Every manager, CEO, or anyone in charge of hiring knows how difficult, and crucial, it is to hire the right candidate for any open position in their company. The given scenario of choosing either Avery or Jamie for this job is no exception. As discussed in the lectures, there are different situations in which typical and maximal employees would be better suited (I will get back to this idea later). However, with no information given in the prompt about what type of company this business owner is running or what position they are filling, I think I would choose Avery, the employee with high ability and strong performance in critical situations, but low motivation and blow-average day to day performance.
I chose Avery based almost entirely on an idea we talked about earlier in this term: ability is something individuals have naturally, and it much harder to improve upon in time. Motivation, on the other hand, is something that with the right tools and people involved, can be created or improved. In this scenario, Avery has a lot of ability, but little motivation when it comes to his day to day work. My hope in choosing to hire Avery would be that I would be able to figure out what motivates him and find a way to improve his average performance by increasing his desire to succeed.
As I mentioned above, however, in practice there are certain companies and situations in which each of these types of individuals would be more practical. In my opinion, an individual who falls into the maximal performance category would do better in a position where he is crucially important, but only for a limited number of spaced out tasks. Some examples of careers where this type of person would do will I think would include being a politician, a firefighter, a medic, a surgeon, or a professional athlete. All of these professions are jobs where there are specific peaks involved when the individual would need to perform extremely well, but on a day to day basis their performance isn’t as essential to the larger organization.
On the other hand, individuals who demonstrate typical performance would be better suited for jobs that need to be done consistently, day in and day out, but with no real peak of performance necessary. Some examples of jobs like this could be a customer service representative, a cook, a teacher, a retail manager, or an Uber driver. These careers involve doing a very similar task everyday that should be performed to relatively the same level, all the time.
Most companies will need both kinds of employees to be successful, as businesses need a peak of ability, motivation, peak performers, and consistent team members to grow and succeed.
