The opposite is also true. Progressive businesses are taking the view that thorough planning is ill-suited for our super fast digital age. By the time you set a goal and begin working towards it, the target has already moved.

The truth is, that’s always been the case. Think about it. How often do your goals become obsolete due to an unforeseen force? Goals are inflexible, stubborn, and rarely fully met. At their worst, they create a good deal of guilt and leave you spinning your wheels when you should be driving on a different road altogether.

Preparing the meal for the following day is tonight’s work.

Your strategic plan should have one goal: to become flexible and fluent in improvisation.

It’s very easy to have direction without goals. The conversation should not exist in the isolated confines of a strategy session. The conversation should be always happening. When we’re working to clarify & refine our organizational intentions, we react to the direction of the present, rather than a tomorrow that’s yet to exist. Part of today’s work is to prepare for tomorrow.

If you’re struggling to write a captivating mission statement or the one you have needs freshening up, this guide is for you.

This has been one of the most popular corners of the website so I’m making it available again. And now it’s a totally frictionless download. Please download it and share it, pass the link around. http://www.scottmcdowell.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/anatomy.pdf

If you love the idea of having a sticky, easy-to-memorize, all-purpose statement that anyone can use to describe why your organization exists I’ve put together a ridiculously straightforward process for creating one. Along with the companion piece, 100 Missions, you have everything you need to write a killer mission statement and oodles of good examples to show you the way.

The guide is called The Anatomy of a Mission Statement (and how to write yours) and it’s free.

Click here to download it.

Browse the 100 Missions list:

Cover letters. At best they’re a window into a candidate’s actual writing ability. At worst, they’re a complete waste of time.

I think we should ditch them altogether. Here’s why.

I’ve read thousands of cover letters. Never have I once interviewed someone solely due to a cover letter. A lot of times they’re simply too generic, used for any number of different positions and companies. Sometimes they’re written by a friend or neighbor and not the actual candidate (which is usually obvious).

As someone managing the hiring process I spend only a few minutes per resume. I know this is depressing and sad, but it’s a fact. Most hiring managers spend less than that. I’m looking for key points in order to develop some thematic congruency with the job spec. After that I’m looking for a detail that stands out: specificity, a unique situation, leadership or initiative, strange and useful skills, or a an interesting quirk. The first goal of a hiring manager when running through a stack of resumes is to make that stack exceptionally smaller. Cull.

Cover letters create confusion. They add time. And they don’t really say much.  Candidates don’t know what to do with them. Employers hardly glance at them. Let’s all make a pact here and now to just simply ditch the cover letter. For the children.

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To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

Job boards are every hiring manager’s friend, until they’re your worst enemy. When you post a job online it’s a crapshoot. You’re counting on a ton of variables. You’re hoping the right person happens to be browsing the right website at the right time, and then makes the decision to contact you (instead of going off to check Facebook again.)

The odds aren’t good. And when you do connect, you’re often connecting with the wrong people. Piles of mediocre resumes flow through your Inbox, mixed in with potential winners.

The truth is job boards don’t really work, or at least should be looked at as augmentation to your hiring strategy and not the whole strategy. Here are three things to do instead:

Use your network. Hands down the surest way to find great employees is through the people you know. But be sure to ask them the right questions starting with (not ending with) “Who should I talk to next?”

Make a list of fantasy picks. People are more approachable than ever. Develop a target list: people who you think would be fantasy additions to your team. Maybe they were speakers at an industry event, or people you follow on twitter, or known experts. Track them down, tell them what you’re doing and approach them asking for help. Don’t give them the hard sell, go into with the intent to network, use them as a resource, not to poach. If the opportunity arises and there’s interest, they’ll speak up.

Try trade associations and other groups. Find the ‘watering holes’ where your potential candidates hang out. Where do they go for information? Aligning yourself with the right group gives you immediate credibility and can create introductions.

