This week we continued Chapter 7 (team) with the topics of growth management and hiring.
Formatting note: I’m trying to strike a balance of codifying the useful tips the book covers, but we as a group skip because we don’t have anything noteworthy. Sentences in italics are those where we spent time discussing; non-italics represents elements worth sharing but without discussion in the group.
Growth Management
- “Once a year, you need to put together a growth-management plan for each person on your team.”
- Put names in boxes, temporarily: poor performance (strong signs of improvement), poor performance (no signs of improvement), good performance, growth, stability.
- “Find someone who is familiar with the work of the people on your team but not as emotionally attached as you are — your boss, a peer, an HR person.”
- “If a lot of your peers are also doing growth-management plans, it’s a good idea to compare notes.” Geoff appreciates this approach; no one has all the answers, so learn from one another. Jameson said Lirio is working collaboratively to share notes about performance. Houston asked how that would scale beyond 75 people. Layers of abstractions help with some overhead, and you’re not very effective managing more than 8-10 people.
Hiring: Your Mentality and Your Process
- “All hiring is flawed and subjective, and these drawbacks cannot be fixed; they can only be managed.” Jameson added that not unlike personal relationships (e.g., roommate, spouse), you don’t get to see the true fit until they’re well in it.
- “Job description: define team ‘fit’ as rigorously as you define ‘skills’ to minimize bias.” If you hammer people on this, you should find out rather quickly whether or not you should continue. Jamie said candidates shouldn’t even make it to the skills assessment if they can’t pass the team fit. You can craft questions to figure out how someone would handle various situations (e.g., “What do you do when you discover a critical bug no one else is talking about?”).
- Jamie said you should be able to take everyone on the interviewing team and have them come up with the same answer to the question, “Who are we hiring for this role?”
- “Blind skills assessments can also minimize bias.” “…ask potential candidates to do a project or solve a problem related to the job they’re applying for.” Geoff wondered how common this practice is, given most roles are solving complex problems. Jamie said the company Headspring does this. You as a candidate talk to the team, and if they like you, you contract with them for about twenty hours of work over two weeks (outside of your regular job). The aim is to discover how you work and use the tools, your habits, how you ask questions.
- Jameson said it can be hard to put your best foot forward as a new employee because you’re trying to grasp all the concepts, get onboarded, etc. which takes a good deal of time.
- Sentry One has a standard developer candidate assessment. Another approach we discussed was asking candidates to work on bugs. Jameson countered with, “What if you give different people different problems, as you may no longer be comparing apples to apples?” Dennis added that it could even be a relevant data point if the person can’t solve the bug (or assigned task) in the time frame expected by the company. It could expose a different problem that the company didn’t see. It’s not about the answer; it’s about whether you can you find answers you may not know already.
- “Use the same interview committee for multiple candidates, to allow for meaningful comparisons.”
- Are interviews super-involved because there are so many things we need to assess? Would the candidate go above and beyond outside their jobs for such a large task? We all agreed that they should at least be paid for their time. Jamie said his ideal interview is one where he spends an entire workday with the team and learns what it’s like to work with them.
- “Casual interviews reveal more about team fit than formal ones.” … “An executive I know who’s a great hirer always walks candidates to the car.” Geoff found this creepy and odd.
- “Make interviews productive by jotting down your thoughts right away.”
- Jameson asked whether some opinions should carry more weight than others (e.g., hiring manager vs. head of finance who has no knowledge of the role). The author suggests a panel of four people to get a diverse observation set. Geoff said he’s seen arguments for both sides (i.e., needing to have 100% agreement vs. some dissent).
- “In-person debrief/decision: if you’re not dying to hire the person, don’t make an offer.”
- Jameson asked the group whether any of us have ever seen a “no assholes” rule. Jamie said it’s important to watch how candidates treat administrative and janitorial staff.
- We talked about a scenario where a candidate says insensitive things on their personal social media. This should be fair game for the potential employer to consider because you need to protect your business and how it’s indirectly perceived through social media. It’s also appropriate to bring up social media policies during the interview to clarify expectations.
- “A good way to ensure that everyone is on the same page is to schedule a one-hour meeting with a fifteen-meeting ‘study hall’ time at the beginning so everyone can read everyone else’s feedback.”