Unknown Speaker  0:01  
Hey everyone. Welcome to the self awareness Journey podcast. I'm Melissa Albers. And I'm JJ Parker. This podcast is for seekers, seekers of happiness and joy seekers of a centered approach to success in life. Seekers of their true authentic selves. Get ready for some real talk on everything from anxiety, emotions and habits to love, compassion and forgiveness. We know you'll be challenged and enlightened by this conversation. We're so glad you're here. Let's dive in.

Unknown Speaker  0:34  
Well, Kurt, welcome to the self awareness podcast. I am here to introduce Kurt rakez, who is a partner at Sky water search firm here in Minneapolis. And Kurt and I are also friends. Go back aways? We do. Yeah. So welcome. Welcome to the podcast today. Thanks for being on. Thank you so much love what you guys are doing? Well, we kind of do to

Unknown Speaker  0:59  
why we that that comes across you guys are having fun sharing and messaging Well, yeah. Today more. So I'm pretty excited about this conversation. Yeah, because we're gonna talk about the great resignation. Right? Yeah, talk about how it is to have a job and be an employee and be unemployed, or in the time of COVID, when people have been really, really soul searching, right? Thinking about what is their place in the world, right? Yeah. And does their job and everything fit? What they really value? Mm hmm. Crazy time. It is a crazy time. What when Kurt and I were going back and forth just preparing for today. You know, I said, Boy, the great resignation is such a really interesting thing to talk about. But Kurt, you had a different perspective of it. And I I'd like to hear a little more about that. You said, I think we should call it something different. Yeah, I you know, I, it is the great resignation, a lot of people are leaving the workforce, a lot of people are evaluating what they want to do more than they probably ever have.

Unknown Speaker  2:07  
And I think a lot of the great resignation probably applies. And in the areas that we don't recruit as much in where I think there's a lot of it, if you're in that kind of our release, you know, you know role or your have two part time jobs, or I think there's a lot of options, there was a lot of funding to help those people kind of breathe and catch, catch their breath of it. And that probably is a great resignation, where a lot of those people literally just left and didn't really maybe didn't have a plan. And, and then there's a lot of people I'd say on the other half of that are who are, you know, maybe 10 years into their career. And I call it more like the great migration, I think that they were sitting there and thinking, hey, I'm leaving. And I actually kind of know what I don't want. But I also know what I do want. And, and I think those people there are people lot of people that are in that stage where they're actually trying to, they're, it's a little bit more calculated. And they really defined what they don't want and what they do want. And one example would real simple one would be is people working at home, all of a sudden, they're working at home, they're not getting in their car at six o'clock, they've got a family, they're trying to balance all these things out of sudden they come back to this or go to this environment where they're now being heavily in flexibility, and there's and they're productive. And they're thinking holy smokes, I just shaved three hours off of my day. And I'm more productive, and I can be a parent I can be whatever I need to be at home and balance out. I think that was a big factor. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. You know, what are some of the things like, one of the things in my coaching, I've had a lot of people or not a lot, but I would say a percentage of people who have never before, start asking me questions about like, you know, I, I just kind of burned out, you know, like, I've reached this, I've reached this level, but I'm, I'm fried and I'm just wondering if I should, if I should just leave my role. I don't really have another job. But I, you know, everybody's talking about how how easy that would be to, you know, get a different role. And maybe I should just give myself six months off and take a break, because so many people seem to be talking about that right now. Have you been hearing stuff like that? Yeah. And I think there's different stages of that, I think the person that literally wants to take a step back and not do anything, that's probably a little different. And then a lot of times I'll get people that don't really want to take the six months off.

