Why a bad hire is more than a bad hire

I’ve made plenty of mistakes, some greater than others. To start, I would advise against ever asking a woman when she is due, regardless of how much you think she is showing. You just never know.

That said, mistakes can also be a good thing. We’ve always been taught to learn from our mistakes — that if they don’t kill you they will most certainly make you stronger. However, I have come to believe that the true value of a great mistake lies not mainly in learning from the mistake itself, but rather in the realm of unintended outcomes it produces. In particular, when dealing with people, a mistake can often lead to profound insight.

As a young member of my company’s executive team and a member of the business’s family ownership, I recall being overly anxious to prove my worth. As unique opportunities arose, I often found myself attempting to champion an effort to pursue those opportunities that would greatly enhance the company’s performance and, admittedly, earn me a gold star for impactful leadership.

In the late 1980s just such an opportunity presented itself. The head of a business development group for a competing firm had left his post and was looking for a new place to ply his trade. He had an excellent record for securing new contracts and had been beating us at every turn. Now we had the opportunity to make him a member of our team, to turn around our miserable business development performance and start securing new contracts again. So I began to court him. I brought him to our offices and squired him around to our senior management. All seemed to be going well.

I was pushing hard to hire this individual. And, it seemed our senior management agreed with my view. Yet, when it came time to finally make an offer the then president of our company declined. In fact, he rebuffed me for not being more concerned about the impact this individual would have on our company’s culture. Days later he explained, “You have to decide what kind of company you want.”

As a Wharton MBA, I thought I knew exactly the kind of company I wanted. The highly profitable kind. Yet as the days went on and I spent more time in front of the mirror, I came to realize he was right. I began to realize that the individual I was sponsoring was not a fit for our company, and that by bringing him onboard I would jeopardize the importance of key values within our organization. In our company, we value integrity and virtue above technical and tactical skills. We have found that without character, the quality and sustainability of success is problematic. Yes, the individual I wanted to hire knew how to win business. But at what expense?

I am glad I made the mistake of trying to hire a high performer who did not embrace the core values of our organization. I learned something far more profound than the importance of a cultural fit. I inadvertently unearthed the key values important to success in our business. I discovered the type of company I wanted us to be.

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Jerry Jacobs Jr. is the Co-CEO of Delaware North.