941: The Best Way to Hire Top Talent with Mike Michalowicz

Pete Mockaitis

Mike, welcome back.

Mike Michalowicz

Dude, it’s awesome to be back. Thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, it’s awesome to be chatting. I have enjoyed so many of your books over the years, and I’m excited to hear about your latest All In: How Great Leaders Build Unstoppable Teams. Lay it on us, I know you go deep with your research. So, tell us the tale of how you came to understand the problem and the solutions that you’ve put forward in your book All In.

Mike Michalowicz

So, basically, what I do in my research, I say, “What’s the desired outcome we have in a circumstance?” So, in this case, it was recruiting high-performing employees, people that are super engaged, great people for our company. Then what’s the actual outcome? And most businesses have horrible outcome.

When we have a desired outcome, and the actual outcome is far off, I look in the middle, which is the method we follow, I call the DMO, desire method outcome. And the method we’re using is interviews. So, this is not a shocker but the solution is. It’s no surprise that most people we interview don’t work out for the long term or aren’t high performers. The percentage, which shows about 5% of people we hire are rock star employees for long term in our company.

But what I found is the solution kind of blew my mind. So, I said, “Well, is there any example of any organization that doesn’t use interviews or use a different method, and has a high percentage rate?” Well, sure enough, there’s an industry, it won’t be a surprise in a moment, but they’re over half a trillion dollars in revenue, that does not run a single interview, they only do performance-based and what they call workshops or camps, and the output is like 95% extremely high performers.

So, here’s the industry. Sports. And that’s not the surprise now, it’s like, “Well, of course.” If I’m a football team, I won’t go, “Hey, why don’t you come for an interview? Where is the green light?”

Pete Mockaitis

Actually, throwing balls, catching balls, running with balls?

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, you get on the field and do. But there’s two forms of interviews. There’s one where I’m considering a candidate and I want to see your functional skills, but there’s an even greater level, and this is the big opportunity for all of us. There is what’s called potential assessments, and it’s not done in the interview process. It’s through an education process.

So, I’ll give a personal example because I didn’t really appreciate experiences. I played Lacrosse in high school, and, admittedly, I was not such a good athlete but, whatever, I played. I went to Hobart Lacrosse campus, which is in the northeast where kind of where I lived, and this is like the preeminent school in this area, there’s 300 kids there. And while we were practicing over this week’s period, certain students were tapped on the shoulder, brought to another field, and invited to play more advanced skills, whatever.

The people who had potential in the beginning were quickly vetted out to perform on more competitive fields and try new skills. By the end of the camp, I think two or three students were invited to play for Hobart, this elite team. I was not one of them. But here’s what’s cool. I played Lacross in college, and it’s in the big part because of what I learned at Hobart. The lesson is this, that we, as employers, can put on camps, an educational event, where everyone gets elevated and used also as an observational medium to cherry-pick the best candidates.

Now, the last thing I want to share, because I get so excited about this. This is happening in the real business world, just not enough. And for the folks listening, I bet you no one’s doing workshops right now, but I’ll tell you a major company who is, it’s Home Depot. And the next time you hear they’re doing a Build a Birdhouse workshop, that is a recruiting platform, and this is how it works.

You see this ad, Build a Birdhouse, Bring a Kid, whatever, and you go down there, and you have experience. They’re there to educate you, you’re having fun, you get ingratiated at the store, it’s cool, we build a birdhouse. They have an employee there that’s observing participation, and if you’re the parent who is learning quickly, helping other parents, asking good questions, really enthusiastic about it, they will tap you on the shoulder, and say, “You’re the exact candidate we’re looking to work in Home Depot. Have you ever considered us?”

So, here’s the lesson. Don’t setup an interview platform, saying, “We’re interviewing people to build birdhouses.” Simply say, “If you’re curious, you can learn,” because the best candidates are curious. The other thing that’s interesting is it’s a recruiting platform that doesn’t follow where the standard fair is going. Everyone is going to the platform DuJour, or Indeed, or whatever it is nowadays. We go there, and everyone keeps going after the same 2% of unemployed people and a few people that are looking for a job right now.

