October 8, 2025 • 49 mins
Most companies hire too fast, fire too slow, and wonder why they stay stuck in the minors. Josh Matthews and business coach Chris Hallberg unpack how “slow to hire, quick to fire” really works — from using assessments and culture filters to holding leaders accountable and scaling simplicity. A masterclass in hiring and leadership without the corporate BS.
Why do so many companies keep hiring the wrong people — and then keep them too long? In this straight-talking episode, Josh and Chris break down what “slow to hire, quick to fire” actually means — and why most organizations get it dead wrong.
You’ll learn how to:
- Turn hiring into curation, not desperation
- Use assessments to find the right wiring
- Keep panels from killing great candidates
- Build trust, conflict, and commitment into your culture
- Scale simplicity instead of complexity
Brutally honest and packed with takeaways, this one’s for leaders and recruiters ready to play in the majors.
Connect with Chris Hallberg:
🔹 Website: https://bizsgt.com
🔹 GoExpand: https://goexpand.com
🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishallberg/
🔹 Book: The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual — available on Amazon:
Connect with Josh Matthews:
🔹 Website: https://thesalesforcerecruiter.com
🔹 YouTube: https://joshforce.com/YouTube
🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuamatthews
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Halberg (00:00):
Why should companies be slow to hire?
Well, because there's likeseven and a half billion people
around the world, and mostcompanies might be 20 or 50 or
250 and don't necessarily haveto create a spot for all 7.5
billion.
Should be really selective.
All a company is, is a curationof humans.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast with
the leaders navigate the age ofAI, create teams that thrive,
and build a workplace number oneteam.
If you're struggling withhiring, managing, or just
getting your team aligned, thisepisode's for you.
My guest today is ChrisHallberg, military veteran,
author of the BusinessSergeant's Field Manual, and
(00:40):
he's also one of Inc.
magazine's top 10 businesscoaches in America.
His no BS approach toleadership and accountability is
exactly what most teams need.
Let's get into it.
Chris Halberg (00:51):
So think about that.
Like, take the people away.
What do you really have?
You don't have a company.
You might have an idea, youmight have a product that
doesn't build itself, doesn'tmarket itself, doesn't build
relationships, and doesn't scalepast the initial sale.
We need humans for all that.
So it's kind of an importantthing.
In fact, I'd argue it's themost important thing.
(01:12):
In my coaching travels, it'sone of the most undercapitalized
uh things.
And I would trace most of theissues that I help leadership
teams solve.
Their personnel issues, theirrecruiting issues, their
retention issues, they're almostyou solve the people issues,
and the right people will solveall your other issues for you.
Josh Matthews (01:33):
Makes sense to me, but what does slow actually
mean?
Is slow actually a number ofdays stacked on top of each
other, or is it a certain numberof processes, conversations,
communications, team meetings,this sort of thing?
Chris Halberg (01:46):
Yeah, it's it's the latter, not the former.
So I thought you could, yeah,you're right.
You could you could be slow tohire and it could take two
weeks.
You could be uh poor atselecting and take six months uh
to be bad at something.
So like the frequency or thetime frame is a secondary thing.
(02:07):
So we say Are you describing mypiano playing?
Yeah, because I think that'sabout right.
Yeah, there you go.
That's hard.
You got to be good uh bass andtreble at the same time.
Uh mad respect to the keyboardplayers listening today.
Um, to think about it, right?
Slow to hire means that that wejust not anyone can work here.
(02:27):
There's a process.
We're gonna vet those other7.499 billion people out to make
sure that everyone we interviewhas the right wiring through uh
an assessment tool of somesort, shares our core values,
like uh the ad talks aboutdescribing what's important to
(02:49):
them.
Um, that matches up with ourown version of weird, right?
Uh, your core values, yourtimeless set of principles,
behaviors.
Not everybody was raised thesame way.
Not everybody loves the samethings, not everybody values
what you value in a businesssetting.
So we could hire a bunch ofrandom people and fight with
them and try to cajole uh andand get them to uh convince them
(03:13):
to do what we want to do, or wecan find people off the street
who are happy to land here anddo exactly what we do without
complaint.
Um, and most people, you know,do it the other way.
Uh, but the people that I workwith, uh, I get them to see very
quickly that all the company isis a curation of humans.
How you know kind of a museumis this?
(03:34):
Like, do we get traffic becausewe got cool stuff?
Or like there's nothinginteresting to see here, worst
museum ever.
Uh, so think think think aboutthat.
And and I'm using people versusart, but you know, more crazy
analogies to come.
I I think using analogies,telling stories, using kind of
half-wild examples uh penetratesand and people get that.
(03:55):
So that's usually why I speakin stories or cliches or things
like that.
Josh Matthews (04:00):
Hey man, you don't have to explain it to me,
maybe everyone else, but I getit.
So when we think about thisprocess, and I mean you just
said something about this thiscuration of people.
I mean, companies when they'retrying to hire positions,
critical positions for theirinfrastructure, sometimes
they're challenged becausethey're just yeah, there's seven
(04:21):
and a half billion, eightbillion people on planet Earth.
Um, they're not all Salesforcearchitects, right?
It's not like we're spoiled forchoice for every one of these
roles.
So it really starts with how dowe attract the right people?
How can we even who who do weeven know that even fits here?
But like let's let's say wejust get past the tech thing.
Like yeah, they've got thecompetency, whatever it is.
(04:43):
Yeah, they're a controller.
Okay, yeah, they're a technicalarchitect for yada yada
technology.
Once we're past that, I mean,it sounds to me like you really
encourage these companies toidentify and articulate what is
unique about them.
Like our museum is a museum ofblank, right?
Do you find when you work withnew clients that they struggle
(05:05):
to even know what kind ofculture they are?
Chris Halberg (05:09):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's a process and it'snot an organic one.
Like there, there's an actualformula uh to talk about who are
we, why do we exist, what do wedo, who do we do it with, how
much are we going to do it, bywhen?
And you know, so that goes backto like an operating system.
Like, for example, uh,entrepreneurial operating
(05:29):
system, EOS, is a tool as aleadership team coach that I've
used for well over a decade withgreat success, because it
starts with like the eightquestions every company has to
answer.
Who are we?
Core values, what's the vibe ofthis tribe?
How do we roll?
What's what's our version ofweird core focus?
Uh, what's our purpose, cause,or passion?
(05:50):
Like, why do we care aboutthis?
Uh, our niche, what?
You get rich in the niche, soyou can't be everything to
everybody, so we have tospecialize.
Then we say, okay, what's ourtenure target or our core
target?
Five to 35 years.
Big, hairy, audacious goal is aJim Collins term.
Um North SAR.
What you know, when times gettough, uh, what do we what do we
(06:11):
shoot an asthma to to give usstrength and focus to continue
on?
What's our marketing strategy,right?
And marketing for people,marketing for clients, gotta
have a persona uh becauserecruiting is just selling the
culture to uh employees, andselling your product is to you
know get customers to adopt yourstrategy over somebody else's.
(06:32):
But you're like, what are ourthree uniques?
Why would someone want to workhere?
Why would someone want to buythis product?
What is the uh process?
Uh we can't serve everybody,but who are the people that
really appreciate us?
And and how do we only put ourpeople in front of those people
versus not being appreciated orvalued by the the by the much
(06:52):
larger group?
And then once we know who thatwhat that is, uh do we have a
guarantee?
Do we have a proven process?
Uh then we have a three-yearpicture, top line, bottom line,
what does it look like?
This is a dream.
And then once the dream iscomplete, we create a one-year
plan.
What is the actual businessplan to put us on a trajectory
that will recast every year, anew three-year and a new one
(07:13):
year to keep things classy?
Then once we have the year,what's the quarterly plan,
otherwise known as ROCs?
The late Dr.
Stephen Covey, projects,priorities, things that give us
a new capacity, new capability,then we have uh long-term
issues.
Things that are.
Josh Matthews (07:58):
This is something that just happened recently.
Twice in two weeks, I've hadfinalists go in and meet with
the hiring manager, met with theCEO, met with the owners or
whoever it is.
Okay.
They've met with them, they'vefallen in love with them, they
love them, they want to get theman offer, then they drop them
into a two or three-person panelwithout any leadership in
(08:21):
there.
And the information that'scoming out of those
conversations is yeah, we wantto pass on this person.
And leadership listens to them.
And I have struggled as arecruiter because I I really
believe it should be top.
I feel like final say shouldshould be the owner or the
(08:42):
hiring manager, the person thatthe individual is going to
report to.
And I'm thinking, why wasn't aleader in that panel to
moderate?
Why why weren't they there tomake sure that well, those
weren't fair questions?
Or what do you mean you didn'tlike him?
Like what part?
Oh, I didn't like the way helooked that one time or the
clothes he was wearing, or hekept doing this.
(09:03):
Because people come up, as youknow, with the stupidest
freaking reasons to not likesomeone.
And it's always safer to say nothan it is to say yes, right?
You say yes to the wrongperson, it's on you.
You say no to the wrong person,you'll never know.
So I'm kind of curious aboutyour take on that.
Like, help me solve my ownproblem here.
Chris Halberg (09:23):
Yeah, well, there's there's layers to that.
I heard three or four issues.
Let me just start with thefirst one is whose decision is
it?
And I I also believe the personthat's gonna manage that person
is their call.
And the fact that they're notmaking the call, they're
delegating that to someone else,probably tells me a lot about
their leadership style, which isthere isn't any.
(09:45):
And and if someone else saysit's a win and they lose, they
can absolve themselves of anyaccountability to say, it wasn't
my call, I gave it to the HRteam or the Tiger team or
whoever I put in charge of theselection committee.
Uh, so like my point is likethe lack of ownership of that
decision is the first thing thatI would take exception to.
(10:07):
And at the end of the day, uh Iwould also look at why did
these people say no to thisperson?
Is this a healthy culture or isthis person seen as a threat?
Wow, this person could take myjob.
I'm not letting them in here.
Like, I'm gonna have to go towork uh to compete against this
person.
So it's better for me as aselfish jerk individual
contributor that's not here forthe right reason to say no to
(10:28):
everyone.
Uh, so I can continue to be theyou know smartest person in the
room or the, you know,whatever.
Like, like, I don't know.
There's a lot going on withthat, and I can understand your
frustration.
So as a recruiter, I wouldprobably talk to the hiring
authority and say, what is theactual process?
Like, what do you want me tofollow?
(10:48):
And as a recruiter, I agree ordisagree with this.
Now they're the client, but youcan choose who you work with.
And if it sounds like it's akangaroo court committee, I'm
not interested in sourcingA-level clients for your B level
players to say no to.
Whose district is this?
And that's the way I like towork.
So I'm gonna go to my provenprocess, and if you're not gonna
(11:09):
follow it, I'm gonna go spendmy time with one of those other
7.999 billion people orwhatever.
Josh Matthews (11:15):
So, like, do you think so?
Do you think so?
And I and I like these peopleand I like these hiring
managers, and you know, weworked together before with
success.
Like, I am not overly criticalof it, except the this one
sticking point, which is whenthat hiring manager or the
person that inevitably thisindividual is going to report to
(11:35):
isn't inside the room, even asa fly on the wall, even
reviewing a recorded session,then I feel like they have done
exactly what you've said, whichis relinquish control, not maybe
held certain personalitiesaccountable to impulsive
decision making based on thethreats of, as you said, you
(12:00):
know, being displaced or notbeing the smarter the smartest
guy in the room, anymore, thingslike that.
