Why Résumés Miss Your Best Hires | JR Butler | EP19
In this episode of The 1,000 Day CEO, host Bill Canady interviews J.R. Butler, CEO of The Shift Group, a talent platform that helps former athletes and military veterans transition into business roles. Butler recounts his own journey from Division I hockey to technology sales, highlighting how losing the clarity, self‑awareness, and playbook he had as an athlete forced him to rediscover those intangibles in the corporate world. He argues that the 500‑year‑old résumé model is fundamentally flawed because it captures only credentials, not the character traits—resilience, coachability, curiosity, and a team‑first mindset—that drive performance. The conversation explores how CEOs can surface these traits through story‑based interview questions, why HR gatekeeping often filters out high‑potential candidates, and how cultural misalignments (e.g., a proclaimed “open” culture that isn’t truly open) sabotage hiring. Butler shares concrete examples, such as a veteran with drone‑flight experience who was rejected for lacking Salesforce knowledge but later became a sales leader, and discusses metrics for tracking early‑career commercial talent (pipeline creation, customer understanding, tool usage, cultural integration). He reflects on Shift Group’s pivot from a pure sales focus to a broader functional talent platform, noting the difficulty of changing leadership mindsets beyond sales. The episode also examines AI’s impact: routine knowledge work is devalued, while critical thinking, communication, and tool fluency become premium skills. Finally, Butler emphasizes that the most compounding talent decision in a CEO’s first 1,000 days is hiring strong first‑line leaders who manage small pods, as they directly affect execution and value creation.
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1,000 days. That's enough time to transform a company, but not enough time to waste. Welcome to The 1,000 Day CEO, the podcast about decisive leadership, sustainable growth, and building a business that thrives beyond any one leader. Your host is Bill Canady. Let's make every day count.
Hello everyone. It's great to be with you today. I'm Bill Canady. I'm the 1,000 Day CEO. Most companies say they hire for character, yet they screen almost always entirely just for credentials. J.R. Butler built The Shift Group around a different question. How do you identify resilience, coachability, curiosity, and team-first driven before someone has the resume to prove it? Today's guest, J.R. Butler, is the CEO of The Shift Group, a talent platform that helps former athletes and military veterans transition into business careers. He played Division I hockey at Holy Cross before building a career in technology sites. He has held leadership roles at Thumberanect before the acquisition by IBM and later served as Chief Revenue Officer for Pilar. He shifted Shift Group around the belief that conventional hiring often overlooks the qualities that ultimately determine performance. Today, we'll discuss how CEOs can recognize that talent, evaluate it, and create an organization where it succeeds. JR, welcome to The 1,000 Day CEO.
Pumped to be here, Bill. Thank you for having me.
You know, I tell you what, we were just chatting before we got on the air. You and I have so much in common. Now, if you, if you're a terrible guest, I'm gonna deny anything I just said, but I am going with sports and, and veterans are one of my most favorite things and how we identify and, uh, elevate talent is right in the heart of it.
Yes, sir. 100%. It's the most important part of it, in my opinion.
Well, let's just start off with the background. So hockey was a major part of your identity. When your playing career ended, what did you lose besides the opportunity to compete?
I mean, you know, people use words like identity and purpose and they talk about structure. One of the things, you know, sitting, sitting here 20 years from, from when I stopped playing hockey, I think there's like 3, there's 3 core things that I lost that are, you know, they're the reason I ended up in a Division I locker room. And I think they're the reason that anybody ends up Achieving their goals and being successful. The number one thing I lost is like, I was so clear, Bill, for 24 years of my life on exactly what I wanted and why I wanted it. I grew up in a house. My father's a Hall of Fame high school and junior hockey coach in Massachusetts. My 2 younger brothers also played college hockey. One of them was an Olympian and played in the NHL. And what I can tell you is from like 6 years old to 24 years old, every single day I woke up, I, my, my number one thought was like, how can I, how can I get better at hockey? 'Cause I wanna play professionally. So that clarity of vision, when, when, when number one, you, you don't hit necessarily hit that goal, but you wake up the next day literally, and you're not a hockey player anymore, that goes away. Like you don't know what you want anymore. Right. Uh, it's the only thing you think about. It's the first and last thing you think about. And that was, that was the hardest part.
Mm-hmm.
