Wake Up Eager Workforce 
Episode 132 Transcript

Episode Preview:

In this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce Podcast, host Suzie Price sits down with executive consultant and author Allan DeNiro to challenge everything you thought you knew about hiring. Together, they explore a radically simple—but deeply human—approach to finding the right people.

Allan shares his "Only Four Questions" method, a powerful behavioral interviewing model that shifts focus away from resumes and rigid criteria and toward real conversation, cultural fit, and character. You’ll hear how these questions uncover a candidate’s motivations, deal breakers, and values—saving teams from costly hiring misfires and setting the stage for long-term success.

Suzie and Allan also dive into the surprising reasons most hires fail (hint: it’s not skill), the leadership lessons Allan learned from icons like Ted Turner, and why being curious, listening more, and keeping your ego in check might be the most effective leadership tools you’ll ever use.

Plus, don’t miss the Wellbeing 2.0 segment with Douglas White, who unpacks how emotional alignment and self-awareness can help leaders show up more fully—on and off the field.

Whether you’re building a team, refining your hiring process, or trying to lead with more impact and intention, this episode will inspire you to slow down, ask better questions, and lead with wisdom.

Read the transcript for Episode 132 below and discover how four intentional questions can help you hire smarter, lead stronger, and grow a Wake Up Eager workforce.

Transcript

[0:00:00] Suzie: today's episode is one I'm especially excited to share because it's a conversation with someone I admire not only as a leader and a consultant but also as a neighbor here in the community that I live in or that we live in called Big Canoe in the North Georgia mountains his name is Allan De Niro Allan brings to us his decades of experience where he's helped executives and well known leaders and boards make better hiring decisions learning how to lead with integrity and build thriving cultures and he does it all with deep wisdom and refreshing clarity without any ego he's very interesting he's had amazing experience which we'll talk about he's worked all over the world he's worked with some famous founders and just has a lot of clear insight to share with us today today we're gonna start with and talk about the only four interview questions you'll ever need and trust me it's not your typical interview advice so you're gonna wanna learn about these four interview questions plus pick all up all the tidbits of wisdom and insight that he shares I can't wait to share it with you Michael hit it

[0:01:10] Intro: welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast a show designed for leaders trainers and consultants who are responsible for employee selection and professional development each episode is packed full with insider tips best practices expert interviews and inspiration please welcome the host who is helping leaders trainers and consultants everywhere Suzie Price

[0:01:37] Suzie: welcome to the wake up Eager Workforce podcast where we help leaders build a high commitment low drama wake up Eager workforce and a life you can't wait to wake up to I'm your host Suzie Price and this episode is sponsored by my company Priceless Professional Development I'd like to ask you if you find value in today's episode please be sure to follow us like the episode if you see us on social media and share it with your team and on social media the title for today's episode for the wake up ego workforce podcast is episode No. 1 32 the only four questions you'll ever need hiring and leading with wisdom with Allan De Niro you can find the show notes there'll be some resources that you're going to want to check out by going to Priceless professional. com forward slash 4 questions priceless professional dot com forward slash 4 questions and it's 4 spelled out all one word lowercase as shared today is about those interview questions plus a lot of other very interesting wisdom and advice from all the experience and all the things that Allan has um covered in his career here are three powerful insights you're gonna wanna listen for first ditch the resume ask these four questions instead this is where Allan shares his simple but profound four question method that helps uncover the real person behind the resume because the best hires happen when we stop trying to be impressive and start being curious in the interview second top takeaway is most people fail at work for one reason and it's not what you think we're taught to hire for skills but alliance and the science behind our assessments this is something we talk about often is show that poor cultural fit and just poor fit in personal skills and things you can't see in the interview or on the resume are the true culprit behind most job failures so if you want engagement and retention you have to hire for fit and his interview questions you're you're gonna wanna listen to these and try them and then third your deal breakers might be the key to your best hire so this is one of Allan's four questions that helps candidates reveal what they can't live with on the job and this is really insightful and it really astoundingly simple and so important question that does not get asked in interviewers interviews what's your deal breakers and we're gonna break that down and and knowing this and asking about this will help you avoid costly mismatches and protect your team's culture from the start we do talk about interviewing but we also talk about resilience and leadership lessons lessons that Allan picked up from working with Ted Turner who was the founder of Turner Broadcasting and CNN and other founders that he worked with he has some amazing experience he really highlights and I see this in all top executives executives that I've heard speak from all corporations that you'd be familiar with always talk about how listening is the key truly listening and that it is the most underrated leadership superpower of all so Allan once again makes the case for that and demonstrates it in how he communicates so want to make sure you know again where the show notes are priceless professional.com forward slash 4 questions we always have a complete transcript there as well priceless professional dot com forward slash 4 questions a little bit about Allan's background he's had senior executive roles Chief People Officer Vice Chairman VP of HR he is the founder of his own consulting company kind of in his rewirement stage not retirement rewirement he's a keynote speaker he's an author and he's an executive leadership consultant so he has had senior officer and general manager and specific PNL and full PNL responsibility and complex organizations and everything ranging from startups to multi billion dollar revenue streams and he's been in every department and worked with all the leaders all the way up to the the chairman and the CEO so some of the companies that you'll be familiar with Haverty's Furniture Turner Broadcasting so he is just blazed a trail for us due to his work so he was part of the first internet site dedicated to human resources employee relations and benefits administration so early on before it was as common as it is today he was leading the way and he was he's also designed benchmarking and applicant screening and executive searches for all kinds of organizations at the highest level just everything you would ever do in business he's done it his consulting company is called New Century Partners Inc so let's go to our discussion now I know you're gonna enjoy it all right

[0:06:38] Suzie: Allan it's so good to have you here it's so great that we're neighbors here in Big Canoe that you've joined today on the podcast you have an amazing and impressive career and I'm eager to share your work with our listeners so let's start with from the amazing work that you've done with what you just mentioned is four founders of companies and of big companies what's one lesson from those experiences that still guide you today

[0:07:06] Allan: well thank you for being here I I appreciate it very much I followed your work and I admire it quite a bit so it's interesting I had a conversation once with the then president of CNN who at the time was a man named Tom Johnson and and I had just gotten to know each other and he looked at my resume at that point he's paused for a minute and he said you've had a very serendipitous life it was a term that I hadn't heard before but I so I sort of said well what do you mean by that and he said you know you've been in the healthcare industry and you're in now telecommunications and broadcasting and you've been in uh with private equity firms and and retail and all of this kind of stuff and he said none of it makes sense because you know it's very untraditional to your question in each of those settings I had the opportunity to work with and be with the founders of those companies now in one case in my healthcare career that founder was 85 years old he said something at a meeting once which I still you can't see it in the camera but I still have on my desk from at least 30 years ago and he was at a meeting with us as senior managers and someone asked him about you know how should we be with customers how should we treat our customers his answer he stopped for a minute now this is an 85 year old guy right he stopped for a minute stepped away from the podium about 400 of us in the audience by the way we were all type triple a personalities right go go go go go go go and his name by the way was Foster Mcgaw and he stepped away and looked at us and without hesitation said always give more than you get and leave more than you take and that's it and he's just stopped and you know these 400+ triple A's were like in awe like whoa wait a minute come back say that one more time so at any rate that's still on my desk one of those managers had the foresight to send that out to us a couple weeks later so in one case there was foster who was 80 years old in another case there was Ted Turner who had started terminal broadcasting about five to seven years before I got there and Ted was running and gunning and doing all the things that Ted's famous for and then the other two founders were sort of in between those two extremes but I was fascinated by watching them and you ask the question what did I learn from them universally I would say I Learned this from all of them I've Learned that well two things 1 entrepreneurs in most cases are very very good at starting things they're not necessarily good at running things and so that leads to the No. 2 thing that I Learned which is that in order to run things that you've started you have to be confident that you've hired really really talented people and I don't know how I got through that sieve by the way but I did somehow but yeah so you you've gotta have a high confidence and as an entrepreneur one thing in life that you really wanna do and that's think and go do new things and create new things well to do that if you've started something you better have some people behind that can keep your vision going and growing so long answer to your short question but yeah that's that's those are two things I Learned from every one of those founders

[0:10:40] Suzie: that is fantastic and they had a great hire in you with all your experience and knowledge and all your strengths that's fascinating let's go into a little bit about what you just touched on which is about putting the right people in the right seats hiring get people in there that can help run the business so that you can think if you're the founder or just everyday leaders need time to think and you need people underneath and around you to to help run things and your book which I think is fascinating the only four interview questions you'll ever need let's talk about that how people can who are listening when they're hiring you know what are these four questions what are the essence of them why do they work and how can people who are listening use them to get the right people to help run the business

