MFGMonkey Episode 4: Bryan Driscoll Company Culture And Evaluation

Welcome to MFGMonkey. This Friday, we have a chat with our good friend Bryan Driscoll from Driscoll Learning. We discuss evaluating future employees and their compatibility with your company along with many other interesting topics. So sit back have a listen and enjoy.

Go check him out @ linkedin.com/in/bryandriscoll and driscolllearning.com

If you have any questions, comments, or topics you just want to hear about let us know. 

Contacts us at: info@mfgmonkey.com

Subscribe today & help fabricate the future.

—

Listen to the podcast here

MFGMonkey Episode 4: Bryan Driscoll Company Culture And Evaluation

Coming to you from Columbus, Ohio, here’s Episode 4. Let’s get this party started.

—

We have Bryan Driscoll here. We’ve known each other for quite a while. 

It seems like a lifetime ago for me. 

It’s been fun. My first interaction with you was when you invited me to go work out with you. Do you remember that? 

I do not. 

I thought I was going to die when we did Fran. I made it through around and a half of Fran and thought I was going to puke. Thank you for that. 

It’s funny you bring that up. It was the guy that I worked with for years at a place called Eagle Creek. I helped start a beautiful 50-acre retreat center North of Columbus Zoo in the early ’90s. This guy was an old wrestler. I was looking for help at this place called Eagle Creek. We did a lot of outward-bound experiential-based learning programs. He still reminds me that I had him. I come in and we’re wrestling in the morning as part of the interview process. I was still training a long time ago.

That’s the fun stuff. I went on and did quite a bit of CrossFit after that so you inspired me to do that. I hurt myself like every other CrossFitter does. I’m off the wagon. It’s been fun. One of the first things that you were doing with us was education and some calling. Who’s the girl that works with you that does the stay-at-home mom’s program? 

She’s been great. We’ve had multiple moms over the years. We’ve had a handful come and go for sure.

Tell everyone what your website is so they can find you. 

It’s www.DriscollLearning.com.

Driscoll Learning

Bryan, thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. You guys already talked about one of the programs that you work with but you do a ton of things when it comes to learning. Tell us about Driscoll Learning and you being the President and Founder as well. 

I’ll try to keep this brief. We’ve been in business for many years. Somebody reminded that to me. I forgot about it. The years keep melting together. We started in 1997 or 1998. One of my mentors, Governor Tom Suarez, built this place called Eagle Creek. We’re doing the outward bound type of training, high ropes courses, climbing walls, adventure time training, and team building programs. 

What Tom probably did for me is instill this entrepreneurial spirit. I went out and hung my shingle. I had one client worth a couple of bucks. I have four kids and also a full-time stay-at-home mom. I came home and told my wife, “I’m going to start my company.” She goes, “Okay.” In some ways, the business plan was I had a mortgage for kids to feed and a wife to eat every once in a while as well. That was my business plan. I could make this much money and a few bucks more.

Since then, it’s matured. We still do the team development work but added a leadership development component to the program. We started adding more around assessments and sales training as well. At the end of the day, at the core of the business is the assessment work and job benchmarking, getting some clarity around the hiring process and getting some clarity around what you’re looking for in a candidate or a prospect that you’re going to bring on board.

The clients that we worked with, the ones that seem to get the most return on investment from a learning standpoint or training and development standpoint are the ones that are ruthless in their selection and hiring process. They use benchmarking to get some clarity around the hiring process. I’m using assessments as part of the process, whether it be me or somebody even in some cases but they’re ruthless about getting the person the right fit. What does that mean? I don’t believe there are bad people. This is about fit. 

How someone’s wired. 

Getting the right person, culture, and environment that’s going to connect with their manager, the organization, and the culture. I had a tough conversation with a client. He’s looking to hire somebody that looks a certain way or profile. The person that he was looking to bring on board is a great person. She’s going to last about six months because it’s trying to put a square peg in a round hole for what the job requires. That’s the tough part, getting that clarity around what you’re looking for in a job. The learning can take place later on. If you get the right person, the training and development work is much easier. 