One of the hardest parts of that, that I lost when I lost hockey. The second thing, uh, what sports and, and, and service gives you, cuz we were just talking about this, like you have to be self-aware as an athlete and a service member, meaning you live in a feedback loop, right? If you suck at something, you know about it, right? Like your leadership tell you, like you talked about getting yelled at all the time. I always tell people, like, I tell people all the time, I'm like, my dad only speaks in feedback. Like that is his. That is his language, right?
So his love language.
Exactly. So, you know, your strengths, you know, your weaknesses, you know what gives you energy, you know what takes it away. It's like, you know who you are and then you wake up one day and you don't, like, you know, the fact that I had a good slap shot was irrelevant on, you know, June 1st, 2008. Like it didn't matter anymore. That was the only thing I knew. You know what I mean? So that like clarity of self. Gone out the door. And then the third thing was I had the playbook my entire life. I knew what I needed to do every single day when I woke up to achieve what I wanted to become. I, you know, and, and it's not easy, right? Playing college sports is hard. Only 2.5% of the entire college population does it. But the playbook is, is clear. Like, you know exactly what you need to get good at. You know exactly how to get good at it. And I think the military is very similar where Hey, you want to go be this? Here's all, here's the requirements. Here's what you got to do. Here's the things that the business world is not like that. It's very opaque. There's a lot of different pathways to get to achieve certain goals, right? You talk to CEOs all the time. They all got there differently. I got here differently. So that loss of playbook. So you lose, or that clarity of playbook. So you lose your vision, you lose your identity and your knowledge of who you are. And you lose the playbook. And it took me several years to like get those things back for my professional career. And those are not easy things to do. So, you know, people talk about, they use big fluffy words, but I think those 3 things are the core to what allows you to do really hard shit all the time when you're in uniform. And business is a lot of really hard shit you don't want to do too. And the only way you're going to do it is if you get those 3 things back. Full stop. So that's like the whole thesis behind the company.
That makes a lot of sense. You know, let's dig into that a little bit. You discovered technology sales almost by accident. What made you realize that the qualities developed in hockey could translate into your business?
Uh, by doing it, by doing the business, right? Like you said it, I tripped and fell into it, dude. I was a sociology major with a minor in art history and sign language. And I entered and I, yeah, exactly. And I shouldn't be laughing.
It's like you can do anything with that. That's, yeah.
You could do anything, but also nothing with that.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
That's a good rich man's degree. So yeah, exactly.
Well, it's, you know, that's like liberal arts to a degree, which, which candidly, like, I think liberal arts is probably more important than ever now in the age of AI.
It's critical.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The funny thing about liberal arts is at the beginning, it's not always helpful. At the end, when you're leading, it's one of the most powerful degrees you're ever gonna have in your life.
It's, it's true. Oh yeah.
So, so go liberal arts path.
Yeah. I mean, and in the AI world, when like knowledge is, is becoming a commodity, like your ability to think and learn and communicate, those are the 3 most important things now. Right. Um, and that's what liberal arts give you. But anyways, so that was what I studied. And then I entered the job market in June 2008, Bill, and I don't need to tell you what happened.
Great timing.
Great timing. I actually looked it up. So I didn't know, I already didn't know what I wanted to do. I was already like kind of screwed a little bit. And I, my plan was like, you know, all right, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna become a lawyer cuz lawyers are, are rich. They make a lot of money.
100%. Everyone knows it's true.
Yeah, exactly. And my mom and dad didn't go to college. They didn't even apply. Like I'm a first generation college graduate. So they, you know, my dad was like pushing me to civil service. He's like, you should, you You know, be a firefighter or whatever. And I was like, no, I'm gonna go to law school. And I played in this men's league hockey, hockey team over the summer. And one of the guys on the team was a CEO of a, like a solution provider in like the EMC Cisco world. And I told him, he asked me, he's like, oh, you just graduated from Holy Cross. You're an athlete. He's like, what do you want to do? And I told him what I wanted to do. I told him I was going to move to Florida with my grandmother and study for the LSAT. And God bless him. He looked at me. He's like, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. And I was like, you know, and I looked up to the dude, right? He drove a nice car. He had nice watches. Like, you know, I was like, what do you mean? And he told, he just broke it down for me. He broke down like, this is how it's going to work. You already have debt for college. You're going to get more debt for law school. You're going to go be an associate. You're going to have to bill like 60 to 80 hours a week. They're going to pay you dog shit. And then, you know, someday in like 5 to 7 years, you'll move up the ranks and maybe become a partner in your 30s. And that's when you really start making money. And He says all this to me and he is like, you know what I mean? And I'm like, well, no, I did not. I, I never thought about it that way. And he, he said to me, he's like, listen, dude, you're resilient because you've failed more than you've won in sports. Uh, you're obviously coachable. You got a growth mindset. 'Cause you know, he knew my story. I was not a great hockey player in high school and I kind of worked my ass— like I have, uh, uh, 2 brothers that are like very naturally gifted and I was not, but I made it happen. He's like, so you obviously have a growth mindset. And, you know, I, I want, I played on a team that, uh, is considered the biggest upset in college hockey history. So he knew I was like a good team guy. Um, he's like, that's what I, I hire for. Everything I just said is what I hire for, JR. And he, I didn't even ask him like, well, what do you do? He's like, come into my office on Monday. He's like, let's, let's try it for 30 hours a week for a month. And if you like it and you do well and you listen, I'll give you a shot. And he said, if, if I give you a shot, you'll make $300,000 within 3 years. And he kind of had me at $300,000. Yeah.
