Consequences of a "Bad Hire"

As Managers, one of the most important task consists in building solid Teams. The definition of solid Team is, of course, very much dependent of the context; however a few common attributes might define a general-purpose solid Team with a cross-industry applicability.

A solid Team is one that you can trust. It is a combination of high effective individuals that sit together and try to solve business problems on a daily basis. It is cohesive unit which moves on the same direction. It is a mix of skills that complement each other. It is mix of experiences which combine into an effective toolbox. It is a meeting point of different backgrounds and cultures. It is definitely a potential "power hose" for the Company.

As clear, a solid Team builds up on foundations and equilibrium, a harmony which is so powerful and so fragile at the same time: it can change the game but it can be broken by only a single bad move in the hiring process. The boundary between a bad and good move during the hiring process is so thin which is very difficult to even define it. On the flip side, it is very easy to define what can be defined a "Good Hire" and a "Bad Hire"

Let's walk through the definitions and a few consequences that a Team may suffer from "bad moves" during the hiring process.

Good Hire (Baseline)

An individual able to jump in and help out, facilitating and the development of the Team culture. Such individual is open to change its own way of doing things from past experiences and buy in the way the Team is used to do things. It is able to bring up a contribution without necessarily reinforcing it, so its ego does not have an impact on other Team members. It is open to help out whenever needed, going above and beyond. It is convinced that its mission is the success of the Team.

Bad Hire (Flip Side)

An individual able to jump in and disrupt, having a strong impact on the culture (e.g. coming through as not fully embedded and only thinking to its own primary needs). Such individual is not open to change its own way of doing things from past experiences and does not buy in the way the Team is used to do things (e.g. coming through with a negative view about any of the consolidated Team processes). It is not able to bring up any contribution without reinforcing it to the nth power, so its ego does have an impact on other Team members (e.g. coming up with statements like "I was the only one capable of such an amazing thing"). It is not open to help out whenever needed and does not value going above and beyond (e.g. coming up with statements like "if something has to be done something else has to drop"). It is not convinced that its mission is the success of the Team (e.g. coming through as arguing for everything and anything).

Consequences of a "Bad Hire"

You thought to have created the right ecosystem within which the Team feels comfortable and delivers. You are then ready to make the next step to grow the Team to challenge even bigger problems and deliver more business value. Therefore, you are ready to start the hiring process, Job Spec is ready, Requisition is created and all the main Stakeholders are involved.

The interviews begin as a bunch of candidates applies and pass the preliminary screening. A short list of few of them are able to get it through the process and are invited on site for a final round of interviews with a bunch of key figures in the Company. All of them look solid candidates with a relevant background and experience. A decision has to be made and as always happens, the most brilliant candidate is picked: getting to the points, she/he corresponds to the candidate that better managed the technical interview, as you think that being more effective she/he will be able to jump in and rock. The offer is then extended.

On the very first day of the new hire joining the Team, a few things bubble up to your attention: she/he is very self-confident, she/he believes in his "superiority", she/he defines herself/himself an "expert", she/he starts questioning everything and anything. After a few months, the Team begins suffering about the "ego" and inherently low performance of the new hire: questioning everything and anything brings tension, creating conflict with the Management and Leadership Teams, overall lowering the performance of a solid Team which used to deliver with high quality standards and always-on-time. A toxic environment begins building up as the new hire begins juggling by gossiping and negatively influencing other Team members, feeling the pressure of change pushed by the Management and Leadership Team. The solid Team starts breaking up pretty fast; it seems that the situation is unrecoverable as previous key players start showing and talking about their dissatisfaction. It comes the time of a hard decision... after only a few months, you are in front of crucial decision to preserve the existence of the Team...

Thoughts

The decision and outcome are not relevant at this point in time, as the error has triggered a series of mechanisms that have been hardly impacting the "perfect" ecosystem: the previously solid and high-performance Team is now less than a normal Team with interior conflicts and delivery problems (from delivering always on-time, to never deliver on-time).

The willing of growing the Team was legitimate as the Team used to be solid, but the implementation of such growth was wrong as it picked the candidate who won at the points, the supposed most brilliant one. The consequences are clear: the bad move has created a series of issues during a number of months, nullifying the delivery pipeline and so, overall, creating a business loss: months lost in analysing the conflicts, months lost in coming up with corrective actions, months lost in waiting for a change in the direction, all in all a very relevant number of months lost in solving problems which were far from creating business value by solving real business problems.

For someone with the experience in the Industry the conclusion seems obvious, but looking around it does not seem that the process to get there is so obvious, and so the reason why it is a good idea to refresh and re-iterate on the process itself.

Finally, How to Prevent It

Unfortunately, there is no single and successful recipe. As a matter of fact, the hiring process is one of the most complex managerial tasks which forcedly has to involve a number of key figures and stakeholders. Clearly, during the interviews the candidate should be screened by looking at independent variables with reference to the performance, submitting specific tests able to evaluate the overall fit with the Team culture. It is hard to come up with such tests and it is harder to screen the behaviour in only half a day on premise, therefore having a round of face-to-face interviews might spot the obscure/hidden sides: it is easy to prepare one time, it is very hard to be prepared three times in a row to hide by not letting things bubble up. Extremely important is then the participation during the round of face-to-face interviews of multiple Team Leaders and Managers to make sure that the candidate is thoroughly screened by different units with different missions and cultures, such operation diversifies the set of questions within a framework with given evaluation criteria.

DISCLAIMER - Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.