Don't Hire Yourself

When hiring to grow their firm or adding a partner, most older (and typically entrepreneurial) advisors make the mistake of trying to hire younger advisors who are just like themselves, which tends to overload firms with dynamic but chaotic behavior. Even worse, when they do bring in more complimentary professional employees, they try to transform their typically more analytical junior advisors into entrepreneurs, creating frustration, dissatisfaction, and–you guessed it–even more chaos. To his credit, once he overcame his aversion to having any partner at all, Dave Shore both recognized the value in the analytical approach that Tim Harrington brought to Marin Advisors, and generously provided him with extensive freedom to work with clients his own way, attract new clients in his own style, and express his organizational talents in the firm’s documents and communications.