629 | Why Personality Styles Should Shape Your Hiring Process, with Joel Fortner

Business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs. If you've ever hired someone who looked great on paper but turned out to be the wrong fit for the role or your culture, then this episode is for you.

Today we are talking with Joel Fortner, our team's president and hiring expert, about how understanding personality styles can radically improve your hire, build your team, and lead your business. All of that is coming up next.

Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today we are talking about hiring, but not the way most people think about it.

Samuel 16 (00:01:00)

So before we jump in, let me start with a short parable from scripture. So if you look in 1st Samuel 16, you will see that the prophet Samuel is told by God to anoint a new king to replace Saul.

Now Samuel is led to Jesse's house, and when he sees Eliab, the tall, strong, impressive looking son, he thinks, surely this is the one that the Lord has chosen.

But God says something very powerful. He says, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So hiring often looks like that.

We're tempted to choose people based on their resume. We're tempted to choose them based on possibly a degree or how confident they seem in an interview, or how much they smile and laugh at what we say.

And yet we probably don't hear anything from them. Right. But what if we're missing something deeper, like how do they actually think? How do they communicate?

How do they handle pressure? That's what today's show is all about, how personality styles should shape your hiring process.

And joining me today is my good friend Bon Jovi. Or at least, hey, you're definitely living on a prayer here. At least that's what it says on his video there.

It's Joel Fortner. Welcome back to the show, Joel.

So good to be here. Otherwise known as Bon Jolie.

Otherwise known as Bon Jolie. I like that. I like that. So if you're Bon Joel, who am I in the band? Who's the lead guitarist? What's his name? Richie Sambura.

Is that his name? I think that's it. I wonder. You know what? Let's go off script. I wonder what their DISC profiles are.

Definitely Bon Jovi. High I. Right. So definitely high I. Also a lot of D, believe it or not, not crazy dominant, but super driver. Super driver. Yeah.

He's so entrepreneurial. Very, very much so. And then I would say Richie is definitely a high I. I love how serious we just got about this. I know, right? So years ago, Lance Osborne. If Lance is listening to this, I don't know.

We were looking at. Oh, I had watched a documentary on The Eagles. This is, gosh, probably close to 20 years ago. And we were just having a discussion about.

Lance is huge in music and loves the Beatles and all that. And I just started walking through, man, it was so funny watching this documentary and pointing out, you know, Glenn Frey's personality style is this.

And, you know, going through all the different folks, he's like, dude, you should totally do a video on that.

Like, or you just release, hey, here's the Eagles personality styles. Right. It's funny when you see them off the stage or, you know, you see people and this.

You understand this stuff so well that you can literally see it in conversation. Yeah, right. You can. It's just fun. It's. It's interesting. So it is funny that we just went there with Bon Jovi, so. And John, I know you're listening right now.

Or Richie. He doesn't. They don't miss an episode. Tell. Tell us if we're right with your personality sales.

All right, so let's get started with this. Although we kind of did just get started. I don't know how you look at this, Joel. Why.

If we're looking at the hiring process, you know, we're hitting personality styles with our experts week after week on this to. To help our leaders get to the best information, get to the best decision making.

You’re Not Just Hiring a Resume (00:04:24)

Why is it that resumes and interviews alone are a very limited way of hiring?

Well, first of all, I don't know if you've noticed, Chris. Wink, wink. But it is incredibly difficult to hire right now, and it has been for a long time. Yep.

Just finding people. And we're in an atmosphere in an environment now where it is so difficult and every industry is struggling to find talented people.

So where am I going with this? The hiring process is so difficult. It's so long. It is so time consuming. It is costing people so much money in the process.

And then after they hire somebody who isn't the right fit, they have to go back and do it all over again, which is costing them so much time, money, stress, and frustration. So why aren't resumes and interviews good enough?

Because they're just scratching the surface. Resumes tell us if they're real. Resumes tell us what someone has done.

It's a list of information, and interviews give us some level of information, but it's still only surface level where we're not factoring in actually, who am I talking to?

