Hudson Valley businesses may not know enough about the people they hire or they may pick people with whom they’re comfortable, rather than others who have better skills for the job.

If you spend the same amount of time and energy developing your people and yourself as you do on budgeting, strategic planning, and financial monitoring, the payoff will come in sustainable competitive advantage.

What kind of people are you looking for? Too often we are seduced by the educational and intellectual qualities of the candidates interviewed. We don’t ask, “How good is this person at getting things done?”

There’s very little correlation between those who talk a good game, and those who get things done. Hudson Valley enterprises that execute have selected the doer instead of the talker.

When interviewing candidates for a position, the first traits to look for are energy and enthusiasm for execution. How do they set priorities? Do they include other people in the decisions made? Can they justifiably take credit for good financial results, or were they just moving from position to position, one step ahead of calamity?

Consider what the candidate wants to talk about. Does the candidate detail the obstacles that had to be overcome, the thrill of getting things done, or do they keep wandering back to strategy and philosophy?

Do they explain the roles played by the people assigned to them? Focus on the candidate’s energy, accomplishments, and willingness to put in extra hours to get things done. Donna Cornell, President of Cornell Career Center in Newburgh cautions, “Make sure you hire the person, not the resume. Invest the time to thoroughly interview to insure this is the stellar performer you need.”

Decisiveness is the ability to make difficult decisions swiftly and well, and to act on them. Many people dance around decisions without ever making them. When they don’t, everybody in the organization knows they are wavering, procrastinating, and avoiding reality.

Getting things done through others, including suppliers and customers, is a fundamental leadership skill. Poor leaders smother their people, blocking their initiative and creativity. They’re micromanagers, insecure leaders, who can’t trust others to get it right because they don’t know how to monitor their performance.

Others err in the opposite direction abandoning their people, customers and suppliers, tossing the ball entirely into their court. Then, when things don’t get done as expected, they’re frustrated.

Too many Hudson Valley business leaders don’t bring things down to earth, focusing on short-term accomplishments on the way to bigger goals. The leaders whose visions come true are those who build and sustain their people’s momentum, reaching one goal at a time.

Hire executioners, clarify what you want them to do, get out of their way while remembering that follow-through is the cornerstone of execution. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to, according to the agreed timetable.

If you enjoyed this column you’ll love our Books (click here) and Training Programs (click here). Each is filled with hundreds of leading edge profit enhancing ideas from the best business thinkers in the world. This is one of over 300 columns published and part of the reason why The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have called The DreamSpeaker™ about Business Planning Issues.