HIRING AND FIRING are two of the most important tasks of the manager, the person who is responsible for getting results through others. The first of these tasks is complex and uncertain, and the second is stressful and difficult. Both sets of skills must be learned through study and practice if the manager is to contribute his or her full potential to the organization.
The key executive talent is the ability to recruit, hire, and build a team of effective, competent people. In the modern world, all work is done by teams—by groups of people working together and interacting effectively toward predetermined goals. Therefore, the ability to select team members is critical to the success of the enterprise and to the success of the manager.
The information contained in this book is based on more than 30 years of recruiting, hiring, training, promoting, demoting, and firing men and women at all levels of business. It includes some of the best thinking on the subject by many of the top management experts and executives in the world today. In this book, you will learn methods you can use immediately to improve your hiring and firing abilities, to enhance productivity, to increase performance and profits, and to bring about higher levels of cooperation, teamwork, and harmony in your office or workplace.
Because individual human beings are so complex and unpredictable, even the best hiring skills will give you a success rate of only about 66 percent. One-third of the people you hire will probably not work out in the long run, according to the best statistics available on the subject. However, you can greatly increase the odds in your favor by following the recommendations in this book.
I started my career in business at the age of twelve, mowing lawns. I bought a lawnmower and went from house to house soliciting work and cutting the grass. I hired my first employee when I was thirteen. He was my best friend. I also fired my first employee at the age of thirteen—no longer my best friend.
Through the years I have hired hundreds of people. I’ve also fired hundreds of people over the course of my career, not all of them people who I had hired personally—I inherited some of them when I stepped into management positions.
Over time, I read the very best material I could find on the subjects of hiring and firing, and I continue to keep up to date on these subjects. I have taken graduate courses on personnel selection, attended talks, listened to audio programs, read an enormous number of books and articles, and studied, analyzed, and given a great deal of thought to hiring and firing.
What I am going to teach you in the pages ahead are twenty-one key ideas you can use to hire the best people, to help ensure their success, and if necessary, to fire people who do not work out well within your organization.
What you will learn are simple, proven methods and techniques that you can use for the rest of your career. Let’s get started.