An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Organize your business to deliver on that proposition. For us, we want to provide a personalized solution for our clients that makes their product unique to them and their needs. In order to do that — we need to spend a lot of time learning and getting to know them. The “learning phase” begins with our solutions experts getting involved in the sales process. If the solution is going to be personalized, then the learning has to be comprehensive.
Purpose has become the new currency of success in today’s workplace, and leaders who prioritize mission-driven cultures are standing out in the war for talent. To explore this important topic, we are interviewing Dr. Craig Ellis.
Dr. Craig Ellis, VP of Professional Services and Lead Industrial-Organizational Psychologist at HighMatch, with over a decade of experience in pre-employment testing and talent management. He partners with diverse industries to develop customized assessment solutions, addressing critical hiring and development needs. In addition to consulting, he teaches Industrial-Organizational Psychology at one of the leading undergraduate programs in the US and focuses his research on limiting response bias, effective onboarding, and leadership innovation.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I had to journey through interests to figure out that Industrial-Organizational Psychology was the career path for me. Initially in college, I wanted to be a lawyer, but one political science class in, I realized that path just didn’t suit me. So, I made the switch to psychology and thought I’d be a clinician, therapist, or counselor — someone involved in one-on-one support for people seeking care.
One professor opened my eyes to a completely different path. They said that one of the key competencies of being something like a therapist was having the ability to get deeply into complex, difficult topics with people and then to go home and forget about all of it — or you’d never be able to relax. I thought, “I can’t do that.” That moment really gave me a crisis of purpose. I wanted to support people through psychology, but I didn’t know where I fit into that field.
Another professor, who knew of my interest in business, introduced me to the role of I/O psychology and how I could support people in business spaces. That niche deeply intrigued me, so I went on to get a master’s and then a PhD in I/O psychology and went into the consulting world. I’ve been here ever since, doing business consulting for HighMatch and leading psychometric assessment development to support various organizations in better understanding how to hire the right people and retain them.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began working in leadership, culture building, or purpose-driven organizations?
Since I work with a huge variety of organizations on their leadership and culture building, I could probably tell a dozen stories. Being a business psychologist, the most interesting part of culture building in organizations is the misalignment that often crops up between the company and its employees.
I’ll use an example from an organization that HighMatch and I worked with and the interesting perspective that it taught me. A firm wanted help developing an assessment solution to understand their core cultural competencies and how those could help talent management select, coach, and develop their employees. That organization’s leadership had a very clear view of their culture. They could talk about it in detail, point to culture-affirming posters on the wall, and name off all their core cultural characteristics. They had no trouble explaining any part of it to me. When I talked to the employees and took them through the assessments, however, I saw a fascinating divide. The employees had a very different idea of what the organization’s culture was. As much as the leadership believed in their culture and could discuss it, they had failed to engage their employees in those values.
A huge part of understanding business growth and success through culture building is understanding that the people make the place and its culture. Even if you have a good mission that maps onto a neat set of cultural values, if the actual, practiced values of your employees don’t align with your stated values, that all fractures. That discrepancy fascinates me because it highlights a major challenge for organizations–the need for clearer communication and actionable solutions, and those are the problems I like to help solve.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
For me, there are three traits at the core of what makes an effective leader. All three interconnect and further the success of leadership by fostering trust and confidence, for both the leaders and their employees.
First, an effective leader must be decisive in their choices. Leaders are ultimately looked to for decision-making. They need to be able to confidently commit to a course of action and operate with a plan to make that action effective. This is the basis for successful leadership because an effective leader knows where to steer and why.
Second, the ability to discuss their ideas and take feedback on them. Making decisive decisions doesn’t mean much when you are unwilling to workshop or reflect on those decisions. It’s hard to be effective and maintain support as a leader by being closed-minded. A compelling and highly effective leader is open to ideas and input, even when they feel strongly that they have the right answer. Whether input comes from employees, alternative sources, or even incorporating their own research and reading, it’s vital to have the willingness to say “I never thought about it that way. Let’s give it a try.”
Third, successful leaders must have some level of genuine concern and care for how their decisions impact others and are good listeners. I see empathy used as a buzzword a lot, but it really is important to consider how what you do as a leader affects others. Leaders need to be frank and willing to have conversations with others — employees, stakeholders, even the public — about their perspectives and interpretations of a decision. You can see how all three traits are connected. Effective listening ties back to openness: an effective listener is empathetic about the impacts of their actions and takes feedback on them. And, of course, being open to feedback and aware of the impacts your decisions make allows you to be a more decisive leader because you are better informed and prepared to make decisions at any point. There are probably a million other traits that can make a successful, effective leader in a given circumstance, but these are the three that I lean on the most.
