The Hiring Edge

Slow to Hire, Quick to Fire: How to Build Major League Teams

• Josh Matthews • Season 3 • Episode 80

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Most companies hire too fast, fire too slow, and wonder why they stay stuck in the minors. Josh Matthews and business coach Chris Hallberg unpack how “slow to hire, quick to fire” really works — from using assessments and culture filters to holding leaders accountable and scaling simplicity. A masterclass in hiring and leadership without the corporate BS.

Why do so many companies keep hiring the wrong people — and then keep them too long? In this straight-talking episode, Josh and Chris break down what “slow to hire, quick to fire” actually means — and why most organizations get it dead wrong.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Turn hiring into curation, not desperation
  • Use assessments to find the right wiring
  • Keep panels from killing great candidates
  • Build trust, conflict, and commitment into your culture
  • Scale simplicity instead of complexity

Brutally honest and packed with takeaways, this one’s for leaders and recruiters ready to play in the majors.

Connect with Chris Hallberg:
🔹 Website: https://bizsgt.com

🔹 GoExpand: https://goexpand.com

🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrishallberg/

🔹 Book: The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual — available on Amazon:

Connect with Josh Matthews:
🔹 Website: https://thesalesforcerecruiter.com

🔹 YouTube: https://joshforce.com/YouTube

🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuamatthews

Chris Halberg:

Why should companies be slow to hire? Well, because there's like seven and a half billion people around the world, and most companies might be 20 or 50 or 250 and don't necessarily have to create a spot for all 7.5 billion. Should be really selective. All a company is, is a curation of humans.

Josh Matthews:

Welcome to the Hiring Edge, the podcast with the leaders navigate the age of AI, create teams that thrive, and build a workplace number one team. If you're struggling with hiring, managing, or just getting your team aligned, this episode's for you. My guest today is Chris Hallberg, military veteran, author of the Business Sergeant's Field Manual, and he's also one of Inc. magazine's top 10 business coaches in America. His no BS approach to leadership and accountability is exactly what most teams need. Let's get into it.

Chris Halberg:

So think about that. Like, take the people away. What do you really have? You don't have a company. You might have an idea, you might have a product that doesn't build itself, doesn't market itself, doesn't build relationships, and doesn't scale past the initial sale. We need humans for all that. So it's kind of an important thing. In fact, I'd argue it's the most important thing. In my coaching travels, it's one of the most undercapitalized uh things. And I would trace most of the issues that I help leadership teams solve. Their personnel issues, their recruiting issues, their retention issues, they're almost you solve the people issues, and the right people will solve all your other issues for you.

Josh Matthews:

Makes sense to me, but what does slow actually mean? Is slow actually a number of days stacked on top of each other, or is it a certain number of processes, conversations, communications, team meetings, this sort of thing?

Chris Halberg:

Yeah, it's it's the latter, not the former. So I thought you could, yeah, you're right. You could you could be slow to hire and it could take two weeks. You could be uh poor at selecting and take six months uh to be bad at something. So like the frequency or the time frame is a secondary thing. So we say Are you describing my piano playing? Yeah, because I think that's about right. Yeah, there you go. That's hard. You got to be good uh bass and treble at the same time. Uh mad respect to the keyboard players listening today. Um, to think about it, right? Slow to hire means that that we just not anyone can work here. There's a process. We're gonna vet those other 7.499 billion people out to make sure that everyone we interview has the right wiring through uh an assessment tool of some sort, shares our core values, like uh the ad talks about describing what's important to them. Um, that matches up with our own version of weird, right? Uh, your core values, your timeless set of principles, behaviors. Not everybody was raised the same way. Not everybody loves the same things, not everybody values what you value in a business setting. So we could hire a bunch of random people and fight with them and try to cajole uh and and get them to uh convince them to do what we want to do, or we can find people off the street who are happy to land here and do exactly what we do without complaint. Um, and most people, you know, do it the other way. Uh, but the people that I work with, uh, I get them to see very quickly that all the company is is a curation of humans. How you know kind of a museum is this? Like, do we get traffic because we got cool stuff? Or like there's nothing interesting to see here, worst museum ever. Uh, so think think think about that. And and I'm using people versus art, but you know, more crazy analogies to come. I I think using analogies, telling stories, using kind of half-wild examples uh penetrates and and people get that. So that's usually why I speak in stories or cliches or things like that.

Josh Matthews:

Hey man, you don't have to explain it to me, maybe everyone else, but I get it. So when we think about this process, and I mean you just said something about this this curation of people. I mean, companies when they're trying to hire positions, critical positions for their infrastructure, sometimes they're challenged because they're just yeah, there's seven and a half billion, eight billion people on planet Earth. Um, they're not all Salesforce architects, right? It's not like we're spoiled for choice for every one of these roles. So it really starts with how do we attract the right people? How can we even who who do we even know that even fits here? But like let's let's say we just get past the tech thing. Like yeah, they've got the competency, whatever it is. Yeah, they're a controller. Okay, yeah, they're a technical architect for yada yada technology. Once we're past that, I mean, it sounds to me like you really encourage these companies to identify and articulate what is unique about them. Like our museum is a museum of blank, right? Do you find when you work with new clients that they struggle to even know what kind of culture they are?

