Staff Sergeant

And if you asked me the question, so in a word, what is the key to any success I might've had? I would just give it one word: staffing. I am really, really good at picking great people because I am very slow and very deliberate. And I leave vacancies open forever before I will put somebody in there until I find the perfect person. It makes everybody nuts. I had an interim for my general counsel for a year before taking anybody. And they were like, when are you going to hire somebody? And now that she is part of the team, they can't even remember that it took me a year to find her, but I was really careful. So…

Good things come to those who wait, patience is a virtue.

And you know something else, it's easier to limp along with the vacancy than it is to make a staffing mistake and dig out of a personnel problem. That's something I've learned over time, particularly if you're a softie like me. Because it's like, ah, geez, I really don't want to do this. And then it's like, awful. And you know what it's like when you fire somebody, it's not fun. But if you pick the right person to begin with, then I make sure everybody on the team interviews them because I want them to get along. And if one person goes like this, I won't hire them. But I can tell you that no matter who walks in the room, everybody smiles and is happy to see them. That's what you want to create because then work feels more like fun than work.