Unknown Speaker  4:26  
But they're really not happy where they're at, and they're,

Unknown Speaker  4:30  
but unsuccessful. So I can think of three or four people that come to mind even now that are doing their job doing very well in something's changed, or there's now they're starting to think different. I get asked three or four times a year from you know, people like that, you know, I've been you know, I had one individual reach out to me and say, Hey, I I wanted to get your opinion. I've got some other people's opinion and it was the person was actually considering just leaving and then in pursuit of another one

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
and leadership, pretty tough to learn from top 10% in a company. Yeah. And I, my advice was I said, you can do what you want to do, I probably wouldn't do that. And I think that's, I think there's a few things. One is what you should do. First of all, if you think you're going to not be at a company, and transition out, you still owe your employer, the time and the effort. So I'm not saying you know, quit, you know, working at the company and get paid and go look for a job. But you know, you can do both their search firms out there that can help you identify opportunities, and you can work within the network. But I think one of the reasons I say don't do that is that things can change in your situation, that may change your even thought of leaving, or at least extend your time there. Also, I think from a leverage perspective, I just think it doesn't really help your cause. I think you can do both. And so because I think you lose a lot of leverage when you do that. So it's not that that's the right way. But that's how I look at it. Yeah, I see a lot of a lot of folks again, like the grass is greener on the other side, right? A lot of that, and especially, especially if you're kind of emotionally tired, and are a better place for a long time. And you start thinking, maybe it is better at that other at that other company. And almost every time it's not, no, I'd say it is. It isn't. It's an if they it is greener on the other side, you're gonna find that out anyways, through that process without having to leave your job. Yeah, but but I do believe that's a big misnomer. If you're with a really good company in a very specific role in your your company's reputable. Your customers are the same or what whoever you're servicing. It isn't in most cases, unless it's specific to one person from a leadership perspective wise, but I'd say that it is probably greener, about 10% of the time and the other 90% is probably not this more of wishful thinking, I think. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. The Great Migration, I like that. Like, is there anything else that you want to add to that before we switch gears? Because I want them? Okay, maybe just on the migration pieces, I think that just the differences. I think the

Unknown Speaker  7:08  
the message or the when you hear it on the news, when I hear the great resignation just sounds like everybody's quitting, and nobody's doing anything. And that's why I think the great migration is more applicable to a lot of those people, they are leaving, and they know what they're looking for, or at least they know what they don't want. And I think that's where the Great Migration where I watched it online is like a recording just sitting at home watching TV or something. And that, I don't think that's the case. I think there's maybe a segment of it, but that's where the migration part, they're just, they they're going in a different direction. Yeah, with just with that idea of the great migration, do you find that when we're talking about employees, maybe looking for a company that maybe is, you know, greener on the other side, right? But do you see

Unknown Speaker  7:52  
employees coming to you and saying, hey, I want to be I want a new job, but it has to be specifically like work from home flexible hours? Like, are they putting kind of these? What I'd say more like culture requirements on their new position, more than they used to in the past? 100%? More? Yeah, it's, um, we message, you know, give some perspective, leaden 2021, we filled 500 roles. So that means we probably worked on six or 700 different projects, which means we probably interacted with seven to 10 candidates per role. So we're talking to a lot of people, it's a supply and demand thing, right now, the demand is for talent. And it and it fluctuates. And so now, when you if you if you reach out to somebody, one is are being reached out to if they're really talented, they're reaching out, getting reached out by a lot of people. So even, you know, have a conversation that you're getting a great many times at criteria. And one of them might say the biggest criteria right now is this work from home? And, and that's, that's more unique and different now than ever only because everybody was forced, not everybody, but many were forced to go home. So now they have something they never had. Right? And and now they're like, Well, no, this is what I have. Or if they are thinking about leaving, they're leaving, because now their company is asking them to start coming back. Yeah. So and so yeah, criteria, and it's up again, supply demand, and then all the craziness that's going on. I mean, whether it's the political situation, whether it's downtown Minneapolis, you want to be down there. Now, everything's cyclical in so but yeah, there's a lot more demands on the candidate side. And that's just to have a conversation as an as a as a somebody who is working with a lot of employers. How do you manage that conversation with the employers hiring people? Do you suggest that they become more flexible about their culture? Or do you not get into that at all? You simply just oh, we do that? We do. So kind of through the process. You're you're recruiting on behalf of a company and you're trying to educate them to the marketplace, whether it's the economics, whether it's, you know, what their what they want to pay and what they really can

