Find the right attitude to take care of all business

 A story that stayed with me when I first heard him speak was about what happened when the company experimented with their job-recruiting advertising a few years ago.

The company had used a traditional format for recruitment for many years - number of years of experience, educational qualifications and so on. It typically had a handful of respondents in the lower end of double digits.

But then, they put in a simple advertisement in the newspaper, with an informal graphic of the then joint chief executives, asking people whether they had the right "attitude" to join DTAC. That was it. They had in excess of 400 respondents.

When you sit down and list the criteria for an ideal candidate for your company, the likelihood is that 80 per cent of those will fall into the "attitude" column as opposed to "skill" column. Determination, passion, honesty, creativity in problem solving, good interpersonal communications, discipline, innovative thinker, willingness to work hard, team worker, enthusiasm, results-orientated and so on.

Furthermore, it has been proven that attitude is infectious. Think about the effect on you when you came into contact with someone negative, the opposite is true too. And they get less sick. Research shows that attitude and positive thinking improve a person's health.

Also, employees with good attitudes are also easier to manage, as they tend to "self manage" and come to see you when there are issues.

If you have the latitude, it would be a good idea to bring in people who have a great attitude and then find the right job for them as their own capabilities will take care of the rest.

Andrew McBean is senior vice president of DTAC. Follow his article the third Monday of every month.