In this episode of the Throttle Up Leadership Podcast, host Dr John Dentico engages in a comprehensive conversation with Dr. Michael Neal, Founder and CEO of Build My Team and a practicing optometrist in Holly, Pennsylvania. Dr. Neal shares his journey of revolutionizing the hiring process after experiencing repeated hiring failures that stunted the growth of his private practice. Inspired by elite organizations like Disney and the Four Seasons, Dr. Neal's data-driven hiring system, which prioritizes core performance capabilities over experience, has successfully served clients in various healthcare professions across the US and Canada. They delve into the importance of a service-based mindset, the unexpected benefits seen in hiring fresh talent, and the critical role of assessing natural strengths. The discussion also highlights the psychological and emotional impacts of proper job fit, the costs of turnover, and the profound ways that prioritizing employee happiness and strengths can enhance productivity and work satisfaction.
00:00 Welcome to Throttle Up Leadership Podcast
00:04 Introducing Dr. Michael Neal and Build My Team
01:47 Personal Background and Influences
02:40 The Breaking Point: Reimagining the Hiring Process
04:44 The Build My Team Approach
08:33 Values and Mindset in Hiring
29:35 The Cost of Turnover and Importance of Fit
30:50 Final Thoughts and Reflections
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr John Dentico (00:05):
Welcome to the Throttle Up Leadership Podcast.
Our theme for 2025 is The Futureof Work: Meaning is the New Money!
In a world shaped by rapid innovation andconstant change the pursuit of purpose
and impact has never been more important.
I'm Dr John Dentico your host,bringing over 30 years of experience
(00:28):
in leadership, strategic thinkingand purpose-driven innovation.
Here we tackle the pressing challengesof our time-from the rise of
artificial intelligence to the growingneed for meaning in the workplace.
Together we'll uncover how leaderscan ethically integrate AI to enhance
decision-making and keep humanityat the heart of their organizations.
(00:51):
Remember amidst all thetechnological advancements in the
end, it's always about the people.
This podcast is your resource foractionable tools, thought provoking
discussions and inspiring stories.
It's time to go beyond leadershipdevelopment and focus on leadership
(01:11):
impact-creating workplaces where peoplethrive, innovation flourishes and
meaning truly becomes the new currency.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Now, let's Throttle Up anddive into today's episode.
Hello and welcome to theThrottle Up Leadership Podcast.
So glad you could join me.
With me this morning is Dr.Michael Neal the founder and CEO
(01:37):
of Build My Team, and a practicingoptometrist in Holly, Pennsylvania.
Frustrated by years of hiringmissteps that stalled the
growth of his private practice.
Dr. Neal set out to reimaginethe hiring process, modeling it
after elite organizations likeDisney and the Four Seasons.
(01:57):
What began as a personal solutionevolved into a proven hiring system.
Today Build My Team serves clients acrosseight healthcare professions in over 40
US states and Canada, helping medicaland dental professionals hire smarter,
reduce turnover, and build thriving teams.
(02:18):
Dr. Neal's breakthrough came when hestopped prioritizing experience and
instead focused on identifying coreperformance capabilities like learning,
agility, mindset, and natural strengths.
His data-driven approach to hiring hashelped transform practices by getting the
right people in the right seats, leadingto greater retention, profitability,
(02:43):
and peace of mind for providers.
Through his work, Dr. Neal empowershealthcare leaders to solve hiring
challenges, assess team strengths andbuild high performing teams so they can
stop firefighting and start scaling.
And I am truly pleased to have himhere with me this morning as a guest.
Good morning, Mike.
How are you?
Dr Michael Neal (03:03):
I'm doing fantastic, John.
Thanks for having me.
Dr John Dentico (03:06):
Great to have you here.
let me start off.
I'm trying to add a personaltouch this year, Mike, as I, go
down the, podcasting pathway.
Tell me about yourself.
Where did you grow up and whatwere some of the fundamental
influences in your life?
Dr Michael Neal (03:22):
Grew up in a tiny little town of 500 people in Western Canada.
We were so small, didn'thave a traffic light.
My high school grad class was18 people, believe it or not.
That is surprising for folksthe things I took out of that is
that there's a really incredibleculture in a small town like that.
I describe it as us and we versus Iand me at the time, we were all a team.
(03:47):
When you live in an area like that,whether you'll like it or not, you
really ha you can't do it yourself.
You just absolutely can't do it yourself.
I think that, unknowingly at the timeprovided a perfect launch point for me to
be so interested in leadership and teams.
Dr John Dentico (04:02):
Well, Many times.
where you come from really, helpsyou set a path for the future.
Dr Michael Neal (04:06):
it sure does.
Dr John Dentico (04:07):
Let me ask you this, Mike, you created Build
My Team to solve your own hiringchallenges in private practice.
What was the breaking point that madeyou say there has to be a better way?
Dr Michael Neal (04:18):
Oh boy.
we had a fire in, 2008 and the entirepractice burnt right down to the ground.
Yeah, that was tough.
very, very difficult.
We had some team members that stayedwith us, some that didn't, and we were
Unknowingly hiring, poor performers.
We didn't have a system toidentify high performers.
(04:41):
We were interviewing folks, using resumes,you know, work history based approach.
And, you know, John, it was terrible.
We got terrible results.
We didn't know we were doing it wrongbecause we didn't know what right was.
We didn't know what success looked like.
There's that old quote, I don'tknow if it's Vince Lombardi or not.
The man at the bottom of the mountaindoesn't know what the view from the
(05:02):
top looks like And here it was wavingup to the top from the very bottom.
Dr John Dentico (05:09):
So what was the initial thing you took a step back.
you saw this is not working for us.
what was the first step that youtook to change your hiring practice?
Dr Michael Neal (05:21):
Well, before even taking a step, I was in executive
coaching at the time and there thegroup that I was in, with, it's called
Strategic Coach, wonderful organization.
They had a team that was very similarto the type of team I wanted and
everybody was absolutely terrific.
Supreme customer service.
Very detail oriented.
(05:41):
they unknowingly built a stellar teamfor healthcare, which was the problem
I was trying to solve at the time.
After being exposed to that, I took a lookat how They created their teams, talked
candidly with them and got some of theirapproaches and then took a look at how
they were doing it, in detail, modeledthat, looked at how the Four Seasons
were doing it, Disney, is, quite theorganization in terms of how they get
(06:04):
their team members, perpetually happy.
Same with the Four Seasons.
and that's what I wanted ahappy, high performing team.
Dr John Dentico (06:12):
one of your biggest insights, as I understand,
was shifting away from hiringbased solely on experience.
What performance factors do you nowprioritize that predict long-term success?
Dr Michael Neal (06:26):
Well, the best way I can think of to describe this
is the fit of the candidate to thefit that the business requires.
in thinking in termsof, mitts versus gloves.
Like you, you put your hand into amit, well, it fits you on your thumb
and it fits you on your fingers.
Kind of, like one size fits everybody.
(06:48):
You're not gonna be a performerif you need to use your hands
all day long wearing mitts.
then imagine a pair of glovesthat's a much better fit.
Each finger has, its own little home.
Then imagine a pair of gloves that arecustom fit for you with special materials
so that you have complete dexterity.
I'm getting towards a surgicalreference here where you can wear
gloves and have, the virtually thesame level of use of your hands
(07:12):
that, if you weren't wearing gloves.
And what I mean by that is the fit.
So in a business when you have somebodywho is asked to show up for work every day
and be someone else, be somebody differentthan who they are, be what the business
requires, but not who they really are.
(07:33):
It's work.
It's cognitive overload.
It is emotional overload.
Why don't these people stay,like, why do they leave the job?
I can't figure out why they leave the job.
Of course they leave the jobbecause it's not for them.
It's flat out not for them, and there'sreally no way that I've ever found in
an interview process to identify that.
(07:54):
So the Build My Team approach is to use,an automated system for our clients.
We write the job description, publishit to 20 different job boards.
We get oodles of people apply, and we'regonna reject about 97% of them on average.
How do we know who's theperson to pick and who's not?
