On hiring and hierarchy

Originally published on the iwantmyname blog. Restored from the Internet Archive.

iwantmyname culture: On hiring and hierarchy

The one truth about growing a company is that at some point you'll run out of qualified friends to employ. For us, our first hire outside of that group was a developer, because we badly needed someone who was good at the things we sucked at. And our hire was a good one, as he is an absolute expert in his field—but his most important trait was that he fit in really well with the team. Ever since our first hiring experience, we've made fitting in a top priority when adding team members, and it's worked out extremely well.

When we first created iwantmyname we had all worked at companies of various sizes, and knew from the start that small, well-functioning teams almost always consisted of diverse people with different backgrounds, different (and abundant) experiences, and a high level of cohesiveness. And that high level of cohesiveness is important so that everyone can trust each other to do their jobs—which allows us to almost completely do away with the traditional management hierarchy. With everyone working on a defined aspect of the company, we can make sure everyone gets to try things out, make decisions, measure if they work, and report back to the team their successes and failures.

Many companies speak about flat hierarchy and how they don't have many control structures in place, but for us it was really something that just developed out of hiring the right people. If you work with peers you trust, a management layer becomes obsolete, which frees up additional time to get actual work done and move the company forward. The speed of the company should be at the speed of the workers, not of the management layer.

So yes, hiring for us is an important factor and we don't take it lightly. Hiring is also a limiting factor in our business, but by hiring the right people, taking longer to choose them, and not expanding our team too fast, we hope to maintain our culture of self direction, self empowerment and self development. With the backdrop of our equal salaries, I hope this paints a rough picture of what it's like to work at iwantmyname. Flat hierarchy for us is a culture—an organic result of hiring the right people to do the right jobs.

More on the subject

Chuck Blakeman of Inc.com recently put out a great post titled "How to Hire People You'll Never Have to Manage". Included is a quote every company should remember.

If you want to hire people you won't have to manage, throw out most of what you've been taught about hiring. Hire first for Business Beliefs and Culture, second for talent, third for demonstrated skills, and use experience as a tiebreaker. You, and the people who you hire, will all be happier and more productive.