How to make your receptionist smile

One of the seemingly-obvious-but-not-obvious insights I gained early as an entrepreneur is that it is better to find people who are already like the type of people you need in a job than to bring people in and ask them to be the type of people you need in a job.

At first read, you may wonder “that’s already what we do… we need a good engineer, we find and hire a good engineer”. The less obvious but more critical application of the thought however is on the non-technical capacities, which are usually the hardest to grow in people.

While you surely need a certain quality of technical skill to begin with, it is also the component of talent that is easiest to grow over time, with systems for knowledge acquisition, knowledge exchange and the sheer role of experience on the job. What is harder however is to make someone who doesn’t smile smile.

From being open to new ideas, caring about others, being driven, leading self… to being timely, communicating effectively, being proactive and more, it is wiser, for two reasons, to identify people who already come with some of these than to relegate them to the things you will bring out in them with your ‘team-bonding’ talks.

1. You are not a life school. You are first a business and your primary priority will always be in delivering your service to your customers in exchange of value. This means that the most natural force of growth your employees will experience is in the core service itself — the technical. While you can be an inspiring leader and bring in great coaches, you will hardly be able to spend enough time to deliver those missing soft skills.
2. Some competencies are best developed on a personal level. These soft, human, non-technical capacities are best built based from personal reflection, reading, mentorship and an eagerness to improve. While you can try as a business to institutionalize these as part of your people development, and you should, the best environment for it is personal. It is best if you simply for the people who are already doing that work on a personal level, and you then bring them on board to apply this alongside the technical capacity that you are ever primed to help them hone.

But why does all of these matter, to begin with?

Well, we are human above all things. And the most enduring great organizations are built by humans who are great beyond just the core service. It takes more than just the ‘core thing’ to be great colleagues within and partners with the customer. And you will need all of these for sustained growth and eventual greatness. A badass guy at coding or say accounting on your team who talks trash on other people, is disrespectful of women and is unwilling to share or collaborate with others will do today’s job but ruin your company in the long term. I think we already agree on this but it’s important to touch on it for anyone still asking that question of why.

What happens to the technically gifted but otherwise lacking employees you have already hired before reflecting on a thought like this? I will propose a 3-part plan of action — Clarify, emphasize, and model. Yes, nothing will beat getting it right with a hire who is already on the desired path, but this can offer some course correction.

First, take time to reflect on the values and traits that matter the most and ensure this is clearly discussed and documented. Then take every opportunity, day to day or week to week, to refer to those things, from meetings to teachable moments and when you are commending someone. Finally and most importantly, be the embodiment of these values and reward others who are making great examples, which we can imagine as a final fourth part of the plan.

Above all, next time you are about to hire a receptionist who you expect to smile and welcome people with great, positive energy. Find someone who already smiles and engages people with great, positive energy.

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