1. When in doubt don't hire, keep looking!
If your growth rate in revenues consistently outpaces your growth rate in people,
you simply will not
-- indeed cannot -- build a great company.
2. When you know you need to make a people change, ACT.
The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you have made a hiring mistake.
The
best people don't need to be managed. Guided, taught, led -- yes. But not tightly managed.
Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably
find
themselves compensating for the inadquecies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the
best people!
3. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.
a. If you create a place where the best people always have a seat on the bus, they
are more likely
to support changes in direction.
b. You need executives who argue and debate - sometimes violently - in pursuit of
the best
answers, yet, on the other hand, who unify fully behind a decision, regardless of parochial interests!
