Building High-Performance Recruiting Teams with Dave Poling

Hey, hey, hey! All right everybody, happy Friday! TGIF, right? Am I right? It is Friday, March 20th, and you are live on Shelly's Alley with our special guest today, Dave Pulling. Say hi, Dave!

What's up? How you doing, Shelly? It's good to finally meet you, man. I feel like we've grown up in this industry together. I've always known of you, but we, uh, it's cool to meet this way.

Yeah, yeah, you were highly recommended by several people. And they said you got to have Dave on the show.

Oh wow.

I was like, yeah, I definitely got to do that. So I'm glad you accepted the invitation. But I got to say though, we definitely— I mean, you grew up, I never did, so I don't know. Uh, you know, well, we both came up.

I don't know if I did either.

Yeah, I'm still, I'm still working on that one. Uh, but folks, Dave, I mean, he— this is— we've got a legendary leader here. And I mean, this, this is looking to be a master class on, um, building high-performance teams here. Because my whole career, when I started about 2 years after Dave did— so Dave's been in the business since like '94, I think— and, um, I started a couple years after that. He came up with a company that some of you might know if you've been around long enough called Aerotech. Which is now under the— well, it's the elite part of the Allegis system, but the, the brand is Tech Systems. So if you know Aerotech or Tech Systems or Allegis, this is Dave's world for the last, um, more than— more than— I'm not even going to say— more than as long as I've been in the business. And what I'm so excited about is to talk about, um, really building high-performance teams. Because when I came up in the business in the late '90s, I was literally just like given a desk and a phone, and it was like, there you go, it's, you know, commission only, have at it. And, and I was lucky that I had an account manager, an account executive back then, uh, separate desks, right? So sales and recruiting. And, and they sort of brought me under their wing and said, all right, here's what you can do and stuff. But nobody ever really taught me anything. And along the way, I socially interacted with and met with folks that went to Aerotek as their first job in recruiting. And they had, and I still believe they have, a very robust system, like a university that produces recruiters. And so started with, you know, Aerotek was like the brand that had the real formalized training. And since then, They've continued to systematize and put together, you know, really high-performance teams. And Dave is at the center of all that. So I have so many questions that hopefully we can dig into, you know, around building that and the reality of that. How do you feel about that? Want to dig in?

I feel great about that, man. Yeah. Looking forward to this conversation and thanks for having me on today.

It's good to be here. My honor, definitely.

It's good to finally meet. It's good to finally meet. I think you've done a lot of really good things for this industry, and, uh, I know you've trained up a lot of people. So, um, not as many as Aerotech.

I wish, right? Like, I'd be a gazillionaire.

Yeah, yeah.

But, um, man, so, you know, let's, let's, let's, let's peel back the, the glaze, as, as the, you know, the young generation likes to say now. You know, I don't know if you've ever heard the term glazing. It's when you sort of like give somebody props, but it's kind of fake, you know, like, right, glazing the donut, so to speak. Let's peel back the glaze. Everybody says they want a high-performance team. I mean, why wouldn't you say that? Why wouldn't you want a high-performance team? But the reality is most teams are, um, just busy. I mean, you know, busy good, busy bad, whatever you want to call it. But the reality is nowadays, you know, we've been asked to do more with less for for so many years that we literally are just basically doing more, whether it's with less or with more or whatever, but we're just busy and burnout everywhere and people are just running themselves ragged, but that's not high performance. What actually separates truly high-performing teams from teams that like look busy?

Yeah, well, I think the first thing that comes to mind with that question is obviously results, right? And growth. And, you know, putting up sustainable results. But, you know, it's more than just that. You know, like you can put up results a lot of different ways, but for me it's like, hey, I have to put up great results. At the same time, to me, to build a high-performing team and to be a high-performing team, you actually have to bring people up through the system. So you have to develop leaders, which is really at the end of the day, my top priority. Like when I look at all the different assignments that I've had here, all the different teams I've led, it all begins right there. It begins with picking the right team and focusing on their development because everything permeates through your leaders. So if you don't have a great leadership team, you're going to have a hard time putting up good results. You're going to have a hard time building a strong culture. You're also going to have a hard time promoting people up through the system.

And so then having them just leave and get promoted elsewhere.

Exactly, exactly. So for me, right, to— it's very— I quickly go to, okay, to be a high-performing team, you have to put up like some of the best results in the industry. But that's not really what I'm mainly focused on?

You're focused on pulling in people that are going to become— so you're, you're bringing them in as leaders early on, preparing them, giving them the tools that they need to become those leaders. But also, your, your goal is to not like manage their activity, but rather manage them into a leadership role. Because if you can do that, then you know that you have sustainability as a high-performing team. Yeah. You start by selecting leaders out of the, out of the rank and file.