It's through our assessment process.
it's completely automated.
(08:15):
So at the end of that process,our software can give a thumbs up
on the candidates that can do agreat job, the performers for the
position, it's really that detailed.
Now we're not making decisionsbased on asking them flat out,
Hey John, you good at this job?
Of course not.
You know, everybody'sgonna say yes to that.
It's far more detailed and insightful,and it's based upon a psychological,
(08:38):
subset called psychometrics.
So when we get those results, weknow if they can do the job or not.
And it's based almost primarily ontheir speed of learning and their
natural strengths and talents.
And then some, what we call our knockoutquestions like, do they live 60 miles
from a job that pays 15 bucks an hour?
(09:00):
how long are they planningto stay there for?
Can they actually work thehours that your business needs?
Yes or no?
You'd be shocked at how many people,don't pass our process based solely
on they can't work those hours.
This is an all in approach thatis completely data driven to have
our software make the decision onwho can do the job and who cannot.
(09:23):
There's no preferences.
There's no, nepotism.
One of the buzzwords now isDEI, that's a lightning rod.
our software doesn't care.
It doesn't have an opinion.
can this person do the jobexceptionally well or not?
We don't know if they're male or female.
We don't know what race they are.
(09:43):
We don't know if they'retall, short in between.
None of that matters isthis person a performer?
Yes or no?
if it's a yes, they get a thumbs up.
That's our approach.
Dr John Dentico (09:53):
I have to ask this question because it's something I've
focused on in all my leadership workparticularly in the last couple of years.
So I've gotta ask this question
anywhere along the line whenyou're considering people,
Dr Michael Neal (10:08):
Mm-hmm.
Dr John Dentico (10:09):
Is there a way that you can make a judgement based on the
individual values of an individual as itcompares to the organization's values?
Dr Michael Neal (10:22):
Oh, interesting question.
We use a tool where we're assessingtheir mindset, and that's our first pass.
Do they have, a service-based mindset?
Not necessarily a values match, butare these people, the kind of folks who
want to contribute on a daily basis?
Are they interested inhelping people I get a lot of
pushback on that from clients.
what do you mean?
(10:43):
Are they interested in helping people?
Isn't every no.
John and listeners.
Most people in the world don'tlean towards helping folks and
serving others, believe it or not.
That's something that especially comingfrom a healthcare background, we think
everybody wants to help other people.
The main thing nowadays, withthe types of folks applying is
(11:05):
they want to make a difference.
They're not looking forjobs that don't have impact.
That is one of the biggest differencesto attract people to these positions
they have to make an impact.
I'll use a healthcarepractice as an example.
Your impact is baked in.
you can't not make an impact.
You're helping people all day long.
(11:25):
You're improving lives all day long.
Certainly, there'll be some exceptionsto that, but you throw an 80/20
rule at it, you can hit 95%, not80, on helping people all day long.
And that is extremely satisfyingfor the type of candidate that
we put into those positions.
That's kind of our bigger picture filter,if you will, on the values and what people
(11:47):
are prioritizing, for their positions.
Dr John Dentico (11:49):
So interesting to me.
Dr Michael Neal (11:51):
Yeah, it is, It's fun.
Dr John Dentico (11:53):
Over the course of the last two years, I've really
focused on the three things thatpeople in any industry are looking for.
Number one is values alignment.
Does the organization care aboutthe same things I care about?
Number two is being involvedin the decision making
(12:15):
processes of the organization.
Do I have impact?
Dr Michael Neal (12:19):
Right.
Dr John Dentico (12:20):
My theme this year is The Future of Work, Meaning is the New Money.
Dr Michael Neal (12:24):
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
Dr John Dentico (12:26):
So the whole idea is do they extract meaning from
the things that they do, are theyinvolved, do they make a difference?
And the third one is they wanttraining and learning that
advances their professional career.
So they may go away for a couple ofdays and learn some new technique
to me, those are the real primethings of what people want.
(12:46):
They don't wanna just comeget a paycheck anymore.
COVID completely changed the mindset on
Dr Michael Neal (12:51):
Yes.
Dr John Dentico (12:53):
The idea that, hey, listen, I just wanna get a paycheck.
No, I need to have a values drivenapproach to what I'm gonna do at work.
So, it's very interesting.
I'd love to get your comments on that.
Dr Michael Neal (13:05):
Well, two.
Dr John Dentico (13:06):
the big three,
Dr Michael Neal (13:07):
So on the learning side we measure their speed of learning.
the candidates we bring through buildmy team, learn, quickly, not too
quickly 'cause those folks get boredand leave their job, but we don't,
hire people based on experience.
We bring people in generally thatare new to the, to the field.
They learn incredibly quicklyand you, and people might be
(13:28):
thinking, oh, I've gotta train them.
Yeah, you do.
The great news is they're trainable.
Surprise.
Like we, we know with 97%certainty that these people
will, will do a, a fantastic job.
and you say, well, Idon't want to train them.
Well, you're gonna have to anyway,because a person coming in with experience
has to be untrained and then trained,which isn't double the amount of work.
(13:49):
It can be triple, quadruple, quintuple.
It doesn't work.
on the COVID side.
I could not agree with youmore about the meaning.
I see this on a day-to-daybasis in our practice.
One of the things I love to do isI, I'll give you an example and
I'm allowed to use this publicly.
We had, 12-year-old autistic kidcame in in January, regular exam.
(14:15):
Photos were taken.
Optic nerves in the back of his eye,looked normal, came back in either
June or July, couldn't walk properly.
had all kinds of clumsiness,slurring his speech.
The parents were trying tofigure out what was going on,
brought him in for an eye exam.
For some reason, he did his exam, assoon as I sat down and saw the pictures,
(14:35):
my heart just fell to the floor.
This, the, the kid's optic nerveslook like little volcanoes.
He had an extraordinarilyserious life-threatening
condition, extremely rare.
He did not have it at all inJanuary, developed over the
course of six, seven months.
To give you an example of how seriousthis was, I told the folks they have
(14:55):
to go home, or I'm sorry, they haveto go immediately to the children's
hospital, two plus hour drive.
and, They, there was essentiallyno choice in this matter.
They went home, packed abag, went to the hospital.
it took three days to planthat fellow's neurosurgery.
That's how complex it was.
Now, why am I telling you this story?
(15:16):
Because after I was done being horrifiedand trying my best not to cry, I
took the entire team aside and theyknew something awful, was going on.
The entire show stopped to help this kid.
I took them aside and said,look, here's what's going on.
I showed them the pictures and I hadpermission to do this, I said you don't
(15:37):
know what you're looking at, but thisis one of the most awful things an eye
doctor can ever see, especially in a kid.
They were just shocked, like tears.
we have an office full of, a lot of momsof young kids, so people were just crying.
I showed them the pictures and Isaid, yeah, I got the credit for all
of this, but you answered the phone,
(15:59):
I figured out how to run their insuranceso they would come in for the exam.
You got them scheduled, you were thetechnician, and I'll be blunt here on an
autistic kid, sometimes a lot of practiceskind of push the can down the road.
As far as looking atthe backs of their eyes.
The kid would've died had myteam not taken the pictures.
They got the pictures and so I wentto everybody in the building and
(16:23):
I said, here's your contribution.
To saving Leo's life?
Well, there's not a dry eye inthe place, including my own.
Nobody went home that day lookingfor 50 cents an hour more,
Dr John Dentico (16:39):
I agree.
I've been blessed with great podcastguests, people who have endured
amazing trials and tribulations.
And I've come out of it withthis newfound recognition.
one of the key things organizations,should hire for is heart.
(17:01):
we know what heart looks like, right?
you're rooting for yourfavorite football team.
They're down by three touchdowns,there's five minutes to go in the game,
and they come back and win the game.
And you say, how in God'sname did they do that?
It's incredible when everybody looksat them and says, you know what?
That team has heart.
(17:21):
And I think what I'm learning is, theability of people to get through tough
times to deal with the uncomfortableor the downright, horrific and
challenging are the people thatwe should be looking at to hire.