Who is this person? How do they think? How do they react? How do they make decisions? How do they operate under stress?

So if we don't factor in things like DISC, and we're only looking at resumes and interviews, we're only looking at a couple slices of the pie.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting. We've talked about this before of like, I just won't hire islands. You know, I've made that mistake twice in my 30 years. And it, it is so painful.

Like, you know, you hire somebody who has great sales numbers, but really just kind of bulldozes.

You know, a team over is not a. Not a team member or tries to get people to do things for them. We, you know, I think everybody has probably seen that.

But at the end of the day, the truth is, while we're looking for experience, definitely we're looking for experience. We're. We're hoping that we've got somebody who fits the role. At the end of the day, no matter how experienced they are, we're still hiring that.

That behavior, that, that personality style. And if they're not a cultural fit, then pain is eminent, right? Totally. Yeah.

Often, I mean, hiring, I, you know, I talk about, with our clients, I talk about hiring all the time.

And a point that I often make is when you're doing interviews and let's say you have a robust interview process and you're doing three to five interviews with someone, which some of you all probably heard that and were like, what?

Whoa. How am I going to find the time to do that? We got to figure that out. But let's say you're spending three to five interviews, and each interview is an average of one hour.

So let's say you do really well and you do five interviews, you've spent five total hours talking to that person. How many hours do most of us work in a day? 8, 10, 12?

Let's say you spent five of them with that person you're considering for the role. And I find it really puts it in perspective of, wow, we don't know Jack.

Often when we hire somebody and we're bringing them onto the team and we're basing it off of usually a couple interviews and a resume that we've not vetted well enough, and so we just don't have enough information.

Yeah, it is crazy how much. Especially as you pointed out, this is such a difficult hiring time, and we have so many businesses that are looking to put a warm body in a seat.

If I can just get somebody who fits the role, right? If I can get somebody who fits the role, when really what we should be asking is, is can I find somebody who's going to fit my culture? Can I find somebody who is a team member, not an island?

Can I find somebody who's moldable, coachable? Because how much heartache does every leader experience when they put that person in the role? And 90 days later they're like, I made a stinking mistake and now I got to fix those things.

DISC Reveals the “How” Behind the Work (00:08:21)

So explain to us how DISC personality styles. Explain to us how that helps us see the how behind somebody's behavior.

Because when you know, even just the basic attributes of what does a D personality do and think and how do they make decisions?

An I, an S, a C? Because you got to get to know at least the basics of what those personality styles are. That's how you know the how.

Otherwise you're just looking at Sally, right? You're just looking at Chris, you're just looking at Joel, and you're just having a conversation.

You're not thinking farther and deep enough to be like, how do you go about doing your work? What are your tendencies?

How do you approach things that way? If you know that stuff, you have better expectations, you have a better idea of how they're going to go about doing their work, how they're going to communicate, how they're going to relate to other people.

You're thinking deeper and you're thinking simply more critically. So if you're looking at a D, let's just look some of the basics of the four styles.

You know that they're going to do their work quickly, fast paced, results oriented, get it done. They're going to be like, I don't want the details, I want to just accomplish it and I want to move on.

I don't want to do the same thing over and over and over. I want to change stuff. If you're working with an I, you know they're going to be, they're going to love people, they're going to be people oriented, they're going to be very charming, they're going to be more talkative.

You know, they're going to be enthusiastic, they're going to talk a lot with their hands like I do. You know, if you're looking for an S personality, you know, they're going to be super chill, calm, water people is what I like to call them.

They're just very even. They're the personality style that's like, I don't know what they are. And I'm like, it's probably an S because there's such an even person.

They're very consistent, they're very loyal if they like you and you treat them fairly. Sometimes when people don't even treat S as fairly, they'll still work for you forever because they don't want the change and they'll be loyal for a long time.

We talk about a long suffering personality style and then we go on to a C, you know, analytical person, a precise person, a detailed person, a structured person.