Job boards usually require more time and energy than they’re worth. If you do utilize job boards choose carefully. A well-targeted and well-traveled industry- or function-specific job board is eons more useful than the general kind.

What’s been your experience with job boards? Classic or dud?

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To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

In the book Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, there’s a rundown of Marshall Goldsmith’s “behavioral warning signs.” Things to look for in interviews that should put you on alert. It’s a good list. Marshall Goldsmith wrote the influential book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, and is considered the preeminent expert in all things leadership development.

Winning too much. “I would look out for people in the hiring process who boast about winning battles that do not matter that much.”

Adding too much value. “If you are talking and you throw out an idea, does the candidate try to add too many of his ideas to yours? If so, it implies that your idea was not sufficiently good on its own. It is a small indicator of ego gone awry.”

Starting a sentence with ‘no’, ‘but’ or however. “‘Yes, that is a great idea’ is the right answer. ‘No, I agree with you but’ is the symptom of somebody with an overactive ego who might be challenging to work with.

Telling the world how smart we are. “The unhealthy display is taking excessive credit, especially for a leadership role. For the leader, being all about ‘me’ is bad.”

Making destructive comments. “Making destructive comments about previous colleagues is a huge red flag. Because once this person works for you, he or she will make the same needless sarcastic comments about you!”

Passing the buck. “Blaming is always bad. Winners don’t blame.”

Making excuses. “Ask people what their challenges were. If they say that their biggest challenges were not their fault but other people’s fault, that shows they do not take responsibility for their performance.”

The excessive need to ‘be me.’ “Listen for comments like ‘That’s just me, I’m not organized.’ ‘That’s just me, I’m impatient.’ ‘That’s just me, I don’t include other people in decisions. That’s just the way I am.’ Beware. Somebody who has an excessive need to ‘be me’ is telling you that they are not open to adapt their style to fit your culture or your company should not be hired.

If you’re noticing one or more of these consistently, beware!

I read a lot. I like good writing and I like to bookmark. Every day I see a new article on the latest hiring trend. But there are certain pieces of writing on the process and philosophy of hiring for your company that stand out in a big way. They’re heavy with the whiff of experience. They’re rational and useful. I’m constantly referring them to clients and friends.

This list is heavy on the tech end of the industry spectrum. That isn’t intentional. If your business is not tech related, it doesn’t really matter. You’ll find fantastic hard-won advice and logical thinking on hiring creative people in any fast moving industry.

Here are excerpts from and links to my five favorite hiring articles on the web:

1. How to Find and Hire Great People, Part 1, 2, 3, 4 (from Adam Smith’s Blog)

This four-parter has probably been read by everyone in the Y Combinator orbit, or every tech start-up that’s hired anyone since 2009 for that matter. That’s because it’s to-the-point, practical and preventative in ways that many hiring articles are not. This piece is definitely written through a highly specific lens, but it’s in-focus and the high level tips–utilize your network, give homework, set the bar high but not too high–are spot on.

Building a network and using it to find the best people is a long term play.  CEOs who knew lots of people at Yahoo got a windfall when Yahoo started faltering, for example.  These events are rare and hard to predict.

You also can’t predict when you’ll get a phone call from a friend of a friend who isn’t happy at his current gig.

The best you can do is try to encourage these random events.  Meet lots of people, spread the word about what you’re doing, and be so awesome and excited that people remember you and your enterprise.

This is a great strategy overall, and will result in more frequent coincidences that result in positive results.

2. Wanted (from Rands in Repose)

There are two good reasons that I’m a fan of Michael Lopp aka Rands. He writes about business stuff that other people ignore and he’s a stellar writer. Reading his musings on management, software, and general geekery is doubly enriching. This article has a corporate-y spin, centered around the “req” process, but does well to highlight one essential element of hiring right: a clear, persistent, vocalized desire.

