The first and most important lesson that I learned comes from Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great.” During his interviews with successful executives, he came up with a quote that lives with me: “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.” Getting the right people on the bus has been something I have worked very hard on for the past few years. I take a lot of time with hiring at the expense of productivity to make sure I get it right. I have also learned that it isn’t something that you just do. It’s a skill that takes a lifetime to perfect. I’m nowhere near perfect at it, but I try to get better each time I’m interviewing new candidates.

The second part of that quote is important too, getting the wrong people off the bus. For me, asking someone to leave is the hardest thing to do. It’s truly gut-wrenching, it feels horrible, and luckily, I haven’t had to do it often. But I just try to remember that it’s not just for our team, but also for the individual. Most people want to be good at their job. They want to succeed. When someone is not successful in their role, it’s my responsibility to let them go to find a role they can be successful in. It will be painful at first, but eventually they will land a position that they can thrive in, and all I’m doing is holding them back.

Getting the right people on the bus is just the first task. Keeping those people and helping them succeed is the next step, and that brings me to the main topic that I wanted to dive into today. In my interviews this time around, things feel a little different. It could be for several reasons, but I am noticing more burn-out amongst our candidates. I’m talking to people who are happy to go down a level to get better life balance back. This is normal when I’m interviewing folks, but more prominent this time around.

In tech specifically, burn-out is a very real danger in a team. We are pushed by hard deadlines since businesses rely so heavily on our service. We were recently doing a major overhaul of a larger client, and there was no way for us to walk away with it being half-done. Those folks needed to log in on Monday morning. It didn’t matter that everything was taking longer than we thought it would, or that we were working into our weekend, it just had to get done. A little of this isn’t bad, but when these hours become the rule instead of the exception, that’s pouring a lot of gasoline on the bonfire. I’ve heard from several folks that they are expected to pull these kinds of hours regularly, and sometimes without extra compensation.

Another cause of burn-out can be an imbalance in the challenge to competence scale. When the right people are on the bus, they want to grow themselves by taking on new responsibilities and challenges. Just sitting there doing the same thing repeatedly is never fun. But sometimes people are asked to do things that they’re just not prepared to do. They may not have the tools or knowledge to succeed. Pushing people beyond their limits is also a surefire way to cause burn-out. It’s a delicate balance between challenge and overwhelm.

I guess what I’m trying to get at in all of this was summed up nicely by a candidate that I spoke with earlier this week. He said, “We’re not robots, we’re people.” That’s so true, and something that managers and business executives need to remember. If you treat your employees like people instead of like tools, they’ll appreciate you for it.

-Nate