Hire + Develop the Best

#PROTIP : "Let's hire poor performers and lazy folk!"

Seems like an obvious do not do this right?

If you and your team are not actively focused on hiring the best, how do you protect your team from those lazy folk and other not best people?

It's not easy, and you can never get it 100% right. Fortunately, if you are willing to put in the effort, there are things your team can do.

A rigorous hiring process is a good place to start (I just read an article that suggested a minimum of 30 interviews on average per position). An interview process that involves people from many different levels within your company for perspective.

You definitely do not want a single person (unless of course you are just a solo-preneur!) hiring your staff.

At Vendasta we have the leadership principle of HIRE + DEVELOP THE BEST.

Great Begets Great

A super-cool effect of hiring the best is that those best-people let their best-like colleagues and friends know and soon you have a ton of the bests.

We're fortunate to see this at Vendasta. Although my tenure here is still under a year, one of the first things that really caught my eye was the quality of people.

What kind of quality? Well, let me tell you,

smart : These folks here are sharp. Many have multiple degrees. A degree alone does not necessarily mean that you are smart, but if you have an engineering degree and an MBA, I'll give you the benefit of doubt.

ingenious : It was evident from day 1 that Vendasta is filled with ingenious people. Ingenuity is a key driver of many great things happening here. When a company grows fast, it is not always possible to have every process and procedure in place. It is these ingenious people that come up with creative and effective ways to move the needle.

talented : We all have talents, I know. I can make a water dripping noise by flicking my cheek with my finger, it's pretty sweet. However, I quickly found out that we had musicians, national champions in various sports, patent holders, and more. I cannot say for certain, but I think my cheek water-drip is one of the best here.

fun : This is one of my favorites. I like to have fun (don't we all?). The people here are always up for fun. Whether it's a corporate social event, team building, offsite, or just playing some ping pong or foosball, you aren't far from fun at Vendasta (thanks to the people here).

caring : Do you go to work and feel like everyone there cares? It's a pretty powerful concept. I see it all the time. People thinking carefully about problems and the impact on others. People reaching out (across teams) to lend a hand or offer encouragement.

I could go on for days!

Some True Stories

--Personal Journey--

Just today I saw a blog article written by one of our senior developers talking about his journey from being a developer to an engineering manager and back to a developer. On the surface it might not sound like much, but it's a big deal.

In his article, Conrad shared why he thought becoming an engineering manager might be a good path, his experience as an engineering manager, and why he decided to go back to the dark-side as a senior developer again.

On the surface, this might seem like "no big deal", but it is a big deal for a lot of reasons.

The first one is time. Take a minute to think about how precious your time is to you (maybe it isn't if you're reading Linkedin articles!). We all have 24hrs a day and a bunch of stuff to do. Conrad took the time to share his experience and an open and honest manner.

The second is being genuine. Genuine is not always easy. Especially when you are talking about yourself in a public forum. For example, thoughts like this might cross your mind, "man, he couldn't cut it as an engineering manager!". However, if you have great people (and we do, !check!), they will see the value in the genuine share and really appreciate it.

Here are some quotes about Conrad's article from another developer that read it.

"Really interesting article, thanks for sharing!" - Landon

--Collaboration--

Brandon Moore recently joined our ranks as the director of content. I personally have a passion for story culture within Vendasta, so I naturally sought out Brandon to make his life misearable.

I sent him my 23+ page 6-pager (I know), and various results from some story culture experiments. I ran through my ideas and plans for his team (I get excited), and the budget required and more. Brandon didn't just listen to my information, he quickly identified opportunities, like his 1-pager case study idea (super sweet).

Let me remind you that Brandon is new to Vendasta as director of content with his own team on top of learning our robust landscape. What did Brandon do?

Well, he's taken all of my meeting requests and event booked his own meetings with me to fully understand my thoughts around story / content opportunity.

In addition to that he's entertained meetings with a host of other people withing Vendasta that I know have a lot to offer.

I had a great chat one lunch with Josh Singh and immediately connected him and Brandon to ideate. The two of them are working on some ideas around capturing stories in video format to make it easier for our sales people to share them.

