**Excerpted from the book Firesoul Leadership: An Entrepreneur’s Blueprint for Fueling Growth, Igniting Creativity, and Crafting a Culture of Compassion (Amplify Publishing, 2024) by Ulla Sommerfelt.
Your company culture will be influenced by the people you hire as you scale your company, so you’ll want to be intentional about deciding what kinds of people you attract to your team. What words would you use to describe the group you have in mind? You may be seeking employees who are passionate, creative, cooperative, or some other combination of traits. The characteristics of your ideal team will be unique to your culture and may evolve over time. To find whoever you’re searching for, go find them where they’re at and declare, “You! Yes, you! We want you here! Come make magic with us!”
If we’re honest, most entrepreneurs tend to hire their friends rather than spending money to recruit the best people for their team. This nepotism can feel safe but comes at the cost of a thriving culture and can end up being far more expensive than hiring strangers in the long run. We think we know what we’re getting when we hire people from within our personal network, but this often results in a homogenous culture lacking in diversity of thought. Hiring a recruiter, talent manager, or headhunter is money well spent, as it will save you the headache of having to pay and eventually dismiss employees who end up being a bad fit. Recruiting with intention will also allow you to build diversity into your team, which is great for business. There’s no edge to be had within the confines of your comfort zone, so try not to surround yourself with employees who think and act just like you. “Yes-men” bubbles are where innovation goes to die.
As you plan your recruiting approach, take some time to understand your start-up’s current reputation. Looking in from the outside, people in your industry have likely formed an impression of what working for you would be like. How do outsiders view your start-up, and what gave them the impressions they have? What do people know (or think they know) about your company before they apply? What expectations will they bring to the table if they’re hired? Have they gotten the impression that “bringing their whole selves to work” will be encouraged? Do they see potential for long-term career growth? Will the office vibe be hectic or calm? Isolating or collaborative? What will their day-to-day routine be like?
Amid the cutthroat competition for highly skilled people, many companies have gone overboard in recent years by hiring ad agencies to make glossy recruiting videos that look fantastic but end up ringing hollow. Moves like this are a death knell for retention. Everyone’s sick of getting sucked in by promises like, “People first!” only to later discover, yet again, that the only people who truly seem to matter are investors. If you disappoint your new hires with fuzzy, empty promises, you’ll lose their trust right away, and rightfully so. The decision to work for a new company is a huge life transition, particularly for those who agree to relocate in order to take on a job. Take that for granted, and resentment will ensue before your new people have even made it through training. You might get away with presenting externals with a false image of your culture, but not your team. They’ll always find out the truth eventually, and once they do, outsiders will hear about it online. Then you’ll really have trouble attracting the right people!
If you’re going to create a solid culture that scales well, hire a team that offers both high cultural engagement and high performance. Any other alternative won’t do. Clearly, those with low cultural engagement and low performance are to be avoided. But you may have candidates who are crazy about your culture, charismatic, and popular with the team. These people are to be avoided, along with those who perform well but are willing to crawl across dead bodies just to reach their goals. You can’t have a healthy culture full of bad apples who sell well and bring in the bacon but make life hell for everyone around them.
Consider using this diagram to guide you through the hir- ing process while making decisions. It can also be used to gain clarification later on, when you learn more about the people you’ve actually hired. Maybe they weren’t the high performers or culture contributors you thought they were, or maybe you’re going through changes and need to reevaluate the fit of your team members for the future.
Let’s discuss the different types of employees:
The Phantom Underachiever:
Low Performer, Low on Cultural Engagement
Obviously, these are the people you don’t need in your organization, so let’s not burn calories discussing them here.
The Net-Positive Firesoul:
High Performer, High on Cultural Engagement
These are the net-positive contributors we’re looking for. Not only are they good at their work, but they also have the positive energy and initiative to contribute to your culture and even make it better. They grow both professionally and personally, and at best they also contribute to their colleagues’ and team’s performance and growth. These are the future leaders of your company.
The Egocentric Genius:
High Performer, Low on Cultural Engagement
It’s easy to be blinded by the high performers during interviews, but beware the solo players and the ones who will do anything to achieve their goals. It’s painful to let them go because they will improve your numbers, but with bad behavior, they can be very damaging to your culture. They become role models for others for their high performance, but also for their problematic behavior. Soon, you can end up with a toxic culture due to the arrogant attitude of one initial person. The egocentric genius can learn to change their ways, of course, but only if they’re open to learning and acknowledge their blind spots first. This process can be hard, and I personally find it harder to move the egocentric genius to become lovable performers than to move the socialite slacker, our next employee.
The Inefficient Socialite:
Low Performer, High on Cultural Engagement
A charming person who seems to fit right in might also slip through the cracks if you’re not paying enough attention to that person’s actual performance. People with high cultural engagement easily become popular with colleagues and clients. They might be the ones arranging informal events, telling fun stories, and creating laughter around them. They might also be the ones who always have something sad happening to them and attract the empaths to feel sorry for them. Either way, they become “time thieves,” who offer low performance while letting others do the heavy lifting. They might be a popular “people person,” but if they don’t do the job, others will have to do it instead. An inefficient socialite can learn to perform better with good leadership, so there should always be an attempt to help them set goals, give them direction, and inspire them to improve their performance before any decision to let them go.
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