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…

Read More

The one question that will transform your performance reviews

You can throw company happy hours, host team dinners, buy pinball machines and eliminate job titles all you want.  But once you put an employee in a performance review, there is a strict hierarchy of who reports to whom.  And that hierarchy is what makes it challenging to get good feedback: the employee knows you…

Read More

How are you hiring?

You have a role; now it’s time to fill it.  Use the work you did to know why you are hiring and who you are hiring to improve how you are hiring.  Hiring skills How important is skill expertise in hiring?  It turns out: not very.  Skill expertise is not to be ignored, of course,…

Read More

Who are you hiring?

You have described the problem you are solving and used that to decide what role you need to hire.  Let’s now transition to “who” you have to hire.  And yes, I did say transition. It’s a journey, not a step.  Hiring for impact Answer one question before making further decisions: Which roles have the biggest…

Read More

Why are you hiring?

Why did you hire your last employee?  When asking business owners why they are hiring, their answers are usually a version of the following: they have gotten too busy, there is too much to do in their business, their client base has grown, they feel it is time to bring on a [insert job title:…

Read More

Why are you managing your business?

This blog talks about business management. Indeed my whole business is about the craft of business management.  And if the business is the idea, management is what turns the idea into action.  But what are you managing, exactly? How do you manage an “idea” into a “reality”? The best way to answer this question is…

Read More

Write job roles, not job titles

What has to happen in your business? This is an easy one.  Sales, marketing, human resources, finance, and let’s add legal and customer service. To begin with, anyway.  Here’s the catch: imagine you hire a new marketing employee. And you tell this person to “do marketing”.  What are they doing all day? Is it what…

Read More

The only two things that your employees need to know

Each employee you have does multiple things, with multiple steps and tasks, and multiple potential outcomes and consequences.  How do you, as their manager, instruct them, guide them, and keep an eye on their work with so much to juggle? You do that by focusing on the only two things that your employees actually need…

Read More

Enjoy being corrected: it means you learned something

Last week’s conversation with Mark Galvin on his How’s my ePresence podcast covered many different subjects, once of which was conflicting opinions in the workplace. It is not the first time that I have warned against the dark side of “hiring for culture“. When hiring, you want to make sure you are allowing for, and…

Read More

Cultural Hiring Risks

Learn the Lessons

Last week we discussed the risks associated with making hiring decisions based exclusively on company culture.  If your business lacks a diversity of ability and thought, it will struggle to grow and develop.  This week, let’s dive into a few of these risks to see them in action.  Skills diversity You will always need people…

Read More