Build a Place Where

You’d Want to Work

This is a story about how to recruit the best people to your company by making yours the best company.

One of my Vistage members is the president of a large company in the financial services sector. He’s a highly principled, innovative leader who’s always willing to look at new ideas. Above all, he’s fair and cares deeply about the company team members.

More than a year ago he took a chance by creating a new high-level position and bringing on a person from outside the company. He saw the new recruit’s skill set and imagined how it might fit his plan for growth. The first few months were rough. The new person was the prototypical “bull in a china shop” with rough edges and blunt comments about “the way things are done around here.” The president showed great patience and counseled his new recruit about the company’s cultures and values around teamwork, compassion and understanding for fellow team members.

And it has worked.

The new person changed his approach to working on the team. The others accepted his ideas. The first quarter of 2022 is setting records for growth, partly because of the ideas and work of the new person.

In a conversation recently with the president, the new person compared the culture in his former company (which was cut-throat and filled with backstabbing) to the new culture. He said, “I never thought that caring about your people could have such a positive effect.” It’s too easy to dismiss that as a “No duh” comment, but we all have worked in organizations where the managers do not care about their people.

Now here’s the kicker. This new guy loves the organization so much that this week he started to recruit another stellar performer from his former company. She has grown tired of that company’s oppressive and uncaring culture. She started a conversation with my Vistage member who thinks she could join his team sometime in the next year and make a dramatic impact.

Culture matters, folks. It matters in company performance and recruiting. People want to join an organization where they feel like they matter and the work matters. Watch this clip from Simon Sinek and hear how he describes workers from the Gen Z and millennial generation. Recruiting is not that complicated. Not everyone wants to sit at home on the couch and collect a government check, as some of the common wisdom goes. They do want to work for an organization that values them and does important work.

Are you creating that kind of organization?