CheatCodes - What Steve Jobs can teach you about self belief, a call to stop postponing yourself, 7 things I learnt about hiring
How to overcome doubt.
“The body you want is the training you postpone.
The talent you want is the practice you postpone.
The wealth you want is the uncertainties you postpone.
The life you want is the challenges you postpone.
Stop postponing yourself”
Read that three times and let it resonate.
7 things I've learned about hiring people.
One of the most frequent questions I get is about hiring people.
When should you hire? How should you manage your first employees.
Below are the 7 things I’ve learnt hiring 100s of people over the last 9 years.
Never hire without a proven process. Don’t hire a salesperson and say “get us sales”; instead, establish a clear method for them to follow.
Make the first 30 days clear and structured. Most hires fail due to unclear initial weeks. Instead of vague activities like “getting to know the product,” provide precise targets for what the first weeks + months should look like.
At the beginning, praise the small achievements. Get your employees used to receiving praise for good work. This builds momentum and leads to greater accomplishments.
Manage by inputs. Manage on the quality of their inputs, not vague outcomes. Don’t just ask your social media person for “traffic”, manage by engagement/ quality of posts - things they can control.
Never - and I repeat - never let B players hire. While they are competent and get the job done, they aren't superstars. Every organisation needs them, but if they hire, they’ll choose C players, lowering your overall quality.
Interview with a scorecard. List the top 5 tasks for the role and check off if the candidate has done them before. Only hire those who score at least 80%. This might seem time-consuming, but it's better than hiring the wrong person and starting over.
There is someone that you know you need to fire. But you don’t want to do that because you’re scared. We all have been there. Just do it.
What Steve Jobs can teach you about self belief.
This week's book excerpt is actually a video excerpt.
12 years ago, when I was 17 I came across this video by Steve Jobs and it changed my life.
It made me believe that I could impact the world in my own small way.
In a weird way, it’s his version of “breaking out of the matrix”.
I hope it has the same impact for you as it did for me.
