SPOTAK: The Six Traits I Look for When I’m Hiring

I believe deeply in Empowerment. I’m not a micro-manager, so I want to make sure my team is empowered to lead, execute and grow. In turn, hiring and retaining the right people is my most important job.

At the end of the day, hiring and retention is about building a robust culture and having your leaders live and breathe it every day. From Diapers.com to Jet to Walmart, I’ve seen it over and over again – with the right culture and right people, you can achieve unparalleled results. I’ve found people with certain traits are most likely to shine on my teams. When I’m interviewing, I ask a bunch of questions, but what I’m really trying to suss out is one thing: do they pass the SPOTAK test? SPOTAK stands for:

Smart. Education and accomplishments are indisputable measures, but I’m not looking for just “smarts.” I want to know: can they apply their knowledge to other parts of the business or are their reasoning skills tied to their expertise? Do they have an analytic mind that can crack tough problems? Are they fundamentally curious? What are they reading or learning about right now?

Passionate. Compensation can motivate, of course, but positive energy and dedication generate momentum that lasts. You want missionaries, not mercenaries. Is a candidate excited about the purpose and mission of the job? Do they believe their work will make a difference? Even more so, are they passionate about something in their life overall? I don’t care if it’s English Literature, AI, model trains, genetic engineering or social psychology. I just want to know that they have a fire inside of them to drive forward. 

Optimistic. Big change requires big ideas. And big ideas require a sometimes na?ve belief that you can accomplish anything. I want people who believe anything is possible – who never say the word “can’t” and especially never say, “Sorry, we tried it before and it didn’t work.” But to crack big challenges, you need a team to work together and that’s where you get the other crucial pillar of optimism: trust in others. When you start with the belief that people are fundamentally good, and your team believes everyone has the ability to be great, anything is possible.

Tenacious. Cracking tough challenges is not for the faint of heart. Say they’ve invested weeks and months without success - what do they do next? I want people that never stop and find a way no matter how arduous the path. When I was at Diapers.com, there was one crucial brand in a small, but important category that controlled 80-90% of the market – and they wouldn’t sell on our site. It hurt. I spoke to the CEO many times…no luck. I even rented a billboard near the CEO’s home to advertise Diapers.com…no luck. I finally started going to local retailers and buying them, just to make sure we had them for our customers. Unhappy he wasn’t in full control of his product, the CEO finally relented and we became great partners.

Adaptable. But being tenacious is not about being stubborn. It’s more than just about running into the same wall over and over again. I want to know: Are they learning from roadblocks and re-assessing along the way? Do they have the humility to be open to new ideas no matter how harshly it contradicts their closely held beliefs? Are they learning…from anyone willing to share with them, and taking that information in? Are they willing to not just change their approach, but even change their whole strategy? There should never be sacred cows, but sometimes making a 180-degree change is the best thing for you, your team and your business. At Jet, we launched with a paid membership and marketplace-only fulfillment; my whole leadership team reiterated that strategy over and over again in our early days. But as we learned more, we made a wholesale change and we were a lot better off because of it. And the team – the entire team – adapted well because we had hired for this critical trait.

Kind. Sometimes I forget about this one. Not because it’s the least important, but the opposite: kindness is so fundamental to the culture I want to build, it’s simply a given. I want to build collaborative teams that foster Trust, Transparency and Fairness. And the underpinning of each of those and much more is the not-so-simple act of being truly kind and empathetic. When you have an environment that is safe, inclusive, and kind, you generate a diverse workplace and people bring their whole true selves to work. It creates an environment people want to come to every day and creates a springboard for step-change improvements for our customers and business.

In summary, once I’ve found someone with these traits, it’s up to all of us – me, the hiring manager and the individual - to put them in a position to activate those qualities. When leadership is openly trusting, these traits shine through. Smart, Passionate, Optimistic, Tenacious, Adaptable and Kind. I call it SPOTAK and it’s worked wonders for my teams.