The 5 Workplace Myths This Tech CEO Busted On The Way To $1 Billion

I’ve been a CEO for 10 years, and along the way, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about how to build teams that produce results. These lessons extend from hiring, through coaching, to business execution. Based on my experience, here are five mistakes to avoid when building and nurturing the best team for the job.

Culture and values are important, and qualifications count for little if a person won’t be a good fit for your organization. But don’t overcompensate. Ultimately, you need talented people who possess the skills to do their jobs well or have the aptitude to acquire them. I’ve been guilty in the past of believing someone’s incredible cultural fit could cover for their good but not great competency. One must bet on people and situations, but don’t consistently ignore IQ. Emotional Quotient isn’t everything.

If you need to deliver the message that an employee needs to improve or move into a different role, don’t confuse the matter by initially showering them with praise. It’s often tempting to soften a hard truth by first telling a person all the things they do right and what a valuable player they are. Proceed carefully, because you may be doing them a disservice. Employees need to know where they stand, and if you dilute the message, they may take away only the parts they want to hear. Challenge directly, and do it in a caring manner.

Don’t confuse good short-term results with the best strategy for long-term success. Your recruiting team may have hired 10 great engineers last quarter, but what creative techniques did they experiment with to produce even better results next time? Your head of sales may deliver impressive numbers, but what is she doing to get even better leads into the top of the funnel? Output metrics are critical to monitor, but understanding the activities undertaken to achieve those results is equally important to ensuring sustainable growth. If you’re looking for 3X growth, you won’t get it by running the same plays more quickly; you need to encourage new, innovative tactics as well.

When I look back on the early years of Smartsheet, we could have done a better job at filling a few key engineering roles sooner. The job market is often cyclical, and different roles are hard to fill at different times. Never let that stop you from moving forward and aggressively trying to hire the best. There are always good people out there; don’t let a tough market intimidate you from going out and finding them.

There are certain roles where an exceptional individual can move the needle for an entire company. Be bold and step outside your normal compensation bands to hire that person. In the early years of Smartsheet, we were trying to lure away a product architect from a large competitor. As a young company, our compensation bands weren’t as competitive as they are now and the individual slipped from our grasp. In hindsight, stretching ourselves to accommodate this person could have advanced our roadmap by as much as a year. Rarely do I look back on these instances and feel it wasn’t worth it. There simply aren’t that many people worthy of No. 1 draft-pick status, so if you have a shot at one, take it. Don’t be afraid to go 30 percent out of band for a 3X boost in performance.