If you own and operate a small business and there's is a signature stamp with your name on it that enables others to sign checks on your behalf -- find it now and destroy it. Do not rest until this is done.
Do it before it destroys you. The small business signature stamp will save you time in the short term and cost you money in the long term. Potentially, a lot of money. I can attribute $50k of losses through the years to signature stamps. It isn't that they employees in possession of the stamp aren't responsible, they are responsible they just don't care as much as you do about the money coming in and money going out of the business. And they will never care as much as you about the business as you do. Accept it, embrace it and absolutely live it.
The drop off of commitment between owner and employee will always be there. It is just most likely to be expensive with a signature stamp around. But it is prevalent in all tasks that were once done by the owner and are now transitioned to an employee. One needs to be careful about what one hands over and especially hesitant to let important things completely go.
Most interviewees will focus solely on their answers, but, questions will often get one the job offer. Especially, the last one here.
1. Based upon this interview, what doubts, if any, do you have about my ability to do this job?
2. If I get the position, will I have a key card that will allow me to arrive earlier to work and/or leave later?
3. I know you must be talking to others about this position, if is there any additional background or information that I could provide to become the lead candidate?
4. I really like this opportunity, I would like to ask for the job.
Through 28 years of management and what feels like thousands of interviews of people for all levels of positions. Here are five things I would suggest avoiding.
1. Don't ask how hard people work in this company.
2. Avoid intense drill downs into severance policies.
3. Delay any questions about smoke breaks or smoking locations
4. Don't drill down into company insurance policy questions related mental health benefits or pregnancy policies (if female).
5. Wait to get the company's full holiday schedules.
6. Avoid questions about whether management is a stickler about being on time, leaving early or unexpected absences.
7. Keep quiet on any "odd benefits" questions based upon the benefits of previous employers, including massages, organic snacks, clothing allowance, etc.
If you're like me, you would be amazed at the questions potential employees will ask in the interview process. And while there is clearly an appropriate time and place for these thoughts (for the most part), they aren't usually in the first and/or second interview. That said, I have heard them all -- early on into job interviews -- as well as later in the process.
It is a strange term, "Fire in the Belly", that refers to someone's drive or motivation to achieve success. When you're interviewing prospective employees, especially ones for a start up, finding this quality can be difficult. But, the reward for finding these people is immeasurable.
No one who wishes to be hired in an interview setting is going to say "Hey, when the going gets tough and you need someone to stay with the task until its done, it won't be me". Or, "Regardless of the importance to the company, I won't stay late to perfect tomorrow's presentation under any circumstances". People are socialized well enough to understand that commitment and diligence are valued traits.
Sure as an entrepreneur, you know that employees by definition won't care about the enterprise like you do. Potential employees will often describe a "passion" for the product, technology or tasks at hand. Which is nice, but fire in belly burns on and passion burns out. Fire in the belly is a continued drive that doesn't ebb or flow while passion rises and falls.
Look for three things, which may appear individually or in combination.
First, look for a history of drive. People with drive have had it their whole life. It's in their DNA. People with real drive have demonstrated it from very, very early on. Ask questions about their very first job. Not the one after college, the very first thing they did for pay. Guess what, they usually started working early in life. And they took the jobs they could get for the pay available. And they were rewarded with more responsibility. You'll often find that they worked very hard in these jobs for low pay. And, if they are who you're looking for, they didn't then and don't now have any problem with working hard. BINGO!!! It's what they do, it is who they are as people. They will work hard for you because that's what they do and have done for every employer they have ever had. They are driven and always will be.
Second, find people with something to prove to the world or a member of it. You do this by asking questions about their role models, relationships, family and long term ambitions. People with drive usually have someone or some groups that have importance to them. Find out who they are, why they are important to them, and what they want to prove at the end of the day. To cut to the quick, it is frequently a parent. Sometimes it is positive, they worship a parent and want to make them proud. Or they have a notably successful parent they want to out do. Sometimes it is negative, the parent has expressed doubts or flat out pessimism about the interviewee prospects for success. Or the folks in their hometown think they are dumb to pursue this field. When you're determined that the candidate will be unrelenting to make a parent proud or prove some one or group wrong, you should be thinking about where he or she will sit in your office.
Third, find people that have overcome obstacles. Real obstacles like the loss of a parent, abusive or alcoholic caregivers, tragedy, or material set backs. Ask about their life growing up and the material conditions or events within it. What were their life changing events? People who have succeeded while balancing drunken parents and abandoned siblings at 15 aren't easily discouraged by the normal setbacks associated with growing a business. Their internal dialogue isn't about giving up or giving way. They don't tell themselves that things are "too tough". They will think to themselves, "hey, if the hell I grew up with wasn't enough to stop me, today's challenges aren't going to stop me either." If you want people who will go through walls to succeed, hire people who already have gone through walls in their life. I don't say this lightly or disrespectfully as these people have experienced real pain.
