I have always felt, right employees, great talent and impeccable processes make a big difference to a company's customer experience. Because, we can't be there at all the places, all the time.There is no use having great ideas, great products etc., if we don't have the right talent around us. Believe me, that's a scarce commodity.This has been the problem of small companies not being able to scale-up and become great companies. The difference today, is not just ideas but our people. One person can make a huge difference. My clients tell me that all the time. Imagine, we have hundreds of them. It has the potential to become your competitive advantage.
Rajesh Jain has this to say on this topic:
As Jack Welch put it: "Hiring good people is hard. Hiring great people is brutally hard. Yet nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field, then guiding them on the right way to succeed and get ahead."
In this context, these words from Joe Krause ring true:
I always keep two things in mind when hiring, no matter how desperate I feel.
1. a bad employee does far more damage than no employee, no matter the issue.
2. A players hire A players, B players hire C players, and C players hire losers. Let your standards slip once and you're only two generations away from death.
...
Any hiring process should focus on never letting in a bad fit. Even if that means accidentally rejecting a lot of people that would be good fits. Said another way, it optimizes for no false positives, even at the expense of false negatives.