The Why of Recruiting

In a recent podcast, Adena Hefets, CEO of Divvy Homes, reminded her audience why recruiting is so important.

When I first started Divvy, I did everything and felt like I needed to maintain control.

But over time, I realized that spending 20% of my effort on five different “jobs” was not as effective as hiring one talented person to spend 100% of their effort on a single job.

The purpose of adding great people to your team is to multiply your efforts–it’s the most productive work you can be doing.

Any time you’re pulled away from this work, you’re giving up your opportunity to multiply and reducing your long-term effectiveness and ability to grow.

Later in the podcast, Adena admits that poor hiring will derail the multiplying effect. She focuses on these three principles to keep that from happening:

Hire talented people: invest more effort early in the recruiting process to find high quality agents.

Expect autonomy: hire people who are willing, able, and expect to be autonomous.

Give up control: let go of the things you hire other people to do with the expectation they will perform better than you.

Without the realistic expectation that recruiting will multiply your efforts, it becomes a mundane and unsustainable task.