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Get in. So it's it's, our dialog gets pretty deep. You know, we're not just thinking resumes, right and in, that's one of the things that's coming up a lot, hey, by the way, hybrids coming into play more, you should really think about that, if you don't want to do that, and we'll tell them we're not, we won't tell them what to do. But we'll tell them the search the circumstances that will come out of their decision, if you want everyone to come to work every day, and you want talent, just know that 30% of those people aren't even going to look at the opportunity. So you just have a smaller window or a smaller grouping of people, we have that were given pretty updated Intel, the what's going on in the market. I mean, it is a market a massive thing. This is like the math, right? Like your talent pool just shrunk if you need everyone to come into the office every single day. Exactly. And so if you wanted to see five people, and compare, you might see one and you better move fast. And so that's the way we try to educate them. And it really is a market just like the stock market things ebb and flow and change. And right now it's a candidate driven market. Yeah, I want to I want to, I want to ask you something, and we didn't use the term BS meter.

Unknown Speaker  11:07  
But you know, we were kind of like, well, what's kind of interesting to talk about in this space? And I think one of the things that I was really curious about was like, how people show up for you like, you have been working with people just like me for decades, like you, and I'm sure like me, you can you kind of have a BS meter, right? Like, you can read people really, really well. And I actually was wondering, like, even in this conversation of the, from the employer perspective of making a role look a certain way, because they're trying to attack attract talent, are you finding employers trying to quietly hide certain ways that they still really believe but they don't want to show that? Or do you see people kind of playing that game a little bit? I think there's some employers that are trying to position that certain way. And then we call it out, because the reality is, is we we don't want to put candidates in front of them that are going to be misled, or are going to get hired, and 90 days later, are going to feel like they were not given the right information. And so we'll call that out. Yeah, I think there's, you know, and then sometimes what'll happen is, quite honestly, an employer well, and this is what gets people to leave to as an employer will make promises.

Unknown Speaker  12:21  
And then they'll change their mind. And whether it's compensation, whether it is the hours, and so we try to sniff that out. And then we try to, you know, prepare the candidate for it. And then we'll have situations it's not a lot, but try 5% of the time, something changed. That's the whole thing. Mike makes me believe, by the way that something can ask you about that. Tell me about that. Because why are people leaving their jobs? And you had some great feedback on that? Well, I'd say that, you know, pre pandemic, or even where we're at right now, you know, when people make a job change, something's happened in their life, or something has happened at the business. And it's usually a change. Not always, but you know, I don't think people just wake up one day and say, I need a change, but it's usually something's going on. And the change externally or within the organization there in the company was acquired, that they didn't get the promotion, the the new leader that they don't see gelling, you know, so those are the things that they don't wake up and decide, hey, I'm leaving tomorrow, because it worked out this way. But it's on their mind. Yeah, that's, that's what we call right. Yeah, builds. And that's that passive Candidate A lot of employers want. And then sometimes it can be personal, sometimes it can be, you know, tough situation at home. It could be your, the, your kids in the in the dual incomes and trying to manage all that. It can be the mom and dad that needs more time or the you know, the grandparent or whatever, but it's something the priorities are changing. And then the thought process is is is this manageable? And is there a different way to do that, I think is usually the driver. Some something's changing, and it's got them thinking they might have to do something different.

Unknown Speaker  14:05  
And it can be good to sometimes, you know, significant other.

Unknown Speaker  14:11  
Got a huge promotion. And, and, and the balance between two people working no longer makes sense so many times. It's good. It's not always bad. Right? Right, right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes there is that general where somebody is just kind of generally bored or unhappy for a really, really long time. And so even when they wake up and sit up in bed in the middle of the night and say, I got to get out of this job, it's still not a knee jerk reaction. It's been building for a long time, and they maybe just didn't admit it to themselves, or they didn't even actually have the awareness of how uncomfortable they were. So even in that situation, it's more of a long pole, right? Yep. And sometimes the change can happen without leaving the company. The change can be saying, well, I'm working five days a week and I can do this at home two days a week and I need to balance this out and we just have that happen here and and

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
controller, she's got two kids and, and she can do much of her work there. And it made total sense on both sides. We didn't want to lose her. Right. And we also wanted to, you know, she wanted that work life balance, and it didn't affect her job. And so sometimes you can, if you're in that situation, you can talk to people, and, and maybe everybody can say be happy or happier, and still get the same results. Yeah. So it's like just having really strong communication back and forth. And being willing to do that, even if it's an uncomfortable conversation, right? I think there are a lot of people are really, really afraid of what they think the truth is. Yeah. And they may not even know what the truth is.