Chris Halberg:

Absolutely. I mean, it's a process and it's not an organic one. Like there, there's an actual formula uh to talk about who are we, why do we exist, what do we do, who do we do it with, how much are we going to do it, by when? And you know, so that goes back to like an operating system. Like, for example, uh, entrepreneurial operating system, EOS, is a tool as a leadership team coach that I've used for well over a decade with great success, because it starts with like the eight questions every company has to answer. Who are we? Core values, what's the vibe of this tribe? How do we roll? What's what's our version of weird core focus? Uh, what's our purpose, cause, or passion? Like, why do we care about this? Uh, our niche, what? You get rich in the niche, so you can't be everything to everybody, so we have to specialize. Then we say, okay, what's our tenure target or our core target? Five to 35 years. Big, hairy, audacious goal is a Jim Collins term. Um North SAR. What you know, when times get tough, uh, what do we what do we shoot an asthma to to give us strength and focus to continue on? What's our marketing strategy, right? And marketing for people, marketing for clients, gotta have a persona uh because recruiting is just selling the culture to uh employees, and selling your product is to you know get customers to adopt your strategy over somebody else's. But you're like, what are our three uniques? Why would someone want to work here? Why would someone want to buy this product? What is the uh process? Uh we can't serve everybody, but who are the people that really appreciate us? And and how do we only put our people in front of those people versus not being appreciated or valued by the the by the much larger group? And then once we know who that what that is, uh do we have a guarantee? Do we have a proven process? Uh then we have a three-year picture, top line, bottom line, what does it look like? This is a dream. And then once the dream is complete, we create a one-year plan. What is the actual business plan to put us on a trajectory that will recast every year, a new three-year and a new one year to keep things classy? Then once we have the year, what's the quarterly plan, otherwise known as ROCs? The late Dr. Stephen Covey, projects, priorities, things that give us a new capacity, new capability, then we have uh long-term issues. Things that are.

Josh Matthews:

This is something that just happened recently. Twice in two weeks, I've had finalists go in and meet with the hiring manager, met with the CEO, met with the owners or whoever it is. Okay. They've met with them, they've fallen in love with them, they love them, they want to get them an offer, then they drop them into a two or three-person panel without any leadership in there. And the information that's coming out of those conversations is yeah, we want to pass on this person. And leadership listens to them. And I have struggled as a recruiter because I I really believe it should be top. I feel like final say should should be the owner or the hiring manager, the person that the individual is going to report to. And I'm thinking, why wasn't a leader in that panel to moderate? Why why weren't they there to make sure that well, those weren't fair questions? Or what do you mean you didn't like him? Like what part? Oh, I didn't like the way he looked that one time or the clothes he was wearing, or he kept doing this. Because people come up, as you know, with the stupidest freaking reasons to not like someone. And it's always safer to say no than it is to say yes, right? You say yes to the wrong person, it's on you. You say no to the wrong person, you'll never know. So I'm kind of curious about your take on that. Like, help me solve my own problem here.

Chris Halberg:

Yeah, well, there's there's layers to that. I heard three or four issues. Let me just start with the first one is whose decision is it? And I I also believe the person that's gonna manage that person is their call. And the fact that they're not making the call, they're delegating that to someone else, probably tells me a lot about their leadership style, which is there isn't any. And and if someone else says it's a win and they lose, they can absolve themselves of any accountability to say, it wasn't my call, I gave it to the HR team or the Tiger team or whoever I put in charge of the selection committee. Uh, so like my point is like the lack of ownership of that decision is the first thing that I would take exception to. And at the end of the day, uh I would also look at why did these people say no to this person? Is this a healthy culture or is this person seen as a threat? Wow, this person could take my job. I'm not letting them in here. Like, I'm gonna have to go to work uh to compete against this person. So it's better for me as a selfish jerk individual contributor that's not here for the right reason to say no to everyone. Uh, so I can continue to be the you know smartest person in the room or the, you know, whatever. Like, like, I don't know. There's a lot going on with that, and I can understand your frustration. So as a recruiter, I would probably talk to the hiring authority and say, what is the actual process? Like, what do you want me to follow? And as a recruiter, I agree or disagree with this. Now they're the client, but you can choose who you work with. And if it sounds like it's a kangaroo court committee, I'm not interested in sourcing A-level clients for your B level players to say no to. Whose district is this? And that's the way I like to work. So I'm gonna go to my proven process, and if you're not gonna follow it, I'm gonna go spend my time with one of those other 7.999 billion people or whatever.

Josh Matthews:

So, like, do you think so? Do you think so? And I and I like these people and I like these hiring managers, and you know, we worked together before with success. Like, I am not overly critical of it, except the this one sticking point, which is when that hiring manager or the person that inevitably this individual is going to report to isn't inside the room, even as a fly on the wall, even reviewing a recorded session, then I feel like they have done exactly what you've said, which is relinquish control, not maybe held certain personalities accountable to impulsive decision making based on the threats of, as you said, you know, being displaced or not being the smarter the smartest guy in the room, anymore, things like that. Do you think that that's uh at least minimally a a cure-all? Like at least get the hiring manager to watch the tape.

