Bill dill's Results

Autonomy is an APPROACH

Employee satisfaction in careers depends on how work gets done, not just the nature of the work performed. The same job at different organizations or in different situations can lead to drastically different levels of productivity and worker satisfaction. Understanding how employees want to do their work is key to maximizing productivity, satisfaction, and retention.

Two people can fill a role effectively but can approach their work very differently. Their success and happiness depend largely on their ability to work in the most effective way for them. As an employer, you are looking for a good fit between how potential employees like to approach their work, and how the job at your organization actually gets done, or how much room (or responsibility) the employee has in shaping how their work gets done.

Strategic Insights

Someone with autonomy high in their results values being trusted and appreciates having room to figure out their own way of getting things done. Autonomy can lead to a virtuous cycle with intrinsic motivation – intrinsically motivated employees respond most positively to autonomy, and when given that autonomy they then become more motivated.

Autonomy is deeply intertwined with ownership and trust. Autonomy is the level of discretion employees have over their work and how they do it. The higher the skill level needed for a job, the more autonomy the employee has. Being an expert at something has many perks, and one of them is higher levels of autonomy. Studies show that workers who have high levels of autonomy in their job tend to have better job performance and satisfaction, organizational commitment, lower work-related stress, less fatigue, and more intrinsic motivation.

Autonomy is largely decided by three things: what position an employee occupies within the organization, what type of work they do (surgeon, firefighter, customer service rep, etc.), and who their manager is. Some jobs and positions tend to naturally allow more autonomy, but even in the seemingly best of positions, a micromanaging manager can destroy an employee’s sense of autonomy.

Workers who have autonomy very high in their wants are likely to succeed in jobs where their performance is outcome-based, and their work processes don’t rely on high levels of constant coordination. It’s also worth noting that autonomy doesn’t necessarily mean working alone (though it can). High functioning and close-knit teams can still have high levels of individual, and team, autonomy. Employees who desire autonomy are looking for a role where their tasks are relatively self-contained, and levels of trust are high.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• How is success measured in this role?
• Who else would the worker in this role need to work with to be successful?
• Who else in the organization can do this role? (Often roles that cannot be done by others have higher levels of autonomy—whether that’s being the organization data-wizard, tax accountant, or courier. If nobody else can/will do it, it’s harder to micromanage them.)

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Tell me about your ideal boss?

Candidates who value autonomy highly often recognize the need for leadership, but it is worth understanding how they see themselves interacting with management. Their answer will help you assess their fit within your organization.

How would you (insert task here)?

People who value autonomy need the latitude to do things their way but that doesn’t always mean that everyone understands how to do things well. Gaining insight into how they would approach their job and problem-solve will help you evaluate their ability to be productively self-directed.

Can you describe a situation when you realized that you needed support or direction from a supervisor, and how did you recognize the need for help? How did you get it?

It is imperative for workers who prize autonomy to be able to recognize when they are in over their heads. Probing to see if a candidate possesses that ability will help you make better hiring decisions.

Strategic Insights

Someone with flexibility high in their results wants to be able to blend their work life more seamlessly with the needs and desires they have for the rest of their life. Research shows that those who value flexibility and free time tend to be the happiest and most satisfied with their lives. Why? Because it's a signal that they are overcoming some of the '(un)happiness traps’ of spending too much time focusing on the wrong things, and this makes for better, happier, and more productive employees.

People scoring very high on flexibility often do very well in jobs that are outcome-oriented, perhaps project-based, and where strict, in-person face-to-face time is not frequently demanded. More and more employers are making ways for people to be more flexible with their work, and this is becoming a great differentiator in the job marketplace. Flexibility can be offered in hourly jobs, salaried positions, and production-based work. Management is the single most important factor in determining the flexibility of the organization’s operations. More significant even than the industry or organization.