These things tell us off. This is how you go about doing your work because this is how you tend to think and make decisions. So look at.

Give me some roles, some basic roles that everybody would know. Sure.

DISC and Roles (00:10:40)

Just take an inbound sales role. Inbound sales role or an outbound sales role. Yeah. We have to say, listen, what you're about to share is not the only aspect of hiring for one of these roles.

But what you're looking for in personality styles. Yeah. So if we're looking for like an inbound salesperson, that person tends to be more S. More C.

That also a lot of high Is are in inbound roles as well. But these are. The leads are coming to them. This isn't the prospecting salesperson. If we want the prospecting energetic get out there in their territorial, make stuff happen.

Entrepreneur developing opportunity, developing relationships. You may want that more D driver. You know, I influencing relational person that can make all that stuff happen.

Where in SC that would be like, oh my gosh, this is torture and I'm scared to death every day to do my job.

But that SC maybe some level of I have an inbound role much more comfortable and they can thrive because that's what you're looking for is what's the role and then what's the right personality style for the role?

Assuming they fit culture and check your other boxes. What personality style do I need for that role? Because that person is going to thrive and it's easier to set that person up for success in those roles. Yeah.

And we would even go further for us we're going to go into Values and see if that also leans in that direction. But the key here is that you're not looking for perfect DISC scores.

There's not like a. There's not a perfect combination. Right. Exactly. DISC is again it's another data point. It's another variable. It's more information to factor in to the hiring process.

It's not the only thing because as you pointed there's Values, there's other assessments you can do. There are the interviews, they are the resumes.

There are the references that you're calling because you want information, information, information, information before you make a critical decision of putting somebody in a seat on your team.

And so there isn't a perfect, but there's a pattern that's like, you know, like we love in admin roles, we love SC personality styles, but with a decent amount of eye because they'll connect and they'll relate and they'll share and they'll communicate.

But we know that that's who we look for in those roles where if it's the same thing every single time. So not to get ahead of ourselves, but this, all this whole thought process we're talking about, this starts before you ever advertise a role.

You should already be clear on what is the DISC personality. What's the personality style ideally that I'm looking for for a specific role because that's what's also going to help you write the job description as well.

So we see this often with businesses because again, we hire people we like, we tend to, and maybe they have some experience and I can go back 20 plus years of putting somebody in a role because they had all the experience, but when I put them in the role, they failed miserably.

And I went back to their DISC and they hated the job, but they were really good at it. They had done it, but then they were failing and they were just tired. Right.

And they never did fit personality style-wise. So let's kind of flip this around a little bit. If I'm looking for somebody in my accounting, who am I not going to hire and why? I would never hire, you know, drum, drum roll.

I would never hire the highest I in the world because if there's no C, there's no detail and they're just simply not going to thrive or be the best person for the role or a D because they're, they're lacking the basic of accounting.

Which is, hey, you may want to pay attention to some details because that's your whole world. And so, but you know, there are people that have that person in the, in the seat and then they struggle and they wonder, gosh, why isn't this happening?

Or why is it the same problem over and over and over? Or why do I always have to check their work and check their numbers and why do I sit with stress?

Because I just don't feel confident in what they're giving me and I don't understand what's going on and then we assess the DISC and we see that it's obvious. It's like they simply aren't the personality style for the role.

Yeah. And it goes the opposite way. You're not going to take somebody who's a 99C and and you know, make them the head of your hospitality. Right.

The person that welcomes everybody into a party or an event or something like that. Right. They'll do phenomenal at behind the scenes.

But so, you know, before, before we go on, Chris, real quick, this conversation reminds me that several years ago I was doing a team training and for the first time I'd never met this team before.

And I was doing a team training and you know, and like I live through DISC, it's one of my main filters.

That's just a part of my life, you know, that I've lived in it for so many years now. It's just how I experience people.

So I'm talking to this guy and he ends up telling me the role that he was in for so many years within this bank, and it's a big bank. And he was describing the job and it was this super high stress, cutthroat, competitive job.

