HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you identify good people to work with?

8 points by Regardsyjc ↗ HN
Warren Buffett says that he only works with people he likes, admires, and trusts. I read that he can determine within 5-10 minutes of a call whether he'd be interested in working with the other person or not.

In Ray Dalio's Principles, he says that when you find the right person for the right role that it's like an audible click. He also says that he hires on values > abilities > skills in that order. Similar to Buffett who hires for character, intelligence, and energy. Character always come first.

My question is- so how do you identify "good" people to work with? I don't have much experience or role models of good people that I have been able to learn from directly. I need to get better at picking the right people to work with. What are some of the ways you identify or have identified good people?

6 comments

[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 26.9 ms ] thread
modbait
No idea. The "good" news is that you'll rarely be able to choose who you work with in any case.
Jefro118
It would help if you provided more context here. You are not in the same situation as Warren Buffet or Ray Dalio, so you should pause before trying to apply their advice to your own life. Are you a student? An employee? An entrepreneur?

Of the attributes they listed, I imagine it is easier to narrow people down by skills first, then intelligence and then character won't necessarily be something you can judge easily and accurately. In any case you will probably have to work with them for at least a little while until you could confidently consider them "good" though.

Regardsyjc
Thanks so much. I run a small Amazon business so I have to make the following business decisions and I don't think I've been learning from my mistakes:

- Manufacturers/Clients: How do I choose the right people to work with? Sometimes manufacturers do not create great products, sometimes clients lie. What are some signs to avoid bad business relationships?

- Hiring: How do you hire people with "good" character? I learned the hard way of abilities/skills with my first few hires.

- Co-founder: I need a technical co-founder for a software I'd like to build, someone who has previous experience building a great team (my weakness). Because I'm terrible at team-building, I have no idea what to look for.

- Investors/Advisors: People have expressed interest in investing in a software I am building. I know I need help and guidance- but I don't think investing in me would be the right decision for them because I have 0 unicorn aspirations.

So far my strategy has been to be brutally honest but I have found that it doesn't work all the time.

bjourne
What is your definition of a good person? In my experience, 99.99 % of all people are "good people" because they try their best to abide by the law (speeding is a major exception), be truthful, honest and so on. Those who aren't, generally have some kind of psychiatric disorder. In my experience, truly evil persons are incredibly rare.
Regardsyjc
Thank you, your question made me realize that I had no idea what I was looking for. After thinking I would like the people I work with to have virtues like:

- integrity

- agreeableness (easy to work with)

- accountability/reliability (ability to admit mistakes and fix them as well as deliver on agreed deadlines)

- humility (open-mindedness)

- courage (to voice their thoughts even if it's different from everyone else's, a growth mindset to pursue things that scare them like new skills or projects, and to speak up about their needs as well as reinforce boundaries)

- perseverance (ability to fail and try again)

- mission.

mabynogy
Do something before with them and ask them to recommend you other peoples after.