Everyone knows it’s important to hire the best possible people if you want your company to succeed – especially if you’re an entrepreneur.
Us entrepreneurs are the crazy-type. We can be overbearing & micro-managerial at times, but it’s because we’ve put our blood, sweat and tears into the very company that’s growing and growing and growing.
So, sometimes it’s hard to let a little bit of that control go – which is why it’s important to hire people you trust to lead at the same level you do.
Few think about how important it is to hire key executives, even when you have the option of promoting from within. Taking on the right key executives can be the key to your company’s success, though, and here is how you do it.
Before you can hire on a new executive, you have to be perfectly clear about what the role entails. This also means you establish what you hope to gain by taking on this new executive. Unlike other roles within your company, this one tends to be a lot less objective. That’s no excuse, though. As much as possible, pin down what the requirements are that you want from this executive and what goals you’ll have for them.
Obviously, the next step is looking for an executive who meets these criteria. That being said, you’ll miss some true key players if you only look at experience. In many ways, the digital age has minimized the importance placed on years spent in an industry or having graduated from the right school.
Instead, consider actual accomplishments & results.
What have potential executives actually had a hand in achieving? Be sure you determine what role they played in these successes. You might find some of your best choices are those who lacked the education and experience requirements you had laid out, but succeeded in important areas through unconventional means or good old-fashioned hard work.
By nature, executives must work well with others. So just because someone has had success on their own, doesn’t mean they’ll be able to replicate it once you put them in a leadership position. Again, experience only means so much. Those who have succeeded on their own may be perfectly capable of doing it while working with others. They may have even worked with other people through partnerships or outsourcing. Either way, there’s no way you can hire on an executive who can’t be a part of the team.
Hiring a key executive can be a real game changer when done correctly. It can also be a huge waste of time and money if you make the wrong choice. So instead of being blinded by the right resume or a good reputation, consider the above to ensure you make the right choice.