And I'm experiencing him and I'm like, this doesn't make any sense because I'm experiencing this man. And I'm like, I don't know how he would ever have been in that role.

And he was in that role for like 20 or 30 years. Well, then I find out and I'm looking at like, what role is he in now? And he's a high S. And I asked him, I said, how, how is life today and how are you feeling about this new role you're in now?

And he's like, this is amazing. I love it. I said, I imagine it is because then we were talking about his former life and I'm like, man, I said, I don't know how you did it, but that is like that.

Isn't that just so high S that even though they're stressed and they're suffering in it, they will stick with it. But was he thriving in that role? Absolutely not.

And could they have probably found someone better in that role 20 or 30 years ago? Probably. But it's just a great, it's a great example of what we're talking about here. Yeah, I think I want to speak to both parties on this one.

One, the person who stays for 20, 30 years, you think you can actually ask, can I change? Can I do something different? Can I? You know, again, like you pointed out earlier, there's conflict to the change.

There's, there's loyalty to where you are. And yet if you felt okay to say, what if I didn't do this role? What would my life. Would it be okay if I didn't do this role? Right.

So one, I want to challenge anybody who's 20, 30 years at a, yeah, high-- crap!-- ONE year at high pressure role. Should you be there? Right. But then business leaders, business owners, I want you to think about this.

Just because that person can do the job doesn't mean that you're not spending 20 or 30 years coaching, guiding, helping, bringing that person down off the ledge. Right?

So I think that's a fantastic. I'm so glad you shared that because I think that's such a fantastic example of. Just because the person can do the job doesn't mean that they should be in that role. How much time as a leader am I having to spend fixing?

And I've done it. I'm a high S. You're a high S. I've spent a lot of time, we spent time working with people who don't align and trying to get them to.

Well, for us, we try to get them out of the role if it doesn't fit. But for most people, they're spending time trying to keep them in the role and keep them happy and keep them stress free.

It's just not going to happen. You know, I've shared a bajillion times how many business owners have come to me and said, tell me how I can get this guy to sell while he's out there on the job.

And I'm like, what's the person doing? It's, you know, it's I don't know, lawn care or you know, spraying pesticides or I don't anything where it is definitely gonna be a high S or high C personality style.

And I have had multiple business owners that have said, how do I get this person to sell? I'm like, you can't. That person's not an outbound type of seller. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know your DISC stuff and I know you stuff. You teach about personality styles. Well, if you do, then you should understand this. It is so funny. Cause it's usually a high D personality.

And I have to say, could you do accounting sitting in a flannel cube every single day for the next five years?

Oh, gosh, no. Oh, I see what you're saying. Oh, okay, now it makes sense. I'm not saying that you can't get them to sell. You know, I'm not saying, you know, Kevin South, my son in law, is a very high S and great at sales.

You know, you're a high S, you're a high I as well. But I'm not saying you can't get them there. I'm just saying until that person matures, it's in their personality style. It's very difficult.

Hiring for Culture Fit, Not Just Skills (00:19:49)

So let's kind of look at the culture aspect. You know, we talked about one of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they're hiring somebody who you know, has maybe they have the skills, maybe they don't, but they definitely don't.

They're not hiring for fitting the culture. Why is that such a big issue? Well, my gosh, culture's everything, isn't it? I mean it, it's, it's, it's the air within your company.

I mean it's the actions, it's the attitudes, it's what, it's the thing that should be binding everyone together.

You know, as you're executing your mission and working towards your goals and what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve that it's like a lot of times people can literally be trained to do the job.

They can be trained skills. But if a person doesn't have those Values that are inherent in that particular personality style, that's really difficult to grow that within them, isn't it?

Oh my gosh. It's like I need to know that it's there. I need to know that I need some, I need great loyalty in this role.

Like if you were hiring an admin or an executive assistant or an administrative assistant, you know that it's like the information that's going to be shared with them, the trust level that has to be there.

You have to know, shoot, what do I really need and what are the values I need in that role?