He didn't have to say anything else after that. Like, sign me up.
Yeah. I, and, and dude, it's so funny cuz like my, my base salary, I just found my first pay stub. My base salary was $27,500 and I was pumped, dude. I was like, finally I can buy Bud Light instead of Busch Light. This is gonna be awesome. And Yeah. And then like, probably, I think the 3rd day there, I went into his office and I was like, this is what I want to do the rest of my life. And I, I learned very quickly that all those intangibles are, those were candidly the only reason I was successful. I think like, to the point we made about liberal arts, that helped me because I, I, I was like drinking from a fire hose and I was learning stuff like this was back in, you know, the IT infrastructure days, right? Like server storage is pre-cloud. Like.
Mm-hmm.
It was pretty technical sale. And, and I learned quickly, but more, you know, my job was to bang the phones and get meetings. Like this is pre like sales engagement platforms and all these tools that you can use. And I, I remember I said to a guy in my office who like I could tell was a killer. I was like, my first day, I'm like, so, so dude, because I was setting meetings for him. I'm like, so what exactly do we do, Mike? And he looked at me and he got pissed at me. He's like, dude, Have you looked at our website yet? And I was like, no. He's like, don't ask me that fucking question till you do your own, do your own research. And that was like, okay. And I figured it out. I figured it out in hockey. Like I already had that muscle. Some people don't have that muscle or aren't forced to get that muscle. And my own experience is how I figured out how to start the business because I was, I was our candidate. I started this company for me specifically at 24 years old when I entered the job market in 2008 with the degrees I had. Because I became a CRO before 35. And if we went off my ability to structure a Microsoft Word document and put the right bullets on it, which is how we evaluate talent now, I never would have got a shot, Bill. So I know that me bringing the right mindsets and characteristics to the role is what led to my success. So I know anybody that has those things can have the same pathway I did.
Most leaders say they want resilience, coachability, curiosity, all the things you're just sitting here saying, right? They want a team-first attitude. How do they actually test for those qualities, uh, during the hiring?
It's a good question. I mean, it, it starts with, it starts with the gating process. Like, uh, the gating process itself doesn't lend it, lend, lend itself to the, those things coming through. Like you might get lucky that like whatever your HR and talent acquisition team is screening for. Which has to be something measurable and defensible because they're only using a piece of paper. Like, so they, so you might get lucky if, if your HR and TA team has, have the right kind of like, you know, gates there that you're going to get the people in the interview. So let's, let's pretend for a second that they do get a handful of the right people into the interview process. And those people actually get to talk to a human. How can a human like then screen for those things versus a, versus like a tool that screens the piece of paper?
Mm-hmm.
It's stories. Like you, you need stories and you need examples. Like that's, that's what you need to pull outta people. And if they're unable to communicate those things, even if they do have 'em, then, then it's on those people for not doing a good job of like giving you stories. And you have to ask the right questions to pull those stories out, especially of young people. But that's the only proof you can get is the, is the real life experiences. Like, give me an example of when you've been resilient. Give me an example. Like you need examples. Um, and, and again, like I said, those examples, people don't put those examples on, on the resume because that's not how a resume—
Yeah, it's gotta fit in that one page or 2 pages depending on how, how old. And yeah, it's a, you, the resume gets you in the door. The stories are gonna like keep you in the door.