Unknown Speaker  15:38  
You know, so they just avoid conversation for a really long time and tell themselves stories about what it will actually be like, Yeah, I had an employee that wanted this is very long time ago, shifts to a work at home model. And that was, you know, really new at the time. And she,

Unknown Speaker  15:56  
when she asked me, she came up and said, I've been thinking about this for two months. And I've been scared to ask you. And to me, I was like, Yeah, I don't care. Go ahead, like a non event on my side. She had built it up to such a huge thing. Yeah, that's awful. Do that's, that's so common. And we'll think about that, though. Yeah. So you, as a leader are very approachable, or you think you are? And your answer was very quick. What if you're the leader that isn't? Yeah, what if you're the leader that is intimidating? Or viewed as unapproachable? Yeah. Well, you may never get that conversation, and then that person leaves. And so you know, that's another thing from a leadership perspective is that, you know, understand that things change. And if you know, if you can still do the job, does it really matter? Now, some jobs do if you're in manufacturing, and you need to be?

Unknown Speaker  16:47  
Yeah, so that is so good. So that like, kind of leads me to this question I was thinking about as you're talking is, like, when you're talking about different leaders and having to sort of adjust and be willing to have conversations with employees? How important is it? Do you think that the people skill of the leader is as good as the expertise of the leader? Like how if you were to take those two things and balance them out from what employees feel safe with? And want? Do you have any feedback about that? Yeah, I'd probably, I'd say, maybe there's a little bit more wiggle room, and maybe what your product or your services, but I'd still would say, you know, if you're in a service business, we're in a service business.

Unknown Speaker  17:33  
It's all about people. It's all about process people and ethics, and things like that, but it's about the people. So if we don't if we're not viewed as approachable, or it's our way or the highway,

Unknown Speaker  17:47  
you're gonna lose people. Yeah. And you might lose people that you don't want. And I think so I would say that at this stage, and I have watches, you know, I'm one of the more senior partners and soon to, you know, not soon to be departing, but, you know, one of the first by sea as our leadership group, you know, evolves below us. Yeah, it's, you know, we're all, we're all human. Many of us have families, many of Yeah, so being approachable. And having those dialogues and do it for self preservation, do it for your benefit, quite honestly. Right exam. So yeah, I'd say it's really crucial. I, one of the things I always tried to do, I always in at all levels.

Unknown Speaker  18:26  
I tried to view it from someone else's perspective. I may not even in, in disagreements or in, in, in situations where we don't agree. But for me, I need perspective, it's healthy for me to have perspective. And I always try to see it through the lens of the other person, it's easier to process and understand that. And so I would say it's important and it's, it's becoming more and more important. Yeah. And you know, what that's like, almost, I and I couldn't agree with you more. And you are that way, I've just experienced many, many times, we've gotten to work on projects together, and you're very much that way. And I've always appreciated that about you. Because I tried to be like that, too. It's like you really can't, like even in negotiation, like I love negotiating, which is weird. Most people hate it. I love it. And my number one tenant in that is that both sides have to be happy. You know, you can't you cannot be abusive, or you cannot that's an extreme, but you cannot be controlling and like a dictator in in a two way partnership in any way, shape or form, even at the beginning of a negotiation, because that energy sticks with the person you know, just they completely feel that I think there's kind of a rub to like the herein lies the common rub, I think in promotions and succession planning for organizations, like especially if it's a highly analytical organization or a product or service that has a lot more technicalities, you end up having people that their expertise is also very much that way more analytical, more technical, and as a result, often they have less people skill, and not because they don't want to it's just not as much on that.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
their radar. So you get people that become highly skilled in their role. And all of a sudden a management job opens. And what happens? People say, oh, we'll just promote that guy or that woman into a leadership role, because they've been such a strong single contributor. And then that person has no skill because they've never thought about it or never been trained about how to be interacting with people. I mean, I just think that's a common thing. And right now even more, so that is so and there are certain people that are wired that way. Yeah, yeah. But I was just gonna say it. There isn't be it's not a it's not a

