bringing in the right kind of experience at the right time can mean the difference between bankruptcy and glory. - Ben Horowitz

If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards — not punishes — people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.

Senior people pose several important challenges: They come with their own culture. They will bring the habits, the communication style, and values from the company they grew up in. It’s very unlikely these will match your environment exactly. They will know how to work the system. Because senior people come from larger environments, they usually develop the skills to navigate and be effective in those environments. These skills may seem political and unusual in your environment. You don’t know the job as well as they do. In fact, you are hiring them precisely because you don’t know how to do the job. So how do you hold them accountable for doing a good job?

When should you start implementing processes? While that varies depending on your situation, keep in mind that it’s much easier to add new people to old processes than new processes to old people.