interim executives are everything from they sold a company and they don't want to go start another one, but they want to help other CEOs do it but and they're far from being able to retire from that age. They don't want to, to. They've had a great executive career for 2030 years. And they love the flexibility or they thought of going family. And they want that flexibility. And they only want to work three or four days a week. But they've got the wealth of knowledge and
experience. So I'm going to jump into companies three to four days a week, and help them out. And they do it not necessarily because they need to pay their bills. This is something they enjoy. And it's this high they get off of helping someone else be successful.
This is the mind shift podcast where we share real stories, real strategies that will help you find real success. This is the place to hear from people just like you who have taken their ideas, goals and dreams from a point of inspiration to realization or when life knock them down from a point of breakdown to breakthrough. I'm your host Darrell Evans. Let's get started with today's episode. Hey there, welcome to another episode of the mind shift podcast really
excited to have you here. Look, if you're an entrepreneur running a business, you probably know that your business will only go as far as the team around you that can execute your vision. Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we are guilty of asking loyal team members who may have been with us since the beginning to try to take us to the next level. And though they want to because they like working there, they respect you they see your vision, they may
not be able to do it. And it's not due to their lack of effort or desire. When this happens, you'll want someone in your corner. Like my guest today. Her name is Kristen McAlister, she's the CO owner of serious executives, a firm that helps growing companies find the talent they need to grow and scale their business. Over the last 10 years, Kristen has taught companies how to leverage interim executives for
transitional situations. She's the author of How I fired my boss and made more money and the new executive search how smart companies are using interim
executives. In this episode, we discuss things like what is an Interim Executive, when is an Interim Executive, a good fit for an organization, the three phases of growth in a company where interim executives might be able to play a role, what's actually expected of an interim leader or executive, the difference between interim and fractional if you've heard that phrase out there, and how to know if your company could in fact benefit from an Interim
Executive. Whether you need full time, part time or interim leadership in your organization right now. There is one key word I want you to listen for in this episode. That is important. If you're growing your company and you want to consistently land the right talent for your situation. Be sure to stick around to the end as Kristin offers the mind shift listening community of free gift. Before we jump into this show, did you know that we just launched the mind shift community for
listeners of the show. I love bringing you awesome guests each and every week, but I wanted to connect with you even more. The mind shift community is for those of you who want to continue the conversation after the show in a safe place for additional support, mentorship, and networking. Plus, as community members, you get access to additional free resources, early notifications on special events, plus deals and discounts to other things going on in the mind shift
world. After the show's over, head over to mind shift community comm and join for free. That's mind shift community.com and if you enjoyed today's show, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening to this show and share the show with a friend who's looking for their next breakthrough. My friend, get ready to shift your mind so you can shift your results. Hey, Kristen, how you doing? Welcome to the MindScape podcast. Thank
you Darrell. I'm excited looking forward to the opportunity to talk about growth and adjustments and the world of business. Before we jump into the nitty gritty details tell everyone where you are coming in from.
I am currently coming in from Washington DC courtesy of the Marine Corps who moved us here last summer. We have been very fortunate I to move every couple years and had the opportunity to live in some great places is our third time in Washington, DC You make the most of it while we're here.
Kristen, tell her tell our audience a little bit about your backstory, and how did you get to, to this world of, of helping companies with infrastructure and growth and talent,
you know, I'll do my best to make a long story short, in 2008. I, like many others, and I was in retail was laid off trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I decided on going to consult, that's I thought I wanted another full time career and going to be an executive VP of operations for a company. But I just got pulled in and recommended in for consulting assignments. I finished those
up. And I thought, Gosh, what an absolute no impact that I had, I was no impact whatsoever, because the companies would call me a couple of months later and say, we're having that same problem that well, I thought we fixed the problem. Wow. There was no one inside the company to help them on a day to day and I was having this conversation with someone I sat on a nonprofit board with. She said, that's why we have interim executives I own I'm CEO of a
company. And that's when I ended up meeting my now business partner, Pamela Wellesley, we saw on board together, and through a number of military moves and other things, we ended up doing a management buyout of Cirrus executives,
and now owning it. and talk to us a little bit about this idea of interim, are we talking about what size companies do you serve, we serve
everything from couple of million up to multi billion. But I would say most of the companies who really need the help of an intern are part time executive are in that 5 million to a couple 100 million range where they're going through a lot of growth, and they don't have an executive bench that they can pull from, if they've got a gap or an initiative or they lose someone.
