Recruiting Leaders on Thanksgiving Restoration Day

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, it's Richard Milligan here with Recruiting Conversations. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm actually in a pretty cool location today. I figured out how to take the podcast on the road. That's the— and the road is not like R-O-A-D, it's R-O-D-E, because I figured out how to get a Rode microphone. And I just simply picked up a mobile interview kit is what it's called. And now I can take this podcast on the road. Until this one, I've actually been in my studio doing this directly from my Yeti mic. But today I figured out how to travel and do it. So how's that? I have recently had a couple of coaches that I've been working with. One of those coaches is actually a writing coach. And if you ever want to see what that— the impact of that, you can always check out the articles that I write on about a biweekly basis. I typically put those on LinkedIn. And you can check those out there. Working with a writing coach, but also working with a podcast coach. And as part of that, a challenge for me is to actually take this on the road so that I'm able to actually do more of these podcasts. So if you've ever thought about doing podcasts, one of the things that I would recommend is picking up the Rode Mobile Interview Kit. And if you need more information on that, you can Google it. How's that? The largest search engine in the world. But this is easy. We're— one of the things that we're looking at doing is actually beginning to interview successful recruiting leaders, and that will probably require us to do some mobile interviews with them at events and on-site wherever they are. And so we're practicing for that. So there you go. If you're listening to this now, it's the week of Thanksgiving, so I'm traveling. And one of the things that me and my wife have determined over the last couple years is that We want to take some major holidays while our kids are young and actually go glean some experiences. Thanksgiving for us has been traditionally a mega, mega holiday with lots of family. One of the things that we've noticed is that as our family, the family around us has grown up, fewer and fewer people are there to show up for the more traditional Thanksgiving venue. So, we decided this year we're not doing a traditional Thanksgiving. We're actually going to travel. And so I've got a view of the ocean right now, and we're going to do a Thanksgiving meal that was actually bought and delivered to us while we actually enjoy our toes in the sand in view of the ocean. And so it's non-traditional this year for Thanksgiving, non-traditional for Christmas as well. So I'm looking forward to that. An experience over tradition. And I think a lack of an experience can actually become tradition, right? So that's what we're shooting for. Today I wanna talk to you about something that is on my mind because of the time of year and because of the holiday season. And it's something that impacts every recruiting leader. And it's this, you know, I find that we come towards the end of the year and a lot of times we look forward to, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. It's a time for us to a lot of times step away from the business for a week, maybe two weeks, and to actually get some time with our family or to get some time by ourselves. And the key word that jumps out at me is the word restoration. One of my words, one of the things that I do each year is I take John Gordon's book One Word and I apply it to my life, and I have for like the last seven years, I think. 3 years ago, my word for that year was the word restoration. I found that I was lacking joy in what I was doing. I found that I felt like I was always pressing and pushing to get to whatever that next finish line was, and I was honestly mentally and physically fatigued. And so I came into that year and said, what's one thing I need to focus on And one of the things that surfaced was, man, you're really on the edge of burnout. And so the word restoration became a word that I really held on to for an entire year. I read some, some cool books. I took some things and practiced those in my life, got to a place where I felt like I was restored. And in that season, one of the things that jumped out at me as I pursued intentionally books and seminars and people of influence that had ideas on this was this idea that restoration is really critical for us to operate at peak performance. I'm more aware of that today as I, as I coach and I work with recruiting leaders, this position that if you're listening to this and you're in it, I honestly believe, and you've heard me say this from time to time on this podcast, That is the most difficult job in any industry. This person's leading a team, meaning that they typically wear anywhere from a dozen to maybe as many as 20 different hats, meaning that these are roles and responsibilities that you play. I think if someone asked you to create a checklist for everything that you did and they wanted to hire out those things, they'd probably have to hire 3 to 5 people to do what you do to fulfill those checklists. So, I know that this position is a position that is susceptible to burnout. This is a position that can struggle because so much is required of them. And if you can agree with me that restoration is critical to operate at peak performance, then as we look at this time of year, one of the things that's very, very top of mind, that's something that comes up again and again in my coaching, Is how are we going to maximize this season, understanding that in— even in this season where a lot of people will take a week or two away, there's more requirements of you than ever? I think as I look at how many Christmas parties people go to, the expectations of having tradition around Thanksgiving where maybe you're responsible for hosting or you're responsible for traveling You know, Christmas can be exhausting. You know, the, the idea of— we've got 4 children— the idea of, of collecting presents, being thoughtful in the gifts you're going to give, being aware that you're probably traveling to at least 2, if not more, parts of your family. And, and so this