002: Sean Evans - Recruiting and Hiring the Right Person for Your Company

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing? But you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatalent.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatalent.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Our guest today is Sean Evans from Step Consulting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Sean's both a certified Gazelles coach and certified in top grading. And so we're going to talk today on the subject of people decisions and all about top grading practice. Welcome Sean. Thanks for joining us.

It's my pleasure, Bill. Thank you for having me.

How are things now in Toronto?

Fantastic. It's a beautiful sunny day up here in Toronto. Amazing place and the sun is out. So just absolutely enjoying the opportunity to hang out on the deck later and do a little barbecuing.

Love Toronto. Love Toronto in the summertime. This is the time to visit. Maybe not so much in January, February.

Not quite so if you're in town, please then any of your listeners let me know and would love to show you around.

Awesome. So why is top grading so important? What's the cost or the impact of this in companies that don't have it? Give us an idea of the gravity of this.

That's a great question to start out with. You know, when I look at companies and I think I often see people as among a country's greatest assets. And as Jim Collins notes quite widely, it's incredibly important to get the right people on the bus. Really? What does that mean, the right people? Well, you have to find people who have not only the skills and talents and experience, but also those that fit culturally in a company. So it's a complex decision in doing so though it really is an asset and a leverage to scale up effectively. And companies that don't have the right people on the bus don't afford themselves that opportunity to do so and to drive both the top line revenue and bottom line profitability.

So let's talk about top grading. What is top grading? Where did it come from? Give us a little intro to that.

Top grading is a methodology that dives deep into a person's history to find out really what they're about. And it's a way to find, hire, coach, and keep the best talent, those A players in the company, as part of your team. Now, A is often quite widely used axiom and it often goes undescribed. And the way I look at it is it's quite simply judging someone based on two metrics. And if you actually think of this as a matrix, on one axis, the vertical axis, you can have cultural fit. And that's really based on someone's behavior that's consistent with core values, the company's core values. And on the other axis, the X axis, you can consider their performance and their ability to execute at a high level in a role, functionally in a high level, in a role. The A players are those that are on high fit, high cultural fit, and high performance. And that would be in the top right box of the matrix. The C players, those who are not a good fit and are low performers, would be on the bottom left. And everyone else would essentially be a B player. Top grading, the methodology actually came from a gentleman named Brad Smart. He was working with Jack Welch of ge. Jack was trying to find a way to improve his success with hiring and keeping the most talented executives. And his goal was to raise that success rate from 80 to 90%. What we find in traditional based interviewing, and it's really behavioral based interviewing, is, is the success rate of an employee having an ongoing positive contribution to a company is actually only 25% across all industries, across all hiring practices.

So you're saying one in four. So three of four people we hire are going to suck?

Yes, essentially. And you can imagine the effect on a company of having three quarters of your workforce not being of the highest caliber. And if we look across all industries, across all sizes of companies, the average number of A players in these companies is 25%. The average number of C players is 25% and Bs are 50%. So 75% of your workforce is not in that high performing category. And you can only imagine the effect it has on a company's performance.

Yeah, so that's pareto principle at work. 80, 20 in the people side of things. And I hear you as you introduce top grading, that we're not just talking about recruiting, but also the managing, the retention of people over time, focusing on that 20% that produces the 80% of value in the company.

That's very true. It's not just a way to bring people in the company. It's also a way to make sure that those that are with or working with you already are doing their best or in the right roles. I actually have used it with clients to assist in promotions because not everyone can be promoted. They might be a top talent in the role they're in, but maybe they're not ready for that next step.

Yeah. So it's all well and good for big companies like GE with massive resources and sophisticated systems and things like that, but talk to me about using it with our Gazelles Level mid market clients. Tell me about. You wrote to me earlier about one of your clients, Fresh Squeezed Ideas. Let's talk about when you realized you had a problem there.

Sure. Top Grading is a methodology that can be used by any size company from the biggest to the smallest. Fresh Squeezed Ideas is a client mid sized company. I began working principally with their partners John McGar and Karen McCauley and they are a marketing research and consulting company that uses cultural decisions, cultural forces to create value based marketing strategies for companies that are trying to re engineer their brand. Just before or just prior to me working with them, they hired a senior leader. They're really trying to expand their thought leadership and grow the company as they were growing both top line and bottom line. So they're definitely in growth mode. And through traditional hiring practices. They brought on a gentleman who was really the third highest executive in the company. My first two days working with them was actually this gentleman's first two days on the job and we were in an annual planning session and I really didn't have a read for him. So I was just trying to benchmark myself as to where the talent existed on the executive team. Fast forward three months and I in a conversation with Karen and John, I go through an exercise of assessing the talent in the company and their leadership team, which I do once every quarter against that matrix of fit and performance.

