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FROM THE FOUNDER
These four things are beyond essential if you are serious about building an enduring organization that will evolve over time. What it really takes to be successful
B y now, we have all heard the old adage, “Hire for attitude and train for skill.” Yet, let’s face it – that is easier said than done. For many of the jobs we have in our businesses we do need a specific set of skills and credentials that you just can’t train for. We can’t take someone who is a bookkeeper and turn them into a licensed mechanical engineer with extensive knowledge of healthcare buildings. Just isn’t going to happen.
Mark Zweig
That said, I do think we need to be pickier than we generally are when it comes to hiring. One big reason we are not pickier is we have so few job candidates to pick from. That impacts everything. Years ago, I dubbed the solution to this problem “supply side human resources management.” I still like this term. We need to greatly ramp up recruiting efforts (i.e., spend more money and time on it) so we do have choices. It’s money well spent! Having or not having these choices also greatly affects how we deal with our existing staff (meaning how tolerant we are of their bad behavior or performance). If we have no one to replace someone with, we will tend to let that person continue on as-is, which is terrible for morale and performance. But let’s assume for now that we do actually have multiple job candidates to pick from, all of whom
are technically qualified for the role we are trying to fill. What are the other qualities that are most likely to bring long-term success in our business that we should be looking for? After working with thousands of top people in our industry over the last 44 years, interviewing dozens of successful entrepreneurs on our podcasts, and having hundreds of guest speakers who are business owners and entrepreneurs in all industries as guest speakers in my entrepreneurship classes at The Walton College, certain common qualities have emerged. Here they are: 1. Work ethic. Does the person commit to putting in the hours it takes, whatever it takes, to get the job done? Did they work while in high school and college? How much? What do they tell
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THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 4, 2024, ISSUE 1560
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