Or when you look at your larger culture, you know that a lot of people are like, you know what? This is what I want.

It's very specific and that will guide you to, okay then these are the types of personality styles that you want and that you value or that are best to make this mission happen.

That we've, it's just all about getting smarter with people. And who do I really want to bring into my culture and who do I absolutely not want to bring into my culture?

Yeah, I think it's so funny. My, I don't know, probably about 10, 12 years into leading I had hired somebody that super high C and we were doing these bigger events that were, that required paper tickets.

We were doing paper tickets. So this is well before, you know, this is decades ago, before we got into, you know, systems and things that could be digital. And we were doing great.

We were selling well, doing these big events, going all around the country. And I remember having to hire somebody to just put those tickets in an invoice, in an envelope, and at the end of the day, mail out hundreds of envelopes.

And I remember one day going through, going, man, I know this job sucks, but I really appreciate you doing this. Now I'm not a high C. In 30 years, I've gone- I've gained a point a year.

I've gone from 10 to 40 in my life.

You've mailed, like, three things in your life. That's it.

I mean, it's just. I am not that detailed. I mean, to sit there and do that all day, every day, every week, every month, you know, all year long. Oh, I just. It. I couldn't understand. And she said, oh, my gosh, no, I love doing this.

And I'm the guy who teaches this stuff. Back then, I was teaching it, you know? But what I was experiencing in the moment was how I would hate to do this.

And I wasn't thinking personality style in the conversation. I was thinking, this must suck. And the moment it came out of her mouth, I was like, well, yeah, of course you do. Of course you love this. It's consistent.

It's the same thing. You can rely on it every single day. And that's her personality style. And she did a phenomenal job with it, Right?

For me, I would probably burn the whole place down after about three weeks because it's just. I couldn't do. I couldn't do that same exact thing.

Tickets, invoice, fold these things up, stick it in the envelope. You know, I don't know, maybe she set them aside and wetted them later.

I don't know. But it just was crazy, right? And it's not that I can't do consistent stuff. I can do consistent stuff for a long period of time. It's just I have a limit.

At some point, I would not be the best fit. I've always told people, listen, I will help you build your business, but I will be a terrible administrative assistant for you, right? So we're talking about this in the aspect of hiring, right?

How do I use DISC in the Hiring Process? (00:24:05)

So if I'm a leader, I'm wondering, I hear you talking about this. How do I actually use DISC? Do I just take a profile and then make a call? Or how do I use DISC in the hiring process.

Well, as I'm-- What I mentioned before is, let me go back to that, is that when you're thinking through your roles, you're thinking through your hires. You know that, okay, here's a role we want to hire for.

One of the first questions we should be answering is who needs to be in the role? What personality style best fits this role? Again, this is before the position is ever posted.

Yeah, yeah. Before it's ever on. Indeed, before you ever post it on Facebook. We've got to get clear on who we need because that's going to shape how you may write the role, how you may advertise it, period.

You've got to know that ahead of time. Then resumes and interviews are happening. Now you know that this is who I'm looking for.

And say you've got a bunch of people that have applied for a job and you're doing say a 30 minute culture screen and you're narrowing down that list of a lot of applicants and you're getting it down to a more reasonable list. Have them take a DISC.

You don't have to do it with everyone who's applying, but it narrow it down to some degree. Have them take a DISC and then now look and see, what is it? What am I seeing? Do these people fit the role?

And then sometimes you're looking at that as a data point. You're looking at resumes, you're looking at other things and you may be like, you know what, let's go ahead and bring this person in.

It's not the ideal disc makeup for this role, but it's close enough to be able to interview them. This is the point is you're making smarter hiring decisions in the process.

And then when you're looking, doing the interviews, you're looking for alignment. Does what they say align with their DISC? Does what they're telling me align?

Does their temperament align? Does how they communicate align? You're looking for that kind of insights because you're trying to hedge your bets, right?

Are you going to ever hire everything out that you don't want in a process? It's really difficult to do, but you're simply trying to increase your chance of hiring the right person for the right role.

