February 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Unlock the secrets to building a high-performing team with insights from this week's guest, Dr. Michael Neal, founder of Build My Team. Faced with the challenge of high turnover in his eye care practice, Dr. Neal sought inspiration from industry giants like Disney and the Four Seasons, leading to the creation of a transformative hiring system. Join us as we explore how identifying natural strengths and talents can revolutionize your approach to talent development, echoing the unique goal-setting strategies of Warren Buffett.
Discover effective strategies for engaging and motivating A and B plus players with minimal micromanagement, creating an environment where creativity and high performance thrive.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay Johnson (00:01):
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today, my special guest is DrMichael Neal.
Welcome to the show, Mike.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:13):
Thanks so much for having me, Jay.
I'm excited to be here today.
Jay Johnson (00:16):
So you have got some incredible experience and I
can't wait to tap into that andsurface some of these learnings
for our audience.
And I can't wait to tap intothat and surface some of these
learnings for our audience.
Mike, can you tell us how didyou get into this space?
You started and founded Buildmy Team.
You've worked with someincredible companies.
Talk to us, tell us a littlebit about yourself and how you
(00:39):
got into this space of talentdevelopment.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:40):
Well, I've always been interested in high
performers and how to kind ofunlock the high performing code,
but truthfully, that hasnothing to do with it.
I got into this because our eyecare practice was hemorrhaging
people.
We could not keep people, wewere hiring the wrong folks, we
didn't know what we were doing,we didn't have a system.
(01:01):
I mean, whoever your listenersare right now, they're checking
these boxes like yep, yep, yep,this guy's in the.
He was in the same boat, I am,yeah, and what I ended up doing
was taking.
I wanted to solve this problembecause we it was so stressful
it's hard to describe and Ithought well, other businesses
aren't having this problem.
(01:21):
Why is this unique to our eyecare practice?
And it turns out it wasn't atall.
I just didn't know any betterat the time.
So I looked at companies likeDisney, the Four Seasons and how
these big, incredibly amazingcustomer service organizations
how were they hiring?
Figured out some of theirtricks of the trade and they're
not that hard actually and thenslowly but methodically, built a
(01:46):
system that's now completelyautomated and designed to find
administrative team members,clerical people, entry-level
positions for not onlyhealthcare practices but small
businesses, and we did thatthroughout North America.
It's completely.
It does one thing, one thingonly, and it does it at about a
97% effectiveness level.
(02:07):
We just we solved the problem,slammed the door shut, nailed
around the door and have beenusing this in our practice ever
since.
Jay Johnson (02:17):
So necessity is generally the mother of
invention, and it sounds to me,oh boy yeah, invention, and uh,
it sounds oh boy, yeah, so your?
Dr. Michael Neal (02:31):
experience.
You had an eye care.
You had an eye care um business.
You saw disengagement still doso, you saw disengagement.
Jay Johnson (02:35):
You saw the challenges with recruiting good
talent, managing them on,getting them going and develop
this system.
So let's talk a little bitabout what does this system look
like and what's kind of thatprimary function.
You said it does one thing.
It does it well, it does itwith 97%.
What are we?
What are we looking at here?
Dr. Michael Neal (02:54):
So, quite simply, um, it's a concierge
service, um, that's extremelyaffordable for small businesses,
and all they do is they, theyum, have a consultation call
with our team members.
Our team members write the jobdescription for the person
they're trying to hire uh, therole I should say they're
they're trying to hire wepublish it out to over 20
different job boards and webuild an enormous funnel.
(03:17):
Jay, as many, we pour as manypeople into the top of that
funnel as we can possibly get,and the reason being is that
we're not looking for the bestapplicant.
That's how Disney in the FourSeasons changed my thinking on
that.
What they're looking for arepeople who cannot do the job,
and so you pour hundreds offolks into the top of this
(03:39):
funnel and you remove the folkswho can't do the job.
The ones that are left are theones that we know can't.
And how do we know that theycan do it?
It's all based upon strengthsand talents.
What we're determining is whatthese applicants' natural
strengths and talents are forthe position that you're looking
for.
If it's a great match, if it'snot a match at all, and by doing
(04:01):
that we end up with folks whoare terrific matches.
It's like to say a and b plusplayers for the role um, and
then those are sent over to ourclients to uh interview in
person and hire okay, so let'slet's talk about some of these
practices that you discern fromfour seasons and disney's.
Jay Johnson (04:22):
What's maybe one of those examples of a mindset
shift, right Like, because a lotof our people, whether they're
in the training space orcoaching space, you know they
could probably learn from thatsort of shifting that maybe you
experienced what was maybe oneof those things.
Dr. Michael Neal (04:37):
Well, I got two for you.
One is the.
Don't look for the um the.
The winner, like the winningapplicant, is to remove all the
other ones, the ones you knowcan't do the job.
And the second thing isexperience.
All kinds of small businesseswant to hire for experience.
I will categorically tell youthat is an inferior approach,
(05:01):
every single time, with oneexception um, to compare to
hiring people with naturalstrengths and talents for the
position.
And that one exception is ifthey have natural strengths and
talents for the position andthey just so happen to have
experience.
That's it.
Jay Johnson (05:17):
So here's interesting Cause I think about
it and it actually triggered athought of um, the Warren
Buffett goal setting process.
It sounds like Disney maybeusing that of identify 10 things
that you want to get done, pickyour three most important and
actively avoid all of the otherones, like that's actually the
(05:39):
intention is you put your focusinto not doing the other seven
things and that kind of all of asudden brings the cream to the
you know the top and get youtowards those big three that
you're doing.
So, if I'm hearing youcorrectly, like actively and
intentionally just saying whocan't do it and then the rest is
let's go.
Let's see what we got here.
Dr. Michael Neal (05:59):
Yeah, and there's also one on top of that,
and that's resumes.
The those companies do not useresumes for anything more than
contact information.
And in the Build my Teamprocess, our process is
intentionally structured not tolook at a resume until the end.
When our software because it'salmost all automated when our
(06:19):
software gives a thumbs up, thatmeans we know the candidate can
do the job.
Only then is a resume looked at.
And the reason being is that wedon't want to bring anybody to
the table for our clients whohas experience, who looks great
on a resume and turns out to bean extremely poor fit for their
role.
And, jay, this happens all thetime.
(06:41):
It is the primary way at whichsmall businesses hire the wrong
people.
So why wouldn't we want to hireexperience?
They get into the job, they'reup and running, you know that
type of thing.
Well, the simple reason beingis we're measuring how fast
these, these candidates, learn.
We know, before they're sentover to our clients, if they
learn really quickly or not.
If they don't, they don't passthrough our process.
(07:03):
And so when you talk aboutexperience, what people are
generally saying is they wantsomebody who's going to learn
quickly so that the boss doesn'thave to train them for months
on end, right, what these folkscan do is they come in without
any bad habits.
They're not having to beuntrained, they learn really
quickly and what we generallysee, inside of about two weeks
or so these folks are up andrunning and productive, and it
(07:27):
can happen much faster than that.
So the counterpoint to it iswith experience.
You might be looking atbringing somebody on board and
having to tell them over andover I know you did it that way
at your previous job.
We don't do it that way.
You know air quotes.
Stop doing it that way, andthat's the juxtaposition between
(07:50):
the two roles.
Essentially the experienceversus not.
A smart.
A player will outperform a Cplayer with experience every
single time.
I'll take that bet anytime.
Jay Johnson (08:07):
Well, and it's interesting too, because I think
a lot of times in the talentdevelopment space we forget in
order to learn a new system.
Oftentimes we have to forgetwhat we know about an old system
and it goes back to theMarshall Goldsmith of you know,
what got you here won't get youthere.
So that can make a lot of senseto me.
(08:29):
So, as a you know kind oftalking a little bit about in
the acquisition aspect of this,let's talk about how can we
apply this sort of theoreticalframework, how can we apply this
knowledge that you've generatedand obviously you've built a
really successful platform andbusiness approach with this.
How can we leverage that for,say, the training and the talent
(08:53):
development side of thingswhere it is okay, we've brought
these new A plusplus players in,these B-plus, high-level,
high-valuable, skilled employeesin.
I think one of the big thingsthat I've seen in organizations
is, even if they do that andthey've gotten to that space,
(09:15):
how do we then activate them?
How do we keep them motivated?
How do we keep them reallygoing?
Do you have any thoughts onthat, mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (09:24):
Yes, I'm going to bump this up a level,
because the way to approach thiswith these A players and B plus
players is not from aperspective that a lot of small
businesses are used to the catherding, the spoon feeding of
these employees, where you gotto tell them exactly what to do.
You do that to an A player.
They're gone.
You're not going to get morethan one shot for that.
(09:45):
So the way that I would suggestthat folks think about this and
consider at least, is that whenyou have a team full of A
players, you're not telling themwhat, you're not telling them
how to do something.
You never do that.
You will turn them off in aheartbeat.
What you do is you tell themwhat you need to have
accomplished and you putguardrails on so that they know
(10:06):
the parameters they canaccomplish that within, and then
you let them to it.
Bumping this up a notch, imaginethe proverbial bus, the hiring
bus.
Okay, you've got the metaphor,if you will.
You want to get the rightpeople on the bus, like we've
all heard of, and then you wantto get them in the right seats
on the bus.
That's what build my team doesboth of those.
When you get the right peopleon the bus, the right seats on
(10:28):
the bus, then your role as thebusiness owner changes
dramatically instructions onexactly where you want this bus
to go.
So give them the deliverablesthat you want, the projects you
want to accomplish, whatever itmight be.
You don't tell them how to doit, just give them that, give
(10:52):
them the timeframe, and then theguardrails are.
You know, maybe here's yourbudget.
Don't go outside of this.
Don't go outside whatever itmight be, but you got to put
guardrails on.
That's just smart business.
Then what do you do, jay?
You get out of the way.
You simply let them drive thebus.
And so many small businessowners have issues with that,
and I completely understand it.
Was there, been there, donethat, got the t-shirt?
Reason being is you're not usedto delegating to people who
(11:13):
could actually get the stuffdone.
You're used to delegating topeople that create a mess and
you got to walk behind them withthe proverbial pooper scooper
and clean up this mess all daylong.
You don't have to do thatanymore.
Jay Johnson (11:26):
I think that's so true, but there's also an
element this is one of thethings that I've seen,
especially with a lot of smallbusinesses is in their mind,
what done looks like is veryclear.
How that's communicated tosomebody else often not as clear
.
That's why one of the thingsthat I see a lot is I see talent
(11:47):
wasted when either it's thisone of two things it's to what
you said where it's eithermicromanaged to the point that
the talent is not being allowedto innovate, it's not being
allowed to brainstorm, create,do things.
If I give you an orange and say, hey, mike, eat this orange.
Whether you cut that orange inhalf, whether you peel it from
the outside, whether you peel itand eat the entire thing in one
(12:11):
bite, that's your prerogative.
Just get the orange eaten isvery different than-.
Dr. Michael Neal (12:15):
That's a great way to think about it.
Jay Johnson (12:17):
Right, yeah, so they either get micromanaged to
death or they don't get enoughof what the vision looks like or
what the expectations are orwhat the guardrails, as you said
.
So I really like that.
If, from a training perspective, that's one of the things that
we got to think about too isright, we're training these
people, we're giving them skills, we're giving them knowledge,
(12:39):
how can we as trainers, coachesor anything else HR, how can we
establish the right guardrailsfor some of these candidates
that are coming in?
Dr. Michael Neal (12:49):
Oh, that's an excellent question.
So, of course, depends on theproject per se, but you touched
on solving that problem With theprevious couple of sentences.
That problem with the previouscouple of sentences the owners
don't get to talk about what thesuccess look like enough.
And as far as the training ofthese folks, if you fully
(13:11):
outline exactly what successlooks like, for example, there's
a tool called an impact filterthat a fellow named Dan Sullivan
from strategic coach inventedand it describes here's exactly
what success looks like.
Here are the conditions forsuccess and here's what happens
if you don't do it.
Here's what happens if you doit.
(13:31):
In that description, which iswonderfully built for
entrepreneurs, um, there's nosuch thing as how.
The how doesn't exist as aconcept.
So, as far as the training goes,my suggestion would be to spend
a whole heck of a lot more timeon here's exactly what success
(13:53):
looks like.
Let them noodle that throughand have them come back to you
with questions.
So you want me to achieve X?
Okay, I got that.
That's pretty crystal clear.
I've got a bunch of questionsfor you.
Fire away.
So they're going to hammer youwith.
Remember, these are eightplayers.
(14:14):
These are not what a businessmight be used to.
So they're going to hammer youwith a whole bunch of questions.
You answer them.
Maybe take let them think aboutthat a little bit more you
answer the next round ofquestions.
It's a completely differentapproach to doing things, but it
works exceptionally well, muchbetter than other methods.
Let's say they're going to askyou in those questions I need
(14:36):
software that does this, thisand this.
Well, of course businesses havethat a lot of times.
Get them logins, those types ofthings.
But in this whole discussionyou're not wasting time on
starting from the ground up on abunch of stuff that they don't
necessarily need to know.
You're really giving them Ihate to use the word empowerment
, but you're really giving themthat right out of the gate where
(15:00):
they can immediately startsolving some problems, and
that's great on the new employeeside of things.
But for the business they areimmediately providing value and
it can be shocking how fast thatcomes Like within a couple of
weeks you're scratching yourhead, going, oh boy, now I've
got to find something else forthem to do because it's already
(15:22):
done, and it's done better thanI thought it could be done.
Jay Johnson (15:25):
You put the right person in the right seat, with
the right tools and rightresources and good things happen
.
So I want to talk about I wantto dig in a little bit deeper on
that, because I think this is areally interesting conversation
from the development side,because I guarantee you any of
our listeners has been in theexperience where maybe they have
somebody that from a skillperspective, they've got it,
(15:49):
they get it, they're capable,but they maybe don't have a
strong motivation.
And then we also have some ofthose players and I even
remember this from being like ona hockey team there are some
highly, highly skilled people.
Dr. Michael Neal (16:03):
Speak in my language, yeah.
Jay Johnson (16:06):
I played through the junior levels, there were
some talented players that didnot have the motivation.
Then there were some lesstalented players that you
couldn't keep them off the iceor out of the workout room or
anything else.
They just didn't have that samelevel of talent room or
anything else, they just didn'thave that same level of talent.
How can we find some kind ofbalance, or is there a good
balance of being able to sayhere's how we can motivate those
(16:27):
really talented or here's howwe can upskill those motivated
but maybe they don't really havethe skills or the talent yet?
What are your thoughts on that,mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (16:39):
Well, I would first question the match between
their strengths and talents andwhat's being asked of them in a
business role.
So if their strengths andtalents aren't matched properly,
it might be work for them toget the job done that you
require them to do.
You can't take that for granted.
That has to be assessed at kindof a root level.
When you have these A players,they require the vision to
(17:04):
execute.
So you have to tell them whatthey need to accomplish, but you
don't run behind them with ahorse whip pushing them.
You just get out of the way.
So back to the hockey analogy,which is my favorite sport by
far the kids in hockey that youcan't get out of the training
(17:27):
rooms, they have heart, right.
That's basically what it'scalled in hockey.
They may not have the some ofthe skills and stuff, but
they're incredibly coachable andI've seen players make the NHL
that you scratch your head andsay how Well they listen to
every darn thing the coach toldthem to do for you know, the
better part of a decade, um,develop those skills and they,
(17:51):
they can do that versus somebodywho comes in kind of at the top
and just doesn't have to, justdoesn't have that that fit
between what they're good at andwhat, let's say, the team needs
.
So I always like to go back tothe natural strengths and
talents, make sure that fits andthen also make sure that these
(18:13):
folks have a crystal clearvision At the end of the day.
Look some, some people are lazy,there's no doubt about it.
Some people just can't be madeto work.
Um, they need to exit the teamand we bring on somebody new
yeah, and that's always hard,right, like you can't train
motivation particularly well.
Jay Johnson (18:32):
You can help guide people to finding value, finding
meaning, purpose, but you can'tliterally train somebody to
have motivation, right oh?
Dr. Michael Neal (18:42):
no, they're coming in with whatever they
have.
You're not going to wave amagic wand and make them have
something they don't.
It doesn't work that way.
But what we're doing with theBuild my Team process is we're
also assessing things like howdo they learn?
With the build my teamprocesses, we're also assessing
things like how do they learn?
Um, how do they function bestas a team?
(19:02):
How do they like to becommunicated with?
Are they team players orsolitary performers?
Um, what's their stresstolerance?
Do they like low stresspositions, high stress positions
?
How they communicate with bothpeople in the workforce and with
customers.
We're measuring all kinds ofthat stuff.
So, when they're?
Let's say, for example, if youput somebody who is more of a
(19:24):
solitary performer into aposition that requires them to
talk to people all day long,it's incongruent, it doesn't
work that well.
Flip it around.
You take somebody who can talkthe proverbial dog off the meat
wagon and loves interacting withclients and customers.
Put them in a solitary room todo a solitary job.
How long do they stay Right?
(19:46):
So there's so many differentthings that you have to make
sure are a good fit for theposition, and when you start to
see all of these things click.
That's where the magic happens,and sometimes it doesn't, even
with our build my team process.
That's why it's guaranteed for90 days.
Jay Johnson (20:03):
Yeah, oh, and I think it's interesting, right,
because a lot of times, withtalent, the way it is, and some
people, especially industriesyou had mentioned healthcare
when we started talking right,there is large fear right now
that not even that there's notgoing to be enough quality
candidates, but that there's notgoing to be enough candidates,
(20:26):
literally, there's going to bemore jobs than there are people.
So there is this propensity ofsaying, all right, I may have to
take somebody that's a C plusplayer, or I may have to take
somebody that is you know, howdo we, how do we navigate that?
Because the world of talentacquisition has certainly
changed.
(20:47):
The interest in particularpositions or particular jobs,
expectations for those jobs havecertainly changed.
How do we navigate that space,mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (21:00):
have certainly changed.
How do we navigate that space,mike?
So what Build my Team has doneto offset that?
And you're 100% right, that isthe new norm.
What we've done instead iswe've widened the top of the
funnel where we're pouringhundreds of applicants in.
We're not on one job board,we're not on two job boards,
we're on over 20.
We have it set up in anautomated way where these people
(21:21):
can fill out this, this buildmy team process, at three in the
morning.
They can do it from their phone, um, in between the nooks and
crannies of picking up theirkids at school.
They're not sitting in front ofa laptop required, so we open
it up to get that many moreapplicants.
So we open it up to get thatmany more applicants.
(21:52):
The other side of it is speedand I can't pound this point
hard enough the A players andthe B plus players.
They only want to work you backfor interview number 27.
We need a committee to formthese decisions.
They're gone.
They are so gone.
Excuse me, what we're seeingwith these applicants is that
they will apply for a jobapproximately between five to
ten seconds.
Every five to ten seconds whenthey're applying on these job
(22:15):
boards, they're on to anotherjob.
Our system is built to textthem.
They receive a text within fiveseconds.
Why five seconds?
Because 10 wasn't fast enough.
They didn't remember which jobthey were applying for.
This is actually a fact andfrom an employer standpoint, you
pull your hair out.
Oh, that can't be real.
We didn't think it was either.
(22:35):
We started out with anemail-based system and we found
out that everybody checks theiremail, right, jay yeah, three
times a week, if you're luckyfor most of these applicants.
Hard to fathom when you work infront of a computer all day
long, but that's where we're at.
So we had to meet thecandidates where they're at and
(22:55):
move as fast as we possibly can.
By doing that, we get enoughpeople into the top of this
funnel so that we're still ableto grab at the very end these A
players and B plus players.
Jay Johnson (23:09):
I love that and I think that's good advice just in
general, of you've got to bemoving quickly in this type of a
market.
One thing I will say is andthis was shared with me, this
was shared with me by one of myyounger, by one of my younger
staff that that is a managerthat I've had a conversation
with and it was just like youcan pretty much assume that
(23:29):
anybody in a younger generationprobably has applications out
there at any point in timeDoesn't mean that they're
actually taking them, doesn'tmean that they're looking at
them, doesn't mean that they'reintending to go somewhere, but
it's testing the market orputting something out there
because that perfect thing couldcome along.
And I was like that's reallyreally interesting.
So you know, from the build myteam, have you had any
(23:52):
experience?
Or when you have thosecandidates that are kind of
coming through, do you see the alot of repeats and a lot of
people kind of getting into thatplace over and over again?
Or how does that seem to say?
What do you mean by repeats?
Like for example, you know ifyou've got that person who's
looking for that opportunity,that job, that big new space,
(24:12):
right?
So you're cultivating that,cultivating those 20 different
online job boards.
Do you see the same peoplecoming over and over again?
Oh, sometimes.
Dr. Michael Neal (24:24):
Yeah, they.
You get people who do not passour assessment process and they
just keep hammering it over andover again.
Well, you didn't pass theassessment process because
you're not good enough for theseroles.
We're never, ever going to sendyou on to a client just to fill
a position.
We'll advise our client justwait a little bit.
(24:46):
And that's very hard for asmall business to do, but you're
so much better off to wait justa little bit longer for those
terrific candidates versustrying to push somebody through
who's the proverbial C playerand this happens a lot to small
business owners.
Grandma comes in.
(25:06):
Oh, I've got this wonderfulgranddaughter.
She'd be fantastic for thisplace, you know, will you hire
her?
Uh, uh, you know, caught withyour pants down.
So what we do in our practiceis we say we have a company that
hires all of our team membersfor us.
Have her.
Take a look at.
Um, uh, for Lakeside Vision,the name of our practice on the
(25:29):
job boards.
Well, they never do.
I don't think that's everhappened once that that
somebody's applied like that.
But it gives the small businessowner the the out to not have
to say yes or be be kind oftaken to the cleaners a little
bit in that situation.
Jay Johnson (25:47):
No, I love that.
That's great advice, becauseeverybody has been asked can you
get my friend, can you get mycousin, my nephew, whoever?
Yeah, check online on theboards.
If we see something come in,we'll be sure.
But that's going to at leastfind out whether somebody's
serious or if they're just kindof waiting for the hand me you
know the handout and you knowtalking about serious applicants
(26:08):
.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:08):
Think about this for a second.
Imagine you're printing all theresumes that a job board
provides to you with build myteam asking them.
The simple thought of asking acandidate to start an assessment
process which only takes about10 minutes couldn't be easier.
We lose about 50% of thosecandidates by simply asking them
(26:31):
to take one action that can bedone from the couch in the
middle of the night.
All of those people that exitour process and it's done very
gently and nicely those arefolks that are guaranteed in
every scenario to completelywaste your time, your paper and
your printer ink.
They're not going anywhere.
They have no interest inactually working in your job
(26:54):
that you have open.
So, from a time-savingstandpoint, that's where the
automation is terrific, savesthe small business owner
countless hours and you simplydon't waste your time.
Jay Johnson (27:06):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, Mike.
If our audience wanted to getin touch with you, how would
they reach out to you?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:14):
Easy.
Go to wwwbuildmyteamcom andtake a look at our website.
The main thing is to schedule aconsultation call so that our
team members can talk to you,find out what roles you're
looking to fill and make surethat we can help you on the
(27:39):
acquisition side.
Jay Johnson (27:39):
So I think this is really valuable in kind of
getting some of that knowledge,because obviously you know, as
talent development we'vegenerally got a team, but there
is always going to be new teammembers, and wouldn't it be
great if we could start bygetting the right ones into the
right seats and moving forwardin that space?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:53):
Yeah, that initial thought of the right
people in the uh, getting theright people onto the bus.
I can't tell you how mucheasier it makes everything
downstream.
There's so many fewer problemsby some places, a couple orders
of magnitude fewer problems.
So that's really where thefocus could be in order to make
the rest easier.
Jay Johnson (28:13):
I love it Well.
Thank you, dr Mike Neal, forjoining me here on the program
today.
Really appreciate your time and, obviously, the insights you've
been able to share.