Yeah. You know, I think this is where when you go back to the roots that founded Aerotek, right? And those founders and what I learned was, you know, there was this whole philosophy or belief system, if you will, around character over competence. So, I believe that I was hired for my character. And what I mean by that is not, oh, he's a good guy or does the right thing. It really was embedded in, you know, you've got people that you're hiring because they're ambitious. They're passionate about serving people. They're good at building relationships. They are disciplined in their personal and professional development. They're resilient to get through the tough times, right? So, like, when I think about the leaders that I select to be on my team, I read this great book, um, probably, I don't know, 6 or 7 years ago that really clarified it for me because I was always looking for character, but I didn't really know, like, how to assess it that well.

Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, right. What was the name of the book?

The Talent Code. And it was written by, it was written by, uh, 2 ex-Navy SEALs, I believe. And basically these guys are consultants in the industry as well. They, they, they do leadership, um, talent acquisition and consulting. And they narrowed it down to these traits, right, that are basically character standards or traits that lead to success. And you have things like coachability, adaptability, humility, and so forth. And so once I read that book, it was like, okay, when I onboard people onto my team, that's what I'm going to start to assess for first. And I'm going to expect that. So people know that if they work for me and they're not disciplined to their own self-development or they're not coachable or they're not passionate about service, that our chemistry is probably going to be off.

Interesting. So what I'm hearing is it's, it's sort of like your, your root configuration file. You're, you're— it doesn't matter. Let me finish my thought because it's a little messy, but here's what my thought is. It doesn't really matter what you do for a living. In other words, your job, like the job that you do, whether you're a recruiter, carpenter, or Navy SEAL, what you're saying is that this high-performance concept starts with these kind of core fundamental DNA elements. I don't know if grit is one of them, but in my book, if I were to write a book, grit, perseverance would be one of those, however, 7 or 8 that you mentioned there. So it starts with that, and then you can teach them the how-to recruit, how to be a Navy SEAL, how to be a carpenter after that, but you got to start with that. So I think what, what happens in our industry a lot is early on we are managed by KPIs and told you got to make so many calls, make so many emails, make so many submittals, make so many hires, and it's— they're looking at our activity as high performance which is, I think it makes it very difficult. First of all, it makes it very difficult to compare high-performance people from one organization to another just for the sheer nature of the type of recruiting that they do. A high-performance recruiter in healthcare that hires nurses might be making 300 placements a year. A high-performance recruiter that makes, that hires for, you know, controllers and CFOs isn't gonna, you're not gonna look at them and go, "You're a high performer if you make 300 hires a year." They're not gonna do that. That's not— Exactly. Right? So you can't measure performance based on the number of hires. And so what you're saying is we gotta start from this kind of other level below that, that is the base. What is that? I wanna, it's the code, but it's your, it's your constituency. It's what you're made of.

Exactly. That's exactly right. I mean, here I call it character standards, right? These are the character standards that I'm expecting you to display if you're going to come on this team.

It's your DNA.

It is the DNA. And I tell you, it, it, it not only helps with the chemistry I have with the person, it, and that leader, it helps with the chemistry of the whole team because now when we're all operating from the same place of we're all coachable, we're all adaptable, we all live with integrity, we're all passionate about service, we're all humble, etc., right? The chemistry on the team, like, takes off. And when it's not there, when somebody's not— when somebody's showing up arrogant, when somebody's— yeah, when somebody's showing up arrogant or not coachable, The confrontation really starts right there.

Okay. About how I'm gonna see if I can break this down into some pieces that we can, yeah, like literally steal right away. Right. Um, so break it up into the micro skills. If you have the, if you have the DNA, you have the code, break it up into the micro skills, drill those and get them to the point where they can do that because you know that they're going to be able to, because they have the DNA.

Yep.

So that's the, let's call it mechanical part of it. Then there's, uh, I don't know, motivation, um, ignition, uh, the fuel, right? So what does it look like to, to get there and what you can be if you get there? So that now that you know that you've got the DNA and you've got the mechanics, you know what success is going to look like and you're not literally wasting time doing other stuff. So show them what high performance looks like, right? Yeah. And then, and then the coaching side of it is— coach is the coaching with, with, um, intent rather than like, do better or good job. I mean, that's just, you know, some people that's how they coach and it doesn't really push the needle very much. I, me, myself, sometimes what I do, you know, what I teach with TSI University It's definitely not for everyone, and there's a reason for that. I think the, the Aerotech system that's been around for a long time is a lot more flexible and can apply to different situations, but my system is not for everyone because I'm very— the way I teach, I'm very Socratic in that I'm going to push you by showing you what specifically needs to get done better and, and questioning whether or not you've like actually did your best versus, uh, you know, having some sort of like, uh, building blocks, right? So for me, it's almost like I'd rather test the foundation over and over and over again and let you harden than, than try to come up with a way to harden you, right?