If you’re hiring well, you’re hiring people not just for this job, but for your career. These are the people who, for better or worse, will explain to others what it is like to work with you. They’ll explain your quirks, your weaknesses, and your strengths. When they eventually leave the group, they’re taking your reputation with them. You may never talk to them again, but they’ll continue to talk and my question is: what stories are they going to tell?

3. The Top 5 Qualities of Productive Creatives (and How to Identify Them) (99%)

This piece was written by Jocelyn Glei who edits my own posts for 99%. I’m a huge admirer of Jocelyn’s writing (and editing) and this is the piece that finally pushed me to inquire if I could write for her. Hiring any employee means making a reasonable guess of what a person will do at some point in the future. Therefore your tactics should center around teasing out the do. That means personal qualities and a well-communicated track record of events.

We tend to judge people based on their experience. This is, of course,  the whole basis of the resumé. Yet, while on-the-job experience is valuable, we must dig deeper. A better indicator of productive creativity is one’s willingness to act, to take the initiative to put an idea in motion.

4. Never Read Another Resume (Jason Fried for Inc. Magazine)

37 Signals honcho Jason Fried is known for his often contradictory and against-the-grain view of business building and process. I love his advice about doing every job yourself before hiring, and if you find that you really need someone, hire away  (though I don’t know how practical it is for every situation.) Jason’s advice boils down to this: you don’t have to do what everyone else does. Find your way.

I’ve run into a lot of companies that invent positions for great people just so they don’t get away. But hiring people when you don’t have real work for them is insulting to them and hurtful to you. Great people want to work on things that matter. Inevitably, a great person working on imaginary work will turn into an unsatisfied person. Then he’ll leave.

5. Cult Creation (Blog Newcomb)

Cult Creation is about building a team that acts like a cult: “a group of super high quality people who trust each other and have similar ways of thinking, learning, reacting, problem-solving and working together. ” Sign me up! Newcomb argues that the way to build a cult is through the hiring process. He clearly came to this conclusion by living it, and this comprehensive and informative review of his process is riveting, which is probably why it’s been read 39,000 times.

Never, ever make it easy to join your team.  In fact, make it very hard to join your team.  More talented people will respect this and be excited that it’s hard to join your company.  It is very important to A-level people that they work with other A-level people.  Publicly letting the world know that you have a very difficult hiring process will generally attract more A-level people and will scare off B-level people and below – making your job that much easier.

The reading you do before hiring is preparation. Hearing about other people’s stories may prevent you from making mistakes… or may not. In the end, finding a hiring process that works for your organization is something that comes with the framework of a well-built process and lots and lots of practice.

What are your favorite hiring articles? Let me have ‘em in the comments!

To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

“What kind of person do I need anyway?”

It’s an important question because many times business owners simply hire wrong. It’s not that their intentions are bad, it’s just that they’re not sure what they’re looking for and where to find it.

There are basically two categories you’re looking for: the volume of work and the area of work.

Volume refers to the type of employee: Full-time, Part-time or Independent Contractor.

Area refers the employee’s subject responsibilities: Management, Administrative, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Human Resources, Logistics, etc.

Typically the first hire is part-time or full-time and either administrative or a second technician (another YOU to share responsibility for your company’s deliverables). Of course, there are exceptions to the rule.

Before you can decide on the type of employee you need, you’ll have to do a bit of work. Even if you think it’s obvious, go through the process to be sure.

Assuming you’ve done the strategic legwork of getting clear on the long-term goals and aspirations for your business (you have, right?), the first step is to write down what you do. Everything. Think of each task. It may be helpful to go through a week and just take notes of all your activities. You’ll be surprised. There’s probably so much you do that you’re unaware of or is automatic. This is normal.

Once you have logged your tasks, it’s time to catalog them. What are the responsibilities that each task is attached to? Turn the task list into a list of responsibilities. Spending time to catalog your responsibilities is the first step in understanding what you need.