Would you say that open conversation at first with the leader or boss is probably tough, too? It’s like biting a piece of humble pie and understanding that what they want might not be the right thing.

Absolutely. As you get older or just old, 1 of the 2, you start to become a little bit more aggressive and be very candid. We had an example with a client right down the street here looking to hire an engineer. We did some benchmarking with them. They classified two types of engineers, an engine bro and an engine nerd. In an engine bro, you get that word, “Engine bro is somebody who’s fun to have beers with after 5:00 and that cool guy.” There’s a certain style or a profile that might look like somebody you want to hire. 

The engine nerd is a little more introverted. More blocking and tackling, looking at blueprints all day. Their benchmark came back saying, “We need an engine nerd. All the indicators said you need this certain person.” Fast forward, one of our recruiters identified two engineers. One was an engine bro and one was an engine nerd. I’m looking at them on paper. I go, “They need the engine nerd and not the engine bro based on the research we did for them.”

We walked in and guess what they said? “We like the engine bro. We want to hire that guy.” I’m like, “Wait a second. You told me you need an engine nerd. You went through the process with me and then you want to have the engine bro. I’m not charging enough money to make the recommendation.” Fast forward, they hired the engine nerd. He’s been there for a few years and things seem to be working out great. 

I’m still stuck on the engine nerd versus the engine bro. It’s so true. Even the different types of engineers have so many different personalities. We see it in our line of work. It is helpful when you understand that personality profile and how you work with them. If you’re going in to talk to an engine bro and you’re talking to an engine nerd, you’re never going to be on the same page. We see both, especially with electrical engineers.

Their personalities are way different than mechanical engineers. It’s understanding those personality types. You did the DISC profile. I’ve done it and danced on it. We’ve done it for quite a few of our folks. It helps you as a leader understand their personality as well so you can tone it down. With my personality type, I can tone it down and help coach somebody on how they need to be coached. You don’t bowl over them. 

It was unbelievably accurate too because when I took it and sent it to Dustin, I was like, “I got nothing. This is perfect. I’m an engine bro.” 

You might just be the bro. 

Full disclosure, because this is going to be public, behavior style DISC is one science. When we’re helping somebody hire somebody, that’s only 1 of up to 4 or 5 that will look at to get it more comprehensive. It’s not enough. When somebody says, “I want to run a DISC assessment to hire somebody,” if that’s all they want, I don’t help them. It’s too limiting. Granted, it tells a lot.

Tell us about the other ones then.

You’ve got a behavioral assessment. DISC has become the Kleenex of the assessment industry. If you say you had a tissue, you say Kleenex because it become that generic term that we refer to. DISC is a behavioral assessment. There are many other mouths in the marketplace. It’s one piece of the puzzle but it’s not the whole puzzle. It doesn’t get at what juices or energizes somebody per se. There’s more to it and that’s what we call driving forces so what’s a motivator for somebody to do something? If someone said, “Bryan, you couldn’t even run one assessment of all the ones that we have,” and we probably have up to ten that we run, different ones, but the one that I would run is the driving forces. I want to know what juices somebody. 

Engineer Vs. Salesperson

What do you look for in an engineer versus a salesperson? 

It depends on the environment of the engineer. In our research company, we work with a global assessment partner called Target Trading International. They’re based out of Scottsdale. It was beautiful weather out there in Scottsdale. I was out there in January and March 2020. On the sales side, we do have research to reveal certain indicators. We call it a resourceful metric or you measure utility.

I have somebody who’s resourceful and who expects a return on investment for their time spent. That is a very strong indicator of somebody’s success in the game called sales. It’s not the only indicator but it is one that we look for. That’s an easy one to look at and it’s an indicator when we look at an assessment. We’ll look at things around their competency performance. What soft skill mastery do they have as far as soft skills go?

There’s another science we used to call The Hartman Profile that gets at what’s going on inside their head, how they’re responding to the world out there, how they see things, how they process information, and how they’re responding to the world outside with others as well. There’s a lot of moving parts in there. All are EEOC compliant and meet the metrics that we must require. If there are any HR people reading, that’s important. If you’re using assessments in the hiring process, make sure you meet all those legal issues.

