Hiring slowly and retaining quality people.
At Evolve, we know that the best businesses are founded on teamwork and collaboration, not lone rangers. At the end of the day, however powerful and proud the mighty lion is, it can be brought down by a pack of well-coordinated wolves. Many entrepreneurs try to do everything themselves. They place themselves at the centre of the organisational universe and make themselves indispensable. In reality, the best businesses run automatically. You can take your hands off the wheel for periods of time, but they still steer where they need to go. You can even take your foot off the accelerator and the cruise control will keep it going.
Real value is built by surrounding yourself with the right people: competent, motivated, aligned with your Beliefs, and committed to the Essence of the business. A good team is probably the most important contributing factor to success. We all know that some people are more productive than others; Business Insider recently reported on Charles Duhigg’s research into this topic. James Sale, creator of Motivational Maps, says that according to the Pareto principle, on average 20% of people in an organisation produce 80% of profit and results (therefore, 80% of staff produce merely 20%). When people work in teams, the effects of this
principle are multiplied! Therefore, how do we surround ourselves with more of these super-productive people? We all want to have a dream team working on the case, supporting us, helping us to realise our ambitions and visions.
“It’s also important that we use the word ‘team’, rather than ‘staff’ or ‘employees’ – these corporate labels to some extent dehumanise the people who work in your business. The worst thing you can do is to treat them as employee numbers in a spreadsheet.” – Warren Munson, Evolve to Succeed – The Entrepreneur’s Journey
This is where Human Resources comes in. At Evolve, we believe Human Resources has three key roles in an organisation – the three ‘Rs’: recruitment, retention and redundancy. HR has to help find and recruit the best people. It then has to work to help retain these individuals.
Finally, if there is some issue, it may occasionally have to let people go. Many organisations pour large sums of money into the recruitment effort, paying out liberal fees to agencies and ‘finders’, only to then have those same staff leave in a few months to seek opportunity elsewhere. Most organisations fail to invest in retention, assuming that pay packets or
bonuses are enough to keep top people. At Evolve, we know that only an average of 1 in 9 people are driven by financial reward. If you want staff to stay, you have to discover what their core Beliefs are, and whether they are aligned with the organisation’s. When you understand what people believe in, what motivates them, then they are far more likely to be motivated by the work they do and find it fulfilling; in addition, it becomes possible to pull together a cohesive reward strategy that is customised to the individual. All of this comes together to make them very likely to want to stay and go on this entrepreneurial journey with you.
Building your dream team via this process takes time. It is about hiring slow. Most companies rush to get people in to fill empty seats, especially when they are up-scaling. However, this is the wrong approach. At Evolve we know patience is often rewarded when growing your company and teams. Taking the time to find the right person with the right Beliefs and
mindset alignment will reap countless dividends.
It’s also more important to find someone with the right attitude than the right skills. All the experience and skills in the world will not matter if that person is de-motivated or unhappy. As your team grows, remember to keep the spotlight on them, let them carry some of the burden and keep in touch with their motivation levels. As leaders, we are inundated with responsibilities, and this might seem like more work for you to do, but if you pay attention to people and make that part of your daily practice, your dream team might just do most of the hard lifting for you.
A good team is the secret weapon of an entrepreneurial business. This is how you can get your edge over the larger competition. By individually infusing each member of the team with passion and motivation so that they perform at their highest possible level, you will see your productivity and innovation soar to new heights.