Hiring isn't the fix. The spec is.
Nine of the last twelve hires across the portfolio that didn't stick failed at the spec, not the person. Here's the thing I write before the job post now.
Situation
I spent a quarter convinced we had a hiring problem. We'd brought in nine people across the portfolio in fourteen months, three of them left, three of them we let go, and three of them became permanent. A 33% stick rate is fine for a single role. Across a portfolio, it's a process problem.
I went back through the six that didn't stick. I was looking for a pattern in the people. What I found was a pattern in the briefs.
Decision
Before any new hire — full-time, fractional, contractor — I now write a one-page document. Five lines, in this order:
- The artifact. What the role produces, weekly. Not "growth" — the weekly report, the email sequence, the campaign brief.
- The metric. One number that goes up if this role is working. Not three. One.
- The check-in. When and how I'll know it's working before the 90-day mark. Usually a 30-day artifact review.
- The failure mode. What this role looks like when it isn't working. Most of mine looked like busy person, no artifact.
- The replacement. If this person leaves in six months, what's the next move. If I can't answer this, the role isn't real yet.
If I can't write all five in a sitting, I don't post the role. The spec is the work. Recruiting against an unfinished spec just gets me a better-shaped version of the wrong shape.
Insight
We don't have a delegation problem. We have a specification problem. The hire is a downstream of the spec. The spec is the moat.
— DK