Hire Right the First Time
Craig Groeschel had an interesting blog a few weeks ago called “Hire Higher.” He made the excellent and accurate point that bad hires cost you: money, time, energy, customers, employees, and they can even damage your culture if allowed to do so. Decades ago, Jim Collins exhorted us to get the right people on your bus and put them in the right seats. Would anyone today argue with that philosophy?
Please tune in this week as Wayne discusses Greoschel’s blog on hiring higher and shares his two main tips for doing so. Is it really that simple? Can these two recommendations actually make it possible for you to hire higher? Please share your comments with us by emailing me at [email protected].
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WAYNE RIVERS: Hi, everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.
This week I want to talk about hiring right the first time. But before I do, I want to talk about Boot Camp. Dallas, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, and Dallas again next year. Contact Charlotte, and she'll get you the information you need to get your high potential people enrolled.
Before we get into our topic this week, James Clear, if you remember the book Atomic Habits that we reviewed a year or two ago. James has a weekly newsletter that he sends out. He has a talent that I don't have that really almost no one has, in that he can make really profound points so concisely. His newsletter takes 90 seconds to read, but it's got unbelievable points in it, so listen to this.
Strangely, life gets harder when you try to make it easy. Exercising might be hard, but never moving makes life harder. Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder. Mastering your craft is hard, but having no skills is harder. Easy has a cost. That's amazing. That five lines and boom, what a wonderful, terrific, profound point he makes. So James clear, look him up. You can subscribe to his newsletter too. Really good stuff.
Okay, this week we want to talk about hiring right the first time. What about this is important to you? We, golly, I don't have to tell contractors how important it's to have the right people on the bus and have them in the right seats as James Collins said in several of his bestselling business books. Craig Groeschel wrote this newsletter, yet another newsletter that I take so you don't have to, and he said, he called this edition, Hire Higher, H-I-R-E H-I-G-H-E-R. Hire Higher. Get it? He says, "There are only two major steps to hiring higher." The first is begin with the end in mind. What do you want this person to do? What results should they consistently deliver? You set clear expectations and you hire for the future, not just the present. If your company doubles in size, can this person still do the job that you need them to do and grow into this new role? And can they adapt to new skills, new situations, new requirements?
The second thing is be ruthlessly selective, and I agree with this 1000%. He said, "The best time to fire someone is before you hire them." And it would save a lot of headaches if we adopted that philosophy. He said, "Bad hires cost money, time, energy, customers, employees." Bad hires run off good employees. That's a fact, and they hurt your culture.
The old saying about one bad apple, it's a true statement. I don't need to go into more detail on that. You understand. He said, "Never hire out of desperation." And this is a point where we can wag a finger at contractors because I've seen so many contractors in my 36 years and they say, "Oh, we just were awarded this new project, and it's a big job, and we really don't have anybody available or anybody who's ever run a job that big or whatever." And so you have to go out and scramble in desperation almost, because this job is scheduled to start in whenever, January, and you don't have the right people on board to execute the work. This is a thing in construction. So never high out of desperation, be ahead of that curve. He said, "List your core values. What will you refuse to tolerate?"
Core values if you don't have them, think about it. Gosh, we've written and talked about that so many times. And then it's a great exercise as you're considering new people. Look at your top performers and catalog their characteristics. For example, we did this for a client back in the days when I was consulting, so it's been a long time ago. And they had a lot of turnover in their sales force, and we said, "Golly, you've got some real high performers here." It's the 80/20 rule. 20% doing 80% of the sales volume. Let's look at them. But what did they all have in common? One thing stood out. They all had been excellent high school or even college athletes, and they were like, "Oh, wow." Light bulb went off. "We should be looking at people who are competitive, who hate to lose, who love to win, who know the value of hard work and discipline and sustainable habits over time."
So it worked for them, and their sales performance went up. It's really common sensical if you think about it. Look at your best people and see what characteristics they have and see if you can, for lack of a better term, climb them. Okay. Now, my question for you is, is it really that simple? Is it as simple as beginning with the end in mind and being ruthlessly selective? I don't know. Share with me in the email [email protected]. This is Wayne Rivers at PCA, where We Build Better Contractors.
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