LOST (tv series) vs hiring rationale

There is one question I keep coming back to when a business is planning its next hire, and it's one the writers of the tv series LOST should have asked themselves when creating the notorious last season:

Does this actually make sense?

That sounds obvious...for someone on the outside. Whether you're sat on your sofa binge watching the last season of arguably one of the greatest TV series of all time, or you're helping a founder grow their business.

But it is surprisingly easy to skip the question when you're crammed into a sweaty writers room for weeks upon end, going bald with the stress of needing to deliver the satisfying series end your loyal fans are desperate for.

Or

You're a couple of Founders, crammed into a WeWork phone booth you've not booked, on a Zoom call with your investors asking where their ROI is and why you have made X number of hires but, little progress on the nightmarish, sweat inducing commercial targets they set.

How did you get here? How could I have avoided this? Were these the right hires?

Whether you're an over tired, stressed out Founder answering to investors or a seasoned business leader its easy to find your self asking that last question...were these the right hires, or should we have even hired?

In my own work, one of the most useful habits has been to zoom out before getting absorbed in job titles, salary ranges and CVs. What is the business trying to change? What is stopping it? And why is another person the right answer?

Sometimes the answer really is another person. Sometimes it is a different mix of capability, clearer priorities or a decision the team has been waiting for.

The point is not to make hiring harder to approve. It is to make the decision more useful.

THE QUESTION FOR YOUR TEAM

Take your next proposed role and complete this sentence together: “This person will help us change…”

Compare the answers. If they are different, that is useful information to surface now, not halfway through interviews.

THE TOOL

Use a one-page Role Decision Brief. Capture the business problem, the desired outcome, the alternatives considered, what the person would own and the support they would need. Keep the list of essential requirements short enough to explain.

A practical example: “we need an operations manager” names a role. “Customer handovers are inconsistent and nobody owns the end-to-end process” describes something you can investigate. That is an illustrative example, not a client case.

WHAT THIS CHANGES

Once the team agrees the purpose, the employer story becomes clearer. So do the questions you ask and the evidence you look for. It also becomes easier to decide whether you need an experienced external hire, a development opportunity for someone already there or a different kind of support.

That is the thinking behind Talevate: support the work the business needs now while building the capability around it.

So next time you're planning to grow, stop and ask yourself...does this actually make sense?

James

Founder, Talevate