Exactly. Well, yeah. And I'm trying to build something that it's not the resume that gets you in the door. Cause I don't think that's how it should be. Like, I don't think the resume, the resume is, I don't know if you know this, Bill, the resume is 500 years old. Did you know that?
I did not know that.
Leonardo da Vinci, he was trying to get a project, set his name at the top, had a little summary about who he was, talked about his education. And then he had a list of experiences with a few more credentials at the bottom. That should sound familiar. That should sound familiar to everybody because it's the fucking same.
I had no idea. I love studying, you know, like Da Vinci and the artist-engineer, the conflict going on there. He did a lot of interesting things and had a lot of— for everything from the helicopter to the bridges, the guy, the guy kind of had it.
He had a great, he had a great resume, but he, he, he had a resume. Like, you know what I mean, dude? Like, there's more technology now in our pocket than it took to get to the moon. And we're, we're still evaluating talent the same way we were 500 years ago. That to me is like, it's mind-blowing, dude. Like it doesn't make any sense to me.
Wow. So the qualities that get an athlete or a military person through, you know, these things we're talking about, where can those qualities become liabilities for them?
Where can they become liabilities? I think—
When they overuse them.
Yeah. Well, let's, we'll go down the list, right? Resilient. How can being resilient hurt you? I think this is where like the personality pieces, less so the intangible, like characteristics of who you are, but like more of the skill side of it versus will side of it. Like if you're super resilient and you're just, you're cranking the phone and everyone's hanging up on you, that's a good thing, right? Like I need you to do that, especially.
It's an at-bat.
Yeah. If you're not changing, if you're not changing because of that failure, That's a fucking problem, dude. Like, you know, using that failure to learn from it, that, so you might not quit, but if, but if you're not changing in that process, that, that is a huge problem. Right. Uh, I think on the individual level, and I've seen this before in our program, you know, when you put the team first all the time, it's great. It's great at the end of the day, but like, and dude, by the way, like exhibit A of this, like I may, I've made some career decisions. Where I was like, I thought I was doing the right thing for the team. And I really should have been taking a step back and being like, well, what is this the right thing for me? Because I think you kind of like, you lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, you're still an employee. And if you get an opportunity that can be a life-changing opportunity, you, you gotta, you have to take care of yourself. And I think now that's a lot easier for me because I'm a dad, a husband, I have a family, but at 31 years old when I was single and I was like really bought into our mission. I think I missed a couple opportunities. So, so that team-first attitude has hurt, hurt me personally for sure. Mm-hmm. Uh, I don't think coachability can hurt you in any way unless you have a bad filter on who you're taking coaching from. Right. That's where it can hurt you.
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you get conflicting advice too. So you, you have to be careful. You don't wanna go left. Nope. Now I'm going right. Now I'm going left.
Yeah.
So you don't want to management by shiny object.
Exactly. It's, it's actually similar to the, to the resiliency piece that can hurt you. Like you need, you need the right, that's where the like internal filter needs to be good on top of the intangible. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. So what do CEOs get wrong about it when they're hiring for culture?
When they're hiring for culture, I think, I think the, the thing I see commonly is like the CEO's view of what the culture is and the reality of what the culture is, is interesting. more common, more commonly different than I think the CEO appreciates. So they think that they're hiring for culture, but it's actually not the culture that they're actually building and that their employees are experiencing, which can lead to a wrong fit hire pretty quickly.
Yeah. Boy, that's really insightful. Do you have any specific examples?
Yeah. Like you said, I gotta be careful about naming names here, but like we have, we have a customer where the executive team Thinks they have like a very specific, very specific, like kind of open, open culture. Like everybody's really honest with each other and all these things. But in reality, when I talk to the first line and second line leaders, they're very much like, yeah, like, well, we can't really talk about that to the C-level because, you know, they're, they don't really, they don't see the world that way. And the CEO thinks like he's hearing everything. And like, you know, everybody's on the same page, but in reality, he's not hearing, like, he's not hearing the, or she is not hearing the things that are going wrong because even though they felt like they've, they've created an open culture, in reality, the people are afraid to like tell them, tell them the truth. You know what I mean? And that, that can be really bad. So like, that's like an actions versus words things, like saying this is your culture and then not doing what you say. And then hiring for what you say, but not what you do. That's, that's gonna lead to like a mismatch 100% of the time.
