Greetings, GirdleyWorld!
Thanks for reading. Today we’ve got:
- How going deaf gave me new perspective
- Hiring mistakes to avoid
- Answers to your questions
Also - if you haven’t already, take a few seconds to fill out my reader questionnaire so I know what to write more about!
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Making the most of it
We all face setbacks. But if you handle a setback the right way, it can be a valuable gift.
About 7 years ago, I went deaf in one ear. It’s called “sudden deafness”, and it happens to about 1 in 10,000 people. Nobody knows for sure what causes it. Your ear just stops working.
And after 42 years of full hearing, having the volume of the world disappear by half was somewhat traumatic.
Sure, I could have had it a lot worse. I didn’t go blind or lose an arm or anything. But this was my first big health setback, and it made me realize how mortal I am.
My life had to adapt around my hearing loss.
I was already somebody who had a level of anxiety going to freeform social situations. (That’s why I’m a sports or games guy.)
But now I just don’t go to cocktail parties anymore. Because on top of the anxiety, now I can’t understand anything people are saying.
And it’s been hard on my family. They have to yell all the time, they don’t know if I’ve heard things. Sometimes my alarm will go off, and if I’m sleeping on my good ear I can’t hear it at all.
(Another weird side effect: I can’t echolocate things anymore. If something’s beeping, it’s almost impossible for me to find it.)
The whole thing was a real wakeup call. I had to think:
How do I want to react to this? What kind of person do I want to be?
You basically have two options:
You can say, I’m going to do less, and it sucks. Or you can get busy living.
I forced myself to see it as a gift, and motivation to get more focused on creating the world I wanted to have, and the life I wanted to live. And while objectively it sucked to lose half my hearing, it gave me clarity about what really matters.
If I’m serious about making the world a better place… the time is now.
It’s all a short journey here. We should use our setbacks as a reminder to make life better for us and everybody else.
Thanks for reading.
Next let’s look at hiring mistakes that cost you time, money, and sanity.
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7 Ways People Screw Up Hiring
For years, one of my biggest mistakes was hiring without a system.
Having a system is how you improve your odds of getting good hires. Because even the smartest, most self-aware people can start making assumptions without realizing it.
And a good system can protect you from a lot of mistakes like these…
Mistake #1: Horns and halo biases
Human beings are quick to jump to conclusions.
It’s both a superpower and a weakness of our brains: we can move forward decisively, but we’re vulnerable to all sorts of cognitive biases.
The Horns Effect is when our perception of somebody is unduly influenced by a single trait we see as negative.
The Halo Effect is the opposite: one positive trait can make us feel overly positive about a person as a whole.
Mistake #2: Urgency bias
A great hire is one of the highest-value things you can get right. Hiring the wrong person is an extremely expensive mistake.
In hiring, many people put too much weight on the pain of that position being open. “X can’t move forward until this hire is complete,” or “Filling X position will take so much off my plate.”
Keep the bigger picture in mind. It takes twice as long (or more!) to find an A-player candidate, but that’s worth 10x in the long run.
Mistake #3: Not checking references
2/3rds of resumes stretch the truth or outright lie. A smart person can make their resume tell any story they want.
A second-order mistake people make here is only calling the references a candidate provides.
(One of my hiring secrets is the “Threat of Reference Check” from the Topgrading methodology. Telling a candidate that you do 5 hours of reference calls tends to scare off a lot of bad candidates who would normally think they can BS their way into a job with you.)
Mistake #4: A super-narrow candidate pool
Some jobs have no wiggle room when it comes to experience.
Pilots, nuclear technicians, and tapdancing instructors all need direct work experience to succeed.
But for lots of other roles, it can help to keep an open mind when it comes to background.
Personally, I like hiring young people to leadership positions: it gives them an opportunity they’re thrilled about, they’re open to influence and training, and they’re hungry.
Keep an open mind. Would a veteran be good in this job? What about a retiree who might want to keep a hand in the game part-time?
Mistake #5: Keeping your candidates in the dark
Let’s assume you’ve landed on a good hiring system. If it’s not transparent to your candidates, you’re going to see people walk away or count themselves out.
When applicants see a clear, organized process, and understand how they fit into it, they’re more likely to stick it out.
A disorganized, drawn-out experience will give them a bad taste for your company.
Mistake #6: Ignoring your gut
Our brains are constantly building a subconscious database of information.
So if you’ve got a bad feeling about a candidate, dig deeper. Note that I’m not saying trust your gut blindly.
But try to find what’s setting off your radar. Look for biases. Look for evidence. If you can’t figure it out, talk it through with someone you trust.
Mistake #7: Wanting perfection
Most people want to bat 100% in hiring. It’s a bad way to think about it.
Because it leads you to only hire “safe” candidates with low ceilings. People are just too complex and every situation differs.
I step back and think about my hit rate.
Can I hit 60-70% hiring A-players? Then I’m stoked.
What hiring questions do you have? What do you struggle with most? Reply to this email and let me know!
If you want to see my hiring process, check it out here — this is the best system I’ve come up with so far.
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Question Time!
Two questions this week. One reader is trying to pitch themselves as a buyer, and one asks about CEOs sandbagging their budgets.
I’m struggling with how to pitch myself as a buyer when 1) I haven't had prior experience operating a company and 2) am not looking to become the CEO.
Also, nailing down a particular industry to pursue is challenging in itself. Any advice?
I love to pitch myself by using the Hero’s Journey. Basically, following the monomyth that humans are wired to respond to:
1. We set out to do x
2. We discovered y
3. We are creating z great thing
4. Do you want to join us?
The same thing is useful here in your situation. Be honest about what you’re doing, but by using the Hero’s Journey framework you leverage the listener’s natural inclination to join you on your quest.
While it may not work, you have to leverage what you have as strengths. Find what’s inspiring in your own story.
As for an industry, always look for areas where you have an unfair advantage (or you can build one). For example, if your family knows everything about radio, find something related to that. If you don’t have anything like that, then pick a field that interests you and do the work to become an expert. That means a ton of reading, hustling, and plain hard work.
Question: How do you go about setting budgets for portfolio companies in collaboration with CEOs? If your CEO’s compensation is tied to certain targets, doesn’t that create the incentive to sandbag on the budget?
We talk about this a bit in my HoldCo course. In short, my process is to set a hurdle rate for each company. That means each company is expected to produce a given minimum return on reinvested capital. If they don’t hit that, they’re expected to return it to the mothership (me).
From that, the company develops a plan (using the EOS system) that is approved by the board of directors. Sometimes that has some back and forth.
In the end, I think the risk of sandbagging is low if you hire the right people. Quality people won’t game this system. You can suss this out in your questions in the board meetings and, worst case, you can see it if they sandbag in a given year. Then you make a change.
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Three things that caught my eye this week
- Appetizer: I've been going hard on video lately (can’t wait to show you soon!) so I've been brushing up on my technique with my buddy Cam Houser's 40 Tips to Boost Your Camera Confidence. He's also got a great course on building your business called Minimum Viable Video.
- Main: If you’re an entrepreneur or an executive looking for best practices, you’ve got to check out ePraxis. Their hiring insights have definitely improved my systems, and they have a ton of great articles for free on their site. Check out 20 Hiring Strategies to Find & Retain Talent and Overcome the Silver Tsunami.
- Dessert: I guess the secret’s out. I am, in fact, more than 25 years old.
That’s it for today. I love the questions my readers have sent in — keep ‘em coming! What challenges are you facing?
Have a great week.
Michael
