Recent Coaching Conversation - Where Are You Headed?

So the big question is this: how do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities win at this game of recruiting? How do we build a system that allows us to recruit effectively in a minimal amount of time while motivating recruits towards meaningful change? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Richard Milligan, and welcome to Recruiting Conversations. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Recruiting Conversations with your host, Richard Milligan. I hope this is finding you doing well at the beginning of 2021, and I hope that you are coming off some vision planning, some dreaming for what's possible into the upcoming year. It's always an exciting time for me. I know it's a chance for me to revisit where I've been, a chance to visit just even in the moment where I'm at. And then to also look at the future. I recently had a coaching session. We were talking about vision and looking into the future and the implications of that on recruiting and being able to actually motivate people to change. One of the things that we talked about is the importance of clarity. You know, my definition of vision is roadmap to what we want to achieve. Roadmap to what we want to achieve. And that means that You gotta have a lot of clarity in that. I have learned over the years the power of this. It's not in the words. It's not in the intelligence of the size of words that you use. It's actually in your ability to systematically paint the picture for someone. Where are we going? And What are the steps that are necessary all the way down to the year, the month, the day, this moment, that are going to actually take us across that finish line? And few people ever get to that because in a crazy busy world, it forces us to find white space and slow down. True story. Over the years, I've had several moments where I needed clarity On where I was going to go and what I was going to do next. The play in my playbook is to get off the grid, quiet my brain, turn off my phone, get away from my email. And those moments of clarity have been springboards for me. A lot of people think that that moment away is a deviation from moving towards what you want to accomplish. In actuality, it's actually The biggest springboard you can create in moving towards it much faster. You need clarity. If everything is possible, then ultimately nothing is possible, right? We, we have to make fewer decisions in the day based on where we want to go. We need to be able to define our mission every day based on where we're going. We have to know when to say no to things. Based on the clarity of what we want to accomplish. And none of those things are even possible unless we start with clarity of our vision. As it pertains to recruiting, what I'm aware of is there's this thing called concrete and this other thing called abstract. Now, I picked this up from a writing coach I had in 2019, and he was using it in reference to writing powerful content. And getting people to engage with your leadership brand, the content you're creating day to day. And one of the things he made me aware of is that I was actually creating in my content a lot of what he would call abstract ideas. One of the things he taught me is that I needed more concrete leadership, for example. I could pontificate around leadership in my content if I wanted to, but that's an abstract thought, right? I need concrete. Concrete is what proves the abstract. Concrete is the story, storytelling. Storytelling is the concrete. Abstract ends up being the takeaway. I learned that my content— and in the process of that, one of the things that I connected the dots on was people move towards vision because there's clarity there. There's concrete evidence of where we're going. Most leaders live in the abstract. In terms of where they're going. Even if they say, well, I have goals, those goals are limited by the year that they're actually in. We're going to X. Very few people even have a 3-year plan or a 5-year plan, let alone a 10-year plan of where they go. So, in the 5 to 7 minutes I'm going to share inside of a coaching session, we're talking around this. I make this statement, vision is everything, and I believe that. So, let's put some context around this. In a live coaching session. We're gonna go to that now, and then I'll come back here with you. The growth-minded individual, like, gets the clarity. And that's really what we're ultimately doing, is that we're providing clarity for people on the recruiting side. A lot of people think that we're trying to sell them something. We're not. We're providing you clarity where we're going. And if you wanna get on the bus, the clarity is what tells you that you wanna be on that bus. The bus on the front says we're going to San Bernardino. Right? And if you're not going to San Bernardino, why would you get on the bus? The bus says Phoenix, Arizona on it, but most buses that are what recruiting leaders are selling have no label on them at all. It's just like, get on the bus, we're gonna go drive fast somewhere. When you think about it, that's like ridiculous. It's why people don't move.

Right.

What you are building is a bus with a very specific label on it. And the leader that goes like, ah, I'm growth-minded, I'm desiring this, I'm craving this, you go, oh, let's just lay out the path of how the bus is gonna get To San Bernardino, California, right? And when you lay out that map for them, they're like, that's the shortest distance between here and there. That's exactly where I want to go. I'm on the bus now, right?

