A few years ago, Seth Godin defined three types of business owners.
The amateur contributes with unfiltered joy.
There’s really no other upside–create your work because you can, because it helps someone else, because it makes you feel good.
The professional shows up even when they don’t feel like it.
The professional understands the market, the customer and the price to be paid for work that’s worth paying for. But the professional isn’t a hack.
A hack is a professional who doesn’t care.
The hack has a short-term view, able to do what the client asks, without regard for how it will impact the culture or his long-term prospects.
It’s tempting to hire an amateur as a way of showing kindness and compassion. But they won’t consistently contribute to the organization’s goals.
No one wants to hire a hack, but once they are hired (and reveal themselves to be a hack), it’s hard to fire them because they produce revenue for your office.
So, what do high-performing managers do?
They build for the long-term and insist on surrounding themselves with professionals.
They hire slowly to weed out the amateurs from the professionals, and fire quickly to get rid of the hacks.
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