Michael: Hello and welcome back to a HaBO Village podcast. This is Michael Redman.
Kathryn: This is Kathryn Redman.
Michael: This is the podcast about helping leaders learn to build Passion and Provision companies, either introducing you to the topic of what a Passion and Provision company is and the potential or we're just here to support and encourage your vision and idea of creating a company that's both profitable and fulfilling for you and your employees where you, the company and everybody in it, rise.
Michael: Today, we're going to talk about hiring well in your company. You know what? One of the things we ... It may be last week we talked about happy employees and the benefit of those, but one of the biggest challenges we see in companies is actually employees. One of the biggest challenges of challenging employees, one of the biggest weaknesses I think or the place that, that all starts is people didn't hire right. The wrong hire can cause all kinds of pain.
Michael: There's an old story that says or an old saying that says, "Hire slow, fire fast."
Kathryn: No, by the way, not that this will surprise any of you from listening for any length of time, but we do not speak to this topic having done it perfectly and knowing all of the rules and regulations thereof. We speak to this topic having-
Michael: Learned, grow.
Kathryn: Learned. Made some really hard decisions, and-
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: Done it badly enough to learn what that looks like. We speak to you out of a place of experience.
Michael: Yeah, and the other thing I think I want to say is we're really ... We actually have been very fortunate to be very good at this. We've learned from some really good people. We've taken on a lot of information from people we know and authors and stuff that we don't know personally and even though we do it well and we have a high degree of success, we do not have 100% degree of success. We just don't.
Kathryn: No. It's funny. The further along we get, the more like, "Oh my gosh, how did that happen where when we stub our toe?"
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: Like, "Wait a second. How did that sneak by and we missed it?"
Michael: Like, "I've been walking for 10 years and now, I've just stubbed my toe or something. That was dumb."
Kathryn: "Yeah, I forgot to pick up my foot and I learned that 10 years ago. I don't know." That still happens occasionally as well.
Michael: If you are somebody who has experience in bad hiring at all, any kind of bad hiring, you're in good company because we all have. If you have employees, most of us and we're talking 99.9% of use have experienced bad hires. Sometimes, a bad hire can be just ... It was nobody's fault. You did everything you could, you did everything right, you asked all the right questions, the employee asked all the right questions and then you get in and then you find out that it just wasn't a perfect fit.
Michael: That's probably the first thing I want to mention about hiring well into as we talk about it today. We're going to get into some nuts and bolts. The first thing that I want you to have an attitude that while, the biggest problem and challenge with difficult employees or difficult employee leadership relationship is the hiring. It starts there is that hiring is not the 100% to finding and discovering if you have the right fit or not. Hiring is a huge percentage of it. But you need, I've really learned, you need to think, in a couple of different stages, you need to think your hiring process needs to be a multi-stage process, and then, once you hire people, you need to make sure that you have an expectation and they understand the expectation that there is a 90-day probationary period and then, a 6-month check in. I'm recommending it. Then, making sure that you hit that one year review and going, "Yeah, this is really it," because there is a levels of adjustment into a company and there's levels of comfort that people settle into.
Michael: Sometimes it's like the married couple. Everything was wonderful and they were in love and it's all great and nobody was bothered by anybody's challenges. Then, they get married and then, they settle in and then they become really raw in realness, stop protecting or pretending or being extra special and they don't even realize they're doing it. Then, all of a sudden you go, "Oh my gosh, I hate that about you. I loved it when we were dating. I hate it now."
Kathryn: Or, "I didn't even know about it when we were dating." Like the habit of how you ... I don't know. If you didn't move in with your spouse before you married them and suddenly, you're sleeping with them on a regular basis and it turns out they snore and you didn't really know that. That's just a fun thing to process through.
Michael: Yeah. In our house, that started in the last five years and we've been married for almost 25 years. But I keep my night stand a little bit differently than Kathryn's keeps hers.
Kathryn: Clutter bug.
Michael: I'm working way harder at doing that. But anyway, as we get ... As always, we got all sidetracked there a little bit. Let's come back to-
Kathryn: We digress.
Michael: Let's come back to hiring. The point of that story and the illustration is you discover things and employees are the same. Not everything is discoverable in the interview process. It's not possible.
Kathryn: It's not a perfect science and the fact of the matter is, both employer and employee or potential employee have their best face on during any kind of an interview process.
Michael: It's awkward.
Kathryn: We aren't always good predictors even when we're being brutally honest. We're not always good predictors of how we will react to a situation. Sometimes, you're not going to know until the employee's in that situation.
Michael: Now, the other argument I've heard to hiring to understanding and being better at hiring and being willing to learn and go through a method and a process is well, is the flip side of what we're saying. They say, "Well, you can't know, so you just hire and jump in and don't take your time." There are so much pain you can avoid, so much pain you can avoid. Stop and pay attention because if you look at any of the material out there written on hiring, what you will see that is common amongst all of them is have a system. You can't just rely on your gut, but you are going to have to make some subjective decisions.
Michael: Some of the methods out there try and take away all subjectivity. Quite frankly, if I like you or not as a friend is not an objective situation. It's very subjective. You're going to meet these employees and if you want a Passion and Provision company, you need to be able to figure out how to do that. You need to be able to figure out how to deal with quantitative and qualitative information, objective and subjective.
Michael: With that said, we're going to jump in and start talking about some things that we think make really good things for you to think about when you're hiring. First one, Kathryn?
Kathryn: Well, the first thing is always when you're hiring and then we talk a lot about this in every aspect of our business but we're always looking for both competence and character in the people that we hire. It's super important that they have the skills to do the job that you need them to do. That they are competent. That if you are hiring somebody that needs to write, then they better be able to write. But in addition to having the skills, the other half of the equation is do they have the character that you're looking for. Do they have shared values? Do they like what your company is about and feel like they could be somebody who gets excited and contributes it because they are aligned with your goals and your visions.
Michael: Yeah, when we talk about character, a lot of people think, right off the bat, are they honest and do they have integrity. Hey, they have strong character, they don't. But what we're actually talking about is more of a broader sense of character like you would see in a character and a book or a film. When you say describe that character or they're quite a character or those kind of inferences.
Michael: You want to know are they easy going or are they not? Are they detail oriented or are they not? Are they people who are always an Eeyore and they're always, "Uh," or are they really peppy tickers and happy all the time and all that? Then, not only knowing what's a good fit in your company.
Kathryn: The smaller your company is, almost the more important that becomes because any hire is going to change the balance of your team dynamic.
Michael: Yeah, so competence and character and if you've heard us say this before, competence and character are actually two aspects of what builds trust if you look at Stephen Covey's book on Speed of Trust and trust is made of those two. When you have competence and character, now competence, this is where either leaders get lazy or they just are uneducated. They just don't know exactly how to do this.
Michael: What I'm talking about is you need to have a clear job description as best you can and you have to be able to identify the tasks they're going to be doing. For instance, we have an employee leaving right now. They're getting ready to take off. They've been with us three and a half years. Life changes have happened, so they're moving on. It's great. Everybody's amenable and they're working through, "Okay, your job started out like this but it's morphed and grown." We haven't always kept up the job description, so one of things we're doing is we're using this week, the last two weeks to be able to say, "Okay, what are the tasks you're doing?"
Michael: I actually got her started on this about a month and a half ago, so she had a list already started but now, we're going, "Okay, this is great. These are the tasks you have to do. What takes up those tasks? Who's going to do this? Can we show somebody new this? This goes into the job description."
Michael: This is how you keep things going. If you're not sure where to start, have your employees write down what are they doing or if you're doing it, you're looking for a new position, what is that. Because when you do that, then you can start to evaluate, "Do they have the skills and attitudes needed to perform those tasks?" The underlying skills and attitudes.
Michael: Kathryn, talk about that a little bit.
Kathryn: Underlying skills and attitudes. For example, if you were hiring somebody who, you needed to have project managing accounts of project managing, even staff but making sure a project means from A to Z, does that person, first of all, are they organized. These are basic skills. Are they organized? Do they like lists? Have they used a Gantt chart before? Are they a person who knows how to actually move something forward? Those are the basic skills. Are they good on the computer?
Kathryn: But then, the attitude behind that is do they actually derive a sense of satisfaction or joy by moving people through a project. Do they actually get excited and feel like they're contributing because they're keeping people on task and they're able to help them achieve what it is they set out to do. Does that give them a sense of well-being and joy, I guess, is part of what I was saying. What's the attitude that they have regarding the tasks that they need to do to complete a job?
Michael: Right. I'm going to say that a different way.
Kathryn: Maybe a little more concisely [crosstalk 00:11:30].
Michael: I'm just going to re-say it. If you've got a job that's going to be a project manager, somebody who likes lists, who likes making lists and checking lists off and that makes them happy, you don't have to do anything else. If you hire the right person for that job who likes that stuff, you don't have to do anything else at a certain level to motivate and encourage them and make them feel good about their job because the job you gave them, intrinsically motivates them.
Michael: The tasks that are required in project management are build a list, check the list off, make sure that it's happening in different places.
Kathryn: People who have an attitude towards project management get a little hit of dopamine every time they get to check something off a list.
Michael: Oh, yeah.
Kathryn: There's a neurological like, "Whoa, that feel really good." I'm not like you, jotting lists, in project management. I still get a hit of that little hit of dopamine when I check something off a list.
Michael: I mean, it's really a crazy thing but it's that simple. Even saying what are they going to be doing. If you're going to hire somebody who's going to have to be answering the phone a lot or on the phone a lot, hire somebody who actually likes to talk and doesn't mind being on the phone.
Kathryn: Has a really friendly voice.
Michael: Yeah, it helps.
Kathryn: That they sound welcoming and warm. They don't sound hurt and cold.
Michael: If you know ahead of time what these tasks are and what the underlying skills and attitudes are, then what you're going to be doing is you're going to be saving yourself a lot of time and money and hassle and you're not going to have to train them nearly as hard. It's going to be real simple.
Michael: Because to say to somebody, "Well, I'd like you to be friendly on the phone." That's not exactly the best job description and there's a whole another podcast on that subject. But if they're naturally, if you understand the skills and talents and you can see that in the interview, then they're like, "I get it," and they're like this and they do it and you listen to them a couple of times and you go, "Yeah, perfect."
Michael: Just so you know. You should never tell somebody, the receptionist or anything like that to be friendly. Tell them specific things that they can do. Look people in the eye. Say hello and greet them. Say nice to meet you and smile.
Kathryn: Smile when you're answering the phone.
Michael: Smile when you're answering the phone. That's four ways of just four objectives that are very clear. They're observable and they can direct and manage those and lead those. It makes management easier. It's a freebie.
Michael: Skills and attitudes needed and really, literally, what you're doing is in essence, you're looking for the right person for the right job, that when they are doing that job, it's as if they're going downhill, it's as if they're going downstream with the river and when you put the wrong person in the wrong job, it's like they're pedaling a bike uphill all the time. It takes a lot more energy, a lot more strength, a lot more emotional energy and they're way more likely to make mistakes, to get fatigue faster, to get frustrated faster, to find less engagement and pleasure in the job, to feel like they belong in that company and they're way more ... They're more likely to make mistakes and they're way more likely to leave your company early.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Michael: Which all caused you money. Again, start with that. Good job description, understand the task, the skills and attitudes underneath it. Create ... Go ahead.
Kathryn: The next one really is, how are your going to write up your want ad.
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: A lot of times, you'll see people, whether they're on monster.com or LinkedIn or Craigslist, wherever it is that you're advertising and the job, it just says, "We're looking to hire an admin assistant. 40 hours a week. This is the location. Send us your resume." What we're learning and we've got a great mentor who taught us part of this, a guy named Roy Williams at Roy H. Williams Marketing is that you can narrow your pool and bring in much more qualified and valuable resumes and people if you just get creative about how you write a job posting.
Kathryn: For example, when we're posting a job, we don't write a boring job description. We basically write something that really exposes them to what our culture is, to some of the quirkiness of our culture and hopefully intrigues them about who we are and gives them a little bit of a peak and an insight into some of the values and the things we care about.
Kathryn: We also do something that ... Essentially, what we do is we bury something way into the job description. It's usually fairly lengthy and if they don't read it all the way through, they'll miss what it is that they're supposed to do to actually qualify to apply. That's a way to see if somebody's actually stayed engaged throughout it and if they don't, they're probably not somebody that you would want to hire.
Michael: I'm going to read you one. While you were talking, I went online and started looking for marketing assistants or marketing positions. There's some company in San Francisco, California called The FruitGuys.
Kathryn: The FruitGuys.
Michael: The FruitGuys. I've never heard of them, maybe you have. The FruitGuys, here it is. It's a $21 an hour job, full-time contract. I don't know what that is.
Kathryn: I can fire you anytime.
Michael: I guess so. The FruitGuys is America's premier provider of farm-fresh fruit to businesses nationwide. Okay, that's a nice marketing speak. It's very clear. I don't know how big they are. The FruitGuys pioneered the "fruit at work" concept, so nobody else had ever presented fruit at work. Nobody ever had bananas or apples at work before.
Kathryn: No. As a service. It was new, pioneer.
Michael: That fruit-at-work concept in San Francisco in 1998 to help companies provide healthy options to employees during their work day. By the way, FruitGuys, HP did that in the late 60s and 50s. I worked there. I know. Boy, I am being picky here. Today, The FruitGuys has regional locations across the US, each with next day delivery of fruit and environmentally friendly crates, local networks of small and family-run farms, hunger-assistance groups distributing our produce donations, and above all, a commitment to our customers’ 100% satisfaction.
Michael: All right. Folks, is that informational? Yeah, a little bit and it goes on and it's a whole job posting and there's all kinds of stuff in it. It's a template somebody uses for some company. But really, that's a bunch of marketing speak. In today's world, especially in a marketer, you're looking for a marketer. In today's marketing world, there's so much noise. You've got to stand out. You can't just do it. That's like every other job description out there. A little bit about the company and nananana. You're still going to talk about the company, you're still going to talk about the job, you're still going to talk about potentially, what's going on. I'm not even sure it actually, in that first paragraph, I'm not even sure it mentioned the job. Did it?
Kathryn: No.
Michael: I don't think they mentioned the job.
Kathryn: Maybe it didn't.
Michael: Okay.
Kathryn: Looking for someone to do something for $21 an hour [crosstalk 00:18:36].
Michael: For $21 an hour and you have to live in San Francisco and believe me, that's not cheap. What we're talking about is you have to stand out and what's happening is what we're finding is long format is really standing out and really telling a story, being creative. We got more marketing and PR value for our company the last time we ran an ad for an employee last year.
Michael: I mean, it was way better than any marketing campaign that we've ever paid for. It was awesome. Create a great want ad, okay? Second, I want you to do multi-stage interviews. I really want to encourage you to do it. I didn't make this up. I learned it. I pieced if together from a lot of different places. There's on company that I'm aware of that I've studies what they do a little bit and they do a little bit of teaching. Yeah, 12 interviews.
Kathryn: We are not doing 12 interviews.
Michael: I know you don't want to do 12 interviews.
Kathryn: Yep. No [crosstalk 00:19:39].
Michael: It was awesome, a little bit extensive but they're looking for ... They're a company that has even their entry level positions are significant positions because the team does a lot of services and a lot higher level thinking and stuff like that. They're going to make sure you're part of the team. If you're a part of, not just the management team, but even the core team, one of the things that you have to do if you make it to interview 10, they actually take you out to dinner, a couple of the leaders interviewing you and take you out to dinner and take your spouse.
Michael: At the interview, at the dinner, they ask the spouse, "Do you think your husband or wife is a good fit for this company and why?"
Kathryn: Yeah, which by the way, while I said we're not doing 12 interviews, I will throw in here from experience, if you're hiring somebody at a high level-
Michael: Management, leadership level.
Kathryn: At a management level, you are going to want to make sure you do that part with their spouse.
Michael: You cannot pretend that a spouse does not have any influence over somebody's work.
Kathryn: We had an experience on this a bunch of years ago. We were looking to bring on a partner in the company that we were working with. He was great. We just really enjoyed him. We enjoyed everything about him. We did a bunch of planning with him and then, we got to meet his wife.
Michael: A dinner party.
Kathryn: We had a dinner party and wow, I literally looked at my husband when it was over and said, "I would never inflict that woman on our town."
Michael: These people were out of town. We were in a different city.
Kathryn: Yeah, we were in a completely different city
Michael: We were talking about bringing him to Chico.
Kathryn: Yeah, looking at moving him to Chico. That is never going to happen. I would never inflict that person [crosstalk 00:21:24].
Michael: We had salad and then, we had chicken. By the time the chicken hit the plate, she had basically told us and she knew that we were doing marketing and advertising, she basically told us that advertising and advertisers were evil.
Kathryn: Yes.
Michael: This is not a good way to make small talk at a dinner party, especially when your husband's looking for a job and this company's actually doing it.
Kathryn: But we were very grateful. It's very revelatory.
Michael: It was. We saved ourselves a lot of pain. We're not saying you have to do 12 but here's what we so. At Half a Bubble Out, you fill out an application, turn in your resume, whatever you want. You respond ... We have a lot of people who are always saying, "Do you have an opening." We just say, "We'd like a cover letter and we'd like your resume." Then, when we go to hire a job, we will communicate with those people again and say, "Okay, here's the job description. Here's what we're doing. We need you to refill out something if you're interested," because there's always, like Kathryn said, a code word in it, stuff like that. We want to make sure that right off the bat, we test to see if people can read or will read.
Kathryn: Pay attention.
Michael: Then, we go through the resumes and then, we do a phone call on the resumes that we find that are even interesting like, "Okay, this might be interesting." We sort those down and we filter out the ones that we go, "No, they're not qualified at all based on their resume or how they filled out their resume. Then, we have a quick phone call and talk to them about we have certain questions that our office manager goes through. Then, from there, we filtered those down to a group interview.
Michael: In ours, we have a panel. In our company, we have a panel, so if you're going to get called in for an interview, your first interview is with our panel of folks and our staff. Our office is small. We have every full-time employee in the office sit on the staff.
Kathryn: Sit on the panel.
Michael: Sit on the panel. This sounds crazy. The most it's ever been is eight people but I think the most it's ever been in the room is. It can be intimidating but they're going to be working in a community and a culture and I learned a long time ago from a woman who really brought some great skills in thinking about hiring and working about a ream and thinking about the team, she was a general manager of ours for three years, I would never have done this. Ever.
Michael: She said, "No. We need to have at some level. We need to have the staff help interview. It's good to teach them interview skills. It's also good because they're going to be part of the team." Best thing ever, ever, ever, ever because there are people who do not get that's the first in-face, in front of you interview and then, there's those people who get filtered down. We all have a discussion about them. I listen to what the staff is saying, how they scored on the interview and everything else. Then, those people who get to pass through that, Kathryn and I interview.
Kathryn: Yeah. It's amazing how much time we have saved and people we have avoided just by allowing our key staff to interview them first because they know what fits and what doesn't because they understand our culture, we've trained them.
Michael: We've taught them.
Kathryn: We've taught them. It just is an enormous time saver, a plus. Then, when you make a decision, there's a sense of buy-in. Not always agreement, we do always have the final word and there's times we've overruled but the reality is most of the time, there's just a great deal of buy-in on those that we're hiring and that's super helpful when you have a small thing.
Michael: All right, next thing is in the midst of that interview process, depending on what the position is, you're going to need to test them. You need to be able to pass a skills test.
Kathryn: For example, in our world, we hire a lot of writers. What we do is we make them, we have them do two or three different samples of writing, completely different styles, totally different styles, totally different topics, a topic that requires research that they wouldn't know anything about, something that would be super boring just to see what they're going to do with it and then, something a little more personal. We give them usually, three writing samples if they're going to come and join our team because writing is such a core piece of what we do.
Kathryn: That's just an example of skills testing. You would need to create something that applies to whatever role you are hiring.
Michael: Yes. Yeah, it could be anything. We always check for technical skills, computer skills and all that kind of stuff. Every once in a while, you find somebody who just, they're just not adept at using the computer, the internet, Google search, research.
Michael: Another thing we do is personality testing. Now, there are different places you need to do personality testing and there are certain different States have different laws. We're not lawyers but what you need to do is realizing that personality tests are phenomenal because they allow you to understand a person's temperament, kind of how they take in the world.
Michael: One of the tests we like, we like DISC and we like Myers Briggs and a couple of other tests that go along with that, that are complementary. But with Myers Briggs, what we learn in that is we learn, where do you get your energy? Are you extroverted or introverted? Do you get it around a lot of people or do you get it from being alone? If you're working in a team a lot, then when teams wear you out, people wear you out, then as time goes on, that's harder and harder. If you're going to be writing code all day long and you're going to be staring at your computer or you're going to be just crunching numbers of being an accountant, it's okay if you're an introvert because you're going to be spending a lot of time alone. Putting an extrovert in an alone position is killing them also.
Michael: Then, how do you take in information from the world, how do you process information in the world and how do you make decisions. We can actually get some pretty good stuff by testing that and to know where somebody gets their energy how they best or their initial preference, highest preference for taking in information, highest preference for considering that information and thinking about it and then, highest preference for making decisions allows you to understand really, are they a good fit for that position and are they a good fit for the company.
Kathryn: It's an interesting thing because we have had several experiences that have taught us and we somehow seem to get a repetitive lesson on this one that, if somebody is a super, super strong methodical thinker, like they need a plan and they don't do change and they just need to be told what to do and they get to do it, they're not probably going to be a great fit for our company, even if they turn out that they're great at some other skills and part of that is because we know as managers and as leaders, that our style of leadership is going to be painful for human. We've learned that over the course of time.
Kathryn: We just have to be really careful that we don't hire super high on Myers–Briggs, they would be SJs.
Michael: We call them red line SJs. They score at the top of the score and you can score 0 to 30 on those. We made this mistake. We've hired red line SJs.
Kathryn: We have.
Michael: What we realize is and it was interesting how we discovered are company while we need people who are good at project management and good at doing and implementing the same basic tasks on a regular basis, there's enough flexibility in our industry, there's enough change, there's enough problems that happen that you have to problem solve for and you have to adjust and change your strategy.
Michael: Those type of things, what happens is you get into those situations and all of a sudden, you go, "All right, well, you're not flexible enough." That was hard because we thought, "Oh, this is going to be great. They're going to be super organized and they're going to be thriving in this position," when actually, the position had a little bit more flexibility than we even realized.
Kathryn: Yeah. Then, the next part of it is some sort of an assessment for emotional intelligence. Again, we'll talk about an entire podcast on EQ but the reality is that we need to be able to see how that person, what their self-awareness is, what their ability is to understand what the person in front of them is processing and going through, how they're going to interact with that.
Michael: Yeah.
Kathryn: Emotional intelligence is a huge topic all on its own but it is something that we really pay attention to when we're hiring.
Michael: When somebody doesn't understand their own emotions, they don't understand what frustrates them and why they're frustrated and they can't manage their frustration, they can lash out at people or they can do all kinds of weird things and then, they also don't understand other people's emotions. They don't know how to communicate and interact.
Kathryn: Yup.
Michael: All right.
Kathryn: Super, super important.
Michael: As we move on, those are skills, actual skills themselves, personality testing and emotional intelligence are three things that we can evaluate and you can evaluate them actually with the test or you can have essay questions, interview questions that you ask that you don't have even to write anything down but you start to at least be aware that you're paying attention for these things. You understand, because of the job description, you have prerequisites for the job maybe. I need you to have these skills or you need to be in the workforce five years or you need to have a college education or maybe training in a specific area.
Michael: I think, one of the best stories we've ever had is often times, you're looking at people who are going to be a good fit for your company and have core skills and one of our best hires that we've had today and we've had a lot of great hires but one of the ones that we're really thankful for a lot is our office manager. She's been my assistant but she's also an office ... kind of grown into the office manager position here. That's Vicky and Vicky is a trained teacher.
Kathryn: She taught 10 years of elementary school.
Michael: She went to school to become a teacher.
Kathryn: Yup, credentials.
Michael: She became a teacher. She was a great teacher. She taught multiple grades in elementary school. She taught our daughter in second grade.
Kathryn: And third grade.
Michael: And third grade. Over time, she came to a place where she was like, "Okay, I'm ready. All the things I wanted to do in teaching, teaching was more stuff than that," and it was time for her to transition four and a half years ago.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Michael: She's coming up on five this May. The idea of her coming to work for a marketing company was just like, "That's crazy," but there was enough stuff around what we did and we saw her core skills of communication, organization, creativity, problem solving, how to articulate a concept, how to take a concept and break it down and learn and then, how to teach it to other people, those were such core things and we believed that those were core skills and attitudes needed to learn marketing, advertising and then, business consulting, the more advanced concepts there. She has been a phenomenal hire. It's been a great opportunity.
Michael: Now, hiring somebody you know and have known for years isn't always a great deal.
Kathryn: Yeah, we'd had the dangers on, on that one too where we'd hired someone out of relationship and didn't go well. Those are very painful. There's always a danger zone but the point of the story with Vicky is that we sometimes realize that you may not be able to find somebody who has the background to a tee, like they've done five years of marketing for example. But if you find the person with the right skills and attitudes, who's a good learner, a good problem solver and is enthusiastic about moving forward, oftentimes, that person can become one of your best because you can train them the way that you want them.
Kathryn: I love to tell the story of the very first time I had to go ... Well, it wasn't the first job I had but I moved to Southern California and I was going to graduate school and I really needed a job. The easiest job to work around my schedule was waitressing. I had never waitressed in my life and place after place was like, "No, we need you to have three years of experience waitressing, blah, blah, blah." I was so freaking sick and tired of it because it's waitressing.
Kathryn: A good waitress requires organizational skills and good people skills. I mean, that's really all there is to it. Finally, I went into this one restaurant and I sat down, got an interview and the manager looked to me and said, "Have you ever worked in a restaurant before?" I looked back and I said, "You know what? I haven't and let me tell you why that's good news for you. You can train me exactly the way you want me. I'm organized. I'm loyal. The last job I was at was 5 years. It doesn't matter that it was insurance billing and patient care. It makes no difference. The fact is that I'm really good with people and I'm really organized and that's all it takes to be a waitress. The rest of it, you can train me into it. I'm going to be the best waitress you ever had." Fortunately, he hired me and I worked there for four years.
Michael: All through graduate school.
Kathryn: All the way through graduate school. That's the illustration that we're talking about is sometimes, you don't have that specific job and yet, the person that you're looking at had every element that they need to be successful at that job and you can train them the way you want them and the pieces they don't yet know.
Michael: This is why clarity of knowing not only what you need them to do of the underlying skills and attitudes of that because sometimes, a person has experience and some skills, tasks and skillsets developed isn't nearly as well fit as the person who has all the stuff ready. I mean, they're like fertile ground to just be given those skills that you need for that job. To understand that, you can get some great hires.
Michael: That's a lot of content today and what we want to do is this is a huge issue for a lot of folks. They always talk about the challenge of having employees. Work would be great if you didn't have employees. Well, you know what? If you do it right, work's awesome and 10 times better if you have great employees. Hiring is the first step to radically changing your entire culture. If you need to do it step by step, hiring right, hiring well, understanding the vision of a Passion and Provision company and what looks like in a Passion and Provision employee, one that's got some skills and they've got great character, they're emotionally healthy and a good fit for your company, personality wise, good fit for the job.
Michael: We're going to wrap this up today, hiring well for Passion and Provision companies. If you need to listen to this two or three times, there'll be some of this will be on the show page but not all of it's going to be written down. This is a phenomenal, phenomenal set of resources that have taken us years to walk through and we're still growing and learning in it and we'll have more revelation as we move forward, but we're giving you tested stuff that not only have we tested ourselves but we have learned from others that have tested too.
Michael: I want to encourage you, you can make great hires and you can make a greater percentage of great hires in the future.
Kathryn: Absolutely.
Michael: This is Michael and Kathryn Redman with the HaBO Village podcast. Please, go over to iTunes and hit subscribe. We'd really appreciate that. Helps us reach more people.
Kathryn: Tell all your friends.
Michael: Go to our show notes page on our website at halfabubbleout.com under HaBO Village and leave us a message, ask us questions. We want to hear from you. You can go to out Half a Bubble Out Facebook page because our parent company is Half a Bubble Out. We're Half a Bubble Out.
Kathryn: Michael's Half a Bubble Out. I'm just along for the ride.
Michael: Yeah, I'm dragging her. Hey, have a great week. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks again for giving us the time and sharing today with us. Bye-bye.
Kathryn: Bye-bye.