Because They know how to get things done.
(17:42):
They know how to get through stuff.
there is this notion, Mike,that there's fight or flight.
You know this, right?
That a human has two choices, fightor flight, and the answer is no.
There's a third choice.
And the third choice is dig in.
Dig in and endure.
Sometimes you can't fight andsometimes you can't run away and
(18:02):
you just have to deal with it.
You see this in people who are in jobsthey really don't like, but they're
the breadwinner and they're puttingfood on the table and holding it
down, to me that's a very interestingperspective and it brought to mind this
child, Leo, who I hope is still with us
Dr Michael Neal (18:21):
Doing much better.
Dr John Dentico (18:22):
Wonderful to hear.
And you say, wow, this young man hasgotten through some pretty interesting
things I had a guest named Tamzin Hall onwho runs something called a Neurodiversity
Academy in the uk, and we talked about.
Just be open to people.
You know, Leo may be 12 or 13 now, butwhen Leo's 20, 25, he, he very well may be
(18:43):
an incredible asset to some organization,in his ability not only to get through
things, but to really use his, naturaltalents to deal with an organization.
I'd love to get your reflection on this.
Dr Michael Neal (18:56):
Well, everybody has them, right?
that's the most amazing thing.
you may think in terms of,well, I'm not good at that.
I'm not good at this.
Okay, you might be right.
What are you good at?
most people have no idea it sounds simple.
Why don't you have any idea?
'cause it comes so simple to you,you don't even think it's special.
Dr John Dentico (19:13):
Right.
Dr Michael Neal (19:14):
So when we're, working with these candidates and they
run through our assessment process,they get a copy of the results.
That's part of the Good Karmapay it forward approach we
take with our candidates.
but it really does in a shocking way.
It tells us how few people have anyclue whatsoever what they're good at.
(19:35):
Folks out there in real life withoutthe Build My Team process are applying
for jobs because of proximity, becauseof time sensitivity, because they
have a friend who said it was notlike the amount of actual thought and
research put into job applications now.
(19:57):
Oh, good grief.
If it's five or 10% of what it was yearsago, I'd be surprised it's more of an
automated thing where I'm gonna clickthe button until I get an interview.
That's the reinforcement on thewhole job application process.
from an employer standpoint, to call it acolossal waste of time is underselling it.
(20:19):
Perhaps galactic.
the amount of people, in our process, welose approximately 50% of people after
they receive a text on their cell phone.
they get it within five secondsof clicking the applied button
to the jobs on the job boards.
Why do we lose that many?
We asked 'em to dosomething, click a link.
(20:39):
You know what?
That something is clicking a link,which everybody who has a cell phone is
naturally inclined to be capable of doing.
We lose half.
They don't want to click a link, It'snot the clicking link that's a problem.
It's the, we asked you to takeaction to see if you're the
right candidate for the job.
(21:00):
Well, they just tapped out.
They know they're not.
imagine in real life without the BuildMy Team process, you, you take 50%
of your candidates, they don't wantto even come in for an interview.
You know, they don't wantanything to do with this.
And that was one of the most shockingthings to me as our system started to
scale is why are you even applying?
(21:22):
Why'd you hit the button if youdon't want to get off your butt?
You know what I mean?
but that's half, yeah.
Dr John Dentico (21:28):
it's so interesting to me because the other side of this is, and,
credit to you and how you do this is thatif you give someone a report, feedback,
and you say, well, you're really not theright kind of person we're looking for
in this job, but they get some feedback.
That's a great thing because just becausethey don't fit your organization doesn't
(21:49):
mean they can't go someplace else andlook for something more in line with what
they need and what they're really good at.
Dr Michael Neal (21:57):
Right.
And taking that one step further, whatwe found, in our own practice, because
we have exact records of everythingthat happens, was that almost 50% who
applied for Job A were a better fitfor job B. if we had two jobs open,
They have no idea what they're good at.
(22:18):
So what our build my team processdoes is it allows us to say, okay, you
applied for job A. You'd be fantasticat job B. What do you think about job B?
Well, they all say yes, theydon't care which job it's.
They, they, they really don't.
what they want in our particularhiring environment is they want to
work indoors with air conditioning,a computer people, and, get a solid
(22:40):
lunch every day versus standing on theside of the road as a road flagger,
holding a sign in the baking heat.
You know, we had one person, a whileago, she joined our front desk team.
She was ecstatic about the frontdesk and we said, well, sometimes
patients get upset with you.
And she just laughed.
I remember she just laughed.
She said, I used to work at adeli counter at the grocery store.
(23:01):
Is anybody gonna throwham in my face today?
I said, well, probably not, won'trule it out, but probably not.
and that to her, like a littlebit of people, not so wonderful
people interaction was nothingbecause it was vastly different
than what she was used to.
Dr John Dentico (23:19):
Yeah, it's so interesting.
Let me ask you this.
I think I'm sensing this, so, you know,please correct me this system that the,
software system that you use, it soundslike there's an AI integration with it.
is that a fair statement?
Dr Michael Neal (23:34):
we've got some secret sauce.
There's no doubt about it.
Dr John Dentico (23:36):
I'm not asking for state secrets here.
Dr Michael Neal (23:38):
The AI doesn't make the final decisions.
the algorithm gives the thumbs up onthe people we know can do the job.
But there's one step past that we sendthose finalists a video interview.
It's a one way video interview.
They get to record it on theirphone and submit it, and then our
team watches that video interview.
The results aren't released to thepractice or our clients per se.
(23:59):
But what we're looking for, and we don't,again, we don't care what they look like.
We don't care about the male female race.
I don't care if they're green andwith little antennas on their head.
None of that stuff matters.
What matters is how they're gonnarepresent So we ask these questions, the
same questions on every single candidate.
Why do we do that?
Because we're looking for how theyrespond, not necessarily what they say.
(24:21):
A little bit of that, you know, 20%,perhaps 80% on the, how are they
talking like this nice and slow?
Do they talk really quickly?
Like I generally do?
Are they confident with their speech?
One of the things we saw very early onin the video interviews is people doing
a video interview, believe it or not,in their bathroom standing in the tub.
(24:48):
Yeah.
That look on your face.
I love it, John.
I love telling the story Why are theydoing a video entry standing in their tub?
Dr John Dentico (24:53):
Reverberation,
Dr Michael Neal (24:55):
Keep going.
Dr John Dentico (24:57):
where they can get away and be quiet, where they can cut
themselves off from the rest of the world.
Dr Michael Neal (25:03):
What else?
Dr John Dentico (25:05):
Let's see.
So you're in the tub, you're in your suit.
hopefully they don't have the shower on.
you sound better.
You are cut off from the rest ofthe household, give me, something.
Dr Michael Neal (25:18):
It's the best lighting in the house.
Dr John Dentico (25:19):
The best lighting in the house.
Dr Michael Neal (25:21):
He, so that threw us early on.
We didn't know what to make of that.
And then we started tosee it over and over.
The light bulb went on in ourcompany, these are winners.
these are a plus performers.
They have virtually no resources.
They are taking the tiny Little tidbitof resources that they've got and
(25:41):
they're optimizing the heck out of it.
They're making themselves lookfantastic in spite of all obstacles.
This is the type of person you wantworking in your practice or your
business or your whatever it might be.
That's the type of a plusperformer that we're looking for.
Our team has had to explainthat to client, after client.
(26:02):
But the light switch usually goes on theseare people who love to join a new company.
They love the way that we hire.
you ever want to attract Aplayers, you make it really hard
for them to get on your team.
We're very diligent and specificabout who we want on these teams.
and that's how.
(26:23):
You attract some really wonderful people.
Dr John Dentico (26:27):
You know, I read this story the other day, about a
young woman who is teaching peopleusing, I think, I'm correct in
saying she's using Google's Gemini,
Dr Michael Neal (26:38):
Mm-hmm.
Dr John Dentico (26:39):
AI system.
She's teaching people how to getthrough the AI resume screening
systems using Google's Gemini AI.