And you look at a smaller company and $10 million company, as big as it is just doesn't need a full time entire suite of executives so that you're able to pull in when you need them. Or as you know, you may go through a major growth spurt, and you need some extra marketing and sales help help our operations help.
Talk to us about bringing that idea to reality in the steps you had to take to start essentially finding both clients and clients. Because really your customer, your executives are your clients and your clients are your clients, right? The people that you're placing, so talk talk us through that.
And it's interesting, they're both the same person, just depending on where they're at in their career, whether they're our clients that are asking to bring in an executive or the Interim Executive themselves, I was very fortunate that we didn't have to start it in 2008, my business partner had started it back in 2005. And it was just a loose group of consultants who were referring business back and
forth. And then she started looking at companies make more than a consultant, they needed someone to step in, and work side by side with individuals inside the company. And then you need the monkey see monkey do, you've got to actually be doing it. And the leave it to the leadership that's there and say a CEO to have them affect that change, or have that they don't have the bandwidth at the bandwidth, they probably be doing it. So they need extra help. She looked at what your
was doing. And when you look at the interim management model, that is one of the more prevailing models in Europe. So she said you don't let's start doing that here in the US businesses need this type of leadership. And so it shifted just before 2008, two Interim Executive and interim management. And it's taken off.
When you look at where we find executives live, it's word of mouth, a lot of it is online, we have a couple 100 executives registering with us every month of which we go through we vet them and we take a small percentage. And then companies same thing. They find us online, it's referral. It's past clients, it's a lot of the interim executives we work with, they may end up taking work with us. And then they take a role inside a company. And they call us up and say I just stepped in
and guess what, I need more. I need so I need your help. I need when you've been around for this long, you got your reputation. And we've always been there to help and arm executives, we do a lot of learning development. We're not a fee based company where they pay an annual fee. It's just being in service to them, to help them find there's another choice to being in a job full time or growing a company as an entrepreneur.
I love what you just said there just so I can understand and for our listening audience who could be in that in that sweet spot where they're experiencing these challenges. I know in my work, I experience these types of companies on a regular basis. How is your compensation structured? Is it structured on how long the interim person stays on board? Is it based on their performance? That's kind of interesting.
Great question. It's once they start, so we work, we work it out with the executive. And think of it more. So as the company is probably paying about the same fee array. So they brought the executive on directly, what is happening is the executive and us are doing a fee share. And they're paying us almost a referral fee. So there's a portion of whatever we're invoicing to the client, that ends up being a feature with the executive.
Gotcha, gotcha. What's the biggest challenge you find with companies that are in this role CEOs or other executives in the firm? What typical mistakes have they made with talent acquisition, that leads them to your firm, that serious being a good fit are a great option? When do they start thinking that maybe I need to find someone else to go find the right people? What are you saying
thanks, it's anything from they made the mistake over and over will often get a call as my third CFO, and for years just quit, or we had to let them go, we're not sure what we're doing wrong. Or they're talking about, I wish my head of HR would do this, or I'm having these issues. And I know that so and so should be doing this. And someone says, you know, watch the call series, you don't necessarily need to replace them. But they're not the level of leader, they were the fifth or sixth person in
your company. You need to upgrade your leadership and bring someone in not full time, but part time to work with them side by side, and either coach them or put the infrastructure in place, and then show them how to manage that infrastructure once it's in place. Yeah,
I love what you just said about the fact that the person that is currently doing it, or that you put in a position, there is some sense of loyalty, because they were early believer in your mission and your purpose. And yet, you're asking them now to graduate to a level that just isn't maybe part of their DNA. And that could be very much because we're loyalists, right to the people who believed in our mission early, again, for this spring,
so true to my heart. When I think about, you know, 11 years ago, you know, and inside of that 1110, nine part of the journey for us, we were, we were stretching folks who came on early into things that just were not their cup of tea, and they wanted to do it because they enjoyed being around the organization, they enjoyed the challenge. And you know, it does lead to a couple of years of sticking points where you're like, you know, what, we got to
make a move. And it's really our fault, because we asked you to do some things that just were not part of your, your your range or even your desire, and they just didn't want to say no. And that's, that's something that happens right?
down, hit the nail on the head. And so often, we'll get the feedback from that individual who says, You know what, I did it because you asked me to, I'll do anything you ask me to even if they're waking up every morning, reading what they're about to do? Yes. Because it's going to be found out how much they don't like it, or how much they're struggling with it.
