Written by: Mark Steele on September 21, 2013

Good to Great by Jim Collins has been one of my favorite leadership books ( Collins 2001). I Have had the opportunity to take a number of team members through the principles Collins articulates. One principle in particular, “getting the right people on the bus,” has challenged me for many years.

I remember one of my worst hires, Sue Knolls who I hired to become my Director of Nursing. She had a great resume, excellent recommendations and said all the right things in multiple interviews. I hired her and three weeks later, I discovered she was a closet alcoholic who had attendance problems and who began to undermine my authority. I had to release her within two months.

My next hire, Joyce Sheffer, was one of my best hires as Director of Nursing. She was competent, held employees to a high standard, was committed to customer service and quality of care for residents.

Why did one hire work out and the other not? What are ways to minimize a bad hire and maximize good hires? These are important questions I have mulled over throughout my career. I have had the opportunity to hire hundreds of people and here are a few principles I have developed over the years inspired by Jim Collin’s principle of getting the right people on the bus.

1. Hire people with a heart for people. People who care for others is not an attribute I can teach someone. I can teach the technical aspects of a job but heart for others is most important in social sector jobs like health care.
2. Can the person do the job? Does the person have the skills and the knowledge to do the job? I always review the job description and update it for the new need. I then craft questions focused on key aspects of the job requirements. I write past behavior question as I believe past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. For example, “Share with me a past experience you had with a customer complaint and how did you solve it.”
3. Is the person a team player? I like to ask, “Tell me about your best team experience? And how have you developed team work in your past job positions?’
4. Does the person fit our culture? After explaining what our culture is like, I like to ask “what do you think about that?” I also like to ask “what do you know about our company?” This tells me if they have done any research to find out about our culture.
5. I like to use multiple interviews as I believe more people can see different aspects others may miss in the interview. Typically I will choose the best resumes and follow up with a phone interview. Then, I will set up a personnel interview with myself. Once I have multiple candidates I like, then I set up a panel interview of other team leaders and a direct report to interview the top candidates. We use the same questions in each of the 1-4 areas and decide the best candidate after the round. If the panel cannot agree, we will continue the search process and repeat the process until the right person is on the bus.

Over the years, these principles have served me well in hiring good team members. Every now and then, a wrong person is hired. Once the conclusion is made that the person is not on the right bus or in the right seat, then I make the changes as soon as possible. If the change is not made timely, I have found keeping people causes much disruption to the team and costs the organization in many ways.

I am grateful to Collins and the concept of “getting the right people on the bus and in the right seat.”

Collins, James C. Good To Great. New York: Harper Collins, 2001.

About the Author

Mark Steele