Want A Great Team? Focus On Talent, Not Hiring

Editor’s note: Guest contributor DJ Patil is the Chief Data Scientist at Greylock Partners. He previously worked for LinkedIn as their Chief Scientist and Chief Security Officer. DJ can be followed on Twitter @dpatil.

One of the questions most founders always ask is about the key secrets to hiring.  What they need to understand is that there’s a big difference between “hiring” and “talent”.  I’m continually surprised how rarely I see people put down their strategy for talent compared to hiring. It’s so prevalent, in fact, you’ll often see on a company’s priorities a bullet of “hiring”.  And that slight shift in wording fundamentally sets up the wrong dynamics.  Hiring, is a sub-bullet of talent and if you’re focusing on hiring you’ll be quickly setting up a revolving door.  However, if you’re focusing on talent, you now can create a strategy to build a great team.In my experience of building teams in academia, government, and industry at different sizes, I’ve found three critical questions that help an organization create that shift to focus on talent.

1. Would we be willing to do a startup with you?

This is the first question we ask ourselves as a team when we meet to evaluate a candidate. It sums up a number of key criteria:

• Time: If we’re willing to do a startup with you, we’re agreeing that we’d be willing to be locked in a small room with you for long periods of time. The ability to enjoy another person’s company is critical to being able to invest in each other’s growth.
• Trust: Can we trust you? Will we have to look over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing an A+ job? That may go without saying, but the reverse is also important: will you trust me? If you don’t trust me, we’re both in trouble.
• Communication: Can we communicate with each other quickly and efficiently? If we’re going to spend a tremendous amount of time together and if we need to trust each other, we’ll need to communicate. Over time, we should be able to anticipate each other’s needs in a way that allows us to be highly efficient.

2. Can you “knock the socks off” of the company in 90 days?

Once the first criteria has been met, it’s critical to establish mechanisms to ensure that the candidate will succeed. We do this by setting expectations for the quality of the candidate’s work, and by setting expectations for the velocity of his or her progress.First, the “knock the socks off” part: by setting the goal high, we’re asking whether you have the mettle to be part of an elite team. More importantly, it is a way of establishing a handshake for ensuring success. That’s where the 90 days comes in. A new hire won’t come up with something mind blowing if the team doesn’t bring the new hire up to speed quickly. The team needs to orient new hires around existing systems and processes. Similarly, the new hire needs to make the effort to progress, quickly. Does this person ask questions when they get stuck? There are no dumb questions, and toughing it out because you’re too proud or insecure to ask is counterproductive. Can the new hire bring a new system up in a day, or does it take a week or more? It’s important to understand that doing something mind-blowing in 90 days is a team goal, as much as an individual goal. It is essential to pair the new hire with a successful member of the team. Success is shared.

This criterion sets new hires up for long-term success. Once they’ve passed the first milestone, they’ve done something that others in the company can recognize, and they have the confidence that will lead to future achievements. I’ve seen everyone from interns all the way to seasoned executives meet this criterion. And many of my top people have had multiple successes in their first 90 days.  There’s nothing better than being in a large meeting with one of the newer people on the team and hearing person A say, “Who’s that and why are they here?”. Person B, “That’s —- who did —- project.”  Person A, “Wow”.

3. In four to six years, will you be doing something amazing?

What does it mean to do something amazing? You might be running the team, leading the division, or the company. You might be doing something in a completely different discipline. You may have started a new company that’s changing the industry. It’s difficult to talk concretely because we’re talking about potential and long-term futures. But we all want success to breed success, and I believe we can recognize the people who will help us to become mutually successful.

I don’t necessarily expect a new hire to do something amazing while he or she works with us. The four- to six-year horizon allows members of the team to build long-term road maps. Many organizations make the time commitment amorphous by talking about vague, never-ending career ladders. But professionals no longer commit themselves to a single company for the bulk of their careers. With each new generation of professionals, the number of organizations and even careers has increased. So rather than fight it, embrace the fact that people will leave, so long as they leave to do something amazing. What I’m interested in is the potential: if you have that potential, we all win and we all grow together, whether your biggest successes comes with my team or somewhere else.

Finally, this criteria is mutual. A new hire won’t do something amazing, now or in the future, if the organization he or she works for doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. The organization must provide a platform and opportunities for the individual to be successful. Throwing a new hire into the deep end and expecting success doesn’t cut it. Similarly, the individual must make the company successful to elevate the platform that he or she will launch from.  The goal in the end is to create the next PayPal, or LinkedIn, Mafia.

