Fire Fast. Hire Slow

Fire Fast. Hire Slow

Fire Fast. Hire Slow

These are words I have heard many times throughout my career when discussing business strategies and how to grow your business. They seem like sound advice. However, actually following through is challenging, if not plain difficult.

A few years ago I employed an engineer who was one of the brightest individuals I have known for some time. Differential equations, analytic functions, and other complicated math, science, and logic structures flowed through him seemingly without effort. However, when it came to delivering finished products ready to ship, things didn't flow so well. Each month he would miss critical deadlines. He constantly reassured me things would track on schedule next month. There were several key milestones we had to hit over the course of six months to grow as a company. At the end of each month he would miss more deadlines. I kept telling myself "I will hold on to him until we hit this milestone and then make the change".

Rationalizing is easy when it involves people. "He is smart. He is doing productive things. It makes more sense to let him finish this segment of the project rather than wait for someone else to come up to speed." These all seem like logical arguments. However, when you know you need to make a change, you are already late making it.

What happened in the case of this engineer? He never hit that key milestone and the investors pulled their money from the project.

On the other hand, hire slow. When you are short handed you always feel the pressure to get someone in now. The work load is overwhelming and you feel like a warm body is better than no one performing the functions. I once had a sales position suddenly open up in the Florida region. Our company was based in California. I called a recruiter and asked for CV's to review immediately. He quickly sent over three seemingly qualified candidates. I made three phone calls. I was traveling in Europe at the time and was actually able to meet one of the candidates in Venice Italy, although we were only able to spend 30 minutes together. Another, I interviewed while driving to a meeting in Boston. The third, I interviewed between flights while I was in Chicago. I did manage to call one reference while in a water taxi traveling from Venice, Italy to a small island near Venice. In all three interviews I was distracted. Less than five days after I asked for candidates, I chose one and hired her.

Three months later I was now in the "fire fast" mode. Although the individual I hired was very qualified and an excellent sales person, she lacked the ability to work remote. She had always been in a home office where she could walk the halls to gather information and get things done for the customers. She did not have the correct skill set to do this remotely. Once again, I found myself in the hiring mode. This time, I took my time. I found a sales person that was not only a great sales person, but someone who could work remote and still be successful. All-in-all, the second time around it took twelve weeks to find the right person. However, they stayed with the company for many years and experienced great success.

Fire Fast. Hire Slow.

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