can be a time where just all of that, and then redoing budget. Redoing a budgeting process, setting goals with your team for the upcoming year, doing everything you need to do inside your business, inside your team, and also while focusing on recruiting. Because by the way, in most industries, most recruits, most of the producers, the top producers in an industry, data shows they transition in Q4, in the fourth quarter. And so we gotta be hyper-focused on recruiting in this season. And so, man, as I start to just speak some of these things, into existence, one of the things that I know is that restoration is something that we only will come to through intentionality. So I'm going to give you a couple ideas. These are very top of mind for me because, look, I'm stepped away for a week myself with my family, and these are things that I'm evaluating and asking myself, am I going to use this time to actually get reenergized, to get to a place where I would say I do have restoration. Now I'm excited to go back and to do things at a higher level with more passion than I've done in the past. And so I want to give you a handful of things that you need to consider as you're looking at the next 45 to 60 days. One of the things that, that I know Is that when I go to take— there's been seasons in my career when I went to take a break, when I went to get away, I felt as though I couldn't completely unplug. And so I remember this was 2010, I think it was. I went on my longest vacation I've ever taken in my career. Now it happened that I think July 4th that year fell on like a Thursday. And so I took that Thursday, so that Thursday, Friday, of course Saturday and Sunday, but in the following week entirely away and out of the office. I think all said it was close to 10, 11 days that I was going to be gone when I included the weekends. And so it was the first time I'd ever taken that much time away from my business. I had worked extremely hard to get my business to a place where I could actually step away from it. Had what I felt like was the right support, the right team in place. I set the right expectations walking out the door. But I never planned to actually completely unplug. It was going to be a partial unplug in that from time to time, I was going to be checking my email. I was going to be watching my text messages. I was going to be touching base with my operations manager, my team lead, to make sure that everything was running smoothly. And if they needed me, I was going to be there to plug in. What I remember from that was I— we rented a cabin in the woods. And so we get to the cabin, and when I get to the cabin, I start kind of walking around the cabin to check and see if I've got cell service. I realized that I have nothing. Not even from time to time, one bar. I had nothing. So as we unpack, I get back out into the car. I kind of drive, start driving away from the cabin to see how close cell service is. Ends up cell service was about 3 to 5 miles away. I don't remember exactly, but it was a good distance away. It wasn't something I could just walk outside and stand on the front porch and get a signal. And a part of me began to Hyperventilate might be a good word to use. I was really freaked out by the fact that I was going to be unavailable at this place for a week and a half, and I had planned to be at some level plugged in. So I remember I drove back to town, I had a conversation with the key people on my team to say, hey, I'm not going to be available at all. You know, until we go to town and buy groceries or go to town and, you know, eat out or whatever. I'm going to be completely unavailable to talk. And it was one of the best things that happened to me in my career because as I got into around day 3 or day 4 of that trip, I began to find a new me settle in. And that new me was not only more plugged into what was going on with my family, But that new me really began to feel what it was like to actually receive rejuvenation, to receive this idea of complete restoration. And I almost felt like my heartbeat began to slow down. My mind began to see things that it hadn't in a while. The creativity that I thought was being maximized began to actually elevate in that environment where I'd completely unplugged. So I'm aware as an individual, just in my career, going back to some moments like that, where there's some things that are necessary for us to actually operate at our best. And again, I bring— I mentioned this earlier, operate at peak performance. I remember, here's a story from in my late 20s, early 30s. A good friend of mine was a plant safety manager At a large manufacturing plant. It was General Motors. And Shawn, as a plant safety manager, was responsible for overseeing the safety of the entire plant, the manufacturing line, and everything around that. I would go see Shawn from time to time because the plant that he was the safety manager at was actually in my community. And I would go see him from time to time when the, when the plant was actually up and fully functioning. And I remember this one time that I went to visit him when the plant was actually completely shut down. So from time to time, the plant would actually shut down. They would send everybody home while paying them, and they would take that time to actually improve the operations of the manufacturing line. So they would actually— they were actually looking to create efficiencies around everything from going faster to being more safe. And one of the things I remember asking Shawn was, what is it costing you to have this plant shut down? Because you're not producing anything and you're paying the manufacturing line workers to actually do nothing at home. What's the cost of that? Do you know? One of the things that Shawn said to me has remained with me for a long time, which is that we actually gain efficiencies Because we're improving this, the manufacturing line, that when they come back, we not only make up the money that we spent sending them home, but we actually have gains, significant gains, because we've actually improved the manufacturing line. I think that it makes a perfect example, a perfect analogy for what it's like when we as recruiting leaders Completely unplug. Because