When a client finally accepted that the root cause of their many struggles was that they keep hiring the wrong people, it was a major breakthrough. What will likely take even longer is for them to realize that they aren’t even qualified to hire the kind of people they really need!

“How can we be hiring the wrong people when we hire such great people?” they demanded to know. Every one a top notch subject matter expert just like themselves. People with great experience and knowledge in the field. People who care as much as they do. And people who fit in really well. How could this be a problem?

The problem they finally recognized is that by hiring people like themselves, they don’t really have people managers or project managers or product managers or branding experts or…

Not only are they missing these critical skills, but the current staff members have zero interest in acquiring these missing skills. They are specialists, pure and simple. Excellent, smart, dedicated, good people – with neither the interest nor the skills needed to manage people, projects, or products. And this, by the way, is super common in young organizations, especially technology start-ups.

And that’s not all that’s missing. They also have no diversity to speak of. What they have is a lot of great white guys who think a lot alike.

Recognizing that they actually need additional skills and inclinations, such as people and project managers, was a giant step in the right direction.

Believing that these skills and inclinations don’t require subject matter expertise and that not having that subject matter expertise might actually be beneficial may be a bridge too far!

Hoping they will also see diversity as an asset, and not just a tie-breaker, challenges even my eternal optimism!!

Recognizing that you really do need something different is the first step. Transforming that recognition into a realistic description of job candidate characteristics that actually leads to a new type of employee is a task that should not be underestimated. It isn’t easy. Especially if you take the traditional approach of listing desired credentials, capabilities, and experience.

But for now, let’s assume my client’s management team can actually agree on the characteristics they are seeking in a new employee. Let’s assume that those characteristics reflect a different type of employee—someone who thinks differently than they do, cares about the things they would prefer to ignore, and measures their success differently (e.g., by the success of others rather than personal accomplishment). In my last newsletter, I told the story about my husband and the nail to illustrate how differently people see and approach situations. Let’s assume my client knows whether they need to hire someone who will see the nail without fail or someone who will never be distracted by a mere nail.

Even with these assumptions, my client is still in trouble. Here is why:

Handicap #1. They don’t value the skills and inclinations they purportedly seek.

My client now claims to see the need for people and project management. However, they value their subject matter expertise far more than these missing skills the organization so desperately needs. They will forever be most impressed with the candidates who possess the skills that they adore—and that they already have in abundance! The confident, charismatic expert will likely walk all over their carefully debated hiring criteria and land the job.

Handicap #2. They can’t evaluate what they can’t understand.

My client couldn’t recognize a great people manager if they tripped over one because they don’t understand what a great people manager does. Maybe they’ve never been exposed to a really good manager. Maybe they have been exposed to one but never noticed. After all, good managers draw attention to results and improvement opportunities, not to themselves.

Nor could my client recognize a great project manager because they’ve never witnessed the skills, attitudes, and actions of someone managing a large project to schedule, budget, and complex requirements.

If you don’t really understand what a job function does, you aren’t in a position to evaluate candidates against that position, and if you don’t really value those capabilities anyway, you will never gravitate to the person who possesses them. If you possess these two handicaps, you are simply not qualified to select a qualified candidate!!

So what can you do?

Take a good look at your staff relative to your hiring criteria. For each criterion on your list, figure out who values those characteristics and who is capable of doing the evaluation. Who is capable of recognizing good management skills? Who knows how to assess leadership? Who has enough project management expertise to tell the difference between a smooth talker and a serious project manager? Who can distinguish a mentor from a competitor, a big-sky thinker from a ducks-in-a-row detail chaser, a craftsman from a philosopher?

If you have people who both value and can assess the skills and inclinations you need to hire, that’s great. Use them. Don’t assume your team and the future direct reports of this new employee are qualified to make this assessment! What they want isn’t what matters. What matters is what the organization needs. What they want might be a nice white guy a lot like themselves who makes them feel comfortable.

If you don’t have people who both value and can assess the skills and inclinations you need, lean heavily on a top-notch recruiter. Be sure the recruiter knows exactly which areas you feel least qualified to judge so they don’t even send you the resume of anyone who fails to meet those essential criteria.

Clarity is critical. Clarity about the skills and inclinations you need. Clarity about your ability to value and assess those skills and inclinations. These decisions will help you drive a process that will achieve your desired results. Skip these steps and you are guaranteed to make another hiring mistake.

Getting the right people with the right skills and inclinations into the right positions will do more for your success than any other improvement initiative. Most organizations waste a ridiculous amount of time and energy tolerating, managing, and suffering from poor matches between people and positions.

This article first appeared on Forbes, June 27th, 2019