What I found so ironic to the storywas the hack for this kind of,
Ingenuity or an ability to help peopleget through the AI screening system.
(27:04):
Was that.
The resultant was that in orderto hack that, you have to do
person to person interviews again.
So in the sense, the way to hackAI is with the human element.
It's such an interesting perspective.
And I thought, wow, it's likethings are coming back around
again in a manner of speaking.
(27:24):
using the interviews wherepeople do a video recording,
which I think is really good.
is a good way to say, I wanna seethat person in front of me somehow.
Dr Michael Neal (27:33):
It's a check and balance against a purely automated
approach It works exceptionally well.
we have to learn how to use our owntool but it works exceptionally well.
that's one of the reasonswhy our fits are so specific.
Our team members stay vastlylonger than folks coming through
a regular hiring process.
(27:54):
As far as the service goes, what wetend to see with our clients is that
they hire one, maybe two people.
They're gonna test it out,maybe it's too good to be true.
All those types of things.
And then the switch flips.
And as their team members,in small businesses, people
leave no matter what happens.
It's the nature of it.
So we minimize that quite well.
(28:15):
But people will still transition.
Maybe they move, or clients.
pick up the phone or send an email.
I need a new person in this role.
Quick discussion with one ofour team members, and off we go.
Approaching the hiring process likewe do at Build My Team becomes a
competitive advantage, an enormouscompetitive advantage for our clients.
(28:40):
You can be that young woman standingdressed up, in your suit, jacket
in a tub at two in the morning.
And by 8:00 AM 9:00 AM the nextmorning you can have an interview.
That's how fast this can move.
One of the things I forgotto mention is to be decisive.
The old days of, hiring slowly andfiring fast, that's one of the lines.
(29:01):
If you hire slowly, you'redooming yourself to working
solely with C and D players.
The top performers, the A playersB plus players, like what Build My
Team brings to the table, they'relooking for decisive leadership.
They want, you know, they're magneticallyattractive to this hiring process
because they think, well, geez, if it'sthis tough for me to get on the team,
(29:22):
they must have an amazing team thatthey're working with that type of thing.
But, decisiveness is critical.
In fact, that's why we use thetexting method instead of email.
And I'll give you an exampleinternally to our own practice.
when we have a candidate come over,for a position, it's a showstopper.
The first thing that happensis we try and bring them in
that morning for an interview.
(29:44):
We still do interviews.
the reason being is we're trying topick the best person, by the Build
My Team sends over candidate wise,we know they can all do the job.
We're just trying to pick theoptimal person and see if, any of the
other candidates could do somethingelse within the practice as well.
So there's, there's always thoseside benefits, but that's how
Dr John Dentico (30:02):
Do you use your software system on professionals,
like other optometrists?
Dr Michael Neal (30:09):
We can, Just remember our approach is, to have a huge funnel to pour
as many applicants in as possible becausewe're gonna reject almost all of them.
With professionals it's done differently.
what we're looking for thereis to run the professional
candidate through our process.
It's not about rejection at that point.
(30:30):
Any licensed professional couldtechnically do the job right, as long
as you license in the state, et cetera.
what we're doing there isfinding out their strengths
natural strengths and talents.
For example, when you're trainingthat person, when they join your
team, there's some level of training.
What's their communication style like?
How do we optimize, theirtraining for their strengths?
(30:51):
And what that results in is a reallyfast ramp up relative to, here
you go, best of luck type approach.
And so that it can be used inprofessionals just differently.
Dr John Dentico (31:03):
I think one of the things that people sometimes don't realize, and
probably the HR people realize this morethan anything else, is turnover is costly.
It costs a lot of money when you'vegot turnover and you don't have
the right candidates, and youjust keep rolling through people
thinking there's always going tobe, there'll always be candidates.
I'll just have to tryto, farm my way through it.
(31:25):
But hiring and, firingcosts a lot of money,
Dr Michael Neal (31:28):
The number I have, from the industry is between $12 to $14,000.
That type of range is what it costs tobring somebody on and rather rapidly in
the span of, six, eight weeks, determineif they're going to stay exit the team.
And a lot of small businesses say,especially healthcare practices,
there's no way it costs that much.
(31:48):
Well, let's sit down andactually document it.
This was an exercise we didwithin our own practice.
Oh my goodness, I had noidea it was that expensive.
Now, with several years under the beltto Build My Team doing the hiring.
Now when we do have turnover, yousee the cost to the business in terms
of, somebody who moves or otherwiseexits the ability to do the job, It's
(32:11):
expensive and minimizing that is alwaysin the best interest of the business.
Dr John Dentico (32:17):
I agree.
we're getting close to the end here, andthis has been a wonderful conversation.
I appreciate it so much.
I'd like to ask you my world famousquestion, and that is, if you had
a magic wand and could wave it atany issue that you see in the world
in which you work, what would thatissue be and why did you choose that?
Dr Michael Neal (32:35):
Well, I think The ability to hire people using strengths
and talents scaled in mass would changethe world in ways we don't even realize.
Couldn't fathom, it's not about solelyproductivity just people happiness, like
actually going to work, for the peoplewho wanna work, being extremely happy.
(33:00):
Doing well financially 'cause that comeswith high performance and going home to
the kids, your hobbies, your cats, yourdogs, whatever, just having an average day
for an average person be so much better.
Imagine what that would do to the world.
Dr John Dentico (33:17):
I absolutely agree.
My mission statement, I talk aboutpeople living more productive,
prosperous, and meaningful life.
that's what my work is about.
how do I help people acrossthe board, whether you're the
CEO or a person just beginning.
We're trying to do things in away that gives you value, meaning,
in your life and you own it.
You earned it.
(33:38):
That's the other thing too.
it's not about deserving it.
You know, you hear that word thrownaround all the time, I deserve this.
You gotta go out and earn it, that'sthe word you don't hear much of anymore.
you gotta earn it and when you earnit, that's the thing I think people
don't understand is when you earnit, nobody can take it away from you.
It belongs to you and no one else.
Dr Michael Neal (33:57):
Couldn't agree more there.
I've said early on, in podcasts, I amanaphylactic allergic to entitlement.
I want in on our teams.
No way.
You exhibit a smidge of that we'regonna have a discussion exhibited twice.
I don't think we'reworking together anymore.
Dr John Dentico (34:15):
Yeah.
Dr Michael Neal (34:15):
it becomes carcinogenic for high performing teams in ways
that are really tough to measure.
it's just something you see fartoo often after the fact, and then
you got a real problem to clean up.
and sometimes you canand sometimes you can't.
I just don't want anythingto do with entitlement.
It doesn't work for high performing teams.
Dr John Dentico (34:36):
Yeah, I agree.
I've been blessed.
I've had some incredible podcastguests, people who have gone
through unbelievable challenges.
One, Nicky Billou.
an Iranian refugee.
During the time the Shah, fell,immigrated to Canada, is now one of
the most high performing coaches inall of Canada, another woman Naomi
(35:00):
who, at 27 years o of age was, a singlemom, four children, had no money.
Today she is, one of the topdesigners of medical spaces in the
country, headquartered in New York.
I just published one with Arius,WebsterBerry another man whose parents
(35:22):
were both incarcerated at the same time.
Not once did I ever hear the termor a sniff of the term I'm a victim,
Dr Michael Neal (35:36):
Yeah.
Dr John Dentico (35:36):
They just got up the next day and figured out what they had to do
and today are incredibly successful CEO'srunning multimillion dollar businesses.
Just incredible.
Dr Michael Neal (35:50):
My story along those lines, a fellow named James Kofi Anon,
from Ghana, he was a childhood slaveand worked on, one of the big lakes,
fishing at six years old, he didn'thave friends because they all died.
through an organizationcalled Many Hopes a charity.
I was introduced to himand he was up in our area.
(36:14):
Took him for dinner, took our, ourtwo boys, my wife for with some
friends, for dinner, and he toldstories about his childhood that were,
words don't describe the the awfulness, Idon't, I don't have words to describe it.
It was as bad as it gets, in,in that a human could endure.
(36:42):
No victim.