Unknown Speaker  20:36  
it's not a criticism of it. People are engineers. No, it's just the way they're wired. Yeah. And you're right. And so they're, they're really good at what they do. They're very technical. But also, they're those strengths that come about with, you know, people that maybe don't have the personal skills as much, they can sit and grind out eight hours in their cube, yeah, and to be extremely productive. And then you got people like me, who love to talk to people get distracted, real easy, and can talk to everybody, but I can't focus all the time on getting everything completed. So you're right. And that's a very common situation, you want to elevate people, but you also have to prepare them Yes. Or else in like in your world, you got to coach him. Yeah, improve in those areas, or to get better in those areas that they weren't really trained to do. Yeah, we started talking a little earlier about, you know, authenticity and being willing to be honest about what your own skill is, or willing to give feedback to others, in which their skill or their, you know, their strengths are not exactly what was originally thought of, you know, and I started saying, I asked you the question, you've been in this role for so long, when you have candidates come to you, or even employers who are trying to spend a certain thing. Tell me about your BS meter? How can you read through people? You know, they're trying to posture a certain way, like, what do you see? So I would say, it's really easy, quite honestly, for us at least doing it a long time. You when You said so long, so long?

Unknown Speaker  22:03  
No, I'm just kidding. I'm totally joking level of mastery in 12 minutes. No, I'm joking. But what I would say is the BS meters fairly easily, because the interviewing process, I think, is evolved. It's much more behavioral. So if you gave an example of,

Unknown Speaker  22:21  
you know, do you if you have if I was a sales role, sales leadership role in you, in a big component was to build out a sales group and hands on management style. You know, 15 years ago, you may say to a sales successful sales leader, hey, this is what the role is. And can you see yourself doing that? Sure. Yeah, I love that. Now, now, it's the Hey, this is what the role is, in, it's about developing salespeople, it's hands on, it's going to interface with the customer, you're going to, you're not going to sit in the office and look at spreadsheets, you're actually going to get your hands dirty, you're going to be out in the field, you're going to get in the car, whatever it may be. Can you give me examples of that?

Unknown Speaker  23:03  
And, and because the employer is gonna ask you that? Or if it's about can you tell, tell me about a situation where you went into a sales organization, and they were at x and y needed to get them to x?

Unknown Speaker  23:16  
You know, 15 years ago was can you do that? Would you do that? Would you like that? And it was almost like a yes or no response? Now? It's a yes. And then we're like, okay, great. Explain that to me.

Unknown Speaker  23:27  
And so it's real experiences. And sometimes people will be a little bit on it. But through the interview process,

Unknown Speaker  23:36  
as they get handed off to the client, they're going to clients going to dig in on that. And a lot of times the feedback will be is, you know, we talked about that. I just, we talked about it, and then that kind of went into another story. And that was it. And that's how you can snip a lot of that out real behavior, real examples, be able to articulate them? What happened? What was this? You know, what was the situation? What did you do? And what was the outcome? That kind of helps alleviate a lot of that. So if you're a candidate, it, you're going to potentially get called out on that. And if your employer, if you really follow that rule of thumb, you know, what was the situation? What was the action? And what what was the measurable result? Yeah, that helps kind of clear the air. Yeah. Kurt, let me ask you like, kind of like an extension of that. We talk a lot about core values. Melissa and I, we run, I run my company very strongly on the core values, and we try to, like hire and fire primarily on our core values. Do you work with employers and candidates to try to get like, have core values match between the two, you know, just as this kind of beyond like skill and experience? No, I think in our roles, and typically our roles are really mid to senior senior leadership roles so

Unknown Speaker  24:51  
that that person is going to have a pretty big influence on the business and then has to be aligned in that whether it's whether it's ethics, whether it's how you treat people

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Whether it's how you treat customers, it has to align. Because I, we do the same thing you can be, you know, you're gonna be a top producer in some companies, and you know, and many still and what you've been able to get away with for 15 years, so great, you can get away. And that happens.

