Recently I was reminded by something that I read by Guy Kawasaki on hiring people to work and effectively run your organization, and his message boiled down to a simple mandate, hire people better than yourself.
Mediocre managers tend to hire people whom they will outshine, but I once remember reading a quote attributed to Warren Buffett that said something to the effect of, 'I do not have a PhD., but I have quite a few of them working for me'.
Below is the reprint of what Guy Kawasaki wrote.
The Art of Recruiting
July 31st, 2006, By: Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures and Author
The art of recruiting is the purest form of evangelism because you’re not simply asking people to try your product, buy your product, or partner with you. Instead, you are asking them to bet their lives on your organization. Can it get any scarier for them, and tougher for you, than this?
1. Hire better than yourself. In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, “A player hire A players; B players hire C players”–meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. (If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called The Bozo Explosion. It is followed by The Layoff.) I have come to believe that we were wrong–A players hire A+ players, not merely A players. It takes self-confidence and self-awarness, but it’s the only way to build a great team.
2. Hire infected people. Classically, organizations look for the “right” educational and professional backgrounds. I would add a third quality: Is the candidate infected with a love of your product? Because all the education and work experience in the world doesn’t matter if the candidate doesn’t “get it” and love it. On the other hand, an ex-jewelry schlepper like me can make it in technology if you’re infected with a love of the product.
3. Ignore the irrelevant. This is somewhat redundant with the prior point, but it merits repetition. Often a candidate’s educational and work experience is relevant on paper but irrelevant in the real world. Would a senior vice-president from Microsoft with a PhD in computer science be an ideal employee of a startup? Not necessarily–this poor guy has been working for a company with $60 billion in cash and 95% market share, and he woke up every day not worried about the competition or customers but the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. The flip side is also true: the candidate–using a jewelry analogy– without the “perfect” background could be the diamond in the rough.
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