The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

Building High-Performing Teams with Dr. Michael Neal

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 29

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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/
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Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, my special guest is Dr Michael Neal. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Thanks so much for having me, Jay. I'm excited to be here today.

Jay Johnson:

So you have got some incredible experience and I can't wait to tap into that and surface some of these learnings for our audience. And I can't wait to tap into that and surface some of these learnings for our audience. Mike, can you tell us how did you get into this space? You started and founded Build my Team. You've worked with some incredible companies. Talk to us, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this space of talent development.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Well, I've always been interested in high performers and how to kind of unlock the high performing code, but truthfully, that has nothing to do with it. I got into this because our eye care practice was hemorrhaging people. We could not keep people, we were hiring the wrong folks, we didn't know what we were doing, we didn't have a system. I mean, whoever your listeners are 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.

Dr. Michael Neal:

I wanted to solve this problem because we it was so stressful it's hard to describe and I thought well, other businesses aren't having this problem. Why is this unique to our eye care practice? And it turns out it wasn't at all. I just didn't know any better at the time. So I looked at companies like Disney, the Four Seasons and how these big, incredibly amazing customer service organizations how were they hiring? Figured out some of their tricks of the trade and they're not that hard actually and then slowly but methodically, built a system that's now completely automated and designed to find administrative team members, clerical people, entry-level positions for not only healthcare practices but small businesses, and we did that throughout North America. It's completely. It does one thing, one thing only, and it does it at about a 97% effectiveness level. We just we solved the problem, slammed the door shut, nailed around the door and have been using this in our practice ever since.

Jay Johnson:

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:

experience. You had an eye care. You had an eye care um business. You saw disengagement still do so, you saw disengagement.

Jay Johnson:

You saw the challenges with recruiting good talent, managing them on, getting them going and develop this system. So let's talk a little bit about what does this system look like and what's kind of that primary function. You said it does one thing. It does it well, it does it with 97%. What are we? What are we looking at here?

Dr. Michael Neal:

So, quite simply, um, it's a concierge service, um, that's extremely affordable for small businesses, and all they do is they, they um, have a consultation call with our team members. Our team members write the job description for the person they're trying to hire uh, the role I should say they're they're trying to hire we publish it out to over 20 different job boards and we build an enormous funnel. Jay, as many, we pour as many people into the top of that funnel as we can possibly get, and the reason being is that we're not looking for the best applicant. That's how Disney in the Four Seasons changed my thinking on that. What they're looking for are people who cannot do the job, and so you pour hundreds of folks into the top of this funnel and you remove the folks who can't do the job.

Dr. Michael Neal:

The ones that are left are the ones that we know can't. And how do we know that they can do it? It's all based upon strengths and talents. What we're determining is what these applicants' natural strengths and talents are for the position that you're looking for. If it's a great match, if it's not a match at all, and by doing that we end up with folks who are terrific matches. It's like to say a and b plus players for the role um, and then those are sent over to our clients to uh interview in person and hire okay, so let's let's talk about some of these practices that you discern from four seasons and disney's.

Jay Johnson:

What's maybe one of those examples of a mindset shift, right Like, because a lot of our people, whether they're in the training space or coaching space, you know they could probably learn from that sort of shifting that maybe you experienced what was maybe one of those things.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Well, I got two for you. One is the. Don't look for the um the. The winner, like the winning applicant, is to remove all the other ones, the ones you know can't do the job. And the second thing is experience. All kinds of small businesses want to hire for experience. I will categorically tell you that is an inferior approach, every single time, with one exception um, to compare to hiring people with natural strengths and talents for the position. And that one exception is if they have natural strengths and talents for the position and they just so happen to have experience. That's it.

