Fail Your Failures Fast

One the biggest challenges facing the small business owner, or agency owner, is the challenge of hiring competent talent and training them to do the job well. Talent acquisition is one of the most difficult processes for an agency owner to undertake for a number of reasons, least of which is the time and money invested in recruiting, interviewing and managing a new employee in order for them to bring in a positive return on your overall investment in them.

Acquiring the right staff, for the right position at the right time can be the difference between continued profitability and viability as a presence in the marketplace or a slow, financial death for an agency owner.

As the old sports cliché goes; “You can’t win championships without good players; but you can lose championships with good players as well.” In other words, staffing issues for the agency owner exist in two distinct realms; the realm of recruiting good talent and the realm of managing good talent. The successful agent owner has to learn to operate in both spaces in order to thrive or even survive in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace.

The following principles regarding talent acquisition & assessing the hired individual for continued employment purposes is from a “high level” perspective. I leave it to you to decide on the details of how you can execute on these principles and develop an effective agency team.

1. Take your time in screening and interviewing candidates when looking for talent to work in your agency. Hiring is a significant commitment; it’s nothing you should hurry along. Be patient…

2. Recognize that your first hire into a position may not be the last hire you make for that position. Oftentimes, it takes several hires before the right fit for the position is discovered.

3. Never be in a hurry to commit relatively large sums of money and additional emotional and intellectual equity into someone…The process of hiring must be a deliberate process and not random. It must also be a cautious process…without urgency if at all possible. So, always be on the lookout for talent. Keep a scouting book with you that will contain a running list of names and contact information of possible future candidates for consideration. Keep resumes on file for that day when you find yourself in need of a staff person unexpectedly.

4. Fail your failures fast. People reveal themselves rather quickly as a general rule. If the “omens” are not good; that is, if the new hire’s performance is subpar early on in the on-boarding process as a new employee, make the decision to fire them quickly and decisively.

Recruiting and hiring is a lot like buying and selling a stock on the
New York Stock Exchange. Too often, once an investor decides on a stock and purchases it, they become “married” to it, in a sense. That is; an investor often holds on to the the stock even though it is performing poorly. Even though every indicator is suggesting that the investor minimize their losses by selling at a price lower than they had originally purchased the stock, the investor can’t let go.

As a result of “hoping against hope,” the stock does not “come back” and the losses the investor might have sustained yesterday, pale in comparison to the losses they face now from waiting too long to sell.

Don’t do that to yourself or your business. It’s okay to fire someone who is not performing in the position they were hired to fulfill…

Fail Your Failures Fast…Or else suffer the consequences of a bad decision turning into a disastrous decision for the entire business venture.

Copyright © 2010 - Tony Cefalu