Just like you said, he wasn't a victimas a child of that, but he did not
maintain that through adulthood.
one of the most remarkable.
Hour and a half that I haveever spent in my entire life.
Bar none.
Dr John Dentico (36:56):
Yeah, these are the people that teach you about life.
They're the people who say thisis the way one moves through life.
I think it's very important.
Mike, this has been anincredible discussion.
I can't thank you enough for being here onthe Throttle Up Leadership podcast today.
I wish you and your practiceand, your company the greatest
(37:19):
success in the future.
Thank you so
Dr Michael Neal (37:20):
Thanks so much, John.
This is so much fun.
Dr John Dentico (37:23):
Thank you.
Welcome to the Throttle Up Leadership Podcast.
Our theme for 2025 is The Futureof Work: Meaning is the New Money!
In a world shaped by rapid innovation andconstant change the pursuit of purpose
and impact has never been more important.
I'm Dr John Dentico your host,bringing over 30 years of experience
(00:28):
in leadership, strategic thinkingand purpose-driven innovation.
Here we tackle the pressing challengesof our time-from the rise of
artificial intelligence to the growingneed for meaning in the workplace.
Together we'll uncover how leaderscan ethically integrate AI to enhance
decision-making and keep humanityat the heart of their organizations.
(00:51):
Remember amidst all thetechnological advancements in the
end, it's always about the people.
This podcast is your resource foractionable tools, thought provoking
discussions and inspiring stories.
It's time to go beyond leadershipdevelopment and focus on leadership
(01:11):
impact-creating workplaces where peoplethrive, innovation flourishes and
meaning truly becomes the new currency.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Now, let's Throttle Up anddive into today's episode.
Hello and welcome to theThrottle Up Leadership Podcast.
So glad you could join me.
With me this morning is Dr.Michael Neal the founder and CEO
(01:37):
of Build My Team, and a practicingoptometrist in Holly, Pennsylvania.
Frustrated by years of hiringmissteps that stalled the
growth of his private practice.
Dr. Neal set out to reimaginethe hiring process, modeling it
after elite organizations likeDisney and the Four Seasons.
(01:57):
What began as a personal solutionevolved into a proven hiring system.
Today Build My Team serves clients acrosseight healthcare professions in over 40
US states and Canada, helping medicaland dental professionals hire smarter,
reduce turnover, and build thriving teams.
(02:18):
Dr. Neal's breakthrough came when hestopped prioritizing experience and
instead focused on identifying coreperformance capabilities like learning,
agility, mindset, and natural strengths.
His data-driven approach to hiring hashelped transform practices by getting the
right people in the right seats, leadingto greater retention, profitability,
(02:43):
and peace of mind for providers.
Through his work, Dr. Neal empowershealthcare leaders to solve hiring
challenges, assess team strengths andbuild high performing teams so they can
stop firefighting and start scaling.
And I am truly pleased to have himhere with me this morning as a guest.
Good morning, Mike.
How are you?
Dr Michael Neal (03:03):
I'm doing fantastic, John.
Thanks for having me.
Dr John Dentico (03:06):
Great to have you here.
let me start off.
I'm trying to add a personaltouch this year, Mike, as I, go
down the, podcasting pathway.
Tell me about yourself.
Where did you grow up and whatwere some of the fundamental
influences in your life?
Dr Michael Neal (03:22):
Grew up in a tiny little town of 500 people in Western Canada.
We were so small, didn'thave a traffic light.
My high school grad class was18 people, believe it or not.
That is surprising for folksthe things I took out of that is
that there's a really incredibleculture in a small town like that.
I describe it as us and we versus Iand me at the time, we were all a team.
(03:47):
When you live in an area like that,whether you'll like it or not, you
really ha you can't do it yourself.
You just absolutely can't do it yourself.
I think that, unknowingly at the timeprovided a perfect launch point for me to
be so interested in leadership and teams.
Dr John Dentico (04:02):
Well, Many times.
where you come from really, helpsyou set a path for the future.
Dr Michael Neal (04:06):
it sure does.
Dr John Dentico (04:07):
Let me ask you this, Mike, you created Build
My Team to solve your own hiringchallenges in private practice.
What was the breaking point that madeyou say there has to be a better way?
Dr Michael Neal (04:18):
Oh boy.
we had a fire in, 2008 and the entirepractice burnt right down to the ground.
Yeah, that was tough.
very, very difficult.
We had some team members that stayedwith us, some that didn't, and we were
Unknowingly hiring, poor performers.
We didn't have a system toidentify high performers.
(04:41):
We were interviewing folks, using resumes,you know, work history based approach.
And, you know, John, it was terrible.
We got terrible results.
We didn't know we were doing it wrongbecause we didn't know what right was.
We didn't know what success looked like.
There's that old quote, I don'tknow if it's Vince Lombardi or not.
The man at the bottom of the mountaindoesn't know what the view from the
(05:02):
top looks like And here it was wavingup to the top from the very bottom.
Dr John Dentico (05:09):
So what was the initial thing you took a step back.
you saw this is not working for us.
what was the first step that youtook to change your hiring practice?
Dr Michael Neal (05:21):
Well, before even taking a step, I was in executive
coaching at the time and there thegroup that I was in, with, it's called
Strategic Coach, wonderful organization.
They had a team that was very similarto the type of team I wanted and
everybody was absolutely terrific.
Supreme customer service.
Very detail oriented.
(05:41):
they unknowingly built a stellar teamfor healthcare, which was the problem
I was trying to solve at the time.
After being exposed to that, I took a lookat how They created their teams, talked
candidly with them and got some of theirapproaches and then took a look at how
they were doing it, in detail, modeledthat, looked at how the Four Seasons
were doing it, Disney, is, quite theorganization in terms of how they get
(06:04):
their team members, perpetually happy.
Same with the Four Seasons.
and that's what I wanted ahappy, high performing team.
Dr John Dentico (06:12):
one of your biggest insights, as I understand,
was shifting away from hiringbased solely on experience.
What performance factors do you nowprioritize that predict long-term success?
Dr Michael Neal (06:26):
Well, the best way I can think of to describe this
is the fit of the candidate to thefit that the business requires.
in thinking in termsof, mitts versus gloves.
Like you, you put your hand into amit, well, it fits you on your thumb
and it fits you on your fingers.
Kind of, like one size fits everybody.
(06:48):
You're not gonna be a performerif you need to use your hands
all day long wearing mitts.
then imagine a pair of glovesthat's a much better fit.
Each finger has, its own little home.
Then imagine a pair of gloves that arecustom fit for you with special materials
so that you have complete dexterity.
I'm getting towards a surgicalreference here where you can wear
gloves and have, the virtually thesame level of use of your hands
(07:12):
that, if you weren't wearing gloves.
And what I mean by that is the fit.
So in a business when you have somebodywho is asked to show up for work every day
and be someone else, be somebody differentthan who they are, be what the business
requires, but not who they really are.
(07:33):
It's work.
It's cognitive overload.
It is emotional overload.
Why don't these people stay,like, why do they leave the job?
I can't figure out why they leave the job.
Of course they leave the jobbecause it's not for them.
It's flat out not for them, and there'sreally no way that I've ever found in
an interview process to identify that.
(07:54):
So the Build My Team approach is to use,an automated system for our clients.
We write the job description, publishit to 20 different job boards.
We get oodles of people apply, and we'regonna reject about 97% of them on average.
How do we know who's theperson to pick and who's not?
It's through our assessment process.
it's completely automated.
(08:15):
So at the end of that process,our software can give a thumbs up
on the candidates that can do agreat job, the performers for the
position, it's really that detailed.
Now we're not making decisionsbased on asking them flat out,
Hey John, you good at this job?
Of course not.
You know, everybody'sgonna say yes to that.
It's far more detailed and insightful,and it's based upon a psychological,
(08:38):
subset called psychometrics.
So when we get those results, weknow if they can do the job or not.
And it's based almost primarily ontheir speed of learning and their
natural strengths and talents.
And then some, what we call our knockoutquestions like, do they live 60 miles
from a job that pays 15 bucks an hour?
