Move Like Superman

 

According to Jack and Suzy Welch (above), you should move like lightening when you sense you've made a hiring mistake.

Hiring great people is brutally hard. New managers are lucky to get it right half the time. And executives with decades of experience will tell you that they make the right calls 75% of the time at best.

The problem is, the stakes are so high. Never has it been so important to field a team with the best players. Every smart idea matters. Every ounce of passion makes a difference. You cannot have a black hole in your organization where a star should be.

So that's the first reason you need to face up to hiring mistakes quickly. Sure, maybe one individual's poor performance won't sink the company. But when your "mistakes" aren't doing their jobs, it invariably puts a strain on the whole team and makes work harder for everyone else. So resentment toward the underperformers — and toward you for hiring them — builds up.

But the real reason most managers don't act is that they fear looking stupid and worry that admitting they made a hiring mistake is career suicide. In any good organization, that logic is exactly backward. Any company worth its salt will reward managers when they acknowledge they've hired wrong and swiftly repair the damage. They get more positive buzz for the operational improvements that occur when the right person is finally in place.

When you have a big, crucial job opening to fill, it's just too easy to fall in love with a shiny new candidate who is on his best behavior, telling you exactly what you want to hear and looking like the answer to all your prayers. That's why you can never hire alone. Make sure a team coolly analyzes the candidate's credentials and conducts interviews.

The second instinct you have to fight is what we call the "recommendation reflex," in which managers rationalize away negative references with excuses like: "Well, our job is different." You should seek out your own references to call, not just the ones provided by the candidate, and force yourself to listen to what they have to tell you even if it ruins the pretty picture you are painting in your head.

Finally, fight the impulse to do all the talking. Yes, you want to sell your job, but not at all costs. In interviews, ask candidates about their last job — and then shut up for a good, long while. As they describe what they liked and what they didn't, you will likely hear much of what you really need to know about fit.