Richard Milligan argues that recruiting cold candidates requires three things: a clear vision, core values, and a repeatable process. He uses William Wallace and Braveheart as an example of how compelling leadership makes people want to follow you, even without prior relationship.
The 4th part of this is, you know, this is— we know that if we handle this correctly, okay, and when we handle this correctly, we're presenting ourselves as what I call the attractive leader. That means that we're leading with our vision, we're leading with our value system, our core convictions, our beliefs. And we've got a strong process or system that we follow, then guess what? I truly believe this: that the cold candidates are in play. I you know it takes anybody to go find warm hot talent. Okay, I can find anyone that doesn't even have recruiting experience that can go find warm hot talent and move them to an organization. But it takes someone who has a process. A system and the right mindset to get in front of a cold lead. But if they do that, here's what I think. I think that we are intrinsically designed as human beings to be motivated towards core value alignment, to be motivated to move towards someone who's got clarity in where they're going. That means they have a vision. Someone that's got clarity and can communicate clearly why they do what they do. This person's operating in their passion zone. And I think that when we arrive on the scene with someone that's operating in the passion zone, that can clearly communicate those 3 components— core values, vision, and why they're doing what they're doing— that we all want to draw swords and fight with them. Okay, now that's kind of a Braveheart-ism. If you haven't ever seen Braveheart, you might have to watch that movie and figure out who William Wallace is. But one of the things I know, there's a moment in that movie Where brave— where William Wallace arrives on the scene of a battlefield. And if I just relive that movie scene for a moment, he rides up and for the first time he's really being recognized in front of a large group of men. And up to this moment, he's really been kind of a mystery. People have heard of him, him and his small group of— his small band of brothers he's been fighting with behind the scenes. But there's been this noise that he's been defeating the enemy on a small level. And suddenly one day, in front of where there are these 2 lords that are about to ride out to what is— it looks like it's a battle scene, but it's not really a battle scene. These 2 lords are going to ride out, and what they're actually going to do is get awarded more land, more honor, more wealth for not actually fighting. And suddenly you've got this group of men That are these Scottish peasants that are leaving this battle scene saying, I didn't come here for this. I didn't come here so they could get more land, get more title. I'm not here to fight for them. And they begin to leave this scene of the battle. And William Wallace rides up on the scene with his small band of brothers, and he calls this group of men who are now leaving the battle scene into something that's much bigger, with clarity of vision, clarity of why, and clarity of core values. And these men turned to fight this battle in this moment because there was clarity around those 3 components. William Wallace was operating in that passion zone. And I think at a, at a deep level, we as human beings want to be called into that.
