Who Do We Hire?
For the last few weeks, James has hosted a video meeting with our summer interns. During the meeting, each intern brings one observation from the previous week and ask one question about the business.
The observations have been humbling, and the quality of the questions exceptional.
This week one question revolved around the subject of hiring. More specifically, ‘what criteria do you use when choosing an employee for the Brindlee Mountain Team?’ Quickly James stated:
We look for people with great attitudes and a great work ethic.
We can train them on the skills required in the job.
At other times James has stated this concept this way: culture is a big deal, and we expect every team member to value and honor people (attitude), whether a team member, supervisor, customer, vendor, or a visitor to campus. At the top of our expectations is ‘integrity’ (ethic.) It is essential that we do what we say we are going to do, being honest in everything we do, whether that is coming to work on time or doing our job with excellence. If a person has these two, then they have the mindset and willingness to learn the ’skills’ to do the tasks of any position.
Brindlee Mountain is not alone following this model, some of the best and most prominent companies in the world do also.
Peter Schutz, from Porsche, says it this way: "Hire character. Train skill."
A hiring process focused on skills first will fill a position and see initial success, but it could disrupt the dynamics due to poor culture fit.
Warren Buffet says it this way: “Someone once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you."
We say: