I've decided to take my own advice.

Lately I've been doing a lot of reorganizing and repositioning within my organization. I've been basing many of my decisions on the same cliché's I'm always preaching.

The thing is, I don't always listen to my own sermons. So I'm writing a new series based on those simple business philosophies which have carried me through the years. This exercise is as much for my benefit as yours. It's therapeutic for me to put this down in text.

Today's lesson that I'm teaching myself is my hiring philosophy which I've held onto for years but sometimes forget to adhere to. Here it is.

If you've hired the right guy to do the job, given him the tools he needs to do that job and removed all obstacles which could impede his success and it still doesn't work out, repeat step one.

It's a profound sentence. It's a philosophy more than a rule.

It implies that you need to hire the right guy for the job. As a manager you should spend a great deal of your time recruiting and team building. Jack Welch once said he spent one third of his time recruiting.

As well it implies that you need to give the employee all of the tools that he/she need to do their job. You can't hold it against them if you don't give them the resources they need.

Recently we hired a new sales manager for our watch business. We immediately hit him with questions like "What reports do you need? What metrics do you want to track? How many sales people do you need to hit your target we've set for you? How many leads do you need?"

The final implication is that you need to remove all of the obstacles impeding their way to success. This means that it is your responsibility that you know if someone else on the team is causing them problems. There's a litany of situations which could get in their way to succeed. It's impossible to write them all down but you know they are there if you are looking for them. Perhaps you just get them better phones or computers. Sometimes its the little things.

Recently we moved our entire Filipino operations to the night shift to improve communications. The time lag was an obstacle that was keeping our manager there from being successful. It's just an example. There are many of things to look out for.

This leads us to the conclusion. If you've done those three steps and the goals still aren't being met, repeat step one. Think about it. The manager is now liberated from the difficult decision to fire or not fire. Don't get rid of someone if you haven't done your job first.

It's your job to hire the right person. It's your job to give them the tools they need to succeed. It's your job to remove any obstacles that are in their way. If you've done your job and it isn't working then it is their fault. It's your fault until you eliminate those three items, not theirs.

You can't say they haven't done their job if you haven't done yours.

That moment of clarity only comes if you've done your job first. Only then can you look at your staff and know if they are doing theirs.