Do you find it difficult to hire, recruit, develop and retain great people? 

Good news, you are not alone. It is increasingly more and more difficult to seemingly acquire and keep the best talent. There are many reasons why this is so difficult, but I’m going to share with you the one thing that can change your organization in regards to your talent crisis, regardless of the valid reasons.

This one thing is not a revolutionary idea, a magical concept or a some well-kept secret. In fact, its so obvious that its most often forgotten, overlooked or simply dismissed as too easy. But it’s not easy. It is the game-changer for the crisis you are facing in your organization.

The solution to finding, recruiting and hiring the best people: YOU.

Rule #1 – Unlike magnets like attracts like with people. Good people want to work with other good people. The person they want to work with (and ultimately for is you). If you are having a hard time keeping people that you once thought were great, there is a chance that it’s not actually them. It might actually be you. If you want to attract better people, become more attractive to the kind of people you want working in your organization. Too many leaders are too busy pointing out the flaws of those that work with them, when really are they are doing is projecting their shortfalls on those around them.

Rule #2 – Treat those you are recruiting as potentials not prospects. When you treat someone like a prospect all the excitement and attention you give them in the beginning is creating a false expectation of what reality will be like. When you recruit prospects, you are creating possibly false expectations both on your side and their side. When you treat them like potentials, you are always casting a vision to grow towards both for them and for you. Potentials means you are not going to invest too much emotional energy in the process. When you overly invest emotionally in the recruitment of someone you think can be a game-changer and then they don’t work out, it can create a warped-thought pattern in how you will view future potentials. Prospects exist in what they can do for you. Potentials exist for what you can do for them.

Rule #3 – Don’t measure the talent, mold the talent. The question you must be asking yourself, “Does this person have a teachable spirit?” I will go a long way out of my way to work with someone or recruit someone who has a teachable spirit. You mold people and measure results. People get results, people aren’t the results. Now, good people get good results. But, not always at first. So, be careful of using your mental measurement of people. Rather, determine, “Can this person imitate what I do and how I do it to at least the level I can or higher?” If the answer is yes, than by all means move forward. If the answer is no, move on.

Rule #4 – Don’t make it easy to get hired. Easy to get hired sets an expectation of low standards. You have one opportunity to set the high standard and that is in the interview, hiring and orientation process. In fact, through those stages the bar should get higher at each level of engagement. At first, this will be challenging. There will be times that you are so desperate you have to take what you can get. But, as soon as you get some breathing room, keep hiring. Part of the process is that you always hire, always interview and always recruit. Recruiting people should be a mission-critical objective for your organization. Contrary to some belief, there is healthy turn-over in an organization. Be selective. Be critical. Become a place that it is difficult to get a job. You might have to get creative, but it is worth it once you arrive there. Better people are attracted to the hard-to-get hired jobs. Losers take what they can get. Don’t let them get into your organization.

It’s up to Y-O-U.

 (c) 2016