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
I think, more and more, you know that, but also that person that gets away with that is always been in the same role. They don't ever get elevated. But yeah, you have to match them. Because it is it's you as a business owner. No, it's even. I mean, that's kind of the thing is we're talking about we're talking about is what other companies are doing. But we're also running businesses are trying to do the same thing we're trying to help our clients with. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This has been such an interesting conversation. Do you have other? JJ, did you have another question? I just like, like this topic, on this topic a little bit? Um, well, what I was wondering, is, a lot of people will sort of like, say they have a particular core values or, or when you ask them, like, you know, for instance, like one of our core values is continual improvement, right? And feel like, oh, no, no, I'm always trying to learn stuff, but kind of like what you said, like, when How do you really get down to like, do they truly feel that in their gut? Right? Does that really, truly? who they are? Are they just kind of faking it for a bit? And so my question to you is, like, can you kind of tell when candidates are faking some of this stuff? And not really, in? You know, not really being honest with themselves? With?

Unknown Speaker  26:39  
I think what they're doing is well, that's, that's the you dig into the details, right? And then, are you talking about it? Or are you articulating situations or examples of it? Everybody can talk about anything, right? Yeah. But if you dig into the details of it, so if you have core values, or if you have continuous improvement in your career, and it's important to you walk me through some examples where, you know, in your last role, or where you've been able to do that, is is a great way to cover that, you know,

Unknown Speaker  27:09  
kind of address it, it all comes down to getting into the specifics and not accepting yes or no as answers. Part of the answer. But yes, but explain. Uh huh. I you know, what I, what I like about this is that even with some of the way I was thinking about this topic earlier, even the way that you're describing this, it sort of flushes that out. So even if people are in a position of not being completely honest with themselves as they enter into the experiment of looking for a new job,

Unknown Speaker  27:36  
even if, by the time they go through a process such as yours, there's really no way to hide it is what it is like, it becomes very obvious how the person is even to themselves, I would imagine, because you can only make up a story for yourself so long. Totally agree. It's, there is really no hiding. It's I think, I think sometimes people think there's a bit of a mystique to interviewing and hiring.

Unknown Speaker  28:03  
In mid level and above, not really, I mean, because you were dig, it's a deep dive, this isn't a five minute conversation, and send a resume to a client, this is a pretty, you know, you reach out to a candidate, you're gonna have a front account you're gonna have, you're gonna, you're gonna talk to him probably three different times before they even go to the client.

Unknown Speaker  28:21  
And then then we're quality over quantity. So if I'm going to submit somebody to accompany, we're going to have pretty granular detail to why we're sending them and why we think they're a good fit. Yeah. And so I think there is sometimes a sense is like, Well, we really don't know, you do. I mean, I'll give one example, if you've had a candidate that has had five jobs in six years, there's real no mistake to that they make changes about every 13 months, you're not probably going to change them in your next career move because that's their past behavior is a pretty good indication of their future be. That's so good. That is really good. So this is the self awareness Journey podcast, right? So we have to talk about self awareness.

Unknown Speaker  29:05  
I'm self aware of that.

Unknown Speaker  29:09  
Well, Melissa, I talked about like, when people are in their authentic or actor self, right, and when, you know, when you're interacting with anybody, but especially when you're interacting with somebody who you want to like give a good impression to, you can easily kind of flip into that act herself and kind of like make yourself look like just a little bit smarter just a little bit, you know, calm or just like a little whatever you're trying to tune for we can we sometimes say that like our brain is our like PR agent, right? So we're constantly trying to like, put this on but

Unknown Speaker  29:50  
can you tell when people are kind of moving into that like that actor self where they're just putting on a little bit of a front and then when they're moving back to like, really their authentic

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Like, this is just who they are self?

Unknown Speaker  30:04  
You know, I would say, I totally agree the interview process is like, kind of dating or courting a little bit, you know. And so I would say a one way to kind of a lot of employers will do. I don't know if I'll answer it, I'll answer in a different way.

Unknown Speaker  30:18  
With our clients, maybe even internally, what we do is, you know, I think at the end of the process, there should be some, you know, especially if it's a strategic hire, some form of interaction in a non interviewing environment, wherever they let their guard down, helps them know you're meeting the person because I think we all do that, right? I was y'all do that this call at eight o'clock, right? I was thinking about this yesterday, I was preparing, I wasn't just going to come in, right. And then, but over time, you get a sense. So I think meeting people in a non work environment, meeting the peers, I think helps. One of the things we do is, when we hire is we pretty much say that if there's somebody we're really interested in this, it's for two reasons. One is they can talk to anybody they want in our organization.

Unknown Speaker  31:04  
Anybody go to the website, pick who you want to talk to, and you don't in you don't, we don't even need to know what you're talking about. But feel free to reach out to them. But a lot of times, what we'll do is for us internally, as we'll have some of our people meet with them, the individuals that we're looking at hiring to get their sense of gauge is does it fit our values? Is it fit our culture, hyper kind of a high performing culture that yes, things very ethical, but we're very there's there's not everybody's a type A in here. And but also they have to be ethical and do things. And so So there's ways to kind of decipher that because I don't I think in a formal environment, we all prepare to some degree. It's just natural. Yeah. Oh, that's such a good, that's such a good answer. Kurt, is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you want us to before we come to an end of our great conversation?

Unknown Speaker  31:56  
Well, maybe I'll just throw a comment. I guess, as somebody that's been doing this for 20 years.

Unknown Speaker  32:05  
That, I think probably most importantly, what I have learned, in my guess what I've become aware of, and clear is how important it is to be from leaders, to the people you hire to really being authentic of who you are, and treating people that way. And, and, and then when I'm, if I were to expand on it, I think the most important thing I've learned is, especially in based on what we do, when you're in a service business is how incredibly important

Unknown Speaker  32:37  
good people are to your organization. Right and to treat them and to really understand that that is, you know, you can be a technology company, you can be a manufacturing company, and you could have proprietary, you know, property that makes you unique and different than that's unique in our world. Ours is to people. And so I would say, you know,

Unknown Speaker  32:59  
as I, you know, at this stage of my life, I realized how incredibly important that is. And that that treat those people. And nobody should be treated different. But treat everybody really the way you want to be treated. That's right, and how simple it can be, quite honestly, you just treat everybody the way that you want DMT to be treated yourself, and that how many really good businesses run it because of the people. And the value of that as we talk about the great resignation, we talked about the migration, people are thinking about leaving more than they ever have. If you're in a if you own an organization, or if you're running, if you've got talented people, keep them. Talk to him. And keep them engaged. Yep. Right. Yep, I love that. And I would even say just a plus one, that there have been many times where I've gotten calls where people are very whipped up or very upset about something or they have an agenda, or whatever it is. And whenever I hit people like that, or feel that that energy is coming at me, I will always make sure that my energy is more of me than normal. So I will just be more of my authentic unplugged self. It's like, Yes, I see you like this, this will not help if I manage you in the same way that you're that you are in this conversation. So it's very easy to change the ship, just change the energy of that even if other people around you are that way as a leader and as an as a person working with others. It starts with you. I love that it's it's it's not hard to do no hard and be consistent. And that's that's if you're consistent, then it isn't hard to do because you're just you're treating every day and yeah, every conversation with people the same. It's really it's not that it's not complicated. Right, right. Well, I appreciate JJ, did you have anything else for all this was great. I wrote some debt. I wrote some notes down that I'm going to start using in my company

Unknown Speaker  34:58  
it's a it's a

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
Great topic and what you guys do is awesome.

Unknown Speaker  35:03  
To be a part of it, I really appreciate it, honestly. So thank you for including me in this. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Kurt.

Unknown Speaker  35:14  
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