That was one of the lessons from the session I delivered today at ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference (the slides are embedded below; if you can’t see them, click here). In the session I told (once again) the story of Fitness Australia, an association that intentionally built a culture around the ideas in Humanize, and had some dramatic bottom line results to show for it. One of the things that they did differently, once they identified the values that were central to their culture, was to change their hiring process. They provided an opportunity for the candidates to actually do work in the office so they could see if their behavior truly reflected those values. I have heard this from other organizations who care a lot about culture as well. They share a common approach: hire for cultural fit first, knowing that you can always train those new hires later on specific skills.

But there are a couple of important points to remember if you want to adopt that approach. First, you have to be crystal clear on the values AND how they connect to what drives the success of the enterprise. Second, you have to have an organization that is really good at  learning. Saying that you will train them in the skills sounds good, but can you deliver on that promise? Or will you have those new hires so busy that they don’t have time to learn. Learning is an important capacity to develop, because it helps you maintain that focus on culture.