Right. And that makes sense to me. I mean, but I want to go back to one of the things that you said there, like the motivation. This is another key part, right? So now Now, we've got the character standards that we've talked about, right? And this is the DNA, if you will. The other important component is what is the motivation and where is it coming from? And is that motivation intrinsic or is it extrinsic? Now, a lot of people are motivated extrinsically by they want the nice house or they want to hit these goals or they want to make a certain amount of money, and there's no, there's no issue with that, right?

There's ways to do it. I mean, you can do that the right way by, you know, working hard, or you can do that by lying and cheating and stealing, and you end up with the same result. So, right.

What I found though is that people find, um, perform at a higher level and find more fulfillment and sustain their performance longer when that, uh, motivation is intrinsic. So we talk a lot about what is your why. Right here. What is your purpose? And you find a lot of times with an entry-level college grad that comes to work here, they may not have that yet, but it's part of our responsibility to help them find that. And then there's different levels of that. At this point in my career, right, a big part of the reason this point in my life is to leave this company better than I found it, right? I owe everything I have to this place and the founders that built a strong foundation and coached me up to be who I am today, that I have to do everything in my power before I leave here at some point to make sure that this culture and the environment and the company is going to last far beyond my lifetime here. So, That's a lot of what drives me now, why I, why it's so important to me to build high-performance teams, to develop high-performing leaders, because that's what I, that's probably the biggest gift that I've gotten here outside of the, the financial rewards and all the titles and all that stuff, which, you know, comes and goes. Um, it's, it's what this company has taught me and the leaders that, that have taught me has been the greatest gift.

That's, that's, that's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I, I, that resonates. I mean, I wish I don't have an organization that took me in that way. I started, you know, very scrappy, like find your own way, and it didn't work out for me at that company for more than a couple years. But I've since kind of forged my own road, so I didn't have the luxury of having that kind of guidance. But I feel like I am also leaving behind a legacy in that way, and I can definitely relate to what you're saying. Um, it would have been all— it would have been great to be able to do that in one place where I could point to, but instead I'm just all over the place. Um, so that, you know, I feel a little— I feel I can relate, and I feel like, wow, that would have been so much better for me to be able to do that in one place. Um, but let's take this— it takes me back to You've selected the DNA, you've, you've, you've got the program. Um, what does it look like, right? Because— and, and the reason I'm saying this, or rather drilling down on this, is because you can easily solve the problem of recruiting through many different mechanisms. You could throw money at it. If you pay people enough, they'll come work for you. Whether that's sustainable or not. I'm not arguing. I'm saying you can solve the problem. I'm not saying it's a permanent solution or whatever, but just you can solve the problem by throwing money at it. You can throw people at it. You can just hire recruiters to hire more people. You can do it through technology or automation or whatever. There's ways to do it. But I feel like somewhere along the line in our industry, we— and maybe it's the transition from contingency executive search to corporate, we lost sight of high performance as a core competency, and instead it's become a numbers game. And, and what I see as an indicator of this is companies that hire way too many recruiters to do the job. For example, they'll have 1,000 recruiters and the average recruiter is making 8 hires a year. To me, that signals, you know, you could have had 500 recruiters making 16 hires a year, right? 150 recruiters making 32 hires a year, and you would have probably spent a lot less money or had a lot less churn, had a lot less inefficiencies. Why— I guess what I'm trying to figure out is why did we— how did we get to the point where leaders think it's okay to just hire 1,000 recruiters in order to meet your hiring goals? Why didn't we go this other route?

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think that— I think some of that has to do with the hypergrowth of the industry that we've experienced over a long period of time. And, you know, kind of to your point there, throwing people and maybe inexperienced leaders or managers at the growth that they wanted. Um, you know, uh, I mean, outside of that, like, it's beyond me what the answer to that might be. It's like, you know, you, you've been here, you know how fast this industry was growing in the '90s and then the 2000s, and then beyond all of the recessionary periods and the crises that we've been through, it's just been like boom, right?

