You may have heard the phrase: “Be slow to hire and quick to fire.” I couldn’t agree more with both sentiments but let me try to provide some color on each end of that equation.
The hiring side
As I’ve mentioned in past articles, I spend a fair amount of time on LinkedIn, posting about compensation, leadership, or retention, and commenting on the posts of others who deal with those subjects. Frequently, I will run across personnel ads in which management companies or search firms are looking for people to fill the gamut of business aviation positions. Recently, I saw a job posting that was typical of many I’ve encountered, only instead of trying to fill a generic pilot role, this time the recruiter was trying to fill a leadership position, and a type rating in the applicable aircraft was a requirement. Sigh.
Every time I come across this lunacy, it makes me wring my hands. Why would anyone looking for a leader arbitrarily limit their search to those who have initial training in a particular aircraft?
As my colleague, Sheryl Barden is quick to point out, one might not need a pilot in that leadership position at all, given the number of maintainers and schedulers who have climbed the ladder to flight-department leadership. But in this case, let’s say it has to be a pilot in the leadership role. Maybe, it’s even a chief-pilot position. Still, why would one intentionally limit the candidate pool to those with a certain set of numbers or letters on their FAA pilot certificate? Some might say that it’s an expense limitation, i.e. the company/owner/principal doesn’t want to pay for a type rating. Others might say it’s a credibility issue. If someone is going to lead in a department operating jet X, then the leader needs to be experienced in that jet. Balderdash!
So, if you don’t want to spend the money to type someone, you settle for a less-than-optimum cultural fit. Then six to twelve months later, you have to let them go because they didn’t work out within the organization. (More on that later.) That’s a great expenditure of time and resources. On the other hand, you’re going to play the credibility card and limit your search and perhaps suffer the same result. Credibility is based on skill and aptitude, both of which can be applied in the acquisition of training and experience in a particular jet.
Years ago, I was hired to be chief pilot for a major telecom company that flew Falcon 900s and I had no experience in that aircraft, although I had over 1,000 hours in another OEM’s jet of the same class. I learned the new aircraft, demonstrated appropriate humility as I flew it with members of my department, and soon was flying it as well as any of them. (If you’re good in one airplane, you can be good in another airplane.) The point is that the guy who hired me was more focused on me being the right fit for his organization, and less worried about what numbers were on my certificate. “Hire for attitude, train for experience,” was his mantra, and I’ve never forgotten it.
The firing side
Years ago, I wrote a book called Business Aviation Leadership: From the Traits to the Trenches. One of the people I interviewed for the book was my Air Force Academy classmate, Robert (“Bob”) Ranck. Bob was a former vice wing commander of the 89th wing at Andrews Air Force Base who retired as a brigadier general. He became the CEO of Orbis, the flying eye hospital. The conversation I had with him about leadership courage was one of the most memorable I had while compiling the book. Here’s the passage from the book:
He (Bob) related a story that occurred when he was an Air Officer Commanding (AOC) at the Air Force Academy, and he flew a cross-country sortie in a T-41C with the superintendent of the Academy at the time, Lieutenant General Bradley Hosmer.
“So, there I was,” Bob says, “a newly-pinned-on major, and I get to share a cockpit with a three-star general for a couple of hours. He was a member of the first class to graduate from the Academy and the first graduate to return as superintendent. All I could think of was what I could learn about leadership from this guy’s experience. I was determined to pick his brain. We launched, leveled off, and when the radio and workload calmed down, I clicked the mic on the intercom and asked him a question.
“‘General,’ I asked, ‘what’s the single greatest lesson you learned about leadership in all your years of doing it?’
“I’ll never forget his answer. He didn’t hesitate even a moment. He turned to me in the cockpit and said, ‘I never fired people soon enough”’ (Broyhill, 2022, p. 230).
There is nothing that will demoralize personnel in an organization more quickly than when leadership allows toxic individuals to remain in place and continue to infect the group. Some leaders may think they’re being understanding. The constraints of a company’s HR policies may limit others, but the impact on the organization will be the same. Resentment of the company will grow and respect for the leader will lessen.
This brings us back to the hiring piece of the equation. By arbitrarily lessening the hiring pool, by being less deliberate about the hiring process, you increase the odds of taking on someone who might be a perfect fit qualifications-wise, but a dismal fit culture-wise. Someone who doesn’t fit into the culture will eventually become toxic, like they were bitten by a zombie, it’s just a question of time.
Be smart. Be deliberate. Focus on the “who” of someone. Not the “what.” It will pay huge dividends.
Bibliography
Broyhill, C. (2022). Business Aviation Leadership: From the Traits to the Trenches. Arlington TX: Chris Broyhill Books.
