Would you REHIRE Everyone? - Carter Reports

Building your company is challenging work. Your ability to survive and scale up is not built around one person, but a team of the right people. How would you answer this question: “Would you enthusiastically rehire everyone on your team right now?” Find yourself struggling to say YES to everyone? You’re not alone!

Jim Collins, in his book Good To Great, discovered that the #1 characteristic separating good companies from great companies was that great companies figured out “who first, then what.” In other words, the number one thing they did was get the right people on the company bus, the wrong ones off. The right people then determined what to do and how to win in the marketplace. The lesson here: You need to start hiring people for who they are FIRST, then for their capabilities. You can teach how (the skills), but you can’t teach who (the values)!

What Do Ideal Team Players Look Like?

How do you spot, attract, hire, train, and retain “the right” people that will supercharge your teams? How do you focus on “The Who?”

Pat Lencioni, author of one of the top five business books ever written (Five Dysfunctions of a Team), focuses on this in his book titled The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate Three Essential Virtues. Some people are better at teamwork than others. These people add immediate value in a team environment and require much less coaching and management to contribute in a meaningful way.

Two Key Questions

So, Pat asks two very obvious questions. What do these people look like? And how do you find them? As it turns out, they have three qualities or virtues.

Pat makes the case that team players need to be Humble, Hungry, and (People) Smart.

Humble. They lack excessive ego or concerns about status. Humble people are quick to point out the contributions of others; they share credit, and define success collectively.
Hungry. They are always looking for more. More things to do. More to learn. More responsibility to take on.
Smart. They have common sense about people. Smart people tend to be aware of what is happening in a group situation and know how to interact with others effectively.

And the power here is not the individual attributes themselves, but rather the combination of all three. If even one attribute is missing in a team member, your teamwork becomes significantly more difficult.

Follow this link for a ton of free tools and resources including the model, summary article, interactive webinar, a managers assessment and interview guide.

Then I recommend you get this book and read it. Then buy books for all your employees to read.

According to Pat, these virtues can be cultivated – that’s the great news! Contact me to discuss how to leverage these virtues in your business.

All the best
David