4 Keys to a Motivated Work Force that’ll Crush the Competition

Team building usually refers to the process of conducting exercises to get people to work well together. While this is an important consideration, I’d say you’re a bit late by this point. The best way to build a team is through a deliberate and thoughtful recruiting process.

What makes this especially critical for young businesses is the impact of each new person on the organization. Fewer people means each hire has a huge impact. Not to mention the fact that getting it wrong creates a secondary interruption you can ill afford.

How do you fix your hiring process? Well, there are no silver bullets, but here are four suggestions to turbo charge your hiring and your business and crush the competition in the process.

1. Employ psychometric testing

It’s a bit expensive, but if you conduct it after you’re through a couple layers of winnowing it’s worth every cent. Actually it’s worth a lot more than that.

My intro to psych testing came on a Southwest flight from Tampa to Jacksonville. We suffered some delays, which turned out to be extremely lucky for me. My seatmate and I got to chatting. The topic wound around to hiring (since my former company needed to hire tons of people very quickly).

He explained his advocacy for testing as follows:

You have a job that requires working in a tree.

You could hire a dog. It’s going to take a ton of effort to get that dog in the tree, and quite a lot to keep the dog there. Dogs aren’t meant to be in trees. It doesn’t make dogs bad; it just means dogs shouldn’t be hired for work to be done in trees.

Now you may have the opportunity to hire a cat for the job in the tree. That’d be much better than the dog. Cats are more nimble and are more capable of navigating the tree environment. But alas, the cat is going to require a lot of encouragement to work in a tree. A tree is not its native environment. It wants to be on the ground. So while the cat can do it, it will take a lot more management resources to keep the cat in peak performance.

Ideally you’ll be able to find a squirrel for your “tree job.” Squirrels live in trees. They love being there. It won’t require any effort from you to get the squirrel to work. It will go there naturally. Compared to the dog and the cat, the squirrel is a management dream for tree work.

Now, your work doesn’t end with finding a squirrel. You also have to actually have a good organizational fit with the furry tree lover.

This ends up working out to: Psychometric tests won’t tell you who to hire, but they’ll sure tell you who not to hire.

Testing obviously doesn’t eliminate the need for other screening and interviewing, thoughtful management, and appropriate incentives. But it aligns things in a way that means there is much less friction in getting work done.

In my time at Omega, my former company, we used the DISC* test. In every instance that we ignored the test, the employee had to be terminated. Not 80% of the time, not 90% of the time, 100%. Every instance of egocentric “this time is different” thinking blew up in our faces. Yes, including the “well, they did this before for a few years…” thinking.

Conversely, hires that were “on target” in the test, and made it through the rest of our selection process, got a position and excelled in it.

Testing obviously doesn’t eliminate the need for other screening and interviewing, thoughtful management, and appropriate incentives. But it aligns things in a way that means there is much less friction in getting work done.

2. Use peer evaluations in all hiring.

You’d be amazed how effective this is. For one, candidates open up to peers in a way you’ll be unlikely to have them open up to you as the leader. In the past we had some real gems come from this approach.

Candidates asked their peer interviews things like “is it a big deal to cut out early?” and “how tight are they on sales goals?” With their guard down, apparently thinking the peer interview was a formality, we got to see their true colors.

One candidate informed his “peers” of his intention to break into the adult film business once he saved some money from the job – a tidbit that wasn’t shared in his interview with management.

Amusing stories aside, there are even more benefits, including having people feel involved in the selection of their teammates, which goes a long way toward creating a good work environment and culture. And candidates had a chance to get some insight into who they’d be working with, which provides a similar benefit.

3. Allow on the job “try-outs,” where possible, for late stage candidates.

This is another safety measure for both parties. Letting everyone get to see the job “in action” prevents surprises. No matter how good your communication skills are, you can’t give someone the experience of doing the job. That has to be a live experience.

For difficult jobs in particular, having an on the job demonstration eliminates ambiguity. Moreover, it is easy to say “sure” to difficulty in theory. Living the difficulty is another matter. I watched numerous candidates implode in the course of testing out for a position. Obviously this is disappointing, but far better than putting them through training and then having the same experience.

The variance of performance even for late stage candidates is astonishingly high. Some do much better than expected and others come completely undone.

I watched numerous candidates implode in the course of testing out for a position. Obviously this is disappointing, but far better than putting them through training and then having the same experience.

4. Make working in your company as awesome an experience as possible.

According to Jobvite, nearly 40% of candidates are hired from referrals. Of even greater importance, candidates hired through referral are over 300% more likely to remain in the position after three years. Given the hassle and expense of turnover, those are some attention getting numbers.

I’d argue one of the greatest competitive advantages you can have is being a highly sought after workplace. The job of doing your job is made massively easier by having a large pool of talent to pull from when recruiting. That can be best achieved by being a truly thoughtful employer.

Special bonus:
5. Never stop hiring. Always be in the market for top talent.

Maybe it sounds crazy to “add” one more thing to your workflow. But you’ll never be sorry you found a highly talented candidate. Especially for positions, like sales for instance, which can be very difficult to fill.

Find an excellent rep, but have no territory? Create one. Make a position up. Try your best to find a place for solid candidates. They’re not easy to find, so snatch them up when they are available.

It’s worth it even if you have to cut your own salary to get a solid player. You’ll be getting that money back many times over. Yes, really. It’s a Warren-Buffett-worthy investment.

There you have it. Four, plus one, excellent methods to build your dream team. Will it be easy? Nope. Will it be worth it? Amazingly so.

It’s worth it even if you have to cut your own salary to get a solid player. You’ll be getting that money back many times over. Yes, really.

The work you spend hiring an awesome team is more than offset by the myriad of problems you avoid. Things like trying to figure out how to motivate people, dealing with turnover from not taking the time to get it right, arbitrating disputes between employees, etc. You’ll have problems, just much fewer than normal.

I honestly wish I could jump through the page and beg you to follow these steps. Nothing made a bigger difference in my business making the Inc. 500 twice. Nothing made a bigger impact on making the business profitable, and frankly, nothing made the business more fun than having a highly capable team of warriors charging together in unison. It’s exhilarating.

Stop sticking dogs in trees. Go get some squirrels.

*Editor’s Note: Don’t miss Shawn Murphy’s Work That Matters podcast with our own Extraordinary Thinker, Dr. Janet Presser of the Gabriel Institute. We at ExchangeGain used her Teamability tool to help us come together even more effectively as a team. We can’t recommend it highly enough!

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Tim Fargo

Two time Inc. 500 winner, started private investigative biz in extra bedroom in 96, sold it in 2003 for $20M, Author of Amazon bestseller 'Alphabet Success'. An entrepreneur, speaker, investor and unstoppable traveler.