We're at the edge right now of another one. This is about to blow up. Yeah, I know it. I feel it. I've, I've been evangelizing this for years now since COVID So in, in, you know, 2019, 2020, when we started shutting down hiring, I was, I was trying to ring the alarm, um, telling people that I— everybody that would listen— that we need to be careful not to do the same thing that we've done in the past in the event of a, you know, global whatever. Like, this was a pandemic. Before that, it was the dot-com, you know, bubble bursting and, and whatever. But what we end up doing in this industry is we shut down hiring and we stop hiring. You know, we like close all the recs and we freeze all the recs. And I knew that in 2020 what was going to happen is exactly what's happening now. Not the AI piece of it, but the, the resurgence of our industry. Because I predicted that what was going to happen is we're going to freeze hiring, and then somewhere along the line, a year or two down the road, we were going to unfreeze hiring everywhere all at once. Everybody was going to open every job that they tried to fill for the last 2 years all at the same time. And that's exactly what happened. Exactly. So companies opened up all the jobs And they had to hire all the people to do all the recruiting. And it was a mad dash. And so, we ended up hiring folks that had no experience or business being in recruiting. And they threw people at the problem. So, enter, you know, this period of time, you know, '23, '22, '23, when that happened. And then, the exact opposite. This is, it's a pendulum. The exact approach happened. So, as I'm sitting there trying to build a team, for a $2 billion unicorn hiring sourcers. I'm having to interview these people that got hired just to be another head, just to be another butt in seat. And I'm asking questions like, how many people did you submit last week? I don't know. Okay, if you don't know how many people you submitted and you're the one submitting them, who knows? Like, how do you know that your work product is resulting in outcomes that the company wants? If you don't know how many people you submitted, how are you gonna know how many people are being interviewed? I mean, you know, and so this is just because it was, like you said, it was a mad dash. And I knew that what was gonna happen was we were gonna have the direct and opposite reaction to that. And sure enough, that's what happened in 2005. Everybody got laid off. And now we're back to normal again. In 2026, we are starting to look at recruiters as essential. We're starting to invest in— companies are asking me about training, they're asking me about tools and AI because they're realizing that now we need to return to the days of, you know, 2019 when we had professionals doing the job. And I predicted all of this. It literally falls into the same formula, but yet we keep repeating the same story over and over and over and over again, almost like like caught in a, in a time warp, like Groundhog Day. It just happens again and again. It's— to me, it's the most infuriating, perplexing thing about our space is that we all— we know better.

Yep. Yeah, it's reactive. It's reactive.

Extremely. Yeah. Yep, exactly.

So you always have to be building that high-performance team, right? So when the cycle starts to go down You need to make sure that you're taking care of your best, right? You're critically assessing the bottom, right? And making some probably tough decisions there. And then paying really, really close attention while that cycle is at the bottom so that you start hiring early. Like, we try to hire— like, we're hiring. We've been hiring. We've been hiring. And we now are starting to finally see like demand picking up pretty significantly. But if you wait till you see the demand picking up, start hiring, it's too late.

So you never let go of those leaderships with high principles. You continued building them even though when you were shrinking, and then you started building up again before the demand surged. So you're prepared for it. And that's the smart way to do it. The other way to do it is this reactionary yo-yo effect that just kind of keeps ebbing and flowing. And as what I advised many people in that situation who came to me and said, "Shelly, I just got an offer to go work as a sourcer at this company and they're paying me $170 an hour. Should I take it?" You know how many times I told those people, "No, don't." You're in a good place. You like your team. You like your people. You're going to go chase a, you know, double your salary for a year, and then you're going to be unemployed. And what's worse, you're going to be unemployable because now you're someone who runs for the dollar, and now you're someone who left their team in the lurch to go chase money, and you can't find a job. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. So even in the business of Finding a job as a recruiter, it's the worst thing that you can do, but yet people do it. You know, it's the myopia. So you've, you've taken hundreds of, probably thousands, far now, as far as I know, thousands maybe of recruiters across many different locations. And at that scale, um, culture can very easily become a slogan that's spray-painted on the wall. And it's just the same. It's something people say. How do you make sure that across multiple locations, across hiring, bringing people into the organization who know nothing about your culture and could technically damage your culture by bringing in some of their own bad habits? How do you operationalize culture so that it survives what we're about to go into? Growth.

Yeah, there's— OK, great question. So first of all, you're You're absolutely right that, you know, the culture, the whole idea of building a strong culture is, first of all, not easy. It has to be a top priority if you want to be a high-performing team or a high-performing organization. So, you know, when you look back to— I think that especially over the last 5 years, people's interpretation of what culture is and how to build it, especially inside of an organization as large as ours, is all over the place. So, some people think it's the ping pong tables and the happy hours and, you know, the recognition and the awards and all that. And those are all obviously elements of it. But the foundation of it for me is built on our core values and our leaders modeling those core values and the character standards that is the DNA of the leadership, right? And so, as soon as things start to break down from your company's core values, which let's be honest, for a lot of companies, how often do we talk about it? How do you operationalize it, right? So, I noticed when I moved from Aston Carter to Tek Systems, Our president here, Mark Collins, he talks more about the core values and he is a strong culture guy. He talks more about the core values than any other president I've probably seen in maybe my history here. But, and so that made it important for me, right? Coming from Aston Carter, moving over to Tech Systems, it's like, okay, first thing I got to do is I can see how important they are to our president. I need to study what these core values are because they're a little bit different from Aston Carter to now Tech Systems.

