Stop Hiring for Culture Fit and Start Hiring for Scale

Over the years, I’ve heard founders proudly describe their teams in similar ways: “Everyone on the team is just like me. We can even finish each other’s sentences.”

It’s usually said with pride. I hear it and wonder: Who is challenging you?

When everyone in your organization thinks like you, you don’t get alternative approaches. No one tells you when you are wrong, because they don’t see it either. Small areas of misunderstanding become large blind spots. Market signals are overlooked. Expansion opportunities are missed. Your competitors move before you do.

Scaling requires a different approach: one that prioritizes capability over comfort and builds the team for where your business is going, not where it is today.

The myth

Most founders and their leadership teams I’ve worked with overemphasize “culture fit” in hiring. Often, they can’t define it beyond “a feeling.” They want to add people to the team whose personalities mesh with others, who feel comfortable, and who don’t create conflict.

One executive knew she could hire someone if she could imagine herself going on a road trip with that person. Of course, her entire team looked and sounded a lot like her.

Unfortunately, when you surround yourself with a homogeneous group that you like to hang out with, you do reduce conflict and likely have a great time at work, but you end up with a growth problem.

A team of like-minded individuals tends to approach problems in a similar fashion. They solve the problem, but they use the same set of assumptions. A team of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences is more likely to produce a comprehensive and robust solution.

McKinsey has studied executive team diversity and financial performance since 2015. Their 2023 research reported that companies in the top quartile for ethnic representation on executive teams had a 39% increased likelihood of financial outperformance versus companies in the bottom quartile.

A variety of perspectives, whether they are from gender, age, education, race, culture, or work experience, can lead to creative solutions to your business challenges. They make your organization adaptable and better able to serve your customers. In turn, you grow.

The solution

A talent selection framework, outlined in detail in my book The Talent Trifecta, based on skills, competencies, and the ability to thrive in your environment, moves your company forward. None of the selection criteria point toward “culture fit,” personality, or road-trip companionship.

For each role in your organization, identify two things.

1. What needs to be done? The specific skills that are needed to perform this job.
2. How should the work be performed? The competencies required to implement the skills.

A marketing analyst role, for example, may require:

• Skills: data analysis, financial modeling, and media strategy
• Competencies: action-oriented, resourcefulness, and results-driven

The final part of the selection framework is identifying the individuals who will thrive in your environment. Assessing for alignment with your environment is different from “culture fit.”

Culture fit is often subjective: Do I like this person? Do they seem like us?

Environmental fit is evidence-based: Can they perform effectively in our decision-making structure? Do they work well with our level of autonomy? Can they thrive in our level of collaboration and process requirements?

To do this, you must understand your environment.

Ask yourself:

• Do we have consensus-driven or top-down decision-making?
• Are we more process- or outcome-driven?
• How frequently do priorities change?
• Is the vibe more competitive or cooperative?
• How much autonomy do employees have?
• Is success primarily individual or team-based?

Also focus on where you want your organization to be in 18 to 24 months. Consider the following questions:

• Will you be a market leader, gaining market share, or still working to land early customers?
• How will AI or other technology change your strategy and workforce?
• Will processes need to become more structured as the organization grows?
• What capabilities will become critical that aren’t important today?

Once you understand your environment and know where you’re headed, assess candidates against it. You aren’t merely hiring for the company you have today. You’re hiring for the company you’re trying to build.

Three questions every founder should ask

After you build the framework above and use it to assess candidates for roles on your team, you should ask yourself three questions before you make an offer:

1. Does this person offer a strength the current team lacks?
2. Do her capabilities align with the organization’s future needs?
3. Can she help us scale, or simply preserve the status quo?

Use these questions as lenses to determine if someone adds important qualities to the team you are building.

A practical example

Your consumer packaged goods company is currently gaining market share by regularly adapting to changing market conditions. You thrive with collaborative teams, while most decision-making is still top-down.

Your plan in 18 months is to comfortably have double-digit market share. To get there, you are adding a marketing analyst to your team.

You have two strong final candidates. Both have the data analysis, financial modeling, and media strategy skills necessary for the role. They both also demonstrated the competencies required for the role.

Candidate A

• Referred to you by a current employee
• Eight years of experience as a marketing analyst in consumer packaged goods
• Was a key member of a competitor’s team when they tripled market share
• Graduated from the same state university as 60% of current employees (including you)
• Interview feedback from VP of Sales: “Easy conversation. Thinks about the market as we do.”
• Interview feedback from COO: “Great understanding of our competitors. She could join the kickball team.”
• Your assessment is that she is a great “culture fit” but may be uncomfortable with the constant state of change.

Candidate B

• Referred to you by your financial advisor
• Five years of experience as a marketing analyst in the automotive industry; 4 years in financial services
• BA in English from a small liberal arts school; MBA from London School of Economics
• Interview feedback from VP of Sales: “She challenged the assumptions of the current marketing plan. Believes we are missing an entire segment. Very dry sense of humor.”
• Interview feedback from the COO: “Talked about adding AEO to our media strategy and demonstrated collaboration. Will require ramp-up time to learn our industry.”
• You assess that she is much more detail-oriented than the rest of the team, has leadership potential, and won’t be playing on the company kickball team. She is comfortable with change but might not like your top-down decision-making style.

Candidate A is the traditional choice. She will join the company kickball team, knows your industry, and has helped a competitor scale. She will be liked and make friends quickly. However, her discomfort with change may be a roadblock. You aren’t sure you heard any new ideas during the interview.

Candidate B offers new ideas and perspectives that the current team appears not to have. She may not join the kickball team, but she will collaborate with others and share her knowledge across the organization. Her discomfort with the decision-making approach may be a challenge, and she will need time to learn your industry.

Evidenced-based interviews

The answer isn’t clear. You have the framework to lean on. Conduct a follow-up interview with each candidate to gather more evidence.

How has Candidate A dealt with constant change in the past? Ask her to describe the pace she experienced at your competitor as they grew. Also, dig in for the new ideas and perspectives she brought during that growth phase. She may be an idea person, or simply an executor of others’ ideas.

Discuss Candidate B’s ability to operate in a top-down decision-making environment. She may prefer consensus but still perform well with your approach, or not. Get specific examples from her. Ask about how she learned about the financial services industry when she made the switch. That will give you evidence of the ramp-up time she will need for your industry.

With a selection system in place, you hire based on evidence, not gut feel.

When you evaluate candidates against objective skills, competencies, and environmental alignment criteria, you look for clear data that they can perform the job inside your organization and help you scale. You reduce the likelihood of hiring people who simply think like you.

Hire for where you’re going

An effective talent selection system based on skills, competencies, and environmental fit sets your organization up for growth.

Great leaders don’t hire clones. They intentionally build teams for growth. The best decisions aren’t about comfort. They’re about capability.

Related article by Kara Yarnot:

Four Talent Systems Every Growing Business Needs (Before You Need More People)