Hiring Wisdom: It All Starts Out With Who You Decide to Hire

I just came back from a conference where I listened to 10 different sessions on training, motivating, and managing frontline, hourly employees. I saw some great speakers and got some great ideas and advice.

The key take-aways from every one of the presentations, including mine, were:

It all starts with who you hire. (As Red Auerbach, the winningest coach in the NBA said, “If you hire the wrong person, all the fancy management techniques in the world won’t bail you out.”
Learn to hire tough.
Hire for attitude; train for skills.
Never settle for mediocrity.
Let your employees know what your expectations are up front.
Hold yourself and others accountable.
Hire people who are motivated (people who want to do a great job, who are eager to learn and do the job you are hiring them for). It’s impossible to motivate the unmotivated.
Unmotivated and mediocre employees rob your business of growth opportunities.
Have more fun at work.
Learn to fail fast (when a new hire isn’t working out, cut your losses ASAP and hire to more rigorous standards next time).

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.