Jay Johnson:

So here's interesting Cause I think about it and it actually triggered a thought of um, the Warren Buffett goal setting process. It sounds like Disney maybe using that of identify 10 things that you want to get done, pick your three most important and actively avoid all of the other ones, like that's actually the intention is you put your focus into not doing the other seven things and that kind of all of a sudden brings the cream to the you know the top and get you towards those big three that you're doing. So, if I'm hearing you correctly, like actively and intentionally just saying who can't do it and then the rest is let's go. Let's see what we got here.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Yeah, and there's also one on top of that, and that's resumes. The those companies do not use resumes for anything more than contact information. And in the Build my Team process, our process is intentionally structured not to look at a resume until the end. When our software because it's almost all automated when our software gives a thumbs up, that means we know the candidate can do the job. Only then is a resume looked at.

Dr. Michael Neal:

And the reason being is that we don't want to bring anybody to the table for our clients who has experience, who looks great on a resume and turns out to be an extremely poor fit for their role. And, jay, this happens all the time. It is the primary way at which small businesses hire the wrong people. So why wouldn't we want to hire experience? They get into the job, they're up and running, you know that type of thing. Well, the simple reason being is we're measuring how fast these, these candidates, learn. We know, before they're sent over to our clients, if they learn really quickly or not. If they don't, they don't pass through our process. And so when you talk about experience, what people are generally saying is they want somebody who's going to learn quickly so that the boss doesn't have to train them for months on end, right, what these folks can do is they come in without any bad habits. They're not having to be untrained, they learn really quickly and what we generally see, inside of about two weeks or so these folks are up and running and productive, and it can happen much faster than that.

Dr. Michael Neal:

So the counterpoint to it is with experience. You might be looking at bringing somebody on board and having to tell them over and over 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, and that's the juxtaposition between the two roles. Essentially the experience versus not. A smart. A player will outperform a C player with experience every single time. I'll take that bet anytime.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and it's interesting too, because I think a lot of times in the talent development space we forget in order to learn a new system.

Jay Johnson:

Oftentimes we have to forget what we know about an old system and it goes back to the Marshall Goldsmith of you know, what got you here won't get you there. So that can make a lot of sense to me. So, as a you know kind of talking a little bit about in the acquisition aspect of this, let's talk about how can we apply this sort of theoretical framework, how can we apply this knowledge that you've generated and obviously you've built a really successful platform and business approach with this. How can we leverage that for, say, the training and the talent development side of things where it is okay, we've brought these new A plusplus players in, these B-plus, high-level, high-valuable, skilled employees in. I think one of the big things that I've seen in organizations is, even if they do that and they've gotten to that space, how do we then activate them? How do we keep them motivated? How do we keep them really going? Do you have any thoughts on that, mike?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Yes, I'm going to bump this up a level, because the way to approach this with these A players and B plus players is not from a perspective that a lot of small businesses are used to the cat herding, the spoon feeding of these employees, where you got to tell them exactly what to do. You do that to an A player. They're gone. You're not going to get more than one shot for that. So the way that I would suggest that folks think about this and consider at least, is that when you have a team full of A players, you're not telling them what, you're not telling them how to do something. You never do that. You will turn them off in a heartbeat. What you do is you tell them what you need to have accomplished and you put guardrails on so that they know the parameters they can accomplish that within, and then you let them to it.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Bumping this up a notch, imagine the proverbial bus, the hiring bus. Okay, you've got the metaphor, if you will. You want to get the right people on the bus, like we've all heard of, and then you want to get them in the right seats on the bus. That's what build my team does both of those. When you get the right people on the bus, the right seats on the bus, then your role as the business owner changes dramatically instructions on exactly where you want this bus to go. So give them the deliverables that you want, the projects you want to accomplish, whatever it might be. You don't tell them how to do it, just give them that, give them the timeframe, and then the guardrails are. You know, maybe here's your budget.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Don't go outside of this. Don't go outside whatever it might 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 the bus. And so many small business owners have issues with that, and I completely understand it. Was there, been there, done that, got the t-shirt? Reason being is you're not used to delegating to people who could actually get the stuff done. You're used to delegating to people that create a mess and you got to walk behind them with the proverbial pooper scooper and clean up this mess all day long. You don't have to do that anymore.