It’s all handwritten. 

Yes.

Hiring Process And Assessment Methods

You grade them and figure it out. I’m being facetious but tell people about the process. It is pretty cool because you do log in and it is a test. I can’t remember if it’s timed or not. There’s no past fail.

There are two ways. If you benchmark a job and you have what’s called True North, it’s a piece of the process. It’s not the only process. When we start using assessments, we have to be careful because we’re playing with people’s careers, their income, and their livelihoods. When I do that, I take a lot of responsibility to say, “I’m a divorce or marriage counselor.” You’re going to commit to an organization. The organization is committing to you.

I want to make sure that everybody’s going into this thing with eyes wide open to make sure that there’s a lot of clarity around what’s expected. Is it the right fit? If there’s something that’s maybe a gap, when do we address it? How do we address it? It’s tied to development plans on the back end. That word test, I try to beat that out of our clients. “It’s not a test. It’s a questionnaire.” It’s giving Intel about an individual and it’s a third of the process.

When an organization says they want to use assessments as part of their hiring process, there’s the blocking and tackling of HR. “Have you done a background check? Have you done all the upfront stuff in the role? Have you done some type of behavior-based interviewing?” The assessment should be the piece that validates what you heard in the interview process. It should either validate or disprove what you’ve heard in the process.

The key here though is that a lot of times, behavior-based interviewing is not tied to the assessment. With a benchmark, you can say, “Here are some questions we need to be asking. Let’s see what they said in the interview to see if they should take the questionnaire to complete the assessment.” The time they get to me and they complete that assessment, which is done electronically, I send the link. I’m looking at that assessment.

I want to see people on paper before I see them in person. Why? It’s because we all have biases. Bias interferes in the process, whether we like it or not. As soon as you meet somebody, bias enters the picture. When I look at somebody on paper, I can objectively look at them and say, “Here’s what I’m seeing. Here are their gifts.” The good news is everybody has gifts. The bad news is the difference in all of them. You say, “How do we play these gifts in the role that they’re going to play on?” 

In your interview process, you would do a phone interview and then if they get past that screening process, would you move immediately into doing an assessment? What does your process look like? 

It varies per client but the client gets me involved on the back end, depending on the size and scope of the client. Some organizations are smaller to mid-size and I’m very involved in that process. We’ve interviewed them. We’ve done all the front-end work and some interviews. We talk to ten people. We have 2 or 3 that are in the final bake-off. We want to run an assessment on those 2 or 3. We could do some comparison reports and see what that person has against maybe a benchmark or at least the gifts that that person has. 

The flip side is for large organizations where we say, “We need to send multiple languages. We have an international footprint.” We have the ability to scale to that level and put it at the front end of the funnel and say, “We have 100 people who are in our interview process and doing it on the back.” That’s a different process together with a lot more moving parts. That’s probably not relevant for this conversation but that’s a whole other equation that we have the capabilities to do. We have clients who run 600 reports in a month. We’re looking at numbers and seeing who’s best fit. 

Speaking of relevance to the conversation, we always encourage people to reach out and give us feedback. Whoever’s reading, reach out and give us feedback. If there’s something that people want to talk about more or want to hear more about, then we can do it. That’s the fun part about this. We throw some stuff out there that we think people will find valuable because we’re passionate about it and you are. We get feedback and we can do a follow-up in so many months. 

We have benchmarking webinars and introductions to certifying HR professionals, coaches, and internal trainers for companies who want to use the assessments without me being involved. We have that capability. 

You do a great newsletter, too. Tell everyone if they want to sign up for the newsletter, how to get in touch with you so they get that newsletter?

Send an email to Bryan@DriscollLearning.com 

We’ll let Dan get us back on track. 