[0:11:29] Allan: yeah well thank you for that again the book came from about 30+ years before the Book of interviewing and hiring people which again in all of these environments that I mentioned the four environments we were always in a very high growth stage and so adding people and building the team and most importantly creating a culture was very very important and I guess throughout my career there's been somewhat non traditional as a quote unquote business guy and so way early on like many many years before the book I sort of observed and watched the interview process and there were a number of things that bothered me about it not the least of which was the amount of power games that people played in interviews you know I'm the manager you're the candidate you know I already have a job and you don't so I can be a jerk and you can't afford to be a jerk I just you know saw this in so many situations and I thought that's just wrong by the way early early on one of my truisms was and still is today that an interview situation is one of the greatest marketing opportunities that a company has you are sitting with an individual and by the way whether they get hired or not that individual is going to walk away and go out and talk to their friends their family people they meet and they're gonna talk about you and they're gonna talk about your company and the more that they can leave with a positive impression you know I I've had I've lost count of how many candidates have said at the end of a session and by the way I don't think they were just saying it to be nice man that's like the best interview I ever had that's really you know I don't know if I'll get hired or not but that was a great interview so the point is for years and years and years and and finally I just said I'm gonna find a way that I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna stick to that way and that way ultimately became to ask a total of four questions in an interview and by the way it didn't matter whether I was hiring truck drivers or admin assistants or senior vice presidents or division presidents or board members all of which I've done I said there's really only four questions that I need to to ask now I'm gonna put that aside for just 30 seconds and and say in doing this I have five rules that I follow in every interview rule number one is be nice there's no reason to not be nice that's just for me a given No. 2 always explain to the candidate where you're going and what you're doing every time I ask one of my four questions I explain to the candidate why I'm asking it No.3 no tricks right the number of frankly incompetent hiring managers who play games and say well I'm gonna ask a really hard question and I'm gonna see if it throws you off course that's a waste of time and frankly it's an insult so no tricks No. 3 No. 4 talk less and listen more the premise of the only 4 questions is to ask four very open ended question very open ended and then be quiet and listen I have Learned more from people telling me things that technically I didn't ask them that specific question and again it's not a game it's their comfort level with being in the interview and lastly No. 5 always end an interview by explaining the next steps to the candidate now some people might hear that and go well I've already decided I'm not really gonna go anywhere with this candidate or I've already decided that you know this is not gonna be my choice my answer to that is so what you can still be courteous you can still tell the candidate the truth I'm big on the truth the truth is Suzie I wanna explain to you where we are in our process and I wanna explain what's gonna happen next you are one of a couple of candidates that I'm seeing I'm not finished with that yet but I will be this week and so by next week we will be following up with all the candidates and so we will circle back to you no matter what our decision is because that's just common courtesy even if I'm not hiring you everything I just said is the truth so No. 5 is explain what the next steps are there's too many candidates that leave an interview by the way I'm really big on talking to candidates after they leave an interview and saying to them so how was that like what happened and some of that was the basis for my four questions but one of the things they say is well I don't really know what happens next I don't really know what they're gonna do there's no reason for that that's just silly so long answer stop me anytime you want but the four questions remember open ended and there is a method to the madness it's not a game so question No. 1 is tell me the most important thing that you want me to know about you before we finish our interview today now remember I said I always explain my question so when I ask that question I say let me tell you why I asked that when I've talked to candidates over many years after an interview and I've said to them hey how did the interview go you know how did you think it went the most common question that I get is I never really got a chance to tell my story they never asked me the one question that I really wanted them to ask me my response to that is that's a shame because that's the whole reason you were there and so my answer to that my solution to that is to give you a wide open canvas on which to paint by saying tell me the most important thing you want me to know before we finish today and so if that candidate walks out and say I never really got a chance then I've helped them as much as I can I am amazed always I've done thousands and thousands and thousands of interviews I am amazed even today what people will tell you is the most important thing that they want you to know about so and I'll elaborate on any of these but I'm going too long for your question the second question is so look in today's environment if I'm in a job search I can go online and I can put in whatever title of the job that I'm looking for and especially in today's environment I can get 8,000 hits from companies that are hiring for a you know left handed upside down paper hanger whatever the question the job is and so my second question is when you did all that and you saw my posting and you saw the job that I had something about that got your attention because again you were clicking through your screen going nah not that one not that one not that one not that oh wait a minute this one looks kind of interesting so my second question is what is it about my role that got your attention now again what's the purpose of the question I'm very interested in what motivates a person I'm interested in what causes them to think and make choices because in every one of our jobs we have two basic functions we have to think and we have to make choices and so if I'm going through 10 different job openings online and I stop and I go well wait a minute I wanna put my CV in for that one I wanna know why like what caught your attention that tells me by the way how detail oriented you are it tells me again how you think it tells me again what's important to you it tells me what causes you to take action now notice by the way I just mentioned four or five things that tells me about you and I never asked any of one of those questions I just said what was it that attracted you to my particular posting so that's number two No.3 and this is always a an interesting one but I I say to people and this is my explanation part before the question part I say look Suzie you know I'm convinced that every person who starts a new job I don't care what the title is I don't care what level it is I'm convinced that within two weeks of starting a new job every person sits on their proverbial back porch on a Friday night and says to themselves as they think about their new job this was a good idea or this wasn't a good idea and as they think about that they think of the reasons why it was a good idea well I kind of really like the people and I really like the company and I like the product and whatever whatever and then when they go down the list of and this really wasn't a good idea they go through things that oh I didn't know about that oh nobody told me about that well my point of the next question is every one of us has that conversation I'm convinced but for some of us the list of things that are bad are what I call deal breakers in other words I didn't know about that and I can't live with that I didn't know about this but I can live with this the list of things we can't live with are called deal breakers meaning I think I'm gonna start looking for another job even though it's only been two weeks so the third question is exactly that with that explanation tell me Suzie what in a new situation in a new job in a new setting what are your deal breakers now remember I've said all of us have deal breakers I have deal breakers and so why do I ask this question very simply this I don't like train wrecks a train wreck is when a new situation with an employee doesn't work out and either the company goes to the employee and says you know what this isn't really working out we're gonna have to part company or when the employee says I'm sorry but I'm leaving that's a train wreck and train wrecks are bad for everybody they're bad for the company because now you have turnover now you have to start over now all of the peers of that person say why did Suzie leave she only been here two weeks or she's only been here two months why did she leave and if you're Suzie you're now explaining to some future employee Suzie I see you were only with Allen's company three months or four months or six months what happened so question No. 3 is all about avoiding train wrecks and by the way I've had many many candidates many candidates say to me wow you know I never really thought about that you're right I always think about it after the job but not before the job and and I'll make one other quick point again I apologize for going on so long you know if you say to me that a deal breaker for you is I don't want anybody to tell me what to do I don't want I work alone I put my head down and mind my own business I don't need any direction from anybody and if I get the opposite of that in a job that's a deal breaker for me by the way when I hear that and I have heard that my mental reaction is not oh my goodness what a loser my mental reaction is hey God bless you you know if that's what makes you happy and if that's what you do then good for you but my mental reaction begins to be that's not our workplace we are team members we work together a lot we collaborate a lot we challenge each other a lot so the point of No. 3 is that your deal breakers do not make you a bad person it may make you that it's not the best fit for our organization there's a huge difference okay and the last one number four and this one people always chuckle at and nine times out of 10 they say nobody's ever asked me that before but question number four of the four questions is so Suzie I've Learned a lot about you we spent about an hour I've got all sorts of great information so tell me one more thing what do you do for fun how do you hang out what do you do for your free time and again people kind of go wow nobody's ever asked me that before again remember my five rules No. 3 is no tricks this is not a trick question this is about think about our free time it is the one point in our life where we are 100% in control of how we're gonna spend that amount of time when I'm at work I'm not in control 100% of how I spend my time when I go to church when I go to the grocery store when I go to the kids school play I'm not in control of how I'm spending that time according to someone else's agenda but when I say hey you know what I'm gonna take an hour or two hours or a half a day and I'm gonna go you know ride my motorcycle or I'm gonna go play golf or I'm gonna go meditate that is the point I am totally in control of my decision making and that's important to me because how do you act when you are 100% in control of the situation and by the way it's another way to learn I've had people say by the way I I've had people say things I never would have expected I'm interviewing someone who appears to be pretty conservative and pretty quiet and pretty you know sedate and none of which are faults by the way you know in your business with your assessment those aren't faults those are just characteristics and also so tell me what do you do for fun and the person will say oh man I love to jump out of airplanes and you know mentally I'll go wow I never expected that one coming and and by the way how do I follow up Suzie tell me more about that why do you love to jump out of airplanes so um it's a great way to learn about people but also and remember rule No. 5 listen more and talk less so if the person says you know when I have my free time honestly I I don't really like people that much and so I I kind of like to go in my bedroom with my five cats and sit there with my book and you know I don't have to talk to anybody and I don't have to see anybody and I like to come out you know five hours later now I like cats doesn't mean cats are bad things doesn't mean any of that is bad but if my team that you are trying to join is go go go 100 miles an hour a a a Type a personalities we never stop we play hard we work hard we party hard if that is our culture and you like to sort of you start out but I don't really like people and I like to kind of just go and chill out and be alone and again Suzie God bless you but that may be an indication that you're not a great cultural fit for us you may be great at 1,000 other companies and 1,000 other jobs okay so that is a really long answer to your really short question but um those are the four and um and typically I do all of those and start to finish with a candidate in one hour