It's a different group.

I have—

Division. Yeah.

And now, I have to operationalize those. I have to weave them into my communication. I have to weave them into my expectations in order for them to become real. And I also have to model them. Right? So, I have to model building relationships. I have to model inclusion. I have to model service. I have to model personal and professional development, a focus on performance, and the rest of our core values. Because if I'm not living those standards, I can't expect the people behind me to live those standards. The last thing I'll say on this, hold on one more quick second.

You got it. Go for it.

You can't be And this is one of the things that I'm still, still to this day blown away by our founders and how they knew this, right? Back in the '80s when they founded this company. And that is, is that you can't build a high-performance team without a feedback-rich culture. And so, big part of the culture has to recognize the behaviors you want to see repeated, and at the same time confront those behaviors that are not in line with the core values. So it's an expectation here that you actually call out someone when they're not actually living up to the core values. And we're not perfect, right? We still have to do a way better job. But For me, when you talk about building a high-performance team, you have to have a culture, a strong culture, a high-performing culture. And that foundation is all built on living the core values as a leader and making sure that you have a feedback-rich environment. Because if you're not going to recognize or confront those core values or those behaviors embedded in your core values, then you're going to have a hard time building a strong foundation on our strong culture on top of a foundation that's pretty weak from a core value standpoint.

What it sounds like to me that you just said is there's a diametric opposition here that is really interesting. I'm picking up on. And that is that— correct me if I'm wrong— building the culture is top-down. Oh yeah, it's top-down. It's not bottom-up. Building it, and it starts from the top and you have to build it down, but correcting it is bottom-up.

Um, it's as long as, as long as from the top down it's being lived.

That's what I'm saying. So you start it, it's a top-down build to implement, to build intentionally with intent, to build culture. It's got to come top down. You're not going to hire. In other words, what I'm saying is you're not going to hire for culture, which is a fallacy that a lot of times I see out there, people saying that we hire for culture. I don't necessarily think— I think you can. I'm not saying you can't. But I don't think that necessarily that's the correct order of things. I think what I just heard you say, which has been enlightening to me, is that it builds down, but it gets corrected the other way around. In other words, the leadership is passing down those core values and communicating in the way that is aligned with that culture. You're hiring whoever you need to hire based on the DNA that we talked about before, not the culture. And you're giving them the tools to be successful, but you're also training them on the culture by correcting when it's wrong.

Yes.

Rather than hiring for culture, you're hiring and saying, this is our culture, you need to align with it, and it's okay if you don't. We will be there to guide you every time that you are off track, but we will guide you. And if you don't align That's just as much reason for dismissal.

Yes.

As lack of performance in mechanics of doing the job.

Yes.

You could be successful at doing your job but not aligned at culture and still need to be dismissed.

Yeah, we call that an at-risk achiever.

Interesting. I didn't even know there was a name for it. But that's what I— when you were talking, that's what came into my mind. I'm like, you know, people usually think it's something you hire for. I think it's something you train people into. And what you're saying is that you start by living the values, then you come in and make those corrections. And so these are, you call it, you said, at-risk achiever.

Achiever because you're achieving, you're putting up great results, but you're not living the core values, right?

Counter-culture. And that could cause damage. So, yeah. Is it true— I'm, I'm gonna ask this, uh, I'm asking for a friend— is it true that one countercultural detrimental associate is capable of polluting the entire organization?

100%. 100%. And, um, that happens more often than people might think.

I think it happens without people realizing that it's happening. It's a, it's a, it's a detrimental— someone that is countercultural causing, um, ripples and effects that are seen as other things downstream, not recognizing the root cause of it. And if you were to identify that cause, you would see a huge improvement in efficiency and organization value because you would no longer have that sort of like— it's almost like you have a rebel in the midst that's maybe not intentionally but sabotaging your progress.

Yeah, you know, I've had experience with people where, um, you know, their belief systems are different than the belief systems of the company or of the team that I'm building and not in a necessarily healthy way. And where we can't get alignment, they then have had tendencies to go out and build their own empire and influence people in a direction that's not in alignment with the organization and where we're going. And so, that can be Um, and now you have a schism.