Let’s now jump into the focus of our interview. What does a “purpose-driven culture” mean to you personally, and why do you think it’s critical for attracting top talent?
An analogy that I like to use is this: a purpose-driven culture is all about defining what makes the boat go. That might seem like a really odd way to think about it, but if you have a rowboat or a sailboat or an engine-powered boat or a boat you steer with a pole in the shallows, defining what makes your boat go affects how you staff that boat. With a rowboat, you’ll need gritty, determined people willing to exert a lot of effort. With a sailboat, you’ll want thoughtful, intelligent people sensitive to movement in the wind. An engine-powered boat necessitates people gifted with maintenance and mechanical improvement. Building a purpose-driven culture and mission comes down to bringing the right kind of people you want on that mission. If you keep that in mind, you’ll connect with the people that will be effective and engaged in supporting your purpose.
How did you identify and define the mission or purpose for your organization? Was it inspired by a particular event, challenge, or insight?
The marriage of two things defines the mission or purpose for the organizations that I support. The first is the leadership’s beliefs and brand perception of their value proposition and competitive advantage and how that will make their organization successful and unique. The second, and perhaps even bigger part, is what in the employees’ operating style makes that organization successful. Without both sides aligning, the desired mission for an organization is hard to identify or define because leadership and employees are at odds.
For example, I can analyze the cultural brand of two popular quick-service restaurants, Chik-fil-A and Taco Bell. Both are incredibly successful, and upon entering either of them, you immediately see their very different cultures. Taco Bell’s vibrant colors have exciting energy, while Chik-fil-A presents an accommodating, approachable, and warm atmosphere. Those are the cultures that those organizations’ leaders have set, but those cultures are only conveyed to the customer because the employees deliver on that purpose and mission. If you walk in and employees are cold, distant, and irritable, the stated culture is not being delivered because employees are not engaged with the stated mission. Whether in manufacturing, retail, services, or another industry, to truly identify and define an organization’s mission, I have to get the leadership to set a clear vision and define their stated culture extremely well so that they engage their employees in caring about delivering those values to the customer.
What are the key steps leaders can take to embed purpose into the day-to-day operations and decision-making of their companies?
In my experience, the exact steps depend so much on individual organizations; however, clear communication is at the core of all effective steps. You must be able to explain the ‘why’.
An employee might say to their leader “Our culture is actionable orientation” or “Our culture is “transformational’ empathy,” but they’ll also ask “Why is that our culture? What does it really mean? How do I incorporate that? How does that affect me?” I see that a lot in the organizations I work with: they have great names and exciting definitions for their cultural values, but they might not be articulating what those values look like in practice. To embed purpose in everything their employees do, leaders must be able to explain what the cultural values look like in practice. They need to, what I call, “behaviorialize” their culture. Which means that they must directly, and clearly explain the way their values should look in practice. Once they know that, they can connect specific behaviors to their values and culture, setting clear expectations for their employees. This communication involves a whole network of consistent modeling, from the C-Suite to the managers, every leadership level needs to communicate exactly what behaviors they expect to see based on the organization’s values. Without that clear guidance, I see a lot of disconnect between leadership talking points and employee operations.
What role does leadership play in championing and modeling a purpose-driven culture? Can you share an example of how you or another leader helped reinforce your organization’s purpose?
Ultimately, I see the leader’s role as clearly communicating purpose-driven culture by explaining the why. Too often, I think culture initiatives suffer from organizations jumping on the bandwagon of buzzwords and what seems good without understanding why it would be good for them and how it would trickle down through every operation they undertake.
To return to my boat analogy, this would be like a leader reading an HBR article that says culture determines success and then just setting a course for the boat without anyone knowing why they’re going in that direction or how they’ll get there. To model a purpose-driven culture, a leader must clearly communicate the why of every initiative so that it becomes a meaningful, step-by-step goal.
Going back to the three character traits I think are instrumental for success as a leader, openness to feedback plays a big role here. If a leader is championing a value that is at odds with how employees perceive the organization as operating or if a leader is trying to model a culture that significantly departs from the organization’s historical precedence, that leader must be open to employee input and willing to explain what they are doing and why. Leaders must be able to justify their decisions to champion them. Otherwise, they won’t get the buy-in they need to make those models successful.