So those are few of just the basic steps of using it. But Joel, don't we say that you should really like the people you work with? Well, I kind of like it. It's a, it's a pretty--

I would rather work with people I like than who I don't like. But what if I find somebody who's, I really like this person. They match my personality style. They're, you know, they're a people person.

We really get along in the interview process. Even though what I'm really needing is somebody who's, you know--

Great! Date them, don't hire them, take them out to dinner, you can make friends and have a new buddy.

Just don't, don't necessarily bring them onto your team. Yeah. If they don't fit the role. Because here's the thing, it's like you should know your DISC as well because you just said something that's really important is do they, do they?

Maybe this is not what you meant, but let's say it is. Do they match my personality style? Which is because sometimes we hire the me, we hire the, oh, look at this.

We get along, we, we jive, we connect. You're, you're funny, you're witty, you're. Oh, I felt a connection we should not hire people off of because I felt a connection we should go off of.

Really good quality information and DISC helps you do that. So as we look at this hiring process, do you feel like personality assessments are optional? Absolutely not.

And, and so this is why we kind of beat this drum like crazy is that we don't feel like they are because it's, you're, you're, you're just a two legged stool, in my opinion, trying to, trying to hire in today's climate, fantastic stool.

It's just, you're just wobbling, just trying to keep up, trying to stay upright. When you look at, oh my gosh, Joel, it's like, well, am I going to have to spend, you know, money on an assessment every single time? It's, you can't afford not to.

You're going to spend a little bit of money on doing a profile to save thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars because you've actually more often we'll make a better hire because think about when we make a wrong hire because we didn't get enough information.

How much money did we just pour down the toilet because we didn't have enough good information?

Let alone, we're desperate to make a hire, let alone I'm so busy and stressed out that I want out of these tasks, I want them off my plate so this person will do and that's good enough.

And then in three months we're kicking ourself because we, we realized we made the wrong hire.

We've got to be more deliberate and get as much dang information as we possibly can. So I Think that's, you know, I want to. I want to hit something. You just. I want you to expand on this.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong (00:29:08)

What's the cost? Because so many business leaders and business owners, the. The cost of not hiring is their focus. Right. If I don't put a warm body in the seat soon, what am I losing out on?

But dig further down into what's the cost of ignoring personality styles and hiring and getting somebody who doesn't fit. So I'll answer it with a story first.

There's a business we worked with for a long time, and they saw a salesperson that was going to be the rainmaker. It's like this person claimed this and this and that, had the network, had the people, had the skills, and also, I think, had a lot of ego with it as well.

And they saw money. They saw money. They saw the golden goose, and it was a disaster. And it set their company back years, and they lost so many people, and they overlooked the advice in the morale of so many people on their team.

And I could keep going on. It was so painful to watch them go through this because of what they were basing the hire on. It's not worth it to.

To hire someone that you should never hire on your team and damage your team, tank your culture, tank morale, tank loyalty to you, because people are like, what are we doing?

Turnover's increasing, productivity's dropping like crazy. Because you're not seeing how things are really going on with that new golden goose egg person that you hired.

Because you're off doing other things now that you can get to, because, praise God, we hired this person, and I don't have to do this stuff anymore, and all these consequences happen.

And if you can do more due diligence in the process, you can mitigate all that stuff from happening. Can things still go wrong? Yes. Can we still make a wrong hire?

Sometimes, yes. This isn't a magic pill. This is a perfect solution. It is just a pivotal part of the hiring process for you to factor in. Yeah.

And one of the big, big issues there is when I've made that mistake and I've hired that person who's supposed to be that rainmaker, how do I respond?

I'm going to double down on making that person. I'm gonna keep put.

You know, if I'm somebody who's operating in immaturity and not understanding and not doing the things we're talking about, and we've seen this a hundred times, then the leader will hold on to trying to make that person work out.

And like you pointed out, while champions are walking out the door, good people are walking out the door.

