Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company—and Revolutionized an Industry

9.9. Play #108: Challenge Your Best People with New Opportunities

The very best and brightest people can quickly overcome challenges and be ready for the next step. It's imperative to offer them new opportunities to keep them engaged and firmly committed. As much as it's necessary to define initial job positions, it's equally imperative to allow the individual to stretch in new directions.

We learned this lesson accidentally, when we needed people and did what it took to get them in the door—and moved them around later. As we grew, it became clear that the best people don't want to be confined by static job descriptions. Take, for example, the time we were hiring our first finance manager, Joe Allanson. Nancy Connery, our VP of HR, admitted ...