Yeah, yeah. I saw that at a very, very large Fortune 500 company, um, where I was put in charge of identifying a successor for someone who was in line for promotion. And part of some of the work that I do is succession, succession-based sourcing. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. Kind of in an abstract way, but basically strategic sourcing sometimes comes in the form of we need to have bench strength for a leadership position. If this person were to leave or, you know, something unfortunate, the proverbial get hit by a bus scenario, then we are left vulnerable because nobody else can take their place. And so sometimes we have to source. This is very strategic. This is not an open rec. It's not like we're looking to replace Shelly, but we need to have a backup in case Shelly leaves or something happens. And so, I was put in charge of succession sourcing for this particular role. And the CEO kept coming back to the VP saying, why is this person not being promoted? Why aren't they being promoted? We want this person to be promoted. We want them to take this group and, you know, and lead it. And the reason they weren't getting promoted is because we weren't finding the successor to back them up so that they could be promoted, right? So for them to be promoted, we needed to have a backup plan and there was no ready now available. So we, there was nobody to backfill him. We had to hire that person. Well, what I discovered after, uh, 18 months and well over 500 interviews was that some of them were face-to-face. I think 100 and something, 160 of them were face-to-face interviews. So people got flown in. Right, for, for this job, for the interview. Um, we were finding the people, it wasn't a problem. But what, what, what I was able to come back to the, to the VP with confidentially— I sat down and had a closed-door meeting with them and I said, look, I think this is what's happening. I think the person that you're looking to backfill doesn't want the job. I think they're sabotaging our process to not have Because as long as they can say there's nobody to replace me, I don't need to take this job. And it was their defense mechanism. So I communicated that back. The leader was usually very outspoken, literally did a double take and said, I'm gonna need to think about that and went away. And I didn't hear about that for about 3 months, quite a bit of time. And so I thought, well, whatever happened happened. I'm not working on this wreck anymore, you know. So I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen. And then I get an organization-wide announcement that that division has been sold. They sold the guy that didn't want to take the promotion because they couldn't backfill him, and so they couldn't grow it, and they didn't have anybody at this level to do it, and they didn't have anybody to back him up. So they just cashed it out.

Interesting.

And that is what I'm hearing you say is that is literally a countercultural movement. This person. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

That's huge. That's, that's massive. Yeah.

I mean, look, one of the things to, to look for, in my opinion, on a high performance team is, you know, the number one responsibility, I believe, of a leader is to develop leaders, right? Um, and so I always look for, does that leader have a backfill? Because I want to keep moving the, the people that report to me through the organization. And so it's an expectation. Like, if you work for me, Shelly, it's like, okay, who are the 2 or 3 people that you're developing up that could fill your shoes, right? If we're gonna eventually promote you into another job, part of your job to do. And it's an indicator of whether that— and if the answer keeps coming, well, I don't have anybody yet. I don't have anybody. I don't have anybody. Well, you're one not going to be.

Yeah, maybe you're the one.

You're not doing the job of the leader.

Right. Maybe you don't need to get that promotion.

I mean, look, you know, I subscribe to if you don't change leader, You can't change the culture, right? The culture goes as the leader goes. So, if the leader isn't modeling, right, the leadership characteristics or the standards or the core values or doing an effective job, right? Well, I got to change them or I got to change them out, right? And so, but if you never change the leader, the culture is never going to improve. The people are going to continue to complain. They're going to continue to stay the same way they were, you know. And so, like, I try to go in and assess what does this leader need? What are they good at? Right. What are some of their strengths and how do I take them from good to great or great to elite so that everybody beneath them starts to rise as well?

Isn't that like the distinction between leadership and management, though? I mean, The leader is going to rise and raise the C-level for everyone in their team. The manager is just going to get the job done.

Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, this is another thing that, you know, I work from a number of different models. One of them is the expert manager-leader model, where when I— it's another way I assess and develop people. And the leader is the, you know, they're the authentic, inspiring, transparent leader that can unify people and get them fired up. Then you get the expert that understands like the fundamentals and the industry and where it's going and technology and things along those lines. And then you've got the manager component that is really good at setting clear expectations and goals and milestones and holding people accountable. And so we all typically default to one area or another.

Right.

So until we evolve in a way where we're a 3-dimensional, like, operator or leader. And so, I mean, earlier in my career, like when I was running offices, I was just a great manager. Like, I was great at getting people out in front of the customer and executing the recruiting process. I wasn't necessarily great at inspiring them, but I was all over them. I was holding them accountable all the time. And then I've moved in from that job. I moved into more of an expert role where I was responsible for ops, and I was responsible for doing a lot of teaching.

And that is inspiring by showing them what's possible, right?

Well, well, the expert was really, okay, here's the recruiting process. Here's where you're executing it. Here's where things are breaking down, which is impacting your results. And so, I had to teach them. I had to develop them, but it wasn't really so much the inspiration. Right now, I'm in a job where I'm leading, you know, 700, roughly 750 people through leaders, of course. But now, I have to be like, it's a different role. It's not as much about holding people accountable as it is unifying them, being transparent, being inclusive, being inspiring, and being like able to get them fired up about the vision and where we're going more so than it is about teaching or holding them accountable.