That's right. You know that loyalty, loss to me as a leader of people going, why do you care more about this colossal mess of a hire than you do the rest of us in. In this team?

So last thing here, if we're looking at multiple leaders in a company we're talking about to in.

You know, it sounds as though we're talking to individual leaders, but really, what is the power of getting the entire leadership team, HR, everybody involved in systematically making this a consistent way that we hire?

Well, if you're doing that, it's. You're giving your hiring process culture, you're giving, you're aligned, you're unified, that this is how we hire, this is what we look for. It isn't what the sales department looks for. And the in.

Well, HR values that. But operations doesn't really, doesn't really care because the company needs a hiring process to go about finding, recruiting and finding and training and onboarding the best people.

It doesn't need to be based on just leader preference. Because when I see things like that, I think, where else are you guys not on the same page?

It's like the leadership team has got to be aligned, especially on how we go about finding people. Yeah. So to wrap this up, compare. Because I think as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking of all of our leaders that are listening to this going, man, this is good information.

This is good information. Know we talked about the cost, but contrast the two. Contrast what we see because we work with thousands of business leaders.

Contrast the-- the company that doesn't have this as DNA in their hiring process compared to the company that does. Well, the one that does have it in their process. Those leaders tend to be more people focused leaders. They value this kind of information.

They value people. They value understanding how people think and react, make decisions the way that they do so that they can better set those people up for success.

So fundamentally, those leaders have those basics, leaders that don't. And they're more transactional, they're more task oriented, they're more results oriented, and they overlook these kinds of details, deal with other consequences.

It's not to say those teams can't find success. Yeah. But the amount of relational issues that happen, the amount of unmet expectations is off the rails because it's a.

There's head scratchers. It's. It's like, why are they doing what they're doing? Why aren't they, why aren't they doing this, why are they going off doing that?

Why aren't they following this? Why do I have to repeat myself over and over and over? And it's all these sets of headaches and frustrations because we've got a misalignment of expectations to people at scale.

And now look at all those pain points and all those issues and all those fires that the leaders are constantly having to deal with and put out.

How much does-- So I thought I was done there. Let me keep going. How much does it affect?

Like, I'm thinking of you back in the days with the Air Force and hiring and, and, you know, before you got all this information.

And I'm thinking, what's the difference of personal stress and how that affected you, you know, in that process? I mean, you were at the Pentagon dealing with these things before, really digging into this information.

What's the difference of how it affected you personally compared to how you are now? I find that a lack of understanding creates a lot of stress because it's like, I don't know what's going on.

I don't know why they're doing that way. I don't know why they're reacting these ways. I don't know why they're. The expectations are off. I don't understand why they're not understanding what I'm saying.

I don't understand why they're making decisions the way that. And because I don't understand so much. It's stressful. And then it erodes confidence because it's like, I don't know what I can give you. I don't know if I can trust you with it.

I don't know if you can handle it. There's all this, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And so what's a driven leader to do? I'll do it. Yep, I'll take it. I'll make it happen.

I'll do it. Because I just don't understand. All I see is a human. What I don't see is, is a little bit more of the Matrix, if you will, about, Aha.

This is why that's going on. This is why you're reacting that way. This is why you can't get a handle on this kind of work. And then immediately you can come up with potential solution to solve it.

Yeah, because you simply get the people better. Yeah, I think, you know, it's, it's so interesting how for us, we have insanely low turnover. I mean, we have people that have worked with us for years and years and years.

And it's just. It's fabulous. I mean, it's. I. I try to remember what it was like back in the day. I try to go back, you know, 30 years ago, and I can. I can get there, but my gosh, I would never want to go back.

I can't even imagine that. So. All right, maybe. And maybe that's indicative of the s in our personality styles that it's like, we love the stability of, like.

Yes. It's like the thing is. It's like, the thing is we have. We have great people. Yeah. Have we made mis hires, you know, in the last 13 years? Yes, definitely. Definitely.

Because we're not perfect either, and things happen and we miss stuff, and you can't hire everything out. But have we made so many phenomenal hires? That DISC's been a key part of the process every time. Totally.

