support their growth through training and culture-building initiatives.

Building an evolutionary business culture requires a strategic and intentional approach to hiring, training, and managing employees. By prioritizing shared values and an evolutionary approach, organizations can foster a culture of innovation, and growth, for accelerated success.

Looking to learn more? Feel free to read the rest of my blog or check out my book EVOLVE FOR GROWTH available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QY2ONB