We just talked about this. Tension between hiring for the long term
or the near term, okay? Now, here's an interesting question.
We talked about, what can you afford? Who will take the risk to join you?
Lot of CEOs talked deeply about the fact that a lot of senior people that they
really wanted were too afraid to come to the organization when it was too small.
They weren't willing to run the risk, and they would come if you doubled in size.
And that raises an interesting question, do you put that person's resume in the
file and when you double in size you pull it out?
Was that person making a good risk management judgement or was that person
basically saying, I'm not entrepreneurial enough for you?
Yeah. Other ways to manage the risk of hiring.
Hire people you know well or people known well by someone you trust.
Anybody that's building a business is going to tell you, references are
worthless in today's world because everybody's afraid of being sued, and
everybody basically gives medium to good references.
So, you've got to find people you trust. If you trust your employees, maybe you
want employee referrals. Remember?
That's what Trilogy did. We talked about hiring slowly.
I don't recommend a lot of books, do I? Many CEOs in my study recommended the
book, Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the
Best People, by Bradford D. Smart, 2005.
Ceos in my study, several of them told me about that book.
I went and read that book, it's good. I also have used the book and given it to
consulting clients, growth companies. And those CEOs have used it.
And they have liked it. You, like any book, you pick out what
applies to you in your context, okay? You scale down for your context.
But it's got good hiring processes, alright?
Conduct rigorous multiple interviews in different situations with two or more
interviewers. That's one thing that Mr.
Smart says. I want to talk about hiring bias.
Do you know what hiring bias is? Well, you know, for years I didn't.
I wasn't aware of it. And once I learned, I sat back and I
thought about, wow, all the people I hired, who'd I hire?
Hm. Well, I tended to hire people that I
liked, okay? Well, I tended to hire people that had
similar interests as me. Hm.
You know, the more I thought about it, I've tried to hire people that I thought
would be just like me. Yeah, you tend to hire people who you like
and who are more like you. You also tend to promote those people.
That's why you need other people involved in the hiring process.
Because you will miss a lot of good people and you don't want everybody the same.
You want different skills, you want people that have different backgrounds, alright?
Because those people, not all your customers are going to be the same.
Different people get along with, with different people, okay?
All right. That's the great thing about say, going
and being able to take classes with lots of little, lots of different professors,
whether it's in school or it's on Coursera, okay?
Not everybody will like my style of teaching, but there is someone out there
for everybody. And so, in building a team, building a
team. Try to build a team where you've got
what's, what's really important. Cultural fit, values, people that want to
learn, people with a good track record, right?
People that are going to fit reasonably well, people that are going to treat my
customers right, okay? And maybe those people, maybe some are
quiet, maybe some are loud. Maybe some look you in the eye all the
time, and maybe some have a hard time. Maybe some, maybe some people when they
get into a situation they're uncomfortable become very quite.