Yeah. We give employees things to do. And they're maybe in fear of losing their job that if they say no, and that's shame on us as leaders, to put them in that position where they actually take on something that is not they know, good, and well, they don't want to do it. They know, they don't have the skill to do it. But they know they've got to pay the bills, they know they've got to feed their family. And is that what you you know what you see some of that same?
Absolutely. And we see that mostly in high growth companies where things are going so fast. As an owner, you don't often think I need to go hire someone who's an expect expert at this. It's, I don't have time for that so and so is right in front of me. I'm just gonna throw their way they've never let me down, not realizing that you asked, why do we get the phone call. They don't have time to slow down, they call from like hours, we help figure out we draft up what that
profile looks like. And we make it as easy as possible because when we're growing, or when things are collapsing around us. We don't have time to go well, let me figure out what I need and then go find it. It's we're not it's not our business.
Yeah. What What is a common myth or, you know, belief that should probably be killed after listening to today's show, about the idea that hiring someone in an interim employee, someone who might be quote, unquote, temporary, won't have a vested interest in my company's
success. You know, I'd rather hire a full time person committed to my company, my vision, help us understand the where the it's an easy thing to think about, but help us understand this idea that why should I hire someone interim, you know, versus someone full time.
I know that one. Well, and I'm glad you hit on that. There's an entire chapter in my second book that talks about myths and misconceptions on Interim Executive And there is that misconception of either one, they're all retired. And I really don't, it's not what I'm looking for, it's always retired and doesn't know what to do doesn't want to be retired on to, they can't keep a full time
job. And that's why they're on the street available to parachute into my company, you know, or the third of, they're not going to have equity, they're not going to have that stake there in every one of my company is going to see them as, you know, good time just coming in swooping in, and then they're going to swoop out, and there isn't going to be that stickiness. So they're really not going to be invested in helping my company see it
through to the long term. All of those building may be set, they may be true in a very, very small percentage of cases. Because there are always those one offs in general, Interim executives are everything from they sold a company and they don't want to go start another one. But they want to help other CEOs do it. But and they're far from being able to retire from that age. They don't want to, to they've had a great executive career for 2030 years. And they love the flexibility or their
thought of going family. And they want that flexibility. And they only want to work three or four days a week. But they've got the wealth of knowledge and experience. So I'm going to jump into companies three to four days a week, and help them out. And they do it not necessarily because they need to pay their bills, because it's something they enjoy. And it's this high they get off of helping someone else be successful.
You took a question, you answered a question I hadn't even asked which I was going to ask what attracts executives to want an interim role? And you just answered it perfectly. So how do you how do you differentiate between interim and fractional? Can we talk a little bit about that? I've heard this phrase fractional cmo, fractional cmo, fractional CSO, fractional CTO, can you differentiate between fractional and interim as you see it?
I there's any number of ways that you can describe what an executive does, and Johnson, you've got the their consultant or an advisor fractional part time, Interim, Interim will use to really make temporary, they're only going to be in there for a set period of time. And that's the pure definition, it could be one day a week, it could be five days a week, they're just in there on a
temporary basis. When you look at fractional or part time, the company may need them for an extended period of time, if we have a part time CFO, your part time cmo. And it's not that we just need them for three to six months, we need that support for quite some time. But we are far from needing either one of them full time.
Tell me about COVID. Let's go back to the beginning of COVID. And the pandemic, and how did your company. First of all, what happened in your world during the pandemic, everyone that I've spoken to and you know, companies we work with and serve, everyone was affected in some way, shape, or form. Tell us about what happened inside the world of serious when the pandemic started last year,
we were already virtual. Since I've moved around a lot. That was one of the things when we bought the company was that we will always keep the company virtual. So there wasn't that much of a shift there. The biggest shift was the zoom and interacting with our clients who we most of them never knew other than on the phone. We got to connect with them and get to know them and get to know their companies and see inside their offices. The other thing is we've got a network of over 15,000
executives. We were finally we've had a vision of how do we connect all of these independent executives across the United States and build them into a community and we've been trying
to figure that out for years. So we saw this my Pollyanna bubble of positivity said, we're going to make lemonade out of lemons, and we're going to finally start making them and we started building these communities and these meetups and we get 20 3050 executives on and sharing and doing learning development and think understanding I'm not the only one you know Darla, same thing get your customers together and CEOs on the phone and they start to share them realizing Oh man, I'm not the
only one who's going through this
one of my favorite cartoons growing up favorite stories, children's stories, growing up as Winnie the Pooh. And so there was a ticker was my favorite character Tigger had this jingle that in ended with I used to recite it in such a way like people thought I was crazy because I go around reciting this this ticker jingle. But in part of the jingle, it says I'm the only one
and I'm the only one. And I think as leaders as entrepreneurs and CEOs in some cases, especially when adversity strikes you can feel as though it's only happening to you even though the world Outside, you can see visually visually the news, you know, back in the real estate collapse in 2008, nine, when Wall Street collapsed, you could feel as though you were the only one losing a home or you were the only one losing a job or he was on the losing part
of your 401k. You know, inside of the world of leadership, we always realize at times, it feels like we're lonely at the top number one. And then at number two, when things are happening to us that maybe blindside us re irrespective of the circumstances or catalysts, you can feel like you don't know, it's only happening to me. And so I love that you guys started bringing people together
in groups and communities. I'm a huge believer in masterminds, a huge believer in being in peer groups of you know, peer groups that are not necessarily just your industry, folks, but outside of your industry, folks, because if you stay in your industry folk group, that tide could be you know, right, everybody could be believing the same thing, which isn't going to
be helpful, right? One of the things that's helped us through the pandemic is the fact that I have a mastermind group I belong to, and no one is in the same industry. So now you get a table roundtable of advisors from other industries, and everybody's business wasn't losing 50% of their revenue, or 30% of the revenue or 90% of the revenue. So I love that you did that. So you did those in where those zoom meetups?
Oh no, we're not the most technical, technologically savvy company or individual. So yes, it's good old fashioned zoom. Yeah, you can practice for a couple days on how to do breakout sessions. That was a learning. We got someone into coaches through
that. See if we figured out anyone can figure it out, and a lot of opportunity last year to test new things to try new things, get out of our comfort zones, and learning how to keep everyone engaged in you know, the star, I'm sure you've with your mastermind groups, you've got 40 people staring at you, and you cannot judge how engaged they are. So figuring out ways of how do we make this a value for everyone? And have them get off that zoom and be full of energy versus drained of energy? Yeah,
yeah. It's so good. And you know, the idea today, even with, you know, zoom, and we'll continue as the world is opening back up right now we are going to continue using zoom. I know we all want to get back to face to face hugs and handshakes and fist pumps, and all of the good stuff, the coffee meetings, I miss conferences, like I never knew how much I miss conferences, but those were my getaways from the
daily activity. And to be in rooms where they're 2050 10,000 20,000, whatever the number may be, of what you would know to be like minded people because of the energy they came to seek from that event, conference, seminar, workshop, whatever that is, I can't wait to get back to it. It isn't the same as on zoom. But zoom has been amazing. Let's be 100 clear about that. It's funny, we I made a joke on LinkedIn a couple weeks ago. And I said everyone's talking about zoom fatigue, zoom
fatigue, zoom fatigue. And isn't it interesting though, we call it zoom fatigue. We don't call it GoToWebinar fatigue or Google meet fatigue is an interesting
Kleenex and tissue you've got done a great job. And that is I've got a big game all day. And they may not be on you.
Yes. Right. And you know, for we're not here promoting zoom, y'all. We're just on zoom, which is using a tool that allows us to connect Kristen and I've never met we would not likely have met because I'm not going back to DC she doesn't sound like he's coming to Vegas anytime soon. So having this in a studio wasn't a likely scenario for right now. So what do you wish you? Oh, good.
I was gonna say every night admittedly saying I'm going to Vegas anytime soon.
Yeah, yeah, you're like, I like to sneak into Vegas and sneak out. I don't want as covert, I don't want anybody to know I was there. Let's talk about some of the dynamics of growth. And because I know you're you do a lot of speaking on growth. You talk about improving infrastructure, and I don't I like the word infrastructure is a very interesting word. Because I'm in the business, I look at my business, and we're a service
business model. And I like to say that, where you think of companies that have huge, you know, capex expenses, where they've got to buy big machines, big buildings, and all this other stuff, and service businesses, and professional services, businesses, those kinds of things, SAS businesses where you're working in technology, sure, you've got server costs, those kind of thing, but the infrastructure is human. It's human capital, right? And you're in the helping companies improve their human
capital structures. If I'm using my own words, what would you say is the challenge that businesses face today coming out of a pandemic world? And I imagine you have more experience on this than I do? Because you probably have just, I mean, you got 15,000 professionals at your disposal? What are the challenges you see both from the business side of getting race started? On the second side of it? What do you see in the employment world? Do you see your pool of interim executives
growing, shrinking? I'm trying to get a sense from your perspective of really what's The job market like out here right now. And where are small midsize businesses? How are they holding water with all of the stimulus that has been out there, I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
Now we sit we have one part of the world and I would say this year started off extremely strong, probably one of our strongest yet of companies making moves, hiring full time hiring interim hiring part time, they're looking to invest. So from simply that standpoint, when you look at the either the economy has stimulated or the stimulus packages and PPP, PPP loans, we're seeing companies invest and look for as an opportunity
to grow their business. From a talent side from managerial director level executive level. We had a number of customers come to us and say, so I think I want to hire my my full time CFO right now. And I want to replace so and so now's a good time, right? I can get someone for a great deal a great rate, what do you think? The answer was?
Absolutely not. Yeah, rates have stayed the same, or they've gone up salary levels have not been adjusted over the past year, if not, if anything else has gotten a little tighter, because there's been a very big segmentation of great talent that can help lead during the crisis, or help shift a company I helped pivot versus those that were great at just helping
maintain status quo. And so a lot of shift over the past year, at the leadership level for that reason, because you look at it, for you went through it to issues that would have taken you a year to see, within a matter of months to three months. I you saw fireworks shooting off because they became clear as day.
So what I'm hearing is, as we came into the 2021, you were seeing investment, you're seeing expansion, you're seeing people really seeking that level of talent. And I think you know, you and I talked a tad bit offline before we started the show about sort of the, the idea that people could just start executing tactics with the current resources they had. And now they're 678 10 months into it realizing you know, what, I've got to get a bit more
strategic. And I know I want to kind of pivot into this idea of the way you kind of approach where a business owner where CEO may be struggling with growth in their company, we'll get to that in just a moment, I have a comment that I want to just say, because I always say this to leaders and entrepreneurs and businesses is, even when things are challenging. It's don't put your expertise on sale. Meaning, you know, I, I'm a big believer
in expertise at scale. That's what my company helps people do. We don't do it in the talent acquisition business. But we understand that the only reason why our company is going to be around helping companies grow and hopefully scale and if they want to exit exit, is that we grow their expertise in the marketplace, we expand their expertise in the marketplace, our team just helps do it at
scale. And what I find, because I interview lots of people, you know, when I put a post, I still love interviewing and bringing on talent in my company, what I find his people willing to put themselves on sale, because they're out of work or because they want to make a shift. And it's really kind of disheartening when I can see more in them than they can actually see in themselves. And it's something that I no sidebar in here. But it's something that
concerns me. Because what happens when you put yourself on sale, then you're you realize your worth six months down the line. Now you're in another pivot point. Now you're back in the job market again, which is not a place you want to be.
But then there has been a big shift in that to your point of the tactics versus strategy where we used to get phone calls saying hey, I need an interim VP of sales, my sales team isn't generating I need a part time CFO, because my accounting team isn't performing. I need this because I've got this problem versus now they're starting to step back and say, I'm not quite sure what the problem is, I need someone to come in help me figure out what the problem is and what the right strategy is
to address it. They're stepping back. And most of the time, we'd go in and say, well, you saw a sales problem. It's a marketing problem. They have absolutely no aerial support in marketing whatsoever, or no, it's great finance, how for any operations help, but before you can do operations, if you're gonna say is show me the numbers, you don't have one in accounting, finance to show them the number. Oh, you know, let's step it back and make sure that we're solving the right problem here.
So they're realizing I don't have all the answers and it's not just throwing people at it. Can you describe the process behind the process behind matching and finding fit like you just already started touching on it, and I can I can see it in my world. All the times that people come to my company and I'm like, you're not ready for what we do. Because there are things that you can't see that I can see that you don't even know we'll
break down in a major way. If we bring in this, if we bring what we do best, you're going to be mad at us. Because you weren't, you don't know what's going to happen on the back end. And so talk to us about the process. I know we talked about strategy, planning execution, walk us through how you try to find out where the right fit is. And I thought it was, it's going to be a nice piece for our audience.
Thank you, I want to tell anyone in whether you are looking for your next role, or whether you're a company looking to bring in talent. And rather than thinking through what are my problems, and what do I want solved, or what we call the kitchen drawer of what isn't getting done in our company, let's throw that into a job description. You asked a question very early on in the podcast, which was your work? Why do they come to you? And where do things not go?
