Leading IT: The Toughest Job in the World identifies the “eight tasks of leadership” — envisioning the future, delegation, staffing, decision-making, motivation, team-building, culture, and communication. Add to these process management, organizational design, provisioning, and general administration — the four tasks of management (or at least the four that have made my list thus far) — and you have your job description.

Of all your responsibilities, staffing is the most important. The proof: (1) If you have the right people in the right roles they will find ways to succeed no matter how poorly you handle the other eleven tasks; and (2) if you have the wrong people, they’ll mess up even the clearest vision, best-designed processes, and other advantages you provide.

Putting the right people in the right roles sounds simple. But if it’s so simple, why do many organizations hash it up so badly? Here are some of the factors that lead organizations astray:

• Management egotism: Many managers figure they are what make the organization tick — that employees are fungible commodities. You don’t spend much time and effort selecting cinder blocks or lentils; why would you spend any more time choosing employees?

• Management overload: Companies operate lean and mean these days (or “famished and feeble,” in Janet Jonas’ prize-winning translation). One consequence is that many managers have just barely enough time to handle process management, provisioning and general administration. Staffing takes time, effort, thought and care, and these managers have none to spare.

• The Sack o’skills theory: Too many HR organizations have bought into the we-can-make-recruiting-a-science claim. They use computerized screening tools to correlate position skill requirements to resume skill lists.Sadly, this “scientific” approach ignores the importance of attitude, temperament, a willingness to take responsibility and the habit of succeeding. It also fails to factor in the likelihood that anyone who has all of the listed skills and experience and still wants the job will be coasting instead of driving.Worst of all, it turns the whole process into a stupid game of Fool the Screening Software.

• Mistaking comfort for performance: When recruiting, some managers hire those unlikely to challenge them. When assessing existing staff, it means getting along with you is more important than getting the job done.

• Mistaking retention for compassion: If an employee isn’t succeeding, many managers live with the problem, mistakenly thinking they’re “doing the right thing.” They aren’t. Their other employees have to work harder than they otherwise would and someone you haven’t yet met — but could — doesn’t get a deserved opportunity.You aren’t being kind to the employee, either: You communicate the lie that what is really poor performance is just fine; and the employee knows, deep down, that what is called salary is really charity. In the end, your compassion discourages the employee from finding a different role that’s a better fit. Everybody loses.

• Neutron Jacking: Jack Welch popularized cutting the bottom ten percent of the workforce every year. Because it was Jack Welch, too many business leaders decided it must be a great idea. If you inherit a complacent, flabby organization this might be just the ticket … for a year or two. Beyond that limit, forget it — it’s both statistically and socially invalid.Statistically: If you trim the worst performers, and choose strong replacements, then after two years your average performers must be well ahead of the industry average. And if you give other managers credit for brains, those they’ve terminated were the ones who didn’t do their jobs well, dragging down the average among the currently unemployed. If you can continue to strengthen your workforce by churning those rated lowest among your employees, you’ve been doing a poor job of recruiting and retaining great employees. You won’t fix this by continuing to cut.

  Socially: How do you think your best employees will respond to the annual ritual? My guess — they’ll find companies that take a more surgical approach to dealing with problem performers. So in the effort to cut your worst employees you also lose your best.

  Even worse: The more you churn your workforce, the less employees will trust each other, or you, because trust takes time to develop. Without trust there is no teamwork; without teamwork few organizations can achieve anything important.

Contrast the above with this: Every manager I’ve ever known who has turned around a poorly performing organization has said the exact same thing: Two or three key hires make all the difference.