Hire fully formed adults

Fred Wilson, one of my favourite and most committed industry bloggers, dropped this great bit on what you need from your team, especially when scaling your operation beyond the founder-centric hustle that may have grown you to series B financing. His excellent point:

"If you have executives that you need to spend a lot of time comforting and solidifying, that’s not good. Ideally your leadership team is your steadying force and if you are steadying them, then your setup is suboptimal."

I would add this: At all levels in your company, hire FULLY FORMED ADULTS.

It has been my privilege to hire many fully formed adults; and whether they were 23 years old or veterans, they made all the difference. What set these people apart was their natural ability to do great work, consistently and on a deadline - all this while being able to admit mistakes, show vulnerability when needed, speak up and keep the passive aggressive gaslighting out of the workplace.

If you have to teach this shit to people, then you don’t have fully formed adults on your payroll!

I encourage de-hiring decisions to have the same lens; though this can be harder. What if a person is otherwise technically excellent at their jobs, or holds the knowledge keys to your IP or key customer relationships but remains a heretic in the office? It’s a tough call. In my experience the effort to reform these folks can be astronomical. So, it’s better to pull the band aid off as soon as you can and remove them from the company. These decisions don’t always go over well so don’t forget to explain your choices to the rest of the team. Don’t be mean, be transparent about the lack of fit. It will do wonders for the rest of your workforce and the culture as a whole.