Right? Anytime. hire someone, gosh, they such a great culture fit. I had a great conversation with them. But they weren't the right person, they didn't get it done. A lot of times, it starts with what was that proof what we call profile, forget the job description that says you're going to do XYZ, that doesn't take into account what needs to happen over the next six months. So that's the very first thing is talk to us what you want as outcome six months from now, what is your company look like?
What is this problem or solution? What does that look like to you? And how does it make you feel? Now let's start working backwards of all the things that need to be in place. Because bringing in bringing in Superman, an Interim Executive just come in and solve everything is a recipe for disaster. And that's where I get that broadstone. So I want to double my sales in six months, and it didn't happen. Like you
we say here. Let's point you another direction, because we're not going to be able to do that for you either. That's though a lot of executives do wear capes, they're not Superman. What's the infrastructure? What are the components that need to be there? And what is going on in your company? I had someone call us for a CFO and gave me a job description said, Nope. Just I want the interim to just do these five things. And as we talk, no, we're in there to talk about when we're going through
an AARP implementation. Oh, we have an audit coming up in a month. So that's where we said, okay, we need someone who has been through audits, who has done DRP implementations, what else is going on? job descriptions look backwards. And they're really not the best, even if you're bringing someone in full time, but especially on an interim basis. what needs to get done over the next six months and how you're going to measure that. Every roll should have a KPI.
I love it. So so few things there that I heard that I just absolutely love a couple, you know, beginning with the end in mind, right? You know, Stephen Covey, one of the principles begin with the end in mind doesn't have to be 20 years down the line. Can we get six months from here? Like, you're right there, we can look back
from six months. One of my favorite questions I was taught this question in 1996, or seven been asking it not only in client acquisition, not only in sales, not only in March, I mean, I asked this to everyone I hire. And it is if we were sitting here, one year from today. Now, if I'm working, if I'm hiring someone, it's three
years from today. But if I'm working with a client is one year from today, if we were sitting here one year from today, looking back, what kind of things what had to have happened, that would have made you say that this was the best decision you'd ever made in this particular category. And so you're asking the same type of things. And then you're doing you're finding out like what matters like Matt, let's What are we going to measure? And
what matters like right? If we don't know what matters, then how, you know, he failed? Or she failed? How do you know? Right? Well, I told him a double sales. Yeah, but you had him do 35 other things that had nothing to do with sales.
having an impact price of background or certain companies on having worked with them doesn't mean that they have been in your type of situation before so we don't have to rip up too many job descriptions most of the time. They come to us and just do a brain dump. And it's our team who goes through and sketches that out and says here's the profile of the person, a little bit of forensic human capital. Why? What's the profile? What type of accomplishments have
they had? Because if you've got a company going from five to 15 million, and you talk to a free executive you'd love but they've only worked in companies over 100 million. They've never gone through gross for health through that. I there's going to be some issues,
dynamics, dynamics, complete dynamics. I'm imagining the answer's yes, but I'd love to hear your take on it. I'm there are a lot Variations of personality assessments, skill assessments, you know, anything from disc to Myers Briggs to one of my favorites, which is Colby to inia grams, all of this stuff out there. Do you guys do any of that to sort of massage that fear? Tell me a little bit about I'm really curious.
Absolutely, we found from doing this as long as we have. And I know I don't look that old. But I've been doing this for a while, we found the difference often between two executives, we do haven't guarantee we put a second first one was not successful after a couple weeks, but it's like when they were successful. We went back and did profiling on those individuals and what made one more than the other. And it was their work style fit with the
CEO and the leadership team. And it was how well not necessarily the personality, but their work style. And so we for years, we've been using predictive index, we find big pitch, great company, great leadership team, Mike and his team there. And it's a great thing to be able to not just have kind of knowing upfront the work style of who you're working with, but is it a match to what they feel needs to be done, and you get alignment
amongst the leadership team. And I've had a couple of clients say, you know, thank you for giving me that, because it was as crystal ball, I got to read about this individual. And there would have been a couple things they did that I would have had issues with but because I was able to read their workstyle in advance, I said, Oh, well, that's because of this. And this is the way that they work. And they went 90 days of working with someone they knew that
upfront, really. So when you're working on an interim basis, you have 90 days to make an impact not get to know each other. So through a process, we cake, it's almost like speed dating, we take six months, and we pack it into our vetting process. So on day one, they're not trying to get to know each other, they're hitting the ground running.
