Welcome to the show. I’m Claire Monroe with Edwin Carrington, and Edwin, I want to start with a hiring mistake that feels almost unfair. A candidate gives this polished, confident answer in an interview—everyone nods, it all sounds right—and then three months later that same person is sending confusing updates, missing customer signals, and somehow turning small issues into bigger ones. Yes, and the uncomfortable truth is that most communication assessments are measuring polish, not performance. They reward the person who sounds smooth for twenty minutes, not the person who can create clarity when things are messy—when a customer is frustrated, a manager needs a decision, and the information is incomplete. So when teams say, “we test communication,” what they really mean is… “we liked how this person sounded.” And that’s not the job. No, it isn’t. Communication at work is not a talent show. The real question is: did the person make the work move? Did they explain something accurately, listen well enough to catch what was actually being asked, adjust their message depending on the audience, and reduce confusion instead of adding to it? “Make the work move” is the part that lands for me. Because that immediately separates style from effectiveness. Exactly. And once you see that distinction, a lot of hiring decisions start to look questionable. Some people are articulate, quick, even persuasive—and still leave a trail of confusion behind them. At the same time, you have quieter candidates who write clear updates, ask precise questions, and stabilize situations with very little noise. Yeah, I’ve definitely seen that. Someone doesn’t “perform” well in the interview, but once they’re in the role, everything around them just… works better. Fewer misunderstandings, fewer back-and-forths. That’s usually because they’re optimizing for clarity, not impression. And most interviews are set up to reward the opposite. So if a hiring team is relying on things like “strong presence” or “executive communication,” what are they actually missing? They’re missing observable behavior. That’s where better assessment design starts. The strongest predictors are job-relevant, standardized, and scored with a rubric. Job-relevant means the task resembles what the role actually requires. Standardized means every candidate gets the same conditions. And a rubric means you’re scoring what you can see or hear—not how you felt about it. That standardization piece sounds obvious, but I don’t think it’s happening as much as people assume. One candidate gets a relaxed conversation, another gets grilled, and then we compare them like it’s the same test. It rarely is. Interviews drift constantly. Different questions, different tone, different expectations. And afterward, people say, “I trusted my instincts.” But instincts are often just preferences with a convincing story attached to them. Preferences with a convincing story… that’s uncomfortably accurate. So what does a good rubric actually look for? Because I’m guessing it’s not “impressive” or “confident.” No, it’s much more concrete. For a written task, you might score whether the candidate identified the core issue, structured the message logically, used accurate information, made the ask clear, and adjusted tone appropriately. For a live interaction, you might look at whether they clarified before answering, responded to what was actually said, stayed concise, and offered a useful next step. So instead of “I liked their energy,” you’re saying, “they asked clarifying questions,” or “they summarized the problem accurately.” Exactly. Behavior over impression. Once you define communication in terms of outcomes—clarity, accuracy, listening, adaptation—you can actually test it. If you define it as charisma, you mostly end up hiring the best performer. And that’s where teams get misled by something that feels very convincing in the moment. Someone can sound smart, look composed, even write well in isolation… and still struggle to communicate when things get messy. Yes, because the context changes everything. The real question is not “can this person communicate well in general,” but “can they communicate effectively in this role, under these conditions, with these constraints.” Alright, so if someone listening realizes their process is basically over-rewarding polish, where do they actually start fixing this? Start with job analysis. Before writing any questions, identify the communication moments that matter most in the role. Not generic statements like “strong communicator,” but specific situations. Do they need to explain complex information to customers, write concise updates for leadership, handle conflict between teammates, or translate technical detail into plain language? That instantly changes the kind of test you’d design. If the job is explaining complex things, you wouldn’t ask about communication style—you’d give them something complex and see what they do with it. Exactly. The most effective formats are usually work samples, role-plays, scenario-based questions, or short written tasks. You might ask someone to draft a customer email based on incomplete information, or walk through how they’d handle a difficult conversation. The key is that it reflects the real work. And not a clean version of the work. Because the real thing is usually… a bit chaotic. Yes, and that’s important. A good assessment keeps enough of that messiness to be realistic, but stays structured enough to be scored consistently. That balance is what makes it predictive. So it’s not a personality test, and it’s not a casual conversation. It’s more like a controlled slice of what the job actually feels like. That’s the right way to think about it. You’re not testing everything—just the parts that matter most for success. And then comes scoring, which I’m guessing is where a lot of this breaks down. It often does. A useful rubric needs clear anchors. Not just “good” or “bad,” but specific criteria. For example, strong listening might require identifying the core issue, asking a clarifying question, and responding directly to that issue. Weak listening might look like answering too quickly, missing key details, or sounding polished while missing the point. That last one—sounding polished while missing the point—that feels like something a lot of teams overlook. They do, which is why multiple raters help. When two or three people use the same rubric, you reduce the influence of individual preferences—whether that’s confidence, speaking style, or personality. So it’s not bureaucracy, it’s protection against mistaking familiarity for quality. Exactly. And over time, the real test is whether your assessment actually predicts performance. Do higher scores lead to clearer communication, better customer outcomes, fewer escalations? That’s how you know it’s working. Which makes this very practical. Better hiring signal, fewer surprises later, less time fixing communication problems after the fact. Yes. Interviews alone are often too thin and too noisy. If you want better decisions, you pair them with structured assessments that reflect the work. And if you’re looking for a way to implement that without building everything from scratch, OAD helps teams design and run these assessments with more consistency and clearer evaluation. So if you’re listening and thinking, “we know our interviews aren’t enough, but we don’t have a better system yet,” you can test OAD’s tools—like behavioral assessments—for free at o-a-d-dot-a-i and start making that shift. Because the goal isn’t to hire the most impressive answer. It’s to hire the person who creates the most useful understanding once the real work begins. That’s the difference that actually shows up on the job. Thanks for listening to The Science of Leading.
Audio Coursesby Jellypod