In my July 28 column, I described the lessons I had learned recently while serving as a chief executive temp at a company my firm owns. My job was to walk around the company with a look of confidence on my face, utter maxims about the corporate mission and cheer on the people who were doing the real work.

After I had spent two months in the corner office, the managers and I agreed wholeheartedly on one thing: The sooner I hand over the keys and go back to my day job as chairman of the board the better for everybody. So while the present managers have been fixing problems, I have been hiring executives.

Hiring the people to lead and manage a company is the second most important thing an owner ever gets to do. (The first is establishing the principles the people in the company will live by.) Hiring chief executives is like getting married; if you do it right, you don't have to do it often.

Picking a wife may be fun, but picking a chief executive is hard work. However, getting this one decision right can make all the others easier for the next five to ten years. Getting it wrong can be a disaster.

Here are a few of the things I think about when hiring a senior executive:

Every business owner I know starts out thinking he can do it himself and save the headhunter's fee. This is bad thinking. Your objective is to find, screen and hire exceptional people as fast as possible. A good headhunter can complete the job in half the time.

Pick a headhunter based upon who will specifically handle your search, not on the name of the firm. Interview hunters as thoroughly as you would interview a candidate for the job. Spend the time it takes for the headhunter to learn what you want.

Write job specifications for the position: What experience? How long? Which industries? What management style? It is tempting to deviate from your needs and pick a person just because you like him. Don't.

In situations where the investors are especially risk-averse, or where the company may be facing excessive risk, it may be appropriate to lower your manager risk. You can do so by restricting your search to people who have managed similar businesses or larger businesses before, i.e., who have already learned to shave on somebody else's beard. In other situations, where the investor risk is low, it may be appropriate to take more manager risk with a younger or more aggressive person.

Ask the old dogs. You can reduce your risk of making a bad choice by asking people who have been chief executives of big companies for a long time for their advice. I have been blessed with more than a dozen such friends; I keep them on my speed dial.

Hire to fit your vision of the company. First, you have to have one. Do you want the company to be a low-cost commodity producer or a high-service branded company? Do you plan to grow or manage to maximize current cash flow? What are the big events in the company's future: acquisitions, internal growth, public offerings? Do you plan to change the company's focus? It is important that the owner's vision for the company be clear to the executives being recruited. Probe hard to make sure the executives you are hiring personally share your vision. Conflicting missions at the top can kill a good company.

Take time to arrange for the best candidates to spend time with the people with whom they are going to be working.

Hire for where you are going, not for where you have been. It takes more talent, and more energy, to grow or change a company than to run one. I wanted to hire a team that could run a $300 million company today; that could create a billion-dollar company in five to seven years. That means we wanted to hire a billion-dollar management team today.

Hire backups for key people. Bench strength is one of the key weaknesses of small to midsize companies. I like to have a superb manager who is confident enough in his own abilities to want a person working for him who could step into his job. People do break their legs skiing; planes do crash.

So how did I do in replacing myself? Great. We recruited two terrifically talented managers in just over two months. They have already asked me when I will be leaving the building. I guess I hired the right guys.