“When in doubt, don’t hire—keep looking.”
— Jim CollinsA patient walked into a busy dental office without an appointment. It was one of several locations run by a growing dental group.
He had a bad toothache and needed to be seen.
No one was available to see him right away, so he took a seat and waited.
As the day went on, dentists finished with their scheduled patients. Some were asked if they could see one more. More than once, the answer was some version of “I’m clocking out.”
It had been a long day, and they were tired.
Six hours later, he was still sitting in the lobby.
The person who finally helped him was one of the most junior people in the office. They noticed how long he’d been waiting, kept worrying about him, and pushed until a dentist agreed to see him.
For six hours, no one took responsibility for that patient. The person who finally did wasn’t even a dentist.
When the leadership team heard what happened, they agreed it was unacceptable. They were right about that.
Then they decided how to fix it.
“We need to do customer service training.”
My response was simple: “You can’t teach customer service to people who don’t care.”
Skills Aren’t Enough
Training is the natural reflex when people fall short.
But training is built for skills problems, and I didn’t think skills were the problem here.
Every dentist in that office knew how to see a patient. That was never in question.
It helps to separate three things that often get lumped together:
Skills are whether someone can do the work.
Values are how someone behaves while doing it.
Purpose is why the work matters to them.
The dentists had the skills. The person who helped that patient had the values and understood why the work mattered.
Training can do a lot. It can teach people what’s expected and sharpen their judgment. What it can’t do is make someone care.
That doesn’t make skills optional. In a dental practice, clinical skill is non-negotiable. Nobody wants a caring dentist who can’t fix a tooth.
But skills alone don’t tell you what someone will do at the end of a long shift, with a patient still waiting and a reason to go home.
That’s what values and purpose are for.
Who We Are and Why We Exist
Values and purpose aren’t new ideas. Plenty of companies have them posted somewhere. But if they’re vague, or no one uses them or holds people to them, they’re just words on a wall.
The best values have a short name and a clear explanation of what they look like in action. A value called “Patients First” sounds nice. Add “When a patient is waiting, own it,” and everyone knows what to do.
Purpose is less familiar. For a company, it’s why it exists beyond making money. It gives people a reason to care about more than the task in front of them.
Say a dental group’s purpose is about caring for patients, and at the end of a long shift, a patient is still waiting. A dentist who shares that purpose makes sure someone takes responsibility for them, even if they’re too tired to see him themselves. A dentist who doesn’t sees one more task keeping them from clocking out.
When everyone shares the same values and purpose, you don’t need a rule for every situation. No one has to write a rule that says patients shouldn’t wait six hours. Everyone already knows it’s not OK.
When people don’t share them, leaders try to make up for it with rules. They add more policies, more processes, and more scorecards. Every company needs some of these. But when they get too complicated, leaders often end up managing behavior that shared values and purpose should guide. When the rules still aren’t enough, leaders start making decisions their people should make themselves.
That’s exhausting, and it doesn’t scale.
The dental group had done the first part of this work. Caring for patients was one of its values. Its purpose was about serving its community.
So why didn’t any of that help the patient in the lobby?
The Cost of Filling Seats
I raised it with the CEO afterward.
He told me I was being unrealistic. As he saw it, no candidates lived all those values and shared the company’s purpose. If they held out for people who did, they’d never hire anyone.
He had a point. Good dentists were hard to find, and seats sat empty.
An empty seat is easy to see. It shows up on the schedule every day. The cost of the wrong hire is harder to see, because it’s spread out over months.
But his answer showed the real problem. The company had values and a purpose. No one used them as a standard when hiring, reviewing people, or holding them accountable.
So they hired for skills and need. That’s how a patient ended up waiting six hours in the lobby.
When that happens, every hire who doesn’t fit shows the team that what the company stands for doesn’t really matter. The people who do care end up doing the work others won’t, like getting that patient seen. Eventually, some of them leave.
In my experience, the hires who don’t fit tend to leave too. Without a real connection to what the company stands for, they’re more likely to follow the next bigger paycheck or better title.
Now there are more empty seats and more pressure to fill them fast. So leaders lower the bar again, and the belief that there are no good people gets a little stronger.
That’s where the extra rules and supervision come from. The training this team wanted was one more piece of that cycle.
Not sure what this is costing you? Think of the person on your team who most often goes against what you stand for. How much time did you spend managing them last quarter? How much of their work did others have to fix? How many complaints did you deal with? Now compare that to a few more weeks with an open seat.
Sometimes the values and purpose were never realistic to begin with. They describe who the company wishes it were, and no one is ready to live up to them.
Either way, a leader has two choices.
If they’re aspirational, rewrite them into something you’re willing to hold everyone to.
If they’re right, protect them, even when it means leaving a seat open a little longer.
Either choice is hard. Both cost less than filling seats with people who don’t share what the company stands for.
How to Protect What You Stand For
The people you’re looking for do exist. They’re just harder to spot on a resume. The bar isn’t perfection. You’re looking for people who live what you stand for most of the time.
Once you know what you’re willing to stand behind, three habits keep it real.
1. Start with the people you already have.
If someone on your team goes against what the company stands for and nothing happens, better hiring won’t fix it. What you fail to enforce, you endorse. Hold your current team to the same standard you’d hold a new hire to.
2. Hire for skills, values, and purpose.
Don’t trade one for the others. Skills show up on a resume. Values and purpose show up in behavior, so you have to look for them. The better you get at this, the fewer hiring mistakes you’ll make.
Ask about a time they had to choose between what was easy and what was right, and what they did.
Ask what drew them to this work, and listen for whether your purpose matters to them.
Ask references how the person acts under pressure.
Spend time with candidates outside the interview, and notice how they treat people when they’re not trying to impress you.
Shared values don’t mean everyone thinks or acts alike. They mean agreeing on the behaviors that matter.
While you look, cover the gap with temporary help or a schedule adjustment, and tell your team why you’re waiting.
3. Make what you stand for part of reviews and recognition.
Review people on how they act, along with what they deliver. When someone lives what you stand for, tell them.
Already in the Building
Think back to that dental office.
The CEO believed the people he needed didn’t exist.
One of them was already working for him.
That employee didn’t need a policy or another training program to take responsibility for the patient.
That’s what shared values and purpose look like when they’re real.
The people you need are out there. Some may already work for you. Your job is to find them, protect them, and hire more of them.
Related Essays:
The Simple Truth for Building an Enduring Culture: Great organizations know who they are, where they are going, and how they expect people to behave. This article explores how culture is built through consistent reinforcement rather than aspiration.
Communicating Your Core Values: Values only work when people understand them. This article explores how to turn values into a shared language, pairing each one with a clear explanation of the behavior behind it.
You Can’t Demand Loyalty: Loyalty can’t be demanded or bought. This article explores how leaders earn it by creating the right conditions, starting with hiring people who share the company’s values and purpose.
Footnotes and Sources:
Jim Collins quote: “When in doubt, don’t hire—keep looking.” From Good to Great (HarperBusiness, 2001), Chapter 3, “First Who... Then What,” where Collins outlines the practical disciplines for being rigorous in people decisions.
Client story: Some details have been changed to protect the client’s privacy.
Before You Fill That Seat
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