Entrepreneurs - Here's Why Your Next Hire Is The Most Important!

The importance of getting the right talent in the right places at the right time is an issue for any SMB enterprise but is certainly magnified for entrepreneurs and startup operations. Based on the analysis of 101 startup postmortems, CB Insights identified not having the right team as the 3rd biggest reason for failure. The top cause was no market need, followed by the lack of funding. In fact, people issues were responsible for 4 of the 20 top reasons.

Knowing that the chances of acquiring the right talent for your organization based on an interview alone are no better than flipping a coin, here are 3 ways that you can turn the hiring odds in your favor.

1. Hire people that are smarter than you 

While IQ isn't a great predictor for workplace success on it's own, it is important that you have people on your team that are smart enough to be able to challenge your set of beliefs. This is one of the best drivers of organizational innovation, problem solving and continued growth in your product or services. Mental acuity is relatively easy and inexpensive to assess. One of the most reliable tests of cognitive ability is published by Wonderlic. (Read more about it here.)

I'd also highly recommend Liz Wiseman's book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. 

2. Hire The Right Behavior

Knowledge, skills and abilities should be viewed as being the price of admission into your organization. Far too often, organizations hire or promote based on knowledge, skills and abilities only to have to terminate based on behavior. This is a key element in shaping your organizations culture, the degree of employee engagement and the level of performance you will attain. 

Paying attention to the behaviors that drive the culture you want to create early on will pay huge dividends for you down the road. I'm currently working with a couple of tech SMB's to help them sort out culture issues after the fact. Now that they've grown to about 50 employees, they're recognizing the signs of the lack of a clear cultural definition. Employee engagement is low (based on what survey results told them), turnover is beginning to be an issue and performance is not where they had hoped it would be.

We use the McQuaig Talent Assessment System to understand the behavioral fit a candidate has with the role, the boss and the organizations culture. A short investment of time upfront allows you to benchmark the requirements of the role you're looking to fill. Candidates complete an online assessment in about 15 minutes and their results are matched against the benchmark you've created. For around $200 you'll know whether the candidate is a strong, potential or no match and be able to see where the fits and gaps are. The system generates an behavior based interview guide to help you add rigor to your interview process. (Read more about the process here.)

3. Hire People With Emotional Intelligence

It doesn't matter whether the role is a leadership or followership role, Emotional Intelligence trumps IQ. In order for the people on your team to take full advantage of their cognitive abilities they need good emotional intelligence. Regardless of how bright we may be, abrasive behavior has a way of turning people off. If we are unaware of how we are presenting ourselves, or crumble under minimal stress, no one will stick around long enough to notice our high IQ's. For around $200 you get the insights you need to make better, more informed decisions.

Dr. Marian Ruderman and her colleagues at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) found that emotional intelligence accounts for approximately 28 percent of leadership performance. The four leadership pillars they identified are as follows:

• They are seen as being centered, grounded and in control of themselves
• They have the ability to take action
• They have a participative leadership style
• They are tough minded

One of the challenges of being an entrepreneur is the speed at which decisions are made. When those decisions are made based on intuition there is a very strong probability that you won't be adding the best available talent. Being resource strapped is another reason many startups and SMB's don't incorporate any science into the decisions they make about people. (Read more about the EQ-i 2.0 assessment here.)

Ask yourself this one, simple question... "What will it cost our organization if the person I'm about to hire doesn't work out?"

About The Author

Bob Woodcock is the founder of The Pulse Check and specializes in the delivery of world class talent assessments such as the EQ-i 2.0 emotional intelligence assessment, the McQuaig Talent Assessment System (a behavioral assessment) and the Wonderlic cognitive abilities test. When he started his practice in 2008, Bob’s vision was to help organizations manage their talent, and improve business results, by better understanding, developing, motivating and retaining good people. Through the use of human capital analytics and over 30 years of corporate leadership experience, he is able to help his clients drive sustainable business outcomes.