Chris Halberg:

Yeah, I mean, well how do I how do I empower a leader to lead, manage, and hold people accountable if they haven't met them? So I'm already I already have an issue um just because like it's your decision and uh you're gonna be judged on the quality of the team that you curate and develop. Exactly. And if you're not even involved in the most important part, which is selection, then I feel we have an absentee manager will never be at fault. They'll always have another department to blame. So this is big corporate company behavior. And my coaching, because I work with the C-suite, is I would tell the CEO, why don't we just create a policy right now? Because you're the CEO and you can do this right now, that no one gets hired without the actual leader, the first line leader meeting and approving.

Josh Matthews:

Well, yeah, no, the leaders met and approved. This is what I'm saying. And sorry that this is really confusing. The leaders have met this person, they like them, they want to hire them, they send them to the team. The team's like, Oh, we don't like them so much. And the leader's like, oh, okay. Interesting.

Chris Halberg:

All right. So that's all right. So a little different angle there. However, it's the leader's job to make the selection. And and if the candidate shares the core values, they have the job skills, we're gonna build relationships. They're not instant. So having someone just make a decision like that in an hour or two after I've already made my decision, first off, that doesn't make sense. Why, why I'm gonna add another layer of complexity? They're gonna come here. Uh, hopefully they show up for the first day and the team treats them well and welcomes them. And if that's not gonna happen there, that's a secondary issue that we're not open and welcoming, living our core values, or helping the team grow, which are all negative behaviors that don't have a lot of value to me. So I would just make the call, make the the offer. Uh, that's my account, that's my call. And and every existing teammate is gonna weigh in on the new people 30 days, 60 days, 90 days before we make a probationary, you know, keep them or try again decision. And that's all part of it, but that's a process, and a human needs fairly, you know, probably 90 days to see their best, see their worst, and find their average. So for someone to spend an hour and say, I don't think they're gonna work on this team, uh, I I yeah, after three other people have been like, yeah, they're great. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give my subordinate my decision if I don't trust their judgment explicitly. So in this particular case, if this hiring manager has a track record of making bad hires, and that's why they're now going to a committee, and the committee is bat in a thousand, okay, great. So we have to fish f fix this deficiency in this hiring manager uh to gain the skills to not need a CNI dog to hire people or two or three. So like that. That's the way I would say that.

Josh Matthews:

Let me ask you about root. I like that, Chris. Thank you. Let me ask you about quick to fire. It's just the it's just the uh it's the left hand of the pair of hands here, right? Um a lot of companies are afraid to fire quickly. They're afraid because maybe they have a unique skill set and they feel like their knowledge base is holding them over a barrel. We used to see this back in the aughts and in the teens with DBAs. No one else had the keys to the kingdom, no one else could like access the database, so they had to keep them forever, this kind of stuff. And then we've also seen it where they're afraid. Maybe the person is in a protected class, but they're performing very poorly, and the company is afraid to even do the process of writing them up, documenting the challenges, having the conversations, setting, setting the resetting the expectations, and then being able to have this sort of written proof. We tried everything, Your Honor. This person sucks. It had to go. What would you say to companies where hiring managers are nervous about getting rid of dead weight?

Chris Halberg:

Well, if you're a for-profit company, that's not sustainable. So not going to invest in a company with that view. Um, and at the end of the day, uh probationary employment, like what I said, the 90-day, I have an 80-day review, not 90, because sometimes 90 days runs on Saturday or Sunday, and the next opportunity to have the conversation is on the 92nd day on Monday. So a lot of states have a probationary period. So if your state has a 90-day probationary period, this is like not counting against your unemployment insurance. It's just a mulligan not working out for me, not working out for you. Yeah. It's it's so what I recommend to my clients is we have an actual 90 days to success or 80-day ramp. And it's a bit of a scavenger hunt. You got to go to these people, get this training. We need to verify you've learned this, that you're producing at the 60-day, 80-day levels because we're professionals, we hire people and we know what good looks like. And I would just manage the standard, and it has to be the same for everybody. And at 90 days, this is where you're at with your training, this is where you're at with your production. And if you're not at this line, uh by 45 days, you're at risk. And if you're not fully there at 80, we're gonna, we're gonna go ahead and say not a good fit. And if you're disciplined to do that, you could do that legally and and and be very quick to fail with people. The issue is people realize your scenario in the seventh day of work and they don't address it for a year or two, and there's no documentation, and now all those things are true, and you don't have any paper trail, or you haven't even told this person. The person thinks they're crushing it, they're high-fiving everyone and doing a dance in the parking lot. They don't even know they're failing. That is just a complete and utter fail of leadership. And the root cause is that we don't have systems and we don't hold people accountable. And what you're really saying is we're not a professional company because back to uh slow to hire, quick to fire, think about the professional leagues of sports, right? Sports ball, whatever your favorite one is, put it in here. Takes years to get to the major leagues, and about four or five games and not playing well to go back to the minor league. So, how many years did it take you to get there? And how many bad games at $4 million a game or $80 million a year is ownership management or the fans going to hold out for that? So, like when I hear that scenario, I think of a minor league company with minor league leaders and minor league hiring managers, and they're only gonna retain minor league employees. I uh don't work in the minor leagues. I'm sorry, Josh. I only accept clients that want to be the very best of what they do. Why are you saying sorry to me, man? Well, I'm just saying, like, uh this issue isn't one I would actually solve because I would just go to the leadership team and say, that is some rookie Bush league shit you're doing there. Um do you want to scale Bush League crap or do we want to be a world-class company? And the only way to do that is to have a world-class uh recruiting, selection, and retention program. Uh, and that's that's what I help people do because the organic one that you're describing, everyone already has that. That's free. Yeah.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, it is free. When you think about the clients that you serve, okay, these major league clients, what is the biggest mistake or the most common mistake that's easily fixed that you're seeing in with your major league clients?

