IQ Interview: Babs Smith, CEO of Strategic Coach
By Bruce Powell
We sat down with Co-Founder and CEO Babs Smith to hear how their culture of Unique Ability™, encouraged collaboration, and hiring more people than they need, have allowed them to thrive. Babs also shares with us their Top 4 Hiring Tips.
Strategic Coach offers entrepreneurs a unique process for extraordinary growth, higher income, and exceptional quality of life. Having increased their business more than tenfold in the past eight years, founders Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith now have offices in Toronto, Chicago, and Manchester, U.K. – all while taking over 14 weeks of vacation per year.
Questions:
IQ: Do you have an overriding people strategy?
SC: We definitely have a specific strategy with regard to our people. Our strategy is closely related to our culture in that we believe everyone has a Unique Ability that they can leverage and share with others. We’re all about appreciating and applauding other people’s Unique Abilities, and we have an extremely creative and collaborative atmosphere where people are welcome to and encouraged to offer input and assist with other functions of the business.
We encourage and support the development of our employees and definitely look to promote from within if we can. We always give our people the opportunity to address challenges from inside before we hire externally. We also try to maintain an environment where we have one more person than we really need. This keeps people from being constantly maxed out and allows them time to work on developing new skills which is important.
IQ: Can you describe your hiring process in more detail?
SC: We use a five-step process in our hiring which is a combination of formal scoring and our own personal gut instinct:
Step 1: Identify Need
Strategy is important in hiring, so in the beginning we start by performing a thorough assessment of exactly what it is we want to achieve with a new hire. We actually do it in a work-back fashion starting with our business goals. Instead of saying we want to hire a Director of Sales for instance, we ask ourselves what results are we looking for or what is it exactly that we’re looking for this person to do and to provide for us. From there we then determine what specific skills and experience this person should have.
Step 2: Assess for ‘Fit’
Because culture is so important with us, one of our biggest tools used in hiring is plain and simply, our gut instinct. Maybe it’s because we have a better understanding of people and their behaviours because of our program, but our intuition has rarely lead us astray. Ultimately, no system can account for cultural differences and how different personalities will interact together, so we think it’s important for us, the people who know our company best, to apply those factors to the final hiring decision as well. Together with the formal assessment scoring of the Kolbe system, we’re able to make informed hiring decisions.
Step 3: Kolbe Assessment
Once we have the role defined and assess fit, we performing an assessment on candidates using the Kolbe system. We’ve found it gives us a deeper insight into candidates – it makes us aware of things we might not have learned until after we hired the person…and realized we made a mistake. It also ensures we don’t miss any critical areas that are important in assessing people. We’ve had great experience with it and have really come to trust the system.
Step 4: Interview for Potential
After we’ve obtained people’s Kolbe scores, we interview candidates focusing on our business goals, their past record of performance, and what they’d be able to do for us. Fit, personality, work ethic and other factors are all important, however if a candidate won’t be able to come in and produce what we need them to, then the rest is irrelevant.
Step 5: Refine
In the end we look at our final candidates and compare them against the original needs we set out for ourselves. We determine if the people we have address those needs and repeat and refine as necessary until we KNOW we have the right person.
IQ: How have your hiring practices evolved over time?
SC: In the beginning we grew our company organically – developing and promoting from within. We built a great company using this approach, having people be able to adapt, learn new skills, and do whatever it took to get the job done. Unfortunately there’s also usually a limit as to how long you continue in this way. As a company grows and becomes more successful, eventually you need to bring in experts to refine your processes in order to take your company to that next level. So while we still look to promote from within, more of our hires are from external now because we need specific expertise that we don’t currently have.
As far as our actual process, for the first five or six years, we really didn’t have any set assessment criteria. Most of our hiring was done on gut feel – and while we still do heavily rely on our gut and instincts, we’ve coupled that with the Kolbe system to ensure nothing gets overlooked and to validate what our instincts tell us.
IQ: What have been your biggest challenges in hiring?
SC: One of our biggest challenges has been that as we’ve grown, our hiring needs have evolved. In many cases we’ve found ourselves needing to hire for a role that hasn’t previously existed before in the company. It’s more difficult to hire for these positions because you’re starting from scratch in terms of what’s needed in a candidate and what their exact role will be. As well, there’s no existing information for a newly created position or even a previous person in the role to compare them against.
We also prefer to customize or create roles to address the specific business goals instead of hiring common pre-existing positions. People often have certain expectations of what is and isn’t the responsibility of a Director of Operations for instance. Our needs however might be a combination of duties that fall in the middle of a few different positions. In the end it’s worth it because we end up with a person who can address our specific needs, but it just takes more time in the beginning to ensure you get it right.
IQ: How do you retain top talent?
SC: Our culture plays a big role in retention. While we’re definitely always focused on results, we also create a nice, relaxed atmosphere for people to work in. The Strategic Coach® Program is all about doing more with your “Focus” time, and giving yourself more personal time in the process - and we try and help our employees use those same principles in their day-to-day job. So many people are constantly stressed out in their jobs and it really has a big impact on job satisfaction.
Also, we’re really invested in our employees and care about their personal development. That’s also part of the reason that every one of our employees gets a minimum of six weeks vacation. It alleviates stress, but it also gives them time to spend on other interests and activities. So many people have other things they want to do or learn, but just don’t have the time to pursue.
IQ: What do you plan to do different with your hiring in the future?
SC: In the future as we continue to grow, we plan to hire for bigger roles and will be looking for people with more specific experience to further refine the areas of the business that we identify as key drivers.
We’re also working on being more patient with our hiring. The odd bad hire we have had has usually comes as a result of us compromising our standards. We’ve learned we need to be able to just walk away if none of the candidates possess what we’re looking for, and wait for the right person…even if it takes longer than anticipated.
Strategic Coach’s Top 4 Tips for Hiring and Retaining Top Talent:
- Recognize and applaud people’s Unique Abilities – instead of making employees fit the job, recognize what it is they do best and give them the opportunity to utilize their strengths.
- Incorporate some degree of personal intuition or gut-feel into your hiring decisions – nobody knows your company better than you do.
- Utilize objective assessment tools in conjunction with your intuition to validate your gut and ensure no key points are overlooked.
- Enable employees to develop new skills and allow them the opportunity to address current business challenges before hiring externally.
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Bruce Powell, Managing Partner, established IQ PARTNERS as a leading recruitment firm to help entrepreneurial companies hire better, hire less, and retain more.
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