Episode167 - Forget the ‘A’ Players; How to Build a Better Team

Consider the unconventional org move as a scrappy founder. This episode briefly explains the mistake many high-growth founders make once they can hire a recruiting firm. Private equity has twisted much of the hiring ecosystem to suit itself, not you. Have a listen and LMK if you agree in the comments!

Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com

Please send feedback on this or other episodes to: admin@premiumgrowthsolutions.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Here's the thing that gets me about hiring. Everybody wants to have A players. I want a team of A players. I want the best of the best for my totally unknown high growth consumer brand. I mean, it's just never gonna happen. So you're gonna have to work more creatively with your orch chart. Sometimes you have to break the rules. And the biggest thing I can I can urge you to do is an unconventional promotion. So the reality is that you may be sitting on talent. That requires a Ted Lasso mentality. What if you had a sales analyst who is super high emotional intelligence? I know you're thinking that can't be true, but I've met these folks. They do exist on occasion. They may be introverted, but they can actually lead. Wow. And if you can lead, it doesn't matter where you're sitting in the org chart right now. You have to be willing as a founder to make unconventional promotions. So take a high analyst and make them the leader of a functional team because they know how to lead instinctively. Everything else that they haven't learned, they can rely on their teammates to help with, and they can also learn on the fly because leadership is learned on the job. That's true in a high growth consumer brand as much as anywhere else. The worst thing you can do is cling to a rigid belief, and I see it all the time, and it's promoted by private equity. This rigid belief that everyone has to be a resume flapping A-list player. They're looking for that high-growth consumer brand win on their resume, but they're actually jerks. They're gonna come in, they're gonna spend all their time polishing their budget, angling for more budget, moving things around, sitting at their laptop, not actually doing dirty work. Meanwhile, they're destroying morale, and you're sitting on somebody, suppressing someone who's higher EQ than the person you brought in, who just needs to be allowed to grow. It astonishes me that so many founders who've taken risks with their own money to start these businesses won't take risks in promotion. This is one area where you're gonna have to suck it up and take some risk. Because the reality is the hiring market isn't gonna allow every high-growth, otherwise promising consumer brand to attract a whole bunch of A players. It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna get this perfect resume pile. You gotta work with what you have, and that means you've got to promote emotionally intelligent, ambitious people who don't seem qualified for what you're going to ask them to do. And then you're gonna ask them to do it anyways. You're gonna believe in them and you're gonna pay them. And most of the time, I think you'll be s surprised what happens when you do.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Thanks for listening. Remember, Dr. Richardson has loads of resources for founders at Premium Growth Solutions.com.