Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. It’s no wonder that 45 percent of startups fail in the first five years, and an even smaller percentage ever see a return for their years of effort. Most new entrepreneurs assume their passion will attract and motivate the right team members.
In reality, motivation and passion are necessary but not sufficient to build a business. Higher motivation does not overcome role mismatches, poor communication, or culture differences. Hiring in any new venture needs to be a structured and high priority task, not the ad hoc informal process I see in many startups that are struggling to grow:
- Crisis mode hiring rather than planned team growth. Hiring requirements must be anticipated and implemented with the same precision and tracking as manufacturing volumes, sales leads, and customer service. Crisis mode hires too often get done without due consideration for strategic fit, training requirements, and cultural considerations.
- Hiring before organizational structure is defined. The requirements of the desired organization need to be formalized before people are hired. Hiring good people without a strategy and structure invites inefficiency, low morale, and chaos. My recommendation is to hire core executives, and have them define, justify, and build their organizations.
- Utilizing unprofessional sources for candidates. Trying to save costs by seeking resumes on the Internet will result in poor quality candidates, more time required for screening and interviews, and high turnover. I’m not suggesting executive search firms for every startup position, but national recruiting organizations will get better results.
- Poorly defined and executed hiring process. The best candidates quickly figure out that companies that don’t respond, demonstrate chaos during interviews, or keep delaying a decision are not a good opportunity. Less qualified prospects don’t have alternatives, so they tolerate the frustration, but may return the favor as an employee.
- Don’t bother with previous employment follow-ups. Some candidates can talk a great story, but have trouble delivering, or may have team relationship challenges. Your gut-feelings are important, but need to be validated by normal background and reference checks. Candidates with few credentials on paper may be your best growth candidates.
- Quick to hire and slow to fire. We all make staffing mistakes, so it’s most important to quickly fix them, before the morale of the whole team is impacted, or your business loses some key customers. I recommend a thirty to ninety-day trial period, defined in writing, where either party can terminate the relationship without recourse. Assigning and measuring early milestones is a must.
- Failure to include company culture in the hiring criteria. Every company and team develops a unique culture of work flexibility, personality, and communication that must be matched to every new hire, independent of job qualifications. Thus every serious candidate should be vetted and approved by peers, as well as company executives.
Making the right staffing decisions, and doing it efficiently on a timely basis, is critical to getting entrepreneurs and their startups to the next level. A great team can turn even a mediocre strategy and solution into a successful business. On the other hand, even the best solutions and ideas will fail as a business, if excellence in execution is lacking.