[0:28:39] Suzie: alright I love everything about what you shared it I first heard the your you review the 4 questions we were all over dinner and so hearing it in a more you know specific format is just thrilling me in so many ways one the rule 1 all of your rules I enjoy but the talk less listen more I actually have made signs for interviewers and say put this in your interview folder because everybody talks too much and it's the No. 1 one of the number one of the top three mistakes that we see the other is we bring our own bias and and the third is we over focus on background and experience and so everything that you're doing with this it sounds so easy but there's so much intelligence in everything that you're asking one I love your setup I love your rules and it seems like these questions are designed to really get to know the person and while you're listening to them tell you about themselves and it's hard to get people to be unguarded in such a situation so the way that you explain them and kind of personalized them and kind of invited them to share more I could see what they would share more and you would really get to know the person and so that's you know one of the reasons we do the assessment is so that we can learn more about who the person is according to the assessment but you're getting so much of that in these questions um what I was thinking I made a few notes here the deal breaker one your your I thought that was a great one because people will hesitate like OK let me shine up my deal breaker that I tell you cause I'm gonna make it look pretty like it's not a real deal breaker but the way you set it up and the way you said you know you know we don't want a train wreck cause a train wreck is a thing I mean the your whole mannerisms around how you talk them through and I think that would be the benefit for folks in getting your book is to kind of really don't just take the questions but really read how you write about it in your book so that they can ingrain your whole approach cause it's the approach to but I did have a question about you said the most important thing that their No. 1 question most important thing you want people to know about you today can you think of a couple of questions or answers excuse me that were particularly caught you off guard or you found particularly odd or particularly interesting I imagine you could write a book on some of those answers about what's the most important thing they want to tell you maybe somebody did something off beat or something like that or something that was particularly good

[0:31:11] Allan: one of the things that really every one of my interviews before I get to I don't tell people the five rules I just practice those five rules but the point is one of the things that I start with all the time is you know Suzie I really appreciate you joining me today I'm glad we have a chance to try to get to know each other I've looked at your resume and there's some very impressive things on your resume I appreciate you giving it to me but Suzie I've put your resume aside our time together is not about your resume I wanna get to know you and so I'll take you through some ways that maybe we can work on that well I have to tell you that and this is a challenge because I think some people think well wait he's trying to play a game with me he's trying to trick me but the number of times that people have looked at me and almost with the deer in the headlights kind of look like mentally I can see they're thinking wait we're not gonna talk about my resume I brought my resume I I brought my resume right here in front of me and so I'm concerned because they think well maybe he's trying to trick me but most interviews that are not according to the model that I've proposed are what I call a tennis game I ask you a question you give me an answer I ask you a question you give me an answer and back and forth across the net typically that's Suzie I see on your resume that you started out in you know medical school well I don't do that and so part of the answer to your question is I think people are not prepared for an interview generally where they're gonna speak more and the interviewer is gonna listen more one of the things I love about your assessment tool and it's not it's consistent with the model of interviewing we're discussing is think about this especially especially in middle management upper management senior management my question when I speak to audiences is how many times does that person fail because you hired them to be an engineer or you hired them to be a software writer or you hired them to be something else and how many times did they fail because they didn't have the technical experience to be an engineer and the answer frankly is very very seldom do they fail because of technical skills they fail because of the things that your assessment tool looks at your assessment tool looks at behaviors your assessment tool looks at culture it looks at how people act and how people learn and how people react so I guess the answer to the question about some some of the things that I've heard most important thing I would say generally or specifically I've heard some things that again I didn't expect person will come in and again I'll use the the example of an engineer and look the stereotype of an engineer is you know that you're maybe very calculating and you're very smart and you're very planned and you're very structured in the way you do things that makes you an engineer and they will say the most important thing that you need to know about me is I play in a rock band on weekends and I've done that for the last 25 years now if I'm looking at a 45 50 year old person I'm like stop the presses I gotta hear more about that tell me more about that how do you do that why do you do that how have you done that for so long now again a person could be listening to this going you're trying to hire an engineer why does that matter to you it matters to me because the reason people fail is most of the time almost 90+ percent of the time is not because they lack the technical skills for the job it is because they are a bad cultural fit they are a bad values fit they are a bad organizational fit your assessment tool does a wonderful job in in drilling those kind of things down so that's just one example but honestly you know when I hear answers that I hear I always have a follow up question not because it's a game because frankly I'm fascinated I'm like man I didn't expect that one tell me more about that every time you speak I learn something every time I speak in an interview I'm not learning anything so again long answer to a short question but I hope that helped

[0:36:16] Suzie: I love that I love it's it's just sitting here smiling because we say that all the time in regard to it's not about the technical skills but what happens is people when they're interviewing that's where they're most comfortable and so we're always trying to give them the ability to focus on the other areas by helping them get more comfortable and your questions go right to that which is who is this person in front of me because that is who you're going to live with and as they tell me about themselves can I see them in the job in the company you know in the team with this leader all of that so that focus on job fit is amazing and I love that you reiterated that I think I've seen it as high as the reason people fail usually is 90% of the time it's some kind of personal skill issue behavior issue culture issue the human side of it not the technical side so I don't know if that number is still accurate but could be close but what happens is exactly what you just pointed out people have this systemic kind of doing and thinking type of interview as opposed to a people getting to know you intrinsic kind of interview and if you needed to follow up on technical you could do that afterwards or that could be part of the you know the the first question the vetting question that gets them through you know they cover all of that so you know you do need to look at that but that's not the main that's not where you should be making your your most of your points so brilliant brilliant brilliant Suzie

[0:37:47] Allan: if I can you just said something really important I'm sorry to interrupt you but here's the question that I ask managers or when I'm speaking at a conference I ask the audience and it's this let me describe two candidates to you candidate No. 1 has all of the technical skills that you are looking for they can check every single box of the technical aspects of your job but they have none of the cultural aspects and the cultural fit with the team and the organization that you are trying to build candidate No. 2 has pretty good technical skills not necessarily the best but they fit like a glove with the culture and the team and the other people that you want to make part of your organization which of those two candidates do you think that you can teach here's the question do you really think that someone who does not have the interpersonal skills and traits and culture that you're looking for that you can teach them those things or a person that has those traits maybe needs a little technical brushing up do you think you can teach those traits there's many many studies and I tell audiences by the way if you're a parent of young children this will scare you a lot could scare you a lot but there's many many parts of research that show that by the age of about 7 or 8 we have formed the basis for how we are going to interact with people what kind of values we have what kind of things we think are important and by eight nine 10 years old those things are beginning to be in what I call wet cement well the moral of the story is if you think that you the great savior the great manager are going to change a 35 45 50 year old individual to bring them over to your values and the kinds of things that fit your culture I would suggest you're not so again you made a great point you said it better than I just did but I can teach technical skills I cannot teach cultural values and interpersonal traits and skills

