It is the contemporary point of view of talent management experts that hiring A players and keeping A players is the way to go in business. A’s outproduce B and C players tenfold and A’s don’t play well with B’s and C’s.

Over the years, I have been taught a similar theory in hiring. We all want to hire 10′s. The challenge is that over time if your hiring process is not a focus, 10’s tend to hire 9’s, 9’s hire 8’s and so on. And if you’re not careful your business could be full of 1’s and 2’s.

We see this in our work with customers every day. It’s never intentional. We tend to hire staff we are comfortable with. We want to hire people that can grow into the job. We want comfort and ease, not a strong push and challenge from our team.

Growth is a also a factor. When we are growing, we skip steps in our hiring. We forget to reference. We hire in a hurry to get to the tasks at hand. We compromise and select from the candidates that are available. We don’t take the time to put together quality job descriptions. We don’t invest in using search firms or focus on building a talent acquisition function or competency in our business.

We do not want an overly arduous process either. If you take too long you will lose great talent.

But if you are not careful in your zest to grow and get the job done, you might just find yourself surrounded by 1’s and 2’s at a time where it takes 10’s to make a real difference!