But in an education format, I can go to my competition. I can go to anyone, and say, “Are you looking to get better at what you currently do?” Because, at the end of the day, top performers are always looking to learn. They’re learners. So, put on a learning environment, now people come, they learn the skills that you are looking to hire for, or they have the prerequisite skills and you’re giving them new education, and now you can observe and cherry-pick the people you want. I mentioned in the book, we were testing this other company, and, sure enough, we had a bookkeeping agency that, to a great effect, they preschool, the last organization is using this now.

Pete Mockaitis

Mike, I love so much of what you’re saying here because, well, I actually own a podcast production company, and that’s how we do hiring, is we just put people through sort of a gauntlet. They’re from all over the world, so it’s hard to get them together physically but we’ll just have a series of things, it’s like, “Okay, show me what you can do here and here,” in terms of one of my favorites is “Tell me what’s wrong with this sentence and write a better one. What’s wrong with this sentence, and write a better one? Summarize this podcast episode, etc.”

And so, then when we get together, it’s like, “Holy schmokes, you really sure know how to write very well. Go figure. And I guess you have to in order to pass this gauntlet of assessments.” And then this is also connecting in that I have coached many, many candidates through what I call case interviews for consulting jobs in which they have to solve real-time, live, a business case in front of the interviewer, like, “Hey, our client is this business, their profits are down, what do we do?” and they have to do this all dance of asking clarifying questions, and doing and putting forth a structure, and doing some calculations, ultimately generating a solution.

And, go figure, the folks they hire at the consulting firms tend to work out and not leave early. But I think the coolest experience of this was with, have you heard of the Fossey Foundation?

Mike Michalowicz

I have not.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, this is a nonprofit and, on their website, they identify and recruit and train individuals with extraordinary leadership potential, and Fossey scholars get full tuition leadership scholarships from their colleges and universities. And so, the idea is they want diverse students in colleges, and their students’ brilliance may not show up on the ACT/SAT GPAs. And so, I volunteered several times. It’s so fascinating.

Mike Michalowicz

That’s cool.

Pete Mockaitis

So, we observe high school students as they engage in these activities and we’re all just watching and writing down who’s impressing us with the leadership things they’re doing and who is not.

Mike Michalowicz

I love it.

Pete Mockaitis

And then when all the students leave, we talk about them. And so, that’s like one way that this talent is surfaced, and it’s like a camper workshop for “How do we find great high school talent that should be going to college who isn’t showing up on the ACT/SAT GPA?”

Mike Michalowicz

And you used that term students, which is perfect. So, when you talked about the gauntlet, that’s what’s called a skill assessment. The challenge of the gauntlet is these are people who are already applying for a job so they know they’re in a test environment, and it is a powerful tool. It’s kind of, like, I’m looking for a football player throw-catch-run, but there’s also camps, and that comes prior to this. This is for students, so this is people that they don’t know they’re being vetted, and that’s not even the primary intention, it’s to educate.

So, I can run a workshop, saying, “Learn to be a podcast editor,” or whatever it may be, and now I can invite in my competition, I can invite all these people, and they learn the experience. A couple keys to running a great workshop. Charge for it because people who are curious will pay, and it is educational. Give a certificate of accomplishment. Now they have a piece of paper, or digital paper, that they can use, if you decide not to employ them, maybe you can benefit them with another employer, but in the process always observe.

And that last example, as we said, they are students. So, they’re going through an education and learning, but we’re cherry-picking. The analogy I use, I put this in the book, is pretend you and I, Pete, we want to start a rock band, and we want just like trashing guitarist, and we’re like, “You know, let’s pick a guy from the ‘80s, let’s pretend Eddie Van Halen is still alive. We want Eddie Van Halen.” Now, how do you find Eddie Van Halen without knowing who he’s going to be?

We already know Eddie Van Halen is a qualified person, and if we called him, he would reject us, he’d laugh. The A players are gainfully employed, they’re making Goku box, and they’ll say no. But if we could have Eddie Van Halen when he is 12, that’s when he discovered guitar, I bet you we could’ve secured him. So, the big question, of course, is “How do you know Eddie is going to be Eddie Van Halen?” Well, you do a workshop. We could put on a guitar shop. If we need a future guitarist, we need a great guitarist. Let’s put him in a workshop.

I actually play a guitar but I don’t play it well. We need somebody that’s really a trasher, maybe you do, but we’ll bring in someone from the outside, and say, “We’re going to pay you for a five-day workshop, or one day, or one hour online, whatever it is,” then we reach out to all 12-year-olds, and say, and their parents, “A hundred dollars, learn to play a trashing guitar.” Then we look for the indicators of potential.

It’s always in three stages. Curiosity is the first stage, “Oh, I will do this or not.” So, people vet themselves out right there. Second stage is desire, it’s like, “Oh, I really like this.” Eddie couldn’t put the guitar down. He’s asking tons of questions. That’s what Home Depot was looking for, the parents that help other parents, ask questions about building birdhouses. The final stage is thirst. Thirst is, “I can’t stop.” It’s almost an addictive level. The job of the instructor is to provide an education so everyone comes out better.

Then, or additionally, observe for desire and thirst. When you find those people, that’s when you pull Eddie aside, and say, “Hey, by the way, we happen to be starting a band. Thanks for joining our class as a student here. Do you want to join a band? Do you ever think about that?” That 12-year-old Eddie may have said, “Yeah.” And we don’t know he’s going to necessarily be the Eddie he became, but those desire and thirst are the strongest indicators that he has that potential to become that guy.

Pete Mockaitis

And in the setting of the workshop, I can see curiosity, what are some of the telltale signs, “Ooh, there’s some desire. Ooh, there are some thirst”?

Mike Michalowicz
So, usually, if there’s homework assignments, they actually do the homework. Another part is lots of questions. So, curiosity will come after questions, but desire is also indicative of questions. It’s the person who’s raising their hand the most. The second one is attendance. So, you’ll see if someone is really into it will often arrive early, stay late. They’ll usually be distraction-free. That’s actually the biggest indicator.

When people try to multitask, it means they’re not engaged with the task at hand, so they’re trying to do other things. So, you can see someone online, or wherever, if they turn their cameras off, those are awesome indicators. In a workshop, someone is checking their phone regularly. Well, when someone gets immersed in it, it becomes this tunnel vision. So, we’re looking for the tunnel vision effect.

Thirst may not present itself right away. It may come later on but thirst is an inability to quit. It’s the person that stays for an extra five hours. It’s the professor that says, “Oh, my God, I wish this person will go home now,” or the instructor will go home. That person who can’t quit it has thirst, so we look for those elements.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s so phenomenal. And this reminds me, I was doing a workshop for a pharmaceutical company, just a series of workshops, what you said about the homework was striking. And I thought, “I need to encourage these folks to do the exercises outside of our workshops.” And so, I thought, “Okay, we got gift cards,” I thought a little bit of accountability, a leader board might embarrass them, like, “Hey, your boss and everyone is going to see that you’re not doing the exercises,” and that didn’t really motivate very many people.

Mike Michalowicz

Unbelievable, huh?

Pete Mockaitis

I was surprised, like, “I’d be so self-conscious about my name being at the bottom of the leader board.”

Mike Michalowicz

I know.

Pete Mockaitis

But, sure enough, there were two people who were smoking it, like, with great consistency, getting it done. And so, we stayed in touch, and they might be listening to this show. Hello, guys. And it was so funny, they said, “Hey, you know what’s really interesting, Pete? The two of us were the ones who got promotions, and we were also the ones who scored highest on doing all of the homework.”

Mike Michalowicz

No surprise.

Pete Mockaitis

And I was like, “Yes, that is interesting.”

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, very interesting.

Pete Mockaitis

Because they had the desire, it’s like, “Ooh, I really want to develop these professional skills,” and they went after it, and then they signed up for my email list and other stuff afterwards because they were just into learning these skills, and it so happened that those skills are the ones they needed to flourish in their careers, which is why that was the subject of the workshops in the first place. And so, that’s really telling. If I can give, set a stage to create an opportunity whereby people can distinguish themselves by choosing to proactively do the thing or not, that’s supremely telling. I love it.

Mike Michalowicz

I remember I was doing a presentation last week in front of 200 folks, and these are all business owners. And I said, “Who in the room here is an A player?” And I said, “Please don’t be bashful. This is an opportunity to brag, if you feel that’s appropriate.” And every hand went up. And they defined A player, drive and all the stuff. And then at the same group, I said, “Keep your hand up. I’m curious, what percentage of the population is A players?” And they’re like, “Five percent, 2%.” The most gracious was 10%.

