Your culture, for instance, might emphasize respecting others and working as a team. If that’s case, you should focus on hiring people who have demonstrated these characteristics in their previous work experiences.

How To Choose The Best Candidate For Your Culture

So exactly how do you determine if a prospect is best match for your organization? Although some companies rely on culture and personality assessments, there’s no scientific formula for hiring success. A positive employment experience requires a combination of background research, assessment and pure instinct.

First, you must clearly define, clarify and understand your company’s core values. Review ideals that are expressed in your organization's employee handbook, training sessions, marketing materials, and mission, vision, and goal statements. This will give you a “measuring stick” for weighing behaviors required for success in your corporate culture with prospective employee’s character.

Next, thoroughly investigate job candidate’s work performance and relationships from previous positions to ensure you have an accurate sense of his or her personality. Then simply factor in experience, education and other important considerations to determine which candidate best fits position and your company.

Copyright 2004 Kate Smalley Connecticut Secretary Administrative Support Needs – Transcription Services. http://www.connecticutsecretary.com kms@connecticutsecretary.com

* “Coming together is a beginning. Staying together is progress. Working together is success.” Henry Ford * “We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin

* “If I could solve all problems myself, I would.” Thomas Edison, when asked why he had a team of twenty-one assistants * “The strength of team is each individual member...the strength of each member is team.” Coach Phil Jackson - Chicago Bulls

* “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Ken Blanchard

How To Help Build A Winning Team

So how do you help build an effective team that contributes to a positive, successful work environment? Here are four tips to help you:

Contribute. Everyone is responsible for success of their team. At group meetings, for example, be an active participant who contributes valuable content. If you’re not familiar with discussion topic, silently observe team's process and find ways to facilitate its progress.

Communicate. Good communication is essential to success in workplace. We’ve all had experiences of hearing wrong message, assuming incorrectly, misinterpreting others' behaviors and feeling offended. That’s why it’s important to use clear communication, as well as active listening skills with fellow team members. Don’t just seek to be understood, but also seek to understand.

Be Committed. Commitment equals buy-in. A good work team needs to agree on and believe in its basic purpose — its mission or reason for existing. Work teams that have clarity of purpose can easily visualize their connection to organizational success. With strong commitment to move toward same goal, team creates a synergy — a force that is greater than combined energy of its individual members.

Be Supportive. Good work teams are like close-knit families. They require acceptance, nurturing, patience and support. They won't always agree and often need to compromise their personal preferences to achieve best results. Effective work teams need continued support and feedback to stay focused and to feel good about what they are doing. For a team to reach its full potential, members must be able to share their thoughts and ideas, and to see that these are valued and heard.