I love that. I love that. speed dating. So proud of me, I'm a professional Matchmaker, Darrell. Yeah, no, I think it's so good. Because Listen, at the end of the day, there's only so much that can happen during an interview process, right? There's motivation on both sides, there's motivation from the employer, the HR person, to find someone to fill the role now, otherwise, they wouldn't be
offering the job. Number two, the person who's on the other side has a motivation to say what needs to be said to get the job. And that is where things get problematic. And it's like I just, you know, I've hired now over 500 people in my 30 years, and I don't look that old to probably have done that. But I've been I was blessed to get in leadership at age of 20. The idea of fit like we as companies that are growing, there's this economic conversation called the
J curve, right? The j curve simply is essentially a situation where you're going to start paying or investing. But there's going to be a, you know, a process where you're going to make the investment and never see a return. The question is is how long is that curve going to take before it's now a positive ROI on the investment. And if you get the wrong fit, not necessarily the wrong talent. That curve may never get back to breakeven, because there's all those all these interim issues.
Oh, I'm just I'm glad that you said not necessarily the wrong person. But the wrong fit. Yes. And that's it's not always Gosh, they were horrible, CFO, they're horrible. So you know, they just weren't the right fit for your situation. And why the person who referred them to you bragged about them? That's right. Not the fit, not necessarily the person. I'm so glad you said that.
No, it's you which will you set it because you said you know we're looking for this, you know, if I've got this person who's been in 100 million dollar a year firms, and now I've got a growth firm between five and 25 million, there are dynamics going on there that have already been resolved at the 100 unless that person was there at five to 15. And now it's 100. That person came into an environment that
doesn't exist down here. And let's be clear, there's a there's a level of what I call, you know, it's like taking an airplane ride right when you get to cruise altitude, not to say that 100 million is just cruise altitude, but when you get to cruise altitude on airplane, you're not concerned about the gyrations, right, as much as you are on takeoff and landing. We don't like to talk about landings in business, but those happened to me lights in my presence. Listen, it's tough.
But so I think that's what the lesson is for entrepreneurs listening to this leaders listening this I have been doing this a long time. You've been doing this a long time. And I certainly want to talk to you really quick here about your books. The reality is you're better off working through whatever process is necessary to look for the fit. I am guilty of hiring talented people, technically savvy, expert level
technicians. I'm using the word technician just as a from an action oriented execution standpoint, and they were toxic above the neck. I didn't pick up toxicity in the interview because guess what they're gonna they're gonna be on their best behavior in the interview, right? Their references, check out their job history looks fantastic. And you can ask the questions when you make the phone call for references like, did they bring a good attitude to work? That's a not a good
question anymore. These are there's legal legalities of what you can ask in reference questions. It's hireable or not re hireable. Right? Are they rehired or not? Right? So you got to be careful to spend the time and this is where these tools come in. I love I've never heard of this tool by by, quite frankly, is it just for executives that you'd like to use this or it doesn't work at all levels of organizations and talent,
it works at all levels of organization. And they've all they've got a great tool that we also use called team design. And you can add the entire team, both management or within business units or departments or whatever you want to call them, take it and be able to see are they aligned with your strategic objectives. And it's interesting with clients to see because as we bring someone in, we want to make sure that they're aligned with the strategic objectives.
And not thinking about the past while I want these things, because my past individuals didn't have it on my team doesn't have it, I need to fill these in. Let's talk about your strategy. Let's talk about those strategic objectives. And how aligned is your team work those. So there's a number of different tools out there that we use in order to help it's not just the fit with that one little thing?
How is your team aligned? So we can let that executive know there's a couple individuals that aren't exactly aligned their work styles and align, you may need to work with them a little bit more, to get them drinking the Kool Aid or give them some tools to get them more aligned with those strategic objectives. There's a lot of great things and not to do commercial again, for predictive index. But certainly, ai
executives have short attention spans that I test that they take is two questions in five minutes. In our mind, that was the best option we can come up with. Wow, attention spans. Jeez, that's interesting. We're going to link that up just because I think it's always great for us to find out and learn about resources. Again,
I always say that I don't pretend to know anything every day that I show up to work every day that I show up to do what I do. And when I get into interviews like this with people that have experienced and I find or hear about something that I was just I'm completely oblivious to predictive index. So we're going to link that up in the show notes. So you can find this organization tell everybody about the books that you have written?