[0:40:26] Suzie: that is so super I was thinking about several things and we often say that around the the communication style and the drivers the motivators and we say nature nurture you come in with these experiences or these preferences and then they get shaped by your environment and one of the things I'll do and it helps every time it's exactly to your point I'll have breakouts if people are new to getting the results if it's like a team building thing or onboarding or new manager like a new leader assimilation type piece and I'll have each person share who who influenced their top drivers or what in their life influence them most influence them and it always ties to their motivators and it's always something long held you know so if somebody that has a social altruistic motivator they could say you know my father was a good Samaritan and anytime there was anybody on the side of the road we stopped and helped you know those are things that are exactly what you're saying they're ingrained so you need to know what people are most interested in and what your questions reveal that and then make sure that that's gonna get rewarded on the job so we're just singing from the same hymn book which I really like it's super I knew that this was gonna be great but I'm just loving what you're saying and then the the two other points I was gonna make from you and that you shared just to reiterate it is the teachable piece there is a part in the assessment one of the tools that you did not take on but there's one that measures how people think and make decisions it's called acumen and you can see whether somebody's coachable or not it's about I mean I swear 95% of the time it's exactly right you can see where that challenge might be and then the last thing that what I thought was really important you said earlier when you were talking about their answers the things that they're telling you the interviewers are now going to need to get into a new mode and that is a mode of listening and it is different because people are on on automatic pilot they're like okay I got interview questions I got resume so it may be uncomfortable at first but if they stay interested and if they can truly buy into your rules and buy into the idea that getting to know the person matters the most then they will ask these questions and then while they're asking them ask more questions as opposed to assuming that there's some right answer'cause I get that a lot we do a lot of those competency behavior based questions and they are for people to listen and a lot of times people will say well what's the right answer I said well the right answer is for you to listen and think about the job and ask more questions so that you can understand who they are and is what they're sharing matching what's gonna happen on the job and to constantly there is no right answer other than you listening so this is a even a more loose option or way of doing that but a really a deep and powerful one with these questions so I just appreciate everything you're sharing okay so I have a question for you what we might have already touched on it and it may give you an opportunity to reiterate it but hiring mistake you see our organizations make the most and is it that that they over focus on technical skills and is there anything else

[0:43:30] Allan: I think you just said it we human beings are often creatures of habit and when I speak to organizations or they say tell us about the four questions you said it a minute ago when I say well tell me what's on your mind what questions do you have after we've spent time the first hand that goes up is what are the right answers to the four questions and you said it beautifully a minute or two ago the right answer is the answer that you listened for and what did you do with that information but again human beings are often creatures of habit the reason we have so much bad practice in interviewing and it just breaks my heart how much bad interviewing goes on every single day a thousands of times a day is because many hiring managers interview the way they were interviewed and if so the way they were brought up is a tennis game I ask you a question you give me an answer I ask you a question what's on your resume let's go to page 2 of your resume paragraph three organizations I often will say try to find a nice way of saying when I meet or train or speak with them is look you're gonna waste your money in whatever you're gonna pay me if we don't talk about how are we going to make this real how are we going to make this happen because the inclination is you'll have some people inevitably sitting at a seminar or a speaking engagement who are mentally going I don't need any interview training I've been doing interviewing for 25 years I 30 years I know how to do it but when we leave here today what are you going to do and I need to hear that frankly from the organization and I'm willing to help with that but honestly don't waste your time don't waste your money if this is gonna be kind of a quick two hour speech and everybody's gonna say oh wasn't that nice so but culture and organizations need to really think about what are we going how are we going to commit to try this the last point I'll make is often times with clients I'll say look I wanna follow up with you in two weeks three weeks four weeks I want you to try this and honestly I want you to tell me what your people oh this didn't work or I'm not comfortable by the way one last point to your question I often say to clients who've never done this who've never listened in in an interview I often say look I'm gonna warn you the first time you try this it will fail because you will be uncomfortable and by the way the way you will deal with your uncomfort is you'll start talking when first time that a candidate takes a breath or doesn't look and has to sort of think your inclination is going to be to jump in and say something and when you do that you'll be back in your old habit so again your wisdom on this is great Suzie because you're answering a lot of questions for me which I appreciate

[0:46:44] Suzie: well I am I've just always had such a passion for this topic and I'm not sure where it came from I guess it's from the knowing that people in the wrong seats are in pain they're not waking up eager it's not a wake up eager workforce there's a solution in and usually what I find and you've probably seen this too Allan is people are most interested in this topic after they've had a big fail when they've really had that pain what did you call it did not do not want a train wreck yeah that was the exact words they you know when they've had a train wreck then they're like okay let's go back and talk to Suzie you know meanwhile until then they're just not gonna they're not as passionate about it so I guess you know I I was curious about why you're so passionate about I know for me one I have been in wrong roles I have been in the human resource leadership roles and not at the level that you were but and have been but just looking around and seeing people in the wrong seats and just seeing what it does to their life you know the people not and I have this also drive for people to use their talents and to have really good days you always say wake up eager days they love what they do they love who they are and you also see the the data on it Gallup organization says when they're good fit for the role they're six times more likely to be involved and enthused so I mean we suck we continuously for the past I don't know at least 30 years have had low engagement scores you know and it's because people are not in the right seats then when they're not in the right seat they're not only are not engaged at work they're not having a high quality life so anyway that's kind of my my Yammer and then we'll get off this topic but I wanted to see a little bit from you like what stimulated this and maybe you've already said it but maybe you could recap it this passion for this because I think sometimes I'm in the minority and then I hear you and like oh I have a comrade

[0:48:37] Allan: yeah well Suzie one of the reasons I love spending time with you is your you have the clinical sort of experience and the clinical background and your model focuses obviously on a lot of science behind that model I'm very pedestrian in my work and in my approach to people and life and business to answer your question I want when I'm with a team when I'm with an organization I want to go 100 miles an hour I want to hit the ground and move I've referenced it before people say you're not like a single a battery type you're like a triple a battery type and so what I see is in my passion to answer your question comes from when we can't move at 100 miles an hour when we can't create new things when we can't be innovative when we can't be the market leader why it's because we're being bogged down by people problems who doesn't get along with who said what to who who doesn't like who who thinks that they should be in charge who said something who said somebody to somebody else who said something and so every time that that I see that it's like I don't wanna spend my time on this I wanna go go go because the people out there that we communicate or compete with and by the way our customers are waiting for us to do some really amazing stuff so my passion is let's get this junk off the table and out of the way and the way you get it out of the way and off the table is you don't bring it into your house in the first place and again people are different people have different talents people have different blessings great they just need to be in the right place for those talents they need to be in the right place for an organization that appreciates that it doesn't make my way right and your way wrong it just means get in the right place that allows you to prosper so I'm much more pedestrian I wanna go 100 miles an hour and I don't deal with I don't like to deal with junk that stops us from doing that

[0:51:07] Suzie: I love that I think that that is perfect I love your passion about it and I think they both go together and we're kind of going down the same road about all of that let's shift just a tiny bit over to you know the different roles that you've had and we talked to the start a little bit about founders that you've worked for and all the different roles that you had is there been a storyline or something that has guided you throughout your professional journey that's important to you maybe some values as you worked in these different industries that helped you be successful or rules for yourself or anything like that that you would like to share

[0:51:48] Allan: I'll say two things and I know this first one sounds kind of corny but it's the truth every single place I've been I said to myself quickly I didn't dwell on it was I have no right or reason to be here I mean I grew up in a blue collar family and my parents my grandparents were immigrants my parents did not go to college there were five of us they were very clear you are all going to college and so we did and but the point is starting with the very first job that I had in the healthcare industry and every job after that technically this is kind of back to what drives me about my interviewing technically if you looked at my career at that moment I had no business being there because I was in the healthcare industry I had no experience in the healthcare industry I didn't have like a father who you know worked in the healthcare industry I said oh I know what that's all about when I went to work for Ted Turner I had no experience in the broadcasting industry when I went into private equity I had technically on my resume no experience ditto in retail to answer your question my my guiding principles have been okay well this is gonna be fun and I never dwelt on like I have no business being here what I dwelt on is okay I guess I'll figure this out and that was the big difference I tell people many many times when I was with corporations and they'd call and say hey we want you to go move here and go be the next director of this or that or the other I always said yes I tell people driving home that night after saying yes I said I wonder how I'm gonna do that'cause I had no prior experience in doing it so No. 1 that was a guiding principle was I'll figure it out and No. 2 was what I said I Learned very very very early on in my career from Foster Mcgowan always give more than you get and leave more than you take and I found that you know if I did that then if nothing else I may not succeed at everything but people would at least say you know he wasn't a bad guy

[0:54:25] Suzie: those are awesome guiding principles I love it love it love it perfect sharing and let's segue that into when you look out across the landscape of all the leaders from all levels as you've worked in organizations what do you think separates the good leaders from the great ones