Once that company, once that CEO finds that high potential talent, what should that CEO and that team, uh, do to, to provide, uh, a platform that, that converts all of these great pieces to actual performance? How do they make it happen?
The same, the same way it works in the military and the same way that it works in sports. They, they, they have to lead it. Like they have to coach it. They have to, they have to shape it and they have to like do that continuously. And they have to have measurements on, on whether or not that, that high potential candidate is hitting the gates that they believe that they were gonna, they were gonna hit. You can't just hire for high potential and hope that that person is gonna reach their potential, right? Like, I'm sure it's, this has probably been said on your podcast before, but hope is not a Fucking strategy. Like, so you have to manage and coach to it just like the leaders in the military do, right? Like Navy SEALs, Navy SEALs take in high potential people, but then they, those, they don't stop coaching and leading those people ever, right? Like they're constantly being measured, they're constantly being coached, they're constantly being shaped. And that's the reason that they become like absolute badasses. The only way you're going to create an absolute badass is to, is to coach and shape that person. Because just because someone's high potential, they're high potential. That doesn't mean that they're like, they're going to be successful. They have potential to be successful. It is your job as the leader to help them fulfill that potential. They have to do their part, but if they're high potential, then they're probably going to, but you have to give them the environment for them to achieve that potential.
It's really hard. People, all people are unique and everything, but there's some commonalities. What KPIs do you suggest? Uh, that the team starts tracking on, on, uh, these new hires, these people to make sure they're, they're achieving what they thought was possible.
Do you, is that, 'cause I think it's different based off the role. Um, are we talking like go-to-market business development sales specifically?
Yeah. Stick with you. You know, you're, you're really on the commercial front end looking at the things that are going on. So I, I hired, you know, the, the, the, the kid was a D1 athlete. They won the championship. They got the ring coming out of this. Now he's coming in. We, we love everything about him or her. What he, they're on board. What do I measure to make sure progress is happening in a way that's both appropriate for them and helpful for the company?
Yeah, I mean, I think the sales is a little easier on that because there's a scoreboard. So I think like the, the core metrics should be clear and it'll be based off your business, but it'd be th— things that you can measure like pipeline created, um, qualified opportunities, those qualified opportunities closing. That's like the, that's more like the statistical side. I think strategically there's, there's things that commercially, like somebody needs to evolve into. They need to, number, number one is understand your customer, right? Why do companies buy? Why don't they buy? What is the problem that you solve? What is the language they talk about their problem in? And then how are they solving it today? And why is that not working? So you start with the customer commercially, number one, more than anything. Then you go to your own company and you say, okay, do you understand what we do? Do you understand why it's unique? Do you understand the positive business outcomes that we can drive? Do you understand the negative consequences of not buying our product? And then it gets into like, it stays internal and now you're talking about systems. Do you understand how to use all the tools that are available to you? Are you using all those tools available to you? And then you kind of start moving into the cultural side. Like, do you understand how your team works? Do you understand who the top performers are? Are you spending time with them? Are you asking a lot of questions? So like, I always think commercially, like you, you start with the customer first and then you kind of move backwards from there. And like, you can get a high potential kid if they're not being coached and they're not learning this stuff, then, then you, you, you may have missed your window to make them a high potential person in your organization. And I don't think, I don't think that's necessarily the, the candidate's fault if you don't have a clear plan to make sure that they're moving Through those gates to become excellent? Mm-hmm. Most leaders can't answer that question. And that's, that's a, that's not a good sign.
Is there anything that you measure differently because they are, uh, early career high potential versus, because a lot of things you, that's what we measure for everyone. And those are, those are the right metrics. Absolutely. Is there something, do you do something different or is it just really about getting in, taking command and control of what's happening and making sure they deliver on the Yeah.
You mean with early career talent?
Yeah. Yeah. We were talking about high potential talent. I'm, you know, I'm looking at, you know, for this, how do I know? Do I treat them different or I just treat them the same and just pay a little more attention?