Dr. Michael Neal (28:25):
Yeah, thanks so much, Jay.
Jay Johnson (28:27):
And thank you, audience, for tuning into this
episode of the Talent Forge,where we are shaping the future
of training and development.
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today, my special guest is DrMichael Neal.
Welcome to the show, Mike.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:13):
Thanks so much for having me, Jay.
I'm excited to be here today.
Jay Johnson (00:16):
So you have got some incredible experience and I
can't wait to tap into that andsurface some of these learnings
for our audience.
And I can't wait to tap intothat and surface some of these
learnings for our audience.
Mike, can you tell us how didyou get into this space?
You started and founded Buildmy Team.
You've worked with someincredible companies.
Talk to us, tell us a littlebit about yourself and how you
(00:39):
got into this space of talentdevelopment.
Dr. Michael Neal (00:40):
Well, I've always been interested in high
performers and how to kind ofunlock the high performing code,
but truthfully, that hasnothing to do with it.
I got into this because our eyecare practice was hemorrhaging
people.
We could not keep people, wewere hiring the wrong folks, we
didn't know what we were doing,we didn't have a system.
(01:01):
I mean, whoever your listenersare right now, they're checking
these boxes like yep, yep, yep,this guy's in the.
He was in the same boat, I am,yeah, and what I ended up doing
was taking.
I wanted to solve this problembecause we it was so stressful
it's hard to describe and Ithought well, other businesses
aren't having this problem.
(01:21):
Why is this unique to our eyecare practice?
And it turns out it wasn't atall.
I just didn't know any betterat the time.
So I looked at companies likeDisney, the Four Seasons and how
these big, incredibly amazingcustomer service organizations
how were they hiring?
Figured out some of theirtricks of the trade and they're
not that hard actually and thenslowly but methodically, built a
(01:46):
system that's now completelyautomated and designed to find
administrative team members,clerical people, entry-level
positions for not onlyhealthcare practices but small
businesses, and we did thatthroughout North America.
It's completely.
It does one thing, one thingonly, and it does it at about a
97% effectiveness level.
(02:07):
We just we solved the problem,slammed the door shut, nailed
around the door and have beenusing this in our practice ever
since.
Jay Johnson (02:17):
So necessity is generally the mother of
invention, and it sounds to me,oh boy yeah, invention, and uh,
it sounds oh boy, yeah, so your?
Dr. Michael Neal (02:31):
experience.
You had an eye care.
You had an eye care um business.
You saw disengagement still doso, you saw disengagement.
Jay Johnson (02:35):
You saw the challenges with recruiting good
talent, managing them on,getting them going and develop
this system.
So let's talk a little bitabout what does this system look
like and what's kind of thatprimary function.
You said it does one thing.
It does it well, it does itwith 97%.
What are we?
What are we looking at here?
Dr. Michael Neal (02:54):
So, quite simply, um, it's a concierge
service, um, that's extremelyaffordable for small businesses,
and all they do is they, theyum, have a consultation call
with our team members.
Our team members write the jobdescription for the person
they're trying to hire uh, therole I should say they're
they're trying to hire wepublish it out to over 20
different job boards and webuild an enormous funnel.
(03:17):
Jay, as many, we pour as manypeople into the top of that
funnel as we can possibly get,and the reason being is that
we're not looking for the bestapplicant.
That's how Disney in the FourSeasons changed my thinking on
that.
What they're looking for arepeople who cannot do the job,
and so you pour hundreds offolks into the top of this
(03:39):
funnel and you remove the folkswho can't do the job.
The ones that are left are theones that we know can't.
And how do we know that theycan do it?
It's all based upon strengthsand talents.
What we're determining is whatthese applicants' natural
strengths and talents are forthe position that you're looking
for.
If it's a great match, if it'snot a match at all, and by doing
(04:01):
that we end up with folks whoare terrific matches.
It's like to say a and b plusplayers for the role um, and
then those are sent over to ourclients to uh interview in
person and hire okay, so let'slet's talk about some of these
practices that you discern fromfour seasons and disney's.
Jay Johnson (04:22):
What's maybe one of those examples of a mindset
shift, right Like, because a lotof our people, whether they're
in the training space orcoaching space, you know they
could probably learn from thatsort of shifting that maybe you
experienced what was maybe oneof those things.
Dr. Michael Neal (04:37):
Well, I got two for you.
One is the.
Don't look for the um the.
The winner, like the winningapplicant, is to remove all the
other ones, the ones you knowcan't do the job.
And the second thing isexperience.
All kinds of small businesseswant to hire for experience.
I will categorically tell youthat is an inferior approach,
(05:01):
every single time, with oneexception um, to compare to
hiring people with naturalstrengths and talents for the
position.
And that one exception is ifthey have natural strengths and
talents for the position andthey just so happen to have
experience.
That's it.
Jay Johnson (05:17):
So here's interesting Cause I think about
it and it actually triggered athought of um, the Warren
Buffett goal setting process.
It sounds like Disney maybeusing that of identify 10 things
that you want to get done, pickyour three most important and
actively avoid all of the otherones, like that's actually the
(05:39):
intention is you put your focusinto not doing the other seven
things and that kind of all of asudden brings the cream to the
you know the top and get youtowards those big three that
you're doing.
So, if I'm hearing youcorrectly, like actively and
intentionally just saying whocan't do it and then the rest is
let's go.
Let's see what we got here.
Dr. Michael Neal (05:59):
Yeah, and there's also one on top of that,
and that's resumes.
The those companies do not useresumes for anything more than
contact information.
And in the Build my Teamprocess, our process is
intentionally structured not tolook at a resume until the end.
When our software because it'salmost all automated when our
(06:19):
software gives a thumbs up, thatmeans we know the candidate can
do the job.
Only then is a resume looked at.
And the reason being is that wedon't want to bring anybody to
the table for our clients whohas experience, who looks great
on a resume and turns out to bean extremely poor fit for their
role.
And, jay, this happens all thetime.
(06:41):
It is the primary way at whichsmall businesses hire the wrong
people.
So why wouldn't we want to hireexperience?
They get into the job, they'reup and running, you know that
type of thing.
Well, the simple reason beingis we're measuring how fast
these, these candidates, learn.
We know, before they're sentover to our clients, if they
learn really quickly or not.
If they don't, they don't passthrough our process.
(07:03):
And so when you talk aboutexperience, what people are
generally saying is they wantsomebody who's going to learn
quickly so that the boss doesn'thave to train them for months
on end, right, what these folkscan do is they come in without
any bad habits.
They're not having to beuntrained, they learn really
quickly and what we generallysee, inside of about two weeks
or so these folks are up andrunning and productive, and it
(07:27):
can happen much faster than that.
So the counterpoint to it iswith experience.
You might be looking atbringing somebody on board and
having to tell them over andover I know you did it that way
at your previous job.
We don't do it that way.
You know air quotes.
Stop doing it that way, andthat's the juxtaposition between
(07:50):
the two roles.
Essentially the experienceversus not.
A smart.
A player will outperform a Cplayer with experience every
single time.
I'll take that bet anytime.
Jay Johnson (08:07):
Well, and it's interesting too, because I think
a lot of times in the talentdevelopment space we forget in
order to learn a new system.
Oftentimes we have to forgetwhat we know about an old system
and it goes back to theMarshall Goldsmith of you know,
what got you here won't get youthere.
So that can make a lot of senseto me.
(08:29):
So, as a you know kind oftalking a little bit about in
the acquisition aspect of this,let's talk about how can we
apply this sort of theoreticalframework, how can we apply this
knowledge that you've generatedand obviously you've built a
really successful platform andbusiness approach with this.
How can we leverage that for,say, the training and the talent
(08:53):
development side of thingswhere it is okay, we've brought
these new A plusplus players in,these B-plus, high-level,
high-valuable, skilled employeesin.
I think one of the big thingsthat I've seen in organizations
is, even if they do that andthey've gotten to that space,
(09:15):
how do we then activate them?
How do we keep them motivated?
How do we keep them reallygoing?
Do you have any thoughts onthat, mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (09:24):
Yes, I'm going to bump this up a level,
because the way to approach thiswith these A players and B plus
players is not from aperspective that a lot of small
businesses are used to the catherding, the spoon feeding of
these employees, where you gotto tell them exactly what to do.
You do that to an A player.
They're gone.
You're not going to get morethan one shot for that.
(09:45):
So the way that I would suggestthat folks think about this and
consider at least, is that whenyou have a team full of A
players, you're not telling themwhat, you're not telling them
how to do something.
You never do that.
You will turn them off in aheartbeat.
What you do is you tell themwhat you need to have
accomplished and you putguardrails on so that they know
(10:06):
the parameters they canaccomplish that within, and then
you let them to it.
Bumping this up a notch, imaginethe proverbial bus, the hiring
bus.
Okay, you've got the metaphor,if you will.
You want to get the rightpeople on the bus, like we've
all heard of, and then you wantto get them in the right seats
on the bus.
That's what build my team doesboth of those.
When you get the right peopleon the bus, the right seats on
(10:28):
the bus, then your role as thebusiness owner changes
dramatically instructions onexactly where you want this bus
to go.
So give them the deliverablesthat you want, the projects you
want to accomplish, whatever itmight be.
You don't tell them how to doit, just give them that, give
(10:52):
them the timeframe, and then theguardrails are.
You know, maybe here's yourbudget.
Don't go outside of this.
Don't go outside whatever itmight be, but you got to put
guardrails on.
That's just smart business.
Then what do you do, jay?
You get out of the way.
You simply let them drive thebus.
And so many small businessowners have issues with that,
and I completely understand it.
Was there, been there, donethat, got the t-shirt?
Reason being is you're not usedto delegating to people who
(11:13):
could actually get the stuffdone.
You're used to delegating topeople that create a mess and
you got to walk behind them withthe proverbial pooper scooper
and clean up this mess all daylong.
You don't have to do thatanymore.
Jay Johnson (11:26):
I think that's so true, but there's also an
element this is one of thethings that I've seen,
especially with a lot of smallbusinesses is in their mind,
what done looks like is veryclear.
How that's communicated tosomebody else often not as clear
.
That's why one of the thingsthat I see a lot is I see talent
(11:47):
wasted when either it's thisone of two things it's to what
you said where it's eithermicromanaged to the point that
the talent is not being allowedto innovate, it's not being
allowed to brainstorm, create,do things.
If I give you an orange and say, hey, mike, eat this orange.
Whether you cut that orange inhalf, whether you peel it from
the outside, whether you peel itand eat the entire thing in one
(12:11):
bite, that's your prerogative.
Just get the orange eaten isvery different than-.
Dr. Michael Neal (12:15):
That's a great way to think about it.
Jay Johnson (12:17):
Right, yeah, so they either get micromanaged to
death or they don't get enoughof what the vision looks like or
what the expectations are orwhat the guardrails, as you said
.
So I really like that.
If, from a training perspective, that's one of the things that
we got to think about too isright, we're training these
people, we're giving them skills, we're giving them knowledge,
(12:39):
how can we as trainers, coachesor anything else HR, how can we
establish the right guardrailsfor some of these candidates
that are coming in?
Dr. Michael Neal (12:49):
Oh, that's an excellent question.
So, of course, depends on theproject per se, but you touched
on solving that problem With theprevious couple of sentences.
That problem with the previouscouple of sentences the owners
don't get to talk about what thesuccess look like enough.
And as far as the training ofthese folks, if you fully
(13:11):
outline exactly what successlooks like, for example, there's
a tool called an impact filterthat a fellow named Dan Sullivan
from strategic coach inventedand it describes here's exactly
what success looks like.
Here are the conditions forsuccess and here's what happens
if you don't do it.
Here's what happens if you doit.
(13:31):
In that description, which iswonderfully built for
entrepreneurs, um, there's nosuch thing as how.
The how doesn't exist as aconcept.
So, as far as the training goes,my suggestion would be to spend
a whole heck of a lot more timeon here's exactly what success
(13:53):
looks like.
Let them noodle that throughand have them come back to you
with questions.
So you want me to achieve X?
Okay, I got that.
