Umair Aziz, author of The PeopleOps Manifesto and Managing Partner at Creative Chaos advocates for CEO-driven workforce transformations.
We’ve all been there; you hire someone and invest your heart, soul, time and resources into training them. Three months in, it becomes glaringly obvious that they are not up to the task. Yet, you hesitate to act. Why? The sunk cost fallacy. You can’t stomach the thought of restarting the hiring and training process. So you tell yourself that they will improve. Eighteen months later, you, your team, and your business are still paying the price. This is a classic mistake that founders and rookie CEOs frequently make.
The Accidental CEO Dilemma
Been there, done that. When I started out, I needed to hire an accountant. I was an engineer, not a finance guru. I was clueless about what to ask or how to evaluate candidates. The same story applies to HR, sales, marketing and operations. Most founders become accidental CEOs because they identified a problem or an opportunity and took the plunge. While they may be experts in one domain, they need to hire, manage and assess performance across all business areas. This poses a significant challenge: How can you effectively hire and manage specialists when you lack expertise in their respective fields?
The Expert Paradox: When Your Hires Know More Than You Do
You’re not an expert, so you hire experts. These experts have their own ideas and vision. They may steer your ship off course, away from your original vision. It’s a balancing act between leveraging their expertise and keeping your vision on track. Achieving alignment between you and the expert is extremely challenging.
Navigating The Complexity: No Silver Bullets
So how do you find the right fit in areas where you’re not an expert? How do you ensure your team is truly aligned with you? You could cross your fingers and hope you get lucky. You could tap into your network for vetting candidates or referrals. You could even run background checks. All good moves, but let’s be real—none are foolproof. Why? Just because someone was incredible at another company doesn’t guarantee they will excel at yours.
Decoding A Successful Hire
A successful hire hinges on a trifecta: cultural alignment, relevant skills and expertise, and seamless integration into the company. While a new CEO may find it challenging to validate skills and expertise, this only accounts for about 30% of the hiring success equation based on my experience working with different CEOs. Most CEOs manage this trifecta effectively by leveraging their professional networks to identify qualified candidates. The real hurdle lies in mastering the remaining 60%—ensuring cultural fit and furnishing the necessary resources and support for smooth team integration. These critical elements are within the CEO’s purview and often become pitfalls where even seasoned leaders stumble.
Your Hiring Playbook
With an understanding of what it takes to make a great hire, here’s a structured gameplan:
1. Define expectations. First, clearly outline what you want from the hire. Skip the generic job description. Detail the tasks and responsibilities they will be required to perform daily, weekly and monthly. For each task, pinpoint industry best practices and jot them down. Consult your expert friends to refine it further.
2. Work on preemptive onboarding. Prepare a two- or three-week onboarding and training playbook. What does the new hire need to know to excel? Document it. If some things are better shown, record a video. Your onboarding process should consist of written material, recorded material and time to address any questions.
3. Define the culture code. Clearly articulate your organizational culture and who stands a chance to be successful. Begin by examining past hiring experiences to identify those who were not a good fit, and use those insights to refine your understanding of what constitutes a good fit. Document your decision-making process, core values, what you stand for, the principles you uphold and those you reflect. And finally, create a set of questions that you can use during the interview to identify a good cultural fit.
4. Forge alignment. The clarity created in the first few serves multiple purposes. During interviews, you’ll know precisely what to ask. You will quickly be able to tell if the candidate’s experience aligns with your needs. You can assess if they are a cultural fit. Post-hire, you have a clear onboarding strategy and performance benchmarks. If they’re falling short, you can cut your losses quickly. With this clarity, onboarding a new hire becomes less of a burden. You can repeat the process without dreading the management overhead. And finally, by creating clarity, you standardize the hiring process across your team. One hallmark of well-managed companies is their reliance on documented processes over individual expertise. This documentation ensures a culture that takes hiring and onboarding seriously and values shared knowledge creation. While you can delegate the assessment of functional competencies to your managers, take it upon yourself to be the final arbiter for cultural and ethical alignment.
The Bottom Line
If you think this level of clarity and documentation is overkill, consider yourself warned. Hiring mistakes are costly and all too common. You are responsible in part for a new hire’s success. Hiring and onboarding involvement is non-negotiable if you’re a small organization’s CEO. You must interview each candidate to assess “cultural fit” and must make sure of their successful integration.
Next Steps
Interview everyone. There should be no exceptions. Your involvement is crucial. Next, define culture. Know what you’re looking for. Use past mistakes as a learning curve. Finally, plan before you post. Create a detailed onboarding playbook before the job opening goes live.
By implementing these steps, you’re not just avoiding common hiring pitfalls; you’re elevating your entire organization. Remember, as the CEO, you set the tone. Make your commitment to exceptional hiring practices your legacy.
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