WHAT YOU FEEL: People are difficult. How do I hire the right people for my business?
PERSPECTIVE:
People. You hopefully love your family, but you don’t get to choose them. We all have crazy family members who sometimes make us wonder how are we related to them. We have to keep in mind that people are different and not a single one of us is perfect. It’s all about what imperfections we choose to focus on or ignore. Same in business.
As entrepreneurs, we have to understand our people. Some will be better than others, and sometimes the “better ones will have bigger imperfections. You need to understand how to align the best and the worst with all that needs to get done.
What you learn over time is that once you get to the point that you have a great team of people, you can do great things. But in the beginning, you either don’t or can’t, hire the best. You may only attract people that are willing to work for equity or a promise of the future. It is hard in a new venture to attract the best and the brightest. New businesses often must prove themselves before talented folks are willing to come aboard. Those that do come aboard, they often have “gaps” in skills or experience. You may find hardworking and dedicated people, but almost always there will be deficiencies that you must accept. Even if you are taking advantage of advisors, family, and friends that are willing to give you some of their time, you often find yourself underwhelmed and not grasping why their level of effort and commitment is not as deep or as thoughtful as yours.
Even with this reality, you must find ways to get the best people you can and to optimize their performance. Hiring, managing, and driving performance is as important as the features of your product or service. Your people may not be ideal, but they will hold your success in their hands.
The perspectives in this section help you make the best of your people. How do you make sure that you make the best of your hires? How do you maximize the performance of the people that you have? How do you keep your team focused, motivated, and aligned? Sometimes we forget how hard it is for people to come in and babysit our baby. When they do, use these perspectives to make the most of how you and your team get it done.