How many scars do you have from hiring the wrong person? Everyone that has been in business for a while has at least one horror story and still feels the pain. Have you solved that yet? If not, maybe you are looking at it the wrong way.
We have the privilege of being in many group conversations with CEOs talking about their business challenges. The most common conversation is how hard it is to find the right people. Usually the conversation is heavily weighted with complaints about the poor quality of choices and what the world needs to do to give them better options. Obviously something is wrong in the world! This usually devolves into an energetic pity party with powerless options for solving the problem.
These are usually self-righteous conversations with everyone struggling to contribute their negative analysis of the situation and the world. It shows up as complaining and resentment that other people can’t get it together. As we watch this spectacle, we notice that invariably 20% of the CEOs are silent. We always ask the quiet ones why they are silent. “I don’t have a problem,” they say. This shocks everyone who assumes that they have some secret weapon. Time and again, when we peel the onion, what we find is that their company is run so well that potential employees are in fact anxious to work for them.
Those Pesky Hiring Problems
If you are still struggling to figure out how to solve your recruiting and hiring problems, the first step is to recognize that the “world” is not the problem. Your problem is how you’ve defined and how you run your business. As it turns out YOU are the problem, not the world. If you can’t accept that, then you will never have the high performing team that you desire. Fortunately though, if you accept this, then you can do something about it.
The key is to BE the company where your best prospective candidates really want to work. If you do that authentically and recurrently, you will ultimately become a Legend in your industry with a waiting list of amazing people eager to be your next hire. Fortunately, to become a Legend you don’t need to be some sort of wizard. All you need to do is to be effective in some standard solid business practices.
Building a Legendary Company
There are two broad categories to address in order to become a Legend, have bulletproof hiring and ultimately have an envy producing High Performing Team.
1) Be crystal clear about who you are and where you are going.
2) Build a team that is masterful at selecting people that match #1
Being a Legend is The Silver Bullet for Hiring
The best people get to choose where they work. What they want (whether they know it or not) is a company that matches them. Usually that feels intangible but it is up to you to make it explicit. When they are interviewing they are trying to assess YOU. Of course, they don’t want to work at a company that doesn’t fit them, but they know intuitively that the worst place to work is a business that does not have a crystal clear conception of who they are and where they are going.
Here’s a tip. If you are not clearly articulating your core values, your business focus and your business ambition, then you probably don’t have them defined. The best people have already probably heard that you don’t know what you are doing and you won’t ever hear from them. Or if you interview them, they gain first-hand knowledge that you don’t know what you are doing. They are out there, but they are running from you!
Maybe you actually have a clear constitution for your business, but it is not something that has filtered its way into your hiring practices. If so, why not? Are you crazy? You need to shout this from the highest tree and have very specific tests to ensure that anyone you hire fits your business. With the constant beacon of your clear and compelling message, the best people assess that you have your act together and then select themselves into your recruiting process.
Conversation for Action
These thoughts and actions are not magical but they do require attention and focus. If you are not sure what to do and want some more information or some help, let us know. If you need to define your business better, arrange an introduction to the Entrepreneurial Operating System. If you want to know more about how to hire without doubt, people who will be committed and driven to help you grow your business, sign up for an introductory webinar for The Hire Effect and begin to explore bulletproof hiring for yourself.
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M. Miche Rayment is the Founder and Chief Facilitator for The Hire Effect™. The Hire Effect is a training company teaching leaders of small to mid-sized businesses how to form their own Unconventional Hiring Team and grow their company with a healthy and effective culture.
Co-author on this post is Kevin Suboski. Kevin is the CEO of Suboski and Company. Suboski and Company provides systemic assistance to rally and motivate leadership teams of small businesses using the Entrepreneurial Operating System. www.Suboski.com