Chris Halberg:

Yeah, we we don't we don't have a plan and are not willing to hold people to it. So just lack of uh a vision, like just literally, um it's different. It's it's different for different people. Uh it's one voice, one vision, one team, one voice. What we teach is here it is. We've worked hard, we've curated this information, these products, these clients, this messaging, these humans. I really hope you love it too, because we work very hard to create this. If you're gonna join this, you are opting in 100% for this, not some range that's more comfortable to you. This is 100% join our team and dive all the way in and be this or go somewhere else entirely. We have the hell yeah, I want to do this, the hell no circle, the middle circle with flames, and the middle is hell. So yeah, but it's what you it's it's whatever four letter yes or no, and then just that, just the superlative in the middle. And and like or or excuse me, just just like it would be fuck. It would be fuck yeah, fuck no, and fuck that like using your example. Like that that's what it is. But hell works better because then I can use a red marker and I can draw flames in there. And that comes from um, I want to say Kim Scott Radical Candor or Michael Chandler Time Warrior. Uh, that's that's that's that's a graphic that I've seen uh from other coaches, and I love it because it's just like your job as a leader is to get everything in the hell yeah, and hell yeah is okay, hell no is okay. But anything that we can't neatly put in hell yeah or hell no, by definition, that's hell. You can't nail it, you can't scale it. It's complexity. So if one is black and one is white, all the color, none of the color, the middle by default is gray. Gray is complexity. Uh, you cannot scale complexity. You can scale simplicity, you can't scale complexity. So when you do that, you're choosing to make business even harder than it already is. Minor league mindset, minor league execution. Gotta have a major league mindset. If we're gonna be a world-class team, we can't accept uh beer league results.

Josh Matthews:

That's right. That's right. Dropping knowledge like Galileo dropped an orange. I love it. Tell me about with these Bush League clients, because I'm assuming you sign them. You're you're trying to take them from the minors to the majors. Is that accurate?

Chris Halberg:

Do you jump into some teams and you're like, Yeah, they have to want to be in the major leagues to hire a coach that only understands that. So, like, like I get that people aren't fully there, but they're not just interested in being there, they're committed to being there. And that's the second thing, if you were going to say, all right, what else? Well, the commitment. Like you can't hold somebody accountable unless they're committed. It's impossible. But in front of commitment would be uh conflict, healthy conflict, and in you know, in front of that would be uh being uh vulnerable, you know, being able to trust people. So now I'm talking about Lencioni, Pat Lencioni's five dysfunctions of a team. So sure, trust is on the bottom. If we can't be vulnerable and like tell the truth, we got to like say lies and try to solve lies. Let me know how that goes. So we have to be vulnerable.

Josh Matthews:

I can tell you how it goes.

Chris Halberg:

Look at making these networks. There you go. It doesn't work. But once we're able to speak the truth, we can now enter into healthy conflict. Like, fuck you, no fuck you, no fuck you more. That's unhealthy conflict, and that's not gonna get us anywhere. Like, I respectfully disagree with your opinion, and I have some data to support it. May I share the data with you? That is much better than just saying I think you're a jerk, Josh. Uh, you know what I mean? Like you screwed me over last quarter on this account. So healthy conflict. Once we're able to have real healthy conflict, then we can really be committed. Now, whether I got my way or you got your way, I was allowed the opportunity to debate in a healthy uh conf conflict way. And even if we didn't go my way, I'm gonna get shoulder to shoulder with you because you gave me the opportunity. We didn't go with my idea, we went with Josh's idea. However, Josh and the rest of the team entertained me, made a decision. Now I can commit to Josh's idea because I'm on this team, and the team has decided.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah, it's not just lip service. I remember this is silly, probably edit this out, but I remember we just spent a bunch of money on a really nice new house. And then they redrew the school district lines, which put us into a different high school catchment, which changed the value of the home. And what they did is they spent two years having community meetings, and after everybody's voices were heard, they just went ahead with their plan anyway. So it it didn't matter. So we've really got to be discerning around like how much of this is just optics to look like you're engaged, versus how much of this is actually very real, with uh valid valid concerns, valid points, valid data to be able to make a real argument, to be able to make a real case.

