Millennials, also known as Gen Y-ers (80 million, born between 1980 and 1995), were raised by overly doting parents who coddled their self-esteem like fragile Fabergé eggs. They played in little leagues where the score wasn’t kept and where everyone was a winner and everyone got a trophy for just showing up.

Having hired, worked with and trained many, I had concluded that millennials were simply lazy, undisciplined, unmotivated, over-entitled and disengaged, with the attention span of goldfish.

Then I joined the Board of Directors of an organization called Invisible Children, founded by and made up entirely of millennials. I was quickly humbled to the fact that it is not that they are unmotivated, inattentive or disengaged—they were just unmotivated, inattentive and disengaged in working for ME!

The three leaders behind Invisible Children and their mostly volunteer army of incredibly motivated, hard-working and passionately engaged millennials have pulled off achievements in the last half dozen years that even SUCCESS hasn’t in the last 116 years. They have organized marches on Washington, simultaneous overnight rallies of millions of people in over 100 cities worldwide and pulled off wild stunts to get themselves on the Oprah show (which they did three times! video1, video2). They even wrote a bill that they personally pushed through the Senate and Congress all the way to the Oval Office and stood there while the President of the United States signed it. You cannot tell me this is an unmotivated, lazy and unfocused generation anymore. Go here to help support this group.

Having seen the talent, passion and capabilities of the millennials up-close, I now believe they pose one of the greatest strategic opportunities for companies today… if read more »

We have been discussing the critical importance of recruiting great people (read Part 1, Part 2), no matter if you lead a small sales team, a charity, a sports team or if you are the leader of a big enterprise.

Organizations with the best people win. Get good at recruiting.

In this installment I’d like to give away one of the greatest strategies on how to get people to tell you how to sell them.

This is by not selling, but asking. Not by talking, but by listening.

People will tell you what is important to them, what they are looking for in life, what their hopes, dreams and aspirations are—if you let them. But one thing is for sure: You won’t learn this by moving your mouth.

The question acronym outline I use to this day is FORM:

F=Family and Friends
O=Occupation
R=Recreation
M=Money and Meaning

Recruiting Script Example

A conversation might go something like this (O): “What do you do?” Whatever their answer, my response is, “Oh, you must LOVE that!” People are contrarians by nature, if you suggest they must love it, then they will tell you everything they hate about it. If you would have said, “Oh, that sounds tough or terrible.” They will then tell you everything the like about it.

So even if they tell you what they don’t like, ask, “What aspects of it do you like?” They are there for a reason, there is some value or need it is filling, it is important to discover that.

Then ask, “What are some of the things you like the least or wish were different or you could change?” Now they will tell you all their needs, wishes and desires.

Then if we are on the business conversation I will jump to M and say, “Well you must make a ton of money doing that.” They will now tell you what? Yes, all their financial dissatisfaction.

I’ll follow up, “Is this something you always wanted to do; was it an aspiration since you were young?” 99 times out of 100 it isn’t.

Then I ask, “What was it you wanted to do when you were young or wish you were doing now?” More hopes, dreams and values revealed.

Then if I need more there is always, “What do you like to do when you aren’t working? Do you get to do it a lot? Why don’t you?” Etc.

On the first encounter I won’t make a recruiting solicitation at all. The mistake most people make is they go around like a hormone filled 18-year-old boy trying to close in the first three minutes of every conversation (you’ll end up like an 18-year-old boy-with bupkis!).

In that first encounter, and maybe even a few others after it, all I want to do is to create a relationship and collect information to discover what THEIR wants, needs, pains, frustrations, hopes and desires are.

Then later I will read more »

In Part 1 of Recruiting Great People, we talked about key philosophies when it comes to recruiting. Now we’ll discuss the finding the ideal match.

As a leader I believe you have three main functions:

1) Think. Set the vision. Architect the strategy. Make decisions.

2) Recruit and retain (culture development) the BEST talent you can.

3) Inspect what you expect – keep your eye on the vital signs of the organization.

And really, if you only master No. 2, the rest will probably get done too. That makes recruiting and retaining talent your most important job as a business owner, entrepreneur and leader; thus, worthy for us to spend some quality time on it here.

Finding Your “Ideal Match”

I interviewed one of the most successful professional executive recruiters in the country today, Harry Joiner, to pick his brain and take a look into his grab bag of tricks on the topic. Harry used the analogy that we should approach recruiting like dating. First, ask yourself the questions to determine what your “ideal match” would look like. He also said to know the key initiatives for your new team member needs BEFORE you look for them so you know how to qualify your “ideal match.”

Four key questions to identify the criteria of your “ideal match”

1. What’s the role?

2. How will success be measured?

3. What attributes are needed to succeed?

4. What attributes are needed to gel with rest of team and culture?

Here is what I have always done.

When I am looking to recruit someone, the first thing I do is read more »

Any business or organization is simply a group of human beings that have joined together to accomplish an objective. Whether that objective is to sell a product, win a game or even defeat an enemy and win a war.

The success of the organization is strictly dependent on the quality and caliber of the people in it.

The number one asset of any organization or business and the greatest determining factor of success or failure to the organization are quality of the people involved. That is why your ability to recruit great people is paramount to a business, organization, association, charity, team or any entity that requires more than one person to succeed.

What the über-successful attribute their success to:
As you know, I have had the opportunity to meet, sit down with and spend time with many of today’s most admired super-achievers. When asked what they attribute the success of their business to, invariably, they will say it is the great people they have surrounded themselves with. We all know no one climbs to the top of the mountain alone—it requires a great team. Many of these extraordinary achievers will readily confess that most of their team is smarter, more talented and more skilled than they are… in fact they will tell you that is always their objective.

The CEO of a billion-dollar company told me recently that it is his ardent goal to always “be the dumbest guy in the room.” And quite candidly, he’s not that smart (notice I didn’t use his name). But he is brilliant at recruiting and retaining great people, people much smarter than he is—and he owns the majority of the stock. Sounds pretty darn smart to me!

He said, “If I know more than someone at the table, number one, we are in trouble, number two, I have the wrong people at the table. My job is to get them to the table and keep them at the table. Then it is their job to accomplish the mission.”

The very important key point I am passing on here is this: it is not your intelligence, talent or experience that makes the difference. It comes down to a single skill—your ability to recruit, retain and empower great people around you. Thus the key skill you want to build, develop and hone is your recruiting skill.

In the next couple of posts I will share some of my own street-tested recruiting strategies, as well as bring in a couple of experts on the topic to share their ideas with you. Stay tuned!

What are some of your key philosophies when it comes to recruiting great people? Share them with us in the comments below.