That's pretty crystal clear.
I've got a bunch of questionsfor you.
Fire away.
So they're going to hammer youwith.
Remember, these are eightplayers.
(14:14):
These are not what a businessmight be used to.
So they're going to hammer youwith a whole bunch of questions.
You answer them.
Maybe take let them think aboutthat a little bit more you
answer the next round ofquestions.
It's a completely differentapproach to doing things, but it
works exceptionally well, muchbetter than other methods.
Let's say they're going to askyou in those questions I need
(14:36):
software that does this, thisand this.
Well, of course businesses havethat a lot of times.
Get them logins, those types ofthings.
But in this whole discussionyou're not wasting time on
starting from the ground up on abunch of stuff that they don't
necessarily need to know.
You're really giving them Ihate to use the word empowerment
, but you're really giving themthat right out of the gate where
(15:00):
they can immediately startsolving some problems, and
that's great on the new employeeside of things.
But for the business they areimmediately providing value and
it can be shocking how fast thatcomes Like within a couple of
weeks you're scratching yourhead, going, oh boy, now I've
got to find something else forthem to do because it's already
(15:22):
done, and it's done better thanI thought it could be done.
Jay Johnson (15:25):
You put the right person in the right seat, with
the right tools and rightresources and good things happen
.
So I want to talk about I wantto dig in a little bit deeper on
that, because I think this is areally interesting conversation
from the development side,because I guarantee you any of
our listeners has been in theexperience where maybe they have
somebody that from a skillperspective, they've got it,
(15:49):
they get it, they're capable,but they maybe don't have a
strong motivation.
And then we also have some ofthose players and I even
remember this from being like ona hockey team there are some
highly, highly skilled people.
Dr. Michael Neal (16:03):
Speak in my language, yeah.
Jay Johnson (16:06):
I played through the junior levels, there were
some talented players that didnot have the motivation.
Then there were some lesstalented players that you
couldn't keep them off the iceor out of the workout room or
anything else.
They just didn't have that samelevel of talent room or
anything else, they just didn'thave that same level of talent.
How can we find some kind ofbalance, or is there a good
balance of being able to sayhere's how we can motivate those
(16:27):
really talented or here's howwe can upskill those motivated
but maybe they don't really havethe skills or the talent yet?
What are your thoughts on that,mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (16:39):
Well, I would first question the match between
their strengths and talents andwhat's being asked of them in a
business role.
So if their strengths andtalents aren't matched properly,
it might be work for them toget the job done that you
require them to do.
You can't take that for granted.
That has to be assessed at kindof a root level.
When you have these A players,they require the vision to
(17:04):
execute.
So you have to tell them whatthey need to accomplish, but you
don't run behind them with ahorse whip pushing them.
You just get out of the way.
So back to the hockey analogy,which is my favorite sport by
far the kids in hockey that youcan't get out of the training
(17:27):
rooms, they have heart, right.
That's basically what it'scalled in hockey.
They may not have the some ofthe skills and stuff, but
they're incredibly coachable andI've seen players make the NHL
that you scratch your head andsay how Well they listen to
every darn thing the coach toldthem to do for you know, the
better part of a decade, um,develop those skills and they,
(17:51):
they can do that versus somebodywho comes in kind of at the top
and just doesn't have to, justdoesn't have that that fit
between what they're good at andwhat, let's say, the team needs
.
So I always like to go back tothe natural strengths and
talents, make sure that fits andthen also make sure that these
(18:13):
folks have a crystal clearvision At the end of the day.
Look some, some people are lazy,there's no doubt about it.
Some people just can't be madeto work.
Um, they need to exit the teamand we bring on somebody new
yeah, and that's always hard,right, like you can't train
motivation particularly well.
Jay Johnson (18:32):
You can help guide people to finding value, finding
meaning, purpose, but you can'tliterally train somebody to
have motivation, right oh?
Dr. Michael Neal (18:42):
no, they're coming in with whatever they
have.
You're not going to wave amagic wand and make them have
something they don't.
It doesn't work that way.
But what we're doing with theBuild my Team process is we're
also assessing things like howdo they learn?
With the build my teamprocesses, we're also assessing
things like how do they learn?
Um, how do they function bestas a team?
(19:02):
How do they like to becommunicated with?
Are they team players orsolitary performers?
Um, what's their stresstolerance?
Do they like low stresspositions, high stress positions
?
How they communicate with bothpeople in the workforce and with
customers.
We're measuring all kinds ofthat stuff.
So, when they're?
Let's say, for example, if youput somebody who is more of a
(19:24):
solitary performer into aposition that requires them to
talk to people all day long,it's incongruent, it doesn't
work that well.
Flip it around.
You take somebody who can talkthe proverbial dog off the meat
wagon and loves interacting withclients and customers.
Put them in a solitary room todo a solitary job.
How long do they stay Right?
(19:46):
So there's so many differentthings that you have to make
sure are a good fit for theposition, and when you start to
see all of these things click.
That's where the magic happens,and sometimes it doesn't, even
with our build my team process.
That's why it's guaranteed for90 days.
Jay Johnson (20:03):
Yeah, oh, and I think it's interesting, right,
because a lot of times, withtalent, the way it is, and some
people, especially industriesyou had mentioned healthcare
when we started talking right,there is large fear right now
that not even that there's notgoing to be enough quality
candidates, but that there's notgoing to be enough candidates,
(20:26):
literally, there's going to bemore jobs than there are people.
So there is this propensity ofsaying, all right, I may have to
take somebody that's a C plusplayer, or I may have to take
somebody that is you know, howdo we, how do we navigate that?
Because the world of talentacquisition has certainly
changed.
(20:47):
The interest in particularpositions or particular jobs,
expectations for those jobs havecertainly changed.
How do we navigate that space,mike?
Dr. Michael Neal (21:00):
have certainly changed.
How do we navigate that space,mike?
So what Build my Team has doneto offset that?
And you're 100% right, that isthe new norm.
What we've done instead iswe've widened the top of the
funnel where we're pouringhundreds of applicants in.
We're not on one job board,we're not on two job boards,
we're on over 20.
