Latest / The Action Catalyst / Update: William Vanderbloemen and Being the Unicorn (Faith, Executive, Jobs, Career)

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Update: William Vanderbloemen and Being the Unicorn (Faith, Executive, Jobs, Career) · The Action Catalyst

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  Host: We are joined once again by William Vanderbloemen, CEO
• 0:03
  and founder of the Vanderbloemen Search Group. William last
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  joined us on the program in 2018. But as you know, it's been
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  quite a five years since then. So what's changed for you,
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  William?
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  William Vanderbloemen: You know, I think in 2018, we were
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  releasing a book on culture, we've been studying what makes a
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  winning workplace culture, that books actually sold more copies
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  since the pandemic than before. Because now everybody's
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  wrestling with do we make people come to the office, if we're
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  going to make them come in and better be pretty cool, like,
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  what do we do? And I can't claim that I'm passionate enough to
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  know that that was where it was headed. But you know, I tend to
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  believe somebody else is in charge here. So maybe it was for
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  that. So that's been cool to see we actually revamped our culture
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  tool companies can take to see how they're doing against I
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  think it's 5000 companies now that have taken their teams
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  through it. So it's pretty cool. But then the pandemic hit, you
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  know, what I learned? I got a undergraduate degree in
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  philosophy and religion. You know what most people with
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  philosophy degree spent their career doing? Right? They spend
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  their career saying, Do you want fries with that? And then I've
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  got a seminary degree from Princeton, so that none of that
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  had how to read a p&l. Yeah. So lessons learned from the
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  pandemic. We are an executive search firm, we started out
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  helping churches find their pastor. And then we branched out
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  to schools, finding their headmaster, and then nonprofits,
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  and it's gone a couple of years. But during a pandemic, every one
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  of our clients was closed indefinitely. And this is the
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  business takeaway. If all of your clients close indefinitely,
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  it will change your p&l for the year. Now, some really cool
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  things happening before the pandemic, we decided that we
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  needed to decentralize, we're gonna open regional offices and
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  start to do more of a franchise model with a central office in
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  Houston. So we spent almost all of 2019 running a beta office in
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  Phoenix. And we had and we'd always use Zoom, but we had to
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  learn like we have to develop a okay, what would a policy look
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  like for remote work? Can we build backdrops so no matter
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  where people are, it's going to look like it's the same branded
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  experience, we had no idea what we were preparing for. But when
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  the pandemic hit as far as office operations, we were able
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  to just flip the switch, we already had all the pieces in
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  place, and we're I'm so thankful that is somebody else in charge.
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  But when the when the thing hit, I read a paper called leading
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  beyond the blizzard, and this is so good for any crisis
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  management, I'm never going to forget this. Entrepreneurs, you
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  guys need to decide is this pandemic? Is it going to be a
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  really bad blizzard? Where we got like, 10 snow days in a row?
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  Or is it a long winter? And we got a few months to shut down?
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  Or is it a mini ice age is last a year and a half like that. And
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  for every business, it'll be different. But you need to
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  decide need to decide now and commit to one of those paths,
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  and then live according to the path. I said, Let's treat it
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  like an ice age. Honestly, if I were really a good businessman,
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  I would have just shut the company down, send everybody
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  home and reopened it and start from scratch when the thing was
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  over, that would have been the smarter business decision.
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  Host: Do you still think that's true? Is that how you would
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  handle the next crisis?
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  William Vanderbloemen: I used to think having good leadership
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  vision was being able to see like five years down the road
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  like have a 10 year plan and what are we going to do? And I
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  think I'm not trying to go all religious on you. But there's a
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  there's a line in the Hebrew Scriptures. It says Your word is
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  a lamp unto my feet. So I used to think that meant like a Xenon
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  headlight that give you eyes to see 10 years stellar. It wasn't,
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  it was actually a little lantern, they were on their
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  shoes, and it gave them just enough light for the next step.
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  And one of the most important lessons I had learned as a
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  leader was we don't have to know what's happening in 10 years,
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  you do have to know slightly sooner than everybody else what
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  you're going to do so I'm focusing more on my ability to
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  be agile, with whatever comes.
