Hiring as a ‘not no’ vs a ‘yes’
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time: 6 mins
Summary: Good outcome for new hire = 1. Hiring process + 2. What happens after hiring
“Hiring” doesn’t stop after someone signs the contract.
IMO “2. What happens after hiring > 1. Hiring process”
IMO it doesn’t matter how many good people you hire that could potentially work out if you butcher things after they start.
1. Hiring process = have the wrong people screened out
This is still a very important step
2. What happens after hiring = have the right people to work out
Life doesn’t get easier… but you can slowly get better at it.
I like to think I slowly get better at life.
This is a positive way of saying that, of the hires that haven’t worked out at Edrolo in the last 8 years, if I was better at ‘2. What happens after hiring’, then I think 80% could have worked out.
Hiring heuristic: ‘not no’ vs ‘yes’?
What this means is that I think a more appropriate hiring heuristic is ‘not no’ vs ‘yes’.
IMO one can’t know for sure if a new hire will work out… but can have high confidence a ‘not no’ hire will work out if a good job is done ‘2. after the hiring’.
A ‘not no’ heuristic (vs ‘yes’) shifts the nexus of responsibility into the appropriate place of ‘2. What happens after hiring’.
Jingle: IMO hiring is much like dating, a good first few dates doesn’t precipitate a good long term outcome. IMO it takes ongoing work from both parties to get things to really sing.
+++++++++++++
Details
Expectations expectations expectations
They say real estate is ‘location location location’. I often think management is ‘expectations expectations expectations’.
An often repeated mantra is ‘hiring is your most important task’.
While I think the hiring process is very important, I think what actually matters more for whether someone works out or not is what happens after someone starts (vs ‘getting the interview process right’).
Hiring is very important...
… however, everything after hiring is even more important.
The stages of hiring:
There is a lot of emphasis placed on “selecting” and “hiring”...
...however I posit that what we do in onboarding and beyond plays an even bigger part in a candidate succeeding in the company
Three categories of hires:
1. Those who definitely won’t work out => which you can screen for in the interview process with a ‘no’
2. Those who work out if you do a good job post hiring => you get a ‘not no’ in the interview process and then you need to do well after they start for things to work.
3. Those who will definitely work out => despite poor execution post starting working the person works out.
Very rarely you get a ‘hard yes’ in an interview process IMO.
“Try to go to bed a little wiser each day.” Charlie Munger.
Slowly over life I hope to get wiser.
IMO one key component of management is ‘expectations’:
Expectations Equation = 1. Figuring out expectations + 2. Setting expectations well + 3. Regulating and guiding people towards the expectations in a firm but fair fashion
Comment:
In hindsight, IMO at the founding of Edrolo 8 years ago I had stuff all idea of what ‘positive sum expectations’ were for different role types let alone was any good at the rest of the Expectations Equation.
Of the people who haven’t worked out during my 8 years at Edrolo, I’d say 80% could have worked out if we had done a better job post hiring.
If you want a school analogy: a good classroom with happy students learning and working as part of a community is IMO far more on the teacher than the luck of the draw of which students the teacher gets.
I’m not saying hiring doesn’t matter, I’m talking about the percentage of the people who work out after we hired them.
Let’s say you are hiring for one available role:
you receive 50x applicants, phone screen 10x and do 5x in person interviews
Based on criteria, and some intuition, we’ve picked the person who we believe will have the best chance at succeeding in the role and at the company.
However, could any of the 5x in person interviews have worked out? Quite possibly. To get to this stage, it’s very rarely an obvious decision
Of the people you hire that don’t work out, IMO possibly 80% could have worked out had we done better post hiring.
If someone didn’t work out, 5 years ago Duncan thought ‘we hired the wrong person’. Today Duncan thinks ‘5 years ago Duncan’ thought wrong about hiring people.
Some key factors that matter for a new hire to work out well:
0. Quality hiring process
Factors that matter after a new hire starts:
1. What the job entails is well understood (eg defined vs undefined job descriptions)
2. Expectations around role set correctly before starting
Funnily, part of a start up’s expectations usually involve ‘not knowing what the future holds’
3. Person has skills needed to succeed prior to starting the job vs person has expectations that they’ll need to level themselves up
4. Person builds relationships with appropriate people to sufficiency+ (eg this blog)
5. Onboarding is sufficient+
6. Ongoing management is sufficient+
7. Vision of company is sufficient+
8. Progress of company towards vision is sufficient+
Comment:
I think doing well at all of the above factors is important.
However doing well for different types of roles means doing different things.
Good managers manage different people differently…
...but we are also ‘all players, we are all coaches’ (ie it’s not only the managers responsibility to get things to work out. It takes two to tango.
Ultimately, different businesses have different ways of operating, different cultures etc.
I don’t think a business exists that would be a perfect fit for every single person in the world
The relationship needs to be two ways
Set Job Descriptions vs Undefined Job Descriptions (doing something new)
For a job with a defined job description you can either 1. Buy the expertise or 2. Have strong training to build the expertise post hiring.
Eg professional development here is key.
For a job with an undefined job description (aka need to figure things out) things are different.
Eg levelling someone up to be able to do ‘professional self development’ here is key.
In many respects the path to a successful outcome is almost the opposite for a role with a defined job description.
Examples:
Set job description: someone hired to be an Administrative Assistant at real estate office
Not set job description: someone hired into a team to help figure out what a brand new product should be (eg Year 7 Science textbook)
Set job description: someone hired to be a tax accountant for an established business
No set job description: someone whose role is specifically ‘undefined’ for a team with the purpose of ‘making sure things work’.
“The person who does not have time to help has no advantage over the person who cannot help.”
This person’s role is specifically ‘time to help’ with whatever comes up. A big part of the role is figuring out where help is needed (eg seeing speed bumps ahead in the road we can avoid driving into at full speed).
Another lens: reportability vs responsibility
IMO for a job with ‘Secondary school’ level of responsibility you should be able to train people well (eg professional development).
IMO for a job with ‘PhD’ level of responsibility, for the hire to succeed they will need to be able to do ‘professional self development’ well.
So the expectations are significantly different in what is needed for a hire to work out.
If you only take away one thing
Hopefully you think you have grown vs yourself 5 years ago.
If this is the case then if you were to encounter some of the circumstances you encountered 5 years ago instead of a bad outcome occurring a good outcome would occur.
To me, in many ways this is equivalent to saying you are now better at “2. What happens after hiring”.
Which is perhaps equivalent to saying in 80% of the circumstances you encounter a bad outcome if you had done things differently you might now be able to get a good outcome!