We have it set up in anautomated way where these people
(21:21):
can fill out this, this buildmy team process, at three in the
morning.
They can do it from their phone, um, in between the nooks and
crannies of picking up theirkids at school.
They're not sitting in front ofa laptop required, so we open
it up to get that many moreapplicants.
So we open it up to get thatmany more applicants.
(21:52):
The other side of it is speedand I can't pound this point
hard enough the A players andthe B plus players.
They only want to work you backfor interview number 27.
We need a committee to formthese decisions.
They're gone.
They are so gone.
Excuse me, what we're seeingwith these applicants is that
they will apply for a jobapproximately between five to
ten seconds.
Every five to ten seconds whenthey're applying on these job
(22:15):
boards, they're on to anotherjob.
Our system is built to textthem.
They receive a text within fiveseconds.
Why five seconds?
Because 10 wasn't fast enough.
They didn't remember which jobthey were applying for.
This is actually a fact andfrom an employer standpoint, you
pull your hair out.
Oh, that can't be real.
We didn't think it was either.
(22:35):
We started out with anemail-based system and we found
out that everybody checks theiremail, right, jay yeah, three
times a week, if you're luckyfor most of these applicants.
Hard to fathom when you work infront of a computer all day
long, but that's where we're at.
So we had to meet thecandidates where they're at and
(22:55):
move as fast as we possibly can.
By doing that, we get enoughpeople into the top of this
funnel so that we're still ableto grab at the very end these A
players and B plus players.
Jay Johnson (23:09):
I love that and I think that's good advice just in
general, of you've got to bemoving quickly in this type of a
market.
One thing I will say is andthis was shared with me, this
was shared with me by one of myyounger, by one of my younger
staff that that is a managerthat I've had a conversation
with and it was just like youcan pretty much assume that
(23:29):
anybody in a younger generationprobably has applications out
there at any point in timeDoesn't mean that they're
actually taking them, doesn'tmean that they're looking at
them, doesn't mean that they'reintending to go somewhere, but
it's testing the market orputting something out there
because that perfect thing couldcome along.
And I was like that's reallyreally interesting.
So you know, from the build myteam, have you had any
(23:52):
experience?
Or when you have thosecandidates that are kind of
coming through, do you see the alot of repeats and a lot of
people kind of getting into thatplace over and over again?
Or how does that seem to say?
What do you mean by repeats?
Like for example, you know ifyou've got that person who's
looking for that opportunity,that job, that big new space,
(24:12):
right?
So you're cultivating that,cultivating those 20 different
online job boards.
Do you see the same peoplecoming over and over again?
Oh, sometimes.
Dr. Michael Neal (24:24):
Yeah, they.
You get people who do not passour assessment process and they
just keep hammering it over andover again.
Well, you didn't pass theassessment process because
you're not good enough for theseroles.
We're never, ever going to sendyou on to a client just to fill
a position.
We'll advise our client justwait a little bit.
(24:46):
And that's very hard for asmall business to do, but you're
so much better off to wait justa little bit longer for those
terrific candidates versustrying to push somebody through
who's the proverbial C playerand this happens a lot to small
business owners.
Grandma comes in.
(25:06):
Oh, I've got this wonderfulgranddaughter.
She'd be fantastic for thisplace, you know, will you hire
her?
Uh, uh, you know, caught withyour pants down.
So what we do in our practiceis we say we have a company that
hires all of our team membersfor us.
Have her.
Take a look at.
Um, uh, for Lakeside Vision,the name of our practice on the
(25:29):
job boards.
Well, they never do.
I don't think that's everhappened once that that
somebody's applied like that.
But it gives the small businessowner the the out to not have
to say yes or be be kind oftaken to the cleaners a little
bit in that situation.
Jay Johnson (25:47):
No, I love that.
That's great advice, becauseeverybody has been asked can you
get my friend, can you get mycousin, my nephew, whoever?
Yeah, check online on theboards.
If we see something come in,we'll be sure.
But that's going to at leastfind out whether somebody's
serious or if they're just kindof waiting for the hand me you
know the handout and you knowtalking about serious applicants
(26:08):
.
Dr. Michael Neal (26:08):
Think about this for a second.
Imagine you're printing all theresumes that a job board
provides to you with build myteam asking them.
The simple thought of asking acandidate to start an assessment
process which only takes about10 minutes couldn't be easier.
We lose about 50% of thosecandidates by simply asking them
(26:31):
to take one action that can bedone from the couch in the
middle of the night.
All of those people that exitour process and it's done very
gently and nicely those arefolks that are guaranteed in
every scenario to completelywaste your time, your paper and
your printer ink.
They're not going anywhere.
They have no interest inactually working in your job
(26:54):
that you have open.
So, from a time-savingstandpoint, that's where the
automation is terrific, savesthe small business owner
countless hours and you simplydon't waste your time.
Jay Johnson (27:06):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, Mike.
If our audience wanted to getin touch with you, how would
they reach out to you?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:14):
Easy.
Go to wwwbuildmyteamcom andtake a look at our website.
The main thing is to schedule aconsultation call so that our
team members can talk to you,find out what roles you're
looking to fill and make surethat we can help you on the
(27:39):
acquisition side.
Jay Johnson (27:39):
So I think this is really valuable in kind of
getting some of that knowledge,because obviously you know, as
talent development we'vegenerally got a team, but there
is always going to be new teammembers, and wouldn't it be
great if we could start bygetting the right ones into the
right seats and moving forwardin that space?
Dr. Michael Neal (27:53):
Yeah, that initial thought of the right
people in the uh, getting theright people onto the bus.
I can't tell you how mucheasier it makes everything
downstream.
There's so many fewer problemsby some places, a couple orders
of magnitude fewer problems.
So that's really where thefocus could be in order to make
the rest easier.
Jay Johnson (28:13):
I love it Well.
Thank you, dr Mike Neal, forjoining me here on the program
today.
Really appreciate your time and, obviously, the insights you've
been able to share.
Dr. Michael Neal (28:25):
Yeah, thanks so much, Jay.
Jay Johnson (28:27):
And thank you, audience, for tuning into this
episode of the Talent Forge,where we are shaping the future
of training and development.
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