(09:00):
how long are they planningto stay there for?
Can they actually work thehours that your business needs?
Yes or no?
You'd be shocked at how many people,don't pass our process based solely
on they can't work those hours.
This is an all in approach thatis completely data driven to have
our software make the decision onwho can do the job and who cannot.
(09:23):
There's no preferences.
There's no, nepotism.
One of the buzzwords now isDEI, that's a lightning rod.
our software doesn't care.
It doesn't have an opinion.
can this person do the jobexceptionally well or not?
We don't know if they're male or female.
We don't know what race they are.
(09:43):
We don't know if they'retall, short in between.
None of that matters isthis person a performer?
Yes or no?
if it's a yes, they get a thumbs up.
That's our approach.
Dr John Dentico (09:53):
I have to ask this question because it's something I've
focused on in all my leadership workparticularly in the last couple of years.
So I've gotta ask this question
anywhere along the line whenyou're considering people,
Dr Michael Neal (10:08):
Mm-hmm.
Dr John Dentico (10:09):
Is there a way that you can make a judgement based on the
individual values of an individual as itcompares to the organization's values?
Dr Michael Neal (10:22):
Oh, interesting question.
We use a tool where we're assessingtheir mindset, and that's our first pass.
Do they have, a service-based mindset?
Not necessarily a values match, butare these people, the kind of folks who
want to contribute on a daily basis?
Are they interested inhelping people I get a lot of
pushback on that from clients.
what do you mean?
(10:43):
Are they interested in helping people?
Isn't every no.
John and listeners.
Most people in the world don'tlean towards helping folks and
serving others, believe it or not.
That's something that especially comingfrom a healthcare background, we think
everybody wants to help other people.
The main thing nowadays, withthe types of folks applying is
(11:05):
they want to make a difference.
They're not looking forjobs that don't have impact.
That is one of the biggest differencesto attract people to these positions
they have to make an impact.
I'll use a healthcarepractice as an example.
Your impact is baked in.
you can't not make an impact.
You're helping people all day long.
(11:25):
You're improving lives all day long.
Certainly, there'll be some exceptionsto that, but you throw an 80/20
rule at it, you can hit 95%, not80, on helping people all day long.
And that is extremely satisfyingfor the type of candidate that
we put into those positions.
That's kind of our bigger picture filter,if you will, on the values and what people
(11:47):
are prioritizing, for their positions.
Dr John Dentico (11:49):
So interesting to me.
Dr Michael Neal (11:51):
Yeah, it is, It's fun.
Dr John Dentico (11:53):
Over the course of the last two years, I've really
focused on the three things thatpeople in any industry are looking for.
Number one is values alignment.
Does the organization care aboutthe same things I care about?
Number two is being involvedin the decision making
(12:15):
processes of the organization.
Do I have impact?
Dr Michael Neal (12:19):
Right.
Dr John Dentico (12:20):
My theme this year is The Future of Work, Meaning is the New Money.
Dr Michael Neal (12:24):
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
Dr John Dentico (12:26):
So the whole idea is do they extract meaning from
the things that they do, are theyinvolved, do they make a difference?
And the third one is they wanttraining and learning that
advances their professional career.
So they may go away for a couple ofdays and learn some new technique
to me, those are the real primethings of what people want.
(12:46):
They don't wanna just comeget a paycheck anymore.
COVID completely changed the mindset on
Dr Michael Neal (12:51):
Yes.
Dr John Dentico (12:53):
The idea that, hey, listen, I just wanna get a paycheck.
No, I need to have a values drivenapproach to what I'm gonna do at work.
So, it's very interesting.
I'd love to get your comments on that.
Dr Michael Neal (13:05):
Well, two.
Dr John Dentico (13:06):
the big three,
Dr Michael Neal (13:07):
So on the learning side we measure their speed of learning.
the candidates we bring through buildmy team, learn, quickly, not too
quickly 'cause those folks get boredand leave their job, but we don't,
hire people based on experience.
We bring people in generally thatare new to the, to the field.
They learn incredibly quicklyand you, and people might be
(13:28):
thinking, oh, I've gotta train them.
Yeah, you do.
The great news is they're trainable.
Surprise.
Like we, we know with 97%certainty that these people
will, will do a, a fantastic job.
and you say, well, Idon't want to train them.
Well, you're gonna have to anyway,because a person coming in with experience
has to be untrained and then trained,which isn't double the amount of work.
(13:49):
It can be triple, quadruple, quintuple.
It doesn't work.
on the COVID side.
I could not agree with youmore about the meaning.
I see this on a day-to-daybasis in our practice.
One of the things I love to do isI, I'll give you an example and
I'm allowed to use this publicly.
We had, 12-year-old autistic kidcame in in January, regular exam.
(14:15):
Photos were taken.
Optic nerves in the back of his eye,looked normal, came back in either
June or July, couldn't walk properly.
had all kinds of clumsiness,slurring his speech.
The parents were trying tofigure out what was going on,
brought him in for an eye exam.
For some reason, he did his exam, assoon as I sat down and saw the pictures,
(14:35):
my heart just fell to the floor.
This, the, the kid's optic nerveslook like little volcanoes.
He had an extraordinarilyserious life-threatening
condition, extremely rare.
He did not have it at all inJanuary, developed over the
course of six, seven months.
To give you an example of how seriousthis was, I told the folks they have
(14:55):
to go home, or I'm sorry, they haveto go immediately to the children's
hospital, two plus hour drive.
and, They, there was essentiallyno choice in this matter.
They went home, packed abag, went to the hospital.
it took three days to planthat fellow's neurosurgery.
That's how complex it was.
Now, why am I telling you this story?
(15:16):
Because after I was done being horrifiedand trying my best not to cry, I
took the entire team aside and theyknew something awful, was going on.
The entire show stopped to help this kid.
I took them aside and said,look, here's what's going on.
I showed them the pictures and I hadpermission to do this, I said you don't
(15:37):
know what you're looking at, but thisis one of the most awful things an eye
doctor can ever see, especially in a kid.
They were just shocked, like tears.
we have an office full of, a lot of momsof young kids, so people were just crying.
I showed them the pictures and Isaid, yeah, I got the credit for all
of this, but you answered the phone,
(15:59):
I figured out how to run their insuranceso they would come in for the exam.
You got them scheduled, you were thetechnician, and I'll be blunt here on an
autistic kid, sometimes a lot of practiceskind of push the can down the road.
As far as looking atthe backs of their eyes.
The kid would've died had myteam not taken the pictures.
They got the pictures and so I wentto everybody in the building and
(16:23):
I said, here's your contribution.
To saving Leo's life?
Well, there's not a dry eye inthe place, including my own.
Nobody went home that day lookingfor 50 cents an hour more,
Dr John Dentico (16:39):
I agree.
I've been blessed with great podcastguests, people who have endured
amazing trials and tribulations.
And I've come out of it withthis newfound recognition.
one of the key things organizations,should hire for is heart.
(17:01):
we know what heart looks like, right?
you're rooting for yourfavorite football team.
They're down by three touchdowns,there's five minutes to go in the game,
and they come back and win the game.
And you say, how in God'sname did they do that?
It's incredible when everybody looksat them and says, you know what?
That team has heart.
(17:21):
And I think what I'm learning is, theability of people to get through tough
times to deal with the uncomfortableor the downright, horrific and
challenging are the people thatwe should be looking at to hire.
Because They know how to get things done.
(17:42):
They know how to get through stuff.
there is this notion, Mike,that there's fight or flight.
You know this, right?
That a human has two choices, fightor flight, and the answer is no.
There's a third choice.
And the third choice is dig in.
Dig in and endure.
Sometimes you can't fight andsometimes you can't run away and
(18:02):
you just have to deal with it.
You see this in people who are in jobsthey really don't like, but they're
the breadwinner and they're puttingfood on the table and holding it
down, to me that's a very interestingperspective and it brought to mind this
child, Leo, who I hope is still with us
Dr Michael Neal (18:21):
Doing much better.