I said, “Okay, we have 100% of the people who are A players, yet, at the same time, saying 10% of the population is A players.” So, this is some bizarre statistical phenomenon happening. There’s some warp in the universe right now, or something is not right. And what I believe is not right is everybody is an A player in the right circumstances. These people, and we all see the best, we all have the potential to see the best in ourselves, some people don’t, but we do have the potential to see the best in ourselves but we have to be put in the right environment.

Eddie Van Halen is probably a pretty crappy, or was a pretty crappy bookkeeper. And so, we’d say, “He sucks.” Yeah, but you give him a guitar. The thing is my little business, I got 20 people here, I have maybe one more role available in the next year. Of all the people in this planet, there’s a small percentage they will be a match for that. But what I had to realize as a leader, as an employer, everyone coming in is an A player. The question is, “Are they an A player for my needs?” And it does change the perspective.

When we think most people aren’t a fit, it’s all about just, “Oh, everyone sucks.” When we think everyone is great, then we start saying, “Well, what will be an indicator of their greatness in compliance with what I need or in alignment with what I need?” It just changes the vision a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis

It is, yes. And it feels more kind and hopeful.

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, totally. And I think it’s the truth. Pick any person, in the right role, they can crush it. And I’m not saying everyone is going to be great nine to five. Maybe some dude, all he does is sleep all day. Maybe he can test mattresses. Like, you got to figure it out.

Pete Mockaitis

“Dude, get in a sleep clinic.”

Mike Michalowicz

He’s a sleep clinic tester.

Pete Mockaitis

“You’ll be giving so much data for the scientists.”

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, or maybe he watches training videos to see if he can stay awake to any training videos. And if he does, he’s a great tester.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Mike, you’re so fun. I love these perspectives. Okay. Well, that’s such a huge takeaway right there, is creating these workshops or camps. I’d love it if we could get a few more examples for how this can be turned into reality. So, Home Depot, build a birdhouse, sports camps, we talked about the Fossey Foundation. What else?

Mike Michalowicz

So, we worked with a preschool, and this preschool is what’s called site directors. This is a multi-location preschool and they need teachers that can review the performance to ensure all standards are being achieved in their multiple locations. And the prerequisite is you need to be a teacher already. And so, you can get people with advanced skills by having prerequisites.

So, what we did is we reached out to all the competition. And this is the beautiful thing, the competition will send people. We said, “We’re putting on an educational event,” it’s always educational, “We’re going to charge $150 or whatever it was, for a one-day training on site directors services and how you’d manage it. The prerequisite is you must be a teacher for five years, blah, blah, blah.” Our competition sent teachers, so now, at our location, all the competitors’ teachers there, and we teach in this process, we start observing who shows desire and thirst.

By the end, everyone has a certificate, they had accomplished the prerequisite skills or the tests, whatever, but we also identified three of those teachers, we said, “Well, gosh, you’re perfect to be a site director. We happen to be hiring,” but they’re also ethical, we said, “Hey, listen, you have a current employer. If they have a site director opportunity, it is clearly your talent. We invite you to talk with them and consider that, but if there’s not an opportunity and this is something you want to pursue, we’d love to have a conversation with you.” We got our best two site directors that way.

There was another case where a company of bookkeepers, they’re based out of the US, the founder, her name is Tuesday, she is originally from Kenya, an African country. I think it was Kenya. And she teamed up with the University of Nairobi, and said, “I’ll give you a bookkeeping course, all remote.” Actually, she even prerecorded the videos. She had an adjunct professor, she taught bookkeeping. They didn’t offer this course before at this particular university. I think it was a dozen students who went through it.

By the end, the onsite director, she gave them direction, saying, “As an adjunct professor, give me feedback on who’s doing the homework, who’s engaged the most, and I want to talk to those people, and I’ll start doing one-on-one coaching.” So, they did additive education, and she started coaching them individually, and she vetted down about three people that she hired. They’re her best performing employees. But the beauty of that story is the remaining nine people all got jobs as bookkeepers at other companies.

Now, here’s the last thing I want to share, this kind of feels overwhelming. I got to put on a course, I had to do a webinar. Even if it’s an hour, I don’t have the skills. Here’s the ultimate shortcut. Whatever position you need to hire for, find the workshop, the course, the education, the class that’s teaching it, and go as a student to observe the other students. That’s the shortcut. Just go and watch the others, seek desire and thirst, talk to them, and say, “Hey, I’m looking to hire, not deal.”