After meeting with some of our sales leaders, Jeff Davis stepped up to meet my challenge of incorporating story telling into sales objectives. Jeff not only embraced the idea, he immediately made it better. Again, I connected him and Brandon and the two of them are working on some great ideas for story capture.

It is important to pause for a moment and consider the fact that I am, more than likely, not the only person reaching out to Brandon and asking for his time. The fact that Brandon is making time for these efforts speaks volumes.

I feel extremely confident knowing that he is leading our content team right now.

--Leading the Way--

As part of our strategic planning, there is significant work to do around documentation and ensuring there is clear communication between all teams. Very early on, I was lucky to find Arnima Dhar (remember, we have 650+ people). Arnima loves to tackle complex problems and give them order.

I have met with Arnima a lot in the last few months and challenged her around strategic planning and management, and she has worked wonders. In addition to getting sh*t done, she is teaching others and having a multiplier effect.

When Arnima runs a meeting, that meeting is on-track and the outcomes are clear. Think about how many meetings you have been in and you are like ... what the h3ll just happened?

Just last night I stopped by Arnima's desk and she was jamming with Kristin Brown about how to improve our strategic management. It was after hours and both of them were excited and invested in making it better for everyone else.

I can always count on Arnima to approach a problem with rigor and full effort. I can also count on her to laugh at my dad jokes.

--Selfless Participation--

Earlier this week, I posted an internal article on an idea around our strategic planning. It outlined some ideas and included a bit of narrative. Before I even invited anyone to comment, there was participation.

Jenna Barth saw my page and was interested. She immediately offered encouragement and insight.

"I like the idea of planning week. It reminds me of the intent of Basecamp’s “Cool-down” - they take 2 weeks after a 6 week cycle where some people plan, and others fix bugs or explore new ideas" - Jenna

Jenna included a useful link and others chimed in with similar thoughts.

"Was going to say the same thing, but Jenna beat me to it. I’d put emphasis on this line from Cool Down [The end of a cycle is the worst time to meet and plan because everybody is too busy finishing projects and making last-minute decisions in order to ship on time.]" - Craig

Craig and others provided comments that poked, prodded, supported, questioned, strengthened, and improved the original article.

Take a second to visualize the experience. You take some time to share an idea. It might be a good idea, it might not. You click *post*. Nothing happens. Minutes pass, nothing. Hours pass, nothing. Days pass, nothing.

Now ... visualize this. You take some time to share an idea. It might be a good idea, it might not. As you are writing, you see comments and feedback! You haven't even finished and you have the support and interest of those around you.

Big difference.

--Heartfelt Support--

Illness, accidents, and death are all realities of being human. They can be horrible, and if you haven't experienced it personally, you probably won't fully understand.

In the past 6 months there have been a few real-life hardships experienced by that best at Vendasta. Without hesitation, the friends and colleagues of those individuals immediately provided support and rallied the hundreds of people at Vendasta.

I won't go into specifics, but what I can say is that these sincere efforts from the heart brought tears to my eyes.

Our best reached out to offer words of support, cooked meals, cleaned houses, and helped in any way that they could.

Our best found ways to create a supportive community that not only demonstrated visible support, but actually resulted in financial support that will have significant impact.

It's a story written in action, support, and love.

Weaveworld

I could fill Linkedin with examples, but let's step back for a minute and look at how those previous stories strengthen each other and weave together to create an indestructible fabric of common belief.

In the --Personal Journey-- we have Conrad who is not built for pure people management and process, but in --Leading the Way-- we have Arnima who is built exactly for this and more!

In --Collaboration-- and --Selfless Participation-- we see how these combined give us double-sun power!

In --Heartfelt Support-- it is easy to see how this powerful community of caring people will bring out the best in everyone through any situation.

Those individual stories highlight our people who are the BEST and who have clearly showed intent to DEVELOP THE BEST.

As stand-alone stories they are powerful, but when we take these stories and bind them into a powerful tome of genuine community, the impact is exponential. A true multiplier effect.

Thank you to all of you who prove every day that Vendasta truly HIRES + DEVELOPS THE BEST.