Dr John Dentico (18:22):
Wonderful to hear.
And you say, wow, this young man hasgotten through some pretty interesting
things I had a guest named Tamzin Hall onwho runs something called a Neurodiversity
Academy in the uk, and we talked about.
Just be open to people.
You know, Leo may be 12 or 13 now, butwhen Leo's 20, 25, he, he very well may be
(18:43):
an incredible asset to some organization,in his ability not only to get through
things, but to really use his, naturaltalents to deal with an organization.
I'd love to get your reflection on this.
Dr Michael Neal (18:56):
Well, everybody has them, right?
that's the most amazing thing.
you may think in terms of,well, I'm not good at that.
I'm not good at this.
Okay, you might be right.
What are you good at?
most people have no idea it sounds simple.
Why don't you have any idea?
'cause it comes so simple to you,you don't even think it's special.
Dr John Dentico (19:13):
Right.
Dr Michael Neal (19:14):
So when we're, working with these candidates and they
run through our assessment process,they get a copy of the results.
That's part of the Good Karmapay it forward approach we
take with our candidates.
but it really does in a shocking way.
It tells us how few people have anyclue whatsoever what they're good at.
(19:35):
Folks out there in real life withoutthe Build My Team process are applying
for jobs because of proximity, becauseof time sensitivity, because they
have a friend who said it was notlike the amount of actual thought and
research put into job applications now.
(19:57):
Oh, good grief.
If it's five or 10% of what it was yearsago, I'd be surprised it's more of an
automated thing where I'm gonna clickthe button until I get an interview.
That's the reinforcement on thewhole job application process.
from an employer standpoint, to call it acolossal waste of time is underselling it.
(20:19):
Perhaps galactic.
the amount of people, in our process, welose approximately 50% of people after
they receive a text on their cell phone.
they get it within five secondsof clicking the applied button
to the jobs on the job boards.
Why do we lose that many?
We asked 'em to dosomething, click a link.
(20:39):
You know what?
That something is clicking a link,which everybody who has a cell phone is
naturally inclined to be capable of doing.
We lose half.
They don't want to click a link, It'snot the clicking link that's a problem.
It's the, we asked you to takeaction to see if you're the
right candidate for the job.
(21:00):
Well, they just tapped out.
They know they're not.
imagine in real life without the BuildMy Team process, you, you take 50%
of your candidates, they don't wantto even come in for an interview.
You know, they don't wantanything to do with this.
And that was one of the most shockingthings to me as our system started to
scale is why are you even applying?
(21:22):
Why'd you hit the button if youdon't want to get off your butt?
You know what I mean?
but that's half, yeah.
Dr John Dentico (21:28):
it's so interesting to me because the other side of this is, and,
credit to you and how you do this is thatif you give someone a report, feedback,
and you say, well, you're really not theright kind of person we're looking for
in this job, but they get some feedback.
That's a great thing because just becausethey don't fit your organization doesn't
(21:49):
mean they can't go someplace else andlook for something more in line with what
they need and what they're really good at.
Dr Michael Neal (21:57):
Right.
And taking that one step further, whatwe found, in our own practice, because
we have exact records of everythingthat happens, was that almost 50% who
applied for Job A were a better fitfor job B. if we had two jobs open,
They have no idea what they're good at.
(22:18):
So what our build my team processdoes is it allows us to say, okay, you
applied for job A. You'd be fantasticat job B. What do you think about job B?
Well, they all say yes, theydon't care which job it's.
They, they, they really don't.
what they want in our particularhiring environment is they want to
work indoors with air conditioning,a computer people, and, get a solid
(22:40):
lunch every day versus standing on theside of the road as a road flagger,
holding a sign in the baking heat.
You know, we had one person, a whileago, she joined our front desk team.
She was ecstatic about the frontdesk and we said, well, sometimes
patients get upset with you.
And she just laughed.
I remember she just laughed.
She said, I used to work at adeli counter at the grocery store.
(23:01):
Is anybody gonna throwham in my face today?
I said, well, probably not, won'trule it out, but probably not.
and that to her, like a littlebit of people, not so wonderful
people interaction was nothingbecause it was vastly different
than what she was used to.
Dr John Dentico (23:19):
Yeah, it's so interesting.
Let me ask you this.
I think I'm sensing this, so, you know,please correct me this system that the,
software system that you use, it soundslike there's an AI integration with it.
is that a fair statement?
Dr Michael Neal (23:34):
we've got some secret sauce.
There's no doubt about it.
Dr John Dentico (23:36):
I'm not asking for state secrets here.
Dr Michael Neal (23:38):
The AI doesn't make the final decisions.
the algorithm gives the thumbs up onthe people we know can do the job.
But there's one step past that we sendthose finalists a video interview.
It's a one way video interview.
They get to record it on theirphone and submit it, and then our
team watches that video interview.
The results aren't released to thepractice or our clients per se.
(23:59):
But what we're looking for, and we don't,again, we don't care what they look like.
We don't care about the male female race.
I don't care if they're green andwith little antennas on their head.
None of that stuff matters.
What matters is how they're gonnarepresent So we ask these questions, the
same questions on every single candidate.
Why do we do that?
Because we're looking for how theyrespond, not necessarily what they say.
(24:21):
A little bit of that, you know, 20%,perhaps 80% on the, how are they
talking like this nice and slow?
Do they talk really quickly?
Like I generally do?
Are they confident with their speech?
One of the things we saw very early onin the video interviews is people doing
a video interview, believe it or not,in their bathroom standing in the tub.
(24:48):
Yeah.
That look on your face.
I love it, John.
I love telling the story Why are theydoing a video entry standing in their tub?
Dr John Dentico (24:53):
Reverberation,
Dr Michael Neal (24:55):
Keep going.
Dr John Dentico (24:57):
where they can get away and be quiet, where they can cut
themselves off from the rest of the world.
Dr Michael Neal (25:03):
What else?
Dr John Dentico (25:05):
Let's see.
So you're in the tub, you're in your suit.
hopefully they don't have the shower on.
you sound better.
You are cut off from the rest ofthe household, give me, something.
Dr Michael Neal (25:18):
It's the best lighting in the house.
Dr John Dentico (25:19):
The best lighting in the house.
Dr Michael Neal (25:21):
He, so that threw us early on.
We didn't know what to make of that.
And then we started tosee it over and over.
The light bulb went on in ourcompany, these are winners.
these are a plus performers.
They have virtually no resources.
They are taking the tiny Little tidbitof resources that they've got and
(25:41):
they're optimizing the heck out of it.
They're making themselves lookfantastic in spite of all obstacles.
This is the type of person you wantworking in your practice or your
business or your whatever it might be.
That's the type of a plusperformer that we're looking for.
Our team has had to explainthat to client, after client.
(26:02):
But the light switch usually goes on theseare people who love to join a new company.
They love the way that we hire.
you ever want to attract Aplayers, you make it really hard
for them to get on your team.
We're very diligent and specificabout who we want on these teams.
and that's how.
(26:23):
You attract some really wonderful people.
Dr John Dentico (26:27):
You know, I read this story the other day, about a
young woman who is teaching peopleusing, I think, I'm correct in
saying she's using Google's Gemini,
Dr Michael Neal (26:38):
Mm-hmm.
Dr John Dentico (26:39):
AI system.
She's teaching people how to getthrough the AI resume screening
systems using Google's Gemini AI.
What I found so ironic to the storywas the hack for this kind of,
Ingenuity or an ability to help peopleget through the AI screening system.
(27:04):
Was that.
The resultant was that in orderto hack that, you have to do
person to person interviews again.
So in the sense, the way to hackAI is with the human element.
It's such an interesting perspective.
And I thought, wow, it's likethings are coming back around
again in a manner of speaking.
(27:24):
using the interviews wherepeople do a video recording,
which I think is really good.
is a good way to say, I wanna seethat person in front of me somehow.
Dr Michael Neal (27:33):
It's a check and balance against a purely automated
approach It works exceptionally well.
we have to learn how to use our owntool but it works exceptionally well.
that's one of the reasonswhy our fits are so specific.
