(upbeat music)
- When you hire someone,
how do you know it's a right culture fit?
Like do you have them go through a certain procedure or,
- We do a lot of things depending on the position
and what it is but often times
we'll do what's called the group interview.
- Okay.
- And this is really a sociological experiment.
- Okay.
- So what we do is we may have
10 people apply for the same position.
- Okay.
- So let's say we're hiring for social media manager
and (mumbles) will say show up
at nine o'clock at our office.
So 10 people come in they're sitting in our lobby.
The first thing we do is get the receptionist
a clipboard and a piece of paper.
And their job is the interview has began
as soon as they walk through that door.
They think they're waiting to go in the interview, right?
- But you're watching them.
- And the receptionist (mumbles)
- I love that.
- So the person comes in and goes,
you know parking is horrible out here,
I can't believe, these directions suck.
Oh well John kind has an attitude,
is not very kind to people.
And then you have the other guy that's like,
oh did you need a chair here?
Let me give you my chair.
Oh Sam's really polite.
So before they're off-camera,
at least they think they're off-camera,
before they even walk in the door,
we're writing down observations about these people, okay.
So before they even go in the interview room.
Then you go in the interview room,
you have you divide them into team exercises.
Let's say there's 10 people,
you do three groups of three or four.
You give them an exercise,
you say, I want you to figure this out.
Now, here's the deal you can't fake who you are.
And so what we're looking for is to see
what kind of team player they are.
So we said here's the exercise,
you know it's a scenario question.
They go off and we have people watch 'em.
And you have one guy say,
and we say elect your leader to present your case.
And you have one guy say,
I think I should be the leader.
You guys, don't you think I should be the leader?
Or if you have the other guy say,
Yeah, everybody has a good point here, you know,
Joe I think you did a really good job
'cause you'd comment on this.
Sally you did a great job.
I think you would both be a better leader than me, you know.
- Leadership quality.
- Yeah, so you see that humility come out.
So they're observing them in this real life exercise.
- I love this.
So you're getting teamwork, you're getting humility,
you're getting if they're egocentric,
if they're a narcissist all the stuff.
- From there you eliminate a whole bunch of people.
- You eliminate so many people and then,
so you layer,
you layer when they come in the receptionist,
you layer all these other things out.
And there's all kinds of tricks that you do.
One of the last questions we ask them is,
what is the hardest decision you've ever made in your life?
And you try to pick a person in the room
that you know has some depth of emotion.
And you know we've had people say,
well I had to disconnect life support from my mom, you know.
And it's a really emotionally charged question.
If people tend to be more vulnerable and give you that,
you think there's some depth to this person, okay.
- Yes.
If a person says, oh it's choosing between
history and English in college.
You know, is that really the hardest
decision you have to make?
- And they also maybe, either they're not being vulnerable
or they have not gone through a lot ups and downs.
- Right.
They've not developed themselves,
- The character.
- Or they're not secure enough about themselves
that they're gonna give you that deep answer.
- Right.
- So that group interview gives you
so many layers of information
that at the end of the day,
you're hiring for character and qualities
and integrity and you know,
teamwork and all those things.
- We're not even talking about their skill sets.
- No.
But see they were so focused on,
what's my answer gonna be?
Am I answering the question right?
If I got enough talk time,
have I presented myself right?
They don't even know that 90% of the interview
was being conveyed without them even knowing
they were being interviewed.
- And let's say they pass that, then what's the next step?
- Then we can get into skill sets.
Then we can say whatever the job is,
if you're social, media person we may say,
hey what's your experience in YouTube?
Or what have you be done here or whatever?
If they're sales person you may say,
hey, how many units have you sold or whatever.
- Right.
- Then we can get into skill set.
But see that first step is cultural.
If you miss there,
even if they're really smart person,
you put the bad seed in the bucket, you know.
And so you gotta get that cultural piece
interview for that very first.
- And I know like one thing that you do
which I don't think how to implement is,
you actually pay people to leave.
- Well, we don't pay 'em to leave, we invite them to leave.
At our annual meeting at EPIC (mumbles)
- Three-day
- Three-day meeting.
EPIC stands for empower people inspire consciousness.
In my first opening address,
I invite people to leave the company.
And what I tell them is,
hey, if you're not living your most passionate life,
you know, I want you to go do what you wanna do.
As long as don't compete with me.
- Yes.
- But if you wanna go raise llamas in Yellowstone Park,
- Go for it.
- Do it, you know, that's great.
And I will celebrate and I will give you a party
and I'll make contacts for you and everything else.
I've done this for about 13, 14 years.
The very first year I did it, five reports left.
- Wow.
- The fifth time the person came in,
I just put my head in my hands and I said,
I'm the stupidest CEO in the universe.
You know, all these people have done it,
now I gotta go out and celebrate.
I'm just gonna stay in my office,
I'm gonna pretend like this person
didn't say anything, you know.
And then I thought about, I said no.
I have to honor my word and do my commitment.
Very seldom do people leave now.
But the point of this is two things.
One, I get immensely passionate
about helping people meet their dreams.
