Doing the Really Hard Thing.... Hiring Avengers

Last week I was talking with a peer investor about hiring and the challenges founders have with that process. At some point the comment was made that more founders should think about hiring in terms of recruiting Avengers. You want to find the best talent there is; Align them with your mission; Recruit them onto your team and then let them do their thing.

Over the course of many years, I've had both direct personal experience and indirect observation of numerous for profit and non- profit organizations both big and small. One common area of pain experienced is the leaders unwillingness to recruit Avengers or simply said, hire next level talent.

What do I mean when I say "next level talent"? In the Marvel Universe there were actually a number of heroes that were members of the Avengers at some point in time but the A team was vastly superior that the B and C squads (Think Captain America vs Luke Cage). A leader has choices when recruiting and hiring people. Hiring people that improve the performance of the business; People that stimulate the growth of the team internally; People that improve the external perception of the business should be the goal that leadership strives to achieve.

An example of my personal experience with up-sizing our talent at my last company was when we hired our finance head (Not going to name names here because his ego is already outsized). When he came into GDC, he immediately improved our processes; found money that we were leaving on the table with customers and vendors and most importantly he was able to help us with negotiating our acquisition deal when we sold the business. while he was not a classically trained CFO he was a finance/investment banker and was able to quickly learn and process around what was needed for the business. As a result I didnt need to give an investment banker 5% on the deal because I hired someone significantly smarter than I was around that function.

Being willing is very different than having the ability to upskill talent. Finding really good people is hard but not impossible. The challenge I have observed is that leaders tend to be unwilling to upskill even when a good candidate is found. Typically the reasons (excuses) range from "we can't afford the person" to "lack of quality candidates" to "I dont think we need to hiring someone that senior". Note in some cases this is absolutely true but in most cases this is a sidestep to the reality of the situation.

There are solutions to counter this behavior. The first and foremost is to park your ego. The second is that you should seek out someone who has a strong cultural fit for the organization and yourself. Lastly, take the process as a personal challenge with yourself to recruit and hire the person that can actually help you grow to be a better talent. A taste of competitive spirit is always a good thing for the team dynamic.

When I see a leader or a team able to upskill it's talent and embrace the change those changes, that's a team that I have high confidence in as a long term growth and success story. My message to Founders, Executive Directors and leaders in general is to embrace the challenge and increase the value of your business along the way. Go hire some Avengers!