Question

Who designed the selection system that's now in use at Chipotle? Who decides which personality traits are critical enough to be assessed during screening and which don't quite make the cut? That would be Monty Moran, co-CEO of the company and a high school classmate of Ells. Moran had been the lead attorney for Chipotle and a CEO of a prestigious Denver law firm. Moran recalls the conversation that changed all that, repeating Ells's words: “Monty, you may be a great lawyer but that's not what you're best at . . . What you're best at is being a leader. That's more important. You should come to Chipotle and use that for a company of 10,000 instead of a firm of 600.” What hiring philosophy did Moran bring? “We don't care about experience very much,” Moran notes, “In fact, I think experience at another fast-food restaurant is as likely to be a negative as it is to be a positive. We look for people who possess certain qualities that you can't teach.” In particular, Moran created a checklist of 13 traits that hiring managers should use when screening Chipotle's applicants:

Conscientious

Motivated

Ambitious

Respectful

Hospitable

Polite

Happy

Curious

High energy

Infectiously enthusiastic

Honest

Presentable

Smart

It's clear from that list that Moran emphasizes the Big Five in hiring, along with integrity and cognitive ability—the subject of the next chapter. Moran wants the list kept manageable so that hiring managers can assess all of them in a relatively short meeting. Indeed, Moran “test drove” the list at a managerial retreat in Las Vegas. He interviewed a series of candidates on stage in front of 2000 people to illustrate how to gauge the traits. Moran estimates that there's 80 percent to 90 percent agreement on whether candidates possess the qualities in question. And Chipotle cares deeply about its commitment to its selection system, so much so that it avoids franchising. Most of its competitors do franchise because the fees paid by franchisees are a powerful means of raising capital. But Moran and Ells argue that franchising would release control over Chipotle's culture and its hiring practices. Chipotle views that control as important as it continues to expand—with plans to open around 200 new locations this year.

Questions

1. Which traits would you want to see in “front line” employees at Chipotle? How do those compare to the 13 traits that the company actually uses?

2.Would being a leader in the company—either a general manager running a store or a middle manager in the corporate headquarters—require a different set of traits? If so, which traits would be subtracted from the set of 13 and which would be added?

3. Do you agree that there would be “80 percent to 90 percent agreement” on whether an applicant possesses the 13 traits? Do you think Chipotle should assess the traits with an interview or with a more formal personality test?

Answer 1

1) Following are the traits that I would like to see in front line employees:

a) Leadership - It is important to look for people who can, at least in future, lead a group of employees. There's no point hiring a person who can just do the back end job.

b) Integrity and friendly personality - Being a frontline employee the person should have skills to make engaging conversations with the customers. Also, as these employees are the face of the company, they should uphold their and company's values more than anything else.

c) Empathetic and Knowledgeable - Again being a frontline employee who would deal with the customers a lot, the person should have inside out knowledge about the product (this can be taught) and must be empathetic to customer needs.

I think apart from empathy and knowledge, the Chipotle traits pretty much covers everything that an employer looks for in an employee. Even knowledge, I believe, would be given by Chipotle through its training programs. So that leaves out empathy, and I believe empathetic to customers is something that can't be taught. It's a personality trait and should be there in the frontline employees.

2) Yes ,there would be a few traits that would be different but the basic traits would be same. In case of middle manager, it is not that important to be polite and curious. Of course politeness is always appreciated, but it's something that can be discarded if the person is respectful towards his subordinates work. If there's something wrong going, he has the authority to give a hard word to the subordinate who's responsible, and politeness here won't work. Also, as the work is pretty much the same everytime for middle manager, he should be extremely good at whatever he's doing instead of being too curious.

For a store general manager, pretty much every trait is needed. Apart from that, as I mentioned above, a person should be empathetic when working in the front lines. Being a General Manager of the store, he's responsible for company's image in front of the customers, and hence should be able to properly comprehend and understand the customers needs and should be empathetic towards them.

3) Yes, I do believe that there would be 80-90% agrrement on 13 traits in an applicant. Infact, these are quite a conservative estimates and there's a good chance that it will succeed. Most such tests claim to successful over 90% of the times, and don't really evaluate this deep. With a test evaluating on 13 of the most important traits, I believe that this will work.

No, any type of personality test would not be good enough to determine the right fit for the job. An interview helps the interviewer gauge many more things apart from the traits required. Also, in an interview one doesn't rely on a particular situation for everyone and hence is a far better tool than any personality test.