Adjusting To The Changing Times

To be honest with you, this has been a great dialogue. You’ve been hitting on some of the topics that I’ve already had. It goes smoothly. I’m enjoying listening to you more than anything. It’s getting better and better. Twenty years is a long time in what you’ve been doing. It’s been a lot of changes. How have you been able to adapt? Many years ago, we didn’t use cell phones, computers, and those things as much as we do now. Now, you have to have it. How have you been able to adjust to the times? What’s something that you started with that you still use and you’re like, “If it ain’t broke. don’t fix it. I’m using that no matter what?” 

Back in the ’90s, when I was doing team building programs, the number one reason why people would call us is they needed to improve their communication. That’s a big buzzword, team building communication. Around the late ’90s and getting into 2000, they were like, “Bryan, technology’s taken over. You better find another line of work. Computers are going to do all that training. You’re going to be a dinosaur.” Fast forward, it’s 2020. Guess what the number one reason why people are still calling me? Communication. It hasn’t changed. 

It’s the same thing with divorce counselors. I’m sure it’s the same thing. 

That’s right because people are still people. There’s a book out there by Kouzes and Posner about the attributes that people want out of their admired leader. Suppose, they’re coming out of version 2.0 of this book but one of the things that people want to see in their admired leaders is honesty. When I do some of this discussion about this book and its attributes, people say, “Where’s transparency?” The word transparency is not in any of these attributes that they measured in 80,000 data points around the world and researching what people want. Honesty is one of the top four.

Transparency is not in there. I said, “What are we talking about?” “We talked about transparency.” “What are we really talking about?” “Honesty.” It’s a sexy new cool word to get the same thing. This might be my cynical jaded side coming out. One thing that I see is there’s still the human element and human touch. We still talk about connecting with others and the ability to be genuine and connect through more tolerance and grace in the workplace. 

The methods and means by which the learner is embracing material and content have changed. Learning and development people have some good research on what creates stackability in a training program. Years ago, I could get away with the team-building program and have a great day. People would be excited. Now, the expectation is, “We’ve done the experience but what’s the back and support reinforcement? What’s the eLearning or the learning platform that you’re going to have online available to support that? What other things are available?”

Where it’s maturing is the application of technology. The coaching element has become a hot topic that holds people accountable. There’s no different than going to the gym. I was talking to a CIO of a large international steel company that’s based here in Columbus. He said, “I got to leave and go to my Orangetheory class. They got it down. If I don’t show up, they’re going to ding me for $12. If they were going to ding me for $9 for not showing up, I probably wouldn’t show up. If it’s $12, I’m going.”

That’s awesome. I didn’t know that they did that. 

I had to chuckle. It’s the same thing around training in development with corporations. They expect a return on investment but there’s got to be a coach or some levers to go ahead and create stickability. Learning is required to be successful in the job. That’s a big part of it.

Company Culture

Dustin’s big on some of the things that always worked. We spoke about this before. He believed in lunches, dinners, and meeting face to face. You did that in the ’90s and 2020, and it still works.

How are you finding those people that are going to stay long-term? They’re finding the initial fit but how do you know that person is going to stick? 

One client comes to mind. They’re an energy company. The culture is incredible but they’re ruthless in the hiring process. What they’ve also done is create a great culture that people want to stay. It’s a true story. I run some sales, training, and development programs in this organization. They want me to come there but I’ll bring other people from other organizations in as well.

I might have somebody in medical and sales in there. I have somebody who sells robots. A company right down the street here sells robots. There are $500,000 pieces of equipment in that room. These other guys are selling gas and the stuff that keeps this place warm. These people that came from one of the organizations came in. We’re in there for over 90 days. Every couple of weeks, we get together for a development program.

One guy says, “Are all these people real? Everybody’s so happy around here. The energy is incredible.” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I want to bottle some more of that up and take it back to our organization because we could use some of that.” It’s a great company already but he’s like, “The energy is incredible.” I said, “The guy is the young hotshot you see in that class. What do you think they do?” “I’m not sure. I’m learning as I get to know him.” I said, “They’re banging that phone making $20, $30, or $40 a day looking for customers.”

That can be draining but because the company’s done an incredible job of building a great culture, they stay. They’re ruthless in the hiring process. They get the best of the best. I call them kids because they’re my kids’ age. That’s a big part of this. You’ve done a good job on the hiring thing but what goes on with the manager they report to and the calls for the organization that is constantly beating that drum about what their purpose is and their values is what keeps them.

