US Airways is First among Domestic Airlines to offer an Intelligent Service Experience through Natur

[SS255]

Right on. I still remember the article about the old head of IT - Beery was it. He was asked what he looked for when hiring someone and replied that the ability to work with others was the most important criteria. NOT ability.

Jim

I think that the two are equally important. Who cares how capable you are if nobody likes you? On the flip side, who cares if everybody likes you if you are not capable?

I learned this the hard way: I once hired an assistant who was EXCELLENT. She had all of the skills I needed, and by Day 2 I could tell that she was going to be of tremendous help to me. At the end of Day 2, my staff stormed into my office and said, "Either she goes, or we all go!" I fired my new assistant, and hired somebody who was just as capable, but with a much softer edge.

Really good managers will hire those with the best skill set to meet the requirements of the job, and who can work well with others. Except that most of the I.T. people I know are highly capable, but their inter-personal skills are not always up to par. (No offense to any I.T. people reading this post, of course. )

 

[SparrowHawk]

I think that the two are equally important. Who cares how capable you are if nobody likes you? On the flip side, who cares if everybody likes you if you are not capable?

Really good managers will hire those with the best skill set to meet the requirements of the job, and who can work well with others. Except that most of the I.T. people I know are highly capable, but their inter-personal skills are not always up to par. (No offense to any I.T. people reading this post, of course. )

Just hearing scary Joe Beery's name mentioned makes my blood pressure rise. He put the poop in Nincompoop!!

When you hire for IT positions you look for the right geek for the job. Screw their personality, if you want to hire based upon likability hire a puppy for crissakes. When I was on the Sales Side we had some ubber geeks to help us and if I got a call from a client 80% of the time it was a complaint about the geeks personality.

Classic example of Beery's failure is the res migration. Do you want people who all get along with each other while the lines extend outside the airport, OR do you want people who can hardly be in a room with each other do the work required to make the transition from one platform to another as seamless as possible?

US now seems to grasp this as my perception with the new guy is that he isn't here to be liked, he's here to make things work and take US into the 21st century IT Wise. The approach seems to be one of not being bleeding edge or even leading edge technology wise but to make certain that whatever they do install actually works and works well for customers and company alike. Taking on Nuance's IVR and implementing it as well as they did is something to be proud of.

I'm completely confident that Joe Beery and that tribe of morons would have failed miserably. Strike that, he would not have even attempted it.

 

[john john]

Really good managers will hire those with the best skill set to meet the requirements of the job, and who can work well with others. Except that most of the I.T. people I know are highly capable, but their inter-personal skills are not always up to par. (No offense to any I.T. people reading this post, of course. )

Over the years I have seen US hire the bad spread hate and discontent management just to keep the troops in line and to be the bad guy. It allows upper management to shield themselves