Our talent assessment, right?

Yeah, exactly. Our talent assessment matrix. And it became clear that not only was this gentleman not the best cultural fit for the company, but he was underperforming against what was expected of him for the role.

Was he in the room at the time?

He was not in the room at the time. And this is an exercise. It's a great question and one that's really valuable for everyone to understand. When going through the talent assessment matrix with a team, you don't want to talk about anyone that's in because it can be quite a challenging conversation. You would talk about one layer that's underneath the team that's in the room. And so at the topmost level in assessing an executive team, you work one on one with the CEO or if it happens to be partners, as is the case, managing partners, as is the case with FreshMe's idea, it was just with the two of them.

So you saw this boom, so you started working with this company. What was the task of the challenge? Why did they engage?

Well, I think they're engaged because they suffered from what many companies suffer as they start to accelerate and grow. Business gets increasingly complex and they founded the company, grew it to impressive growth over a 10 year period and then realized that to get from where they were to where they want to be, it would take new thinking, it would take new systems, processes, principles and tools that they didn't have that experience in. So really they turned to myself and the Gazelles International 4 decisions as the methodology, the backdrop to help them accelerate more effectively.

Interesting. All right, so what developed, what did they do with the guy and how did things change?

Well, the first step when we initially realized that he was not necessarily the best fit was not to take drastic action, but to first engage in coaching and coaching him directly.

So you want to look on performance, right?

Yeah. So coach first and then take action. You know, we looked at performance and figured out a plan to help him be more effective at what he was doing. And we also looked at culture. Was it really a cultural misfit or were we not setting himself him up for success with the company and the managing partners not setting him up for success? So we took the approach of checking in every month to the three of us checking in every month to see how he was doing. And each of the partners would work with him directly to help him along, noting with him where he was, the pressures that he's facing, trying to help him, and making him aware that there was an issue after a couple of months. This was five months from the beginning of him being hired, two months from us first recognizing that he was not necessarily the a player that he needed to be. We realized that it just wasn't going to change. The situation wasn't going to get better even with a lot of work. And it was probably best for everyone that they part ways. And it was done so as amicably as could be expected. But it was the best decision for all the parties involved. Fresh Squeeze has gone on and continued to bring in good talent. And we'll talk about in a second how they do it. And this gentleman has, he can be an A player somewhere else. There is always a place where someone can be an A player with the right fit and with the right capabilities.

Different job, different environment, different team. Place where they can flourish.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. I often talk with clients about when you keep somebody who's underperforming in a job, who's not going to be able to perform in a job because it's not suited to them, you're holding them back from being a winning person, from being an A player in some other place. And you're doing a disservice to them and to your team.

Absolutely. And I believe that a person can be at their happiest at work when they are in a place where they're a great fit and they enjoy the culture in which they're working and they can perform at a level that shows excellence and competency. And it sounds a little cliche and maybe a little harsh, but when key players get transitioned out of companies, I like to remind the executives that what they're really doing is freeing up their future to find somewhere where they can be excited about getting up every day and going to work.

Yeah, well, it's painful and scary on both sides. When you go to let somebody go, there's a lot of concern, a lot of issue. You're wondering how you're going to replace them. Are you going to do any better the second time around? Is there going to be any drama? The person getting let go wonders what the heck's going to happen to me and where am I going to go and be. And there's a lot of anxiety about that. And they may have background, profound financial concerns.

Yeah, it's a common fear. It is a common fear, particularly letting a senior executive go. But I also remind them it might take time to find a replacement, but they are out there. The talent is out there that you're looking for.

So talk about recruiting the talent. Then. What's the process? What are the things that you do? What happened with Fresh Squeezed?

