Think before you hire. One of the things I’ve learned is I don’t make decisions right away with personnel. I have an initial meeting and then I have them filter through the senior management team as well as some people below them.
It’s in the follow-up interviews that I do two things. One is I start to focus on potential areas of disconnect. I also really start to hammer on the uniqueness of our business model and how it’s different from where they worked before.
You can’t prevent someone from lying to your face, but I challenge them as best I can. I tell most of the people, ‘It doesn’t matter what you tell me now; everybody has their own alone time when it’s just them with their thoughts. Sometimes it’s when you’re working out. Sometimes it’s when you’re washing the dishes, whatever. When you have your alone time, I want you to think about the environment I just painted for you and whether you truly fit in this environment. I don’t want you to mistake not fitting with being an inferior person. There is just a right fit and a wrong fit for certain individuals. It’s better that we find it out now than we find out six months from now.’
That’s worked pretty well.
Do what you can to help. Sometimes you get the people that see the box above them on the organizational chart and they want it just because it’s above them. It doesn’t matter that they are not going to be happy there. It doesn’t matter that they are not going to perform well there. There are certain people that want the bigger title because that’s next.
In situations like that, it’s very easy for me to go to that person and say, ‘I want to put you over here, and I think this is the best spot for you.’
Those people, I can say, ‘I’m doing this because I’m putting you in a position to succeed. If you take this other opportunity, you are not going to succeed. It’s my responsibility to know the difference. That’s what I get paid to do.’
The other side of the coin is those people who just don’t belong in the organization anymore. The organization has passed them by. With those types of people, the key is to act right away. It’s a tough thing to do, and you don’t want to do it, especially if they have been loyal.
But very early on I got a good piece of advice from one of our board members: Deal with it right away because it’s not a surprise to the other person either. They know most of the time that the organization has moved passed them. They know they don’t fit in like they used to anymore.
Most people are not ignorant of that. So when you have the conversation with them, their usual response is, ‘Yeah, I know.’ Depending on how they have performed in the past, you make their landing as soft as you possibly can. You just deal with it.
How to reach: Equity Risk Partners Inc., (415) 874-7100 or www.equityriskpartners.com