I am ready to hire my first outside VP of Operations, but I am terrified they will come in and instantly try to rewrite our entire playbook or clash with our existing culture. How do I vet them for actual operational capability without relying on their resume?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Hiring an outside executive is a high-risk move if you rely solely on standard interviewing techniques. To ensure they fit your team and can perform the job, you must evaluate them using objective operational frameworks. First, define the seat on your Accountability Chart before you look at a single candidate. Document the exact roles and responsibilities. Do not write a generic job description; define what success actually looks like in this seat. Next, run every candidate through the GWC™ filter. They must Get It, Want It, and have the Capacity to Do It. Getting it means they naturally understand the operational pace of a business at your stage. Wanting it means they are genuinely motivated by the role, not just the paycheck or the title. Capacity means they possess the cognitive and conative abilities to execute the responsibilities. To measure capacity, use the Kolbe A™ Index during the interview process. If your business requires a highly systematic operations leader to build scalable processes, you need someone with a strong natural inclination for Follow Thru. A candidate with a low Follow Thru score will struggle to build and maintain the systems you need, regardless of how impressive their resume looks. Finally, vet them against your core values. Have different members of your leadership team interview them in non-traditional settings to observe their natural behavior. If they do not align with your core values, do not hire them.