It's a very big transition, I think. I went through that transition myself. And I didn't realize what I was going through at the time. You know, coming from having been a manager, like you're describing functional, you know, get the job done, leading a team to process and making it, making sure things were getting done and they were getting done very well and good customer feedback and all that. I went from that kind of a role to a leadership role. And as a, in a leadership role, I had people that reported to me that were managers. They were the ones that were doing that other job, right? And I didn't realize how much of a change I needed to make until I started having conversations with my direct reports about the things that I used to have to struggle with. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute, you're doing the things that I used to do that used to, you know, trap me up. So now I'm basically coaching them on how I solved that problem when I was in their job. And I, it hit me and I'm like, that's, this isn't my job anymore to, to fix the process and make sure that it's getting done. That's their job now.

Right.

My job is to make sure that they can do my job now. So like, it, it, you know, It used to be as a manager, I wanted to make sure that everybody that reported to me could do their job. Now, in the leadership role, my job was to make sure the people that were managers could do my job.

Oh yeah. I mean, it was a weird shift. It is a huge, huge transition. I mean, one that actually, if I'm being completely honest, almost ended my career.

It can trip you up.

In 2022. And I was running a region and I was coming out of an executive director of operations role where my job was to really own the strategy and get our people executing on it. So, there was again, a lot of expert, a lot of training, a lot of developing and a big component of the manager. So, I took over this region. I had to merge 4 regions into one. And The strategy wasn't a problem. The X's and O's of what we needed to do was not really an issue. And it was through the time of the great resignation, if you remember that, where people were quitting left and right and jumping for money here and there.

Yeah. And so we were losing— I was describing that earlier. Yeah.

We were losing some people and I was working harder than I ever have. And I'd been pretty successful up to that point. And it got to a point where I was like, you know what, maybe I'm just kind of over my skis here and maybe I wasn't meant to lead at this level. And so I questioned that too.

That happened.

I turned in, I literally was like, hey, I got to tap out here to the president. And we had a lot of conversations over the course of that week. And he said something to me that I will never never forget, which was then backed up, which is another important point here, which was then backed up by an executive coach of mine. But the first thing that my president, Stuart Ferguson, said to me, he goes, hey, man, you just keep showing up like an executive director and an ops guy. Like, you need to make this transition to the leader and your team needs a vision. They need to know the purpose. They need standards and they need to have, you need to build an identity around this team. And that's a lot of what I coach around now because I'm trying to help leaders migrate from that manager to that leader role. But that transformed my career. I mean, the amount that I was able to get done when I created that vision, got us aligned to our purpose. And created standards in the amount of, like, how much more effective I became. I was like, thank God I did not quit, or he did not let me quit. And then, um, I went on this short apology tour where I was apologizing to some of my partners, like, hey man, sorry I haven't been showing up the right way. I've been grinding. Like, I should have known better. And one, the executive coach who works here internally says to me, goes, hey man, I think you're one of the best one of the best leaders we have here. You just stopped doing the work. And I was like, I'll never— and here I am at my low, like, here I am working my tail off, right, trying to pull this thing together, and this guy says to me, you're one of the best leaders we have, you just stopped doing the work. And I felt like he just kicked me when I was down. But that was the best piece of advice I got ever. Ever. And I went on a tear from there till today, where every single day I work on myself as a leader, right? So I can keep bringing value to the people that I'm responsible for.

So two things. Number one, I'm so glad you brought up the executive coach, because that's what bailed me out, literally. I, I went through a transition like that, and I was struggling with the role of leadership. In fact, that was even admittedly, you know, I had a lot of— there's a word for that, it's slipping my mind now— imposter syndrome.

Oh yeah.

Where, where I was like, maybe I don't really— do I really need to be like, should I be here? Maybe this isn't what I'm, you know, but I hired an executive coach. And I worked with that coach for a year. And I gotta tell you that there was no magic dust. There was no magic wand, there was no silver bullet, but what the executive coach did was stripped away all of the bullshit that I had put in front of myself and said, this is what really matters, this is where you need to focus. And it was essentially, I knew how to do it, but I was too busy doing everything else.

Yep.

And That clarity was the shift that helped me transition into a true, you know, leadership role. And now I can talk about the difference because I've been on both sides of it. But for a minute there, I thought I was going to burn out. And that was the second thing I wanted to ask you about, is what is the risk of burnout? Or rather, let me rephrase that. Actually, let me start with is the risk of burnout higher with a high-performance team or with the team that looks busy? And is it actually one of the ways to remediate burnout to, to become a high-performance team? Is that a possible solution to burnout?

