“I want to come work for you, but I don’t know what you stand for. I don’t really know what you are trying to do in the world. I tried reading your mission statement, but I don’t get it. In addition, I am not sure how you measure success. I am worried I won’t receive any feedback that will help me improve. I am worried that there won’t be any training or professional development opportunities. Your organization feels opaque to me. I have little sense of your culture.” As a hiring manager, I have heard variations on these themes over the years. Many of us put out job postings without understanding that we are asking somebody to literally put their livelihood, reputation, and future opportunity on the line to join our organization. They have a lot riding on us, we have comparably little riding on them. They are taking a huge risk, we are just taking a risk. Then, we are incredulous when we can’t find the perfect fit kicking down our door the moment we post a vacancy. “Where is everybody???” The problem is not the job market, it’s how we show up as an organization in that job market. If we want the “A” players, we need to create a place where “A” players will thrive. Then we need to communicate that we are that type of organization. We attract them, we don’t lure them.
With your teams, don’t get out of the way, do this instead
"Get out of the way!" I often hear some version of this sentiment when talking about building a culture to incentivize high performance teams. "You have to find the right people, equip them, and then get out of the way." People who talk about getting out of the way...