Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

IN BRIEF ▶ Hiring great performers is a hiring manager’s most important job. Hiring managers should actively develop their own pipelines of talent and take the lead in all aspects of the hiring process. They are the lead recruiters. ▶ The teams and companies most successful in staying ahead of the curve manage to do so because they proactively replenish their talent pool. ▶ Retention is not a good measure of team-building success; having a great person in every single position on the team is the best measure. ▶ Sometimes it’s important to let even people who have done a great job go in order to make space for high performers in new functions or with different skills. ▶ Bonuses, stock options, high salaries, and even a clear path to promotion are not the strongest draw for high performers. The opportunity to work with teams of other high performers whom they’ll learn from and find it exhilarating to work with is by far the most powerful lure. ▶ Making a great hire is not about bringing in an “A player”; it’s about finding a great match for your needs. Someone who is a high performer for one team may not be for another team. ▶ Get beyond the résumé. Be really creative about where you look for talent. Dig further than a list of experiences. Consider wide-ranging experiences and focus on people’s fundamental problem-solving abilities. ▶ Make the interviewing experience extremely impressive all the way through. You want every single person you interview to want to join the comp...