Is your company a victim of the law of diminishing expertise? A law that comes into effect the moment people starts appointing or promoting people less effective than themselves.
Organizations are generally started by 10s – hard – working, ambitious people with highly effective skills. They then appoint other people who appoint more people. Eventually, the company notices hat the new people aren’t as smart as they used to be. Why is this?
What happens is that the 10 hires a 9 and very soon the 9 starts hiring 8s or even 7s. At some point, new recruits go as low as 5s. If the organization is lucky somebody will realize that in such a scenario, the company will fall form good to mediocre to hopeless fairly soon.
Here are some suggestions for hiring 10s:
Set minimum education and qualification levels for each position. Publicize benchmark performance standards within the company so that everyone knows what a 10 is supposed to do.
Panel interviews can be quite helpful. And you should always ensure appointments and promotions are approved one level up. It ensures that a more senior, more experienced manager confirms or questions your decision.
Injelitis is word coined by the late C. Northcote Parkinson, a renowned British civil servant, in is book Parkinson’s Law: the pursuit of Progress (1975) which means each level of management is hiring down rather than hiring up. The same applies to promotions. Mangers, consciously or unconsciously prefer to promote people who are non-threatening, who will not challenge or demand too much of them. This is repeated down the line, spreading the disease even further.
There is no question that a major part of organizational success relates to appointing and promoting superstars and near superstars people who are committed to organizational and personal growth.
Organizations are generally started by 10s – hard – working, ambitious people with highly effective skills. They then appoint other people who appoint more people. Eventually, the company notices hat the new people aren’t as smart as they used to be. Why is this?
What happens is that the 10 hires a 9 and very soon the 9 starts hiring 8s or even 7s. At some point, new recruits go as low as 5s. If the organization is lucky somebody will realize that in such a scenario, the company will fall form good to mediocre to hopeless fairly soon.
Here are some suggestions for hiring 10s:
Set minimum education and qualification levels for each position. Publicize benchmark performance standards within the company so that everyone knows what a 10 is supposed to do.
Panel interviews can be quite helpful. And you should always ensure appointments and promotions are approved one level up. It ensures that a more senior, more experienced manager confirms or questions your decision.
Injelitis is word coined by the late C. Northcote Parkinson, a renowned British civil servant, in is book Parkinson’s Law: the pursuit of Progress (1975) which means each level of management is hiring down rather than hiring up. The same applies to promotions. Mangers, consciously or unconsciously prefer to promote people who are non-threatening, who will not challenge or demand too much of them. This is repeated down the line, spreading the disease even further.
There is no question that a major part of organizational success relates to appointing and promoting superstars and near superstars people who are committed to organizational and personal growth.
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