Preface
This book is for every manager, supervisor, entrepreneur, or executive who has ever had to hire people as part of his or her job. In each chapter, you will learn key ideas, methods, and techniques that you can use immediately to hire better people and improve their job performance once they begin and ever afterward.
Most people become managers accidentally. As the result of success, experience, promotion, or necessity, they find themselves responsible for the work of others. They have to find, interview, hire, and assign people whose work performance determines their own success. Their pay and promotion depend on the way that the people they have chosen do their jobs.
None of us is properly prepared in advance to select and keep the best people. It is both an art and a skill that can be learned only in the crucible of experience—and as the result of numerous mistakes. Often we look upon a vacancy as a problem to be solved as quickly as possible so we can get back to our “real” jobs. We overlook the fact that selecting the right people is at the core of our real jobs.
Once they have hired someone, rightly or wrongly, many managers are unclear or unaware of exactly what they can do and say to the employee to build and maintain loyalty, commitment, and enthusiasm for the job and the company. As a result, they often do and say things that hurt productivity and performance instead of increasing it.
If you recognize yourself in this description, this book is for you. It gives you a series of time-tested, proven strategies that work quickly to improve your performance in hiring good people in the first place and then getting the best out of them once they have started work.
You won’t find any great breakthroughs or secret formulas in the pages ahead. There are no abstract theories or complex systems. What you will learn are practical principles that are simple and fast acting. They will equip you to get better results from the first minute you apply them.
Most managers, no matter how experienced they are, do not know or do not practice these principles. They hire in a random fashion, relying on intuition and superficial clues from the candidates. They are uncomfortable with the process and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Once they have hired someone, they manage and motivate the employee in a random and haphazard way. Many managers actually look upon these interpersonal activities as distractions from their busy schedules, to be completed quickly so they can get back to work.
As you read this book, your attitude toward hiring and retention will change in a positive way. You will learn how to become an excellent manager in these key performance areas that determine your success in your career more than anything else you do. In one hour of reading, you will come up to speed on the critical ideas of hiring and keeping people practiced by the best managers in the best companies everywhere.
By faithfully referring to this book and by practicing the principles you learn, you will become one of the most effective managers in your industry. Your contribution to your organization will increase in value. Your sense of satisfaction and feeling of competence will grow. Your ability to get things done through others, faster and easier, will expand beyond your current level of performance and ability. Your future as a manager, supervisor, entrepreneur, or executive will become unlimited.