We talk often about how we differ from our competitors. Many of those conversations revolve around product and/or process, but often we realize that part of what makes us distinct is our culture. We champion responsiveness and nimbleness without a sacrifice to quality. So there are many examples of times when clients and prospects have commented on how comprehensive our communication is and how much attention they receive. In order to provide that it requires multiple team members working together to not only provide a response but to ensure that the response is thorough and helpful.
How do you handle skepticism or resistance from team members or stakeholders who may not immediately understand the value of focusing on purpose?
Data is the right way to address skepticism or cynicism that people have about anything. Now, I do think culture is “odd” in that its data might not be hard numbers. Cultural data, at least in my role, is more of a “I’ve given this a lot of forethought, I understand your question, here’s the why of what I’m proposing.” When an employee, a critic, or anyone is skeptical, a leader needs to respond with “Here is why we’re doing this.” Providing that builds trust with employees, and it encourages leaders to deliver answers thoughtfully and with empathy. Having that openness to discussing where an organization is going strengthens a leader’s relationship with their employees and really amplifies the likelihood that your employees are going to go on to be champions for your culture internally.
Ok, let’s talk strategy. Based on your experience, can you share “5 Steps to Build a Purpose-Driven Culture That Attracts Top Talent”? If possible, please include examples or stories for each.
1. Define your value proposition — What is going to be the reason that your customers choose you? Very high level
2. Organize your business to deliver on that proposition. For us, we want to provide a personalized solution for our clients that makes their product unique to them and their needs. In order to do that — we need to spend a lot of time learning and getting to know them. The “learning phase” begins with our solutions experts getting involved in the sales process. If the solution is going to be personalized, then the learning has to be comprehensive.
3. Develop an internal language for your culture. Nothing buzzwordy or complicated, just a common internal language about how you do business and how you deliver to your customer. “Personalize” “Measure what Matters” “Data Driven” — these are terms that are common internal phrases that link directly back to our value proposition.
4. Get comfortable turning that internal language outward so that clients, customers, and job candidates can see and sense what makes you distinct and they can start to self-select “in” or “out” based on how well they are aligned.
5. Get really good at talking about why your culture is what it is, and how that impacts every level / job in your organization. The best cultures have direct influence on every single role in the organization. You need to be able to articulate how and why that is, both to reinforce the importance of that culture and to ensure alignment among newcomers. Even if candidates don’t ask the “Tell me about your culture” question — if your hiring teams can weave it into their interviews/conversations with candidates, it ensures better alignment.
Can you share a specific example of how embracing a purpose-driven culture helped your company attract exceptional talent or achieve a significant business goal?
HighMatch leans heavily on the talent selection and development side, so that’s the perspective I approach this from. When it comes to attracting exceptional talent, I think the clearest example for this is when you’re interviewing a job candidate. When the candidate asks, “Can you describe your culture for me?” as an organization, you need to be able to articulate that remarkably well. If you can’t define that for a candidate, how can you champion that consistently for your employees?
When it comes to achieving significant business goals, embracing purpose-driven culture again comes back to communication for me. How I support organizations is to make culture actionable. I want to behavioralize culture: to clearly communicate the actions needed to turn values into consistent practices. Say you have a service-oriented culture — that’s your core value. What does that look like? Well, let’s say that you are very busy, everyone is working, but a customer has an issue. In a service-oriented culture, that means that you stop working and go give 100% of your attention to that customer and solve that problem before going back to work. If you have a gritty culture, what does that mean? In that culture, you’ll focus on the scoreboard and share numbers internally for how the business is doing. You’ll give rewards for hitting marks and cultivate a healthy internal competition.
Embracing a purpose-driven culture for me and HighMatch has meant that we help other organizations behavioralize what is important to them value-wise to support the cultural frameworks that they articulate. I’ve found two different approaches to behavioralizing. With one, I start with the framework and neat package that the organization has for their culture and then work with them on how to actionably instill that in their employees. With the other, which I prefer, I start with a company’s high performers and help leadership think about what they do so well and how they can replicate or clone those high performers when they train up current employees or recruit new ones. A culture based on the values that high performers engage with is a really effective strategy. It’s true that it doesn’t work in every situation. Sometimes, the high performance of today does not fit what is needed for high performance tomorrow, but this is still the approach I try to adhere to.
What advice would you give to leaders of smaller companies or startups who want to build a purpose-driven culture but don’t know where to start?
Define your value proposition — that is your starting point. Then, define what is going to drive success in that value proposition. From there, you can map out the behaviors that are captured underneath that. Ultimately, you want to look for people who deliver results and demonstrate the behaviors that are going to lead to organizational success. To do that, you need to be able to answer that “describe your culture for me” question that I mentioned early. You need to be an expert in that question.
