Out with the old, in with the change
"Hiring for potential gives both the company & the employee unknown upside if the employer is willing to take an informed risk by trusting their framework of assessing potential.”
- Alistair Gould
In this edition:
The goal of therapy isn’t to make men more feminine
Social support helps two people thrive in their health and career
My former boss reflects on hiring me two years later
RUNDOWN
Male suicide is a gender equality issue
The story
What happened?
In the last edition, I shared a glaring statistic by Richard Reeves.
In the US, Male psychologists are down from 39% to 29% in the last decade with less than 5% under 30 years.
Richard also predicted fewer men in the future of what he calls “HEAL Jobs”; Health, Education, Administration & Literacy.
Considering male suicide rates are increasingly higher globally, I wondered where men get help.
In Kenya, 43% of men sought therapy and 27% preferred male counsellors among 310 university students. In another study, 64.7% of men don’t seek professional help even during stressful situations.
Finally, 2021 data indicates 130,000 men died by suicide in Kenya compared to 100,000 women in the same year.
Why does it matter?
I think mixed messaging on men’s role in society is a key driver for isolation which can end in suicide e.g. be more vulnerable but still be masculine and a provider.
One study revealed masculinity messages decreased men’s willingness to seek psychotherapy and stigma from other students discouraged continuous help.
Some beliefs held by these male students include:
Men always want to win so speaking to a professional is exposing their weaknesses
Violence is not justified but is necessary in some situations
Masculinity makes them superior to women and women should be submissive to men
Even though some men seek help despite this, therapy may not be fully designed for men’s needs based on their socialisation.
What can we do about it?
The goal of therapy isn’t to make men more feminine.
Attributes such as risk-taking, ambition and antifragility are responsible for some of the greatest innovations in the world by both men and women.
Destigmatising suicide and collecting men’s experiences can inform better long-term treatment methods.
For instance, therapy can entail reframing men’s perception of their role as the primary provider and how to identify a partner who can share in that responsibility.
Make men part of the solution and listen when they speak.
SPOTLIGHT
You can be both
Woman raised in a gender-blind household urges parents to encourage their children to pursue their interests [Read]
Patient turned psychiatric nurse receives both mental and employee support at Mathari Hospital [Read]
DIALOGUE
A bit of skill and potential go a long way
Two years ago, while working at a psychotherapy practice, I applied to many roles and did seven interviews but landed one offer from Tulix — the one meant for me.
I sat with my then-COO, Alistair Gould, to understand his views on hiring for potential versus skill.
I came from a health and copywriting background, why did you hire me for a marketing & customer success role in fintech?
As a very early-stage startup at the time, we had limited resources and had to thoughtfully consider how we deployed them.
Marketing & customer success were both needs that we had, but at the time we couldn’t make two hires – from a money perspective and from a ‘founder time’ perspective.
It made sense that a hybrid role combining your skillset and not your industry background could proverbially kill two birds with one stone. Both were outward-facing functions and spoke to customers and before hiring a team, we as founders wore all these multiple hats so we knew it was possible.
You had client-facing experience and your writing experience was also helpful because we were generating content but were interested in improving in that area.
The role would expose you to many customer interactions so you would learn how to speak to customers be it inbound (customer success) or outbound (marketing).
How did you plan to help me learn and adapt in the early days?
By considering three things:
Transferable skills & strengths
Quickly showing you where your skills would be useful to the company would allow you to quickly see your skills applied & your contributions appreciated.
Job-specific knowledge & skill gaps
Immersing you into as many aspects of the company as possible to pick up on knowledge outside your domain by asking the team questions.
Potential growth paths based on an alignment of interest, skill and opportunity
Co-developing your growth path would allow you to understand what future possibilities exist & own the work it would take to get there with guidance from leadership.
What advice would you give to employers on hiring for potential over skill?
I believe hiring is always contextual.
Overall, I’m biased towards hiring for potential but skill is still very necessary. For skill, assessing the level of technical knowledge needed against what the candidate has gives you an idea of their learning curve.
If you get it right on the candidate’s potential, they can probably bridge the knowledge gap very quickly. However, if you’re wrong about their potential, even if they have the skills you need, they may not be a cultural fit for a fast-growing company that will outgrow the needs the candidate was hired for very quickly.
You need someone who can evolve and be adaptable.
There’s absolutely no limit to what’s possible when people are open-minded. When it comes to men’s mental health, more personalised treatment plans and hiring, focusing on transferrable skills that are relevant across industries. We just have to try.
It can be better.