The Must Have Attribute of Start Up Employees

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Judgment.  Common Sense.  Simple Good Judgment is the critical component of any hire into a start up.  Give me your Art History,  Criminal Justice and Fitness Management majors if they have good judgment, we can make good use of them in any start up.   Business major without good judgment won't do you any damn good.

Common sense is a critical skill set for any enterprise that is continually crossing new territory.  Most of the situations faced by the start up are completely new.  That newness means that is there little or no experience or data about previous encounters with the issue at hand. 

All that novelty means no one really knows definitely what to do.  Yes, if you are the experienced entrepreneur, you likely know what to do.  But, if you're not there, in the moment, you are dependent upon the judgment of the employees you've entrusted with authority.  And if they're lacking in judgment, you will pay the price.

You may think that I am overstating this but I will tell you that one of the defining attributes of bad judgment is the ability to always come to the wrong conclusion.  Not sometimes come to the wrong decision. All the time to arrive at the incorrect answer.  I originally thought that I would sometimes get lucky with my employees that lacked great judgment and that they would sometimes "mistakenly" get to the right answer.  But, that doesn't happen in practice.  The gift of bad judgment is that it can take any set of inputs and process them into the wrong conclusion, without exception, 100% of the time.  That's the gift that keeps on giving if you have these people in your employ.

Of course, this isn't to say that people with good common sense will be right all the time.  They won't.  But given the alternative, they are a superior choice.  

For that matter, given people with energy, commitment and judgment, you are ready to succeed in the face of all odds and obstacles.  And given people without, you can fail in the face of no obstacles.

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