Do you think that that's uh atleast minimally a a cure-all?
Like at least get the hiringmanager to watch the tape.
Chris Halberg (12:14):
Yeah, I mean, well how do I how do I empower a
leader to lead, manage, andhold people accountable if they
haven't met them?
So I'm already I already havean issue um just because like
it's your decision and uh you'regonna be judged on the quality
(12:35):
of the team that you curate anddevelop.
Exactly.
And if you're not even involvedin the most important part,
which is selection, then I feelwe have an absentee manager will
never be at fault.
They'll always have anotherdepartment to blame.
So this is big corporatecompany behavior.
And my coaching, because I workwith the C-suite, is I would
(12:56):
tell the CEO, why don't we justcreate a policy right now?
Because you're the CEO and youcan do this right now, that no
one gets hired without theactual leader, the first line
leader meeting and approving.
Josh Matthews (13:08):
Well, yeah, no, the leaders met and approved.
This is what I'm saying.
And sorry that this is reallyconfusing.
The leaders have met thisperson, they like them, they
want to hire them, they sendthem to the team.
The team's like, Oh, we don'tlike them so much.
And the leader's like, oh,okay.
Interesting.
Chris Halberg (13:21):
All right.
So that's all right.
So a little different anglethere.
However, it's the leader's jobto make the selection.
And and if the candidate sharesthe core values, they have the
job skills, we're gonna buildrelationships.
They're not instant.
So having someone just make adecision like that in an hour or
two after I've already made mydecision, first off, that
(13:44):
doesn't make sense.
Why, why I'm gonna add anotherlayer of complexity?
They're gonna come here.
Uh, hopefully they show up forthe first day and the team
treats them well and welcomesthem.
And if that's not gonna happenthere, that's a secondary issue
that we're not open andwelcoming, living our core
values, or helping the teamgrow, which are all negative
behaviors that don't have a lotof value to me.
(14:06):
So I would just make the call,make the the offer.
Uh, that's my account, that'smy call.
And and every existing teammateis gonna weigh in on the new
people 30 days, 60 days, 90 daysbefore we make a probationary,
you know, keep them or try againdecision.
(14:29):
And that's all part of it, butthat's a process, and a human
needs fairly, you know, probably90 days to see their best, see
their worst, and find theiraverage.
So for someone to spend an hourand say, I don't think they're
gonna work on this team, uh, I Iyeah, after three other people
have been like, yeah, they'regreat.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonnagive my subordinate my decision
(14:52):
if I don't trust their judgmentexplicitly.
So in this particular case, ifthis hiring manager has a track
record of making bad hires, andthat's why they're now going to
a committee, and the committeeis bat in a thousand, okay,
great.
So we have to fish f fix thisdeficiency in this hiring
manager uh to gain the skills tonot need a CNI dog to hire
(15:14):
people or two or three.
So like that.
That's the way I would saythat.
Josh Matthews (15:18):
Let me ask you about root.
I like that, Chris.
Thank you.
Let me ask you about quick tofire.
It's just the it's just the uhit's the left hand of the pair
of hands here, right?
Um a lot of companies areafraid to fire quickly.
They're afraid because maybethey have a unique skill set and
they feel like their knowledgebase is holding them over a
(15:40):
barrel.
We used to see this back in theaughts and in the teens with
DBAs.
No one else had the keys to thekingdom, no one else could like
access the database, so theyhad to keep them forever, this
kind of stuff.
And then we've also seen itwhere they're afraid.
Maybe the person is in aprotected class, but they're
performing very poorly, and thecompany is afraid to even do the
(16:01):
process of writing them up,documenting the challenges,
having the conversations,setting, setting the resetting
the expectations, and then beingable to have this sort of
written proof.
We tried everything, YourHonor.
This person sucks.
It had to go.
What would you say to companieswhere hiring managers are
(16:24):
nervous about getting rid ofdead weight?
Chris Halberg (16:27):
Well, if you're a for-profit company, that's not
sustainable.
So not going to invest in acompany with that view.
Um, and at the end of the day,uh probationary employment, like
what I said, the 90-day, I havean 80-day review, not 90,
because sometimes 90 days runson Saturday or Sunday, and the
next opportunity to have theconversation is on the 92nd day
(16:50):
on Monday.
So a lot of states have aprobationary period.
So if your state has a 90-dayprobationary period, this is
like not counting against yourunemployment insurance.
It's just a mulligan notworking out for me, not working
out for you.
Yeah.
It's it's so what I recommendto my clients is we have an
actual 90 days to success or80-day ramp.
(17:11):
And it's a bit of a scavengerhunt.
You got to go to these people,get this training.
We need to verify you'velearned this, that you're
producing at the 60-day, 80-daylevels because we're
professionals, we hire peopleand we know what good looks
like.
And I would just manage thestandard, and it has to be the
same for everybody.
And at 90 days, this is whereyou're at with your training,
(17:33):
this is where you're at withyour production.
And if you're not at this line,uh by 45 days, you're at risk.
And if you're not fully thereat 80, we're gonna, we're gonna
go ahead and say not a good fit.
And if you're disciplined to dothat, you could do that legally
and and and be very quick tofail with people.
The issue is people realizeyour scenario in the seventh day
(17:55):
of work and they don't addressit for a year or two, and
there's no documentation, andnow all those things are true,
and you don't have any papertrail, or you haven't even told
this person.
The person thinks they'recrushing it, they're high-fiving
everyone and doing a dance inthe parking lot.
They don't even know they'refailing.
That is just a complete andutter fail of leadership.
(18:16):
And the root cause is that wedon't have systems and we don't
hold people accountable.
And what you're really sayingis we're not a professional
company because back to uh slowto hire, quick to fire, think
about the professional leaguesof sports, right?
Sports ball, whatever yourfavorite one is, put it in here.
Takes years to get to the majorleagues, and about four or five
(18:38):
games and not playing well togo back to the minor league.
So, how many years did it takeyou to get there?
And how many bad games at $4million a game or $80 million a
year is ownership management orthe fans going to hold out for
that?
So, like when I hear thatscenario, I think of a minor
league company with minor leagueleaders and minor league hiring
(18:59):
managers, and they're onlygonna retain minor league
employees.
I uh don't work in the minorleagues.
I'm sorry, Josh.
I only accept clients that wantto be the very best of what
they do.
Why are you saying sorry to me,man?
Well, I'm just saying, like, uhthis issue isn't one I would
actually solve because I wouldjust go to the leadership team
and say, that is some rookieBush league shit you're doing
(19:22):
there.
Um do you want to scale BushLeague crap or do we want to be
a world-class company?
And the only way to do that isto have a world-class uh
recruiting, selection, andretention program.
Uh, and that's that's what Ihelp people do because the
organic one that you'redescribing, everyone already has
that.
That's free.
Yeah.
Josh Matthews (19:40):
Yeah, it is free.
When you think about theclients that you serve, okay,
these major league clients, whatis the biggest mistake or the
most common mistake that'seasily fixed that you're seeing
in with your major leagueclients?
Chris Halberg (19:57):
Yeah, we we don't we don't have a plan and are
not willing to hold people toit.
So just lack of uh a vision,like just literally, um it's
different.
It's it's different fordifferent people.
Uh it's one voice, one vision,one team, one voice.
What we teach is here it is.
We've worked hard, we'vecurated this information, these
(20:20):
products, these clients, thismessaging, these humans.
I really hope you love it too,because we work very hard to
create this.
If you're gonna join this, youare opting in 100% for this, not
some range that's morecomfortable to you.
This is 100% join our team anddive all the way in and be this
(20:41):
or go somewhere else entirely.
We have the hell yeah, I wantto do this, the hell no circle,
the middle circle with flames,and the middle is hell.
So yeah, but it's what you it'sit's whatever four letter yes
or no, and then just that, justthe superlative in the middle.
And and like or or excuse me,just just like it would be fuck.
(21:04):
It would be fuck yeah, fuck no,and fuck that like using your
example.
Like that that's what it is.
But hell works better becausethen I can use a red marker and
I can draw flames in there.
And that comes from um, I wantto say Kim Scott Radical Candor
or Michael Chandler TimeWarrior.
Uh, that's that's that's that'sa graphic that I've seen uh
from other coaches, and I loveit because it's just like your
(21:27):
job as a leader is to geteverything in the hell yeah, and
hell yeah is okay, hell no isokay.
But anything that we can'tneatly put in hell yeah or hell
no, by definition, that's hell.
You can't nail it, you can'tscale it.
It's complexity.
So if one is black and one iswhite, all the color, none of
the color, the middle by defaultis gray.
Gray is complexity.
(21:49):
Uh, you cannot scalecomplexity.
You can scale simplicity, youcan't scale complexity.
So when you do that, you'rechoosing to make business even
harder than it already is.
Minor league mindset, minorleague execution.
Gotta have a major leaguemindset.
If we're gonna be a world-classteam, we can't accept uh beer
(22:12):
league results.
Josh Matthews (22:14):
That's right.
That's right.
Dropping knowledge like Galileodropped an orange.
I love it.
Tell me about with these BushLeague clients, because I'm
assuming you sign them.
You're you're trying to takethem from the minors to the
majors.
Is that accurate?
Chris Halberg (22:28):
Do you jump into some teams and you're like,
Yeah, they have to want to be inthe major leagues to hire a
coach that only understandsthat.
So, like, like I get thatpeople aren't fully there, but
they're not just interested inbeing there, they're committed
to being there.
And that's the second thing, ifyou were going to say, all
right, what else?
Well, the commitment.
Like you can't hold somebodyaccountable unless they're
(22:50):
committed.
It's impossible.
But in front of commitmentwould be uh conflict, healthy
conflict, and in you know, infront of that would be uh being
uh vulnerable, you know, beingable to trust people.
So now I'm talking aboutLencioni, Pat Lencioni's five
dysfunctions of a team.
So sure, trust is on thebottom.
(23:10):
If we can't be vulnerable andlike tell the truth, we got to
like say lies and try to solvelies.
Let me know how that goes.
So we have to be vulnerable.
Josh Matthews (23:20):
I can tell you how it goes.
Chris Halberg (23:21):
Look at making these networks.
There you go.
It doesn't work.
But once we're able to speakthe truth, we can now enter into
healthy conflict.
Like, fuck you, no fuck you, nofuck you more.
That's unhealthy conflict, andthat's not gonna get us
anywhere.
Like, I respectfully disagreewith your opinion, and I have
some data to support it.
May I share the data with you?
That is much better than justsaying I think you're a jerk,
(23:42):
Josh.
Uh, you know what I mean?
Like you screwed me over lastquarter on this account.
So healthy conflict.
Once we're able to have realhealthy conflict, then we can
really be committed.
Now, whether I got my way oryou got your way, I was allowed
the opportunity to debate in ahealthy uh conf conflict way.
And even if we didn't go myway, I'm gonna get shoulder to
(24:03):
shoulder with you because yougave me the opportunity.
We didn't go with my idea, wewent with Josh's idea.
However, Josh and the rest ofthe team entertained me, made a
decision.
Now I can commit to Josh's ideabecause I'm on this team, and
the team has decided.
Josh Matthews (24:17):
Yeah, it's not just lip service.
I remember this is silly,probably edit this out, but I
remember we just spent a bunchof money on a really nice new
house.
And then they redrew the schooldistrict lines, which put us
into a different high schoolcatchment, which changed the
value of the home.
And what they did is they spenttwo years having community
meetings, and after everybody'svoices were heard, they just
(24:41):
went ahead with their plananyway.