This is interesting to me because when I first met you, I got hired to help change the culture. It was an interesting time because I was changing the cultures on my shoulders. Nobody else was bought in. There are a few different terms that come to mind to explain what I was trying to do that we probably shouldn’t use but such a big thing to me is talking about culture. When I worked for a home builder, we had an amazing culture. I’m still best friends with some of those people. 

One of the girls that I worked with years ago is going to do the interior design of our new office. We’ve stayed in contact. She moved to New York City but remains one of my good friends. It’s the same thing with Justin who I always talk about. He’s one of my best friends I’ve known for years. We worked at the same place because the culture was so amazing. Having my company, I want that culture. At the time, it seemed to be natural. You didn’t have to work at it but they were ruthless in the hiring process. 

When you met with ten different people you got interviewed, you have all these crazy questions. At the time, I was like, “What in the hell is going on here? Why do I need to know the answer to this question?” When you get in there, you’re like, “They’re wanting people that think alike.” They get asked what I would think of as a bullshit question but they like, “Is this person going to think about the answer or are they going to make something up and blow it off?” I’m interested to hear what you see makes a great phenomenal culture. 

This is me aging myself. In the ’90s, that was a big buzz about articulating values and having a great mission and vision statement, and having all that articulated. We would bring people to our retreat center, Eagle Creek. It’s no longer around. It was a cool 50-acre retreat center. We have some cool buildings. We would hammer out this vision and mission values. Those organizations would go back and put it on a stone in the lobby. It’d be very long and elaborate. We would try to figure out where the word thus should go in the sentence and it would die there.

It would be there and maybe they should do it but it didn’t breathe any life into the culture. On the coattails of that was the dot-com craze of the early 2000s. Only three made that. What was the play there? It’s how to make cash. There’s a vision and value surge in the early to mid-’90s. You’ve got this dot-com buzz. Everybody’s trying to make a play to make a profit and money. If you think about it, how many companies have made it, Google, Amazon, and eBay? 

Facebook. 

When did Facebook come on?

Facebook was after the big dot-com. 

When you think about it in the late ’90s, it was Amazon. Back then, it was selling books. I’m going to, “I made a mistake. I should have thrown some money at that.”

At the time, you’re like, “What the hell is this company doing? They’re selling books? Who’s going to use that?”

Three have survived. There was something about that. To stretch for the cash only is not enough for survival. I can’t speak to Google, Amazon, or eBay’s culture but there was something about the mission that people bought into who drank the Kool-Aid. There’s part strategy and people, and driving it. Fast forward to the early ’20s, and even when I hung my shingle, it was a lifestyle business. I had four young kids. I wanted to be at their stuff. I didn’t want to sway the burden of employees. In 2020, we’re like, “In my biased opinion, I got another 15 or 20 years of good energy left.” 

Your wife will disagree with that. I’m positive. She’s going to want you home before twenty more years. 

You say, “Do we start bringing on people?” I’ve got so many panicking souls who work with us. This goes back to Tom at Eagle Creek and what he taught us. If we get stuck in Wichita, where there’s nothing going on because of the snowstorm and we’re stuck in the same hotel room for 3, 4, 5, or 6 days, and we’re still buddies on the back end of that, that was his hiring witness test. I was brought on with that experience.

As far as driving culture, what I’m starting to do more around or embrace from a coaching perspective is that you’ve got to integrate learning to get clarity around the purpose of the organization. I wrote a tagline a long time ago about creating engaging environments where learning is embraced. I’m being challenged about what our purpose is, which is the same. I threw that out with some people out of TTI, Target Training International. They said, “That’s a great purpose.” I said, “That’s us, creating engaging environments where learning is embraced.” What does that mean? A lot of things but that’s the drive.

When that gets clear, you get 2 or 3 core values. You can start to say, “How are we going to live those values and beat that drum with however big or small your organization is to get some traction?” You go a little step deeper and that influences the culture that you create. I heard a steel company speak. It was a humble guy at a Conway family business center here in Columbus. It’s a powerful organization. All family helps the business.

