Why did so few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience starting companies? As these thoughts rolled around in my head, I sent Ma… - Ben Horowitz

few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience

Finally, be clear in your own mind about your expectations for this person upon joining your company. What will this person do in the first thirty days? What do you expect their motivation to be for joining? Do you want them to build a large organization right away or hire only one or two people over the next year?

In technology companies, when the employees disappear, the spiral begins: The company declines in value, the best employees leave, the company declines in value, the best employees leave. Spirals are extremely difficult to reverse.

REQUIREMENTS TO BE GREAT AT RUNNING HR What kind of person should you look for to comprehensively and continuously understand the quality of your management team? Here are some key requirements: World-class process design skills Much like the head of quality assurance, the head of HR must be a masterful process designer. One key to accurately measuring critical management processes is excellent process design and control. A true diplomat Nobody likes a tattletale and there is no way for an HR organization to be effective if the management team doesn’t implicitly trust it. Managers must believe that HR is there to help them improve rather than police them. Great HR leaders genuinely want to help the managers and couldn’t care less about getting credit for identifying problems. They will work directly with the managers to get quality up and only escalate to the CEO when necessary. If an HR leader hoards knowledge, makes power plays, or plays politics, he will be useless. Industry knowledge Compensation, benefits, best recruiting practices, etc. are all fast-moving targets. The head of HR must be deeply networked in the industry and stay abreast of all the latest developments. Intellectual heft to be the CEO’s trusted adviser None of the other skills matter if the CEO does not fully back the head of HR in holding the managers to a high quality standard. In order for this to happen, the CEO must trust the HR leader’s thinking and judgment. Understanding things unspoken When management quality starts to break down in a company, nobody says anything about it, but super-perceptive people can tell that the company is slipping. You need one of those.