Your next employee is exactly nothing like you

There are so many theories about how to decide who to hire. 

Only hire somebody you’d want to hang out with on a weekend. 

As well as

Hire people who are completely different from you, and that you wouldn’t otherwise connect with. 

And everything in between. 

What’s a business owner to do?

The hiring balance challenge

You do want to hire people who are like you. 

It makes working together so much easier. If you already think similarly, that will make it easier to communicate, collaborate, and understand each other. 

On the other hand, you don’t want a whole business of repetitions of you. You need people who will bring ideas you wouldn’t think of, and who plug skill gaps you can’t plug yourself. 

Hiring people like you

How should people you work with be like you? 

You want the foundations of people’s work ethic to be the same. 

Find people who can latch on to the same mission, who respect the same values, whose motivation aligns with yours. 

With these similarities in place, it will be easier to share workloads and create change in your business without leaving anyone behind. 

Hiring people nothing like you

How should the people you work with be different?

A healthy workplace is one with circular conversation (not one-directional communication). It is one where people can come up with new ideas and improvements. It is one where all the skills necessary for the business are well represented. 

Bring a diversity of opinions, skills, experiences, and backgrounds together, to create something that is more than just the sum of its parts. 

What next

Create two lists: 

  1. What are the essentials to your business success
  2. What are the roles and skills that you can’t fill on your own

Prefer to work on this with an outside voice? Drop me a line with this list in the message field.