There’s an old article from an academic journal in I/O Psychology that I always think about. The title of the article is “The People Make the Place,” and its core concept is this model called attraction, selection, attrition. What that model means is that when you establish a strong culture that culture is going to attract people who are likely to be a good fit. From that pool of candidates then, your organization is going to select people who look like the best fit based on the way they operate and their experience. If you make any mistakes in the hiring process, the people who are the mistakes — in other words, poor fits — are likely to leave. That departure is attrition.
For a small business, the attraction, selection, attrition model is your best strategy in ensuring that you get high-performing employees that are a good fit for your organization. The job of the successful leader is to define a culture that attracts the right people so that they end up with a strong community of employees that engage with the company’s culture and actively apply it. To create that attraction by defining culture, you have to be clear about what makes your company unique. You have to be clear about what kinds of people you want working for your organization. Then, you can design strategies to help find and recruit those people who will best fit you.
What are some common mistakes leaders make when trying to create a purpose-driven culture, and how can they avoid them?
A major mistake that I often see in my work is when leadership has a great idea of the culture they want and they can really brand it and almost commodify it, but then they can’t articulate it in an actionable way to employees. When creating a purpose-driven culture, you always have to think of what it will look like in practice as much, if not more so, than what it will look like on paper.
Your culture has to “work” for every department and level in your business. If it doesn’t then you’re laying the groundwork for internal friction between stated values and the actual work being done.
How do you ensure that your organization’s purpose evolves and remains relevant as your company grows and the world changes?
It’s one of the biggest challenges for the leader. In our work, we often partner with organizations who are in the small to mid-size or mid-size to large growth phases. In both cases, it demands that leaders find ways to ensure continued cultural alignment with the business when they can’t interview every new hire (small to mid) or interview every leader (mid to large). This is why effective internal communication and a strong internal language are so important.
What trends or shifts are you seeing in the workplace regarding purpose, and how do you think these will shape the future of business?
The biggest one we see is finding ways to maintain your culture and purpose when the nature of work is rapidly changing. What does it mean to be a quality-first organization in the tech space with AI becoming so prevalent? What does it mean to have a collaborative culture when remote work is part of many organizations’ standard mode of operating? Organizations have to be thoughtful about where to allow their culture to evolve in a positive way and where to draw the line and say “this particular trend/change pushes us into an area that is at odds with our culture, so we will have to hold firm rather than accommodate”.
In your opinion, how does having a purpose-driven culture impact not just employees, but customers, clients, and the broader community?
As a customer or community member it’s nice to have consistent delivery regardless of who you’re working with that day. It takes mental labor off of the customer to know that I may not be working with the exact same person, but I’m working with someone who is similarly capable and similar stylistically to the person I worked with last time and the time before that. Your customer’s experience is easier and less stressful when they don’t have to change their style depending on who they are working with. CFA, T-Mobile, Publix are all good examples of “it doesn’t matter who you work with, you get a similar experience”. Alignment on purpose internally creates consistency in experience externally.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people by building purpose-driven workplaces, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Organizations who are committed to strong cultures tend to do a great job of building brand-worthy values, but they often struggle to push those values down in a way that makes it clear to newcomers and candidates whether that org is a good fit for them. Hiring someone who is a poor fit is not a positive outcome for the organization, but it is arguably a more negative outcome for the newcomer! They have stunted their career, they now have to worry about having a short job stint on their resume if they DO choose to leave and try to find something else. Organizations need to be HIGHLY committed to transparency with candidates about how they operate. It builds trust, it builds a positive reputation, and maybe most important it strengthens the psychological contract that exists between organization and employee. That psychological contract being strong fosters commitment, loyalty, confidence, and job satisfaction. Stop trying to “sell” yourself to your candidates and instead tell them who you are, the things that employees love about working for your org, the things that employees find challenging about working for your org, and if they decide they aren’t a good fit, then THAT’S A WIN for you and for them.
How can our readers further follow you online?
They can add me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-ellis-ph-d-99a9aa61/.
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur and Thought Leader with over 25 years of business experience. He has founded, operated, and exited multiple companies and now builds into a handful of high impact CEOs. Chad has launched multiple online communities, including a recent leadership development platform, and also serves as a strategic advisor for Authority Magazine’s thought-leader incubator program.
To learn more and connect with Chad visit: chadsilverstein.io
Dr. Craig Ellis of HighMatch On How to Build a Purpose-Driven Culture That Attracts Top Talent was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.