Yeah. You know, it's. I just hate regret. I hate. I hate the time spent. I will spend. And this is classic high S. I will spend more time on the front side so that I don't have to redo on the backside. Right.

It's just such a. I hate that process. So this stuff works. It is, you know, it is not optional as far as we are concerned. It's absolutely essential.

Well, brother, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. This was fun guiding and directing through all this. I think this is a powerful episode. I love that we hit this.

You know, maybe at some point we need to hit the Values in the hiring process. That'd be fun. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Action Steps (00:38:44)

Well, folks, we have got some action steps for you. So, number one, you have got to stop and review your current hiring process.

If you're just somebody who is just hiring on resumes, just hiring on interviews, you don't have any tools in the process that helps you to understand the person who's going to be in the seat.

Does it align? Does if, you know, we don't just do DISC, we do DISC and Values. But, you know, Values is a much more complicated discussion. You have to be doing DISC at the bare minimum.

If you don't have those, you know, look through your process, find out what must change. Number two, use DISC. Now, we are not telling you that every single person that comes into your interview process needs a DISC. Right.

You will get to a point, as you're doing this over and over again, that you can wait till you get down to, like, the last two, maybe three people in the process.

Let's say you had 10 people in the process. Don't give them all a profile. You don't need that. Go through your initial.

Well, we probably should dig deeper on a good hiring episode as well, of how you shouldn't just do two interviews, that you should actually have a longer process. But that's another episode.

Make sure that you're going through those early processes to weed out the people that won't fit the role.

If you did what Joel said and you wrote down who should fit the role before you ever interviewed somebody, then you're going to know in the process early on, and then you're making sure those last couple of candidates do absolutely fit.

Number three, define your cultural Values and personality. Fits for every role. Yes. For every single role. Even people you've already got in place. Take a look. Maybe they don't fit.

We have had, you know, when we went through Covid, it was funny. We had at least one team member that when we pulled them out of their role because, you know, we were keeping people hired and we didn't need them in the specific role.

We moved them into another role. They blossomed. It was incredible to see. I think we may have had two. I know he at least had one Joel, but it may have been two.

But it was just a great shift of, like, man, you do better over here. Right? They still had a great personality style. For the previous role. We just created a role that was even better fit for them.

So take a look at the people that you have. Do they currently fit? If they don't currently fit, you know, then maybe we need to look for a better place for them.

Right. Maybe they're the right people, but just in the wrong seat.

Number four, get trained or work with somebody who understands disc and how to apply it to your hiring. Somebody who can walk you through what all of that looks like.

Number five, do not settle. Make sure that you're hiring intentionally, even if it takes longer.

Folks, don't make the mistake of putting a warm body in a seat, and then three months later, you have to get rid of them.

Conclusion (00:41:44)

So as leaders, we are called to steward our teams well. And that means being intentional. That means, you know, making sure we understand who we're bringing on.

Remember, like, you know, in 1st Samuel 16, we're not just hiring appearances or accomplishments. We're hiring people. We're hiring hearts.

We're hiring minds. We're hiring behavioral patterns. Right. So big thanks to Joel once again. Thanks for joining me, brother. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. When you start communicating based on how your people are wired. You don't just get better results, you get stronger relationships, you get higher trust, you get a healthier team culture.

And here's two people that are talking about it who absolutely love our culture. We love our people. Now, if you're wondering how to start doing everything that we've talked about today, here is your first step.

In the notes. Somewhere in there. Once again, I'm not that techie. I need to learn this stuff. But in the notes, we have got a free DISC bundle. It's called Understand, Lead, Communicate: The DISC quick guide.

So this is a short resource that will help you better understand yourself and others so you can lead, communicate and influence more effectively. Start there. I promise you, you'll be on the path to solving the communication issues that might be holding your team back.

Well, folks, that is all the time that we have for today. We really hope that you've enjoyed this and we hope that this has helped you immensely.

As always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.