Jay Johnson:

I think that's so true, but there's also an element this is one of the things that I've seen, especially with a lot of small businesses is in their mind, what done looks like is very clear. How that's communicated to somebody else often not as clear. That's why one of the things that I see a lot is I see talent wasted when either it's this one of two things it's to what you said where it's either micromanaged to the point that the talent is not being allowed to 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 in half, whether you peel it from the outside, whether you peel it and eat the entire thing in one bite, that's your prerogative. Just get the orange eaten is very different than-.

Dr. Michael Neal:

That's a great way to think about it.

Jay Johnson:

Right, yeah, so they either get micromanaged to death or they don't get enough of what the vision looks like or what the expectations are or what 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 is right, we're training these people, we're giving them skills, we're giving them knowledge, how can we as trainers, coaches or anything else HR, how can we establish the right guardrails for some of these candidates that are coming in?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Oh, that's an excellent question. So, of course, depends on the project per se, but you touched on solving that problem With the previous couple of sentences. That problem with the previous couple of sentences the owners don't get to talk about what the success look like enough. And as far as the training of these folks, if you fully outline exactly what success looks like, for example, there's a tool called an impact filter that a fellow named Dan Sullivan from strategic coach invented and it describes here's exactly what success looks like. Here are the conditions for success and here's what happens if you don't do it. Here's what happens if you do it. In that description, which is wonderfully built for entrepreneurs, um, there's no such thing as how. The how doesn't exist as a concept.

Dr. Michael Neal:

So, as far as the training goes, my suggestion would be to spend a whole heck of a lot more time on here's exactly what success looks like. Let them noodle that through and 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 questions for you. Fire away. So they're going to hammer you with. Remember, these are eight players. These are not what a business might be used to. So they're going to hammer you with a whole bunch of questions. You answer them. Maybe take let them think about that a little bit more you answer the next round of questions.

Dr. Michael Neal:

It's a completely different approach to doing things, but it works exceptionally well, much better than other methods. Let's say they're going to ask you in those questions I need software that does this, this and this. Well, of course businesses have that a lot of times. Get them logins, those types of things. But in this whole discussion you're not wasting time on starting from the ground up on a bunch of stuff that they don't necessarily need to know. You're really giving them I hate to use the word empowerment, but you're really giving them that right out of the gate where they can immediately start solving some problems, and that's great on the new employee side of things. But for the business they are immediately providing value and it can be shocking how fast that comes Like within a couple of weeks you're scratching your head, going, oh boy, now I've got to find something else for them to do because it's already done, and it's done better than I thought it could be done.

Jay Johnson:

You put the right person in the right seat, with the right tools and right resources and good things happen. So I want to talk about I want to dig in a little bit deeper on that, because I think this is a really interesting conversation from the development side, because I guarantee you any of our listeners has been in the experience where maybe they have somebody that from a skill perspective, they've got it, they get it, they're capable, but they maybe don't have a strong motivation. And then we also have some of those players and I even remember this from being like on a hockey team there are some highly, highly skilled people.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Speak in my language, yeah.

Jay Johnson:

I played through the junior levels, there were some talented players that did not have the motivation. Then there were some less talented players that you couldn't keep them off the ice or out of the workout room or anything else. They just didn't have that same level of talent room or anything else, they just didn't have that same level of talent. How can we find some kind of balance, or is there a good balance of being able to say here's how we can motivate those really talented or here's how we can upskill those motivated but maybe they don't really have the skills or the talent yet? What are your thoughts on that, mike?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Well, I would first question the match between their strengths and talents and what's being asked of them in a business role. So if their strengths and talents aren't matched properly, it might be work for them to get the job done that you require them to do. You can't take that for granted. That has to be assessed at kind of a root level. When you have these A players, they require the vision to execute. So you have to tell them what they need to accomplish, but you don't run behind them with a horse whip pushing them. You just get out of the way.

Dr. Michael Neal:

So back to the hockey analogy, which is my favorite sport by far the kids in hockey that you can't get out of the training rooms, they have heart, right. That's basically what it's called in hockey. They may not have the some of the skills and stuff, but they're incredibly coachable and I've seen players make the NHL that you scratch your head and say how Well they listen to every darn thing the coach told them to do for you know, the better part of a decade, um, develop those skills and they, they can do that versus somebody who comes in kind of at the top and just doesn't have to, just doesn't have that that fit between what they're good at and what, let's say, the team needs. So I always like to go back to the natural strengths and talents, make sure that fits and then also make sure that these folks have a crystal clear vision At the end of the day.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Look some, some people are lazy, there's no doubt about it. Some people just can't be made to work. Um, they need to exit the team and we bring on somebody new yeah, and that's always hard, right, like you can't train motivation particularly well.

Jay Johnson:

You can help guide people to finding value, finding meaning, purpose, but you can't literally train somebody to have motivation, right oh?

Dr. Michael Neal:

no, they're coming in with whatever they have. You're not going to wave a magic wand and make them have something they don't. It doesn't work that way. But what we're doing with the Build my Team process is we're also assessing things like how do they learn? With the build my team processes, we're also assessing things like how do they learn? Um, how do they function best as a team? How do they like to be communicated with? Are they team players or solitary performers? Um, what's their stress tolerance? Do they like low stress positions, high stress positions? How they communicate with both people in the workforce and with customers. We're measuring all kinds of that stuff. So, when they're?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Let's say, for example, if you put somebody who is more of a solitary performer into a position 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 talk the proverbial dog off the meat wagon and loves interacting with clients and customers. Put them in a solitary room to do a solitary job. How long do they stay Right? So there's so many different things that you have to make sure are a good fit for the position, 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 for 90 days.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, oh, and I think it's interesting, right, because a lot of times, with talent, the way it is, and some people, especially industries you had mentioned healthcare when we started talking right, there is large fear right now that not even that there's not going to be enough quality candidates, but that there's not going to be enough candidates, literally, there's going to be more jobs than there are people. So there is this propensity of saying, all right, I may have to take somebody that's a C plus player, or I may have to take somebody that is you know, how do we, how do we navigate that?

Jay Johnson:

Because the world of talent acquisition has certainly changed. The interest in particular positions or particular jobs, expectations for those jobs have certainly changed. How do we navigate that space, mike?

Dr. Michael Neal:

have certainly changed. How do we navigate that space, mike? So what Build my Team has done to offset that? And you're 100% right, that is the new norm. What we've done instead is we've widened the top of the funnel where we're pouring hundreds 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 an automated way where these people can fill out this, this build my team process, at three in the morning. They can do it from their phone, um, in between the nooks and crannies of picking up their kids at school. They're not sitting in front of a laptop required, so we open it up to get that many more applicants. So we open it up to get that many more applicants.

Dr. Michael Neal:

The other side of it is speed and I can't pound this point hard enough the A players and the B plus players. They only want to work you back for interview number 27. We need a committee to form these decisions. They're gone. They are so gone.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Excuse me, what we're seeing with these applicants is that they will apply for a job approximately between five to ten seconds. Every five to ten seconds when they're applying on these job boards, they're on to another job. Our system is built to text them. They receive a text within five seconds. Why five seconds? Because 10 wasn't fast enough. They didn't remember which job they were applying for. This is actually a fact and from an employer standpoint, you pull your hair out. Oh, that can't be real. We didn't think it was either. We started out with an email-based system and we found out that everybody checks their email, right, jay yeah, three times a week, if you're lucky for most of these applicants. Hard to fathom when you work in front of a computer all day long, but that's where we're at. So we had to meet the candidates where they're at and move as fast as we possibly can. By doing that, we get enough people into the top of this funnel so that we're still able to grab at the very end these A players and B plus players.