Chris Halberg:

It takes the same amount of time to be great as it does to be shitty at anything. Like my point is when people are bad at something, they spend eight to ten hours being bad at it. They don't spend any of that time trying to get better at it, they just prove how bad they are. So like going through the motions for two years and then just doing the thing, yeah, that is beyond minor league. That is that is not it, not no profession. Like this is amateur, is what that is. Now, like school boards, HOA boards, the most dysfunctional places on the planet. Of course. Of course. So you're like finding one of those scenarios that actually functions well, very difficult because good luck with that. Yeah, because we don't have a decision maker, we have consensus management, and then we have everyone's feelings. And you know, feelings are hard to scale. So, like these are the this is how we'd like you to feel. If you don't feel that way, don't work here. If you do feel this way, you'll be surrounded by other people to feel the exact same way. So we're not gonna have a lot of stress and conflict because we're all aligned and we're all here at and we want the same things and we work in a similar way, and we're willing, we sign up for difficult conversations, getting called out on our bullshit, and we're here to be great. And those are the ingredients of teammates that want to be great. If you don't want to do that, you can't work here. And again, goes back to the commitment. And once we have that commitment after trust, conflict, commitment, then accountability there. So everyone's like, no one's accountable. Well, have you done the first three steps? Well, no, of course not. We're full of shit. There's no opportunity, it's fake conflict. People pretend because they got two kids in college and their new home is expensive. This is a great idea when they know it's about ready to kill the company. So if I can erase that and get into, I trust that I can just you can speak the truth and we can call each other out. And my ego's not so big that you need to lie for you to keep your job here. That's not healthy. So we can respectfully disagree. I love you, but you're a little high on this one right now. Let me give you some data and then we can horse trade back to something that that that we think fits, then we can commit to it. Once we're committed to it, I expect to be held accountable. I've already committed that we're gonna do this, and then the results will be there because I have accountability. So Lincioni's point is it's a triangle, and the biggest one, the foundation is trust. So if we're full of shit and we're know what you say is the corporate speak for this is the dumbest idea I've ever seen, you know, why not just say this idea could kill us? I can't believe this got this far. Like, who is not vetting these ideas? This is the dumbest fucking idea I've heard this quarter. Whose idea is this? Everyone's sheepish, right? Like, okay, great. Like that's all conflict versus we're we're stretching things at the very first day. Hey, I kind of, yeah, I kind of feel like this idea is to improve your comfort on a difficult conversation. Or I feel like this is a workaround to uh protect uh some cronyism in this pocket of the company, and it's not good for all the employees, it's good for a few uh silver hairs who feel entitled, or you know what I'm saying? So, like if we all have the same rules and we all are trying to be world class, we're on our way. But back to that commitment, which has to come first. So there's a lot of people in their marketing materials, their website says we're a world-class team of collaborative, la la la. And then you work with the company and you're like, you guys don't even, the left hand and the right hand don't even meet.

Josh Matthews:

No, it's just horror, it is a lot of whoreshit. I mean, it's easy to come up with your mission, vision, values and have it sound good and and look good and tick all of the markers, whatever social signaling you're trying to do. Yeah, it ticks all the boxes. I don't know how many pages, you know, HR pages of company websites I've read, they all look pretty much the same. Even the ones that mean it. And that's the weird thing. Even the ones that mean it look the same as the ones that don't. So it's really tricky. I I wanted to ask you this. I know you're working mostly on inside with leadership, trying to make these firms better. But what would you say to the candidates to be able to generate a very valid, sound level of awareness so that they too, when they're entering into conversations with an organization, that they can also make sure that this company fits their values. Because we have to assume that not every single company has it dialed in. You know, hey, look, here's the deal. We talk straight, we're kind of funny, um, we work really hard when we have to, which is most of the time, we put in extra hours when we have to, which is some of the time. And if you can live with that, if you can hang, like you're gonna love it here and and you're gonna be great. And wouldn't it be great if every company could just articulate it? Everyone's gone through the Chris Hallberg, you know, business sergeant program, but most companies. Companies have it. That means that it's a lot of gray. When you're dealing with gray and you're a candidate, you're a high-level person, maybe you're an exec executive, you're a hiring manager level, director and above, whatever, or any of them. How can they cut through the mustard? How can they cut through the gray to figure out what the black and white is? Or should they not even entertain? Let's say they're super high value, they they're spoiled for choice. They get to walk away if it's you know not making sense to them. But other people, yeah, they just bought the house and they got the third kid on the way and they need to work and they haven't had an offer in three months. So how can they protect themselves when faced with ambiguity like you've described in the gray?