Pete Mockaitis

This is beautiful. All right, workshops is huge. Well, keep it going, Mike. What are some other pro tips on building these unstoppable teams? And I want to hear, generally speaking, interviews aren’t the method between desire and outcome that we’re after. Workshops are a cool alternative means of selecting folks. What are some other things you suggest that are not interviews?

Mike Michalowicz

So, the most common other thing I heard, and this was also mind-blowing to me, is the desire was, “I want my employees to act like owners.” The method was if you achieve certain goals, you’ll get rewarded. And the outcome is most employees see their job as just a job and don’t function as owners. They don’t put in that extra effort because they don’t have a desire.

What I found is a concept that was buried away in the 1970s-1980s called psychological ownership which is ignored by leaders, but, my gosh, it’s the tool that makes any of us, leader, owner, or not, to feel like owners. What it’s called is psychological ownership. So, there’s two types of ownerships. There’s legal ownership and psychological.

Legal ownership is just a contract of sorts but it doesn’t give you the feeling. Psychological always does, and we need to amplify it. The best example is I own stock in Ford, a hundred shares. I recently drove by a Ford factory, and I was just driving by, I didn’t look at it and say, “Oh, my God, I own three of those bricks on that building.” I just drove by, and I go, “Oh, there’s Ford. Where’s my money?” which is entitlement even though I have legal ownership.

Now here’s the irony, I also own a Ford pickup truck, and I feel that I own it but I actually don’t. The bank owns it, I’m making installments but I feel like I own it. So, the question is, “Why do I feel that way?” Because I treat it with such care. The reason is three elements. First of all, I have the ability to personalize it. I can program the radio stations the way I want. I can put bumper stickers on the back. When you can personalize something, you feel a sense of authority over it, and it becomes part of you. It’s an expression of identity.

The second part is I have control, authority, meaning I can park it where I want to park it, I drive whenever I want to drive it, all those elements. And the last part is I have intimate knowledge, I know all the bells and whistles. I went through the whole manual. I know what every button does. So, the more intimately we know something, the more we can personalize and put authority or control into it, the more we sense ownership.

So, as employees in an organization, within the confines of their job, where can they assert control? Part of it is idea generation. When someone comes up with their own idea, they feel control. Say, “Hey, here’s where we want to move our company, here’s your capacity in it, what do you think you could do or want to do to help us move the business forward?” So, now you’re asserting control, “How can you make this more your own? How can it be an expression of yourself?”

One thing we do when we have an SOP or standard in our own company now, I used to have the person that does it, currently teach it, and everyone follows a script, no control, no authority. Now, we do is we have a script, we give it to the new person, and say, “Learn from this. And then how can you enhance it and create the new training video because it’s going to be your standard?” The irony is the best student in every room is the teacher. So, they’re teaching, which means they’re learning, but also because it’s an expression of themselves, they have more ownership in the role.

Pete Mockaitis

I want to put you on the spot with, like, this really tricky example. Like, let’s say, “Hey, there is a standardized process by which this needs to be done for the sake of compliance or for the law.”

Mike Michalowicz

Right. Right. So, you can’t change the coding or anything.

Pete Mockaitis

So, there’s a few things that are kind of immovable. But could you give us some cool examples of how, even within such environments, folks manage to feel a lot of that cool personalization, control, and intimate knowledge?

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, so a quick simple personalization tip, trick, is to change the name of something, maybe not publicly but internally. So, if there’s some kind of compliance document, I can call it Kelsey’s compliance, and right there, with the assigned names, you have a sense of authority, and really personalization over it so you can give it unique names and lingo. It’s a real simple technique.

Intimate knowledge, I would exploit that. So, I’d say, listeners, “Rules and regulations, we had to follow it to the tee. I want you to be the master at this. So, research it, study. Can you find loopholes, which is an opportunity?” When you find a loophole, it’s a technique of personalization, it’s like, “Oh, there’s a little button here that no one knows about that I can get through.” So, explore it. But even if they don’t find “loopholes” the fact they know the protocol better than anyone else, they’re building intimate knowledge.

Control and authority. There may be protocols they have to follow but can they control the submission times? You can say, “Hey, when is the optimum time to get this in? Does it always have to be Monday at 10:15 a.m.? Or, can we work with a schedule that suits you?” That’s giving them a sense of control so you can assert it. Again, what we’re looking for is for them to say, “This is my responsibility. This is my job,” and that means they’re sensing that authority.

I will give one word of warning though. There is a risk here of fiefdoms. And what a fiefdom is it’s where a person has so much knowledge that they start blockading other people from access. That’s dangerous. So, we want to move to a higher level of psychological ownership which is called collective psychological ownership.

What we do here is you have multiple parties involved, you make teams around it, so if there’s something, a risk of a fiefdom being built, invite multiple people to work in concert, in that way you prevent those walls from being built.

Pete Mockaitis

And it’s funny how into things we can get in terms of if you feel like you’ve got your own little touch on it. In terms of like if I am getting into my own audio editing, which I do from time to time, here and there, even though I’ve got great supportive teams, I love to do certain things which are just sort of my little style. It’s like I’d like to do a gentle downward expansion to attenuate the intensity of a breath sound as opposed to a harsh noise gate that have layers of rich complex gradations of silence. It’s like, “Okay, that’s so dorky but I own it. I am invested in this.”

Mike Michalowicz
Amazing.

Pete Mockaitis

And it’s funny, if someone were to take that away, in terms of, like, “No, Pete, that’s not how we do it here. Actually, you’ve got to comply with the situation where we use XYZ software,” I wouldn’t like that.

Mike Michalowicz

Totally, right, because when someone asserts control or authority on you, we start building resistance. I was saying, when forced to comply, we seek to defy.

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah, Mike.

Mike Michalowicz

The classic study, and this works from poise, but the classic is with rental cars because we’ve all experienced this. The next time you go to Herts or wherever, you go through a protocol of compliance requirements. First, you got to fill out a hundred forms for an hour. Secondly, if you don’t return with a full tank of gas, we’re going to penalize you by charging $10 a gallon for us to fill it because it’s so hard. Secondly, no scratches, no dents. Third, must be clean. Fourth, good luck passing the DMZ zone where there’s going to be flashing lights, spikes coming up, and some dude coming out with a gun asking for your ID, all that compliance.

So, when forced to comply, we seek to defy. What do we do the second we pull out? We do donuts in the parking lot, or we fly into the light and skid in sideways, or we punch it when it turns green. We definitely drive it more aggressively. Rental cars get beat up on compared to our own car, where we’re, “Hey, this is my car. We’re going to take care of it.” No one washes their rental car before returning, but we wash our own car. Why is that? When forced to comply, we seek to defy.

And this is one of the things that great leaders realize. Most leaders focus on compliance, achievement, and so employees are seeking for elbow room to get back at the boss. Great leaders embrace the internal human and allow them to take charge. Yes, there’s rules and confines. You can’t let people just go wild. We have to work as a team collectively. You can’t have a football team where you say, “Everyone just run any way you want.” We have to serve the plays.

But if we can give them self-expression, they can expand.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, then as we speak, there’s a world of work, there’s these back-to-office mandates. Tell us, as we think about personalization and control, what’s your hot take on these?

Mike Michalowicz
Is that in the best interest of employees? Sometimes you have to require something that actually serves people, and you’ll get resistance, a.k.a. if you ever had children, that’s the world of raising children. My kids, “You have to take a shower at our house after a week.” There are some minimum requirements. These stink bombs walk around, and it’s really in their best interest.

Some employers are doing this because we’re losing the socialization at home. Everything is going virtual. And we’re losing that tactile experience. So, the employers that are requiring come back to the office to promote socialization are building connectivity among people.

It’s funny, they used to wonder that the water cooler, that business got done there, good ideas. No, business didn’t get done there. Connection happened there. People talk about their kids. When we have connection, we understand each other from a tactile level, we have trust. So, it’ll actually rebuild trust. But employers that are mandating it because they want to track time, or trying to assert authority, “I got to make sure you’re producing, so come on in.” That’s not going to work. People are going to, when forced to comply, they will seek to defy. That definitely won’t work.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, it sounds like what you’re saying is there are certain rules, guidelines, times, places, contexts where it is good, right, proper, and necessary for there to be some, “Hey, we’ve all got to be here” stuff going on, but if it’s from a perspective of authoritative, “I’ve got to watch you,” we’re in for bad news.

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, if there’s a kind of a nourished, flourishing, comply to fly. So, if you are nourishing people, have demanded to come back because you’re going to nourish the team, “Go team,” and it’s really in the best interest of people, they will flourish, that’s a great move. If you’re doing to force compliance, measurement, control, authority over, you’re going to get that resistance, and it’s not going to work long term.

