What Do You Look For in Your Ideal Coworkers?

A  candidate asked me today what I would ideally look for in my coworkers. I really liked this question as it draws out what you value without necessarily asking the question directly. I think there are a lot of things I would value that go without saying like open minded, low ego, friendly, and knowledgeable. But the answer that I landed on is something simple that I think necessitates a lot of the things I value. 

I want to be part of a company where my coworkers would give great recommendations and be open to receiving recommendations.

I’ll start explaining this by saying simply that I love to give recommendations. I think there is so much interesting knowledge and content out in the world and people should direct each other to the best of that content. No one wants to waste their time on a bad book or bad movie.

Also, shared experience is a great way to create bonds, but also spark meaningful and interesting discussion. Being able to talk to someone about a book that you both read, your experience with it, and what you thought about it, is really enjoyable as it becomes a vehicle to explore your different philosophies and perceptions. You learn a lot about people from a discussion about a shared experience. 

I also think that good content often has powerful messages. Values that are important for people to think about and be exposed to. They encourage us to be more truthful, brave, or thoughtful about what we do and how we live in the world. Or to treasure and appreciate things like family, friends, love, and art.

Good content is also well constructed. It usually has a strong basis in good fundamental storytelling or represents strong communication. It shows us an ideal of what good art, good creation looks like and gives us something to aspire to.

And there is also a ton of good content that teaches important lessons or gives practical advice or information. I love reading books like The Phoenix Project or How to Win Friends and Influence People because they do such a good job explaining the powerful strategies and philosophy behind skills and work. Things everyone should know or be exposed to.

Something that I think is important to bring education into the modern age is to teach practical knowledge through context. We often force students to learn through memorization, but great teaching comes through teaching through story. As humans, we evolved to learn through story. Cultural myths were how important strategies for survival and understanding the world were passed down from generation to generation and it still works today. Richard Dawkins talks about this in The Selfish Gene and it is a good way of understanding the idea that much like our bodies encode information in DNA to be passed down, cultures encode important lessons in myth and pass it down through stories and sayings.

But getting back to recommendations. All of this to say that good recommendations are important because they represent the sharing of powerful ideas. You want to be part of a group of people who are sharing meaningful and powerful information with each other; that help each other explore what is out there and bring back to share the best of what they find. That is what I mean when I say that I want to be part of a group of people who give good recommendations and are open to receiving them. Those people will value good ideas, content, and experience and want to share that with the people they know. It means the group is oriented to helping each other learn and grow.

I take recommendations very seriously. I believe there is such a high opportunity value to be had in making a recommendation and that you should always try to recommend something that the person will find interesting and impactful. Something that aligns with their interests, but will also build upon their knowledge, teach them something new or be an example of a well executed creation. I think many people today make bad recommendations like the drivel you see coming out on Netflix, and we all have started to expect that when someone makes a recommendation, we will be a little underwhelmed. We don’t take people’s recommendations seriously anymore and I think that is a shame. We should all take the recommendations we give much more seriously. Think of it as your one shot to show that person that you value their time and want to make sure that if they do take the time to experience what you have recommended, they will be happy they did and feel like they learned something, enjoyed the experience, or both.

So while it might seem like a peripheral consideration to say that I want to be part of a company where the people make good recommendations, I think this is a great single dimension to measure and use to predict how likely it is you will enjoy and benefit from working with those people. Will those people help you be better and also value what you have to contribute? If they take recommendations seriously, there is a good chance that is the case!