For many years I coached my children’s hockey teams. Although we always worked together as a team trying to play to win, more often than not, our level of success in any given season rest most heavily on the quality and talent of our individual players. I think the same is true of business. No matter the size or type of your business, the best predictor of your long-term success and whether you ‘play to win’ is your people.
All businesses go through ups and downs, growing pains and even changing of the guard periods where systems and people are in flux. Sometimes it is communication and/or systems that need to be improved upon. And other times the issues have their roots in people. Maybe you do not have enough people, perhaps you don’t have the right people, and it could be that you have the right people in the wrong places. But no matter the issue, the better your people, the more likely you can resolve it, move forward and play at your highest level.
But finding and hiring the right people is probably a leader’s most daunting challenge. It is so easy to get wrong and so tough to get right. A few bad hires under your belt and you might feel as if you’ll never succeed at hiring good people. What things can get in the way of you getting the best people for the job and stuffing your team full of ‘star players?’
#1 You Give Up To Easy
You Want The Whole Package
Maybe you give up too easy on things you know matter or maybe you are too rigid on that ‘must have’ checklist. Either way, you are more likely to end up with good over great or an entirely wrong fit. You need to really put an emphasis on key skills for any position. Then develop these necessary skills into specific criteria that you can use to evaluate your candidates. Know which things are nonnegotiable and which are less critical. Keep this list handy during interviews and ask questions that systematically test the prospect on what you are looking for. I have even turned this list into a scorecard to help rank the candidates for evaluating which ones are worthy of another interview.
#2 You Get Desperate
You Are Too Picky
Again, being at either end of the spectrum can prove disastrous when hiring. Like dating, hiring a new employee is a relationship and when you get desperate to fill a position, you stop seeing red flags and convince yourself they aren’t there. Likewise, if you are so stuck on your list that you miss a candidate with the right core skills, a great attitude and motivation to win, you could inadvertently pass on a would-be Prince Charming. Don’t settle on one interview and don’t allow a little charm or someone who says all the right things to blind you to any shortcomings your prospect may have.
#3 You Talk Too Much
You Believe What You Are Told
Even the best of us can slip into the mode of wanting to win someone over or show him or her our company’s value, but the best use of your time is to talk less, listen more and let an applicant reveal himself or herself. On that it note, don’t believe everything you are told, even if someone looks so good you really, really want to. Delve deeper, ask for examples and real life scenarios and even ask essentially the same question in a different way to see if the interviewees’ response is in line with what they already told you.
Amazingly, if you listen more, people will so often reveal themselves to you, the good and the bad. You as a leader can look for an individual’s narrative, by that I mean the stories they tell about themselves over and over again that make up who they really are and how they will operate in your organization. These can be great like “I’m the guy who never stops learning,” “I love growing and nurturing new talent” or “I’m the gal that loves making my manager look good.” Or the narratives can be a major red flag, like “I get bored really easy,” “I’m never appreciated,” “Everything is a problem,” or “I hate change.”
#4 You Don’t Take Risks
You Miss Opportunities
Maybe you have failed to hire great people because you didn’t take risks or you missed an opportunity. Maybe a great potential hire came to your attention but you didn’t quite have a specific spot open. What a missed opportunity! I have always said that if the right person comes up, I will FIND or MAKE a place for them in my company. Don’t miss opportunities by passing up gems because you aren’t exactly sure where you’ll use them.
And on that same note, you will get it wrong so don’t think being careful all the time will eliminate a bad hire. It happens so go ahead and take a few risks, even if you find one diamond for every five lumps of Fool’s Gold, you’ll come out ahead. And look to fill blanks and not just positions. What is your company missing? Energy? Technical prowess? Charisma? Humor? A hammer? Look for these missing pieces and measure your candidates against them. This can help you build a well-rounded, robust organization that offers the versatility to work with many different kinds of customers. You can hire good people and you can create a winning team. Finding good people is integral to your success and the success of your business so don’t overlook where you can up your own game to find and hire the best people.
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