So it it didn't matter.
So we've really got to bediscerning around like how much
of this is just optics to looklike you're engaged, versus how
much of this is actually veryreal, with uh valid valid
concerns, valid points, validdata to be able to make a real
(25:05):
argument, to be able to make areal case.
Chris Halberg (25:07):
It takes the same amount of time to be great as
it does to be shitty atanything.
Like my point is when peopleare bad at something, they spend
eight to ten hours being bad atit.
They don't spend any of thattime trying to get better at it,
they just prove how bad theyare.
So like going through themotions for two years and then
just doing the thing, yeah, thatis beyond minor league.
(25:29):
That is that is not it, not noprofession.
Like this is amateur, is whatthat is.
Now, like school boards, HOAboards, the most dysfunctional
places on the planet.
Of course.
Of course.
So you're like finding one ofthose scenarios that actually
functions well, very difficultbecause good luck with that.
Yeah, because we don't have adecision maker, we have
(25:52):
consensus management, and thenwe have everyone's feelings.
And you know, feelings are hardto scale.
So, like these are the this ishow we'd like you to feel.
If you don't feel that way,don't work here.
If you do feel this way, you'llbe surrounded by other people
to feel the exact same way.
So we're not gonna have a lotof stress and conflict because
we're all aligned and we're allhere at and we want the same
things and we work in a similarway, and we're willing, we sign
(26:14):
up for difficult conversations,getting called out on our
bullshit, and we're here to begreat.
And those are the ingredientsof teammates that want to be
great.
If you don't want to do that,you can't work here.
And again, goes back to thecommitment.
And once we have thatcommitment after trust,
conflict, commitment, thenaccountability there.
So everyone's like, no one'saccountable.
Well, have you done the firstthree steps?
(26:35):
Well, no, of course not.
We're full of shit.
There's no opportunity, it'sfake conflict.
People pretend because they gottwo kids in college and their
new home is expensive.
This is a great idea when theyknow it's about ready to kill
the company.
So if I can erase that and getinto, I trust that I can just
you can speak the truth and wecan call each other out.
And my ego's not so big thatyou need to lie for you to keep
(26:58):
your job here.
That's not healthy.
So we can respectfullydisagree.
I love you, but you're a littlehigh on this one right now.
Let me give you some data andthen we can horse trade back to
something that that that wethink fits, then we can commit
to it.
Once we're committed to it, Iexpect to be held accountable.
I've already committed thatwe're gonna do this, and then
the results will be therebecause I have accountability.
(27:19):
So Lincioni's point is it's atriangle, and the biggest one,
the foundation is trust.
So if we're full of shit andwe're know what you say is the
corporate speak for this is thedumbest idea I've ever seen, you
know, why not just say thisidea could kill us?
I can't believe this got thisfar.
Like, who is not vetting theseideas?
(27:41):
This is the dumbest fuckingidea I've heard this quarter.
Whose idea is this?
Everyone's sheepish, right?
Like, okay, great.
Like that's all conflict versuswe're we're stretching things
at the very first day.
Hey, I kind of, yeah, I kind offeel like this idea is to
improve your comfort on adifficult conversation.
Or I feel like this is aworkaround to uh protect uh some
(28:06):
cronyism in this pocket of thecompany, and it's not good for
all the employees, it's good fora few uh silver hairs who feel
entitled, or you know what I'msaying?
So, like if we all have thesame rules and we all are trying
to be world class, we're on ourway.
But back to that commitment,which has to come first.
So there's a lot of people intheir marketing materials, their
(28:28):
website says we're aworld-class team of
collaborative, la la la.
And then you work with thecompany and you're like, you
guys don't even, the left handand the right hand don't even
meet.
Josh Matthews (28:37):
No, it's just horror, it is a lot of
whoreshit.
I mean, it's easy to come upwith your mission, vision,
values and have it sound goodand and look good and tick all
of the markers, whatever socialsignaling you're trying to do.
Yeah, it ticks all the boxes.
I don't know how many pages,you know, HR pages of company
websites I've read, they alllook pretty much the same.
(28:59):
Even the ones that mean it.
And that's the weird thing.
Even the ones that mean it lookthe same as the ones that
don't.
So it's really tricky.
I I wanted to ask you this.
I know you're working mostly oninside with leadership, trying
to make these firms better.
But what would you say to thecandidates to be able to
generate a very valid, soundlevel of awareness so that they
(29:22):
too, when they're entering intoconversations with an
organization, that they can alsomake sure that this company
fits their values.
Because we have to assume thatnot every single company has it
dialed in.
You know, hey, look, here's thedeal.
We talk straight, we're kind offunny, um, we work really hard
when we have to, which is mostof the time, we put in extra
(29:44):
hours when we have to, which issome of the time.
And if you can live with that,if you can hang, like you're
gonna love it here and andyou're gonna be great.
And wouldn't it be great ifevery company could just
articulate it?
Everyone's gone through theChris Hallberg, you know,
business sergeant program, butmost companies.
Companies have it.
That means that it's a lot ofgray.
When you're dealing with grayand you're a candidate, you're a
(30:06):
high-level person, maybe you'rean exec executive, you're a
hiring manager level, directorand above, whatever, or any of
them.
How can they cut through themustard?
How can they cut through thegray to figure out what the
black and white is?
Or should they not evenentertain?
Let's say they're super highvalue, they they're spoiled for
choice.
They get to walk away if it'syou know not making sense to
(30:26):
them.
But other people, yeah, theyjust bought the house and they
got the third kid on the way andthey need to work and they
haven't had an offer in threemonths.
So how can they protectthemselves when faced with
ambiguity like you've describedin the gray?
Chris Halberg (30:40):
Well, I think at the end of the day, um if you're
trying to retain great people,you have to provide an
environment where they can speakthe truth, disagree
respectfully, have a healthydialogue, and uh contribute and
be acknowledged for thosecontributions.
So like if you're not providingthat, they're a flight risk.
(31:03):
And as soon as that offer doescome in, they will leave.
So at the end of the day, likein the military, right, they
issue you soldiers, uh, airmen,seamen, marines, you know, uh
guardians and and uh uh the uhwhatever the Coast Guard is uh
so like they are enlisting forthree to seven years.
(31:24):
So the commitment is like solidcommitment.
Like you can't just say, I'mnot coming to work today, or
they'll send the MPs, what Iused to do, to come grab you and
remind you that you made acommitment to Uncle Sam and it
wasn't a a light one.
Um in the civilian businessworld, you get to pick.
And if you're just beingassigned random people, then uh
(31:45):
again, making business harderthan it needs to be.
But but back to the commitment,they can leave.
They're not enlisted for sevenyears.
Like they have one bad meetingand be like, my my manager's an
idiot.
Like, okay, well, I have threekids in college and expensive
mortgage, so I'm not gonna lethim know he's an idiot today.
I'm gonna find a new job, andon my last day, I'm gonna say,
you know, you're an idiot, andthen I'm gonna leave.
(32:05):
Like, like I'm just saying,that that's the way it works.
So back to like all thoseindividual, like I totally
understand.
There's literally more examplesof that than there isn't the
other thing.
But if people are okay withthat, I can't that that company
can't be helped.
Like there has to be a desireto get off the hamster wheel of
mediocre and do what everybodyelse does.
(32:28):
And it starts at the top, andit says, we believe this, and we
are willing to spend some extramoney on recruiters, and we are
gonna fail fast with people,and we are gonna have a year or
two of reshuffling of the deck.
But once we stack the deck,we're gonna have super low
turnover, big profit, bigbonuses, profit sharing checks,
(32:52):
limited PTO.
Everyone's gonna be 10% bodyfat and you know, but tell funny
jokes.
Like my point is like you canyou can dream as much as you
want, like no one's stoppingyou.
At some point, you'll findresistance.
Um, what's the resistancecoming from?
Is it coming from a healthyplace or is it coming from an
(33:12):
unhealthy place?
So if it's coming from anunhealthy place and we can be
vulnerable and call it out, andwe can have healthy conflict,
and we can get committed and wecan hold people accountable,
well, then we're gonna haveresults.
If that doesn't exist, we aregonna be frustrated.
Uh, we are gonna have all kindsof problems, and all you're
gonna do is scale uh problems tolarger problems.
(33:34):
So, like, that's why there's TVshows about the office.
That shit's funny, unlessyou're the main character, and
then it's not funny becauseyou're showing up to an
eight-hour episode uh, you know,that that that never gets
better.
So, like, I just go back tolike life is short here.
What are you gonna spend athird of your life doing?
Josh Matthews (33:52):
Talk to the audience if you can for a
moment.
A little bit more about hiring.
We've covered slow to hire, orexcuse me, yeah, slow to hire,
quick to fire, why you shouldget rid of people, everything
you should be doing before youeven decide what kind of people
you're bringing on board, thecommitment to trust layer all
the way up.
What else can they doimmediately?
(34:12):
Let's say someone is a hiringmanager right now, they're in
the middle of the process, theydon't have a three-day workshop
to go and drum up all of thisbig dream stuff and layer it out
and disseminate it toeverybody, but they have to make
some decisions pretty quickly.
What's one or two things thatthey can do to protect their
team from a bad hire today,tomorrow?
Chris Halberg (34:36):
Hiring is art and science.
It is a blend of art andscience.
The science part would be to doan assessment of all of your
existing people, your best, yourmid-pack, and your not best
people.
And what ends up happening iswhen you do that, you'll
discover that your very bestpeople all share one, maybe two
(34:57):
different personality archetypesof whatever assessment tool
that you love.
And if you are willing to spenda little extra money on
assessments and in andadvertising to more people to
create a larger top of funnel,then you use the assessment as
the restrictor, right?
So if you're gonna, instead ofgetting 10 candidates, you're
(35:18):
gonna get two candidates.
Well, you might need to lookfor 30 candidates, right, to get
six or or seven.
So just understanding the mathon this and making that
investment.
The ROI on that is like 100x,1000 X, a million X.
People don't want to spend thetime and money, but they'd
rather spend 10 times thatnumber cycling through the wrong
hire five or six times untilthey get it right and creating
(35:40):
all the pain and suffering.
So we we measure the good ones,the not so good ones.
Guess what?
Once we know what that is, uh,we will only interview the
people that have the successfulwiring.
So if I don't even meet thepeople who are predisposed to
fail because they don't have thecorrect wiring, and we've
already have the data, so itit's obvious.
(36:00):
And we only interview peoplethat with those one or two
personality types, we're gonnainterview probably 50% less, but
our hire rate's gonna go up100, 200, 300%.
It's gonna go up a little bit.
Josh Matthews (36:11):
What would you say to what would you say to
dissidents of that?
Chris Halberg (36:14):
In other words, people who would say, I don't
know, I have a couple of decadesof seeing it happen uh with
certainty.
So like at this point, I'msorry, I have way too many
examples where it works everytime and has for decades.
So like I wouldn't entertainthat conversation unless
somebody had uh that muchexperience.
Josh Matthews (36:32):
Yeah.
Okay.
I love it.
All right, easy.
You're easy.
You're easy to talk to.
Thank you, Chris.
I like how you answer myquestions before I'm even done.
You're like, yeah, no.
Next.
Chris Halberg (36:42):
Well, I mean, that's fine.
I mean, but you know what Imean?
Like uh a black belt doesn'ttake advice from a white belt.
Like it's the other way around.
Josh Matthews (36:50):
No, they don't.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, I think that there's alot of, you know, people talk
about diversity and and and theyoften mean skin color,
ethnicity.
