Hire the Best
Most successful managers know, or learn by experience, that hiring the best people for $X pays off much better than hiring less than the best for less than $X. Usually the best people are insulted by offers of less than $X. The manager and company making the offer soon earn the reputation of being cheap. This is a liability. Word quickly gets around.
Some managers suffering from magical thinking are applying a mythical man-month principle by thinking that hiring two for the price of one produces twice the work. The fallacy of this thinking was exposed more than 25 years ago by Frederick P. Brooks in the classic “The Mythical Man-Month.” Twenty years later, the first revised edition of this book reaffirms the original principles.
The best people bring a wealth of experience and depth of understanding to a job that lesser experienced people are lacking. It’s wishful thinking that sending a lesser experienced person off to training will close the gap.
Anyone sent off to training may return with some more experience and a better depth of understanding. But even this incremental improvement doesn’t come close to closing the experience gap, and the ability to solve difficult problems.
There’s no substitute for experience and depth of understanding. Paying the price is a bargain. First rate managers know this. They know that the best people usually out performs several lesser experienced people combined. What a bargain!
Being a hiring manager for several years, one phenomena that ceases to amaze me is first rate managers hire first rate people, and second rate managers hire third rate people.
…John
Some managers suffering from magical thinking are applying a mythical man-month principle by thinking that hiring two for the price of one produces twice the work. The fallacy of this thinking was exposed more than 25 years ago by Frederick P. Brooks in the classic “The Mythical Man-Month.” Twenty years later, the first revised edition of this book reaffirms the original principles.
The best people bring a wealth of experience and depth of understanding to a job that lesser experienced people are lacking. It’s wishful thinking that sending a lesser experienced person off to training will close the gap.
Anyone sent off to training may return with some more experience and a better depth of understanding. But even this incremental improvement doesn’t come close to closing the experience gap, and the ability to solve difficult problems.
There’s no substitute for experience and depth of understanding. Paying the price is a bargain. First rate managers know this. They know that the best people usually out performs several lesser experienced people combined. What a bargain!
Being a hiring manager for several years, one phenomena that ceases to amaze me is first rate managers hire first rate people, and second rate managers hire third rate people.
…John
