Hire the Attitude, Train the Skills

 Attitude is one of the most important criteria if you are thinking about  hiring someone. Sure, skills are important, but hiring the right skills with the wrong attitude will result in a lot of headaches. So hire someone who lacks some skills but has the right attitude, and you can grow together. My credo is ‘Hire the attitude, train the skills’.

And this weekend I rediscovered why.

Almost every Sunday evening, I have a drink with one of my colleagues. While enjoying a glass of wine, we look at the planning for the coming week. We go to the same pub every time, and the staff know us by now and often strike up a short conversation.

This weekend, my colleague arrived a few minutes before me, and when I entered he was talking with a waitress. I walked into their conversation and heard her say: “Oh, you are such a pessimist !” Pessimistic isn’t how I’d describe my colleague, so I started following their conversation.

Turns out the notebook my colleague had on him, saying “The world is filled with Mondays” on the cover, was the conversation starter. Our waitress couldn’t believe that anyone would want such a notebook to work in and moreover, that someone truly loved Mondays as she hated them. He explained to her that Mondays are the best day of the week since they are always full of new opportunities, that they always feel like you are getting a chance to start over. She didn’t agree, she found Mondays boring and depressing because you have a full week of work ahead. And she repeated that several times.

And the only thing I could think was: “Can you imagine having someone like that in the office?” Of course you can’t expect everyone to be cheerful all the time. Sometimes people are tired or preoccupied or simply in a bad mood. This happens to me too. But if you have someone walking around that is annoyed every Monday because he or she just doesn’t like that day of the week, there is no way that won’t affect the general atmosphere. To be honest, even that short conversation with the waitress infected my mood.

What about you? Are you a ray of sunshine every Monday? Or do you have experience working with people showing this attitude at the beginning of the week? And how do you handle that? I would love to get your tips!

Link to original article by Inge Geerdens http://linkd.in/1dvPSXB