BUSINESS BASICS NUMBER 3
Hire for attitude, train for skills. It really is that simple. It is one of the most important business basics of all time. Your business can never rise above your people. That is why it is so extremely important.
Never hire for skills and train for attitude. That is a losing formula. Granted, some jobs require highly specialized skills for which very few people have the aptitude or the intrinsic ability. Those cases can be a bit trickier. Nevertheless, the principle stands. Hire for attitude, train for skills.
When someone comes onboard with a winning attitude, no amount of money can buy that and no amount of training can produce that. The employee either brings it or does not bring it. We can work with employees via training to instill the needed skills. However, fundamentally you cannot instill the right attitude.
On the other hand, when someone comes onboard with a winning skill set, that will appear to be fantastic . . . for a while. If that person has a lousy attitude, then there is no skills benefit that will compensate for it. Over time, the lousy attitude will prove to undermine whatever company benefit accrues based on the skills. A lousy attitude will eventually destroy an organization.
Hire for attitude, train for skills. That is a business basic that has and will stand the test of time. And isn’t that what you want your business to do?