Covid-19 has lead to dramatic changes regarding flexibility and work. A 2021 Harvard study found that of the workers who switched to working remotely, only 12% wanted to go back to work every day in the office as they did before. The rest wanted to either stay fully remote or return to a hybrid situation with some days remote and some in-office every week. Why? The main reason: flexibility. It turns out that feeling like they are under the constant watchful eyes of their employers and co-workers can dramatically curtail how flexible they feel and act with their time. After the first three to four months of remote work in 2020, productivity return to pre-pandemic levels or higher and has remained high, (though some employers have a hard time believing that, and some jobs obviously require more in-person presence). With a little distance, trust, and freedom people have successfully balanced their work with the most important things in their lives. Some managers and CEOs have a hard time with this and may not be a great match for people scoring very high in flexibility.

This is a fast-moving situation, but things will not just go back to how they were before. The overwhelming majority of workers have tasted flexibility and don’t want to give it up. Among workers who have children, men or women (that’s most of the workforce), only 2% want to return to in-person full time work. Increasingly, the companies that offer the most flexibility will be able to get the best talent. With good trust, good management, and good systems, flexibility can be increased in virtually all jobs to some extent.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• Is there a set time that they absolutely must arrive and leave every day? Is there a good reason for this?
• Are there social pressures to be present even when there is no work to be done?
• What is the organization’s sick day/vacation policy?

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Can you give me an example of a day where you were able to get a lot done but still had a lot of flexibility?       

A need for flexibility is not the inability to accept structure, it is a desire for fluidity within that structure. You can learn a lot about a person and how they manage their own time by simply asking how they would like to spend their time. The ability to effectively use unstructured time is a huge asset to an employer

Why can policies and procedures be important?      

Managing someone with a high need for flexibility is about having a good fence rather than a strong leash. It is important that the boundaries are well understood. So, asking how they view policies will facilitate a conversation about boundaries and help you both understand where to build the fence.

Does a good manager give very clear directions or train their people and just trust them to get the job done?

This question is obviously a false binary. A good manager can give good high-level direction and trust them to make decisions on how to get there. The purpose of asking it is to force them to choose one over the other and explain why. There is more than one way to lead. If you are going to support a flexible employment relationship it is important to understand what leadership style your team members respond to best.

Strategic Insights

Sociability relates to the importance of one’s relationship with coworkers, clients, vendors, or customers. The people that we work with are often those with whom we spend the most time. Someone with sociability high in their results is particularly attuned to these relationships, whether positive or negative. Therefore, they do their best in environments that fulfill their social needs, on the clock and maybe even off.

Every workplace has an organizational culture. Even within the same industry, one firm might be very professional and another more laid back. An employee’s ability to fit in and be a valuable part of the team may depend on their innate connection to the organization’s culture and the team. Sociable employees avoid negative social situations, and for good reason! Studies have estimated that between turnover, loss of productivity, loss of commitment to the company, and decreased creativity, having one major jerk on staff can cost a company over $100,000 annually.

There are situations, such as highly competitive jobs/cultures, where being intimidating or putting others down can appear to help people gain power. The effectiveness of the organization and team, however, will suffer as those same individuals have built no goodwill or trust, yet they will continue thinking that their cutthroat ways are the key to their success. Numerous studies show that this is false, but they still believe it, and so will others which is likely a big turnoff to those scoring high in sociability. Everyone experiences some amount of competitiveness in their workplace, and that’s ok! For those who score high on sociability, it’s a red flag if the entire organizational culture is competition-based.

They’re also looking for something beyond just, ‘people don’t fight.’ These employees want good connections at work that allow people to socially bond as well as professionally. Being high in sociability does NOT mean that they are emotionally dependent; it means that they appreciate the relationships they have with people at work. It also doesn’t mean that they can’t handle having a jerk around, especially if there are others that they bond with, and the jerk is not in a position of power over them or constantly making their life miserable.