We all know like that isn'treal diversity, right?
Then they talk about, well, thestrength of diversity of
thought.
It's like, okay.
But what you're talking about,and and I absolutely there's
value there, but I think whatyou're talking about is
(37:10):
commonalities.
I remember reading some book.
There's some book onrelationships, and it was it was
basically like you know, uhopposites attract, but
commonalities actually keeppeople together.
And what you're talking aboutis finding those commonalities
so that you can stay together.
And you might not be able toattract as many people up front
right away to the company or tothe to your application process
(37:35):
or whatever it is, but once theyget through that, then the
chance that they're gonna stayfor a long time is is definitely
there.
So it falls in line withclassic human behavior studies,
I think.
Yeah.
Chris Halberg (37:46):
Yeah.
So I don't need to cite whitepapers or research, it's just
this is what I do for a living,and that one doesn't seem to fit
there.
Like there's eggshells aroundthis human.
Is that accelerating the teamor decelerating the team?
What's going on with that?
Like, why do we have to dealwith that?
Well, that's so-and-so.
Like, all right, can we maybeput so-and-so's ego in a box for
(38:06):
a quarter so we can get thisdone?
Or should this entireorganization, all the
shareholders, just wait for thishuman to like like fix
themselves?
So, like it goes back to uhit's not about you.
You are a you are a cog in thewheel.
You are a spoke uh on thebicycle.
Now, without a bunch of spokes,we don't have a bicycle.
(38:27):
So we you're super important.
Losing one spoke, you know, andthen jumping off a 20-foot jump
is gonna not end well for theperson that needed a wheel and
got a flat thing because hedidn't have the strength.
But like at the end of the day,uh a company is a curation of,
it's a team.
And even sports teams havepositioned players.
Like if the catcher, you know,is trying to catch up pop-up
(38:50):
balls in left field, A, thatball's gonna be in the air for a
while because the home plate'sa ways away.
But that would clearly put themout of position if there was a
play at home.
They would be, you know what Imean?
They'd be out of positionthinking they're helping, but
they're actually hurting theteam.
So like if you're a catcher,you gotta squat down for half
most of the game.
You gotta wear a mask, and theball's gonna come at you at 100
(39:10):
miles an hour.
Um, and you gotta be okay withthat.
If that doesn't work for you,maybe you should be the
shortstop.
Maybe you like like think aboutpitching.
So, my my point is if I'mhiring for a position, I'm not
asking for legendary first basepeople to be catchers because
they've spent uh yearsdeveloping their skills for that
position.
(39:31):
So, why why is it anydifferent?
Josh Matthews (39:33):
Look at Moneyball, the the movie with
Brad Pitt and Jonah.
Great movie.
Every time it comes on, I Ican't, it doesn't matter what
point in the movie, if it popson, I'm like you're watching it.
I gotta watch it.
I gotta watch it.
Yeah.
So that's so good.
Chris Halberg (39:46):
That's actually I I tell my EOS clients, right?
Because a scorecard is likeyour weekly activities.
If you do these weeklyactivities, then the monthly
results will be there.
So, like, hey, like uh, youknow, if we're gonna if you look
at a baseball player, forinstance, right?
They have uh two kinds ofcards, pitchers and then
position players.
So pitchers have a bunch ofstats, and they all all the
(40:07):
pitchers share those stats, andthen all the other position
players have a different.
So if you flip over a baseballcard, because I have a three on
one of these lines, and you havea two, like I go to the game in
my G five, you take the teamjet.
And then if you're a one uh uhinstead of a two or three, you
you you make 50 grand a year inthe minor leagues, sleep in
three or four to a hotel room.
(40:28):
So like, so like the thedifference between you know
someone who takes their own Gfive and someone who is still in
the minor leagues is justhitting the ball one more time
out of 10 times.
But in baseball, that's 400,300, and 200.
I think the example works.
So like at the end of the day,um once we set up the matrix,
and I see the matrix is likeback to the high-level stuff.
(40:51):
Who are we?
What do we do?
What positions do we need?
How many do we need?
What's an acceptable amount ofwork per week?
Like, what's what are what arewe already getting from our best
people?
Well, we can't expect the bestfrom everybody, but the middle
of the bell curve says it's 10units a week.
So if I have people that haveworked here for years and they
can only do five units a week,well, I suppose they could stay
(41:14):
for half the money, but you'renot going to find anybody to
take that deal.
So we need to liberate them tothe market and find somebody
that can do eight on their firstday that has the potential to
do 15 within three months.
Like as a leader, you only haveso many roster spots.
So go back to Moneyball, right?
The whole movie was like thisguy gets on base two extra times
every 50 at bats.
(41:34):
And how many at bats do wehave?
Wow, that means we get on eightextra bases for this one
person.
Well, how many other people?
So add up all those littlebitty differences, and at scale
across 100 games in that season,that was enough to overcome
huge payrolls full of all-stars.
And the next very next year,every general manager in
(41:55):
baseball started using theBilly, uh what uh uh the the
character's name.
Josh Matthews (42:01):
Can't remember his last name, Billy.
Chris Halberg (42:02):
I think it was a B2.
Uh uh yeah, uh, and you knowwhat I'm saying?
And and then that's the waythey do it now.
Before it was like that one'sgot a square jaw.
Uh, this one is great in theclubhouse, you know what I mean?
They're the ball players.
Yeah, Billy Bean.
Yeah, Billy Bean.
Yeah.
So again, you're you're thegeneral manager of the baseball
team, whether you know it ornot, or insert whatever you
(42:22):
want.
A leader's job is to take thelimited amount of roster spots
and fill them with the very bestpeople available.
So back to the hiring thing,there's more than enough people
that actually share yoursentiment of how you work, but
your selection systems are moreabout what school you went to,
(42:43):
uh uh where did you work, andnone of that stuff comes out.
It's just on paper you shouldbe awesome.
Why are you not awesome?
Do you mean colleges givedegrees to kids that don't have
full mastery of the topic?
No, really, you mean they'retaught by people that have never
really done it in the realworld, they've just talked about
it for decades?
Really?
(43:04):
So, like, interesting.
Josh Matthews (43:06):
I've had plenty of it's it's not it's not
shocking.
I I was an art major, I got adegree in art, right?
That's why I'm a recruiter.
And I remember people gettingdegrees, graduating.
They literally couldn't do evena basic portrait of themselves
with a painting-drawing focus,couldn't draw their own face,
and they've got a college degreethat says that they're an
(43:27):
artist.
So it's yeah, it's allhorseshit.
It's a ton of horseshit.
And the systems out there mustbe improved.
Well, not the systems, theyhave to be adopted because
they're already out there.
All you need is the system.
Chris Halberg (43:38):
Well, it's it's a mindset at the end of the day,
right?
Like that back to commitment.
What are we committing to?
We believe these things.
If you don't believe thesethings, don't even apply here.
Like I I I asked my clients tostart with an ad.
I'm I'm rather than beinginclusive to try to get as many
candidates for my ad spend, likeI totally get the the ROI
(43:59):
discussion, but all you'resaying is how many people can I
clog up my system to greatlyincrease the difficulty to find
my actual person when when wewhen we try to do that.
I'd rather have a a threethree-paragraph ad.
I've been coaching this fordecades.
I don't remember if this is anoriginal idea or I stole this
decades ago, but let's roll withthis.
Wouldn't matter.
(44:20):
Yeah, it wouldn't matter.
But anyways, the the firstparagraph talks about them.
Let me let me describe you.
Like you people say you caretoo much.
You you're offended by stupidpeople sitting next to you
making a similar rate of pay.
You're actually going into likethe mind of your best people
and what frustrates them uhagainst the worst people.
So you just ask them whatdrives you crazy around here,
(44:43):
right?
And then you write the ad tosay, does this stuff drive you
crazy?
And the answer is like, no, Ilove that stuff.
You are not gonna help myunicorns uh you know eat more
Skittles and chase more rainbowsor whatever they're doing.
Um, so at the end of that firstparagraph, it says, if I
haven't completely nailed you toa T, this is this isn't for
you.
Good luck in another search.
(45:04):
Like, like stop looking at thisad.
Save us both some time andfrustration.
Uh, second paragraph talksabout a day, a week, a quarter,
a year in the life of theposition.
Not the brochure version.
The the garden view meansyou're looking at the dumpster,
not the ocean.
So like if there isn't an oceanview, don't don't put an ocean
view in the ad.
Uh and then at the end of thatsecond paragraph, it says if we
(45:27):
haven't, if you can't seeyourself doing this day in and
day out, if you like pinchyourself that they pay me to do
this, go look at another ad.
This isn't for you.
And then get to the thirdparagraph, we're talking about
the company.
This is our culture.
You can even tell from this ad,we're not like everybody else,
or we're looking for everybody.
If you pass the firstparagraph, you pass the second
(45:47):
paragraph, and this companysounds like somebody you want to
spend a few years with, thenit's ready to apply.
Yeah, it's really hard to get ajob here, so we probably won't
hire you.
But if you really are thesethree things, you should
definitely take a shot.
Because if we do hire you,you're gonna be happy and you're
gonna want to stay here andyou're gonna be surrounded with
like-minded people who like tokick ass, take names, and chew
bubblegum, and we're all out ofbubblegum.
(46:08):
So apply here, take thisassessment.
If you pass the assessment, wewill meet you, and eventually
the person that's actually gonnamanage you is gonna make the
decision.
Whether they need input fromother people or not, it doesn't
matter because we're gonna dothis thing called the 80-day
sprint, and you're either gonnamake it reality TV show, or
you're not.
And it's okay if you don't.
This team is not for everybody.
(46:29):
Not everybody gets to be, youknow, uh the Navy SEAL, a
special forces, green beret.
Like, like, you know what I'msaying?
Like, uh, which I was neitherof those, but but anyone who
served in the militaryunderstands that to get one of
those uh special hats, you know,like a year or two of torture,
like one and like uh 70 peoplemake that.
(46:51):
So when you find somebody likein the military service, you see
somebody with a green beret,gee, I wonder if they're good at
their job.
It's not something you say.
You like European soccer, likethis is uh something I learned
recently, they that a team cango between different leagues
based on their winning.
And and like my point is like Ilike that thought.
Your company is in the DLeague, your company is in the B
(47:13):
League, your is in the AAAleague, you you're you're you're
in the all-star league ofbusiness.
So everything around this issegmented into good, better,
best.
Um, like looking at your thecuration of a team and what kind
of company you're trying tobuild, like if you're not a
world-class team, but you aspireto be and you're willing to
(47:33):
make world-class decisions alongthe way, you have a shot of
being a world-class company.
If your marketing message andyour CEO is full of shit and you
talk about being a world-classcompany, but you're not willing
to do any of those world-classactivities, that's gonna be a
pretty short ride for everybody,and someone's gonna look like
an a-hole.
(47:53):
Uh, you know, when theinternet's forever, by the way,
right?
So, like at the end of the day,when you say things and they
don't come true, it might comeback to you.
Josh Matthews (48:02):
Yeah.
Yeah, it does every time.
Chris, you're awesome, man.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Where can people find you?
Where can they learn more aboutyou?
Where can they learn more aboutyour coaching, uh, the systems
that you implement inbusinesses?
Where can they buy your book?
Amazon?
Chris Halberg (48:20):
Yeah, Amazon.
It's it's it's on it, or youcan reach out to me.
My email address is Chris atgoexpand.com.