Well, I think there's risk in both. I don't think one is probably greater than the other. And I've had to think a lot about this, especially over the last 5 years. I mean, it wasn't that long ago we came out of COVID And after that, if you remember, there was like a mental health crisis, right? And there's a lot of people that truly do struggle with anxiety, depression, and other forms of of burnout and more serious mental health issues. So for me, it's like I want— I don't want leaders and people on this team, on my team, just to achieve so that we can make more money. I want them to live fulfilling lives. And so I want them to be great spouses, great parents, and so forth outside of work. That matters to me. So But high achievers in a high-performance culture do run the risk of burning themselves out. And I've run that risk. And so, when I talk about a discipline to working on yourself, one of the things that is extremely important to me is that people take care of themselves. And a lot— everybody needs something different. But like for me, I know my team's sick of hearing about it from me. But Every morning I wake up and I meditate for 30 minutes. Then I jump into my cold plunge. Then I go to the gym 5 days a week. Like, I have to take care of myself if I'm going to be an elite leader leading a high-performance team. And I want my people to do the same things for themselves, right? It's not enough to just read a couple books a year or to go on vacation twice a year. Like, our batteries actually don't necessarily last that long, right? So you actually have to— I personally schedule time in my calendar to invest in my own self-development so that I can actually go the distance here, like not just sprint for a little while and then go on a vacation.

So that's kind of part of like you're building it into the plan. So what you're saying is the burnout is a risk factor whether you're high performance, building the culture, or if you're just delivering on the activity. Burnout is its own kind of separate thing, and there's no solution for burnout that comes from culture or high performance other than making sure that you are essentially aware of it, like you pay attention to it. So you— what you're— what I'm hearing is you're gonna get burnout either way, so plan for it, uh, and protect— like, almost like it's almost another skill you have to develop and exercise. Yeah, it's another muscle you have to grow.

Yeah, I think one of the reasons why people also get burned out— and I know I've— I had experienced this when I look back, I didn't know I was burnt out, but it was like when you stop doing the work on yourself, like reading— and today we have more access to more resources than we ever have to get the development that you want, whether it's ChatGPT, YouTube, right, Instagram, TikTok. You can get access to leaders in ways that when we couldn't in the '90s. And, and so, but a lot of times people get burnt out because they're trying to tackle the same work or the same problem with this, like the same kind of effort or the same solution when what they need to do is stop and go back and think and reflect and maybe upskill themselves so that then they can tackle whatever it is in front of them. But we get, we get so caught in this pattern of trying to change whatever it is in front of us or just by throwing more sheer effort at it. And, um, you know, that's one way. I think that's the way I tried to approach things for a really, really long time, is it's like, oh, just outwork it, until I realized that I couldn't anymore. It's like, I don't know how I can work any more hours.

Yeah, right.

Then I already am.

And actually, the answer really, it becomes, you get— you got to work less hours because you're So you're becoming— you're like crossing that, that, that hump of inefficiency, you know, you're on the other end of it, like you're working more but getting less done, you know?

Right, right.

Yeah.

And then you, you know, your battery starts to get drained and then you start limping into this conversation and then you limp into this, you know, uh, customer meeting and then you just don't bring the right energy you know, to the team or the customer or the consultant that you need to, to deliver the service that ultimately they're expecting.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. That is, um, it's a lot of insight here. I really appreciate your, your take. We're at the top of the hour. I wish I could continue talking, but, uh, I've been greedy enough taking an hour of your time. Um, I'm gonna write some of this stuff up. I think there's, there's some parallels here that we could, we could put into something a little bit deeper as far as a maybe a practice system to, to harden that, that defensiveness, the defensibility, I guess. Because, you know, you've got 3 things going on. You've got the building, building it with culture, not necessarily hiring for culture, but building the culture from the top down. You've got Building a high-performance team by selecting people with the core DNA and, and paying attention to the, the, their leadership potential, even if they're not coming into the job as a leader, but, you know, tracking that way, right? And then you've got this, um, this, uh, defense mechanism or this self-preservation mechanism of burnout. So I feel like it's kind of a three-sided um, three-sided diamond there. Well, I guess diamonds are four-sided, but you know what I mean.

Yeah.

Wow. Okay, a lot to think about, man. Um, anything you'd like to say in closing to, you know, to the general audience out there? Any, any last, last thoughts? Deep thoughts?

We're hiring, man. We're hiring.

Awesome.

We're hiring. Yeah, great. Um, we are hiring right now, and, uh, we're looking for more people here at Tech Systems and I just want to thank you, Shelly. It's been great to meet you, great to spend this time, and I look forward to maybe continuing this or doing this again.

Would love to, absolutely. I'll send you some folks that I recommend for your, for your openings.

Awesome.

Excellent. All right, well, thanks a lot, Dave. Have a good weekend, everybody. We will see you next week. Until then, be kind to yourselves.