Find someone with any of these qualities and you will benefit every day they are in your employ. Drive or Fire in the Belly comes to work every day and brings energy to every task.
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.
The PBS radio show "This American Life" is a wonderful series. They recently did a piece on the effect of a "bad actor" being placed on a team. The person, who was an actor and instructed to be a negative influence, had a material effect on the performance of the team.
While it is a hour long show, the bad actor sequence is the first ten minutes. Really worth a quick listen.
I am always impressed by the number of people interested in working for a start up. Both from the students I teach and audience members from various speeches, there is consistent and ongoing interest in the start up work environment. For good reason, start ups give people to opportunity to perform my roles and progress rapidly on a professional basis. But choosing the right start up is no easy task for most people. Clearly, one of the differentiators amongst start ups is which have received outside investment. And even among those receiving outside investment, which have received venture capital. The distinction of venture capital in a start up is significant has it usually indicates both current and future backing based upon the judgment of investment professionals and the completion of extensive diligence.
So where does one look for these jobs in venture capital backed startups?
Startup Hire was founded by one of the Grotech General Partners, Steve Fredrick, and has achieved impressive acceptance and sponsorship in a short time frame. The National Venture Capital Association as well as other marquee groups have put their support behind this effort.
It is tough to find the right people at the right time. Especially when you're offering a job in a start up which may span two, three or four traditional job descriptions, i.e. the position is the marketing department -- including responsibilities for marketing communications, product management, public and investor relations, and brand marketing, or the position is sales engineer and technical support and product developer.
And while it is clear that you need flexible, multi-faceted people in these situations, it isn't as obvious that there is one critical personality trait for employee success in the start up environment.
That critical trait is good judgment. In my experience, people with bad judgment are able to arrive at the wrong conclusion 100% of the time. It is their gift. They can take any number of varying inputs and apply bad judgment to arrive at the wrong answer. In a start up where new situations, dilemmas and challenges arise daily -- many of which have no precedent since everything that is going on is new to everybody, the application of good judgment may be the only reasonable shot at success.
People with good judgment aren't correct, on the hand, a 100% of the time. But perfection isn't the point. The point is that the start up CEO will face a lot of uncharted territory in growing an enterprise and the presence of good judgment in the assembled team is a priceless asset.
I would choose an Art History major with superior judgment over a Business Management major without any day. And I have done so.
How do you assess judgment? I ask questions in the interview process where we relive various scenarios from the prospective employee's previous situations. Why did you choose the college you did? What do you think could have been done better by the last management team you worked with? How do you decide between two seemingly indistinguishable choices? Questions about the judgments formed and made by the candidate in previous situations can deliver reliable insights into how they assess facts and people.
Hire people from their resumes, former positions or education and you'll get a group that is likely more qualified to do a good job than capable of doing a good job.
One of the greater challenges of the CEO is the translation of revenue challenges into plans, commitments and expenses. It doesn't help that both your good salespeople and the bad salespeople are both lying about their sales numbers. So aside from the ultimate results, what is the difference between good and bad salespeople's projections?
The difference between a good salesperson and a bad one is usually that the good one knows that he/she is misrepresenting the projected number and by how much. The bad salesperson typically doesn't know that the real number that is likely given their efforts, pipeline and skills. So, both the numbers from the good and the bad salesperson are mis-representations. What's a start up CEO to do?
Seek specifics, be realistic, consider the process and dissect the facts.
Seek specifics: This is just about the customer, conversation and meetings details. It is about the gives and gets. What has the customer given and what has the customer gotten.
Be realistic: Unless you hear that something compelling (other than a government regulatory item like a new law -- which doesn't count or matter usually) is going to move the customer to act. Assume that it is going to take longer than it should to close the deal.
Consider the process: Compare everything you hear to the successful sales processes that have proceeded this one. If you study the way customers adopt and buy your product, you'll be able to synthesize the learnings in a way that individual salespeople are often to slow to internalize into behaviors. Salespeople are not frequently or adequately introspective about process. That's your job.
Dissect the facts: Or more directly put, try to assail the salesperson's assumptions. The salesperson's assumptions, particularly the faulty ones, will drive their results. You need to discern what is known from what it believed and from what is hoped for by the salesperson.
All of which leads the CEO to derive a personal sales forecast which is based upon facts and the reasonably expected outcome of proven process.
Employee of the Month Reserved Parking Sign (Photo credits: myparkingsign.com)
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