Hiring Tips For Getting The Right People On The Bus
Leading at Light Speed is an essential new leadership book by Eric Douglas synthesizing the best business practices into 10 Quantum Leaps that build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization.
The focus of Douglas' third chapter is leading through others; including a discussion for giving Hiring Tips for Getting the Right People on the Bus.
If you’re going to get the right ingredients, you need to be disciplined about whom you hire, whom you promote, and whom you reward. It doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is: Don’t settle for second best. According to Jim Collins, being a good leader means getting, "the right people on the bus~According to Jim Collins, being a good leader means getting, "the right people on the bus.”
Bob Matthews, the founder of Cable Data, one of the world’s largest billing companies, was ahead of his time in thinking about how to find the right ingredients. He used his unique talent for seeing someone's abilities to move people into new roles that bring out their strengths.
"Most people's natural abilities have nothing to do with their roles," he said. “I care more about a person’s natural talents than in their resumes." He hired people who’d been successful in an eclectic array of fields – a Yoga instructor, a jewelry maker, a software marketer – and inserted them into leadership roles.
To keep them from becoming routinized, Bob also altered people's roles frequently. Bob knew that you get the most out of people when they are learning, not when they’re following a routine. Keeping them on their toes, he'd put people in new roles every three years. "I think it is invaluable when people are put into foreign roles," he said. “I want to continually challenge them to learn and apply their best thinking.”
Bob was committed to placing women in senior management roles. He theorized that the nature of women made them more likely to do away with ego in exchange for working collaboratively. The victories of the women who worked for Bob testify to this vision. A number of these women continued on to lead Fortune 500 companies.
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