So go expand is my new agenticAI operating system platform,
does all the operating systemstuff, does all the human
performance management stuff,and has a fully agentic AI suite
that allows you to literally dotwice the work because you're
(48:42):
just asking for truth, not uh abunch of people getting back to
you.
You put the answer in there andit's just available for folks.
Um, my EOS website, you just goto EOS Worldwide Chris
Hallberg, and then BusinessSargent is my uh coaching uh
website.
So that's B I Z S G T.com.
Check it, check me out, followme on LinkedIn, but would love
(49:02):
to connect with your listeners.
Thank you, Chris.
You've been wonderful.
Why should companies be slow to hire?
Well, because there's likeseven and a half billion people
around the world, and mostcompanies might be 20 or 50 or
250 and don't necessarily haveto create a spot for all 7.5
billion.
Should be really selective.
All a company is, is a curationof humans.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast with
the leaders navigate the age ofAI, create teams that thrive,
and build a workplace number oneteam.
If you're struggling withhiring, managing, or just
getting your team aligned, thisepisode's for you.
My guest today is ChrisHallberg, military veteran,
author of the BusinessSergeant's Field Manual, and
(00:40):
he's also one of Inc.
magazine's top 10 businesscoaches in America.
His no BS approach toleadership and accountability is
exactly what most teams need.
Let's get into it.
Chris Halberg (00:51):
So think about that.
Like, take the people away.
What do you really have?
You don't have a company.
You might have an idea, youmight have a product that
doesn't build itself, doesn'tmarket itself, doesn't build
relationships, and doesn't scalepast the initial sale.
We need humans for all that.
So it's kind of an importantthing.
In fact, I'd argue it's themost important thing.
(01:12):
In my coaching travels, it'sone of the most undercapitalized
uh things.
And I would trace most of theissues that I help leadership
teams solve.
Their personnel issues, theirrecruiting issues, their
retention issues, they're almostyou solve the people issues,
and the right people will solveall your other issues for you.
Josh Matthews (01:33):
Makes sense to me, but what does slow actually
mean?
Is slow actually a number ofdays stacked on top of each
other, or is it a certain numberof processes, conversations,
communications, team meetings,this sort of thing?
Chris Halberg (01:46):
Yeah, it's it's the latter, not the former.
So I thought you could, yeah,you're right.
You could you could be slow tohire and it could take two
weeks.
You could be uh poor atselecting and take six months uh
to be bad at something.
So like the frequency or thetime frame is a secondary thing.
(02:07):
So we say Are you describing mypiano playing?
Yeah, because I think that'sabout right.
Yeah, there you go.
That's hard.
You got to be good uh bass andtreble at the same time.
Uh mad respect to the keyboardplayers listening today.
Um, to think about it, right?
Slow to hire means that that wejust not anyone can work here.
(02:27):
There's a process.
We're gonna vet those other7.499 billion people out to make
sure that everyone we interviewhas the right wiring through uh
an assessment tool of somesort, shares our core values,
like uh the ad talks aboutdescribing what's important to
(02:49):
them.
Um, that matches up with ourown version of weird, right?
Uh, your core values, yourtimeless set of principles,
behaviors.
Not everybody was raised thesame way.
Not everybody loves the samethings, not everybody values
what you value in a businesssetting.
So we could hire a bunch ofrandom people and fight with
them and try to cajole uh andand get them to uh convince them
(03:13):
to do what we want to do, or wecan find people off the street
who are happy to land here anddo exactly what we do without
complaint.
Um, and most people, you know,do it the other way.
Uh, but the people that I workwith, uh, I get them to see very
quickly that all the company isis a curation of humans.
How you know kind of a museumis this?
(03:34):
Like, do we get traffic becausewe got cool stuff?
Or like there's nothinginteresting to see here, worst
museum ever.
Uh, so think think think aboutthat.
And and I'm using people versusart, but you know, more crazy
analogies to come.
I I think using analogies,telling stories, using kind of
half-wild examples uh penetratesand and people get that.
(03:55):
So that's usually why I speakin stories or cliches or things
like that.
Josh Matthews (04:00):
Hey man, you don't have to explain it to me,
maybe everyone else, but I getit.
So when we think about thisprocess, and I mean you just
said something about this thiscuration of people.
I mean, companies when they'retrying to hire positions,
critical positions for theirinfrastructure, sometimes
they're challenged becausethey're just yeah, there's seven
(04:21):
and a half billion, eightbillion people on planet Earth.
Um, they're not all Salesforcearchitects, right?
It's not like we're spoiled forchoice for every one of these
roles.
So it really starts with how dowe attract the right people?
How can we even who who do weeven know that even fits here?
But like let's let's say wejust get past the tech thing.
Like yeah, they've got thecompetency, whatever it is.
(04:43):
Yeah, they're a controller.
Okay, yeah, they're a technicalarchitect for yada yada
technology.
Once we're past that, I mean,it sounds to me like you really
encourage these companies toidentify and articulate what is
unique about them.
Like our museum is a museum ofblank, right?
Do you find when you work withnew clients that they struggle
(05:05):
to even know what kind ofculture they are?
Chris Halberg (05:09):
Absolutely.
I mean, it's a process and it'snot an organic one.
Like there, there's an actualformula uh to talk about who are
we, why do we exist, what do wedo, who do we do it with, how
much are we going to do it, bywhen?
And you know, so that goes backto like an operating system.
Like, for example, uh,entrepreneurial operating
(05:29):
system, EOS, is a tool as aleadership team coach that I've
used for well over a decade withgreat success, because it
starts with like the eightquestions every company has to
answer.
Who are we?
Core values, what's the vibe ofthis tribe?
How do we roll?
What's what's our version ofweird core focus?
Uh, what's our purpose, cause,or passion?
(05:50):
Like, why do we care aboutthis?
Uh, our niche, what?
You get rich in the niche, soyou can't be everything to
everybody, so we have tospecialize.
Then we say, okay, what's ourtenure target or our core
target?
Five to 35 years.
Big, hairy, audacious goal is aJim Collins term.
Um North SAR.
What you know, when times gettough, uh, what do we what do we
(06:11):
shoot an asthma to to give usstrength and focus to continue
on?
What's our marketing strategy,right?
And marketing for people,marketing for clients, gotta
have a persona uh becauserecruiting is just selling the
culture to uh employees, andselling your product is to you
know get customers to adopt yourstrategy over somebody else's.
(06:32):
But you're like, what are ourthree uniques?
Why would someone want to workhere?
Why would someone want to buythis product?
What is the uh process?
Uh we can't serve everybody,but who are the people that
really appreciate us?
And and how do we only put ourpeople in front of those people
versus not being appreciated orvalued by the the by the much
(06:52):
larger group?
And then once we know who thatwhat that is, uh do we have a
guarantee?
Do we have a proven process?
Uh then we have a three-yearpicture, top line, bottom line,
what does it look like?
This is a dream.
And then once the dream iscomplete, we create a one-year
plan.
What is the actual businessplan to put us on a trajectory
that will recast every year, anew three-year and a new one
(07:13):
year to keep things classy?
Then once we have the year,what's the quarterly plan,
otherwise known as ROCs?
The late Dr.
Stephen Covey, projects,priorities, things that give us
a new capacity, new capability,then we have uh long-term
issues.
Things that are.
Josh Matthews (07:58):
This is something that just happened recently.
Twice in two weeks, I've hadfinalists go in and meet with
the hiring manager, met with theCEO, met with the owners or
whoever it is.
Okay.
They've met with them, they'vefallen in love with them, they
love them, they want to get theman offer, then they drop them
into a two or three-person panelwithout any leadership in
(08:21):
there.
And the information that'scoming out of those
conversations is yeah, we wantto pass on this person.
And leadership listens to them.
And I have struggled as arecruiter because I I really
believe it should be top.
I feel like final say shouldshould be the owner or the
(08:42):
hiring manager, the person thatthe individual is going to
report to.
And I'm thinking, why wasn't aleader in that panel to
moderate?
Why why weren't they there tomake sure that well, those
weren't fair questions?
Or what do you mean you didn'tlike him?
Like what part?
Oh, I didn't like the way helooked that one time or the
clothes he was wearing, or hekept doing this.
(09:03):
Because people come up, as youknow, with the stupidest
freaking reasons to not likesomeone.
And it's always safer to say nothan it is to say yes, right?
You say yes to the wrongperson, it's on you.
You say no to the wrong person,you'll never know.
So I'm kind of curious aboutyour take on that.
Like, help me solve my ownproblem here.
Chris Halberg (09:23):
Yeah, well, there's there's layers to that.
I heard three or four issues.
Let me just start with thefirst one is whose decision is
it?
And I I also believe the personthat's gonna manage that person
is their call.
And the fact that they're notmaking the call, they're
delegating that to someone else,probably tells me a lot about
their leadership style, which isthere isn't any.
(09:45):
And and if someone else saysit's a win and they lose, they
can absolve themselves of anyaccountability to say, it wasn't
my call, I gave it to the HRteam or the Tiger team or
whoever I put in charge of theselection committee.
Uh, so like my point is likethe lack of ownership of that
decision is the first thing thatI would take exception to.
(10:07):
And at the end of the day, uh Iwould also look at why did
these people say no to thisperson?
Is this a healthy culture or isthis person seen as a threat?
Wow, this person could take myjob.
I'm not letting them in here.
Like, I'm gonna have to go towork uh to compete against this
person.
So it's better for me as aselfish jerk individual
contributor that's not here forthe right reason to say no to
(10:28):
everyone.
Uh, so I can continue to be theyou know smartest person in the
room or the, you know,whatever.
Like, like, I don't know.
There's a lot going on withthat, and I can understand your
frustration.
So as a recruiter, I wouldprobably talk to the hiring
authority and say, what is theactual process?
Like, what do you want me tofollow?
(10:48):
And as a recruiter, I agree ordisagree with this.
Now they're the client, but youcan choose who you work with.
And if it sounds like it's akangaroo court committee, I'm
not interested in sourcingA-level clients for your B level
players to say no to.
Whose district is this?
And that's the way I like towork.
So I'm gonna go to my provenprocess, and if you're not gonna
(11:09):
follow it, I'm gonna go spendmy time with one of those other
7.999 billion people orwhatever.
Josh Matthews (11:15):
So, like, do you think so?
Do you think so?
And I and I like these peopleand I like these hiring
managers, and you know, weworked together before with
success.
Like, I am not overly criticalof it, except the this one
sticking point, which is whenthat hiring manager or the
person that inevitably thisindividual is going to report to
(11:35):
isn't inside the room, even asa fly on the wall, even
reviewing a recorded session,then I feel like they have done
exactly what you've said, whichis relinquish control, not maybe
held certain personalitiesaccountable to impulsive
decision making based on thethreats of, as you said, you
(12:00):
know, being displaced or notbeing the smarter the smartest
guy in the room, anymore, thingslike that.
Do you think that that's uh atleast minimally a a cure-all?
Like at least get the hiringmanager to watch the tape.
Chris Halberg (12:14):
Yeah, I mean, well how do I how do I empower a
leader to lead, manage, andhold people accountable if they
haven't met them?
So I'm already I already havean issue um just because like
it's your decision and uh you'regonna be judged on the quality
(12:35):
of the team that you curate anddevelop.
Exactly.
And if you're not even involvedin the most important part,
which is selection, then I feelwe have an absentee manager will
never be at fault.
They'll always have anotherdepartment to blame.
So this is big corporatecompany behavior.
