HubSpot co-founder: stop hiring well-rounded executives

This article summarizes an episode of Lenny’s Podcast’s video series featuring Brian Halligan, co-founder and ex-CEO of HubSpot

Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot and Sequoia’s in-house CEO coach /  Photo credit: HubSpot

Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot and Sequoia’s in-house CEO coach, says companies should hire “spiky” executives with known weaknesses over well-rounded people everyone agrees on. His method goes against the usual way of hiring, which tries to find people with the fewest flaws. Instead, he focuses on finding people with unique strengths.

The consensus hire is a trap

When a hiring committee meets, the easiest choice is the person everyone can agree on. This need to play it safe often means picking the person no one dislikes, instead of the best person. Halligan says this is common and that groups often avoid hiring an amazing person and instead pick someone who is just average.

Halligan describes a common scenario where a candidate splits the room: half the interviewers give them a perfect score, while the other half rate them poorly. Then, a different candidate comes in and gets a generic “good” rating from everyone.

In the past at HubSpot, Halligan and his team would almost always hire the second person, the safe choice, who didn’t upset anyone. But he realized this was a mistake. By avoiding the candidate with low scores, they were also missing out on the candidate with the highest potential.

He explains the change in their plan, “We changed it, and we went with the spikier people. We went with people with weaknesses… And that has worked out quite well. Our hit rate at HubSpot improved.”

Big company experience is often a bad fit

Focusing on spiky talent avoids the common mistake of overvaluing resumes from big companies. Startups often try to hire experienced people from huge companies, thinking that experience at Google or Salesforce means the person will succeed in a startup. Halligan says this is a common mistake that ignores the big differences between large companies and startups.

Halligan says, “Avoid the big company hire… we hired so many people from Salesforce, Google, and Microsoft, like a 100% attrition rate on all those folks. There’s just a massive impedance mismatch when you hire them.”

Halligan gets ideas from the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the team that broke an 86-year curse. They didn’t win by hiring the most famous players. They built a team that worked well together by mixing overlooked players with a few new ones. This created a team spirit that made them better than just a group of individuals.

He argues, “They had a team of a bunch of homegrown, really high-quality, inexpensive talent that they drafted… and then they got a few free agents. They mixed really nicely. The culture really worked, and I think that’s the key. People underrate their homegrown talent.”

The LOCKS method for finding good founders

This careful way of hiring also applies to judging founders. Halligan uses a simple method to spot the traits of successful leaders.

• Lovable: People want to follow them. People would want to crawl across broken glass for them.
• Obsession: They have a long-held obsession with the problem they are solving.
• Chip on the shoulder: They have something to prove, which gives them a strong reason to work hard.
• Knowledgeable: They know a lot about their field.
• Student: They are always learning about their work.

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These traits are important because the job of a CEO is changing. Technology moves so fast that leaders can no longer make long-term plans. Instead, they have to make fast decisions.

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