You know what? I'm, nobody's ever asked me that question. And the first thing that popped into my head was the same rule and the same talk track I have for youth, youth sports parents. You know, and I'm a, I'm a product of youth sports and I would like to think me and my brothers are like what good looks like because we all played college hockey. One of us was very more naturally gifted than the other, played at the highest level you could possibly play for a long time. But know what we're all doing now, Bill? We're all playing men's league. And I think when I think about early career talent, you will know that you're good at it. If like 5, 10 years down the road, those people that came into your organization are still doing the job or like in that functional area that you hired them to do when you brought them in. Right. And I tell parents all the time, because parents are crazy. They're crazier than they've ever been in youth sports. Every 8-year-old's mom and dad thinks that their 8-year-old is the next Wayne Gretzky. And I always tell them the same thing. I'm like, hey, Wayne Gretzky still plays men's league hockey. That's, that's where your son, I don't care how good he is. Your son is going to end up in men's league hockey or he's not. And if he doesn't love the game still, when he's 25 years old, 30 years old, whenever his career ends, you fail. Right. So again, first time I've ever heard that question, but that I think is the answer. You are doing a good job if the people that come in and start their career underneath you Stay in that career forever, or at least until like they do what I did and like start a company or whatever.
Which is actually recruiting the people to do what you used to do.
So, uh, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, it's full circle. So you, you start out as a kid player, you go become a coach and maybe someday become a team owner.
Who knows? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
That's really insight— insightful. Uh, Shift Group has grown from a sales-focused business into a broader career platform.
Uh, what has that journey taught you about the difference between growth and sustainable It's a very, it's a very relevant way you asked that question because we have, you know, my first 2 years in the business, it was all sales, almost significant, almost exclusively tech sales. We raised some money, we made a pivot and we got broader across other functional areas. So think like strategy and operations, finance, HR, data science and analytics, IT engineering and development. And I think it was the right move on the candidate side. What I learned very quickly is that it wasn't the right move for us on the, on the company side, which is where we make our money. Because what I found very quickly is it's a lot harder to change hearts and minds on the leadership side that these intangibles matter in areas like finance and areas like operations and areas like IT. Like they are still very, very, very much focused on the credentials. The other thing that, that, that broadening of our offering did on the candidate side, Bill, is it, it put us away from selling to a functional leader in sales. And it now put us in the bucket of now we're selling to HR and talent acquisition. And I've sold to, I've sold to all different types of personas, all different types of people. HR has been the toughest nut to crack because they, they have They're so ingrained with the credential-focused gating process. And, you know, because they have to hire for every function, they don't have the bandwidth to like truly understand the function that they're focused on. So like, I'll give you an example of this, like a real example. We had an E-9 Sergeant Major, Green Beret. Your eyebrows just raised. Anybody?
Yeah.
Anybody who, anybody who knows what that means is like, I don't give a shit what the role is. Hire that guy. Right.
That guy's going to get something done today.
Yes, exactly. We had a, we had a customer, uh, that we signed up post, like increasing the functional areas. So HR was our point of contact. One of the talent acquisition people was the screener. And this guy went in, he had some relevant experience based off the industry they sold into as well. Some like personal connections to it. He goes through the screening process and then we get a notification that he was declined. And so I, so I sent a note to the HR woman who was doing the screening and I was like, you know, hey, what's up with this candidate? And she's like, yeah, we really need somebody who already knows how to use Salesforce for this role. And I was like, you know, bite my tongue, relax, breathe. I was like, okay, understood. Thank you. Hung up with her and I called the CRO who I knew personally. And I said, dude, your HR team just screened this guy out. I walked him through his credentials and I explained to him, I was like, listen, she screened him out because he doesn't know Salesforce. I happen to know the story that is on this guy's video is that he learned how to fly a $6 million drone in a combat zone overnight. And I think he can learn how to use a fucking CRM. And the guy was like, dude. I'm so sorry. And like, guess what? That guy is now a second-line sales leader at that company.
Impressive. Well, you know, that's where someone going to bat for you, having someone like yourself in the corner and then having a leadership structure that gets it.
Yes.
Look, I was a big-time military guy. I was an E-4, so I was part of the E-4 mafia. So we were swabbing decks and chipping paints. But, You look at those guys in awe about what they're able to do under the most stressful conditions. They're going to figure it out.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. As AI absorbs more work across the world, it's eating us all in good and bad ways. What qualities become more valuable and what will become less valuable?
I think knowledge in general, knowledge and like specific skills. So like real life example is Excel. Right. I didn't even know how to spell Excel when I graduated from college. I still suck at it. I build the sickest Excel spreadsheets you've ever seen, Bill, because I'm, because I'm good. I'm good at Claude. I'm very good at Claude. Right. So I think like anything related, anything, actually, this is the way I think about it. Anything that's like exclusively done between your computer chair and your computer screen, like tactically, like work, knowledge-based work, that is gonna, it's already lessened in value. I think that's gonna continue to lessen because the thing I don't think people understand is like, dude, we're like 2 and a half years into this thing and it is getting so—
Changing everything.