Chris Halberg:

Well, I think at the end of the day, um if you're trying to retain great people, you have to provide an environment where they can speak the truth, disagree respectfully, have a healthy dialogue, and uh contribute and be acknowledged for those contributions. So like if you're not providing that, they're a flight risk. And as soon as that offer does come in, they will leave. So at the end of the day, like in the military, right, they issue you soldiers, uh, airmen, seamen, marines, you know, uh guardians and and uh uh the uh whatever the Coast Guard is uh so like they are enlisting for three to seven years. So the commitment is like solid commitment. Like you can't just say, I'm not coming to work today, or they'll send the MPs, what I used to do, to come grab you and remind you that you made a commitment to Uncle Sam and it wasn't a a light one. Um in the civilian business world, you get to pick. And if you're just being assigned random people, then uh again, making business harder than it needs to be. But but back to the commitment, they can leave. They're not enlisted for seven years. Like they have one bad meeting and be like, my my manager's an idiot. Like, okay, well, I have three kids in college and expensive mortgage, so I'm not gonna let him know he's an idiot today. I'm gonna find a new job, and on my last day, I'm gonna say, you know, you're an idiot, and then I'm gonna leave. Like, like I'm just saying, that that's the way it works. So back to like all those individual, like I totally understand. There's literally more examples of that than there isn't the other thing. But if people are okay with that, I can't that that company can't be helped. Like there has to be a desire to get off the hamster wheel of mediocre and do what everybody else does. And it starts at the top, and it says, we believe this, and we are willing to spend some extra money on recruiters, and we are gonna fail fast with people, and we are gonna have a year or two of reshuffling of the deck. But once we stack the deck, we're gonna have super low turnover, big profit, big bonuses, profit sharing checks, limited PTO. Everyone's gonna be 10% body fat and you know, but tell funny jokes. Like my point is like you can you can dream as much as you want, like no one's stopping you. At some point, you'll find resistance. Um, what's the resistance coming from? Is it coming from a healthy place or is it coming from an unhealthy place? So if it's coming from an unhealthy place and we can be vulnerable and call it out, and we can have healthy conflict, and we can get committed and we can hold people accountable, well, then we're gonna have results. If that doesn't exist, we are gonna be frustrated. Uh, we are gonna have all kinds of problems, and all you're gonna do is scale uh problems to larger problems. So, like, that's why there's TV shows about the office. That shit's funny, unless you're the main character, and then it's not funny because you're showing up to an eight-hour episode uh, you know, that that that never gets better. So, like, I just go back to like life is short here. What are you gonna spend a third of your life doing?

Josh Matthews:

Talk to the audience if you can for a moment. A little bit more about hiring. We've covered slow to hire, or excuse me, yeah, slow to hire, quick to fire, why you should get rid of people, everything you should be doing before you even decide what kind of people you're bringing on board, the commitment to trust layer all the way up. What else can they do immediately? Let's say someone is a hiring manager right now, they're in the middle of the process, they don't have a three-day workshop to go and drum up all of this big dream stuff and layer it out and disseminate it to everybody, but they have to make some decisions pretty quickly. What's one or two things that they can do to protect their team from a bad hire today, tomorrow?

Chris Halberg:

Hiring is art and science. It is a blend of art and science. The science part would be to do an assessment of all of your existing people, your best, your mid-pack, and your not best people. And what ends up happening is when you do that, you'll discover that your very best people all share one, maybe two different personality archetypes of whatever assessment tool that you love. And if you are willing to spend a little extra money on assessments and in and advertising to more people to create a larger top of funnel, then you use the assessment as the restrictor, right? So if you're gonna, instead of getting 10 candidates, you're gonna get two candidates. Well, you might need to look for 30 candidates, right, to get six or or seven. So just understanding the math on this and making that investment. The ROI on that is like 100x, 1000 X, a million X. People don't want to spend the time and money, but they'd rather spend 10 times that number cycling through the wrong hire five or six times until they get it right and creating all the pain and suffering. So we we measure the good ones, the not so good ones. Guess what? Once we know what that is, uh, we will only interview the people that have the successful wiring. So if I don't even meet the people who are predisposed to fail because they don't have the correct wiring, and we've already have the data, so it it's obvious. And we only interview people that with those one or two personality types, we're gonna interview probably 50% less, but our hire rate's gonna go up 100, 200, 300%. It's gonna go up a little bit.

Josh Matthews:

What would you say to what would you say to dissidents of that?

Chris Halberg:

In other words, people who would say, I don't know, I have a couple of decades of seeing it happen uh with certainty. So like at this point, I'm sorry, I have way too many examples where it works every time and has for decades. So like I wouldn't entertain that conversation unless somebody had uh that much experience.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah. Okay. I love it. All right, easy. You're easy. You're easy to talk to. Thank you, Chris. I like how you answer my questions before I'm even done. You're like, yeah, no. Next.

Chris Halberg:

Well, I mean, that's fine. I mean, but you know what I mean? Like uh a black belt doesn't take advice from a white belt. Like it's the other way around.

Josh Matthews:

No, they don't. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think that there's a lot of, you know, people talk about diversity and and and they often mean skin color, ethnicity. We all know like that isn't real diversity, right? Then they talk about, well, the strength of diversity of thought. It's like, okay. But what you're talking about, and and I absolutely there's value there, but I think what you're talking about is commonalities. I remember reading some book. There's some book on relationships, and it was it was basically like you know, uh opposites attract, but commonalities actually keep people together. And what you're talking about is finding those commonalities so that you can stay together. And you might not be able to attract as many people up front right away to the company or to the to your application process or whatever it is, but once they get through that, then the chance that they're gonna stay for a long time is is definitely there. So it falls in line with classic human behavior studies, I think. Yeah.