And my coaching, because I workwith the C-suite, is I would
(12:56):
tell the CEO, why don't we justcreate a policy right now?
Because you're the CEO and youcan do this right now, that no
one gets hired without theactual leader, the first line
leader meeting and approving.
Josh Matthews (13:08):
Well, yeah, no, the leaders met and approved.
This is what I'm saying.
And sorry that this is reallyconfusing.
The leaders have met thisperson, they like them, they
want to hire them, they sendthem to the team.
The team's like, Oh, we don'tlike them so much.
And the leader's like, oh,okay.
Interesting.
Chris Halberg (13:21):
All right.
So that's all right.
So a little different anglethere.
However, it's the leader's jobto make the selection.
And and if the candidate sharesthe core values, they have the
job skills, we're gonna buildrelationships.
They're not instant.
So having someone just make adecision like that in an hour or
two after I've already made mydecision, first off, that
(13:44):
doesn't make sense.
Why, why I'm gonna add anotherlayer of complexity?
They're gonna come here.
Uh, hopefully they show up forthe first day and the team
treats them well and welcomesthem.
And if that's not gonna happenthere, that's a secondary issue
that we're not open andwelcoming, living our core
values, or helping the teamgrow, which are all negative
behaviors that don't have a lotof value to me.
(14:06):
So I would just make the call,make the the offer.
Uh, that's my account, that'smy call.
And and every existing teammateis gonna weigh in on the new
people 30 days, 60 days, 90 daysbefore we make a probationary,
you know, keep them or try againdecision.
(14:29):
And that's all part of it, butthat's a process, and a human
needs fairly, you know, probably90 days to see their best, see
their worst, and find theiraverage.
So for someone to spend an hourand say, I don't think they're
gonna work on this team, uh, I Iyeah, after three other people
have been like, yeah, they'regreat.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonnagive my subordinate my decision
(14:52):
if I don't trust their judgmentexplicitly.
So in this particular case, ifthis hiring manager has a track
record of making bad hires, andthat's why they're now going to
a committee, and the committeeis bat in a thousand, okay,
great.
So we have to fish f fix thisdeficiency in this hiring
manager uh to gain the skills tonot need a CNI dog to hire
(15:14):
people or two or three.
So like that.
That's the way I would saythat.
Josh Matthews (15:18):
Let me ask you about root.
I like that, Chris.
Thank you.
Let me ask you about quick tofire.
It's just the it's just the uhit's the left hand of the pair
of hands here, right?
Um a lot of companies areafraid to fire quickly.
They're afraid because maybethey have a unique skill set and
they feel like their knowledgebase is holding them over a
(15:40):
barrel.
We used to see this back in theaughts and in the teens with
DBAs.
No one else had the keys to thekingdom, no one else could like
access the database, so theyhad to keep them forever, this
kind of stuff.
And then we've also seen itwhere they're afraid.
Maybe the person is in aprotected class, but they're
performing very poorly, and thecompany is afraid to even do the
(16:01):
process of writing them up,documenting the challenges,
having the conversations,setting, setting the resetting
the expectations, and then beingable to have this sort of
written proof.
We tried everything, YourHonor.
This person sucks.
It had to go.
What would you say to companieswhere hiring managers are
(16:24):
nervous about getting rid ofdead weight?
Chris Halberg (16:27):
Well, if you're a for-profit company, that's not
sustainable.
So not going to invest in acompany with that view.
Um, and at the end of the day,uh probationary employment, like
what I said, the 90-day, I havean 80-day review, not 90,
because sometimes 90 days runson Saturday or Sunday, and the
next opportunity to have theconversation is on the 92nd day
(16:50):
on Monday.
So a lot of states have aprobationary period.
So if your state has a 90-dayprobationary period, this is
like not counting against yourunemployment insurance.
It's just a mulligan notworking out for me, not working
out for you.
Yeah.
It's it's so what I recommendto my clients is we have an
actual 90 days to success or80-day ramp.
(17:11):
And it's a bit of a scavengerhunt.
You got to go to these people,get this training.
We need to verify you'velearned this, that you're
producing at the 60-day, 80-daylevels because we're
professionals, we hire peopleand we know what good looks
like.
And I would just manage thestandard, and it has to be the
same for everybody.
And at 90 days, this is whereyou're at with your training,
(17:33):
this is where you're at withyour production.
And if you're not at this line,uh by 45 days, you're at risk.
And if you're not fully thereat 80, we're gonna, we're gonna
go ahead and say not a good fit.
And if you're disciplined to dothat, you could do that legally
and and and be very quick tofail with people.
The issue is people realizeyour scenario in the seventh day
(17:55):
of work and they don't addressit for a year or two, and
there's no documentation, andnow all those things are true,
and you don't have any papertrail, or you haven't even told
this person.
The person thinks they'recrushing it, they're high-fiving
everyone and doing a dance inthe parking lot.
They don't even know they'refailing.
That is just a complete andutter fail of leadership.
(18:16):
And the root cause is that wedon't have systems and we don't
hold people accountable.
And what you're really sayingis we're not a professional
company because back to uh slowto hire, quick to fire, think
about the professional leaguesof sports, right?
Sports ball, whatever yourfavorite one is, put it in here.
Takes years to get to the majorleagues, and about four or five
(18:38):
games and not playing well togo back to the minor league.
So, how many years did it takeyou to get there?
And how many bad games at $4million a game or $80 million a
year is ownership management orthe fans going to hold out for
that?
So, like when I hear thatscenario, I think of a minor
league company with minor leagueleaders and minor league hiring
(18:59):
managers, and they're onlygonna retain minor league
employees.
I uh don't work in the minorleagues.
I'm sorry, Josh.
I only accept clients that wantto be the very best of what
they do.
Why are you saying sorry to me,man?
Well, I'm just saying, like, uhthis issue isn't one I would
actually solve because I wouldjust go to the leadership team
and say, that is some rookieBush league shit you're doing
(19:22):
there.
Um do you want to scale BushLeague crap or do we want to be
a world-class company?
And the only way to do that isto have a world-class uh
recruiting, selection, andretention program.
Uh, and that's that's what Ihelp people do because the
organic one that you'redescribing, everyone already has
that.
That's free.
Yeah.
Josh Matthews (19:40):
Yeah, it is free.
When you think about theclients that you serve, okay,
these major league clients, whatis the biggest mistake or the
most common mistake that'seasily fixed that you're seeing
in with your major leagueclients?
Chris Halberg (19:57):
Yeah, we we don't we don't have a plan and are
not willing to hold people toit.
So just lack of uh a vision,like just literally, um it's
different.
It's it's different fordifferent people.
Uh it's one voice, one vision,one team, one voice.
What we teach is here it is.
We've worked hard, we'vecurated this information, these
(20:20):
products, these clients, thismessaging, these humans.
I really hope you love it too,because we work very hard to
create this.
If you're gonna join this, youare opting in 100% for this, not
some range that's morecomfortable to you.
This is 100% join our team anddive all the way in and be this
(20:41):
or go somewhere else entirely.
We have the hell yeah, I wantto do this, the hell no circle,
the middle circle with flames,and the middle is hell.
So yeah, but it's what you it'sit's whatever four letter yes
or no, and then just that, justthe superlative in the middle.
And and like or or excuse me,just just like it would be fuck.
(21:04):
It would be fuck yeah, fuck no,and fuck that like using your
example.
Like that that's what it is.
But hell works better becausethen I can use a red marker and
I can draw flames in there.
And that comes from um, I wantto say Kim Scott Radical Candor
or Michael Chandler TimeWarrior.
Uh, that's that's that's that'sa graphic that I've seen uh
from other coaches, and I loveit because it's just like your
(21:27):
job as a leader is to geteverything in the hell yeah, and
hell yeah is okay, hell no isokay.
But anything that we can'tneatly put in hell yeah or hell
no, by definition, that's hell.
You can't nail it, you can'tscale it.
It's complexity.
So if one is black and one iswhite, all the color, none of
the color, the middle by defaultis gray.
Gray is complexity.
(21:49):
Uh, you cannot scalecomplexity.
You can scale simplicity, youcan't scale complexity.
So when you do that, you'rechoosing to make business even
harder than it already is.
Minor league mindset, minorleague execution.
Gotta have a major leaguemindset.
If we're gonna be a world-classteam, we can't accept uh beer
(22:12):
league results.
Josh Matthews (22:14):
That's right.
That's right.
Dropping knowledge like Galileodropped an orange.
I love it.
Tell me about with these BushLeague clients, because I'm
assuming you sign them.
You're you're trying to takethem from the minors to the
majors.
Is that accurate?
Chris Halberg (22:28):
Do you jump into some teams and you're like,
Yeah, they have to want to be inthe major leagues to hire a
coach that only understandsthat.
So, like, like I get thatpeople aren't fully there, but
they're not just interested inbeing there, they're committed
to being there.
And that's the second thing, ifyou were going to say, all
right, what else?
Well, the commitment.
Like you can't hold somebodyaccountable unless they're
(22:50):
committed.
It's impossible.
But in front of commitmentwould be uh conflict, healthy
conflict, and in you know, infront of that would be uh being
uh vulnerable, you know, beingable to trust people.
So now I'm talking aboutLencioni, Pat Lencioni's five
dysfunctions of a team.
So sure, trust is on thebottom.
(23:10):
If we can't be vulnerable andlike tell the truth, we got to
like say lies and try to solvelies.
Let me know how that goes.
So we have to be vulnerable.
Josh Matthews (23:20):
I can tell you how it goes.
Chris Halberg (23:21):
Look at making these networks.
There you go.
It doesn't work.
But once we're able to speakthe truth, we can now enter into
healthy conflict.
Like, fuck you, no fuck you, nofuck you more.
That's unhealthy conflict, andthat's not gonna get us
anywhere.
Like, I respectfully disagreewith your opinion, and I have
some data to support it.
May I share the data with you?
That is much better than justsaying I think you're a jerk,
(23:42):
Josh.
Uh, you know what I mean?
Like you screwed me over lastquarter on this account.
So healthy conflict.
Once we're able to have realhealthy conflict, then we can
really be committed.
Now, whether I got my way oryou got your way, I was allowed
the opportunity to debate in ahealthy uh conf conflict way.
And even if we didn't go myway, I'm gonna get shoulder to
(24:03):
shoulder with you because yougave me the opportunity.
We didn't go with my idea, wewent with Josh's idea.
However, Josh and the rest ofthe team entertained me, made a
decision.
Now I can commit to Josh's ideabecause I'm on this team, and
the team has decided.
Josh Matthews (24:17):
Yeah, it's not just lip service.
I remember this is silly,probably edit this out, but I
remember we just spent a bunchof money on a really nice new
house.
And then they redrew the schooldistrict lines, which put us
into a different high schoolcatchment, which changed the
value of the home.
And what they did is they spenttwo years having community
meetings, and after everybody'svoices were heard, they just
(24:41):
went ahead with their plananyway.
So it it didn't matter.
So we've really got to bediscerning around like how much
of this is just optics to looklike you're engaged, versus how
much of this is actually veryreal, with uh valid valid
concerns, valid points, validdata to be able to make a real
(25:05):
argument, to be able to make areal case.
Chris Halberg (25:07):
It takes the same amount of time to be great as
it does to be shitty atanything.
Like my point is when peopleare bad at something, they spend
eight to ten hours being bad atit.
They don't spend any of thattime trying to get better at it,
they just prove how bad theyare.
