Part 20 of 20 in How to Hire A Players: A Guide for Indian Founders← Part 19
This chapter emphasizes the importance of careful hiring for Indian founders. It contrasts the speed often valued in other areas with the deliberate approach needed in recruitment.
- Hiring mistakes can harm your company, similar to errors in medicine.
- Speed is beneficial in coding but detrimental in hiring.
- Follow the four pillars: scorecard, calm sourcing, biography-based selection, and honest selling.
- A Players hire A Players, while B Players hire C Players, risking company decline.
- Avoid making impulsive hiring decisions based on personal liking.
I have spent my life in two professions that punish sloppy selection. In medicine, the wrong person in a procedure room can harm a patient who trusted you. In investing, the wrong person in a founding team can harm employees, customers, and capital that trusted you. The settings differ. The ethic does not. You are responsible for who you allow in.
Indian founders are told to move fast. Speed is useful in code and in customer conversations. Speed is a vice in hiring. The market will not give you a prize for filling a seat on Tuesday with a person you will spend Thursday of next year trying to unwind.
Learn the four pillars. Write the scorecard. Source when you are calm. Select with biography. Sell without fiction. Fire with law and with speed when you were wrong. Do this yourself until the habit is in the company’s bones.
A Players hire A Players. The business then has a chance. B Players hire C Players. The company goes to the dogs, and everyone who warned you looks, in hindsight, like a prophet. They were not prophets. They had seen the movie before.
If these chapters help even one founder in Ranchi or Rajkot avoid a single desperate hire, the book has done its work. Share them with your co-founders. Argue with them. Improve the examples. Keep the standard.
And when you are next tempted to make an offer because you liked someone over filter coffee, go home, open the scorecard, and call a reference instead.
Dr Aniruddha Malpani, MD
Founder, Malpani Ventures
Frequently asked questions
Why is speed considered a vice in hiring?
Speed in hiring can lead to poor selection, resulting in future complications and the need to undo bad hiring decisions.
What are the four pillars of hiring mentioned?
The four pillars are writing a scorecard, sourcing when calm, selecting with biography, and selling without fiction.
How can hiring mistakes affect a company?
Hiring mistakes can lead to a decline in company quality, as B Players tend to hire C Players, which can harm the business.
What should founders do instead of making impulsive hiring decisions?
Founders should refer to the scorecard and call references instead of making decisions based on personal liking.