Ильдар Хусаинов – The power of freedom (страница 28)

If a person is hardworking, loves people, is honest, principled, and courageous, then their “processor” is more than sufficient for great achievements. In the past, I believed that the “processor” determined everything. However, as I approached my 40s and 45s, I realized that upbringing, environment, principles, and a person’s inner world also play a crucial role. Strong individuals want to work with other strong individuals, which is why sometimes I make the tough decision to let go of those who are not capable of growth. If I don’t do this, I risk losing my top employees.

With Ekaterina Dzhanbrovskaya, Executive Director of the Vladivostok Office, during a business trip to the city, September 2024

To track employees and identify weaknesses, we have a well-structured management system in place. We have a dedicated HR department, a specialized evaluation department, and we utilize specific technologies. We constantly conduct reviews and assessments. Some might call this bureaucracy, but I see it as order. It’s an essential tool that any business should employ.

I believe a company should either focus on finding strong individuals and developing their talents or try to cultivate all employees, but in that case, the overall level of professionalism is unlikely to be high. My approach is to seek out talent and nurture it. The business environment is tough, and if resources are spent on those who cannot grow quickly, the company will struggle financially.

Sometimes a top manager comes to me with a recommendation to hire a good specialist. I say, "Let’s meet and conduct an interview." But if during the conversation it turns out that the person seems decent but their mindset and work approaches don’t align with our values, I decide, "No, we won’t proceed further."

I recently read a book discussing three personality traits: creativity, genius, and intuition. I agree with this. Creativity, genius, and intuition are sparks that everyone should possess. These qualities are difficult to measure or assess in an employee's work. The average evaluation cycle for an employee’s performance is a year; for a manager, it’s one and a half to two years. A performer with a limited role can be evaluated in six months. However, operational staff on the factory floor can be assessed in just one minute – put them in their position, and it’s immediately clear if they fit or not.

However, qualities like courage, resilience, and kindness are harder to evaluate. Life presents situations where people reveal themselves under unexpected circumstances. Remember the scene from "The Dark Knight" where criminals were on one ferry and ordinary citizens on the other? A criminal refused to blow up the ship while a civilian broker was ready to push the button.

Such situations are hard to predict. Therefore, when I talk about talent, I mean that the system should be able to accurately read people's abilities and allocate resources to them when necessary. It's important to understand that there is a significant underwater part of an iceberg. To uncover this "part" in employees, a company must regularly invest in their assessment.

Organizations that implement such approaches will always evolve, and companies with these systems will succeed. A culture of attracting talent inherently fosters the recruitment of talented individuals. Employee development is the most challenging but not the most expensive function. Anyone can quickly answer whether they are growing in this company.

There’s a parable about a young man who asked a wise man how to know if his girlfriend loves him. The wise man replied that if he doesn’t feel that love, he already knows the answer to his question. The same applies in organizations: every employee should unequivocally answer "yes" to whether they are being developed here. This is challenging because the development function does not yield immediate results. Real results appear after 8–12 months of working at the company, especially for senior managers. Basic skills can be acquired more quickly, but serious development takes time.

In our company, we have powerful trainers, adaptation specialists, and strong managers, all contributing to a culture of employee development. We refer to ourselves as a "realtor factory" because we train our agents from the ground up. This is our core business, and I believe in fostering an entrepreneurial culture within each employee. We must help them grow.

We have a screening process in place, and once a recruiter has brought someone on board, our goal is to turn that new hire into a true star. To achieve this, we utilize all available mechanisms: communication, interaction, emotional intelligence, and even mindset.

When we invited business trainers, our finance team rushed to me, saying, "Ildar, get rid of them! We're just throwing money away! Let the managers train the new hires themselves." I responded, "Hold on, let's see how this plays out. Our productivity will increase, turnover will decrease, and people will want to develop. Otherwise, how will we differentiate ourselves from other companies if we don't invest in our employees' growth?"

Chapter 14. About Frugality

One of the main challenges entrepreneurs face is that people often use the saying "penny-pinching" to describe them. The nature of this perceived greed remains unclear, even though entrepreneurs themselves see their behavior as being frugal rather than greedy. The ability to evaluate every ruble and resource is an innate quality that varies in development from person to person, much like the capacity to share results and trust in the system and others. The intensity of these personal traits differs for everyone, similar to how the knobs on a mixing console are set at different levels.

Everyone knows and feels what qualities they possess. For example, I've come to realize that I can be a bit stingy, but I also consider myself a kind person. I can be persuaded to lend money if approached in the right way. I’m fortunate to have someone even more frugal by my side – he even suggests taking a pay cut himself. Let me share a work-related episode that left a strong impression on me – so much so that I decided to include it in this book. One day, Sergey Petrovich Shchepelin came to me and began persuading me to reduce his salary and that of some top managers, believing they were overpaid. We discussed this for about an hour, each expressing our viewpoints. This incident, like the story about hedging, reflects the culture of our organization and the level of trust within the team. Our employees aren’t afraid to discuss even sensitive topics because they have a sense of fairness.

It might be hard for some readers to believe that someone would voluntarily ask for a pay cut, but this became possible due to the culture we’ve created. When such a value system is established within a team, leaders and their subordinates become partners. Employees start thinking not just about themselves but about the business as a whole. This represents a high level of engagement that can be compared to maternal love. An employee is willing to do whatever it takes for the company's well-being, even if it means taking a pay cut.

I always oppose discussions about efficiency on a philosophical level – this is when someone raises the topic of efficiency without proposing any concrete solutions. For example, we recently optimized the work of our departments. Each department head would say, "We need to cut that department!" But I would respond, "Wait, what about your department? Shouldn’t we cut yours too?" And I would hear back, "Why should we cut mine? Everything’s fine here!" This pattern repeated itself every time we talked about optimizing anything. Everyone always insisted, "No, no, no – this applies to others, not us."

People are inherently unable to independently improve their internal efficiency. Here’s another example: Recently, our esteemed realtors actively began advertising on platforms like Avito and Cian. What happened was that prices on these aggregators started to rise, trapping us in a vicious cycle. We were covering demands while being asked for an even larger percentage of subsidies. Then we complicated matters further by subsidizing ads on these platforms. We reduced each realtor's expenses by up to 70%, paying for advertisements out of our own pockets. As a result, realtors lost touch with their actual expenses and began purchasing ads on Avito and Cian aggressively, causing those platforms to overheat from demand.

That's when I realized why being a bit frugal can sometimes be necessary and even beneficial. Why is it important for people to receive what they deserve, even if it costs a bit more than they can afford? It’s dangerous when global disparities allow things to be obtained cheaply. I often use this example: imagine what would happen if the government covered 70% of the cost of a car for every individual. Public transportation would become obsolete. Getting a driver's license would suddenly be advantageous. Owning a personal vehicle would be cheaper than taking a taxi, which is a reality. Thus, the cost of owning a car would align with the actual expenses of public transport. Some would gain an unfair advantage while others would lose out. The number of pedestrians might decrease because some would switch to cars. As a result, a cycle of incorrect processes would be set in motion.