When choosing employees for your team, you should be wary about agreeable people who will make a good impression. People who don’t mind that others dislike them are actually the ones you can really trust, according to a new study mentioned on the inc.com website.
Why not pick pleasant people? You spend with them a lot of time, right? So it seems to be natural to hire the nicest people. According to the study published in the Journal of Personality, nice people are in fact more willing to do harm during particular kind of situations. So how can you recognize the right people when you are hiring? Ask the candidate’s peers and subordinates.
Old experiment renewed
Researchers picked about 60 people and interviewed them to learn about their personality, their personal history and their political opinions. Then there was a series of experiments where they were instructed to hurt strangers by pushing a button which would give them an electric shock. (This was an imitation of famous psychologist Stanley Milgram's experiment from 1960’s.)
Disturbing findings
What did the researchers find? The nice guys are more determined to obey the rules and cause pain. They were less likely to do or say anything if they felt it to be wrong! Further more, many people think that niceness can be dangerous in business. It seems to be rather a risky characteristic. According to Adam Grant, author of Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, it is true, but he also added that you always need to dig deeper in order to be able to tell whether the person might be dangerous to your business or not.
Hiring according to Grant
Grant claims there are 2 large groups of people. Givers, who are generous and helpful, and takers, who try to get as much as possible out of others and rarely offer something in return. Graham also concludes that disagreeable givers are less likely to do harm. This "optimal" type of person is rough on the surface, but in the depth of their heart they care and are less likely to harm others. They are willing to give critical feedback when it can help.
-jk-