Shaadi.com Founder and CEO Anupam Mittal recently emphasised how a firm with a driven workforce and a ground-breaking product or service might fail due to the hiring of the wrong management. The Shark Tank India judge also shared the three methods he uses to select senior leaders for his business.
"How do you kill a company? By hiring the wrong leadership! You can have a revolutionary product, a passionate team, and a booming market - all brought to their knees by a few bad decisions at the Leadership level," he said in a post on LinkedIn.
Mr Mittal said that entrepreneurs have many "fancy recruitment tools" along with "psychometric evaluations, and interview techniques" that assure a perfect candidate. However, only some of them are effective.
The Shaadi.com Founder wrote about how he chooses senior candidates for his company. Firstly, he said that he prefers to meet the candidate several times. "Everyone has their guard up during office hours and official interviews. The key is to be in a more relaxed environment and the best setting is over a meal - saves time too. Also, one such meeting won't do. You specifically need 3 and here is the brilliant hack -> If every meeting gives you more confidence, you got your hire. If you get more doubtful, move on."
Secondly, he suggested that employers should conduct "unnamed" reference checks for candidates. He said, "Named ref checks don't work. I use my own networks to find common connections and request them for a confidential 15-20 min ref check." The entrepreneur also shared his "PEARL" reference check theory. "P - Promise reciprocity E - Ensure confidentiality A - Ask targeted questions R - Retrieve critical insights L - Learn rehire potential."
Lastly, he highlighted that one should "hire builders". "What you want in a leader is -> High learning agility + Strong ownership + Outcome orientation + High degree of candor. 'Builders' are usually like that - they like to roll up their sleeves and get shit done. Preachers & politicians can create toxicity in an org, what you are looking for are scientists who love questioning the status quo and finding the right answers," he wrote.
Mr Mittal concluded and said, "Building a winning leadership team takes time, but hire correctly and you will cut down half your workload :)"
Since being shared, his post has amassed a lot of reactions on social media.
"Totally agrees with your points, hiring the wrong leaders can kill any company, it's better to train your existing leaders and promote them to this position," said a user.
Another added, "I loved your PEARL acronym . Each and every point enumerated is valid but people these days want it fast and so they rely on usual laid out easier path of psychometrics, interviews etc"
"Team work makes the dream work. Don't hire managers hire leaders," said a person.
"Very comprehensively explained!! I too always felt that Hiring Employees is much like Arranged Marriage.. you meet a few times in an arranged setup.. questions are asked to and fro.. if there is a basic or marginal liking, you say Yes! Then the usual story continues...." said a user.
