Always Hire the Best. Your Future Self Will Thank You.

Jake Wilder
Jul 24, 2017 · 5 min read
(Courtesy of aitoff on Pixabay)

“Always try to hire people who are smarter than you. Always take a chance on better, even if it seems like a potential threat.” — Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

Always hire the best. Straight-forward enough. Advice that most people would agree with. Yet I’ve repeatedly seen managers shy away from it.

And I’m no exception. I’ve had to catch myself from rationalizing away second-rate choices.

The threat that Ed Catmull refers to isn’t just the obvious one. Yes, there’s the threat of hiring my potential replacement. But the more common threat is the one to my ego. And to my comfort.

The best employees have the highest expectations. They bring excellence and expect others to respond in kind.

Which is intimidating.

The same logic applies to my manager, peers, and customers. If I work with the best, I’m expected to be one of the best.

It’s much safer to work with second-rate people. People who have lower expectations. Expectations that I know I’ll meet. Then I’ll be safe. And comfortable. The only problem is that I’ll be second-rate as well.

A Constant Feedback System

Most of us have heard Jim Rohn’s famous saying that we’re the average of the five people we spend the most time with. It loosely touches on the law of averages — and whatever we believe regarding the technical accuracy of the statement — there’s little doubt that our relationships greatly influence us. The people around us influence our thinking and our perspectives. Both of which define our actions.

In Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday discusses mixed martial arts champion Frank Shamrock and his plus, minus, equal system. The concept centers around the idea that to be great, everyone “needs to have someone better that they can learn from, someone lesser who they can teach, and someone equal that they can challenge themselves against.”

The system creates multiple feedback mechanisms, all designed to push the depth of our knowledge and abilities.

Which makes it all the more critical to constantly surround ourselves with the best people.

Plus — The Best Employees Are Teachers

“Amateurs might lack formal training but they’re all lifelong learners, and they make a point of learning in the open, so that others can learn from their failures and their successes.” — Austin Kleon, Show Your Work

I’ve had the pleasure of working with countless people so far in my career. Strong performers come and go. There’s rarely a shortage of people who can accomplish a task correctly. But the best employees don’t just perform at a high level. They also raise the performance of those around them.

The best employees want to share their knowledge. They want to help others develop and grow. They take pride in their work and want people to understand their methods.

Partially because they want us to understand their contributions. But mostly because they simply enjoy adding this value. And they understand that by sharing their methods, they extend their influence far beyond their own accomplishments.

High quality employees thrive in this role. We just need to trust them enough to let them help. And respond with genuine curiosity and interest.

Minus — The Best Employees Are Learners

“There are many forms of equity, and few of them involve cash. When you invest time or resources into someone’s success or happiness, and your payment is a share of that outcome, you become partners.” — Seth Godin, Linchpin

Just as the best employees want to teach and help others develop, they also want to learn. They’re committed to a lifetime of growth and development.

We all have skills and specialties. These employees provide us with an opportunity to teach these skills.

And teaching is more than just regurgitating concepts off a Wikipedia page. It’s more than asking questions that we already know the answer to. And it rarely includes just telling someone a solution so we can all move on.

Teaching requires us to master knowledge at a first-principles level. That’s what it takes to explain concepts in a relatable manner. And to overcome the inevitable skepticism that comes when people struggle to learn something new.

Because the best employees aren’t satisfied with just the answer. They need to understand the method. They need to see that it’s defensible and repeatable. Otherwise it’s not reliable. And we don’t truly understand it.

Equal — The Best Employees Are Competitors

Josh Waitzkin, on Tim Ferriss’s podcast (and also documented in Tools of Titans), discussed the difference in training practices between top Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters with the following thoughts:

“It’s very interesting to observe who the top competitors pick out when they’re five rounds into the sparring sessions and they’re completely gassed. The ones who are on the steepest growth curve look for the hardest guy there — the one who might beat them up — while others look for someone they can take a break on.”

The best know that the only way to keep growing is to push ourselves against the top competition. Someone who will force us to stretch beyond our current limits and help us see how we can improve for next time.

If we’re not driven to keep competing then we’re content with today’s success. But today’s success quickly becomes tomorrow’s mediocrity. And if we’re complacent now, we’ll likely be complacent then as well.

If we expect to build off competitors’ skills, we need to surround ourselves with those who will have skills that are worth building off of.

So How Do We Choose the Best?

Maybe this is the real question. And the truth of the matter is that I don’t really know the answer.

Anyone who’s hired people has a record of successes and failures. Some who’ve exceeded every expectation. And others that have been less effective.

And “best” is hardly an objective term. It’s difficult to write out a job description and hope to fully capture this level of value.

So through all of the other evaluation criteria that comes with each job, I try to ask myself one main question.

Will this person challenge me to be the best leader I can be?

If that answer is yes, then I’m usually making the right choice.

If you enjoyed this or have any suggestions, please let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear from you. And if you found this helpful, I’d appreciate if you could click the 💚 and help me share with more people. Thanks and have a great day.

Jake Wilder

Written by

Enemy of the Status Quo.

Multiplier Magazine

Multiply your business: Articles to help independent professionals take their business to the next level. Marketing | Business Development | Sales | Operations || Write for Multiplier: multiplier@rosypost.com

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