Hiring Principles that Work

Throughout my career, I have read countless books on leadership strategy and heard many CEO’s speak. As it relates to hiring, which I deem as the most important decision an organization makes, none have made as big of an impression on me as businessman and author Jack Welch’s “4 E’s and 1 P,” which are described in his book "Winning."

Former Chairman and CEO of GE, Welch is a best-selling author and successful entrepreneur. Welch uses these 4 E characteristics (energy, energizers, edge and executors) and the P (passion) to govern the framework around which he builds winning teams. By doing so, Welch has found his employees to be “consistently effective, year after year, across businesses and borders.”

Let’s delve into each category:

Energy: You know when you meet someone that simply loves life. These people thrive on action and relish change. They are generally extroverted and optimistic. They enable your organization to have boundless energy and to be ready to accomplish the job at hand, moving at twice the speed of the rest of the world around them.

Energizers: These are the people that inspire others to accomplish seemingly impossible goals, and love doing it. Strong business knowledge and persuasion skills enable them to drive motivation and vision throughout an organization. They are selfless when it comes to giving others the credit and quick to accept responsibility for flawed plans.

Edge: Jack Welch states in his book that the “world is filled with gray. Some smart people can-and will-analyze those angles indefinitely. But effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call.” A fatal flaw in leaders is to constantly call for meetings to take another hard look at something. Leaders with edge know when the facts have been gathered and it’s time to make a decision. Sometimes those decisions are not popular or they come with intense work and discipline from the company. I believe that good leaders have to embody the courage to stand up for what they believe in and stand alone at times.

Executors: You can hire people with all of the other traits and it is meaningless if they do not know how to turn visions and the tough decisions into organized action that is driven to completion. Life is full of obstacles. I am grateful for them because they serve as deterrents to great success. I want to hire the people that are dedicated to driving directly through these obstacles and finding success. Success is about metrics and results.

Passion: You simply cannot and will not teach your team to have an insatiable desire for success. But if you hire an organization layered with team members that embody this trait, you have significantly improved your chances for success. I like to hire people that care about results, co-workers, the company brand, etc. You want a team of people that want each other to win and are there to lift up the ones who are down. These individuals are easy to identify because they are usually passionate about most everything life has to offer them.

After reading this book in 2005, I have not interviewed one candidate without having this in mind. Each role has a specific set of mechanical skills that are necessary for success, but I have chosen to only hire new team members that blend those unique characteristics with the 4E and 1P characteristics. The value of that discipline cannot be overstated. When you are building an organization made up of 25 to even thousands of employees, the consistency of these traits are vital to ensuring an energetic, driven, adaptive, growth capable organization.

Knowing the impact and influence that organizations leaders have, it is especially important that the leaders in the organization embody these traits. If you are a leader of leaders, you know the true gauge of an organization is the ability to overcome obstacles and consistently deliver growth year after year. I believe sincerely that surrounding myself with these types of individuals has been the key to our team’s success.