

What to do when you hire someone better than yourself - kjagirdar
http://www.tomtancredi.com/2013/01/25/what-to-do-when-you-hire-someone-better-than-yourself/

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david_shaw
As the head of engineering in my organization, I am responsible for hiring
decisions within our team. I'd like to start by saying that hiring people
smarter than you is the _best_ problem a manager could hope to have; the
alternative, since intelligence is always relative, is hiring someone who
_isn't_ smarter than you.

Part of being a manager is wanting to see your team succeed. It doesn't matter
if you're the founder of a fledgling startup just trying to make it or the CEO
of a Fortune 500 organization trying keep your shareholders happy: as a
leader, your success depends heavily on the success of your team.

I agree with the tenets of the article; there's no veiled argument coming from
my direction. My point is a slightly broader perspective: if you're going to
be in a managerial position, you shouldn't _need_ an article telling you how
to deal with hiring people smarter than you. You should _strive_ to surround
yourself with geniuses. Be proud of the organization you're growing. Is there
a chance that one of them will one day oust your position because they could
do a better job? Sure, of course there is... but that would still be what's
best for the business.

I think a major problem with how many businesses are being run today is that
managers want to hold their positions so that they have power. They want to be
"the boss." While there's nothing inherently wrong with having ambition--in
fact, I'd say it's a positive trait--it's a harsh contrast when compared to,
say, programming. Very few people want to be programmers for the power and
glory it provides; people build software because of an inherent desire to
create, or a passion for the subject matter. In my opinion, passion leads
directly to success on the job.

When people take promotions for "career ambition" or a higher salary, rather
than actually doing a job they would enjoy, it leads to cascading problems
within an organization. Not everyone is cut out to be a good manager, and not
everyone would _enjoy_ being a manager. When you take positions for the wrong
reason, you end up thinking that you're not doing a good job (you may be
right), and instead of doing what's best for the _team,_ you do what's best
for your _own_ job security... such as fearing the great new engineer you just
hired, or even worse, not hiring her at all.

This comment got a little long-winded, but I think that it's important to
think about the greater issues that _cause_ anxiety for technical managers.
They're problems that are easily solved with an open mind.

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mberning
I find this entire premise odd. The question ought to be "Why aren't you
consistently hiring people better than yourself?". That is a big part of the
reason you hire somebody in the first place. If I were brilliant at every
imaginable task I suppose I could do everything myself given enough time. When
I get a chance to bring in talent I go out and try to get people that I know
are more brilliant, more focused, and more experienced than myself.

~~~
stevenameyer
The issue with saying I'm not going to hire someone if I can do their job
given enough time is that time is a very valuable resource. Ideally you would
be hiring the best person on the planet with every hire but that is
unreasonable and sometimes you just don't have enough man-hours in a company
to be able to keep up with demand. Sometimes you need to make a hire in order
to keep up the speed and if the only person available is good, but maybe not
better then you would you still make the hire? I think both decisions have
merit depending on situation.

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Tichy
This would run completely counter to my intuition. I mean telling the existing
people beforehand that a super awesome person will join them soon. Wouldn't
that make the existing employees hate the superstar before they even know
him/her? Also, way to build up pressure for the new person.

If they are really super, surely the existing people will find out without
being primed?

~~~
S4M
I was thinking exactly the same, but also, wouldn't the current employees
afraid to be fired? They are not founders after all.

~~~
Tichy
I've frequently heard the story of people being asked to slow down because
they make their colleagues look bad. Also the premise of the movie "Hot Fuzz"
:-)

~~~
sylvainww
Yes but we're talking about a startup, not an administration...And if every
hire is someone with talent, then when someone new comes they shouldn't be
afraid. Especially if it's a talent that comes and complete the team (or
replaces the CEO on some of his tasks).

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mdkess
Another question: What do you do when you hire people worse than you?

It's hard being around people smarter than you though, even if we all know
it's a good thing and important. It's easy to say that we want to be the
dumbest person in the room, much harder to actually believe that. I consider
myself a passionate and disciplined programmer, but I meet people on occasion
who are objectively far better programmers than I could ever be. If I spent my
whole life trying, I wouldn't be as good as these people. And while the
objective side of me says "hey, I'm productive too, and the world needs all of
the smart people it can get.", it does make me question sometimes the purpose
of what I'm doing.

