Jess

“That’s one small example, of a thousand that might happen over the course of an evening, of how a trusting team operates. And it’s why hiring is such a sobering responsibility. Because when you’re hiring, you’re hiring not only the people who are going to represent and support you, but the people who are going to represent and support the team already working for you. Morale is fickle, and even one individual can have an outsize and asymmetrical impact on the team, in either direction. Bring in someone who’s optimistic and enthusiastic and really cares, and they can inspire those around them to care more and do better. Hire someone lazy, and it means your best team members will be punished for their excellence, picking up the slack so the overall quality doesn’t drop. At the end of the day, the best way to respect and reward the A players on your team is to surround them with other A players. This is how you attract more A players. And it means you must invest as much energy into hiring as you expect the team to invest in their jobs. You cannot expect someone to keep giving all of themselves if you put someone alongside them who isn’t willing to do the same. You need to be as unreasonable in how you build your team as you are in how you build your product or experience. It’s also why you’ve got to hire slow. It’s so dreadful to be shorthanded that managers tend to rush in and find a body to fill the void. I know what it’s like to think, We need someone so desperately—how bad could this person be?”
― Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect