Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Kurt Wilkin On Who’s Your Mike? Addressing the Most Challenging People Decisions Holding You Back EP 167

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck podcast. I kept telling the Hoosier Mike story. It was resonating with people and I realized there's a lot of characters like these that resonate with folks. And so that's why we came up with the archetype version of each character. And Resume Ralph was another real example and in all these are based on real characters either that I've experienced directly or that I've worked with. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from

Starting point is 00:00:50 astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 167 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked by FeedSpot as one of the top 50 most inspirational podcasts in the world. And if you're new to the show, welcome. And if you have a friend or family member that you would like to introduce the show to, and thank you so much for doing that, we now have episode stutterp packs both on Spotify and on the PassionStruck website. These are collections of our fans favorite episodes

Starting point is 00:01:30 that we organize into Topek to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to PassionStruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed my episodes from last week, they featured interviews with Jean O'Weng, the founding CEO and current president of Virgin Unite, which is the philanthropic arm of the Virgin Company's led by Sir Richard Branson. And we discuss her new book, Partnering, and how she has discovered how to forge these important relationships that can change the world. And I also interviewed Cara Chamberlain, who survived a kidnapping by a serial killer, and we discuss her heroing story of survival.

Starting point is 00:02:15 And in case you missed my solo episode from last week, it's how do you overcome mediocrity and I provide 10 different ways that you can do that in your own life. Please check them all out. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your continued support of the show and all your five star ratings and reviews that go so far in helping the popularity of this show grow. We also love those comments that you give and I know both myself and our guests love to read them. Now, let's talk about today's guest. Kurt Wilken is an experienced entrepreneur and founder of Higher Better. In his debut book, Who's Your Mike?

Starting point is 00:02:52 A No Bullshit Guide to People That You'll Meet on Your Entrepreneurial Journey. Kurt reveals how entrepreneurs can transform their companies by minimizing hiring mistakes, investing in high potentials, and making the difficult decision to drop dead weight from their team. By putting the right talent in the right places, and pinpointing who is holding the company back, entrepreneurs can unlock meaningful change that will enable their organizations to

Starting point is 00:03:19 grow, scale, and thrive. And in today's episode, we discuss the lessons that he learned early on while he was working at a Big Four counting firm, the steps that he took to become an entrepreneur and scale his first company. The backstory for how he came up with the title for the book and its meaning. We go through several of the avatars that he profiles throughout the book,

Starting point is 00:03:40 and these include resume Ralph, Bouncer Ambeddie, Side Hustle Sam, and HR Rona. We discuss the importance of company culture to employ engagement as well as different assessment tools that companies can use who evaluate their employees' engagement and their predictability engaging employees as well as so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruct and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey

Starting point is 00:04:03 to creating an intentional life now. Let the journey begin. I am so excited to welcome Kurt Wilkin to the passion stark podcast. Welcome, Kurt. Hey, John, thanks so much for having me. I love what you're doing to make people's lives better, make their businesses better. Well, thank you for that. And speaking of making businesses better, you and I both had a similar early beginning to both our careers. I was in the military, but following that,

Starting point is 00:04:35 I worked for Booz Allen, and then I took a job with a big four consultant, Garm, out of Houston called Arthur Anderson. And you yourself were with Ernst and Young when you came out of college yourself. So I wanted to ask what are some of the biggest lessons that you covered in chapter 4 about your experience working with the Big 4? First of all, you're our bitter rival Arthur Anderson no longer around. I learned a lot at EY. I learned how to work with clients in a professional manner. But also gave me so much credibility for my own career

Starting point is 00:05:08 to have the words Ernstian Young behind my name and CPA behind my name. I went to the University of Arkansas, so I don't get a lot of respect when it comes to colleges, but now that once I added CPA and EY to my name, it gave me credibility. But I learned how to conduct myself in a professional manner. And I learned how to serve clients really benefited me tremendously throughout my career.

Starting point is 00:05:31 What I didn't learn was how to be an entrepreneur. And I know we'll probably get to that a little bit later too. Yes, well, it sounded like there was overlap or close overlap between the time that I was working in Austin with Arthur Anderson. And when you were leaving Ernst & Young to kind of go on your next journey, but I started our high-growth mid-market practice. And so I was working with companies like Vignette at the time, site stuff. There was a company I love called Wycliffe that unfortunately didn't have a happy ending. In your case, you end up co-founding a company that does extremely well.

Starting point is 00:06:07 Can you talk a little bit about that journey from Big Four Consulting to now entrepreneur? Like a lot of your entrepreneurial audience, I'm sure it didn't happen as planned, and I basically had to make it work. The short version is, after UI, I went to work for a.com to go live the dot com dream. I passed on an investment in vignette when it was early on and I went from $2 to $100. Then

Starting point is 00:06:31 of course, it came back down to $2. I worked for a dot com that had about an 18 month life and we went belly up and I had a new baby and a new wife and I had no way to make ends meet in a tough economy. So I started consulting to make insmeat. So that's really how I actually became an entrepreneur. I always had entrepreneur genes and wanted to become one, but at EY, I kinda got that beat out of me a little bit by the big company, Behemoth.

Starting point is 00:06:57 To make insmeat, and we had a company called the Controller Group, which turned out to be quite a successful run, but man those early days were a lot of late nights and a lot of doubts about whether you're gonna make it or not. But fear motivated me for sure. Yeah, and on that topic, what would be your recommendation for those who are experiencing fear of how to break

Starting point is 00:07:19 out of that vicious cycle of fear? Well, for me, it was fear of failure. And again, with a new wife and a new baby failure was not an option. I had to find ways to make ends meet. So that motivated me. It's not a great long-term strategy, however, and you want to have other things that drive you. And so really, the thing that drove me was at that point was success in trying to build a better life for my wife and son. And I didn't want to go back and work in the grind that is big for public accounting. So I wanted to make it work.

Starting point is 00:07:50 And while it was a lot of work and a lot of late nights and seven day work weeks, at the end, it gave me a lot of flexibility and it gave me some financial liquidity. For the remainder of today's discussion, I'm kind of kind of bounced between your book and then entrepreneurship and also this whole field of hiring and staffing that you're part of. So we'll start with the book. In Who's Your Mike, you profile 11 different avatars that illustrate different aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. How did you come up with the title and what is the backstory to approaching the book through the lens of avatars? I wrote a blog about five or six years ago called Who's Your Mic and I'll tell you that story in just a second.

Starting point is 00:08:35 But as I would share that story with people, especially entrepreneurs, I would see light bulbs go off about, wow, I didn't realize I have a mic on my own hands. And what do I do about it? And so the other thing that really caused me to write that article in and of itself was I got into the recruiting business 10 years ago and I bought higher better. I realized that most entrepreneurs, especially, most, most, most companies are very reactive when it comes to hiring.

Starting point is 00:09:04 And they would hire whatever empty seat they felt like they had, but no one really took a step back and took a look at their existing team to see where the challenges were, where some of their legacy employees might be causing challenges. So I wrote who's your mic is a way to highlight that issue. So let me tell you that story real quick. So Mike was your fraternity brother in college,

Starting point is 00:09:23 and you guys were thickest thieves, best friends. You did everything together and he had your back. When you started your business in your garage a few years later, he was right there with you nights and weekends working at a time off from his day job to help you. Doing all the administrative back office things that you really needed done and you hated doing. As you became a real company, he quit his job, became your accountant, taught himself QuickBooks, set up your LLC, set up your bank account, all the, again, back office logistics things that you struggle with. And you became a, you know, now you're a real company, you're doing $5, $10 million in revenue and Mike's working a hundred hour weeks and you promote

Starting point is 00:09:59 him to controller and ultimately see a photo to reward him for all his hard work and things are starting to fall off the rails. Now you're doing $15, $20 million in revenue. And Mike is probably over inflated title. But man, he's grinding for you. He hadn't taken a vacation in five years. And you look up and Mike's trying to negotiate a $10 million line of credit with the bank

Starting point is 00:10:19 and maybe negotiate a merger deal with your biggest competitor. But he's overwhelmed. He's swimming because he's swimming, because he just doesn't know how to build a team or how to go for May to be. And so the question is, who's your mic? Every entrepreneur's got a mic,

Starting point is 00:10:32 whether it's Fnantz and accounting like this example, or whether it's sales, marketing, and operations, we all have employees, we've outgrown, and what do we do with them? I love it, because you're right. We all experience mics regardless of the size of the organization because no matter what stage a company is in, they are still trying to get to another level. And oftentimes what gets you to a certain point isn't going to get you to the point where

Starting point is 00:10:59 you need to be in the future. So I think that the book was applicable not only to entrepreneurs, but to people in every area. And one of the topics I did want to cover is in chapter seven, you bring up resume Ralph. And I do that because we were just talking about this bigger company. And this is something I've experienced myself

Starting point is 00:11:22 as I went to private equity, mid market companies and have been a part of many startups. And that is, you find this professional that looks so great on paper. A lot of times they come from this much bigger company. And although they look great, they're like a fish out of water when they come into this smaller entity. Why is that? Let me get to your question, but let me give you a bit of a back story on that.

Starting point is 00:11:47 You asked me the earlier question about how I came up with the archetypes. When I kept telling the Hoosier Mike story, it was resonating with people. And I realized there's a lot of characters like these that resonate with folks. And so that's why we came up with the archetype version of each character. And resume Ralph was another real example. And in all these are based on real characters, either that I've experienced directly by the clients that we work with. Resume Ralph is that big swing and you know what, because of great resume for some big companies. And she wants to

Starting point is 00:12:13 jump into the startup world and get some equity and they've heard all these great stories about how people get rich. They joined one of these early stage companies and they rely on the resume. And their resume has something like Dell, which you worked with, and we've worked with in the past, or HP, Apple, Facebook, whatever that big company is. And they go to a small company, and it's hard, the same attributes don't carry. People, Walmart might take a call from somebody from Dell or Apple, but they're not gonna take a call

Starting point is 00:12:40 from HigherBetter or ABC Co, right? And so it becomes more of a challenge for those big company guys and gals to operate in a small company world. They're also used to have in 5, 10, 20 people around them to do their job for them. And so they can just lead and strategize and sit in their ivory towers and they really need to roll up their sleeves and bust their hump if they're going to be working in a startup world. And the last thing I'll add is there's not an unlimited budget in startup world that there might be at one of those enterprise level companies. And so that often causes many challenges for those guys and gals who are coming in from

Starting point is 00:13:15 those big companies. Now, that doesn't mean you can't be successful in the startup world. When I'm interviewing folks who are encouraging our clients to interview folks from large companies, I'm looking for some relevant stories. I'm looking for somebody who maybe worked at Dell but started up their Latin American practice or started up their, you know, their cell phone practice,

Starting point is 00:13:38 which obviously went belly up. But things that were more of a startup world where they had to navigate. Yeah, actually, in many ways it's kind of the reverse of the mic in your first chapter because here you have someone who's come on to the company early on. They rise up to this title of CFO, but they don't know how to delegate. They don't know how to hand things off because they're so far in the weeds. And I think what I have seen with a lot of senior executives

Starting point is 00:14:05 haven't worked with many of them is when you get to the top ranks of these Fortune 500 companies, you're kind of groomed to do more delegation, more handoffs, and I found, especially towards the end of my career in them, that bigger portions of my job were becoming handling HR issues and the politics across the company that you had to navigate. And less and less of it became about actually doing your job. And so what I found is when you would bring these very talented senior executives into

Starting point is 00:14:41 these smaller companies, they had really forgotten or unlearned much of that, rolling up the sleeves, and just diving in and having to figure it out, that is just a part of being in a smaller company or startup. So it's exactly. So that's why I think at times it can be difficult to bring an entrepreneur also into a fortune 50 because they get so

Starting point is 00:15:07 frustrated at the bureaucracy of how they see things work. So I think many of us are geared towards a certain stage in the life cycle of a company and you worked at Dell Michael Dell You must be a very special person to go from startup to a multi-billion dollar multi-national company So it's pretty rare. Hey one thing I highlighted in the book. I'd love your thoughts on it a special person to go from startup to multi-billion dollar or multinational company. So it's pretty rare. One thing I highlighted in the book, I'd love your thoughts on it. I think it's true, but I'd love your perspective

Starting point is 00:15:31 as a large company background. I say in that chapter that resume Ralph, be careful for the guy or gal who baffles you with the PowerPoint. If the PowerPoint is so beautiful and laid out so perfectly and they spend hours, if not days and weeks, putting together together a PowerPoint if they're trying to baffle you with BS. Is that true? Is that something I've made up in my small company world? Or what do you think? Well, I've worked for different types of CEOs.

Starting point is 00:15:55 I've worked for the type where they wanted a PowerPoint for everything. And then I've worked for the CEO where you could not bring a PowerPoint in. It was more like the Jeff Bezos where you had to have kind of a written word document with action steps, etc. I kind of always preferred the ladder, although I was very good at building the PowerPoints because I got used to doing it. But I think the ladder step really is more focused on action than the show of the illusion of everything that's around the idea. That's one thing I liked, and I also like in the Jeff Bezos world, and I know more companies are doing it now,

Starting point is 00:16:36 how he would secretly hand off the highest parties in the company to multiple teams who had no idea that they were working on the same project. And then he would let them pursue the idea and then he would pick which one he thought was the best idea. And I think in a lot of big companies, that's a great way to do it because you can separate these teams into almost startups, let them do their things, especially if you put them on another campus outside of the behemoth

Starting point is 00:17:05 because you'll get sucked back into it. But that would be my response. What's funny entrepreneurs do that too, but we unwittingly do it, especially for visionary entrepreneurs, we give the same project to multiple people because we forgot we gave it to somebody else and then we don't know how old people accountable. So we struggle with our own challenges with multiple people working on projects. It's the case. It happens both places. Well, one of the things I loved about the book was how you separate these avatars by intermissions. And one of the ones that just bring home to me was the one on assessments. And I remember how it would not only happen in the big Fortune 500 companies, but when I would work for these private equity groups, they would do an assessment on you as well. One of the companies who's a big private equity group right in your own backyard is known

Starting point is 00:17:59 for only acquiring software companies and then they put every single employee through an assessment. And if you don't pass the assessment, they don't hire you. I've been through disk, I've been through Colby, I've been through, you know, I think personal decision international had a very extensive test that I think Warren fairy now has probably taken hold of, but as a person in this field, what is your perspective on the importance of tests and the other side of that would be companies relying too heavily on them? That's a great question, John. I think psychometrics do serve a purpose in hiring. My challenge is when people rely solely on the psychometrics, if it's a pass fail, there are a lot of people, especially serving the middle market.

Starting point is 00:18:47 They're so rigid on their own archetypes, characters that they create with their psychometrics. They really encourage their clients, not even to talk to anybody if they don't fit a certain specific narrow profile. That's where I have a challenge with it. If it's so black and white pass fail, because people aren't black and white,

Starting point is 00:19:02 we're not algorithms. So they serve a purpose to get you directly there, but they they're not going to be, they shouldn't be your pass fail. We will be right back to my interview with Kurt Wilkand. Before you book any brunch, you pour over lists and lists of reviews. So why not do the same when you're booking a doctor's appointment? With Zock Doc, you can see real verified patient reviews to help find the right doctor and your network and in your neighborhood. After all, finding the right doctor is just as if not more important than finding the right omelet.

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Starting point is 00:20:07 Zop doc dot com slash passion struck. Please consider supporting those who support this show and make it possible and free for our listeners. I know all those links can be difficult to remember, so we'll put them in one easy location. You can go to passionstruck dot com slash deals. Now, back to my interview with Kurt Wilkend. Yeah, that last test I was talking about the personal decisions international. I had to do it three times. I had to do it twice at lows because I had to do it to get a

Starting point is 00:20:35 job at lows. And then they were using it again to go from kind of the VP level up to the SVP EVP level. And then I had to take it again when I went to Dell. And this is a two day test where you're coming in and play acting for those two days. They take you through mock how you would do interviews, how you would do a client presentation, how you would handle a

Starting point is 00:20:57 firing, how you would do this, do that, all these different scenarios. Although I thought it was valuable, there's a difference between as Iverson would say, being a practice player and being a game time player and how you handle things in real life is going to be a little bit different than you do in practice. But out of all those tests that I took, Colby was the last one that I took and I've taken it more recently, and I actually found for me at least, it read me the most reliably out of all of them.

Starting point is 00:21:31 And interestingly, it's probably one of the quicker tests to take, so I will just throw that out there. We like to use them as part of, how do I work with somebody? How do I understand somebody better? So if I know that John is a certain personality type, I know how to speak your language a bit versus just making a higher fire decision based solely on a personality test. It's interesting. I had a manager earlier on in my career and he would use the four by four matrix

Starting point is 00:22:00 and on one side would be talent and on the other side would be culture and or matrix, and on one side would be talent, and on the other side would be culture. And he would say that a person can have all the talent in the world, but they aren't a cultural fit. They're never gonna close the gap, whereas a person could have great cultural fit, but not have quite as much talent, and you can train them to get to that part.

Starting point is 00:22:22 If you're not a cultural fit, it's very hard to overcome. You're right, some of those things are ingrained, or most of those things are ingrained, you're not gonna change personalities. On the other front, you mentioned trying to train somebody up, I think there's a lot of, even startups that adhere to that, and they're very passionate about having people

Starting point is 00:22:37 grow through the ranks, and I think that's noble, and some people can do it. A lot of other entrepreneurs don't have the training programs and the mentor programs in place. And so you're going to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. So I think there's a balance of bringing in folks who have been there and done that, so to speak. Have the skills and the experience,

Starting point is 00:22:55 as well as having quite a few up and cumbers, future stars on your team. I agree with you. I'm going to introduce this next topic by discussing football. I think anyone who's a fan of football understands the importance of the utility player and you see many of these players who can play multiple positions and are great on special teams. And similar to that, in many companies we have these great Jack and Jill's of all trades. And you introduce this concept in chapter five

Starting point is 00:23:29 with I love the title Bounce Around Betty. My question for you would be, maybe you can describe to the audience, I've kind of given a high level of what a Bounce Around Betty is, but who she is, and how do you retain someone like Betty without losing their eagerness to learn their drive and do whatever it takes? Yeah, I'll first all say that these characters,

Starting point is 00:23:55 there's no necessarily good or bad, each of them might be coachable. And when people hear Mike, they think it's just bad, I got to get rid of Mike. And that's not necessarily the case. Same with Betty. So Betty in the book, and there's different versions, but the version we talk about is really your right hand.

Starting point is 00:24:11 And she's there early on with you and your company is trying to get off the ground. And everybody has to be able to do everything in the early stage of the company, but you rely on those one or two that really are able to figure it out. Kind of like the astronaut on Mars. You have no idea what you're going to expect, but you're going to be smart enough to figure it out. Kind of like the astronaut on Mars. You have no idea what you're going to expect, but you're going to be smart enough to figure stuff out. And so that's who Betty is. So when you have a challenge in customer service,

Starting point is 00:24:33 you need to create your customer service engine because people are frustrated, Betty's who you go in there and start taking calls and trying to figure things out, how can we fix things on a customer service side? But as you try to next level customer service, maybe you need to replace her with someone who's done it before. So then you send her over to your, your direct to consumer, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:52 having trouble trying to convert all these leads that you're getting on the internet over to customers. So you need someone to come in and try to figure all that out. So she rolls up her sleeves and figures that out. Then as she solves that, now you've, you got supply chain issues. So she's on the next plan over to Mexico to try to figure out what's going on with your supplier and make sure that you can serve all these customers that you're now making happy. So basically she is your secret agent to go solve problems, but she's not your person to build that next level department in that team. So at some point, you continue to outgrow her on

Starting point is 00:25:26 in each of these departments, but she serves such a special need for the organization. So John, your question was, how do you retain her? And I think in some cases, you might not want to retain her. As you continue to grow, what some companies do is they promote bounce around Betty into a COO or president or some really super high executive leadership role and they're just in over their head. So the balance is how do I reward her and incentivize her and still maintain the growth of the company by not making her my senior leader. Well, I loved how you described it as Betty Gone Bad versus how do you turn it into professional

Starting point is 00:26:11 Betty. But I think an issue that many companies have because regardless of size, you do have that utility player. And I used to love them in the big companies because you could throw them in almost any task and they would take it to fruition and get the job done. But the hard thing was they eventually want to advance. And you then have to really, as you're saying, either have that hard discussion about what their limitations are or you have to really mentor them or set them up with a coach that can help elevate them to that next level of leadership.

Starting point is 00:26:49 I really enjoyed that chapter because I could relate to it. Yeah, it definitely comes down to your relationship with Betty and the trust and rapport that you built over the years to have that honest conversation. That's where it starts. And in many entrepreneurs cases, and I'll look in the mirror when I say this, I'm not gonna help you get to the next level as a chief operating officer, for example,

Starting point is 00:27:12 because I just don't have those skills. But I know some really smart people who could come in and coach and mentor you from the outside to help you get there maybe with my company, but maybe set you up for your future company because I need to grow so fast and I don't have the time to deal with all the challenges that you're going to face. But if I can help you get to the next level yourself professionally and help me along

Starting point is 00:27:33 the way, then it's a win-win. I love the character you introduce in chapter two, which is Harry the Hustler because anyone who's been around a sales organization is gonna recognize this character because they're that person who has to be the big shot. They have all this drive, oftentimes more than not. They're motivated by money, and they just want to conquer the world. And most of them, especially if they come up in one of these smaller firms, want to have that big chair eventually,

Starting point is 00:28:06 because of that drive that they have, which in itself can be a double-edged sword, because oftentimes they don't have the skills, but as you point out in the book, they likely have some of the biggest customer relationships that you need to retain in order to be successful. So what are some of the real-life scenarios relationships that you need to retain in order to be successful. So what are some of the real life scenarios to turn this situation around and to retain

Starting point is 00:28:33 this, Perry, the hustler, if you have one? Yeah, this is another one that comes down to your relationship in that foundation of trust. So Harry is the kick ass sales guy who is just really making your company what it is. And as you grow and you need to build out a sales organization sales team, Harry wants that VP of sales title. He wants to build the team and build all the infrastructure that goes along with it. But the reality is Harry is just a really, really good salesperson.

Starting point is 00:29:00 He hasn't done any of those other things before. What I encourage entrepreneurs to do is maybe identify a coach for Harry, but using the same psychometrics you talked about before, does Harry have the skills and the ability to become a sales leader? Sales leadership is a lot different than being a salesperson. If he does, then maybe there's an opportunity to bring in a coach and maybe a consultant to help you build those sales systems and processes and structure. Harry's just a salesperson. That's where the trick comes in.

Starting point is 00:29:28 I need to really somehow incentivize and motivate Harry to be a great salesperson and still build a sales organization. I've got one story in the book related to this. It's really, really powerful. It's a client of ours who, one of the co-founders, was basically Harry. He was a great biz dev sales person. His partner was becoming the CEO and he wanted to become the chief revenue officer. And it took a lot of time in coaching from the outside, including myself, to help this particular client. I forget what name

Starting point is 00:29:57 I gave him in the book. I can't tell you his real name. To help him understand that his strength was in those relationships and sales. And frankly, that's where his passion was. And that's where his highest and best use was. That's where he was going to find his most of his joy, which I know ties to the passion struck podcast. And we needed someone else to come in and do all the man systems and processes and structure and management and managing people's day to day and their CRM and all that crap. That's not for Harry the Hustler. That's for the next level sales guy. So I don't know if that answers your question, John or not. But if you can have those open-not as conversations and help them

Starting point is 00:30:32 realize what the future looks like and that other role and it's not a fit for them, then you've got a real opportunity to have that conversation. Yeah, I'm going to use this as a jumping off point to discuss another element of this scenario. When a person like me was hired to be a senior executive in one of these companies, it wasn't because things were going smoothly. Typically, it's because things are utterly in chaos and they need someone to come in and fix them. When your book you talk about putting the right people in the right roles, but you rightly bring up another element of that, which is you got to get rid of the poor performers, which is one of the most difficult things to do. Because one of the challenges

Starting point is 00:31:16 I found was you're getting rid of these people who has you termed it were yesterday's heroes. They get these companies to a certain point, low-started up as a startup. And when I got there, we were still opening three, 400 stores a year and distribution centers and everything else. But we were going from this family-owned company feel to being the $60 billion entity that we were.

Starting point is 00:31:45 But when you are in those situations and the same thing happened to me at Dell, these people almost have a war chest. Almost like they were a war hero at one point. And so there's a lot of organizational love for them. But they've done heavy lifting. They often have subject matter expertise that other people don't have, but it comes a point where you either have to, and sometimes push them to the side and other times get them to take a lesser role,

Starting point is 00:32:20 which can be demoting them, or if they're not gonna accept those, remove them from the organization. And I think the trick here is you're dealing with that individual, but you're also dealing with the rest of the culture of the company because the way you do it has to be done in the right way, if not, you're taking this war hero and just throwing them out the door, so to speak. So why do you think that this is such an issue

Starting point is 00:32:46 for companies to deal with? And why does so many people get it wrong? Because you're dealing with human beings and those emotions and those feelings and that loyalty that they feel for those employees is real and they also know that if you pull the trigger on a long-term legacy employee like that, you're going to cause ripples throughout the organization. And growth is hard.

Starting point is 00:33:09 There's a saying I'm sure you've heard what got you here won't get you there. One of my friends wanted me to title this book, who got you here won't get you there, because it's true. In most cases, the team that got you from scrappy startup to $10, $20, $30 million in revenue and getting through that pump is not necessarily the one to build $5 billion global behemoth that you talked about. Rare that anybody make that journey. Well, you know, the interesting thing on that, and I recently interviewed Gene Allweng. I'm not even sure if you know who she is, but she is the founding

Starting point is 00:33:46 CEO of Virgin Unite, which is Richard Branson's philanthropic arm. And she recently came out with a book called Partnering. And one of the things that she found in many of these best companies, best philanthropic entities, best symbiotic unions of world leaders was the partnerships that they formed. And it's interesting, as I look at some of these companies that have grown into behemoths, let's take Dell as an example. Michael Dell is this visible person to the world, but underneath him is a guy named Jeff Clark, who ran the whole product organization and is the vice chairman.

Starting point is 00:34:27 And it was that union between the two of them and they've both been there about the same amount of time. Maybe Michael obviously was there a little bit earlier, but Jeff has been there 25 years. But he would kind of handle and make sure that the entire product organization was working effectively and kind of handle those details that allowed Michael to do what he was great at. And a similar scenario to that is Mark Benioff

Starting point is 00:34:52 and Parker Harris, where you've got Mark, who is just this brilliant marketing guy who knows how to embrace companies, come up with these new new ideas constantly push the envelope. But in the shadows, you have Parker Harris, who's been his chief technology officer the entire time. And I think it really is a strength that those types of relationships can stay together when so many don't. I'm not sure how often you've seen that in your own world. I love the stories. I love the two in the box or the partnership concept. There's a comment that I make in the book a couple of times, which is if I've got a leadership team of five or six people and all of us are know, taking this journey before, then we can leverage their lessons from the past to help us learn it be faster and more efficient.

Starting point is 00:35:49 That may be the case in Del's case. I don't know the full story. Perhaps Mr. Clark was his right hand man along the way, but he brought in people like, I don't remember all the names, Tom Meredith and others who helped bring in that expertise from the outside to help them get there faster. You can't all be doing this for the first time if you're going to grow into the multi- couple of $100 million dollar company that you'd aspire to be.

Starting point is 00:36:11 I definitely agree with that. In the case of Dell, he did have the Tom Meredith who preceded me. When I was there, he brought in a CFO, Brian Gladden from GE. He had Dave Johnson, who he brought in from IBM, who was really an acquisition specialist and built up the whole acquisition arm. So they were very deliberate about how they did that, but I think at the core, Michael has always been fanatical about the products and producing high quality products. So having a person leading that organization that he trusted allowed him to be able to bring in these other talents, as you say, and make the whole thing work symbiotically to

Starting point is 00:36:53 performing the best, probably they ever have at this point. So he was fanatical about the product and so that was where he hung his hat. So he wanted to make sure that he had the right product person on his team. And so that's the bet he made. I know there's a company here in town called Tacovus who in Paul Hendrick was fanatical about client service. So he wanted to be best practice in client service or customer service. And so I can see where you might make those bets

Starting point is 00:37:16 that you're best in breed, best in class in those particular areas. Absolutely. Well, I think this is a good stepping point to discuss and that you describe in the book, which is company culture, which I think is extremely important right now, because as you probably see, not only do we have the great resignation, but we have worldwide

Starting point is 00:37:41 between 70 and 85% of employees disengaged. And I love how you bring up HR, ROTA, because my experience with HR departments throughout my career is they're kind of black and white. You have HR leaders who get it and HR leaders who don't get it. And I think you brought up the ones that typically survive are these taskmasters, but in many ways, I have found that those are the ones who are destroying the culture in many ways because they're not focusing on the heart of the company. And I recently got the opportunity

Starting point is 00:38:20 to interview Claude Silver, who is the right-hand person for Gary Vee at VaynerX. And she is now carrying the title first one in the world of Chief Heart Officer. And when I interviewed her in her story, a lot of light bulbs came on because it's really this element of having a passion-struck culture in a company, meaning

Starting point is 00:38:46 the employees today want to feel fulfilled about what they're doing. And not only just in the company, they want to feel fulfilled in all areas of their lives. And so the approach that she was taking there is she would talk to each employee every year and they would develop a profile for them, both of what success looks for them within the company, but what they're trying to achieve outside of it, yet so few companies make that investment. Is that something that you feel needs to change

Starting point is 00:39:19 and what would some of your recommendations from being in the HR field yourself be on this? Yeah, it's a great question. And it does tie directly into the resignation. We've found that most people are leaving not because necessarily of money, but because of purpose and the pandemic has taught them they want something more out of their lives.

Starting point is 00:39:38 So what you described is very typical that HR departments, the HR rotors of the world are very, very successful and very good at the tasks that the things that are going to get them fired if they don't do a great job. And that is things like payroll compliance with to work, that purpose and meaning. It's hard for that same person who's a taskmaster to grow into that strategic chief hard officer as you describe, which I love the title. But I actually think it's two different roles. Almost the two in a box, the partnership concept you talked about before. I think there's the basic block and ent tackling of getting those benefits and things done, but then there's the more strategic greater meaning, greater purpose, a part that has to get done as well.

Starting point is 00:40:29 In that part, she'll probably be owned by the CEO, maybe with a chief hard officer by his or her side. And the taskmaster, maybe that belongs to the CFO, because that's more of a finance and compliance related function. Or you hire a couple strong people under you who can handle those things while the person who's in the HRC, it is really trying to drive the future culture of the company. I think there are many ways to handle it, but you're right if you're bringing in a person to manage those things yet you want the culture to change. It's difficult to do both unless it's a very special leader who's doing it because a lot of the tax masters and I hate to put it this way, but I found them to be kind of people who read the books

Starting point is 00:41:14 on how to do it, follow those guidelines, but don't venture much from them because the books on how to do the other stuff and the knowledge is not as readily available. I think it could be one thing. Very true, but a culture is on the top of everyone's minds these days and entrepreneurs who get it and follow through are going to be successful. You know, 10, 15 years ago is very soft and squishy. There's whole culture stuff. Now you really have to take it seriously and has to be part of who you are as an organization if you really want to be successful. Well, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the recruiting field since that's where you spend vast majority of your time. And for the audience, I'll kind of let you know if you're not familiar with this world,

Starting point is 00:41:59 some of the different types of models that they operate in. The most common one that you typically will see is a contingent model where the company gets paid based on making a placement. Another one is called the retainer model and that's where some of the bigger companies, like the one you're part of, or Spencer Stewart, Corn Fairy, Hydroconstruggles, EGUNs, and or play a big role. And in that one, they're kind of paid for the job overall, but it's typically done as if you'd be working for a big four consultant group. You get paid at the beginning, middle, and end. There's another area that I call the try to buy,

Starting point is 00:42:33 which is where you bring the person in as a contractor and then have the right to hire them. And then the other model is, I refer to a salary where typically you're either bringing in a hourly consultant or you've paid someone a salary internally to hire someone. Do I have it pretty well mapped out? Pretty much, yeah. You've nailed it.

Starting point is 00:42:56 And so part of the reason for that in full disclosures, because I own another company that does interim talent solutions, we do fractional placements and advisory services. And I know you do those two things and the permanent. But what do you think are some of the biggest issues right now in recruiting? Because to me, when I was both on this side providing the services and on the other side when I was receiving them, it seems the whole thing

Starting point is 00:43:24 is a mess right now. It really is. Before I wrote, here's your mic. I wrote an ebook called The Recruiting Industries Broken that I'm happy to send you. But it's basically geared towards the contingent model. If you would ask me this question two years ago, I would say the problem is most recruiters are just out for a commission. And it's all patting their pockets. That's generally the contingent model of recruiting where you only pay if you provide a body, which sounds good, but there's so many inherent things wrong with it. Your goals are absolutely misaligned. I love the retained model because it's more of a light glove treatment. You're identifying the best

Starting point is 00:43:59 candidate that's available in the world versus just the one that happens to be looking for a job, which is mostly the contingent model. If you ask me that today, the challenge is in the recruiting world. Man, it's just such a tight market right now where there's so many jobs and not enough people to serve them. And so people are just moving so fast to try to fill these roles and beat their competition to talent. And so I think it's just right for, again, bad recruiters to make a lot of money and not really provide a lot of value. And you got to move so fast so the contingent world right now is rocking it because they're just flipping bodies left and right, but it's a short-term fix versus a true long-term play. The other dimension I've seen is for years, I shouldn't say years, it was a

Starting point is 00:44:42 decade plus. I had relationships with all these retained search firms and then all of a sudden, in many of the firms, all those relationships started to disappear and there's been this big trend where they've gotten rid of a lot of the people who've come up in executive search and instead, they've begun to hire operators from within the industry. And while I think there's some elements of that which are great from a person who spent a lot of time developing those relationships with those firms as if you're having to start over because they have absolutely no track record of who you are.

Starting point is 00:45:19 And then in a lot of these they operate by their different offices so you have to go out and develop those relationships not only in each office, but with multiple people in each office. It's a chore whether you're a candidate or the company looking to hire one of these firms. Well, in the case you described very people-centric in relationship driven, and that's I think the history

Starting point is 00:45:42 of the industry, and I think there's a big part of that to play. The flip side is the other side of the industry which is all about algorithms and speed to market and it's all about using these psychometrics and other tests to try to to do your recruiting for you. I think there's a balance. Thank you, leverage technology to help you build a better practice. But at the end of the We're human to human. And H to H is our mantra versus B to C or B to B. Exactly. Well, I wanted to end the interviews by going back to the book and asking you two last questions.

Starting point is 00:46:16 Towards the end of the book, you introduce next level Natalie. And you have this person who's now reached the point where they're looking for their operating partner. And so the question I have here are what are the key things to consider as you embark on your relationship once you found this operating partner? I'd liken it very much to your workspace. And so take it very seriously. This is somebody who's hopefully going to be your partner, maybe not forever, but for the next two to five years. Maybe not quite as seriously as you might take your spouse and dating,

Starting point is 00:46:49 but pretty seriously. So once you identify the right person, build a relationship, don't just go through some interviews in the office, work together, use the whiteboard and figure out how you guys work together. Go to dinner, have some drinks, get to know each other personally because you want to make sure that you're a good fit. And then that onboarding process is so important that many of us overlook. We hire somebody and say, here the bathroom is down the corner and here's your laptop. Let's go. And really, I think you need to create a good onboarding roadmap, a good plan, what the expectations are, and what does success look like? 90 days, six months, a year or two years, what does success look like?

Starting point is 00:47:26 And let's start trying to march towards that. And I like to tell people, don't expect you're Natalie to make major changes for at least 90 days, because you want her, her to understand the organization and how it works and how, where the holes are before they start, making their own assumptions of where the holes are. I'm gonna bring the whole conversation around in a different

Starting point is 00:47:45 direction. This whole time we've been talking about, you're the leader and you're experiencing all these avatars on your team, but having been an advisor to many startups and on the boards of many startups, one of the things I've come to realize is sometimes the mic is the founder things I've come to realize is sometimes the mic is the founder or the CEO. Oh, boy. What happens when you're in that situation? And I know you discuss this in the appendix is kind of the next chapter when what could be the board sees that the CEO is not the right person to lead the company. And of course, if they're the founder, that's the last thing they want to give up.

Starting point is 00:48:22 How often have you found that those founders actually come to that realization without being told by someone on the outside? Maybe not that they're told, but they become aware of it somehow through some peer groups or maybe just through their own self-reflection, if they're a self-aware leader. It's similar to the Mike situation, Mike may be a great long-term employee that needs to be in the right role. I think many founders are the same way. Mike may be a great long-term employee that needs to be in the right role. I think many founders are the same way. They might be a great long-term part of the team, but maybe not in the CEO role. And I've seen it go good and I've seen it go bad.

Starting point is 00:48:55 If you're self-aware and you can accept the Chief Technologist Officer or the, in my case, evangelist and co-founder, I step aside as CEO at higher better a couple of years ago because I knew there were people better at that than being CEO and frankly, I didn't really wanna do that job. I wanna do this stuff, like having podcasts with John. And so if you're self-aware, you can have that conversation and help somebody come to that realization and step aside.

Starting point is 00:49:19 Then mean they're stepping down to step aside. But there's a lot of founders who have an ego and they can't accept not being the guy or the girl in charge. So it all comes down to their ability to have some hubris and take that step aside. Well, speaking of podcasts, I think I might have seen that you just started one yourself. I started one in the pandemic as a LinkedIn live around a surviving drive helping CEOs navigate the pandemic and be stronger on the backside. We switched it to what I called Let's Go towards the end of the

Starting point is 00:49:54 pandemic because I was tired of talking about the pandemic and I wanted to encourage leaders that we can no longer point to the words pandemic. We got to figure out a way in my evolving that now to something around talent in the workplace exactly what we've talked about today, trying to decide if we call it who's your mic. I don't want to have that, you know, be the name that sticks forever. But I want to talk about this concept and have entrepreneurs have a safe place to talk about the talent that they've had that

Starting point is 00:50:17 works and has it worked and let other entrepreneurs learn from those conversations. Well, congrats on that idea and I hope it grows immensely because people need to hear more guidance like this, especially because retaining and hiring employees is the key to explosive growth. Well, John, we'll have you on that podcast the next 60 days. How's that? Sounds great. I got a book coming out myself. Oh, perfect, perfect. Well, I did want to let the audience know and I think Kurt does a good job introducing this at the beginning of his book where he talks about having a lot of business books, but oftentimes

Starting point is 00:50:57 when we only read 20%, I will tell you, this is a very digestible read, and I think there's a persona type that any one of us can relate to. So I found this book very enjoyable to read. I laughed often when I was going through it because I had seen these exact characters throughout my career. And I would highly encourage the audience to go out and get a copy of it. It'll be in the show notes. But with that, what are some other ways that the audience to go out and get a copy of it. It'll be in the show notes. But with that, Kurt, what are some other ways that the audience can reach you? Kurt Wilker.com is our current website.

Starting point is 00:51:30 We're putting up a Huzure Mike website that's, we'll be here shortly. But we have a quiz that's a fun, I call it the team assessment for people who hate team assessments quiz. It's at, right now it's at higherbetter.com slash team, dash test. And it's at higherbetter.com slash team, dash test. And it's a great two minute quiz on how some of these situations that you might have with

Starting point is 00:51:51 your own employees and maybe point you towards sections of the book that would be applicable to you. I encourage readers, you don't have to read the entire book, just read the 20% of the applies to you because that's what most business books are anyway. I just want to be upfront about it and tell you, hey, you know what, out of these 13 chapters, maybe only five really apply to you, but I think you'll find you'll resonate with all of them. Well, I would highly encourage them to read either Techno Tim

Starting point is 00:52:14 or the Bound surround Betty if those were two of my favorite chapters. Awesome. Well, Kurt, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for becoming a first-time writer for an accomplishment. Man, I appreciate that, John, really do. I love what you're doing with Passion's truck. I love that you're helping people live better lives and become better leaders.

Starting point is 00:52:32 Hi, thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Kurt and wanted to thank Kurt and Zilker Media for the honor and pleasure of interviewing him. Links to all things Kurt will be in the show notes. Please use the website links to purchase any of the books that you hear from our guests. The proceeds from those sales go to support the show and make it free for our listeners. Videos are on YouTube at JohnArmiles where we have over 340 videos for you to consume. Avertiser, deals, and discount codes are all in one convenient place at hashinstruct.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. I am John R. Miles, both on Twitter and

Starting point is 00:53:10 Instagram, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. And if you want to know how I book all these amazing guests, it's because of my amazing network. Go out there and build yours before you need it. Most of the guests on the show actually not only subscribe to but provide their suggestions for topics and guests that we have on the show. Come join us, you'll be in great company. You're about to hear a preview of my Passion Strike podcast interview with Abby Morgan, who is a playwright, author and screenwriter. Her television work includes many many shows including her BBC hit The Split. Her film writing credits include many motion pictures, including Work Lane, The Iron Lady, Shame, The Invisible Woman, and Suffragate. And we discuss her new novel, This Is Not A Pity Memoir.

Starting point is 00:53:58 I shut down people's hope sometimes because it was almost too painful to hope. And I think if I was going to have that again, I would say keep that horizon as far as you can and believe you can go as far as you can because every case is so individual and so personal that you just never know. So I certainly think when the person said that to me, I feel real conflict with emotions, you know. The fee for this show is that you share it

Starting point is 00:54:19 with friends and family members when you find something useful or interesting. And if you find something interesting today about the entrepreneurial journey or just tidbits that you can take about leading any company, please share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give this show is to share it with those who you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time.

Starting point is 00:54:44 Live Life Passion Struck. to apply what you hear so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time live life passion struck.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Kurt Wilkin On Who’s Your Mike? Addressing the Most Challenging People Decisions Holding You Back EP 167

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