in that, our creative juices are, are returned. Our ability to come to a place where we are fully rested, where we're able to fully engage— those things only come from us being able to not partially unplug. but to fully unplug. And I think there's some components to that around getting to a place where we're fully restored. Daniel Pink wrote a book called When, and that book, the subtitle of it was The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. And one of the things that he talks about in that book, if you haven't read any of Daniel Pink's books, I would highly recommend. He's got a number of books out there. The ones that I have read have been phenomenal reads. But in this book, one of the things it talks about is getting to a place of rest, getting to a place of restoration. And he brought up really 4 major things in that book that were— he found scientifically were true about these most restorative breaks. Here's what they were. First and foremost, he said they were social rather than solo. Think about that. So many times I think when I need to unplug, it needs to be me. I mean, just immediately in, in my past seasons, I would think getting restored meant find it— going someplace by myself, maybe grabbing a favorite Netflix show and then binging on that Netflix show for a weekend while I did absolutely nothing, and I thought that I was doing myself a favor by doing that. Actually, what he talks about in the book says that's actually not true. Everything that I did in that actually is the opposite of getting to a place of being rested and restored. Social is a key part of it. We've been, we've been created To actually walk in community. And so where we actually do things with our family, where we do things with our friends, with our communities, right, that actually helps, helps us get to a place of restoration. Another point he made in the book was that being outside, not inside, is most effective to getting to this place as well. Think about that. Being outside versus being inside. Like the example I just gave you of binging on a TV show for the weekend, like that's actually counterintuitive, right? Being outside. Here's another one. We need to be moving instead of being stationary. We need to be moving instead of being stationary. And the last part he said, which is a little different, I said unplugged. One of the things he said was that fully detached rather than semi-detached. You know, in my own verbiage, I think plugged in or unplugged, but you have to be fully detached. A lot of times we're partially detached. We're still available on a phone call. We're still available via email from time to time, right? And so take these things over this These next 45 to 60 days and really evaluate the time that you're going to spend away from your office. Am I going to do— am I going to be social? Am I going to spend time outside? Am I going to be moving? And am I going to be fully unplugged? And I think that as recruiting leaders, if we're going to become our best, we must lean into restoration. And that will only come from intentionality. It won't happen on accident because there's so much that's required of you in your position that people will pull you in unless you fully extract yourself. I'll leave you with this. I came across a great quote by David Barrett who was the CEO of Expensify. He said this and it really jumped out at me. I think it relates to this in a big way. He says, you can't follow your way to the lead. I'll say it again. You can't follow your way to the lead. If you want to truly lead in your industry, if you really want to lead your team, you're going to have to think differently and counterintuitive to what the larger industry or the larger market says is the way it should be done. And what I would dare say is that as a whole, most recruiting leaders never fully unplug And because of that, they never become their best. So as you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday, I hope that this brought some value to you. One of the things I would love it if you're finding value from my podcast is I would love it if you would actually leave a review. One of the things that actually helps other people find this is by having positive reviews. We have in the category that we're in, in on iTunes over the last couple of months, we've regularly broken the top 100 for this podcast. So I thank you because that means that you're sharing this with other people inside your organization or other cohorts of yours in the industry. And so one of the things that you could do if you have found value in this, I would thank you and be thankful. Thanksgiving here, if you would actually leave a positive review and how it's impacting you. And the other thing that you could do is actually subscribe. You may be hitting this on from time to time in some other way. There's a lot of— there's lots of places that you may found this. Spotify is a place, Google Play, iTunes, our website Recruiting Conversations is another place where people listen to it. But if you, whatever platform you're on, if you'll actually subscribe to this, that will help us as well. And so I thank you for that. And one of the things that I'm hopeful for you over the Thanksgiving holiday is that you have a chance to walk out some gratitude with those that are close to you, those who have brought value to you. I want to say thanks for the people here even this week that have shot me an email saying that I've brought value to them this year in some way, shape, or form. One of the things I'm thankful for is to have a tribe of people like you that are checking out this podcast, that are promoting this podcast. One of the things that we've, as an organization, have grown to love is the fact that we're actually able to leave a larger impact on several industries through delivering this content here in Recruiting Conversations. So, have a great Thanksgiving, everybody. We'll be back again next week with another cool idea. See you then. Around this conversation that was had recently with someone that's in a recruiting role. And so we look forward to bringing it to you then. And until then, have a great week, everyone. 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.