Pete Mockaitis

Awesome. Well, Mike, tell us, anything else we really should know before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Mike Michalowicz

So, one last thing, it’s about safety. Leaders have to build a safe environment. Now, I’m not just talking only about physical safety. But ironically, this is a concern with many companies, including mine, and I didn’t even know. We’re a knowledge-based business, we’re writing books and speaking engagements, and other stuff like courses and classes. So, how can I have a safe environment?

Well, we ran a survey, and my colleagues said, “You know the back alley that goes to the cars…” we have a parking lot behind the building, “…is dark at night, and it’s kind of creepy going out into the pitch-black walkway.” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” So, starting at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun sets in the winter by 5:30, people get nervous about going home, I’m like, “This is crazy.” We just put lights up, string lights, it’s always bright.

And now my colleagues are like, “Oh, I can see what’s going on. I feel safe.” So, we got physical safety, but the bigger thing is relational safety. Do people feel comfortable expressing themselves as they are? Because if they can’t show up as they naturally are, they’re going to start faking it, and now you get a depleted version of that person.

The leaders got to express themselves naturally. Lead with humanness. Show the warts. I’m not saying have a cry fest and talk about how miserable you are. What I’m saying is you can share your struggles. Be integral about your own experiences in life and talk about the wins and the losses, and you’re going to encourage your team to do the same, which actually builds connectivity.

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. Well, Mike, could you share with us now a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, this is attributed to Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Mike Michalowicz

My favorite research is, oh, there’s a book that came out called The 3.3 Rule by a guy named John Briggs. And what he did was he researched out productivity and found that people can work up to three hours max without needing recoveries, safe recovery, and you need 0.3, which is 30% recovery time. So, if you work three hours, you’re going to need 90 minutes of recovery time, if that works right, and so forth, 3.3.

Pete Mockaitis

Three times 180 minutes.

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, I mean it’s not 90 minutes, but you know what I’m saying. It’s maybe 48 minutes. So, yeah, 30% of the time used is needed to recover. So, if I worked for one hour, it’s going to be 18 minutes or whatever that works out to be of recovery and so forth.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite book?

Mike Michalowicz

I just finished reading 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan. Really opened my mind to perspective.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite habit?

Mike Michalowicz

My favorite habit is sauna, I do it with my wife. And I’m going to try to convince her to do it again tonight. I will tell you this, when you’re in a hot box, it is so hot you can’t have your phone in there, which is great. And the only thing you can do is talk, and it’s hard to think. So, when someone is talking, you’ve got to listen deeply. It’s like the best connection device ever.

Pete Mockaitis

And is there a key nugget you share that folks retweet and they quote back to you often?

Mike Michalowicz

Yes. What I say often is that the number one job of an entrepreneur is not to do the job. It’s to be a creator of jobs. So, I get that retweeted often.

Pete Mockaitis

And, Mike, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where shall we point them?

Mike Michalowicz
MikeMotorbike.com because, similar to your last name, no one can spell Michalowicz. MikeMotorbike rhymes with motorcycle. Everything is there. I got book downloads. I used to write for the Wall Street Journal, you can get those articles, plus I have a podcast archive there.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Mike Michalowicz

Yeah, your clients want you to be profitable. And this isn’t just a final thought, but when you look at your clients, are you proud of your surviving check by check, to say, “I’m barely making it. I’m struggling,” or, “I’m very profitable”? I’ll give you context. Say you had an emergency, and you go, “I got rushed to the hospital. I have a heart attack,” or something. Doctor one comes down, and says, “I’m making no money. I need clients. I need patients. Let’s get this done quickly.” Or, doctor two says, “I’m very profitable and wealthy because this is all I do and I’m exceptional at it. I have all the time in the world to do this with you and do it right.”

Who do you choose? Option two. When your life is on the line, you want to be catered to. When your life is being altered or served in some capacity by us, we want to be catered to. Your clients want to be your number one customer. They want your undivided attention. And if you aren’t profitable, you can’t do that, so they want you to be profitable. You should be profitable.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, Mike, thank you. This is a treat. I wish you many, many fine colleagues who are all in.

Mike Michalowicz

Thanks, brother. It’s been a joy.