Hiring People You Don’t Know Well — Tip of the Week

In the executive ranks, it’s common for a new CEO or other executive to bring in people he or she knows well. They’ve worked together before. A relationship of trust has already been established. Sometimes, a new CEO will bring a whole new team with him or her — a team he or she knows. But this doesn’t happen only in the executive ranks. All kinds of managers and supervisors and HR professionals are likely to do the same thing if the opportunity presents itself.

Just as a side note, hiring people you know has gotten some employers in discrimination trouble. If you are white and all the people you know well and have worked with closely in the past are white, the pool from which you hire won’t produce any diversity and may be used to show that the effect of what you’re doing is discriminatory.

But that’s not the main reason for this post. We can all understand hiring people we know well, have worked with in the past, are already trusted. There’s also something else that’s held in common. You think alike. What you’ve done in the past — which you still think was really good but may not have been — will likely be repeated,

The tip? Hire some people you don’t know well and haven’t work with. Not just anyone, of course, but there are lots of people out there with excellent credentials and experience you’ve never worked with and don’t know. Encourage them to challenge your thinking and disagree with you. Then listen and ponder. You may end up doing things your way, instead of the new person’s way, but you won’t all the time. You’ll have a more dynamic organization. These new people will also be good for the old people you bring with you.