It's getting so crazy good so fast. Like I say, holy shit, in this office, like 6 times a day when I use it, I'm like, holy shit. Like, I can't believe it just did that. So that's, That's like the value of that's going down. However, there are, there are things that the value is going up and it's going up at a pace at the same time that the value's going down on this. Like your ability to critically think and have ideas, like your own ideas, super, super important because if we're all getting the same information, the way that we translate that information becomes super important. Again, that goes back to like why liberal arts I think is going to get more and more valuable. Because you learn how to learn and you learn how to critically think. So that goes way up. The second thing that I think goes way up is your ability to communicate those ideas and communicate the information that now you're getting out of a robot or a machine. So that means like face-to-face verbal communication. It means written communication because AI is going to continue to get better at writing. But again, if you're not injecting your human ideas at the end of the day, like AI is commoditizing, like Common opinion, you know what I mean? So your ability to be dissentive out of that information and then communicate that dissent, super duper important. And like part of communication is influencing and motivating the person sitting across from you, right? That's when you know you're good at it. So those 2 things, like to summarize, like critically thinking and communication. And then the 3rd bucket, I mean, let's face it, if you're not good at AI, if you're not good at wearing the Iron Man suit that can make you Faster, stronger, and better than like, you know, go, go, don't work in corporate, man. Like, you know, I, I have a lot of buddies and I'm not that, you know, I'm not that old. I'm, I turned 42 shortly. I have buddies that are like old men yelling at clouds that are my age being like, ah, this is a, this is a hype cycle, dude. Like, this is a, you know, this is a—
This is not a hype cycle.
I'm like, what are you like? I got a lot of buddies that, 'cause I went to Holy Cross and that's like kind of a pipeline to Wall Street. So I got a lot of buddies working on Wall Street. And I had dinner with one of 'em a couple months ago, and he's, he's in the like AI hype cycle phase of his life that will be broken soon. And he's telling us, he's like, yeah, well, we're a very compliant industry, so like we don't really use the Clods and the ChatGPTs. We have our own LLM, and I have an agent that like, you know, I have to feed all my information into and like use it to get answers, you know? And after a couple times, it doesn't make that mistake, but just the fact that it makes that mistake initially. Like, you're, I'm always gonna need to be part of it. And I'm like, we, I, I, I didn't want to get into it with him at dinner 'cause we were having a good time. He's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah. He's like, yeah, dude. Like, that was crazy. That was such a crazy conversation. Like, so like the AI thing I think is, is gonna become like getting good at it, understanding the principles of it, how it works, how it operates. Because like, listen, Claude, ChatGPT, those are big right now. There's gonna be other tools that replace it. Like, you gotta really understand the principles of it. How to institute it into your workflows, how to like make it, make it work for you. So I think critically, being able to critically think, being able to communicate and being able to use the tools, the productivity tools, that's it. That's the future. Like if you can't do those 3 things, then, you know, listen, a lot of my family's in the trades. Still a great, still a great career. You know what I'm saying?
Oh yeah. You know, your insight, I'd never heard it put this way, but I'm personally experiencing AI for me is what's happening between the chair and the computer screen because Excel's always been able to do the Excel things. They've made it easier. When I learned Excel, it was about learning the shortcuts so you could be fast. You didn't want to use your mouse. It was, you know, control this, control that, and on and on. Today I can sit in my chair and just tell AI what I want. Talk to it. But not just Excel, with anything. Research a fly, build a macro, build a website. It's just me using my words. And it's extraordinary because I probably spent, you know, those 20s of your life, that was just learning how to use the tools. I didn't actually know how to apply the tools or the insight. And, you know, being a senior leader today is about insight. You get there faster. You really, it just, it just shortens the learning curve. I've never thought, what a great insight. Okay. Here's my, here's my question for you, right? So, yeah, yeah. Our audience is CEOs, particularly private equity CEOs of middle market company and the sponsors to go with them. You're sitting in that chair. You got one guy who's training his replacement. You got another kid who's probably launching rockets around the world. What do you do Monday morning with this? How do you take this and get a better team with this and keep that team engaged and keep them with you?