[0:54:42] Allan: I think a couple of things the good leaders have as low a dose of ego as they can they also because of that low ego listen a heck of a lot more than they talk and No. 3 every good leader has or should have or desires to have what I call very close to them a contrarian and the English definition for me of a contrarian is is a person who is never afraid to say to you what could be privately hopefully it's privately never afraid to say to you I don't understand what you're talking about I don't understand where you're going with this I don't agree with where you're going with this or No. 4 frankly you are full of crap excuse my French and people will sometimes when they hear me say okay well who's your contrarian and the answer to that is very simple in this case it's my wife okay in my entire career I can say a lot of things I can try to do a lot of things I can try to be somewhat wise in a number of things my wife is always the person who will say to me you have no idea what you're talking about or I don't get it or that's a bunch of BS so a great leader low ego listen listen listen and make sure you have somebody in your life who is willing to tell you the truth some people call it a contrarian some people call it a truth teller

[0:56:29] Suzie: I love that and were you the truth teller to the founders that you were working closely with I'm thinking you were

[0:56:36] Allan: that's a really good question and the answer is I tried to be as much as possible and by the way that LED at times for some interesting conversations including them saying back to me I don't know what you're talking about or saying back to me mind your own business and I'd say well okay but I think it is my business to say this I will say a litmus test maybe for the importance of what I'm talking about every one of those founders one of them two of them have since passed away but every single one of those four founders I am friends with I was friends with until the day they died in the case of the two that did I was friends with them long after I stopped working for them and I had conversations with them very frequently long after I stopped working with them so I guess that maybe was a little bit of a litmus test but I tried to be that not because you know I just want to be a pain in the neck but I think it's important that people share ideas and sometimes those ideas are hey I don't get it like where are you going with this I don't understand and by the way make sure there's equal doses of compliments and equal doses of reinforcement and positive when you have the opportunity to do that

[0:58:06] Suzie: people are upset sometimes that there's been conflict but conflict can be very productive if people are really telling and it has to be a trusting environment for people to be willing to share and the fact that you were comfortable doing that you had to go out on a limb especially with founders who are kind of famous you had to go out on a limb but they trusted you and I have a sense that a lot of that is about your character and of course I saw your assessment results which we'll look at in a little bit but you are a man of service you're there I mean it showed up in your assessment very much a business person but in that business you're always about taking care of and making things work for people so it makes sense to me why you had the roles you had and why some of those people people sense when people really care and I don't it's not empty language with you because I like I said I saw your assessment because we're going to talk about that let's Segway one more other time and then we'll go into that my my wake up eager strength segment but he wrote another book that I didn't get a chance to look into but I I just saw the title I'm curious about it failing into greatness and it's a spiritual perspective talk a little bit about that and the connection you seem see between spiritual maturity and executive presence and anything you'd like to say about the book and those some of those principles

[0:59:24] Allan: for people in the Christian tradition they know about an apostle a disciple whose name was Peter and Peter's written pretty prominently about in Scripture unfortunately or fortunately most of the time Peter's reference is when he screwed up and when he made mistakes and there's time after time after time in Scripture where again for those in the Christian tradition Jesus would say something he was trying to teach or he would make a point with his disciples and Peter was always the first one of all the disciples who said I got it I got it I got it and nine times out of 10 he didn't get it and there are several times by the way where Jesus rebukes him pretty strongly like you know Peter you like need to be quiet cause you don't get it and yet again for those in the Christian tradition when uh Jesus finished his uh public ministry of all of his disciples he specifically picked Peter and said you are the one who is going to carry on this church or who's gonna carry on my teaching and so for someone who failed and failed and failed and failed and then was you are the leader of this new movement of this century's now old movement I thought well that's kind of fascinating like what can we learn from that and I will say the book has a 25 verses that specifically cite Peter's not only failure but his learning from that but I've had many many people who read it and said you know this is like a business book because the principles here are about you fail and you get up and you fail again and you get up and you fail again and you say well why did I fail or the leader and we've talked a lot about founders right the founder says to you you don't get it well you can take two things from that you can be hurt and you can pull back and you can say the heck with you I'm going somewhere else you can say how often do we hear this in business I quit or you can say okay you're right I didn't get it so how do I get it like what do I need to do now we're back to listening so I appreciate you bringing it up it was quite an interesting journey and quite an interesting experience writing the book I didn't start out intending to write that book I read a little bit tiny little bit about Peter and I read one of the passages from his book in the Christian tradition in the Bible um and after I read that very short passage I thought who the heck is this guy like what is this about and that caused me to go deep down a very deep rabbit hole which you now Learned I'd go down a lot of rabbit holes anyways I appreciate you bringing it up but yeah that's what failing into greatness is is a little bit about

[1:02:28] Suzie: so it sounds like it would be an inspirational book to read in regard to being willing to take chances and picking yourself back up and seeing an example of you know how he had so many failures and then he was chosen you know so that's interesting and and you think about that you know when you see famous quote unquote famous people like Ted Turner's one you know you think about we saw some of his things that he had in his life but in general there are probably a lot of a lot of things that people did not see that you were privy to that could be considered mistakes or errors or many failures or big failures some of you know and and they have to keep getting up you know and keep going but we only see the the limelight sometimes you know on the when you're more on the outside you ended up in your life having a really there's it makes sense to me why you were attracted to writing that book because of what you were living and what you Learned from people and for yourself for your own I'm picking myself back up and I'm jumping into these roles that I never really knew I would be a part of and didn't really know what I was doing when I started you were willing to fail so it's that idea of it's okay to make mistakes it's building resilience I think sometimes we've lost a little bit of that people are afraid to take chances you know because they they don't think they can get back up so any comments or thoughts of that then we're gonna go into the next segment

[1:03:51] Allan: so No. 1 Peter was a fisherman right that's been noted in history that's not a fable that's not a made up story he was by today's terms the ultimate blue collar worker not fancy not educated not a lot of things a fisherman who went out every morning and every night and took his boat and his net and went fishing and that's how he supported his family today there are three and a half billion Christians in the world now there are lots of religions lots of beliefs I respect every single one of them I'm I'm happy that people have a belief of some kind or another but there are three and a half billion Christians and at the point that Jesus finished his public life and said Peter you're now gonna take this and run with it Peter before he died visited at least 12 other countries that we know about and that we can document this isn't the age by the way of get on a jet and you know go somewhere so to do that to go to audiences that like who are you what are you talking about I have no idea what this even is and today we have three and a half billion of those followers the ultimate example of failing starting out with no credentials whatsoever having a tremendous amount of faith in yourself in the person you're following and having people many times I'm sure say to you I don't know who you are I don't know what you are and I don't even know what you're talking about and have that be alive centuries later I I don't know anybody in business who can say yeah you know what 2,500 years from now they're gonna remember everything that I said and did so anyways enough about that but I I again I appreciate you bringing it up

[1:05:56] Suzie: that is so well said and um very inspiring so I'm gonna make sure I put a link to that book in the show notes as well I guess what you just shared is it's the perfect tie in to everything we've been talking about and what you've talked about about yourself believing in yourself you were your own version of Peter so that's very cool so now more about you perfect segue wake a bigger strength segment is where we're gonna go now and this is where we have our guests complete the assessment I like to do it because it allows us to get a peek into the person but it the listeners a lot of folks listening have their own assessment results and they're always learning about others and and so they had a chance to get to know you and then they get to learn a little bit about maybe how you scored on the assessment so what are your strengths and it's a learning tool for everybody and so I I just appreciate you taking time to complete it and being willing to share and I'll just share a little bit about what the assessment said about your style and some of your strengths and we've seen evidence of this in our conversation today is your communication styles above the energy line um influence and compliance so you're very poised you're very optimistic and have the whole people focus but on at the same time you know in your communication style and behaviors according to the assessment um the you're focused on the task part too so it's a nice people task focus and you're very diplomatic and then you're very accurate and clear so those are some of your strengths you have an active pace you said something about I want to go 100 miles an hour so you could see that in the assessment a little bit on that part this is the part of the assessment we always use car analogies cause we're big car people over here in our family which I know you know about Allan is that part is called how you like to drive around and then what is not visible in your car according to the assessment is what puts gas in your tank and I saw evidence of this in your conversation drive for knowledge so you you have a lot of thoughts you write you take content and you create it you capture it you share it so that's the theoretical that's the learner gonna become an expert and I know that those founders leaned on you to go research things and then come back to them with the insights and then the second thing that I already mentioned that you scored passionate so your 1 and 2 according to the assessment are what put gas in your tank you score passionate in this and this is social altruistic and that is this idea of being of service being the good Samaritan and everybody can have a desire to serve others this measures more about what you wanna do 5 days a week so in your role in the human resource leader role and executive leader role you are always the people person other thing that it also said about you is you give freely of your time you're all you're very selfless so your No. 6 is the utilitarian so you know when you were working you were you were giving and one of the things that I saw in some of the strengths which you're gonna go pull full from right now but it said you could be a judge with a heart and I thought oh I love that statement I wonder what he'll think about that hahaha you know judge meaning like a good judge you need a judge somebody's gonna say okay this is right this is wrong but you do it with a heart so and I wanted to point that out based on some things you said earlier so I'll give it back to you and you can look at those different pages that I gave you and maybe give us share a few things from each of those pages and maybe why you liked it what you thought about it and all of that