I heard a guy speak. Their big focus is on being customer-centric and customer-focused, which is the only thing left. In meetings, they’ll have people speak up and say, “He’s an example of a piece of metal that was done and it meets back. We could probably patch that and drill the whole somewhere else,” or something along those lines. Somebody in the meeting said, “Is that the best thing we could do for the customer?”

That’s how you know you have stickability. It’s ingrained that we’re going to be that customer-centric piece. That’s the culture. The ripple effect of that great culture is it permeates the brand. Your customers start to feel the brand. You may articulate and they may know the brand that you’re about but they feel it and want to do business with you. It affects great sales organizations. It’s not enough about what they exactly say but that buyer feels that you’re committed to taking care of that customer. 

I would have to agree with that. Culture is the most important thing about a company. I don’t care what you’re doing. It could be curing cancer or pounding nails on 2×4 for a living. If you don’t have a good culture at your company, it’s not going to be sustainable, I don’t think so, or it’s not going to be a fun place to work. Your turnover rate is going to be through the roof. 

You go a step further on that. I have four part-time adults. I got a 21-year-old, a 23-year-old, a 25-year-old, and a 26-year-old. They’re getting into the workforce. What you’re seeing out of this generation going in is they’re trying to find that passion and interest. All work is honorable to your point but you have to find purpose around that. It starts with purpose. If you engage with a company where you connect with the people, you’re going to be okay but you have to keep working on that. 

Workplace Atmosphere

How important do you think the atmosphere is in the office or workplace as far as furniture, desks, chairs, carpet, ceilings, lights, and paint?

You’re probably asking the wrong guy because I don’t connect with that. One thing you measured in that driving force is assessment, which is around aesthetics. Some people are more objective. As long as there’s a function, they’re good. People are more feng shui harmonious. Some of that is getting a little bit out of vogue. It’s still nice to have but it does not replace the intentional connections you have with the people who are on the team.

When you talk about people, we don’t have any whiteboards but there’s one thing called invitation. Are we connecting with our people? We call it invitations. It’s a 4-part of our 5 pillars of a prioritized leader solution that we provide in the marketplace. You have the invitation and there’s a ten-point scale. High invitations are where we’re connecting with people and low invitations are not doing that. On the vertical axis would be a challenge. You have a high challenge or a low challenge on the back end. You’re looking for high connection, high invitation, and high challenge. 

If you have a challenge and no invitation or connection with others, it’s a military school. The beatings will continue to improve things. People don’t want to stay. If you have no challenge or invitation, you have complacency and turnover. Nothing’s going on. If you have just an invitation and no challenge, you have cozy. “It’s nice here. I like everybody but I’m not stretching. I’m not looking for that next line or my next goal to strive for.” You have to have high invitations and high challenges. If you don’t have those two, you’re in trouble. 

That’s awesome insight. I’ve always been a person who thinks that the niceties attract people but then after listening to you, you could have a total piece of shit office with good people on the same page and you’re going to attract the right people. They may come in and go, “Toilet needs to be cleaned but everyone around here is nice. Everyone has equal goals. They’re out there trying to not kill lions together and move on with trying to accomplish things together.” I would have to agree that that’s way more important than chandeliers and structured rooms. 

The guy who got me on Johnson’s team was also a mentor of mine. He would say it multiple times, “I’d rather be in a bad deal with great people than a great deal with bad people.” I’ve heard this man when you walk into an organization. I’ve seen toxic companies and they’ve got all the great cool stuff but something is missing in a special sauce of that organization and then they wonder why they have a turnover problem. 

I’ve been involved with deals that they’re like, “How are we going to make money doing this?” It may be damaged control. Everyone sits down like, “We realize that we’re in this together and we’re not going to make any money but let’s be friends at the end of it.” I’ve also been involved in deals where there’s money on the table and everyone’s trying to cut somebody else’s throat to make more money. It’s like, “I’m out. It’s not worth it anymore.”