You have to, I mean, your job at that level is to set a standard and to set expectations. And I think that the, I think too many leaders and candidly, this is less so in private equity because we work, we work with some private equity sponsors that will bring us into their portfolio companies. And they're the ones who are like, hey, this is the standard and expectation. It's, we like half of our business is probably private equity. The other half is probably venture and venture is more hands-off than private equity, as you know.
More founder mentality. That guy's a genius. Let him run.
Yeah, exactly. And the problem when you do that is things fall through the cracks. And one of the, one of the first things that I see fall through the cracks as companies grow is this handoff of, of like the talent, the talent plan. Like, well, I'm not, I'm not a talent professional. Like I, they, they know what they're doing. I need to let them do what they're doing. That is, I think, one, lazy, and two, one of the most like critical mistakes you can make. As a CEO sitting in a seat or as like a sponsor of a portfolio of companies is like, you have to make it really clear that this is the standard and this is the expectation. And the standard and expectation has to be more than credentials that you can measure on a piece of paper. Like you've gotta have a clear profile of like, what are the characteristics we're looking at? What is the proof that That we need to look for. And it can't just be, you know, oh, they've worked in this industry for 2 years in this type of role. That, like, that's not good proof. You know, all these, you have to have like these clear, very crystal clear standards when it comes to hiring. And they're going to go to, they're going to go to the lowest on the totem pole, the easiest thing to, the easiest thing to measure and the easiest thing to defend. Those are things like pedigree of school, GPA. Major or minors. And I don't know about you, Bill, like you've been in the business world a long time. I've only been in it 20 years and I've worked with a lot of really, really successful people. I can tell you when I look at those successful people, they don't, the things they share in common are not the pedigree of the school they went to.
Not at all.
It's not their GPA and it's certainly not their major. It's the things that aren't on that piece of paper. And Yes, it makes hiring a lot harder, but, you know, choose your hard, right? Choose your hard. Would you rather hiring be harder or your attrition rate be high and you spend a shit ton of money trying to replace bad hires? Give me the harder, harder at hiring. That's, that's the one I want to take.
Or rather have it harder in the beginning. So it's easier, you know, you play, you play hard during the week. So you, you, you, uh, you're not bleeding on Sunday.
So, all right.
Final question. If a CEO has 1,000 days to build a more valuable company, Which talent decisions made during the first 100 days will create the greatest compounding effect?
First line leadership. That's the most important hire you make in an organization. Full stop. You're the folks. Yeah. The folks that, you know, think of like the, the, the pods of 6 and 8, right? Like the person who leads those pods, those people, those hires, those are because those are your smallest, those are your smallest units above The individual, and that's where you can unlock the most value, in my opinion. And in my experience, those first line leaders in those first 1,000 days, they're going to determine the path forward. And that's the, that's the area you have to pay the most attention to. You know, listen, the CEO, the VPs, the managers of managers, those are important too. But at the end of the day, where does shit get done? It gets done at the floor. It gets done in those 6-pot, those 6 to 8 person units. You, you can make really bad decisions up here, but if you've made the right decision here with like an excellent first line leader, that unit is protected. I don't think a lot of people think that way, but like, I've seen it. I've seen the first line leader that is a game changer, and I've seen the first line leader that blows everything up, everything up. Even though you have a great CEO, a great VP, a great manager of managers, if that first line leader sucks, that team sucks, and then you're screwed. And you just lost the whole people unit from a success perspective. So I think that first line leadership role is the most important thing you can think about and focus on in those first 1,000 days.
Very powerful. Well, JR, thank you for joining us. My takeaway is that great hiring starts by looking beyond the credentials and finding real evidence of character, coachability, and performance, that grit and resilience that you talk a lot about. We'll include links to the Shift Group and your LinkedIn profile in the show notes below. Maybe give 'em a little picture of your company so they can find you.
Yeah, absolutely. It's just shiftgroup.io. And what I would say is like our superpower right now is commercial talent, like we talked about. So it's a pretty important aspect of business. So definitely hit us up. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, just JR Butler. I do post daily and kind of just share my thoughts and the thoughts I share are the same thoughts that our candidates get to learn from. So if you like what I'm saying, you're You're probably gonna like our candidates too.
JR, thank you again. And to everyone listening, let's make every day count. Have a great day, everyone.
You've been listening to The 1,000 Day CEO with Bill Canady. Follow the show for more decisive leadership, sustainable growth, and strategies that build enduring businesses. Until next time, make every day count.