[1:09:22] Allan: yeah thank you you had asked me to focus on pages 42 44 and 45 and again by the way I I want to compliment you again on the entire tool I think it's great and I know the nature of these is every person that takes it uh helps you to build into your database one more set of answers and one more sets of information but on page 42 it in the report back there were four or five statements and you asked me to sort of pick one of them that applied to me and that maybe that I I sort of caught my attention and so the one that I picked from that page was and this is describing me I guess ask many questions to find the correct answer and so why did I pick that one I think uh the answer is I've said it many many times during our time together today No. 1 is I think people talk too much and in particular I mean in meetings and I think in particular in group situations and so one way this sounds really strange but I've actually had some coaching assignments where they said hey you know Charlie or Mary or Fred or somebody you know they just talk too much they're dominating everything they're you know how do we get them to just be quiet and my response or my coaching tool is well it's highly unlikely that you're going to get them to be quiet because that's just not their nature but you might ask them you might teach them to ask more questions which is what ask many questions to find the correct answer so if I ask a question then unless I'm a complete I'm not a nice person I have to be quiet and listen so I I think generally in meetings people talk too much and if they just listened and then when it became a moment to say you know could you explain a little bit more about or can you tell me a little bit more about then that's a great way to learn and the second reason I picked that one is um I I've got a few sayings about sort of my philosophy in business and you've heard some of them today but another one is this I have always believed put a bunch of smart people in a room and shut the door and good things will happen in that room and so I believe that I believe man find really bright people bring them on your team put them all in a room and shut the door and you'll be amazed at what happens in that room well that happens usually because people ask questions smart people in that room ask each other questions and by asking questions guess what a they learn and b all sorts of great ideas come up so that one on page 42 caught my attention

[1:12:26] Suzie: I love it I love it I can totally see that and you know you talked about being curious in the interview process you you are naturally curious those of us who score theoretical I also I'm theoretical off the chart passionate men as my No. 1 interest in that is you're you're just naturally curious so the strength of that is we're curious and the thing that drives people crazy is that we're curious hahaha sometimes it could drive people crazy awesome okay so tell us a little bit about go to the ideal environment page and then the motivating page and do the same thing I love what you shared

[1:12:58] Allan: yeah so page 44 again the choice you don't pick from four or five statements on the assessment about me the one I picked on that page was an assignment or six assignments with a high degree of people contacts um and again why did I pick that you've been very gracious with your time today with me if you haven't heard it 100 times from where I sit everything is about people it is not about org charts it's not about titles it's not about you know what the organization's structure is everything is about people people are what make your culture people are what make your brand people are what sustain your culture people are what sustain your brand people are what keep you alive to play again tomorrow and play again tomorrow is the long term it's not tomorrow but you get it so I have always been interested in assignments with a high degree of people contacts the old saying on this I didn't invent it it's been around for decades is used to be called management by walking around and lots of books written and lots about the most successful leaders were the ones who got out of their office got out from behind their desk and just walked around and then the last page that you asked me to look about again the statements the one that caught my eye was an opportunity to see how he can improve you know processes or situations or things like that and again why did that get my attention improvement for me is all about or or the reverse situations that need improvement again you've been in the situation I know you're called in to do a lot of coaching you're called in to do a lot of hey can you fix this those opportunities or why is there a need for that number one in settings that I find where there's a total lack of discourse and by that there's a total lack of engagement yeah people are there they're going through the motions you know they show up for work every day but they don't talk to each other and they don't really talk to each other and they don't engage and for a lot of reasons why they don't people are often threatened by ideas from other people I've never understood that like you know why why are we so threatened by a different idea or a different perspective or a different opinion but again but again how do you improve things I I think you have to be open to ideas and listening and different perspectives I've said it listen listen listen here's a rule of thumb listen listen listen three times before you speak so when I'm ready to speak in a meeting when I'm ready to jump in okay did I listen No. 1 did I listen twice did I listen three times and lastly take away one mutual action plan so you know unfortunately today in in our society we're very very bad at listening to each other we like to shout over each other we like to before you take a breath I'm gonna jump in and tell you why you're wrong well that's not what discord is that's not what discernment is discernment is learning but so if we have a conversation and I'm not Cinderella look we're not gonna agree on everything we're not gonna see the same thing about everything that's not realistic but what is realistic is if I have a person or I work with someone that I really don't agree with and we're really not on the same page philosophically god forbid politically you know what other kinds of reasons can we have a conversation where we walk away with one mutually agreed upon action plan one thing that we're gonna do doesn't sound very prophetic but man if we can pull that off that's a huge win uh on on page 45 the opportunity to see how he can improve situations and things that that's sort of why that caught my eye

[1:17:24] Suzie: I love every bit of that I love the listen listen listen yeah the biggest the conflict is comes from we don't have the same priorities we don't understand each other cause we haven't communicated and we have past history you know all three of those are like the big things right and so if you listen listen listen you could solve a lot of that at least have an understanding the big one the understanding and then understand their priorities and think about your priorities so and often times that's why it's good to have facilitator to kind of help facilitate those conversations so I think that's why we get called in sometimes and people you get into a pattern you know you can get into it in your own personal life as well sometimes so an outside influence can help but sage advice and okay everybody listen listen and listen and then you can ask a question or jump in with your opinion perfect litmus test let's let's jump over to a little bit more personal as we start to close out today I'm gonna have you at the end share your last piece of advice you have so much good advice but I do want to because we're both here in Big Canoe Jeff and I are my husband and I are moved up here in 2021 full time and we're part time for about 10 years talk about what you love about Big Canoe real quick and Big Canoe for anybody listening that's where we're located we're in North Georgia mountains in between I seventy five and 400 beautiful community and has nature here taught you anything about leadership or what you love about living here or anything you want to share about the canoe and things we've talked about today

[1:18:52] Allan: yeah thank you so you know you live here people that don't live here I guess that's maybe why we're talking about it so Vancouver is a funny place for me we've been here in one way or another for 40 years um oh wow and meaning meaning you know the first time we bought land here uh we didn't live here full time then 40 years ago but you get it it's a massive place surrounded by nature nature nature of every kind that you can think of and so the opportunity to kick back and to stop and take a breath and actually look around you and go for a walk all of those things exist what's also interesting is there are 8 million different clubs and societies and groups up here every kind of book club you can imagine every kind of wine club you can imagine by the way which is kind of nice bridge clubs and car clubs and gardening clubs and and anyways it's also a place where you can get really really involved if you want to be you don't have to but if you wanna be and for some people I'm one of them who is an advocate of lifelong learning we have a lot of quote unquote retirees here people say are you retired and I say no I'm never gonna retire because retiring for me implies that you are stepping away from learning and so Big Canoe gives lots of opportunities for that the last comment I'll make is by a lot of standards we are a not a small city we have 4 to 5,000 residents we've got a budget I think I've read of a north of $70 million a year to run this place we've got lots of capital expenditures and so to answer your question what do I learn about leadership this is a place where a lot of people have a lot of opinions there's a term that some of us use up here identifying people including yours truly and we call those people pips P I P which stands for previously important person and so we have a lot of pips who have a lot of opinions about how things should be done because hey I'm important I used to run you know X y Z so what's taught me about leadership is if you want to get involved there's lots of opportunities to get involved with helping to be in leadership at Big Canoe if you don't want to and you want to kick back and go for a walk and go fishing God bless you but don't be a pip anyway

[1:21:32] Suzie: I hadn't heard the pip but I have seen a lot of pips yes that is perfect perfect perfect and I'm with you I'm not ever going to retire I love what I do too much it gives me so much joy and I would why would I go do something else when this is you know until that changes you know until that changes but we call it my husband's in his time now he's starting to wind down of course he's winding up a bunch of other stuff along the way but we call it rewirement instead of retirement you know so I like that that term going the other direction now what advice would you give your 25 year old self

[1:22:12] Allan: the advice I would have given my 25 year old self is never look back you'll have plenty of time to do that later and I don't know when later is'cause I still try very hard to not look back again I cannot describe how blessed and lucky I am to a have had the career that I did b to be around as many amazing fascinating brilliant smart passionate people and so at 25 I would have said hey don't spend any time looking back just keep going and going and going and you'll have some time later to look back and I fear that some people young middle whatever young and middle age means but I think they they spend a lot of time like regretting yesterday or regretting what didn't happen or regretting last week or regretting a relationship and and I don't mean you shouldn't think about those things but I I think it should not take up the majority of your your mind space of your headspace