These employees aren’t necessarily doomed because of less than ideal social situations at work, they’re just more aware of them, and hoping for something better. They can also gain great satisfaction from being a force for goodwill, forgiveness, and service in a previously less-functional group. No one is ever going to find a job with perfect people who are always perfect to each other.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• Let them meet so people that they will be working closest with, or even let them spend a day shadowing the team. Ask both them and the team how it worked out. You need honest feedback, but if it looks promising, and the worker is excited by it, that’s great. Those connections, if good, can also become a large part of why they will choose this job over others.
• As them about their favorite people they ever worked with, and why. Use this as some insight into what sort of work and connections really resonated with them and analyze how likely it is that they might be able to find in this position.

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Can you tell me about your favorite coworker?

This can be about their current company or their past. Probe into why they enjoyed working with them so much. Companies have a culture or “vibe” and knowing who people like to work and why with will help you know if they’ll fit in with yours.

How important to you is making friends at work?

Some people want friends at work, others just want coworkers. Both are great! You know what you have to offer. Assessing fit is important. If you can’t meet an employee’s social expectations then odds are they won’t be happy at work.

What is the right balance between “getting work done” and socializing with your coworkers?

This will seem like a trick question, (and you might want to say, “this is not a trick question.”) but leading research suggests that productivity requires a balance of socializing and production. The proper balance varies from person to person.

Strategic Insights

A person who values predictability is likely a planner. They get more done when they know what is expected and feel capable of exceeding those expectations. They would likely be frustrated by a lack of structure or when there isn't clear guidance.

For these employees, knowing in advance how they will be evaluated is crucial to their success in a new position. Unfortunately, most employers are rarely clear enough about what they need from their employees. This lack of clarity can lead otherwise talented employees to underperform. Because these employees value predictability, they will likely see the tasks that need to be done before others do. This ability to anticipate needs can make them very valuable to their organization as an employee and a leader. Chaos is not what they are looking for.

Regardless of what work they are doing, clear communication, particularly related to expected outcomes, is the key to predictability (and success) in virtually all jobs. Some jobs lend themselves to this type of clarity more than others.

Predictability can also be a management decision, so you have influence in this. If a person’s manager has not given them a clear sense of what is expected from them, they can and should ask some questions to clarify. But even if they do not, a lot of good can be done by checking in on them for the first few months and asking them specifically if there are any aspects of their job that they wish were more predictable. Asking is caring, and actually making improvements is 10x better.

Things to Consider for Fit with a Position

• What would their ideal working day/work week look like?
• How will they know if they are doing a good job?

Evaluation Questions

This section provides a series of questions, tailored to the tested attributes, that will help you as you recruit top talent, work to retain valued team members, and develop a more effective work culture.

Tell me about a time where a job was excessively unpredictable and how that impacted work.

Stories like these are invaluable for gaining insight into how people actually see the world, what their expectations are, and what negativities they are acutely sensitive too. Listen to their story and pay attention to what they explain as the central things that were “excessively unpredictable” and the negative outcomes they associate with them. How does this fit with the position you are considering for them?

What is the importance of quality control?

Predictability can coincide with reliability. Some aspects of your operations particularly need to be performed consistently, repeatedly, and reliably. While no one likes boring or exessively repetitive work, someone who values predictability might be ideally suited to work on products that don’t vary as much but have a standard that must be met. They know what to expect every day, what it will take, and when they have done a good job. This question will help you assess a person's capacity to help in these situations.

Tell me about a time when something you were asked to do changed and you had to adjust. What did you do? How did it make you feel?

This question will help you learn how someone deals with change (and emphasize the importance of some degree of flexibility).

Strategic Insights

Scholars often delineate between ‘generalists’ and ‘specialists.’ Because this person cares less about being a specialist, they can focus all of their efforts on being an excellent generalist. Great generalists are extremely valuable, and generally make excellent managers, because they can “speak the language” of different areas of expertise and help them work together. The best generalists are excellent at making connections between different specialties because they have some familiarity with all of them. Specialists are generally less equipped to do this and must rely on generalists to bridge the gap between different groups. A team of all specialists, with no generalists, is likely to be producing at far below their capacity because they are short of people who understand the various parts well enough to effectively combine them. This is why generalists often become the best managers (and specialists are somewhat less likely to excel in management positions).

