You know how to spot a weak candidate.

But who's watching you?

Every person you interview.  The way you behave is often the tipping point to whether the headlining superstar or solid role player speaking to you about joining your team - will be inspired, or keep looking for another career opportunity…

The hiring manager at Crestwood Terra - I'll call her Diane - met me in the lobby with the energy of someone who was excited about finishing an important task.

"You're going to love her," Diane said, handing me a resume in a manila folder as we walked to the conference room.  "Sharp.  Experienced.  Great references.  Tom did the technical screen last week and said she nailed it."…

Not every candidate who walks into your hiring tryout arrives with confidence.

Some arrive with talent - and baggage.

Before you make an offer, you need to know the difference between healthy humility and insecurity that will quietly damage your team…

A new Egon Zehnder study published in Harvard Business Review surveyed more than 500 senior revenue-driving leaders worldwide - CMOs, Chief Revenue Officers, Chief Commercial Officers - across every major industry.

Their finding?  Only 29% of companies surveyed achieved rapid growth, defined as top-line revenue increases exceeding 10%.

Twenty-nine percent…

‍

Charlie Munger identified Liking/Loving Tendency as the #2 psychological force in human misjudgment.

His point:  The people and ideas we admire shape us - for better or worse.  We tend to ignore the faults of those we love, favor people and ideas associated with them, and distort facts to protect our high opinion of them…

Charlie Munger called it the #1 psychological force in human behavior.

Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency

His point:  Almost everyone thinks they understand how powerfully incentives drive behavior.  Almost everyone is wrong.  Even Munger admitted he underestimated it his entire career…

Jim Collins is quoted in Shane Parrish’s book, Clear Thinking:

“There is no effectiveness without discipline,

and there is no discipline without character.”

Every leader knows this is true…

Shane Parrish in his book, Clear Thinking, exposes the toxic power of what he calls the Inertia Default.  Here is one of the most powerful insights he gives that you need today:

“Inertia keeps us doing things that don't get us what we want.”

Sound familiar?…

Shane Parrish warns us in Clear Thinking:  “When circumstances change, we need to adapt.”

Your circumstances have changed.

You believe your hiring system was good enough to attract, assess, and add top performers to your team.  Maybe it was in the past, but today it's failing too often.  The people you hire are not meeting your expectations - or they quit too soon…

Of the last five people you hired, how many are exceeding your expectations?

How many are simply meeting your expectations?

The rest are falling short.  And that number may be all five…

You believe your hiring process is solid.  Maybe even really good.

But the data disagrees.

Answer this one question honestly:  How many people have you hired in the past 12 months who failed to meet your expectations?…

Let's be candid.  You are hiring people who do not meet your expectations.

And you are not making it a priority to fix it.

It’s not because you don't care.  Not because you think bad hires are acceptable.  But because improving your hiring process means taking time away from everything else demanding your attention right now.  And that feels like too high a price…

Shane Parrish gives us a “whack in the head” - major wisdom point in his book, Clear Thinking:

"Starting something is hard,

but so too is stopping something.  

We resist change

even when change is for the best."

Championship teams are not built by accident.  They are built by leaders who understand that hiring great people is not a task on a checklist - hiring is the foundation of everything.

These leaders proved it:

"The right people are your most important asset.  The wrong people are your greatest liability." - Jim Collins, Leadership Guru, Author, and former Stanford professor…