In brief
- Most leaders believe their best employee’s people skills are something you’re born with.
- Usually you hired that person for the tasks and got the behavior by luck.
- What they do can be named, and once it’s named, it can be taught to everyone else.
Every company has someone like this. Customers ask for them. Coworkers go to them with questions. When something goes sideways with a client, they’re the one who calms it down. And when leaders talk about them, the conversation usually ends the same way: “I wish I had ten of her.”
Then comes the next sentence: “But you can’t teach that.”
That’s the myth.
The myth: you can’t teach what your best people have
It sounds reasonable. Some people are naturally good with people. They read the room, they stay patient, they know what to say. The rest of the team either has it or doesn’t.
So companies do one of two things. They hope the next hire happens to have it too. Or they send everyone to a general course on communication and hope something sticks.
Neither works, for three reasons.
Reason 1: you never hired for it in the first place
Go back to how your best employee was hired. The interview almost certainly tested the tasks: can she do the job on the posting? The behavior that makes her great wasn’t on the posting, so nobody asked about it.
You didn’t find her because you were looking for it. You got lucky. That’s also why the next hire for the same role often doesn’t have it. It’s the job requirement nobody wrote down.
Reason 2: “talent” is usually a set of behaviors
When you look closely at what your best people do, it stops looking like magic. They tell a customer what happens next before the customer asks. They flag a problem to the people it affects before it reaches them. They ask a nervous person one more question instead of rushing to the next one.
Those are behaviors. Behaviors can be described, shown, practiced and coached. A trait can’t be taught. A behavior can.
Reason 3: the person who has it can show you how
Your best employee is the best source you have for what good looks like at your company. Most companies never ask them.
Sit down with them and ask: what do you do when a customer is upset? How do you explain something to a new person? What do you do differently from how you were trained? You’ll get answers more specific than any course could give you, and they’ll fit your company, because they came from it. It’s the same move as asking why someone says “she’s great”, aimed at the person herself.
The truth
You can’t clone your best employee. You can name what they do, write it down, and teach it to the people who don’t do it yet. And once it’s named, you can hire for it next time instead of hoping.
The next time you say “I wish I had ten of her,” ask her what she does. Then write it down.
Read next: Why Doesn’t Training Change Behavior?
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