Ask the Entrepreneurs: My Biggest Mistake? Hiring "Clones"

[Note: Students in the Entrepreneurship program at Simon have submitted a number of questions and we encourage you to ask yours via the form on our Home/About page. We'll have one or more of our bloggers offer their takes — which should provide starting points for your thinking and more discussion.]

Question: Describe to me a mistake you made while starting your business and what you learned from it.

The single mistake I made while starting my business what that I hired "like minded" people, "Lauren Dixon clones" — people who were in the office at 4:00am and worked crazy hours. Work was life. Life was work.

In fact, for the first ten years I hired only ESTJ personalities (Myers Briggs). And I did all of the hiring. Big mistake!

Our success rate for new hires with me at the helm was dismal. For every three employees I hired, only one would succeed. Not a great track record! Today, I am not involved in the hiring as it’s something I’m not very good at.

Today, we employ three things:

1. Each department conducts interviews with their team and the candidate
2. "Companies Are People Too” Survey
3. Personality Profile Instrument

Sure, there are times that even this system doesn’t work 100% but it’s a whole lot better than before.

I love the expression that one of my friends, Steve Chartrand, coined when an employee doesn’t fit with our culture, "Lauren ... great actress ... wrong role!" How true!

Comments

[Dr. Wright]

Hiring people like yourself makes your business fun but not productive. Hiring people not like you can be uncomfortable, thats why few people do it. But you need all the personality types in your business to make it run well.

Dr. Wright
www.wrightplacetv.com
www.twitter.com/drwright1