Absolutely. Well, given that there's not much going on not much knowledge, 10 years ago in interim management and interim executives in the US, and you couldn't Google Books about it, or how to do it, like you could consulting or executive recruiting or headhunters. So we actually wrote a book A number of years ago for interim executives, called how I fired
my boss and made more money. And it gives a step by step of how to build and grow an independent executive business in a number of situations, examples, and then we realized that that's great. we're educating them. But companies are now asking us, how do I leverage this tool? So we wrote another book on how smart companies are using an arm executives. And it talks a little bit as we talked about the myths and misconceptions, but also has a number of case studies so that you can really
see, what does it look like? And what's that story from beginning to end one an executive steps into a company on an internal reporting basis,
we'll look them up, I think I saw them on your website or access to them, we'll get them linked up in the show notes as well. No matter what side you're on, you might be listening to this and you're that seasoned executive or you're in that transition period, and you're thinking an interim opportunity might be the best fit for you get more knowledge and understanding around what that could look like. It could be the right fit
for you. And then on the other side, if you're growing an organization and you're, you're coming up against these stressors, where you have maybe ask some of your internal loyalist team members and staff to take on roles that they are failing at. And now you're at a point where you might have to let them go, but you know that they're great at the other things they were doing, but they're failing at this big
initiative. Maybe they just weren't the right fit, you might be in need of having the right person found. Sirius can definitely help you with that. Kristen has been a pleasure chatting about growth and trading about I love the conversation of fit, like I, we talked about it, I I could go on and on and on about that, because I think it's one of the biggest mistakes. It's one of the biggest mistakes I've made as a as an entrepreneur growing
businesses. It's one of the biggest things we talk about in my world of what we do for our clients. And that is picking the wrong marketing channel thinking you have to be everywhere you need to pick the channel that fits where your ideal prospect lives. It doesn't mean the other ones don't matter. It just means let's get narrowly focused. I'm a Lean Startup kind of mindset guy. So it's like before we try to blow up the universe, let's
go dominate a narrow space. And I you know, it comes back to fit it all, you know, comes around that same little three letter word. There's a resource that you mentioned that you wanted to share with our listening audience if it was something they wanted to learn. get further Can you talk a little about this resource?
Absolutely, they can find it at Cirrus executive comm forward slash mind shift. And it's a quiz. It's a quick, I don't know, eight to 10 question quiz. But what it does is it gives you some feedback and some resources that Where are you getting stuck? Whether you are doing it even during your job search your independent career or growing your company? Is it in the strategic? You're not sure what which way to go from the 50,000 foot level? Is it during that
planning phase? Or is it during the execution phase, they'll just ask you some easy questions, you pick which one and we'll help you figure out which base to focus on because as you mentioned, you can't do all three all at once. Pick one focus on that, get one or two things done, and you're going to move the ball forward a lot quicker. So it helps you narrow down. What things should I be focusing on to move that ball forward.
I love it. Thank you for sharing that gift with our audience. And if nothing else, you'll come away with clarity, I think one of the challenges of growth and leadership and is just getting clarity on thinking. And this is a tool that sounds like it'll help them do that. You may not be ready for execution, you might be in the planning stage or strategy phase. So I just really appreciate that that is going to be linked up in the
show notes as well. Again, serious executives calm serious is with a C. So if you're not familiar, just look in the show notes. We'll get that spelling for you serious executives comm forward slash mind shift. Thank you, Kristin, for being on the show. Before I let you get out of here. I always like to ask this final question. And that is, with all of the things you've got going on in the impact you're working on and
doing. If you weren't able to be here tomorrow on this planet, what would you want everybody to know you for?
That's a tough one. Because I've actually think of not being here on this planet. But I it's something from my father and what I how I was raised and what I find myself doing, whether it's leading individuals like you or others, or helping clients and executives, and it's you would always say as long as you're in service to your fellow man, you will be happy. It's not about you serve others. And I find that no matter who I meet, I want them to know You know, when the first thing she asked me for
it, how can I help you? What can I do for you? And I would encourage everyone in any conversation. The conversation is about getting to know the person and how you can help them not what they can do for you.
Krista McAllister, thank you for being on the MindScape podcast. Thank you Daniel. This was fantastic. Hey, what's up my friend, thank you for honoring me with your time on today's episode of the mind shift podcast. Listen, let's continue the conversation. connect with me on social at Mr. Darrell Evans on almost every platform, with the exception of my Facebook page, which is at Darryl Evans fan. Until next time, remember you're just one shift away from that breakthrough you're looking for.
Talk to you soon.