Now take out a sheet of paper and list all of your responsibilities down the left side. Make three columns at the top and write: KEEP, SHARE, and DELEGATE. Go through and make a choice for each responsibility. What would you like to continue to focus on? What would you like to have a hand in but share the responsibility for? What would you like to take off your plate completely?

This is not set in stone. In fact, you may need to complete it again later on in the process. From this document will eventually spring your ultimate position profile. At this stage in the game what you should begin to see is a clear picture of how much help you need (volume) and what function (area).

To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

The importance of building an exceptional team is occasionally minimized by creative business owners. It is a “secondary task” unrelated on the surface to the work we deliver to clients, often triggered under duress by an event: a huge new client project to ramp up for, the opening of a new office, the exodus of a few great employees, or market events that force a restructuring. For this reason hiring often takes on an urgent tone and is executed with haste or fear. No decision can have a bigger impact on the direction of your work and ultimately your ability to push your ideas to action.

Hiring exceptional people allows a leader to set strategic direction and then hand over incremental decisions to a smart and creative team. In Linchpin, Seth Godin uses the example of the fast and complex Japanese transit system which operates on schedule and on budget, not by top-down directive, but by a large pool of empowered employees making the best decisions in the moment. “Letting people in the organization use their judgement turns out to be faster and cheaper–but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.“

The trick is attracting those smart and creative specialists–who increasingly independent and set their own terms–and keeping them interested.

This talk will focus how to organize around and execute on building a killer organization. It will touch on the nuts and bolts of recruiting and hiring, interview techniques, how to think about designing an organization, and methods for keeping exceptional people motivated and doing great work.

Let’s eat some BBQ!

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Why hire? It’s a common question, especially from solopreneurs. There’s a resistance. You could be perfectly fine on your own or with a virtual assistant or contract administrator. The answer is not simple. It’s perfectly acceptable if hiring is not the right thing for your business. It’s not for everybody.

But taking the leap brings with it all kinds of benefits. If you’re clear on what you’re trying achieve you will reap the rewards of adding people to your team.

Grow

To put it simply, hiring helps you grow your business. It helps you have the time and space to focus on the building blocks–to be innovative and to develop new products and services. Adding people to your team will allow you to reach more customers and focus more deeply on the ones you already have.

Likely you got into this adventure because you wanted to be able to do the things you do best, to concentrate on your great work. And just as likely you got sidetracked by minutiae. It’s easy to be seduced by the freedom of business ownership, only to be surprised by the mundanity of the day-to-day. What if you could return to the excitement of busting out your best work? Adding team members will certainly add to your plate in a way, but it will also free up space to focus on what you do best.

Furthermore, you’ve probably recognized there are things in your business that you’re simply not so good at. Whether it’s finance, operations, sales or something else, there are elements that you thrive at (and love to do) and elements that you consider weaknesses. By hiring you control the balance between your strengths and weaknesses. You can shift around the pressure to get good at everything and focus on the things you do best.

Be Social

Working alone can be a drain. It’s fun to be on your own but it also can be isolating. Adding people to your business adds a sense of community to your decisions. It can help you stay motivated and accountable. Sharing your workload, sharing in the responsibility and working together can heighten the pride and satisfaction of your accomplishments.

One of the biggest benefits of hiring is having other people to bounce ideas off of. Innovation rarely happens in a vacuum. Even if you’re in a business group or mastermind to enjoy the camaraderie of business ownership and trade secrets, it’s still useful to brainstorm and problem solve with other people who are in the trenches. If there’s a perspective about your business that you’re missing, employees can help you find it.

Some Great Good

There’s an altruistic element to entrepreneurialism, especially in down economic times. Now’s your chance to reduce the unemployment rate. What if every caring, ambitious, creative small business you know of hired just one person? We’d put a dent in the unemployment number, improve the economy, and above all, help create favorable livelihoods for others. Your business can be used as a mechanism for positive change.

To learn more about Hiring Gold, go here.

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