What is your hiring policy look like?

Do you hire people to fit today’s needs or do you hire people to take you in new directions for a better future?

I know that if you hire people for today’s needs your organization will be treading water for years to come. Why can I say that? The pace of business is accelerating. The pace of change in business is faster than it has ever been, so how do you expect to keep up with this pace if you don’t hire people to take you into the future?

Let me give you an example. It is of a professional hockey team called the Toronto Maple Leafs. To put it bluntly they have not been a good team for over 40 years and yet they continue to make lots of money. So what is the need in any change in this business if they are making lots of money you ask? It is because I believe that the new people in charge understand that if things stay the same they are going to fall even further behind.

A recent example was the team hiring three people with an ‘advanced analytics’ approach to the game. They are not the first team to do this, but they are the first team to hire so many of these people with these skills at one time.

What will be the results of this new look at hockey, I don’t know?

What was the team’s future outlook without hiring these people? I can tell you that the results would not have improved.

Results are what business is all about, isn’t it?

Excuses don’t pay people, do they?