I don’t want to brag, but I was co-editor of my high school yearbook.
I was bestowed with this honor and responsibility by my junior-year journalism teacher, who retired and handed the reins of my senior yearbook to a new teacher.
The first few weeks of my senior year went fine, but the new teacher and I didn’t see eye-to-eye when we started laying out the actual yearbook.
I felt she violated the layout principles that the more-experienced retired teacher taught us.
She felt I was an egotistical, know-it-all seventeen-year-old.
We were both right.
We worked with the tension for a while, but it finally came to a head, and she confronted me with, “I know you don’t like me or respect my opinion on how we should do things.”
Busted.
She was 100% right in her assessment.
How did she know? I was polite, never outwardly disrespectful, and I don’t remember telling others how much I thought she was wrong. (This could be revisionist history.)
But somehow, she knew.
It was the first time in my life that I encountered what I call “the smell test.”
“The smell test” usually refers to a way to assess the trustworthiness of information or determine the freshness of food.
It is also something we do with people.
Simply put, we can “smell” when someone doesn’t like, respect, or want to work with us.
To be clear, our initial smell test is not 100% accurate.
For example, when I met two guys on my freshman dorm floor, they didn’t pass my initial smell test, but I was TOTALLY wrong, and we became good friends.
But we can smell over time if people don’t want to be around or respect us.
What does this have to do with HIRING AND RETAINING GREAT TALENT?
Everything.
Many articles on this topic will focus on salary, benefits, working conditions, remote work arrangements, development paths, and promotion opportunities, all of which are important.
But in reality, you can offer all of these things, and if people can “smell” that you don’t like or respect them, none of those things matter.
I don’t have any clever methods to teach you how to pass the test.
I just want to remind you that people want to be where they are wanted. Everything else is secondary.
This simple truth explains most of the decisions in your life.
