Ability #6 of 10
The Ability to Be Agile
Attracting and retaining great employees BEGINS with interviewing well. There are 10 abilities we believe every organization in every industry should be seeking out in their future employees. Today we're discussing how to discover an employee's ability to be agile.
3 Reasons the Ability to Be Agile Matters
Technology Is Moving Faster Than Ever: Moore's Law, that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years, has held for over 46 years, far longer than its own creator predicted. An estimated 127 new devices connect to the internet every second. Millennials, in particular, have had to constantly adapt — jumping from platform to platform as each one lost its edge (often the moment parents joined). Adopting that same “Millennial mindset” toward new tech, regardless of your own age, will only become more valuable as change accelerates.
People Who Are Inflexible Are Hard on Morale: Being around someone who always needs things their way is exhausting, and always being the one who has to cave breeds disengagement in relationships, parenting, friendships, and work alike. Disengagement erodes every kind of relationship over time.
Bright Ideas Are More Easily Discovered: The bigger the company, the harder it often is to get new ideas through a big reason younger employees are drawn to startups, where there's more agility and less red tape. If you can't change your whole industry, you can still create space for your team to dream: encourage brainstorming even when an idea seems unlikely to work. It's a major morale and retention booster.
2 Tips for HR Professionals
Sniff Out Their Ability to Change: Use the interview questions below to gauge how agile a candidate is right now. Agility isn't strictly an age-based trait, it has far more to do with personality than most people assume. Remember: you're looking for Teachable and Tolerable. Expert knowledge matters, but most people don't leave a company because of the job, they leave because of the people.
Model What You Want: If agility, openness, and adaptability matter to you, model those traits yourself. Gen Z in particular is quick to notice a double standard in leadership and quick to push back on it.
Ask the Right Questions: 9 Interview Questions
- Tell me about a time you had expectations for how something was going to go, and you had to change them.
- Do you find it easy or difficult to fit in with the people around you, and why? Do you consider yourself more fact-driven or more relationship-driven?
- Technology is constantly changing — how comfortable are you with picking up new programs?
- When you discover a weakness in a skill that's in high demand, what do you do to develop it?
- Have you ever worked with someone who had to have “their way”? How did you deal with it?
- Are there certain things you consider non-negotiable in your work? What are they, and how did that mindset develop?
- Are there times of day you work better than others? How do you handle having to accomplish tasks outside those times?
- Tell me about a time you realized people didn't do things the exact same way you did. Did you stay the course, or change methods?
- How would you define the term “adaptable”?
