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Business Rule #51:
Don’t Hire for Personal Reasons
May 29, 2006
by Caroline Pfouts
With it down now to just Sean Yazbeck and Lee Bienstock, the first order of business for these two finalists was to choose new teams.
Hiring is one of the hardest duties any manager has to face. Do it poorly, and you have to live with your mistakes. Usually the hiring authority can put together a detailed job description to help Human Resources pre-screen candidates and act as a touchstone through the decision-making process. Trump though played “hide the ball” with the final challenge, leaving Sean and Lee without the luxury of being able to interview based on relevant skills. Otherwise, they might have asked job candidates if they had any charitable fundraising experience. Of course, they should have had some notion about the nature of their final tasks from the past four seasons worth of finales.
One advantage Lee and Sean had over most hiring authorities is that they had gotten to know their candidates. They had lived with all of them and worked with many. Most of the time, hiring is done based on just a few interviews.
The new project managers relied heavily on their personal relationships for their hiring choices. A natural enough response, but maybe not the smartest way to assemble an effective business team. Lee relied on the advice of his pal Lenny Veltman so much that he chose Jose Pepi Diaz for one of the three open spots on his team. Donald Trump and Carolyn Kepcher couldn’t even remember who he was. Not a good sign, given that Trump is the ultimate judge.
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Meanwhile, Sean had made it vividly clear that he’d like to spark up a more intimate relationship with Tammy Trenta. She could very well be a great choice, but if she distracts Sean from his job, just about anyone else probably would have been a better way to go. Tarek Saab lamented over his PM’s mistake when Sean chose to go with Tammy to meet with the caterer rather than join Tarek in sitting down with one of the primary sponsors of the event. The menu decisions could have been delegated to Tammy—but that wouldn’t have given Sean the opportunity to pretend he was planning the catering for a wedding with her.
Charity fundraising is a rather specialized activity. Over the years, I’ve organized many fundraisers for Haven Hills, a Los Angeles-based shelter for battered women and their children. I found that every year I ran a silent auction, we just about doubled the amount collected. The art of raising money for a good cause is to maximize your assets. When a donated item wasn’t getting the bids I expected, I would grab a mike and talk it up. One such item we had was a “dream team” photo signed by UCLA basketball players during the Wooden years, including Karim Abdul Jabar. Karim though hadn’t yet changed his name and had signed it, “Karim Alsinder.” Once I pointed this meaty tidbit out to the crowd, it became the highest priced item at the auction.
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Hiring is one of