Well, after this transition, I started speaking to them about Top Grading quite early on, and I think this was kind of a the straw that broke the camels back. They were ready to look at a new way of hiring and they didn't have an alternative that they felt comfortable and as confident as they were with Top Grading after I walked into the process. So we developed, started developing the program within the company so that everyone first was aware of what Top Grading was and what its intention was, and also to develop and implement all the necessary steps to make sure that they were finding top A players to work in the company. So the first thing, and this is where they might have failed previously, is they didn't create a specific enough job description, I believe. And that's one of the problems, typical hiring problems, is vague job description. So we set out to create a job scorecard. And what it does, the four areas, principal areas of a job scorecard. One is just describing the company and doing so in a way that really excites a candidate. The second is to create a job mission. And what is the job really about. The third area is specific accountability that can be measured, especially within the first year. That would signal success. And you would reveal this to a candidate up front. This is what we expect of a candidate coming in here, and it shows what they need to do to thrive. And the fourth is key competencies, a list of key competencies to make sure that you're finding the person that is the right fit culturally and the right performer. So we went about creating a job scorecard. Now, that second step about recruitment, there's a number of ways to go to market. Really. The statistics have consistently come back that the best way to find the best people is recruiting from your own networks. So it's picking up the phone, going through LinkedIn, making personal connections, going to networking events, trying to scour yourself where those best hires could potentially be. Job boards are overrun with far too many candidates of poor quality. So the best ones are going to come from people in your own networks. We went through that process and eventually found a number of candidates who showed great promise. But instead of just jumping in and talking to them and looking at their resumes and talking to them right away, we had to overcome hiring problem number two, which is screening from resumes. And to do so, because resumes can be faked, anyone can look great on their resume. And to do so, we use what's called the Top Grading Career History form. It's an online tool and it really beautifully documents a person's history from their high school years all the way to their most current jobs. And you get a very, very robust picture of where they've come from and even draw out some patterns of where they might typically go.

So how do you get that collected?

They fill it out or they fill it out. Yeah. So when someone expresses interest in applying for a job and we like initially what they offer, at least on paper, we direct them to the Career History form tool. They create an account, fill in all their information, and it's a lengthy process, but the intention of it, and this is, again, the beauty of top grading is that every step is a filter. If someone doesn't want to take the time to talk about, to document their career history, then they're not an A player. A players love to talk about themselves because they've done amazing work. Every step is a filter.

What if they had a misstep? What if they had something somewhere that, you know, they were in a job where they weren't a fit for it?

Well, that often comes out in that career history form in the snapshot.

But did they get rejected?

Well, part of the art is trying to read into what that picture is telling me. The simplest way to think about it though, is we are looking for people who are generally show very steady progress in their career titles, their pay, because pay is often a benchmark for development and responsibility and accountability. And we're also looking for people who haven't jumped around in a lot of jobs. Someone who is jumping every 12 to 18 months is likely not going to stick around with you for very long. And in addition, we're looking for someone doesn't have too many unexplained gaps in their, in their history. So part of it is going through and just understanding, you know, what, what happened was there downsizing, layoffs, you know, you have to factor in the economy for sure. But part of the tool, the beauty of the tool again, is being able to get insight into, you know, whether it's economic issue, a company issue, a fit issue, and you can really dig into that.

What is it that you love about all this? Why is this important to you? Why, why coach? Why top grading? What's the juice for you?

The juice, you know, it's. It's helping people just reach the. Reach the space where they want to be. You know, I. I use top grid, so I use both Gazelles and Top Grading. When I was the COO of a technology company based in Toronto, and we did more in the first six months after using both of these methodologies than in the previous two years of previous management. Insofar as moving the business forward and as I later evolved and started to think about the next steps in my career, I just kept going back to feeling how valuable it was that work was. And I wanted to share the love of it with as many companies as possible and particularly top grading. As I said, the importance of getting the right people on the bus and doing a deep chronological insight exploration of a person's history with them in the room, which can take a very long time, just made sure that we were getting the right people. Taking that success rate from 25% in hiring to 80 or 90% as we got better and better at the methodology.

So it worked for you and it works for your clients.

Absolutely.

And lets you scale something. So let's look at a recap. What can our listeners do? What can average companies begin to do on their own? How can they elevate this stuff in their own hiring and managing of their team?

There's two resources I'd recommend. One is Top Grading, the book by Brad Smart. It's a deep dive into the methodology. It's very rich in content. It can be quite heavy at times, but it provides an amazing backdrop into all the tools necessary and all the practices necessary to implement. The easier approach is actually. And one I highly recommend is a book by his son Jeff Smart, and it is called who the A Method for Hiring. It's much more accessible. It's the type of book you can read in a short plane trip.

Yeah, that's the only book I could get through.

I read both and I'd recommend two first and foremost. And it really does outline all the steps necessary to begin the process of top grading.

And are there any steps? I mean, what are the high level steps that somebody can do to improve their hiring right now before they even get into reading the book? What are the principles here?

I would say don't rely on solely on behavioral based interviews. Just try and do a deeper dive into someone's background. A deep chronological interview.

