Over the years, I've had the opportunity to hire, manage, and work alongside a lot of talented people.
Some were incredibly smart. Some were highly technical. Some could solve problems faster than almost anyone else in the room.
But after years of building and leading digital and eCommerce teams, I've come to believe that the most valuable trait in a long-term employee isn't necessarily talent.
It's dependability.
That may sound counterintuitive, especially in digital and eCommerce where companies are constantly competing for the "best talent." But there is an important distinction between hiring someone to build a team with and hiring someone to solve a specific problem.
Those are two very different things.
Talent Gets Your Attention. Dependability Builds Trust.
When I think about the people I've valued most throughout my career, they aren't necessarily the people who were the absolute best at one particular skill.
They're the people I knew I could count on.
If they said something would get done, it got done.
If there was a problem, I knew they would tell me.
If something wasn't going according to plan, they didn't disappear or wait until the deadline to raise their hand.
And when things inevitably became difficult, they were still there.
That consistency creates something incredibly important within a team: trust.
As a leader, there is enormous value in being able to give someone responsibility and not constantly wonder whether you need to follow up.
Over time, that reliability compounds.
You give them more responsibility. They develop more expertise. They learn the business. They understand how you think. They build relationships across the organization.
Eventually, they become someone you can build around.
The Most Talented Person Isn't Always the Best Hire
This is something I came to appreciate much more as I took on larger leadership roles at Taco Bell and later Jollibee Foods Corporation.
Digital commerce is inherently cross-functional.
Launching a new website, mobile app, loyalty program, CRM capability, SEO initiative, or digital ordering experience rarely involves one person working independently.
You're coordinating product, technology, marketing, operations, finance, analytics, agencies, vendors, and executive stakeholders.
In that environment, individual brilliance only gets you so far.
Someone can be an exceptional developer, marketer, designer, analyst, or product manager, but if you can't depend on them to communicate, follow through, collaborate, and consistently deliver, their talent becomes much less valuable to the organization.
In some cases, highly talented but unreliable people can actually create more work for everyone around them.
Other team members start compensating for missed deadlines. Managers spend more time following up. Projects become harder to forecast. Trust begins to erode.
That's why, when I'm building a team for the long term, I'll take someone who is an 8 out of 10 in talent and a 10 out of 10 in dependability over someone who is a 10 out of 10 in talent and a 7 out of 10 in dependability almost every time.
Because I can build with the first person.
Contractors Are Different
Interestingly, I don't necessarily apply the same philosophy when hiring contractors, freelancers, agencies, or specialized consultants.
Sometimes you aren't looking for someone to build around.
You're looking for someone who can solve a very specific problem.
Maybe I need an exceptional UX designer for a website redesign.
Maybe I need a developer with deep expertise in a particular technology.
Maybe I need a technical SEO specialist to diagnose a complicated indexing issue.
In those situations, I may prioritize specialized expertise much more heavily.
If I need someone for 40 hours to solve a problem that only a handful of people know how to solve, I want the person who is exceptionally good at solving that problem.
I'm optimizing for the outcome.
When I'm hiring someone who may be on my team for the next five years, I'm optimizing for something different.
I'm optimizing for the relationship.
Long-Term Employees Create Compounding Value
One of the things that makes dependable employees so valuable is institutional knowledge.
The longer someone stays with an organization, the more context they accumulate.
They understand why certain decisions were made.
They know which systems have limitations.
They understand the history behind different initiatives.
They develop relationships with people throughout the organization.
And perhaps most importantly, they begin to understand the business well enough to anticipate problems before they happen.
This is especially valuable in eCommerce and digital transformation.
A great digital team isn't simply a collection of specialists executing tickets. The strongest teams understand how technology, customer experience, marketing, operations, and economics fit together.
That understanding takes time to develop.
When dependable people stay and grow with the organization, their value can increase dramatically.
Dependability Doesn't Mean Playing It Safe
Dependability doesn't mean I want people who simply do what they're told.
In fact, some of the people I trust most are the ones who challenge me.
They'll tell me when they think I'm wrong.
They'll bring a different perspective.
They'll push for a better solution.
Dependability is about knowing that regardless of whether we agree, I can trust that person to be transparent, accountable, and committed to the outcome.
I would much rather have someone tell me early that a project is going to miss its deadline than tell me everything is fine until the day before launch.
That's dependability too.
Skills Can Be Developed. Trust Is Harder to Build.
Most people underestimate how much someone can grow when they're given the right opportunities.
I've watched people develop new technical skills, become stronger presenters, learn new platforms, take on larger projects, and eventually become leaders themselves.
Someone who is curious, accountable, and dependable can become dramatically more capable over time.
That's one reason I don't believe hiring should always be about finding the candidate with the most impressive resume.
Obviously, there has to be a baseline level of capability.
But once someone crosses that threshold, I start paying much more attention to the characteristics that determine whether I actually want to work with that person every day.
Do they take ownership?
Do they communicate?
Do they follow through?
Do they ask questions?
Can they admit when they don't know something?
Can other people depend on them?
Would I trust them with something important without constantly checking on them?
Those questions have become increasingly important to me as I've progressed through my career.
Build Your Core Team Around People You Can Count On
There will always be a place for exceptional specialists.
I've worked with incredibly talented developers, designers, agencies, consultants, and freelancers throughout my career. Sometimes the right answer absolutely is to bring in the best specialist you can find to solve a particular problem.
But that's different from building a team.
When I'm thinking about the people I want beside me for the next several years, I'm looking for something more than raw talent.
I want people who are smart enough to do the job, curious enough to keep getting better, confident enough to challenge ideas, and dependable enough that everyone around them knows they can be trusted.
Because over a long enough period of time, I've found that consistency beats flashes of brilliance.
Talent can make someone impressive.
Dependability makes someone invaluable.
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