So like going through themotions for two years and then
just doing the thing, yeah, thatis beyond minor league.
(25:29):
That is that is not it, not noprofession.
Like this is amateur, is whatthat is.
Now, like school boards, HOAboards, the most dysfunctional
places on the planet.
Of course.
Of course.
So you're like finding one ofthose scenarios that actually
functions well, very difficultbecause good luck with that.
Yeah, because we don't have adecision maker, we have
(25:52):
consensus management, and thenwe have everyone's feelings.
And you know, feelings are hardto scale.
So, like these are the this ishow we'd like you to feel.
If you don't feel that way,don't work here.
If you do feel this way, you'llbe surrounded by other people
to feel the exact same way.
So we're not gonna have a lotof stress and conflict because
we're all aligned and we're allhere at and we want the same
things and we work in a similarway, and we're willing, we sign
(26:14):
up for difficult conversations,getting called out on our
bullshit, and we're here to begreat.
And those are the ingredientsof teammates that want to be
great.
If you don't want to do that,you can't work here.
And again, goes back to thecommitment.
And once we have thatcommitment after trust,
conflict, commitment, thenaccountability there.
So everyone's like, no one'saccountable.
Well, have you done the firstthree steps?
(26:35):
Well, no, of course not.
We're full of shit.
There's no opportunity, it'sfake conflict.
People pretend because they gottwo kids in college and their
new home is expensive.
This is a great idea when theyknow it's about ready to kill
the company.
So if I can erase that and getinto, I trust that I can just
you can speak the truth and wecan call each other out.
And my ego's not so big thatyou need to lie for you to keep
(26:58):
your job here.
That's not healthy.
So we can respectfullydisagree.
I love you, but you're a littlehigh on this one right now.
Let me give you some data andthen we can horse trade back to
something that that that wethink fits, then we can commit
to it.
Once we're committed to it, Iexpect to be held accountable.
I've already committed thatwe're gonna do this, and then
the results will be therebecause I have accountability.
(27:19):
So Lincioni's point is it's atriangle, and the biggest one,
the foundation is trust.
So if we're full of shit andwe're know what you say is the
corporate speak for this is thedumbest idea I've ever seen, you
know, why not just say thisidea could kill us?
I can't believe this got thisfar.
Like, who is not vetting theseideas?
(27:41):
This is the dumbest fuckingidea I've heard this quarter.
Whose idea is this?
Everyone's sheepish, right?
Like, okay, great.
Like that's all conflict versuswe're we're stretching things
at the very first day.
Hey, I kind of, yeah, I kind offeel like this idea is to
improve your comfort on adifficult conversation.
Or I feel like this is aworkaround to uh protect uh some
(28:06):
cronyism in this pocket of thecompany, and it's not good for
all the employees, it's good fora few uh silver hairs who feel
entitled, or you know what I'msaying?
So, like if we all have thesame rules and we all are trying
to be world class, we're on ourway.
But back to that commitment,which has to come first.
So there's a lot of people intheir marketing materials, their
(28:28):
website says we're aworld-class team of
collaborative, la la la.
And then you work with thecompany and you're like, you
guys don't even, the left handand the right hand don't even
meet.
Josh Matthews (28:37):
No, it's just horror, it is a lot of
whoreshit.
I mean, it's easy to come upwith your mission, vision,
values and have it sound goodand and look good and tick all
of the markers, whatever socialsignaling you're trying to do.
Yeah, it ticks all the boxes.
I don't know how many pages,you know, HR pages of company
websites I've read, they alllook pretty much the same.
(28:59):
Even the ones that mean it.
And that's the weird thing.
Even the ones that mean it lookthe same as the ones that
don't.
So it's really tricky.
I I wanted to ask you this.
I know you're working mostly oninside with leadership, trying
to make these firms better.
But what would you say to thecandidates to be able to
generate a very valid, soundlevel of awareness so that they
(29:22):
too, when they're entering intoconversations with an
organization, that they can alsomake sure that this company
fits their values.
Because we have to assume thatnot every single company has it
dialed in.
You know, hey, look, here's thedeal.
We talk straight, we're kind offunny, um, we work really hard
when we have to, which is mostof the time, we put in extra
(29:44):
hours when we have to, which issome of the time.
And if you can live with that,if you can hang, like you're
gonna love it here and andyou're gonna be great.
And wouldn't it be great ifevery company could just
articulate it?
Everyone's gone through theChris Hallberg, you know,
business sergeant program, butmost companies.
Companies have it.
That means that it's a lot ofgray.
When you're dealing with grayand you're a candidate, you're a
(30:06):
high-level person, maybe you'rean exec executive, you're a
hiring manager level, directorand above, whatever, or any of
them.
How can they cut through themustard?
How can they cut through thegray to figure out what the
black and white is?
Or should they not evenentertain?
Let's say they're super highvalue, they they're spoiled for
choice.
They get to walk away if it'syou know not making sense to
(30:26):
them.
But other people, yeah, theyjust bought the house and they
got the third kid on the way andthey need to work and they
haven't had an offer in threemonths.
So how can they protectthemselves when faced with
ambiguity like you've describedin the gray?
Chris Halberg (30:40):
Well, I think at the end of the day, um if you're
trying to retain great people,you have to provide an
environment where they can speakthe truth, disagree
respectfully, have a healthydialogue, and uh contribute and
be acknowledged for thosecontributions.
So like if you're not providingthat, they're a flight risk.
(31:03):
And as soon as that offer doescome in, they will leave.
So at the end of the day, likein the military, right, they
issue you soldiers, uh, airmen,seamen, marines, you know, uh
guardians and and uh uh the uhwhatever the Coast Guard is uh
so like they are enlisting forthree to seven years.
(31:24):
So the commitment is like solidcommitment.
Like you can't just say, I'mnot coming to work today, or
they'll send the MPs, what Iused to do, to come grab you and
remind you that you made acommitment to Uncle Sam and it
wasn't a a light one.
Um in the civilian businessworld, you get to pick.
And if you're just beingassigned random people, then uh
(31:45):
again, making business harderthan it needs to be.
But but back to the commitment,they can leave.
They're not enlisted for sevenyears.
Like they have one bad meetingand be like, my my manager's an
idiot.
Like, okay, well, I have threekids in college and expensive
mortgage, so I'm not gonna lethim know he's an idiot today.
I'm gonna find a new job, andon my last day, I'm gonna say,
you know, you're an idiot, andthen I'm gonna leave.
(32:05):
Like, like I'm just saying,that that's the way it works.
So back to like all thoseindividual, like I totally
understand.
There's literally more examplesof that than there isn't the
other thing.
But if people are okay withthat, I can't that that company
can't be helped.
Like there has to be a desireto get off the hamster wheel of
mediocre and do what everybodyelse does.
(32:28):
And it starts at the top, andit says, we believe this, and we
are willing to spend some extramoney on recruiters, and we are
gonna fail fast with people,and we are gonna have a year or
two of reshuffling of the deck.
But once we stack the deck,we're gonna have super low
turnover, big profit, bigbonuses, profit sharing checks,
(32:52):
limited PTO.
Everyone's gonna be 10% bodyfat and you know, but tell funny
jokes.
Like my point is like you canyou can dream as much as you
want, like no one's stoppingyou.
At some point, you'll findresistance.
Um, what's the resistancecoming from?
Is it coming from a healthyplace or is it coming from an
(33:12):
unhealthy place?
So if it's coming from anunhealthy place and we can be
vulnerable and call it out, andwe can have healthy conflict,
and we can get committed and wecan hold people accountable,
well, then we're gonna haveresults.
If that doesn't exist, we aregonna be frustrated.
Uh, we are gonna have all kindsof problems, and all you're
gonna do is scale uh problems tolarger problems.
(33:34):
So, like, that's why there's TVshows about the office.
That shit's funny, unlessyou're the main character, and
then it's not funny becauseyou're showing up to an
eight-hour episode uh, you know,that that that never gets
better.
So, like, I just go back tolike life is short here.
What are you gonna spend athird of your life doing?
Josh Matthews (33:52):
Talk to the audience if you can for a
moment.
A little bit more about hiring.
We've covered slow to hire, orexcuse me, yeah, slow to hire,
quick to fire, why you shouldget rid of people, everything
you should be doing before youeven decide what kind of people
you're bringing on board, thecommitment to trust layer all
the way up.
What else can they doimmediately?
(34:12):
Let's say someone is a hiringmanager right now, they're in
the middle of the process, theydon't have a three-day workshop
to go and drum up all of thisbig dream stuff and layer it out
and disseminate it toeverybody, but they have to make
some decisions pretty quickly.
What's one or two things thatthey can do to protect their
team from a bad hire today,tomorrow?
Chris Halberg (34:36):
Hiring is art and science.
It is a blend of art andscience.
The science part would be to doan assessment of all of your
existing people, your best, yourmid-pack, and your not best
people.
And what ends up happening iswhen you do that, you'll
discover that your very bestpeople all share one, maybe two
(34:57):
different personality archetypesof whatever assessment tool
that you love.
And if you are willing to spenda little extra money on
assessments and in andadvertising to more people to
create a larger top of funnel,then you use the assessment as
the restrictor, right?
So if you're gonna, instead ofgetting 10 candidates, you're
(35:18):
gonna get two candidates.
Well, you might need to lookfor 30 candidates, right, to get
six or or seven.
So just understanding the mathon this and making that
investment.
The ROI on that is like 100x,1000 X, a million X.
People don't want to spend thetime and money, but they'd
rather spend 10 times thatnumber cycling through the wrong
hire five or six times untilthey get it right and creating
(35:40):
all the pain and suffering.
So we we measure the good ones,the not so good ones.
Guess what?
Once we know what that is, uh,we will only interview the
people that have the successfulwiring.
So if I don't even meet thepeople who are predisposed to
fail because they don't have thecorrect wiring, and we've
already have the data, so itit's obvious.
(36:00):
And we only interview peoplethat with those one or two
personality types, we're gonnainterview probably 50% less, but
our hire rate's gonna go up100, 200, 300%.
It's gonna go up a little bit.
Josh Matthews (36:11):
What would you say to what would you say to
dissidents of that?
Chris Halberg (36:14):
In other words, people who would say, I don't
know, I have a couple of decadesof seeing it happen uh with
certainty.
So like at this point, I'msorry, I have way too many
examples where it works everytime and has for decades.
So like I wouldn't entertainthat conversation unless
somebody had uh that muchexperience.
Josh Matthews (36:32):
Yeah.
Okay.
I love it.
All right, easy.
You're easy.
You're easy to talk to.
Thank you, Chris.
I like how you answer myquestions before I'm even done.
You're like, yeah, no.
Next.
Chris Halberg (36:42):
Well, I mean, that's fine.
I mean, but you know what Imean?
Like uh a black belt doesn'ttake advice from a white belt.
Like it's the other way around.
Josh Matthews (36:50):
No, they don't.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, I think that there's alot of, you know, people talk
about diversity and and and theyoften mean skin color,
ethnicity.
We all know like that isn'treal diversity, right?
Then they talk about, well, thestrength of diversity of
thought.
It's like, okay.
But what you're talking about,and and I absolutely there's
value there, but I think whatyou're talking about is
(37:10):
commonalities.
I remember reading some book.
There's some book onrelationships, and it was it was
basically like you know, uhopposites attract, but
commonalities actually keeppeople together.
And what you're talking aboutis finding those commonalities
so that you can stay together.