So a behavioral based interview. Let's break that down. Behavioral based interview is what? And then what's a deep chronological.

A behavioral based interview is sort of situational analysis. It's asking someone, have you ever been in a situation such as blank or what would you do if you were in this situation?

Right.

It's hypothetical. I often call evidence based interviewing.

Okay.

And it's relying on the fact that someone's past behavior is going to be highly indicative of their future behavior. So I like to see going through someone's jobs chronologically that they have actually have evidence of behaving in a certain way of having exhibited skills and talents, have exhibited patterns of behavior. And you can see those change over time or in some cases stay consistent, which can be both good and bad. So that's a big difference.

So you said chronological. Right. You're looking at the whole thing. So tell me about your paper route. Tell me about your first job at Acme Widgets. Right.

Well, the most experienced top graders start off with high school and I believe that's a great place to start. Start because it's foundational years for Those less experienced in the process, I recommend that they start off with the college or university years and just get a sense for the person's background, why they took the courses they did, what they liked, what they disliked, and from there it's talking to them about every single job they've had to the present day and breaking down successes, failures, accountabilities, what their managers thought of them, what they thought of their managers. It's a pretty intensive questionnaire, but you can very easily get through it in one sitting.

So we've got a deep interview where we're walking through each and every job and role, looking at what they did, what they didn't do, accomplishments, the pay, the sequence of things, why they left, why they moved on. Then you've got this thing called Torc, right? Tell us about that.

Yes, one of the greatest tools, torque, stands for threat of reference check. As I noted before, resumes can be fudged and as much. Reference checks are often done inappropriately. In fact, they're ineffective if done traditionally, as they've often been done, which is, I'm going to ask the candidate for three recommendations that I'm going to talk to. I've never found a candidate who's going to provide me with someone who will say nothing less than excellent.

Give me three references. Okay, I'll find my three best friends.

Exactly. They get to self select. So that gives you a very biased view of that person during the interview. In the deep dive, the first job that we talk about at the end of it, I always say, listen, we do something different around here. Instead of you providing us with references, we'd actually like to talk to this manager. Is that okay with you? And if so, can you arrange that introduction? And if the person says yes, no problem, then that's great. They're aware that we will talk to them and we will. If the person says no, that's a signal. It's a red flag because it suggests that there's something going on there and you want to be wary of what that something might be from that point forward. Regardless of whether the person said yes or no, they're aware that everything they talk about going forward is going to be checked against what their manager at that time. And so that threat of the reference check or the torque is like truth serum. It gets people that have to tell the truth because we're going to check on it.

So if you say, what is Bob going to say when I call him and ask him about your performance in this job? I start to get real, very real.

Because they know if they tell me something and Bob disagrees, they're either not aware of their real performance or they maybe lied to me about how it is that they performed.

And then of course, we talked earlier about, now you've got an existing team and you're looking at that team you want to look at on a quarterly rhythm is how you work and how I would work. Let's look at that whole team and see how people fit in terms of fit to values, fit to the environment of the company and their performance. And we put those people on a matrix there and we see where they fall out. And then we decide whether to coach, replace or retain the people.

Absolutely. Come up with a plan for each person. And that plan might be that you need to show them a little attention. And I call it love. It's the top right box of that matrix. High fit, high performance. You got to love those people because they players need attention. And often one of the traps that leaders get themselves in is they ignore their A players and thinking, oh, they're fine, they're up there, they're A players, but they need to stay A players. With the B players, you really have to figure out how you're going to move them into that A zone and what specific actions can you take. And for C players, you know, again, this is one where executives and leaders get trapped because they feel that with the right coaching and the right amount of time and a lot of resources, they can really get that C player into the B zone and maybe into the A zone. The truth of the matter is it happens so rarely. So take A if you feel up for it, try and take some action, see if there can be any change. But be prepared to transition very quickly. And that's where that the low performance, low to cultural fit, you need to transfer them out because C, unfortunately, they're a cancer. They suck the B players down. And when the B players get sucked down the C's, the A player gets sucked down to be even at Detroit.

Yep. All right, well, we're running out of time for this conversation. I want to let people know that if they want to reach Sean and get more information on top grading, they can go to Stepconsulting ca. That's your website. And they can your certified top grading. Certified gazelles coach. And if you're working with me, Sean is our top grading partner. If you want to go deep on top grading, Sean will be who we'll work with together. So, Sean, thanks so much for sharing yourself and your work with us today. And your client stories. Thanks.

Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure and I look forward to chatting again soon. Foreign.

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