Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
The mistake
When Amicus was growing fast, it sometimes put people in a seat just because the seat was empty. The company regretted it quickly: the culture started to slip, tension grew, and the CEO got pulled into HR and interpersonal problems. At every level of the company, people had to be taken out of their roles because of the mistake.
Passion first
So the company screened for two things, in order. The first is passion: whether they believe in the mission, want to be a team, and want to be true owners who are there when times are tough. Wanting a job and showing up is fine, and it isn't what the company was building.
Then the entrepreneur
The second is being an entrepreneur. No matter how big the company grew, everyone had to roll up their sleeves, because the job is to solve problems every day. Smart people solve most of the problems a leader never sees and bring up the toughest ones they can't solve, and taking those on is the leader's job. A chief operating officer who screened most of the problems would still knock at eight in the morning with a smile and open with the words good news, which in a biotech company is unusual.
Why can one bad hire sour a team?
Behavior spreads through teams, and a single difficult colleague can lower the output of those around them. A 2015 working paper by Dylan Minor and Michael Housman, drawn from data on more than 50,000 workers, found that avoiding one toxic worker saved a company more than hiring a top 1 percent performer added. The paper estimated roughly $12,500 saved against about $5,300 gained.
Why do structured interviews predict performance?
Structured interviews ask every candidate the same questions and score answers against set criteria, which limits the pull of first impressions. Unstructured conversations tend to reward likability and similarity to the interviewer. A 2022 reanalysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology by Paul Sackett and colleagues ranked structured interviews as the strongest predictor of job performance among common selection methods.
Why do leaders hear about problems late?
People tend to hide bad news when they fear blame. In a 1999 study of hospital nursing units, Harvard professor Amy Edmondson found that the units with better leadership reported more medication errors, because staff felt safe admitting them. Her later work named this climate psychological safety.
More from Joys of Compounding