Our team members stay vastlylonger than folks coming through
a regular hiring process.
(27:54):
As far as the service goes, what wetend to see with our clients is that
they hire one, maybe two people.
They're gonna test it out,maybe it's too good to be true.
All those types of things.
And then the switch flips.
And as their team members,in small businesses, people
leave no matter what happens.
It's the nature of it.
So we minimize that quite well.
(28:15):
But people will still transition.
Maybe they move, or clients.
pick up the phone or send an email.
I need a new person in this role.
Quick discussion with one ofour team members, and off we go.
Approaching the hiring process likewe do at Build My Team becomes a
competitive advantage, an enormouscompetitive advantage for our clients.
(28:40):
You can be that young woman standingdressed up, in your suit, jacket
in a tub at two in the morning.
And by 8:00 AM 9:00 AM the nextmorning you can have an interview.
That's how fast this can move.
One of the things I forgotto mention is to be decisive.
The old days of, hiring slowly andfiring fast, that's one of the lines.
(29:01):
If you hire slowly, you'redooming yourself to working
solely with C and D players.
The top performers, the A playersB plus players, like what Build My
Team brings to the table, they'relooking for decisive leadership.
They want, you know, they're magneticallyattractive to this hiring process
because they think, well, geez, if it'sthis tough for me to get on the team,
(29:22):
they must have an amazing team thatthey're working with that type of thing.
But, decisiveness is critical.
In fact, that's why we use thetexting method instead of email.
And I'll give you an exampleinternally to our own practice.
when we have a candidate come over,for a position, it's a showstopper.
The first thing that happensis we try and bring them in
that morning for an interview.
(29:44):
We still do interviews.
the reason being is we're trying topick the best person, by the Build
My Team sends over candidate wise,we know they can all do the job.
We're just trying to pick theoptimal person and see if, any of the
other candidates could do somethingelse within the practice as well.
So there's, there's always thoseside benefits, but that's how
Dr John Dentico (30:02):
Do you use your software system on professionals,
like other optometrists?
Dr Michael Neal (30:09):
We can, Just remember our approach is, to have a huge funnel to pour
as many applicants in as possible becausewe're gonna reject almost all of them.
With professionals it's done differently.
what we're looking for thereis to run the professional
candidate through our process.
It's not about rejection at that point.
(30:30):
Any licensed professional couldtechnically do the job right, as long
as you license in the state, et cetera.
what we're doing there isfinding out their strengths
natural strengths and talents.
For example, when you're trainingthat person, when they join your
team, there's some level of training.
What's their communication style like?
How do we optimize, theirtraining for their strengths?
(30:51):
And what that results in is a reallyfast ramp up relative to, here
you go, best of luck type approach.
And so that it can be used inprofessionals just differently.
Dr John Dentico (31:03):
I think one of the things that people sometimes don't realize, and
probably the HR people realize this morethan anything else, is turnover is costly.
It costs a lot of money when you'vegot turnover and you don't have
the right candidates, and youjust keep rolling through people
thinking there's always going tobe, there'll always be candidates.
I'll just have to tryto, farm my way through it.
(31:25):
But hiring and, firingcosts a lot of money,
Dr Michael Neal (31:28):
The number I have, from the industry is between $12 to $14,000.
That type of range is what it costs tobring somebody on and rather rapidly in
the span of, six, eight weeks, determineif they're going to stay exit the team.
And a lot of small businesses say,especially healthcare practices,
there's no way it costs that much.
(31:48):
Well, let's sit down andactually document it.
This was an exercise we didwithin our own practice.
Oh my goodness, I had noidea it was that expensive.
Now, with several years under the beltto Build My Team doing the hiring.
Now when we do have turnover, yousee the cost to the business in terms
of, somebody who moves or otherwiseexits the ability to do the job, It's
(32:11):
expensive and minimizing that is alwaysin the best interest of the business.
Dr John Dentico (32:17):
I agree.
we're getting close to the end here, andthis has been a wonderful conversation.
I appreciate it so much.
I'd like to ask you my world famousquestion, and that is, if you had
a magic wand and could wave it atany issue that you see in the world
in which you work, what would thatissue be and why did you choose that?
Dr Michael Neal (32:35):
Well, I think The ability to hire people using strengths
and talents scaled in mass would changethe world in ways we don't even realize.
Couldn't fathom, it's not about solelyproductivity just people happiness, like
actually going to work, for the peoplewho wanna work, being extremely happy.
(33:00):
Doing well financially 'cause that comeswith high performance and going home to
the kids, your hobbies, your cats, yourdogs, whatever, just having an average day
for an average person be so much better.
Imagine what that would do to the world.
Dr John Dentico (33:17):
I absolutely agree.
My mission statement, I talk aboutpeople living more productive,
prosperous, and meaningful life.
that's what my work is about.
how do I help people acrossthe board, whether you're the
CEO or a person just beginning.
We're trying to do things in away that gives you value, meaning,
in your life and you own it.
You earned it.
(33:38):
That's the other thing too.
it's not about deserving it.
You know, you hear that word thrownaround all the time, I deserve this.
You gotta go out and earn it, that'sthe word you don't hear much of anymore.
you gotta earn it and when you earnit, that's the thing I think people
don't understand is when you earnit, nobody can take it away from you.
It belongs to you and no one else.
Dr Michael Neal (33:57):
Couldn't agree more there.
I've said early on, in podcasts, I amanaphylactic allergic to entitlement.
I want in on our teams.
No way.
You exhibit a smidge of that we'regonna have a discussion exhibited twice.
I don't think we'reworking together anymore.
Dr John Dentico (34:15):
Yeah.
Dr Michael Neal (34:15):
it becomes carcinogenic for high performing teams in ways
that are really tough to measure.
it's just something you see fartoo often after the fact, and then
you got a real problem to clean up.
and sometimes you canand sometimes you can't.
I just don't want anythingto do with entitlement.
It doesn't work for high performing teams.
Dr John Dentico (34:36):
Yeah, I agree.
I've been blessed.
I've had some incredible podcastguests, people who have gone
through unbelievable challenges.
One, Nicky Billou.
an Iranian refugee.
During the time the Shah, fell,immigrated to Canada, is now one of
the most high performing coaches inall of Canada, another woman Naomi
(35:00):
who, at 27 years o of age was, a singlemom, four children, had no money.
Today she is, one of the topdesigners of medical spaces in the
country, headquartered in New York.
I just published one with Arius,WebsterBerry another man whose parents
(35:22):
were both incarcerated at the same time.
Not once did I ever hear the termor a sniff of the term I'm a victim,
Dr Michael Neal (35:36):
Yeah.
Dr John Dentico (35:36):
They just got up the next day and figured out what they had to do
and today are incredibly successful CEO'srunning multimillion dollar businesses.
Just incredible.
Dr Michael Neal (35:50):
My story along those lines, a fellow named James Kofi Anon,
from Ghana, he was a childhood slaveand worked on, one of the big lakes,
fishing at six years old, he didn'thave friends because they all died.
through an organizationcalled Many Hopes a charity.
I was introduced to himand he was up in our area.
(36:14):
Took him for dinner, took our, ourtwo boys, my wife for with some
friends, for dinner, and he toldstories about his childhood that were,
words don't describe the the awfulness, Idon't, I don't have words to describe it.
It was as bad as it gets, in,in that a human could endure.
(36:42):
No victim.
Just like you said, he wasn't a victimas a child of that, but he did not
maintain that through adulthood.
one of the most remarkable.
Hour and a half that I haveever spent in my entire life.
Bar none.
Dr John Dentico (36:56):
Yeah, these are the people that teach you about life.
They're the people who say thisis the way one moves through life.
I think it's very important.
Mike, this has been anincredible discussion.
I can't thank you enough for being here onthe Throttle Up Leadership podcast today.
I wish you and your practiceand, your company the greatest
(37:19):
success in the future.
Thank you so
Dr Michael Neal (37:20):
Thanks so much, John.
This is so much fun.
Dr John Dentico (37:23):
Thank you.
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