Especially smaller companies tend to develop their strategy around existing people and don’t reach out to hire the right people to make their strategy happen. It’s very tempting to create positions specifically suited for long-time employees. There is certainly nothing wrong with keeping the same people in a company for many years, thereby building a highly dedicated team IF (!) they fit the requirements or if they can fit the business needs with a little help and training.
As an entrepreneur or CEO you have to make the decision what kind of company you want to run – a family business which can go on forever without ever becoming a market leader or a company which can achieve explosive growth and become the visible market leader in a market segment.
If you want to achieve explosive growth you can’t accept (too) long learning curves. There are many reasons why building the company strategy around the skill set of existing people will not create a successful company:
- When people don’t have the right skills and they don’t risk losing their position, failure will be accepted from the beginning
- This creates a company culture of “finding the right place for people who don’t deliver results” instead of a result driven culture
- The company loses its competitive advantage if it takes employees too long to move up the learning curve or people are just not capable of doing their jobs
- New people bring new skills and new contacts/networks into the company. If you don’t hire new people, you are missing out on this
- Entrepreneurs / CEOs think more about people than about their strategy
- Companies will lack in execution – poor execution is the number one reason why companies don’t take off
To actively manage human resources and put the right people with the right skills and experience in every position is extremely important and must have a high priority!
The action points should be:
- Make sure that your company has a “plan” how to grow
- Define the necessary skill sets to make this “plan” happen
- Create job descriptions for each key position, including well defined, measurable objectives/goals
- Match the existing team to this skill set
- Reach out to hire the right people with the necessary skill set
- Set and control the defined goals
- Replace employees who don’t deliver
Entrepreneurs / CEO who don’t let emotions, friendships and history affect the staffing process will be more satisfied, have more time to develop strategies and in the end will be more successful.
See also “Fire Fast – hire slowly”