[1:23:24] Suzie: I love that that is you've given so much good advice and I just thinking about that it always makes me think of the term you know self evaluate but don't judge and then always be looking forward you know look forward to what's next'cause I have any all you have to do is know one senior person that you really care about and when I was younger I was somebody in our lives that as a couple you know very much mentored us and he got a little bit stuck in what used to be and and we would always think he had so much promise for what was going forward and he just couldn't look forward and so just watching that in play you're like oh man so yeah wise advice and um Jeff and I my husband and I really try to emulate that as well from having seen up close the inability to do that okay last two questions if you could have one billboard to influence others and and you could put it anywhere what message would you share and where would you put it

[1:24:18] Allan: so I think you this is a billboard that I would put up

[1:24:22] Suzie: yeah billboard or you could do it however some some way that you could publicize you could put it on everybody's computer yeah you could put it at train station whatever you want and you still share so much so it might be a repeat of something you already shared but I think maybe it's

[1:24:37] Allan: thematic to the things we've talked about today but my billboard would say enjoy who you are love yourself then love others and that last part love yourself then love others you know it's I think you can hear lots and lots of spiritual leaders and other leaders and sometimes political leaders who will say you know we just have to love each other we just have to love one another and it occurred to me some years ago that okay I get it but so why doesn't that happen like if there's nothing in that statement that you would say I don't agree with that so why doesn't it happen and then it occurred to me that we often don't love others because we don't love ourselves we're so hung up on well I'm not this and I'm not that and I'm not good at this and I'm not good at that and I went left when I should have went right and I jigged when I should have jagged and if you spend so much time on that and then someone comes along and says oh by the way you should love others I just think it's that's a big disconnect and it's one we don't really think about and I think by the way someone go wait you think you should love yourself isn't that kind of conceited it's not really what I'm not really what I'm talking about so my billboard which in today's environment I guess would be virtual because then virtually you reach a lot more people but it would be enjoy who you are love yourself then love others

[1:26:16] Suzie: I love that and you can't give others up to your point and we're still on the same page to you can't give to others what you don't have yourself so the loving of yourself is such an important piece of being able to give and give freely truly celebrate their success or what they're doing so beautifully well said I love that billboard or that virtual sign that's gonna flash on everybody's computer all right last bit of advice I hate to end it because this has been thoroughly enjoying joining joyful conversation for me but if you could leave listeners with one piece of advice something that they could apply right away out of all the many things we talked about the 4 questions talked about listening loving self and so much more what would you share something that could apply right away that you want them to remember

[1:27:01] Allan: well first of all I wanna thank you for a the invitation today you have been incredibly gracious with your time you clearly practice what I know you preach which is to listen you've given me great short questions I've given you too long answers too long an answer but you know look I'll answer that last one and again something doesn't sound very prophetic but my answer would be be nice to everyone he talked about my book on the Apostle Peter I mentioned there were 25 verses that I sort of took to heart Peter's version of that was show respect to everyone I'll speak for myself I can't speak for other people but if I wake up in the morning and that jumps into my head show respect to everyone and I've then come in contact with lots and lots and lots and lots of people in the course of that day socially and in person and in business and I can go to bed that night and go show respect to everyone you know that's pretty darn hard to do at least you know I think it is and so my version would be be nice just be nice just try to be nice somebody gets in your face somebody's not agree with you somebody's mad just be nice and I don't know if if I can go to bed at the end of the day and saying that somehow I pulled that off then it's been a pretty good day again I I I thank you very much I'm very appreciative of your work you are doing amazing things I follow what you do and how you do it and I I know you've got a great audience and a great following and I know that that's for a reason that isn't just happening so again thank you very very much I love everything that you shared

[1:29:00] Suzie: and I appreciate your appreciation and one thought I wanted to share with you or ask about is if people are listening we're gonna put a link to your website and to your books in the show notes you're still giving talks somebody wanted to hire you to come do the talk you're still coaching executives I just kind of wanted to check in on that maybe give a little bit of that so I make sure that I represent you well

[1:29:24] Allan: yeah thank you the answer is yes still doing speaking engagements still doing coaching are still doing search assignments uh where executives are trying to build uh a certain member of their team or boards are trying to do that all of those things are on the table I am thrilled when people reach out they can do that on the website which you'll have in the show notes they can do it on Facebook they can do it on LinkedIn and this sounds a little bit canned but look I never presume that someone who reaches out is anything more at the beginning of a chance to get to know each other a chance to try to answer your questions and a chance to try to offer a way to help I never presume that that's an automatic assignment or that that's an automatic fee or an automatic way to to make money the slogan that for exists the tagline if you will that exists for our firm is three words which we believe happen in sequence No. 1 listen No.2 understand No. 3 act I think too many people in our business jump to the act part oh yeah we can do this we can do that I can help with this I can do that no no listen after you listen do you understand everybody's different every situation's different and after you understand then you propose a course of action but yes on all of those things and others as I said all along I'm always open to something interesting that we haven't done before but yes trying to help in as many ways as possible

[1:31:11] Suzie: sounds like excellent consulting to me and so glad to have Learned more about you and that our paths have crossed and that we're up here together in Big Canoe we'll be hanging out up here in Big Canoe hopefully soon for dinner with our families and meanwhile I look forward to sharing this with everyone and I just appreciate your time today you've been amazing

[1:31:30] Suzie: thank you again I appreciate it I hope you enjoyed this discussion as much as I did in a moment I will recap some of the highlights of the session so if you'd like a recap I'm gonna share some notes and ideas and some additional resources but now I wanna share my second most favorite part of the show which is our emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellent segment with the insightful and soulful Douglas White Douglas is the CEO of Soul Integrated Athletics and a former Major League pitching coach with 17 year career crossed some of the top Major League Baseball associations and organizations he's a four time minor league champion and has been a part of two World Series winning teams today his focus is helping athletes and all of us all leaders and and people walking around in the world integrate emotional well being with high performance so each month this year in 2025 Douglas has been bringing us practical and insightful wisdom about how to navigate emotions in a way that fuels us rather than derails our excellence so whether you're leading a team growing your career or simply trying to be more present in your everyday life Douglas reminds us of this core truth how we feel matters not just personally but professionally too because how we feel is feedback it's not something to ignore but something to learn from so we are in segment No. 9 and you're gonna hear ideas that will help you tune into what you're being not just what you're doing and you're gonna learn how to shift from judgment to curiosity and how to let go of limiting beliefs um we're also focused on aligning your inner world with the outcomes you wanna create at work and in life let's listen to Douglas White now as he helps us align with our excellence

[1:33:26] Douglas: hello everybody this is segment 9 of emotional well being 2.0 aligning with your excellence I am your host for a short period of time Douglas White so happy that you are here listening to the wake up Eiger podcast okay here we go segment 9 we're going into are you fully expressed and what do I mean by that okay in our life emotions energy are running through us around us all day every day and sometimes we're not as aware as we want to be or would like to be in regards to some of the negative emotions that could be swimming around inside of us that we're not fully expressing and what I mean by then fully expressing is we're not letting go of it not in the way of like I release it I drop it like luggage in a way of I let I it's coming in I feel it I do something about it and then I let it go through me and then it leaves my body let's say it exits my body so when I say are you fully expressed what I'm asking you is when negative emotions come in any type anger depression worry doubt discouragement not enoughness insecurity jealousy resentment anything that feels less than do you allow yourself the time to first admit or accept how you're feeling allow yourself to be okay with exactly how you're feeling because it doesn't matter it's just information like we've talked about earlier in these segments but now what do I want to do with that energy or a better way to say it what do I wanna do for that energy cause that energy is not necessarily yours in the way of you're not a bad person for feeling the way you're feeling but if you don't allow yourself to express it through you out of you it just hangs around and it shows up again and again and again so are you fully expressed now how would you express these emotions you'd simply ask the emotion hey such and such what would you like me to do what would you like to do is it crying is it screaming is it running is it writing is it painting is it dancing to music it could be a million different things but at least you took the time to ask and then do to express the emotions express the energies fully through you it's a very very very important question people are you fully expressed because a lot of people in our society they basically just right they just take all those emotions all that energy they bottle it up and then one day Bam breaks open in rage let's practice some of these expressions of energy expressions of emotions and let's see how we feel in the coming days and weeks hope you guys are doing so very well love ya bye