Chris Halberg:

Yeah. So I don't need to cite white papers or research, it's just this is what I do for a living, and that one doesn't seem to fit there. Like there's eggshells around this human. Is that accelerating the team or decelerating the team? What's going on with that? Like, why do we have to deal with that? Well, that's so-and-so. Like, all right, can we maybe put so-and-so's ego in a box for a quarter so we can get this done? Or should this entire organization, all the shareholders, just wait for this human to like like fix themselves? So, like it goes back to uh it's not about you. You are a you are a cog in the wheel. You are a spoke uh on the bicycle. Now, without a bunch of spokes, we don't have a bicycle. So we you're super important. Losing one spoke, you know, and then jumping off a 20-foot jump is gonna not end well for the person that needed a wheel and got a flat thing because he didn't have the strength. But like at the end of the day, uh a company is a curation of, it's a team. And even sports teams have positioned players. Like if the catcher, you know, is trying to catch up pop-up balls in left field, A, that ball's gonna be in the air for a while because the home plate's a ways away. But that would clearly put them out of position if there was a play at home. They would be, you know what I mean? They'd be out of position thinking they're helping, but they're actually hurting the team. So like if you're a catcher, you gotta squat down for half most of the game. You gotta wear a mask, and the ball's gonna come at you at 100 miles an hour. Um, and you gotta be okay with that. If that doesn't work for you, maybe you should be the shortstop. Maybe you like like think about pitching. So, my my point is if I'm hiring for a position, I'm not asking for legendary first base people to be catchers because they've spent uh years developing their skills for that position. So, why why is it any different?

Josh Matthews:

Look at Moneyball, the the movie with Brad Pitt and Jonah. Great movie. Every time it comes on, I I can't, it doesn't matter what point in the movie, if it pops on, I'm like you're watching it. I gotta watch it. I gotta watch it. Yeah. So that's so good.

Chris Halberg:

That's actually I I tell my EOS clients, right? Because a scorecard is like your weekly activities. If you do these weekly activities, then the monthly results will be there. So, like, hey, like uh, you know, if we're gonna if you look at a baseball player, for instance, right? They have uh two kinds of cards, pitchers and then position players. So pitchers have a bunch of stats, and they all all the pitchers share those stats, and then all the other position players have a different. So if you flip over a baseball card, because I have a three on one of these lines, and you have a two, like I go to the game in my G five, you take the team jet. And then if you're a one uh uh instead of a two or three, you you you make 50 grand a year in the minor leagues, sleep in three or four to a hotel room. So like, so like the the difference between you know someone who takes their own G five and someone who is still in the minor leagues is just hitting the ball one more time out of 10 times. But in baseball, that's 400, 300, and 200. I think the example works. So like at the end of the day, um once we set up the matrix, and I see the matrix is like back to the high-level stuff. Who are we? What do we do? What positions do we need? How many do we need? What's an acceptable amount of work per week? Like, what's what are what are we already getting from our best people? Well, we can't expect the best from everybody, but the middle of the bell curve says it's 10 units a week. So if I have people that have worked here for years and they can only do five units a week, well, I suppose they could stay for half the money, but you're not going to find anybody to take that deal. So we need to liberate them to the market and find somebody that can do eight on their first day that has the potential to do 15 within three months. Like as a leader, you only have so many roster spots. So go back to Moneyball, right? The whole movie was like this guy gets on base two extra times every 50 at bats. And how many at bats do we have? Wow, that means we get on eight extra bases for this one person. Well, how many other people? So add up all those little bitty differences, and at scale across 100 games in that season, that was enough to overcome huge payrolls full of all-stars. And the next very next year, every general manager in baseball started using the Billy, uh what uh uh the the character's name.

Josh Matthews:

Can't remember his last name, Billy.

Chris Halberg:

I think it was a B2. Uh uh yeah, uh, and you know what I'm saying? And and then that's the way they do it now. Before it was like that one's got a square jaw. Uh, this one is great in the clubhouse, you know what I mean? They're the ball players. Yeah, Billy Bean. Yeah, Billy Bean. Yeah. So again, you're you're the general manager of the baseball team, whether you know it or not, or insert whatever you want. A leader's job is to take the limited amount of roster spots and fill them with the very best people available. So back to the hiring thing, there's more than enough people that actually share your sentiment of how you work, but your selection systems are more about what school you went to, uh uh where did you work, and none of that stuff comes out. It's just on paper you should be awesome. Why are you not awesome? Do you mean colleges give degrees to kids that don't have full mastery of the topic? No, really, you mean they're taught by people that have never really done it in the real world, they've just talked about it for decades? Really? So, like, interesting.