But you know, fall seven times, get up eight.

~~~
trentmb
Being the dumbest person in the room gets real depressing real quick.

~~~
trifilij
I went to MIT, you get over it (felt as the dumbest person in the room
always). Its actually pretty great that anybody in the room can teach you
something. Now that I left I hate it, I have to argue about things that seem
trivial to me all the time.

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zeidrich
I find the idea of "someone better than yourself" as a skewed perspective.
It's hard to say someone is better than anyone else for most people.

Everyone will generally be better than you at some things, and worse than you
at others. Consider why you're in the position to be hiring them in the first
place, perhaps you're better at managing, or becoming well connected, or
organizing talent. In terms of programming maybe he's leaps and bounds ahead
of you, but he still came to you looking for a job.

That's not to say I disagree with any of the authors points individually. Just
that I think that if you think of it strictly in that the new hire is better
than you are, you are selling yourself short. If instead you think that you
are more management or entrepreneurial focused, and the person you're hiring
is more technically focused and allows you to focus on your other skills then
you don't even need that list. You're automatically working as a team.

Programmers don't necessarily want to be managers. If your role is becoming
essentially a manager with minor programming duties, and you want to focus on
business issues instead of technical challenges, when you hire an awesome
programmer that gives both of you the best of both worlds. You bring a lot to
the table by being the guy that starts the business and secures the capital
needed to be able to hire the programmer. Regardless of your programming
skills, this has no bearing on whether you are better or worse than the new
hire.

But quantitatively you're probably better :) You can always hire a different
programmer, but if they thought they could make more money on their own they
probably would have done it already.

~~~
stevenameyer
If you are dealing with a very talented developer you can not simply "hire a
different programmer". People with high level talent are few and far between,
and if you have managed to attract someone of this skill level you better
appreciate it and hold on to them.

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flatline
"Error establishing a database connection" -- a surprising bit of advice.
Here's the google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VK2HEZZ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VK2HEZZ0VosJ:www.tomtancredi.com/2013/01/25/what-
to-do-when-you-hire-someone-better-than-yourself/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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krmmalik
Not trying to brag.

I was hired for a short-term contract where i was clearly smarter than the
manager. He admitted it in the beginning but then started defaulting. I got on
very well with my peers and my associate manager pushed hard to get the CEO
"out of the way" but he wouldnt budge. All he did was try to clamp everyone
down and act from a place of fear. As you can imagine things didnt go so well.
I had to leave.

I now have two guys working on a side project that are both smarter than me. I
do my best to get out of their way.

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NYCTom
Hi guys, thanks for the ongoing dialogue. I agree on a lot of your points:
everyone's got strengths and weaknesses, and someone "better" than you in one
area doesn't mean you don't bring more value in other areas. But that said, a
great CEO-mentor gave me this advice: "hire well, so that when you go to the
company parties you're the dumbest guy in the room." I like that advice. Keeps
people humble and it keeps the founders eager to learn, when surrounded by
smart, interesting, and capable people.

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nicholassmith
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Hiring
people smarter than you is what you do as a manager, if you've hit the hiring
phase you're not meant to be doing the frontline grind, you're meant to be
letting your hires do what you hired them for.

Plus you'll end up learning new things by osmosis when you've got super smart
people there and that's always good for a business.

~~~
001sky
_If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room_

+1. True power lies holding the keys to ulocking the smarts all around you.

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fsckin
This advice should apply to every hire, not just those who are better than
yourself.

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smalldaddy
I always aim to hire people better than I am -- I want a high performing team,
which is easier with high performing people!

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miloshadzic
Here's one more: treat them well enough so they don't feel that they need to
leave.

~~~
krmmalik
I feel _treat them well enough_ needs more clarity. You can speak nicely to
your delegates, take them out to lunch, have a joke with them. But if you're
not, involving them in decisions, accepting criticism from them, creating an
environment for them in which they can flourish, you're not really treating
them as well as you think.

