Does the process of hiring new employees sometimes feel like a crap shoot? No matter how carefully you word the posting, go through submitted resumes or spend time coming up with the “perfect” interview questions it always seems to take a while after hiring to know how the new employee will work out. Sometimes they do their job really well but there’s just something that doesn’t quite fit. Hard skills and experience are only one piece of the puzzle.

What defines the culture of your organization? Does the thought of it make an internal wall shoot up? Maybe you think once you start down that path next thing you know everyone will be sitting in a circle holding hands and singing Kumbaya. The whole place will descend into anarchy and nothing will get done again.

I’m here to tell you it isn’t so, and once you define what it is that makes your organization unique it will become much easier for you to find those people that will fit in and make your life much easier. The seemingly revolving door of employees coming on board and leaving will no longer be a fixture.

We call this need to balance skills with values ‘Right Person, Right Seat’ and you have to have both. Jim Collins coined this phrase in his book Good to Great in which they conducted in-depth studies to define the difference between good organizations and great ones.

Right Seat involves making sure the person has the skill set required to complete the work. Are they able to do what is required to be successful in that position? Generally these qualities are easy to assess because they are definable and measurable.

Right Person is making sure the person has the qualities or values that are important in your organization. In teaching the Entrepreneurial Operating System® we take your leadership team through a discovery process that helps define the unique set of values for your organization.

What are the things you and your leadership team deem important? Is it critical to have a strict separation between work life and home life or is your organization one in which long or flexible hours are important? Are your processes static or do you need people to be self-driven and able to take a project and run with it? What defines your business?

Once you define these values and use them in your HR process you will be amazed at how things come together and you form a unified team. Your organization will be more efficient, effective, fun, manageable and profitable. The people are one of the most important pieces to a business, so why not make sure you have the right ones for you!

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Dad said that one of the reasons why he was successful in the logging business is because of the men he had working for him. This was in the late seventies and eighties, so it was a very different time when it came to doing business. He said that after a few years he had a great core group of employees and he found that he rarely had to fire anyone who wasn’t working out. If a new hire had poor work ethic, didn’t have the skills required or didn’t fit in the men would ‘run him out of there before I got back’. He would ask where the new guy was and his men would just say, “He didn’t work out”. I imagine some of their methods would probably curl the hair of any HR manager today, but the point is even in an age very different from today the culture of an organization was vital to its success.

I know he built a solid culture not just from that story he told me but because I grew up with it all around me, I just didn’t realize it at the time. Everyone worked very hard, did whatever had to be done and worked crazy hours when required. But there was also always an abundance of laughter and practical jokes. The coffee was always on, people were always welcome to stop by for a visit, and you never knew who was going to walk through the door next. I believe he said, “The coffee is always on and the bulls**t is always thick,” with a grin on his face. Years later I still meet people who come up to me and say “I worked for your Dad,” with pride in their voices and on their faces. That speaks volumes for enduring culture and strong leadership.

That is one of the reasons Trenchant Business Evolution exists, and one of the things we help our clients do. Build a strong culture in your organization and it will be the foundation for your success.

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