The generalists who thrive are often, in reality, specialists in organization and social politics. What this means is that they are particularly good at helping teams work together, organizing their efforts, smoothing over social mismatches between various factions, and helping everyone get the most from their work. They can be helped tremendously by being given the vision of themself as a generalist who needs to get pretty good at lots of things but doesn’t necessarily have to be the very best in any one thing. This can be extremely valuable.

Strategic Insights

An individual with collaboration at the bottom of their results enjoys jobs that others might find too isolating. This might be because they just happen to like it that way or because they feel that their social needs are being met outside of their job through their bowling team, chess club, gaggle of kids, partner, and the hobby farm they come home to every day. Great! Most Organizations need people who can thrive in jobs where they are self-directed and independent.

Although these workers enjoy captaining their own boat, that doesn’t mean that they (or any human) will thrive in isolation. So even if they seem to be doing a great job as a lone wolf, make sure they can still find ways to connect with others in meaningful ways. Taking lunch with friends or coworkers, getting drinks after work, giving everyone a paid day off to do a service project together, inviting employees and their families to join a hike on the weekend, or even participating in a thriving meme-sharing culture on Slack can go a long way toward keeping independent workers socially tethered to the organization.

Strategic Insights

Having status-seeking relatively low in their motivations means that this person can more easily find value and meaning without being constantly recognized by others, (though it always feels good to be admired). It can also mean that even in less meaningful/enjoyable work they are getting enough respect and esteem in their life outside of work that they don’t need as much affirmation from their job and co-workers.

These employees can often do better than others in work that they are proud to have done even if few ever see or recognize that they did it. Not needing as much external validation opens up good opportunities that others might not enjoy. It has the side benefit of helping to keep them away from some of the potential pitfalls and temptations of self-aggrandizement and self-promotion that can sometimes make it more difficult for managers to clearly evaluate other, more status-oriented, employees.

On the flip side, they might not do a good enough job of self-promotion and might even downplay their own accomplishments. This is one case where you might want to look a little deeper and see if the work they have done is better than what they are giving it credit for. Because they don’t get as much satisfaction as others from external affirmation, it might not occur to them how important it is to recognize their own achievements.

Strategic Insights

First off, everybody likes a change of pace from time to time. Having variety low in their report doesn’t mean that this person likes boredom or monotony. What it does say is that they want to know what they’re going to do at work, be able to prepare well for it, and become good at it. High variety positions often preclude people from becoming particularly good at any one thing. Positions where they have a good idea of what they will be doing from day to day are more predictable and allow them to become better at specific things and feel confident that they are doing a good job.

Predictable jobs are less likely to cause people to feel anxious, as well. Expected outcomes are generally clearer and so they can look forward to what they’re going to do at work with some surety, and they’re more likely to get quite good at it. There are many benefits to having stability at work.

Low variety positions are where experts are forged. Virtually every single Olympian has a very low variety job. Yet it’s thrilling, they are extremely good at what they do, and they are openly admired by others for it. Low variety overlaps well with specialization. Try to get some sense of what this person wants to be an expert at. Over time the employee will gravitate toward the things they really enjoy and will stick around long enough to become an expert.

Strategic Insights

A person with location low in their results can confidently pursue the best opportunities regardless of their location. They are highly adaptable and can adjust to life in the big city, small town, near family, or far from it. This does not mean that they don't have preferences, just that those preferences do not strongly determine their level of satisfaction at work.

Location agility can be a very powerful advantage when job hunting. (Note: Location preference is a domain that often changes over the course of a career. It may be in their top three at one stage of their career and in the bottom at another. Don't assume because it’s at the bottom now, which suggests that they can be happy working anywhere, that they will always be so locationally versatile).