I’m very guilty of being a salesperson who was very money-driven when I was younger. It’s all that matters to me. I didn’t care about anything else. I would work seven days a week as many hours as I could to make as much money as I could. I lost track of so many different things. Once I got to the point where the money was less important than the lifestyle, I had complete freedom. 

It doesn’t matter how much money you make but if you can do what you want to do when you want to do it and people are happier around you, to me, that’s more valuable than everyone making every day. It’s like you get into the boiler room type of talks where everyone’s driving a Ferrari and a Lamborghini to work but the guy next to you will cut your throat in a second to make more money. It all goes down and everyone’s in jail at the end of it. 

That goes back to purpose. What are we in business for? Why are we doing what we do? I’ve got a young man that I work with who sells rocks for a living. He works with architects and builders. He’s selling rocks and he’s got territory in Central Ohio and Michigan border. He’s trying to find meaning and purpose in there. I say, “There’s meaning and purpose to serve other people.” He’s working with guys who say, “You’re going to have a beautiful landscape backyard. It needs a certain stone or something on your house or building,” and trying to find meaning in that and keep searching for the meaning. At the end of the day, if you serve others, you’re going to be okay. 

Ruthless Hiring

I’m not going to sit back and let you guys go. One of the main things is that culture starts at the top and how you feel when you walk in the door. It’s all about the vision and how is that vision set for your employees. Is it transparent? I feel like that’s one of the things you have hit on the most. It’s great. You have to be able to share, “You’re doing this but why are you doing this?” He doesn’t talk about it all the time. He’s great with me with that and it matters. You want to come to work for that person. It’s not coming in with the military style. It’s awesome. One thing you kept hitting on is the ruthless hiring. Explain a little bit about how many times you consider a ruthless hiring situation. Is it 5 phone calls or 10? What would you consider ruthless hiring? 

I’ve seen it done in many different ways. I don’t dare to say that there is a special formula that you should follow. In the marketplace, you can be very data-driven. Once you find out exactly what you need, back up as far as how far you need to go to get real clarity around how you’re going to go ahead and uncover that in the process. Going slow and right versus fast and wrong is important.

I wish I could say this is it but small investment firm, I didn’t build it. He has a whole bunch of other stuff that he’s doing from phone interviews to face interviews, repeated face interviews, meeting other people in the office, and the assessment part of the process, which I get involved in the back end. I look at what he’s asking and why he’s asking it, and building those connections with those people.

Probably the biggest thing is to stay objective in the process. Do not get emotionally tied to somebody which always seems to happen because that’s my person. You say, “Tell me why you think they’re the person. Help me understand why you think they’re worth making an investment into running assessment on them?” When I heard, “It felt right,” “It’s not enough. Tell me more.” When I hear it just felt right, it’s probably from a style standpoint or very similar.

If you’re interviewing somebody who’s got a style very similar to yours, the conversation rolls. It ebbs and flows. It feels comfortable. When someone’s wired differently than you, it takes energy to connect. Those are like, “I’m not so sure.” I said, “Let’s go back to the job. If the job could talk, what is it saying that is required to be successful in the role?” That gives you more clarity than what you felt in the interview process. If you have that job talk laid out like, “Here’s what we need from a style standpoint. Here’s what we need from a motivator standpoint. Here are some 5 to 7 competencies that need to be a high degree of mastery of,” stay objective and you’ll be fine. 

I’ve made the emotional mistake more than one time because you do. You get emotionally tied to somebody and you’re like, “I like the engineer bro.” It goes back to that. If you start making emotional decisions, you sometimes make the wrong ones. 

You’ve got a lack of clarity. There’s some degree of distortion in your ability to see this person’s objective. If the job could talk, what would it say? 

I’ll start on that one. 

Connection Breakfast

With that being said, I’ve hit on everything. I want to thank you, Bryan, for being with us. 

Is there anything else that you want to talk about? We’ve been pounding you with questions. 

Anything new and exciting that you have to go on that you’d like to share before we call it an episode? 

