How to Find Great Employees | The Ben Summers Employee of the Month Show – Ask Clay Anything

Show Notes

Clay teaches how to hire, inspire, train and retain high quality employees while praising his “Employee of the Month Ben Summers.” On today’s show the team covers the group interview, the shadowing process, and Jack Welch’s 4 E’s and a P: Energy, Energize, Execute, Edge, and Passion.

FACT – Jack Welch is one of the best CEOs in American history and Forbes once named him the “CEO of CEOs.” During his tenure as the CEO of GE from 1981 to 2001 he grew the company’s value by 4,000%.

During Jack’s tenure he was known as having created the most power, efficient and successful human resource systems on the planet. In order to build his thriving organization he believed strongly in sticking to the system he created call “4Es and a P.”

Learn more about Jack Welch’s Management Systems, Strategies and Principles at:

https://jackwelch.strayer.edu/winning/leadership-4es-p-energy-energize-edge-execute-passion/

1. Energy – “Energy is the ability to go, go, go–to thrive on action and relish change. People with positive energy are generally extroverted and optimistic. They make conversation and friends easily. They’re people who don’t complain about working hard–they love to work. They also love to play and overall just love life.” – Jack Welch
2. Energize – “This is the ability to get others revved up. People who energize can inspire their team to take on the impossible–and enjoy doing it. The ability to energize is apparent in someone with an in-depth knowledge of their business, who sets a powerful personal example, and has strong persuasion skills.” – Jack Welch
3. Execute – “Being able to execute means having the ability to get the job done. It turns out a person can have positive energy, energize everyone around them, make hard calls, and still not get over the finish line. Being able to execute is a unique and distinct skill. It means the person knows how to put decisions into action and push them forward to completion, through resistance, chaos, or unexpected obstacles. People who can execute know that winning is about results.” – Jack Welch
4. Edge – “Having edge means having the courage to make tough “yes or no” decisions. Smart people can assess a situation from every angle–but smart people with edge know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without all the information.” – Jack Welch
5. Passion – “People with passion have a heartfelt, deep, authentic excitement about work. They care–really care in their bones–about colleagues, employees, and friends. They love to learn and grow, and they get a huge kick out of people around them doing the same.” – Jack Welch
6. Group Interview 101
   1. Expectations
   2. Communication
   3. Compensation
   4. Question and Answer
   5. MYSTIC STATISTIC – 85 Percent of Job Applicants Lie on Resumes. Here’s How to Spot a Dishonest Candidate
      1. https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/staggering-85-of-job-applicants-lying-on-resumes-.html

As a business coach for the past 12 years, I firmly believe in Jack Welch’s 4E’s and P, but I have a few more character traits that I am also looking for:

1. Character Over Skill – If your team is comprised of talented employees who are constantly sneaking around doing personal work from the office, minimizing screens so that they can chat on Facebook, ordering prostitutes on Craigslist, stealing headphones, sleeping with co-workers wives, hiding alcohol in their flasks, inflating the hours they are working, lying about the reasons that they missed deadlines and providing epic and false tails about the big work that they have been putting in from home, you will lose.
2. Coachability – You must hire people that are eager to receive constructive criticism, feedback, and coaching because they want to get better.
   1. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “The advice that sticks out I got from John Doerr, who is 2001 said, “My advice to you is to have a coach.” The coach he said I should have is Bill Campbell. I initially resented the advice, because after all, I was a CEO. I was pretty experienced. Why would I need a coach? Am I doing something wrong? My argument was, How could a coach advise me if I’m the best person in the world at this? But that’s not what a coach does. The coach doesn’t have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to be your best. In the business context, a coach is not a repetitious coach. A coach is somebody who looks at something with another set of eyes, describes it to you in [his] words, and discusses how to approach the problem. Once I realized I could trust him and that he could help me with perspective, I decided this was a great idea. When there is [a] business conflict you tend to get rat-holed into it. [Bill’s] general advice has been to rise one step higher, above the person on the other side of the table, and to take the long view. He’ll say, “You’re letting it bother you. Don’t.” Eric Schmidt (American businessman and software engineer. He is known for being the Executive Chairman of Google from 2001 to 2015 and Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017.)
3. Consistency – As a business leader you must hire consistent people and the person who occasionally shows up to work drunk or who misses a business meeting once per month because of “personal issues” is like hiring a human “ticking time-bomb.” Eventually something bad will happen and when it does, it will be epic and bad.
4. Diligence – You want to hire people that have the mental, and emotional capacity to apply consistent effort over-time.