Appointments to position of leadership, influence and high decision making power are always rigged and plagued with inconsistency, thumb-sucking, guesswork with no system of set down criterion in place. Many followers complain of haphazard approaches to promotions where it is not based on any merit or previous track record. Books are continually judged by their cover, promotions based on looks, composure and dressing become the order of the day. Boardrooms are full of people who dress and smell nice but the tragedy is that some of these boards are the supreme decision making and vision casting platforms for organizations. They spell out where the ship is going, at what rate and how long it will take to get there. When you surround yourself with leaders or boards that bark a lot without any significant bites, it can be compared to being an army commander surrounded by amateur regiments or armies still needing to be told how a gun works. It disadvantages you when you have to pay dead wood just because they occupy space on a chair in your boardroom. Why do you have to go through the stress of firing someone when you can ensure you have the correct candidate in the first place:
A few pointers
1. Hire someone with the right ATTITUDE - Attitude propels the Altitude of your business. When your leaders have the right attitude towards work, business, superiors etc this attitude is contagious as it spreads to those below (teams). I mentioned before that when your employee's attitude stinks, no matter how nice and attractive your pricing is, customers will travel an extra 2 miles to get a better service.
2. A TEAM PLAYER is better than a lone super star - How best does your leader work with and within teams? No matter how excellent a leader can be as an individual, they are not useful if they can not get the team to focus and work on tasks at hand. One thing I am very good at personally is working with teams to reach organizational goals.
3. Assess CHARACTER carefully before hiring. I continue to emphasize that REPUTATION is not to be exalted over real character. The Resume is merely a Reputation portrayal but sometimes it leaves a lot to be desired as it is nowhere close to the real character of a person. Assess the character during the interview process by asking direct questions that reveal character. The resume still helps you to come up with a reasonable sample to work on as you work on elimination.
4. QUALIFICATIONS are important. Just because someone smiles a lot is not the sole requirement to take the business to the next level. You need some qualified personnel within your team who are experts in their area of study. I have noticed over the years that when you employ out of sympathy, you disadvantage your business. There is a place for compassion but you can not compromise the vision by hiring unqualified people.
5. MULTISKILLED and MULTITALENTED individuals are very useful to your vision's accomplishment. Who wouldn't enjoy the services of a driver who is a good gardener, cook and communicates well. When you have people with a multiplicity of gifts you save on hiring additional labor. The same 10 multi-skilled employees you have can achieve what 20 uni-skilled people would have achieved.
6. Willingness to adapt to CHANGE is a quality that employees around you need to have. Change is the only constant in the modern business world. There is no room for dinosaur mentality. In any businesses, changes do come regularly. There can be a change in product line, change in market focus, changes in goals, changes in office and factory locations.
7. There is no room for hiring a first sight - the first person you like may not be the only potential
candidate. Interview as many people as possible and conduct second interviews. Increase the pool from which to choose from.
8. Make the EXPECTATIONS on either side very clear from the onset. You can judge the understanding of expectations during interview process. Be very upfront with what you expect in terms of deliverables. Usually employees enjoy the title without a clear understanding of what the role entails.
9. Most leaders make the mistake of talking more than the candidate being interviewed. Avoid long sentences but your role is to ask questions which are direct, which can gather useful information for you to process. There will come a time when you need to "download" information to those being interviewed. Use the Pareto Principle. As leader, ask questions 20% of the time and listen for answers 80% of the time not the other way round.
10. Entrust your VISION to people you can TRUST - It is not easy yo hire someone to be part of your life just like that. When someone comes to help you with your vision you need to invest in some level of trust in the person as this is vital and dear to you. You can not leave your goldmine with a sellout. I had a nasty experience once when I hired someone to take care of Marketing. I was not hands on with my business to the point that I didn't realize the same person was working for 3 companies in the same line of business all at the same time. This is a classical example of jugglers, time wasters and resource abusers. You still however have to take the risk to TRUST a stranger until they prove themselves untrustworthy. It is a risk every visionary businessman has to take. You need people to roll out your vision.
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