I don’t think I have anything to share. If this is going out to people in the Central Ohio market and people are looking for sales professionals, one thing that we’ve become more passionate about is once a month, for sales professionals to plug in, we have a connection breakfast that myself and another gentleman started a few years ago. It’s Ken Lazar of Ability Professional. There was nowhere for sales professionals to plug-in and hear a great story and message on sales. 

We have sales coaches, sales leaders, and business owners come in and share their stories over breakfast. We brought you eggs and bacon. It’s usually held in the Dublin Chamber. We’ve had Rhett Ricart speak so we did that at IGS Energy. We had about 90 people there. We’ve had the VP of Sales for Cardinal. We had to do it at Cardinal and had about 70 people there. If any sales professionals are looking for a place to plug in, the chamber starts at $15. It’s a place to connect and network with other sales professionals and get different perspectives and flavors. That’s a plug for something. That’s a value to the people that we work with. 

Dublin Chamber is very close to where we’re at. It’s right downtown old Dublin. 

With this whole nonsense we have going on in the country with the virus, we’re not sure what we’re going to do in April 2020 but we’re rolling.

Have hand sanitizer, kegs and eggs, and toilet paper. Nobody can find out. I’m not sure that’s one of the symptoms, I don’t even know why people start buying up all the toilet paper but as of this conversation, there’s no more toilet paper. 

That is very true. That and sanitizer.

It’s an interesting time. Everyone’s talking about it. There are some guys that I’ve done business with that had an entire podcast about the Coronavirus and everything. We laugh about it. Hopefully, it’s not overly serious. As of this conversation, there were five confirmed cases in Ohio. Somebody said they’d think that there are 100,000 cases but they have no data to support that. Hopefully, it doesn’t get out of control and we can still laugh about it.

Everybody, get up and go to work. 

Stay driven. 

Stay away from the news. 

This was time off when I was in college. That’s what I want to know.

All my teacher friends love it because they’re getting paid and they don’t have to work. I roll my eyes. I’m like, “We’ll be back at work tomorrow. You have fun with your fake vacation.” 

They’ll be back at work in June 2020 and part of July 2020 because they’re high school teachers.

It is crappy for athletes. My son had their lacrosse season. It’s not canceled but they’re not allowed in the gym or training. Games are canceled. All the stuff is canceled. It’s pretty sad, especially for those senior athletes. 

It’s heartbreaking. I coached wrestling in the area since I was about 25 or 26. The state tournament supposed to be happen. Where I coast, there’s a young man who’s a senior with a great success story. He got out and is going down there. It’s a great moment for the family but sorry, we can’t do it. Ohio State has two kids who are seniors, exceptional athletes, and great athletes. One is here from Ohio. One is from Pennsylvania. They potentially won a national title and didn’t get that chance. 

It is heartbreaking because it’s a once in a lifetime. We always talk about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities but that is serious. We’ll never get that opportunity ever again. It’s sad.

My one son coached at the high school level where I coached for a long time and my other son coached at the collegiate level. He is in a Division 2 school. My alma mater was West Liberty over in West Virginia. He’s helping out over there. They were still having the D2s. He was driving out to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He got as far as Champaign, Illinois. They pulled the plug and turned the car around, “We’re not having the tournament.” I have kids over there. His freshman roommate made it. I’m sure they were partying. 

Closing Words

At least that’s often a semi-positive note. Check out Bryan’s website. Any questions that you have, feel free to email Info@McMillancoMFG.com. We can forward them to Bryan to check out our social media. Do you have social media, Bryan? 

Bryan Driscoll. Look me up on LinkedIn. 

Thanks for coming in. It’s always a pleasure. 

Thanks, guys. This is fun. It’s the first time I’ve ever done this. For all the mistakes in there, make sure you have a great guy to edit it.

We have that guy.

This is only our fourth time doing it. It’s going pretty well, and I’m learning a lot. That’s the fun part for me, too. Thank you so much. 

Thanks for the experience.

Important Links

• Bryan Driscoll
• Target Trading International
• Bryan@DriscollLearning.com
• Info@McMillancoMFG.com
• Bryan Driscoll – LinkedIn