When I hear the term “cultural fit”, my mind quickly maps it to an arranged marriage. We access an individual based on attitude, values, and beliefs to find out if they are in line with the core values and beliefs of the family or an organisation. In simple words, we attempt to predict if this person can gel with the others in the family or organisation.
Attitude: That is the most important factor. Values and beliefs are formed based on your environment and past experiences (what you have felt, seen, read, and heard). Your attitude guides you when the surrounding environment and your experience change. How you react to these changes is critical. A person with a positive attitude will always try to pick out and incorporate the good, and a person with a negative attitude will concentrate on the bad part.
If you consider my opinion, I was always against the term “cultural fit”. I wanted people to focus on attitude. The reason for this is that I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family and work in organisations where I fit in culturally. I took this for granted and didn’t value it. Until I was exposed to a culture that was not aligned with my values and beliefs. I tried my best to concentrate on the positive aspects, but it was draining me with every passing day. I didn’t want to alter my values and beliefs. It was not helping me or my organisation in any way, so I decided to quit. This was an eye-opening incident for me. I still believe attitude is at the core, but values and beliefs are also important factors that shouldn’t be ignored. It depends on every individual how much they are ready to adapt.
To elaborate, let’s consider a hypothetical situation. You are trying to be friends with a person who likes to be greeted with a high-five. You feel you can surely do that to make the other person comfortable and be keen on greeting the person.
On the other hand, you want to be friends with a person who likes to punch as hard as possible to be greeted. This is surely not aligned with your values and beliefs of hurting people even when you have the right attitude to learn and adapt to new things to make your friends comfortable.
How do we access a person to find if (s)he is a cultural fit?
Inquiry and observation can be one of the few ways to predict if (s)he is a cultural fit. My preferred way is to categories questions in the specific areas that I would like to figure how the individual thinks or reacts in those situations.
— — — — — — — — —Questions can be categories as — — — — — — — —
General
Who inspires you and why?
What kind of books do you prefer reading? which was the last great book that you read?
What kind of events do you attend outside your work hours?
Are you interested in any kind of sport or physical activity?
What are your hobbies?
If your colleagues had to describe you what would they say about you?
Which is the most dominant quality that you possess?
What do you do for fun?
If you were not working as a <current role> what would you prefer doing?
When is the last time you took a risk professionally?
Which is your favorite movie/series/music/cartoon character/sports/travel destination?
Management style
How do you stay organised?
Which is the best leader you have worked with? What did you like about them?
What kind of qualities do you think your leadership team should have?
What do you feel about micromanagement, Are you OK working in an environment where you are micromanaged?
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an underperformer? What did you do?
Preferred working style
What type of work environment do you prefer?
Do you like to continuously connect with the team or do prefer working in isolation?
Do you follow the flow or do you question the status quo in case you are not convinced by the decisions made by your leadership team?
Team conflicts / Team player
Describe a situation where your colleagues disagreed with your ideas. What do you do, how do you react?
If you get to know your team member is going through a rough time or depression how do you handle such a situation?
You have a team member who just tries to be difficult with you. What do you do in such a situation?
Have you ever lost your temper at the workplace, If yes why?
Motivation / Happiness factor
What gets you excited about coming to work?
What are you looking for, in your next challenge?
What kind of work environment makes you feel motivated and happy?
In the recent past, share one achievement you are proud of?
Alone Vs Team preference
Do you prefer working alone or with a team?
Are you a team player? Give one incidence where you proved to be a great team player?
Tell us about a time you supported a member of your team who was struggling?
You are leading a task and your team is low on energy, how do you pull them back or how do you react to such a situation?
What kind of role do you play when working in a team, when it comes to team dynamics?
Communication style
How often do you expect feedback and how do you expect that to be communicated to you? For example via email, 1 to 1 discussions?
How do you prefer to communicate with coworkers?
How do you avoid miscommunication?
How do you prefer sharing knowledge, using demos & reviews, or more documentation?
Stress factor
How do you handle a stressful situation?
Have you made poor decisions during times of stress and anxiety?
What is the factor that causes stress?
How do you handle stressful relationships with colleagues? Is there any such situation that you have faced?
How do you handle disappointment?
Which recent decision do you regret having made about your work? What will you do to correct it if given the chance?
Categorising questions help the interviewer think clearly about what is expected from this question, or what it is that I am trying to inquire about.
If I am interviewing someone, I avoid asking questions about how the individual sees him/her fitting in with our cultural values or how he feels about the organisation he is being interviewed for. In my opinion, you know the company culture better than he or she does. This is the information that you should share with them and let them get a feel of what they are getting into. Reading from the internet or company website doesn’t help anyone to answer these questions and it can become a bit tricky. Being proactive and sharing this information is the responsibility of the interviewer.
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