Jay Johnson:

I love that and I think that's good advice just in general, of you've got to be moving quickly in this type of a market. One thing I will say is and this was shared with me, this was shared with me by one of my younger, by one of my younger staff that that is a manager that I've had a conversation with and it was just like you can pretty much assume that anybody in a younger generation probably has applications out there at any point in time Doesn't mean that they're actually taking them, doesn't mean that they're looking at them, doesn't mean that they're intending to go somewhere, but it's testing the market or putting something out there because that perfect thing could come along. And I was like that's really really interesting. So you know, from the build my team, have you had any experience? Or when you have those candidates that are kind of coming through, do you see the a lot of repeats and a lot of people kind of getting into that place over and over again? Or how does that seem to say? What do you mean by repeats?

Jay Johnson:

Like for example, you know if you've got that person who's looking for that opportunity, that job, that big new space, right? So you're cultivating that, cultivating those 20 different online job boards. Do you see the same people coming over and over again? Oh, sometimes.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Yeah, they. You get people who do not pass our assessment process and they just keep hammering it over and over again. Well, you didn't pass the assessment process because you're not good enough for these roles. We're never, ever going to send you on to a client just to fill a position. We'll advise our client just wait a little bit. And that's very hard for a small business to do, but you're so much better off to wait just a little bit longer for those terrific candidates versus trying to push somebody through who's the proverbial C player and this happens a lot to small business owners.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Grandma comes in. Oh, I've got this wonderful granddaughter. She'd be fantastic for this place, you know, will you hire her? Uh, uh, you know, caught with your pants down. So what we do in our practice is we say we have a company that hires all of our team members for us. Have her. Take a look at. Um, uh, for Lakeside Vision, the name of our practice on the job boards. Well, they never do. I don't think that's ever happened once that that somebody's applied like that. But it gives the small business owner the the out to not have to say yes or be be kind of taken to the cleaners a little bit in that situation.

Jay Johnson:

No, I love that. That's great advice, because everybody has been asked can you get my friend, can you get my cousin, my nephew, whoever? Yeah, check online on the boards. If we see something come in, we'll be sure. But that's going to at least find out whether somebody's serious or if they're just kind of waiting for the hand me you know the handout and you know talking about serious applicants.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Think about this for a second. Imagine you're printing all the resumes that a job board provides to you with build my team asking them. The simple thought of asking a candidate to start an assessment process which only takes about 10 minutes couldn't be easier. We lose about 50% of those candidates by simply asking them to take one action that can be done from the couch in the middle of the night. All of those people that exit our process and it's done very gently and nicely those are folks that are guaranteed in every scenario to completely waste your time, your paper and your printer ink. They're not going anywhere. They have no interest in actually working in your job that you have open. So, from a time-saving standpoint, that's where the automation is terrific, saves the small business owner countless hours and you simply don't waste your time.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, Mike. If our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they reach out to you?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Easy. Go to wwwbuildmyteamcom and take a look at our website. The main thing is to schedule a consultation call so that our team members can talk to you, find out what roles you're looking to fill and make sure that we can help you on the acquisition side.

Jay Johnson:

So I think this is really valuable in kind of getting some of that knowledge, because obviously you know, as talent development we've generally got a team, but there is always going to be new team members, and wouldn't it be great if we could start by getting the right ones into the right seats and moving forward in that space?

Dr. Michael Neal:

Yeah, that initial thought of the right people in the uh, getting the right people onto the bus. I can't tell you how much easier it makes everything downstream. There's so many fewer problems by some places, a couple orders of magnitude fewer problems. So that's really where the focus could be in order to make the rest easier.

Jay Johnson:

I love it Well. Thank you, dr Mike Neal, for joining me here on the program today. Really appreciate your time and, obviously, the insights you've been able to share.

Dr. Michael Neal:

Yeah, thanks so much, Jay.

Jay Johnson:

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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