Whoa.
We have received thousands of comments, scores of e-mails, and a bunch of phone calls in response to our last two columns, Three Kinds of People to Fire Immediately and Three Types of People to Hire Today.
So, what are the takeaways?
The biggest one is this: Whether you are a happy or unhappy worker, a good or bad manager, an enlightened or naïve leader, you deserve the team you get. Said differently, we all play a role in what our teams and companies become. We must choose to take control of the results or risk making ourselves victims of the situation.
Either way, we must live with the results of our choices. For some, this means complaining more; for others, it means leaving for another opportunity, and for others still, it means creating a different reality.
Your authors aspire to be creators and prefer to hire and inspire creators as well. If you’ve built a culture of innovation, we presume you agree and act in kind.
The next biggest insight was this: People want to create new products and services because it is rewarding, but it is one of the hardest things for a culture to do.
And what follows from that insight is this one: You want to make your company a safe place for everyone, because fear is the enemy of invention. To do that requires the right kind of colleagues.
More specifically, you want to hire people who:
1. Challenge themselves and everyone around them to co-create the best ideas. “Good enough” never is.
2. Have an entrepreneurial mindset. No, they don’t need to have started a company in their past or even have had a lemonade stand as a kid. Entrepreneurs—and people who think like them—love solving challenges. The tougher the better. The entrepreneurial mind leads to creation. It reveals opportunities where others see problems. Show us someone with an entrepreneurial bent, and we’ll show you a person who feels completely in control of his or her choices and the outcome.
3. Complement one another. An organization filled with right-brained, divergent people will probably come up with an endless string of new ideas but lack the discipline to carry them to fruition. A left-brain-dominated, convergent culture will execute well, but the quality of the ideas could be lacking. In our experience, the most innovative companies and the most enlightened leaders have found a balance that allows the team to identify and focus on the most important insights, create differentiated ideas to meet them, and execute the ideas with precision. Is your team in balance? How about your leadership style? Does it create imbalance?
And as team captain, you want to make sure you do those three things yourself. We cannot stress that enough.
And now, at the risk of triggering hate mail again, let us underscore whom you simply have to fire if innovation is your charge. When faced with any of the following three types of destructive and consistent behavior—and you have found it impossible to change the chosen mindset that produces it—say goodbye. Quickly.
But first a disclaimer: We hate letting people go. We think you should, too. A termination often indicates that the company has failed the person. So we agree with the many angry readers who have suggested that you must strive to hire only people with the right DNA and then surround them with managers who make them even better. Then and only then, do you fire them if they don’t improve.
Now on with whom you should terminate:
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