Right.

Well, here's the cool thing is this, is that, um, when you, when you start sharing vision with the right people and it's a big enough vision— this is why, like, when we talk about vision with people, I'm like, man, you really got a dream. Because how are you going to attract this guy with a small vision?

Mm-hmm.

You're not. You got to be able to share a vision that's like, oh, I never thought of thinking that big. Now you're inspiring me, right? That's the thing is like what I see happens is that as our vision grows, people that say I'm happy where I'm at get motivated to change because there's something more that's available. And unless you can describe the more that's available, a lot of people are like, well, more money, you know, more, you know, better culture, better you know, whatever, it's all in this a little bit better framework. When you start to describe vision to people, really big visions, it's inspiring. It's the William Wallace moment where people are like, oh yeah. Like, you know, he has that framework in the movie where he's like, what would you not give on your deathbed to come back to this moment and act as free men, right? You're having that pitch, that same moment with people, that vision casting moment where they're like, I never thought about it like that, right? So that's the vision to me is everything. And so, and so the roadmap to that becomes everything for y'all, which is what you got to work on.

We are. It's not— it's not totally easy.

But here's the important thing. Remember this: to be a piano teacher, you don't have to be playing in a professional symphony. You have to know the lesson in advance of the student you're teaching. That is it. You got to be one lesson ahead at all times.

Correct.

Right, and so don't think that my coaching came from a place where I wasn't just one step ahead of my client. Right, when I launched this in 2017, it wasn't the framework that it is today. This has gotten dramatically better over the last 3 years. Right, so where you are, don't ever let that intimidate you. You can recruit anyone as long as you're one step ahead of them in this process. Having a vision is one step ahead.

Right, yeah.

Right, so having that vision and working, understand them understanding we're working on the roadmap, this is where we're gonna get, is just one step ahead. Most people don't even have that vision. Now you start layering it with, oh look, let's talk about how you're gonna grow and recruit, 'cause if you're gonna go get 25 of these guys, imagine this. What if you held your own seminar and you invited 50 people to show up and you're gonna lay out a recruiting framework, which is your framework that you own, that you're gonna lay over the top of their model if they join your team, and you had 50 people in a room and you had an entire 2 or 3 days to lay that model out in front of them? How many people then would say, I've never seen such a clear vision on how to grow and how to build like you presented to us. We're in. Back with you here. That statement, the vision is everything. Grab onto that. We're at the beginning of the year. We're 2 weeks in as I'm cutting this podcast. It's never too late to establish vision for the year. And as a leader, The rhythm for this should be generating your vision, your long-term vision, evaluating it at the end of every year in relationship to the larger vision. That's really measuring where we've been, what have we accomplished, and then reestablishing what do you want to accomplish in the upcoming year as it pertains to the larger vision. Recasting that vision for your team is definitely a way to Engage them at a much higher level. And then all of that becomes shareable with recruits that you're recruiting. Here's where we've been. Here's where we are. Here's where we're going. That gives context to what's happening inside the walls of your leadership, inside the walls of your team. And one of the struggles that we have is revealing to everyone on the outside what's going on on the inside. The moment that they connect the dots, With what's going on on the inside, if that's something that they value, if that's something that they want, a level of desire, you know, the seed of desire gets planted with them. So to me, this is a great spot for you at the beginning of a year to really take a step back and dream. Where do you want to go in the decade? How does it relate to this current year? Break it down into the quarterly, into the monthly, into the weekly, into the daily. And that's where it becomes very practical. What do you do next? Because then in the daily, I believe in time allocation. What am I even going to do in the hour? I'm going to allocate my time in this hour to what's necessary to accomplish the larger vision. So there you have it. Hopefully there's some value in this for you. I look forward to bringing you More Recruiting Conversations in 2021. You can connect with me on all my social channels. I'm active daily in all the platforms. There's actually a closed Facebook group that's available to you as well called the Recruiting Mastermind. Connect with me there, and I look forward to the next episode of Recruiting Conversations. Have a great week, everybody. Want more Recruiting Conversations? You can register for my weekly email at 4crecruiting.com. If you need help creating your own unique recruiting system, you can book a time with me at bookrichardnow.com.