Image: A1stock/Shutterstock

导读：LinkedIn前首席科学家DJ Patil曾撰写文章《Want A Great Team? Focus On Talent, Not Hiring》，分享他在组建团队方面成功经验。优快云对该文进行了编译，译文如下：

招聘是大部分公司创始人最关注的问题之一。而他们需要弄清楚“招聘”和“人才”之间的区别。大部分企业将招聘视为工作重点，而忽视了人才培养。如果企业只专注于招聘，那么企业员工的流动性就会加大；如果以人才培养为重点，企业可以通过制定一整套的策略，组建强大的团队。根据我多年来为企业、政府、学术界构建的大大小小众多团队的经验，我总结了三条原则，以帮助企业培养自己的实力团队。

1. 我们是否愿意和你一起创业？

当评估某个应聘者时，我们首先应该自我一下，是否愿意和他一起创业。这一原则可以具体分解为下面几个关键点：

● 时间：如果我们愿意和他共同搞好公司，这就意味着我们可以与他长期共同工作。愿意投入到他人创办的企业中，并享受工作其中的过程，对彼此间的成长是很重要的。

● 信任：我们相信你吗？只有在我们监督下，你才会出色的完成工作吗？反过来也是很重要，你信任我们吗？如果你不信任我们，那我们双方都会陷入麻烦之中。

● 交流：我们彼此之间可以快速高效地交流吗？只有充分的交流，我们才能长期共处，才能彼此信任。随着时间的迁移，我们才能配合默契，以高效的方式满足彼此的需求。

2. 入职90天内，你能在工作中取得突出的成绩吗？

如果第一条得以满足，那么营造好的环境帮助员工获得成功，就是下一个重要原则。在公司，我们会为员工设定好其工作质量及成长速度期望值。首先，让人兴奋的是：我们为员工设定较高的目标，以此来证明员工是否有足够的勇气战胜困难，成为精英团队中的一员。重要的是，这为确保成功建立了良好的合作关系。以90天为限，来考验新员工。如果90天内新员工的能力并未获得迅速提升，那他自然也不会为公司带来惊人的回报。这时，团队需要重新考虑新员工的培养系统。同样地，员工也需要为此付出努力。当遇到困难时，他会提出疑问吗？从来没有愚蠢的提问。自我感觉很牛，或心里不安而拒绝询问，往往会使结果更遭。新员工在一天内能开发出一个新系统吗？一周或更长？90天内完成一件惊人的事是团队和个人的目标，理解这点很重要。把新员工培养成团队中成功的一员是很重要。记住，成功是相互的。

这一原则的目的是培养新员工，帮助他们获得长期成功。一旦他们通过了第一个里程碑，所做的工作得到了公司其他员工的认可，他们将有信心承担引领公司走向未来成功的大任。我曾见过的所有从实习生逐步发展为经验丰富的高管的人，他们的成长都符合这一原则。我们公司中很多高端人才在入职的90天内均取得了多项成功。参加一个有新人参加的大会是最让人兴奋的事，在会上A问“那是谁？他们为什么会在这里？”，B回答“因为他们完成了XXX项目。”，A很惊讶“哇！”

3. 在未来四到六年内，你会有突出的成就吗？

什么才是突出的成就呢？你开始带领团队，开始做重要决策，也可以去创办新公司。你可以转去做完全不同领域的工作，你也可以开创一个新企业，以期改变所在领域。其实这个问题很难具体回答。我们现在正在谈潜能与未来成功。我们都希望获得面包，我相信我们终会遇到可以帮助我们，实现共同成功的人。

我没必要苛求一个新人做出什么惊人的事。四到六年的时间足以让团队成员对未来做一个长期规划。很多组织在大谈含糊且难以企及的职业生涯规划，往往让时间成为一种虚设。专业人士再也不会把自己大部分的职业生涯时间投入到某一公司中。所以我们要接受一个事实，就是被委以重任的员工终将会离开。而我们要关注的是员工“潜能”：如果你有潜能，我们就能获得成功，就能共同成长。

最后，这个原则对团队和个人的作用是相互的。一个企业如果不兑现它的诺言，新人就无法做出惊人的成绩。企业必须为员工提供平台和机会，帮助他们取得成功。同样，员工也需要为提升该平台做出努力。我们最终的目标是造就下一个PayPal、LinkedIn或Mafia。

作者简介：DJ Patil，Greylock Partners首席数学科学家，Color Labs前首席产品官。他曾在LinkedIn担任首席科学家、首席安全官；在eBay担任战略总监、分析总监、产品总监。（陈秋歌/编译）