Hooked on Paying Down Talent Debt - Issue 7
The definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over, thinking you’ll get a different result.
We’re just going to say it. Growth at all costs didn’t do you any favors. Your team over-hired. Your hiring bars went unchecked, leaving you with an 80/20 workforce (20% of your employees are doing 80% of the critical-path work). A silent killer is creeping through your organizational consciousness, robbing your startup of its full potential. That killer? Talent debt.
What’s Going On:
We all know technical debt. It’s the consequence of software development decisions that result in prioritizing speed or release over the most well-designed code. But we’re not here to debate software. We’ve talked with many startup leaders who are right now grappling with an accumulation of talent debt. They are seeking answers to solve for subpar performance rooted within pockets of their company. But how did they get here? When startups grow fast, it feels counterintuitive to slow down and define your hiring bar. Often this information is loosely known, left inside the heads of the founders but not defined in a way that is consumable to everyone else. This invisible bar becomes a guessing game, leading to unfavorable hiring outcomes that get harder and harder to rectify.
Why It Matters:
Left unchecked, talent debt can be a real drag on the growth and acceleration of your business. It can also drag down morale, undermine your culture, and be a talent detractor. Continuing to hire talent that doesn’t meet or exceed your hiring bar dilutes your talent density over time. When you choose to retain a mediocre performer, you are also choosing to forego the potential benefits of hiring someone who can help your company reach its goals and achieve a positive return on investment. In a startup, this return matters.
What Others Think:
“So many leaders talk about raising the bar on talent, but they’ve not actually done the hard work upfront to define what good looks like. Yes, they may have general values and behaviors they screen for — good, that’s part of it. But equally important is driving alignment on things like how hands-on an engineering leader needs to be, how to weight things like tech vs. soft skills, how to balance speed with quality and diversity, what’s a dealbreaker, and what’s easy to train on. Defining is hard. Aligning the teams is harder and takes a ton of leadership. But once you get that figured out, you get quality, at scale, because it’s embedded in everything talent related.” - John Vlastelica, CEO of consulting and training firm Recruiting Toolbox and former Amazon Talent Leader.
What We Think:
Stop the insanity. The sooner you can demystify what good looks like by pulling this information out of the heads of founders, the better. Taking these steps now increases your team’s confidence in hiring great talent moving forward. Just as it’s important to understand the signals for success, it’s equally important to identify the signals for noise so your team can know the difference. Once you define the elements of your hiring foundation, you can then feed these inputs into your hiring process. Not sure where to start? Try the “take action” steps highlighted below. We’ve also included several free resources in this week’s tools section.
What do YOU think?
Take Action:
Founders — stop thinking your growing team can read your mind. Take the time to articulate your “hiring blueprint” so these attributes can be validated across the team.
Make a list of all your top performers across the functional areas. Conduct focus group interviews and find out how they get their work done. What attributes do they possess that makes them great at their role?
Validate these people are top performers. Bias can come into play here. What we think isn’t always what is true.
From there, create a framework your entire team can understand and consume. These are the identified attributes of your hiring bar.
Train all leadership on what this framework is and why it’s important. Prioritize anyone involved in the hiring process first, followed by the rest of the organization.
Assess your current employee base against validated criteria. Identify gaps and tradeoffs. This will help you implement training and development opportunities or commit to bigger discussions surrounding long-term fit. This may sound harsh, but it’s not intended to. The greatest disservice any company can do is keep someone on board who is not aligned with the needs of the business.
Tools, Events, Insights
Recruiting Toolbox → Free resources on bar-raising, improving interviewing, and creating a culture of recruiting.
Aspiring for Intelligence → Search Wars: 2023
Insights → What is ChatGPT Doing... and Why Does It Work?
Hey! Entrepreneurs → Take the Leap!
Thanks for sharing, Audra and Shannon!