Josh Matthews:

I've had plenty of it's it's not it's not shocking. I I was an art major, I got a degree in art, right? That's why I'm a recruiter. And I remember people getting degrees, graduating. They literally couldn't do even a basic portrait of themselves with a painting-drawing focus, couldn't draw their own face, and they've got a college degree that says that they're an artist. So it's yeah, it's all horseshit. It's a ton of horseshit. And the systems out there must be improved. Well, not the systems, they have to be adopted because they're already out there. All you need is the system.

Chris Halberg:

Well, it's it's a mindset at the end of the day, right? Like that back to commitment. What are we committing to? We believe these things. If you don't believe these things, don't even apply here. Like I I I asked my clients to start with an ad. I'm I'm rather than being inclusive to try to get as many candidates for my ad spend, like I totally get the the ROI discussion, but all you're saying is how many people can I clog up my system to greatly increase the difficulty to find my actual person when when we when we try to do that. I'd rather have a a three three-paragraph ad. I've been coaching this for decades. I don't remember if this is an original idea or I stole this decades ago, but let's roll with this. Wouldn't matter. Yeah, it wouldn't matter. But anyways, the the first paragraph talks about them. Let me let me describe you. Like you people say you care too much. You you're offended by stupid people sitting next to you making a similar rate of pay. You're actually going into like the mind of your best people and what frustrates them uh against the worst people. So you just ask them what drives you crazy around here, right? And then you write the ad to say, does this stuff drive you crazy? And the answer is like, no, I love that stuff. You are not gonna help my unicorns uh you know eat more Skittles and chase more rainbows or whatever they're doing. Um, so at the end of that first paragraph, it says, if I haven't completely nailed you to a T, this is this isn't for you. Good luck in another search. Like, like stop looking at this ad. Save us both some time and frustration. Uh, second paragraph talks about a day, a week, a quarter, a year in the life of the position. Not the brochure version. The the garden view means you're looking at the dumpster, not the ocean. So like if there isn't an ocean view, don't don't put an ocean view in the ad. Uh and then at the end of that second paragraph, it says if we haven't, if you can't see yourself doing this day in and day out, if you like pinch yourself that they pay me to do this, go look at another ad. This isn't for you. And then get to the third paragraph, we're talking about the company. This is our culture. You can even tell from this ad, we're not like everybody else, or we're looking for everybody. If you pass the first paragraph, you pass the second paragraph, and this company sounds like somebody you want to spend a few years with, then it's ready to apply. Yeah, it's really hard to get a job here, so we probably won't hire you. But if you really are these three things, you should definitely take a shot. Because if we do hire you, you're gonna be happy and you're gonna want to stay here and you're gonna be surrounded with like-minded people who like to kick ass, take names, and chew bubblegum, and we're all out of bubblegum. So apply here, take this assessment. If you pass the assessment, we will meet you, and eventually the person that's actually gonna manage you is gonna make the decision. Whether they need input from other people or not, it doesn't matter because we're gonna do this thing called the 80-day sprint, and you're either gonna make it reality TV show, or you're not. And it's okay if you don't. This team is not for everybody. Not everybody gets to be, you know, uh the Navy SEAL, a special forces, green beret. Like, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, uh, which I was neither of those, but but anyone who served in the military understands that to get one of those uh special hats, you know, like a year or two of torture, like one and like uh 70 people make that. So when you find somebody like in the military service, you see somebody with a green beret, gee, I wonder if they're good at their job. It's not something you say. You like European soccer, like this is uh something I learned recently, they that a team can go between different leagues based on their winning. And and like my point is like I like that thought. Your company is in the D League, your company is in the B League, your is in the AAA league, you you're you're you're in the all-star league of business. So everything around this is segmented into good, better, best. Um, like looking at your the curation of a team and what kind of company you're trying to build, like if you're not a world-class team, but you aspire to be and you're willing to make world-class decisions along the way, you have a shot of being a world-class company. If your marketing message and your CEO is full of shit and you talk about being a world-class company, but you're not willing to do any of those world-class activities, that's gonna be a pretty short ride for everybody, and someone's gonna look like an a-hole. Uh, you know, when the internet's forever, by the way, right? So, like at the end of the day, when you say things and they don't come true, it might come back to you.

Josh Matthews:

Yeah. Yeah, it does every time. Chris, you're awesome, man. Thank you so much for being on the show. Where can people find you? Where can they learn more about you? Where can they learn more about your coaching, uh, the systems that you implement in businesses? Where can they buy your book? Amazon?

Chris Halberg:

Yeah, Amazon. It's it's it's on it, or you can reach out to me. My email address is Chris at goexpand.com. So go expand is my new agentic AI operating system platform, does all the operating system stuff, does all the human performance management stuff, and has a fully agentic AI suite that allows you to literally do twice the work because you're just asking for truth, not uh a bunch of people getting back to you. You put the answer in there and it's just available for folks. Um, my EOS website, you just go to EOS Worldwide Chris Hallberg, and then Business Sargent is my uh coaching uh website. So that's B I Z S G T.com. Check it, check me out, follow me on LinkedIn, but would love to connect with your listeners. Thank you, Chris. You've been wonderful.

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