[1:37:03] Suzie: so think about this the next time negative emotions come up are you acknowledging them or ignoring them all segments for Douglas's information and his contact information and the episode that Douglas and I did together that's gotten a lot of positive feedback you might want to check it all out can find him and the all of the segments that he's been recording for us with for this part of the podcast at Priceless professional.com forward slash well being so now let me share a little bit of some thoughts from my discussion with Alden Ehara um wasn't that a powerful discussion I just enjoyed it so much I just love podcasting I love getting ready having time to connect with folks in this way so I hope you're leaving this episode inspired to rethink how you hire how you listen and how you lead Allan reminded us that interviews are a chance to connect not just evaluate and that success starts with being curious clear and kind he made those points over and over again in different ways so being curious tuning in and really wanting to know who is this person and will they excel in the role beyond just their technical experience how well do they fit again the episode was episode No. 1 32 the show notes are at Priceless professional.com forward slash 4 questions and I'm gonna do a quick refresh or review of what he shared on the four questions there are five rules 1 be nice 2 always explain where you're going 3 no tricks 4 talk less listen more 5 explain the next steps so I love having that framework and they're all essential and there are things that we talk about in the steps that we provide for a an interview of course the way Allan's expressing it is a little bit different and brings in some other elements one thing that we talk about a lot is talking less and listening more and we actually say that it's one of the three biggest mistakes is people talk too much and almost everybody does this and so we want the candidate to talk 75% of the time and the interviewer to talk 25% of the time later on when you get further into the interview process maybe you're talking more to talk more about the company but you really need to listen and have the candidate talk and his four questions really lend to that and you have to stay curious and take the risk to try them I wanna mention that at the for at the show notes there I've got a little 4 color sign that we ask people when we're doing interview training and trying to avoid those top mistakes and it says talk less listen more and it's kind of a pretty image and a big red sign there and I want you to print that out so go to the show notes at Priceless professional.com forward slash 4 questions to print off that sign and put it in your interview folder to remind you because without a reminder you're going to get very excited and love the candidate especially if it's somebody who's who appears to be a great candidate because of their resume that's one of the other biggest mistakes that we talk about out of the top three is lean too much on the background now background matters and it's a big part of the story but these other things that Allen's questions are getting to and the things that we do with the TriMetrix assessment allow you to understand more about who the person is and how they fit or do not fit what the job's gonna ask them to do every day so um so print off that sign that says talk less listen more as a reminder I also have a candidate worksheet on the Shownos page that shows you a little bit about the 9 basics that we recommend and then the actual 6 step process that we use the acronym talent and a lot of them we are so aligned with everything Allan is talking about so now I wanna review the four questions and as you remember during the podcast discussion that Allan talked about how you have to set these up you just don't ask the question you have to kind of set it up so that they understand why you're asking it he did a great job and I really suggest you get his book so you can kind of see how he talks about it and then the next thing I suggest is you trying this out so here are the four questions the first one tell me the most important thing you want me to know about you today of course you're gonna do all the lead in and the setup like he did and go back and listen to it and then maybe get his book and then second question is when you saw my posting in this job something about that posting got your attention what is it about this role that got your attention and made you interested No.3 what are your deal breakers I enjoyed that whole conversation that we had around that and No. 4 what do you do for fun when hanging out on your own free time so great questions he sets it up so wonderfully and I loved his analogy of this is not a tennis match I volley you volley you know so this is unusual a tennis match does not reveal culture match and it doesn't really tell you who the person really is you're not gonna learn that when you have a tennis match type of conversation where you're volleying back and forth volleying back and forth so you want to discover who they really are you know after the honeymoon phase wears off after they've been with you for 90 days you want to really discover who they are so we want the Tri Matrix is a big piece of it for us on the way we do things these four questions will help the competency behavioral based interview questions will help you know turnover is so expensive it's expensive on every level and they say that it's one and a/2 to eight times based salary of the individual and it's not just about the recruiting cost it's all the pain and suffering that happens along the way when someone doesn't work out teammates the leader clients customers a lot of impact from a bad hire so alright so check out our show notes at Priceless professional.com 4 slash 4 questions for some of the handouts that I mentioned and as well as a link to Allan's book I appreciated his career journey and when he shared I had no business there when he talked about how he landed in these very interesting positions that he didn't really have experience in but he just became so determined to figure it out and he realized that mindset is the key and his three behaviors that he shared for being a great leader I think are fantastic the first thing he said is good leaders have a low dose of ego as they can so they try to they still have enough ego to want to lead and be out front but they're also more curious and interested in others and so that's the next one No. 2 they also because of a lower ego listen a heck of a lot more than they talk so that is a great lesson no matter what your communication style is some people will say well I'm a high eye or I'm a high above the energy line D and I just talk you may talk to think but you can still be calm and be a great listener and I I am evidence of that I talk a lot but I have Learned that how much fun it is to listen and learn from others and stay curious so bAllance that out and and catch yourself when you're over talking if you're have that as a strength that could get overused and that every leader he also shared has or should have desires to have what I call a very close to them contrarian easier for somebody else to say hahaha he says a contrarian is a person who's never afraid to say to the leader what could be hopefully private never afraid to say things like I don't understand what you're talking about I don't understand where you're going with this I don't agree with what you're doing or you're full of crap he even said hahaha so we need somebody people around us who will question us and so you want to be a great leader with a low dose of ego who listens more than they talk and has smart enough to have somebody close to them who will challenge them and give insight and question what's happening you know they could be a truth teller you know could be a contrarian or a truth teller so top 3 takeaways ditch the resume ask these four questions instead most people fail at work for one reason and it's not what you think and your deal breakers might be the key to your best hire I really appreciate Allan's intrinsic approach with the four questions and the bottom line he shared is everything is about people and we talk a lot about that when we talk about axiology and Hartman and what Hartman always said from the axiology is one of the sciences in triometrics that the intrinsic is greater than the extrinsic is greater than the systemic so the intrinsic is people and showing that you care it's infinitely filled with love and appreciation and the extrinsic is the doing and the systemic is the thinking and we need to think and we need to do we need to be with people we want all three of those to be strong so we can make bAllanced decisions but the right hierarchy is intrinsic the people is having a higher priority and so everything that Allan is about and you see how successful it has made him in his life and what a rich life he has and what a rich career he's had some of the other advice he shared was to show respect to everyone and talked about that you know can you do that every day and keep that top of mind again he talked about listen listen listen and that loving self and then loving others is really important and the loving self was a key part of it and he talked a lot about his book and the spiritual elements of that and the biblical examples of that so it's I what I understand about loving self especially through the Hartman Value Profile you know it measures we have one mind we think in two worlds the worldview when we work in the world and then our self view how we see ourselves and in each one of those areas the future the strategy the doing and the people part and the self view part is about sense of self role awareness self direction so if you're familiar with any of the deeper dive training that we do you know what I see over and over again from that part of the assessment when the self view is lower people struggle more with their stress and their ability to give to others so the beauty of knowing how I have a lower sense of self or I'm not seeing my roles very clearly or I'm not hopeful for my future if I know those things I can improve those things and that is all a part of loving self and knowing your intrinsic infinite value and so loving ourselves and sometimes we learn to love ourselves more by loving others and then we can grow our sense of self there's lots of ways to grow sense of self but one way is to actually see it in the assessment and understand where we're really hard on ourselves and so you know the more that we're internally strong in our self view what we find is people are able to perform and be more resilient and uh manage themselves better and so when you can do that you can give more to others so we talk about that a lot and a lot of our different episodes you can look at our podcast episodes at Wake Up bigger workforce.com and look for TriMetrix University you can learn more about that so I'm gonna close with something Allan started with which was one of his early mentors which was a gentleman Foster G Magaw and he was the founder I had to look him up cause I wasn't familiar with him he was the founder of the American Hospital Supply Corporation and that corporation was the largest medical organization in the world at that time I'm probably not describing it exactly correct but it was a very well known philanthropist and one of the things that he talked about he talked about how he gave this advice to a group and he's got it written down in his office so I'm gonna leave with that because it is about giving to self and others and it's always give more than you get and leave more than you take as we close today Priceless professional.com forward slash 4 questions is where you can find the show notes and just remember how you lead matters lead with purpose reduce the drama and keep building your wake up eager life one step at a time and one choice at a time and if you found value today please be sure to follow like and share the wake up ego Workforce podcast with your team and on social media we'll see you on the next episode thanks for tuning in

[1:50:24] Outro: this episode of the Wake Up Eager Workforce podcast was brought to you by Priceless Professional Development thank you for tuning in if you enjoyed today's show head over to Priceless professional.com to gain access to more professional development resources