And, you know, at the end of my days on this planet
that's one of the things that I could hang my hat on
and say I helped all these people.
That's an immensely important for me.
But beyond that, I only want people and ages
living in my company, that are saying,
man I'm living the dream.
This is a phenomenal company, phenomenal job.
I never want someone to feel I'm imprisoned
to my employer.
I'm a prisoner in this company.
I can't leave because of my paycheck or whatever.
- Yes.
- So sometimes people just need permission Dan.
They just need, you know,
maybe it's a parental thing you just say,
you can leave.
- And then when they say that,
it's almost, like you said,
if you want to help them achieve their dreams,
achieve their goals, maybe it's not through
your company, maybe they're doing something else.
- We're not for everybody.
And so you gotta recognize that and you have to say,
okay, how can i facilitate this for you?
And that freedom, that mindset,
I think is so refreshing for people.
I think people look at that and go,
wow, that's a refreshing attitude.
- Yeah.
- So I just did it last week nobody left,
no one's given us notice.
- Yes.
- So, now it doesn't happen so often because people know,
hey, one of the job requirements
is to be passionate about this company.
- And (mumbles) I know that you're very big on training.
- Yeah.
- We're talking about one of your (mumbles)
is not 100 hours but 100 days.
Now one of the things that I do, which is very similar,
almost 90% of people who join my company
they have to go through my training,
my students one form or another.
Because I found out when they've gone through a training
they know the transformation that I provide
and they know what I'm about,
they know what I stand for, what I'm against, right?
What I stand against.
So I find that that's 10 times easier than finding
someone who's already very good but low culture, right?
- Right.
- High performance with low culture.
share with us what do you do?
Like 100 days of training that is almost unheard of.
- Well, you know for managers in our industry,
with people were getting, you know,
other companies, competitive companies
we're getting three days of training, five days of training
and then they throw people kind of into the fire.
- Yes.
- You have to think as an employer,
it's a very expensive endeavor to interview people,
to train them, to go through the process.
- Yes.
- I gotta do everything I possibly can,
- Right.
- To make this person successful.
- Right.
- And I just don't think people can be successful
in three or five days, you know, in a management capacity.
So what I,
decided to do was like,
hey we're gonna get you 100 days of training,
we're gonna get you a partner that, you know,
like a mentor and a brother or sister
that you can train with.
And, you know, even after that 100 days
we're gonna bring you back
and we're gonna send you through graduate work.
Because I think sometimes people get on the job
and then they're like, oh they're trained.
But think about it, when you go into a new field
or a new company, you'll pick up 70, 80%
of the first 90 days.
But then you have the basis to ask
better questions, you know, nine months later.
Because you're learning the acronyms,
you're learning the culture (mumbles) these things.
So you're almost better served
to send a person back to training
nine months later or twelve months later,
they're like well now I have context.
(mumbles) I can say, well now I know
how the day-to-day goes.
So I can ask you what would you do here?
And that's more scenario, situational kind of thing.
So, you know, we're developing
training programs around that.
We just hired it a new corporate development person
for executive training.
So I think, you know, as employers,
one of things we have to do is
how do we build success in our employees?
And it's not by throwing them to the wolves.
It's giving them this great basis of Education
and understanding and then bringing them back
and say, okay now you have a basis,
now we can do the masters work.
- Yes.
And even one of the policies that I have
because we are an education company,
- Right.
- So let's say when we go to training and seminars,
like I go and then my team would go with me,
they pay for their own training.
- Wow.
- I don't pay for their own training.
So when I go to an event,
let's say in a couple months we are going to an event,
we might have like 20 people going.
And then everybody asks me the question,
well how do you get,
not even how do you get them to even to be here,
'cause most of them they don't even wanna be here.
Like, they're here, they're here to learn.
I say, they just, they pay to be here.
- Yeah.
- I'm here to learn, they're here to learn.
- That's awesome.
They must really believe in your advice then.
- And I find that 'cause,
if we are a company about education,
how can we talk about education
when our employees are not constantly
growing and investing themselves.
- Yeah. - It makes no sense, right?
- Yeah. - How can we offer someone,
hey, you know, invest in my course
but our team we never invest in ourselves.
- Yeah.
- That to me is a hypocrite, right? It doesn't make sense.
And I show them, I say,
hey, you know, look I invest hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of dollars
in my own education every year.
They know, I'm going to this event.
I'm investing this course.
I'm constantly learning, hiring consultant.
And when they can see that is because I,
the philosophy I taught them is this,
whatever you learn, that's yours to keep.
That's your skill.
You're working within my company to add value
but I couldn't take that skill away from you.
That's yours.
And I just find that when they pay to be there,
the more you pay the more you pay attention,
totally different thing.
(mumbles) - You gotta stay in the game.
- Yeah, 'cause most people
they look to these (mumbles) training,
oh man can't wait to, you know,
finish and we'll go to the pub and go drink.
No, they're like, taking notes.
'cause they paid to be here,
like they're taking notes.
That's one of the things that I do.
- Yeah that's awesome