And you might not be able toattract as many people up front
right away to the company or tothe to your application process
(37:35):
or whatever it is, but once theyget through that, then the
chance that they're gonna stayfor a long time is is definitely
there.
So it falls in line withclassic human behavior studies,
I think.
Yeah.
Chris Halberg (37:46):
Yeah.
So I don't need to cite whitepapers or research, it's just
this is what I do for a living,and that one doesn't seem to fit
there.
Like there's eggshells aroundthis human.
Is that accelerating the teamor decelerating the team?
What's going on with that?
Like, why do we have to dealwith that?
Well, that's so-and-so.
Like, all right, can we maybeput so-and-so's ego in a box for
(38:06):
a quarter so we can get thisdone?
Or should this entireorganization, all the
shareholders, just wait for thishuman to like like fix
themselves?
So, like it goes back to uhit's not about you.
You are a you are a cog in thewheel.
You are a spoke uh on thebicycle.
Now, without a bunch of spokes,we don't have a bicycle.
(38:27):
So we you're super important.
Losing one spoke, you know, andthen jumping off a 20-foot jump
is gonna not end well for theperson that needed a wheel and
got a flat thing because hedidn't have the strength.
But like at the end of the day,uh a company is a curation of,
it's a team.
And even sports teams havepositioned players.
Like if the catcher, you know,is trying to catch up pop-up
(38:50):
balls in left field, A, thatball's gonna be in the air for a
while because the home plate'sa ways away.
But that would clearly put themout of position if there was a
play at home.
They would be, you know what Imean?
They'd be out of positionthinking they're helping, but
they're actually hurting theteam.
So like if you're a catcher,you gotta squat down for half
most of the game.
You gotta wear a mask, and theball's gonna come at you at 100
(39:10):
miles an hour.
Um, and you gotta be okay withthat.
If that doesn't work for you,maybe you should be the
shortstop.
Maybe you like like think aboutpitching.
So, my my point is if I'mhiring for a position, I'm not
asking for legendary first basepeople to be catchers because
they've spent uh yearsdeveloping their skills for that
position.
(39:31):
So, why why is it anydifferent?
Josh Matthews (39:33):
Look at Moneyball, the the movie with
Brad Pitt and Jonah.
Great movie.
Every time it comes on, I Ican't, it doesn't matter what
point in the movie, if it popson, I'm like you're watching it.
I gotta watch it.
I gotta watch it.
Yeah.
So that's so good.
Chris Halberg (39:46):
That's actually I I tell my EOS clients, right?
Because a scorecard is likeyour weekly activities.
If you do these weeklyactivities, then the monthly
results will be there.
So, like, hey, like uh, youknow, if we're gonna if you look
at a baseball player, forinstance, right?
They have uh two kinds ofcards, pitchers and then
position players.
So pitchers have a bunch ofstats, and they all all the
(40:07):
pitchers share those stats, andthen all the other position
players have a different.
So if you flip over a baseballcard, because I have a three on
one of these lines, and you havea two, like I go to the game in
my G five, you take the teamjet.
And then if you're a one uh uhinstead of a two or three, you
you you make 50 grand a year inthe minor leagues, sleep in
three or four to a hotel room.
(40:28):
So like, so like the thedifference between you know
someone who takes their own Gfive and someone who is still in
the minor leagues is justhitting the ball one more time
out of 10 times.
But in baseball, that's 400,300, and 200.
I think the example works.
So like at the end of the day,um once we set up the matrix,
and I see the matrix is likeback to the high-level stuff.
(40:51):
Who are we?
What do we do?
What positions do we need?
How many do we need?
What's an acceptable amount ofwork per week?
Like, what's what are what arewe already getting from our best
people?
Well, we can't expect the bestfrom everybody, but the middle
of the bell curve says it's 10units a week.
So if I have people that haveworked here for years and they
can only do five units a week,well, I suppose they could stay
(41:14):
for half the money, but you'renot going to find anybody to
take that deal.
So we need to liberate them tothe market and find somebody
that can do eight on their firstday that has the potential to
do 15 within three months.
Like as a leader, you only haveso many roster spots.
So go back to Moneyball, right?
The whole movie was like thisguy gets on base two extra times
every 50 at bats.
(41:34):
And how many at bats do wehave?
Wow, that means we get on eightextra bases for this one
person.
Well, how many other people?
So add up all those littlebitty differences, and at scale
across 100 games in that season,that was enough to overcome
huge payrolls full of all-stars.
And the next very next year,every general manager in
(41:55):
baseball started using theBilly, uh what uh uh the the
character's name.
Josh Matthews (42:01):
Can't remember his last name, Billy.
Chris Halberg (42:02):
I think it was a B2.
Uh uh yeah, uh, and you knowwhat I'm saying?
And and then that's the waythey do it now.
Before it was like that one'sgot a square jaw.
Uh, this one is great in theclubhouse, you know what I mean?
They're the ball players.
Yeah, Billy Bean.
Yeah, Billy Bean.
Yeah.
So again, you're you're thegeneral manager of the baseball
team, whether you know it ornot, or insert whatever you
(42:22):
want.
A leader's job is to take thelimited amount of roster spots
and fill them with the very bestpeople available.
So back to the hiring thing,there's more than enough people
that actually share yoursentiment of how you work, but
your selection systems are moreabout what school you went to,
(42:43):
uh uh where did you work, andnone of that stuff comes out.
It's just on paper you shouldbe awesome.
Why are you not awesome?
Do you mean colleges givedegrees to kids that don't have
full mastery of the topic?
No, really, you mean they'retaught by people that have never
really done it in the realworld, they've just talked about
it for decades?
Really?
(43:04):
So, like, interesting.
Josh Matthews (43:06):
I've had plenty of it's it's not it's not
shocking.
I I was an art major, I got adegree in art, right?
That's why I'm a recruiter.
And I remember people gettingdegrees, graduating.
They literally couldn't do evena basic portrait of themselves
with a painting-drawing focus,couldn't draw their own face,
and they've got a college degreethat says that they're an
(43:27):
artist.
So it's yeah, it's allhorseshit.
It's a ton of horseshit.
And the systems out there mustbe improved.
Well, not the systems, theyhave to be adopted because
they're already out there.
All you need is the system.
Chris Halberg (43:38):
Well, it's it's a mindset at the end of the day,
right?
Like that back to commitment.
What are we committing to?
We believe these things.
If you don't believe thesethings, don't even apply here.
Like I I I asked my clients tostart with an ad.
I'm I'm rather than beinginclusive to try to get as many
candidates for my ad spend, likeI totally get the the ROI
(43:59):
discussion, but all you'resaying is how many people can I
clog up my system to greatlyincrease the difficulty to find
my actual person when when wewhen we try to do that.
I'd rather have a a threethree-paragraph ad.
I've been coaching this fordecades.
I don't remember if this is anoriginal idea or I stole this
decades ago, but let's roll withthis.
Wouldn't matter.
(44:20):
Yeah, it wouldn't matter.
But anyways, the the firstparagraph talks about them.
Let me let me describe you.
Like you people say you caretoo much.
You you're offended by stupidpeople sitting next to you
making a similar rate of pay.
You're actually going into likethe mind of your best people
and what frustrates them uhagainst the worst people.
So you just ask them whatdrives you crazy around here,
(44:43):
right?
And then you write the ad tosay, does this stuff drive you
crazy?
And the answer is like, no, Ilove that stuff.
You are not gonna help myunicorns uh you know eat more
Skittles and chase more rainbowsor whatever they're doing.
Um, so at the end of that firstparagraph, it says, if I
haven't completely nailed you toa T, this is this isn't for
you.
Good luck in another search.
(45:04):
Like, like stop looking at thisad.
Save us both some time andfrustration.
Uh, second paragraph talksabout a day, a week, a quarter,
a year in the life of theposition.
Not the brochure version.
The the garden view meansyou're looking at the dumpster,
not the ocean.
So like if there isn't an oceanview, don't don't put an ocean
view in the ad.
Uh and then at the end of thatsecond paragraph, it says if we
(45:27):
haven't, if you can't seeyourself doing this day in and
day out, if you like pinchyourself that they pay me to do
this, go look at another ad.
This isn't for you.
And then get to the thirdparagraph, we're talking about
the company.
This is our culture.
You can even tell from this ad,we're not like everybody else,
or we're looking for everybody.
If you pass the firstparagraph, you pass the second
(45:47):
paragraph, and this companysounds like somebody you want to
spend a few years with, thenit's ready to apply.
Yeah, it's really hard to get ajob here, so we probably won't
hire you.
But if you really are thesethree things, you should
definitely take a shot.
Because if we do hire you,you're gonna be happy and you're
gonna want to stay here andyou're gonna be surrounded with
like-minded people who like tokick ass, take names, and chew
bubblegum, and we're all out ofbubblegum.
(46:08):
So apply here, take thisassessment.
If you pass the assessment, wewill meet you, and eventually
the person that's actually gonnamanage you is gonna make the
decision.
Whether they need input fromother people or not, it doesn't
matter because we're gonna dothis thing called the 80-day
sprint, and you're either gonnamake it reality TV show, or
you're not.
And it's okay if you don't.
This team is not for everybody.
(46:29):
Not everybody gets to be, youknow, uh the Navy SEAL, a
special forces, green beret.
Like, like, you know what I'msaying?
Like, uh, which I was neitherof those, but but anyone who
served in the militaryunderstands that to get one of
those uh special hats, you know,like a year or two of torture,
like one and like uh 70 peoplemake that.
(46:51):
So when you find somebody likein the military service, you see
somebody with a green beret,gee, I wonder if they're good at
their job.
It's not something you say.
You like European soccer, likethis is uh something I learned
recently, they that a team cango between different leagues
based on their winning.
And and like my point is like Ilike that thought.
Your company is in the DLeague, your company is in the B
(47:13):
League, your is in the AAAleague, you you're you're you're
in the all-star league ofbusiness.
So everything around this issegmented into good, better,
best.
Um, like looking at your thecuration of a team and what kind
of company you're trying tobuild, like if you're not a
world-class team, but you aspireto be and you're willing to
(47:33):
make world-class decisions alongthe way, you have a shot of
being a world-class company.
If your marketing message andyour CEO is full of shit and you
talk about being a world-classcompany, but you're not willing
to do any of those world-classactivities, that's gonna be a
pretty short ride for everybody,and someone's gonna look like
an a-hole.
(47:53):
Uh, you know, when theinternet's forever, by the way,
right?
So, like at the end of the day,when you say things and they
don't come true, it might comeback to you.
Josh Matthews (48:02):
Yeah.
Yeah, it does every time.
Chris, you're awesome, man.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Where can people find you?
Where can they learn more aboutyou?
Where can they learn more aboutyour coaching, uh, the systems
that you implement inbusinesses?
Where can they buy your book?
Amazon?
Chris Halberg (48:20):
Yeah, Amazon.
It's it's it's on it, or youcan reach out to me.
My email address is Chris atgoexpand.com.
So go expand is my new agenticAI operating system platform,
does all the operating systemstuff, does all the human
performance management stuff,and has a fully agentic AI suite
that allows you to literally dotwice the work because you're
(48:42):
just asking for truth, not uh abunch of people getting back to
you.
You put the answer in there andit's just available for folks.
Um, my EOS website, you just goto EOS Worldwide Chris
Hallberg, and then BusinessSargent is my uh coaching uh
website.
So that's B I Z S G T.com.
Check it, check me out, followme on LinkedIn, but would love
(49:02):
to connect with your listeners.
Thank you, Chris.
You've been wonderful.
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