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  Host: So that brings us to the new book out now called Be The
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  Unicorn: Data Driven Habits That Separate the Best Leaders From
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  the Rest. You drew from over 30,000 interviews for this to
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  identify 12 traits or soft skills that create standouts,
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  how do you define soft skills? And what put the wheels in
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  motion to write the book?
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  William Vanderbloemen: You ever meet somebody? And within like,
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  five minutes, you know they are a winner?
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  Host: I believe I'm doing it right now actually
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  William Vanderbloemen: That was good. I didn't see that. You got
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  me? Oh, yeah, no, but you know what I mean? I mean, maybe
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  you're at a social function, and there's just somebody that's
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  kind of life of the party. Everybody likes talking to
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  everybody who's around. Or maybe it's a quiet person you run into
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  at a dinner and they don't say much, but when they say
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  something, it's like, oh my gosh, say more. Or you're in a
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  job interview, and you're interviewing a candidate. You're
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  like, this one's a winner, man, that guy's got something going
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  on. Right. So my question was how In five, what are they doing
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  in five minutes? That makes me think that, like, what is that?
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  So we said, as a product of the pandemic? You know, we've done
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  30,000 interviews now we can probably we've tracked them all.
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  And what do everything else do? Except sir, we were helping
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  people get their PPP money and figure out how to do live stream
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  services and things. So why don't we sit down and say, Can
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  we figure out out of those. So the 30,000, face to face
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  interviews are the 30,000 interviews that represent the
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  best people we've ever interviewed to get that
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  interview, you have to pass through a bunch of hoops, and we
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  were able to distill down, okay, these are the 30,000. We said,
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  okay, of those 30,000, who were the best of the best. And that's
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  who got the job, who stayed in it, who got promoted, like,
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  who's really been when we found those people. And then we said,
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  Do they do anything in common, they have anything in common.
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  And they do, I expected it to be things like the best of the best
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  all had IQs of 150 or more, the best of the best all had the
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  privilege of going to Ivy League schools, the best of the best
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  came from money. So they didn't have to start with nothing, or,
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  or the best of the best are all six feet tall, with amazing
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  hair, and really shiny teeth. None of that none of that. None
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  of that, none of it. And if you're an entrepreneur, you
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  know, it's not that it's different. What we found was its
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  habits as the way they behaved with other humans, which led us
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  to talk about soft skills. That's what you do at a cocktail
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  party, or at a dinner reception, or in a job interview. It's how
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  you function with one another, and how you behave. And the
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  super cool thing about our research was that these 12
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  habits that they all exhibited, are teachable, that are very
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  uncommon among most of us, but incredibly common among the best
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  of the best.
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  Host: Does everybody have to have all 12?
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  William Vanderbloemen: No.
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  Host: Are there any particulars out of the 12 that seemed to pop
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  up more often?
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  William Vanderbloemen: That's such a good question. So we said
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  Alright, so the the 12, once we identified the 12, we hired some
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  psychologists and some data analytics people, and they built
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  a survey for us, we surveyed a quarter million people to see
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  where are normal medians and means for each of these, and
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  what are the combinations like and where are you strong, and
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  what is that like? So that was really cool. And then we hired
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  him again, to actually build a software tool, where an
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  individual can go through an inventory, kind of like the
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  Enneagram, or the disc or Briggs. And it comes down to it
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  shows you like strengths finders shows your three tops, it shows
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  you your three best and your three worst, we took that and
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  built it into a 360 tool. So like, if I'm working for you, I
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  take it then you take it about me. And then some for me takes
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  it about me. And then I can see where my blind spots are. Now
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  what I'm what I'm hopeful for, we've sent probably 10,000
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  people through the inventory. So far, once we get to 100,000 or
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  so, we're going to be able to say you know what's really good.
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  In an engineer, you know, what you really don't want like one
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  of them is the innovative, if you're hiring a Chief Compliance
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  Officer or an accountant, you don't want him. I live in
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  Houston, we did innovative accounting, they called it
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  Enron, he didn't want that. One of the 12 that I think is the
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  most rare is self awareness, self awareness. In fact, of the
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  quarter million people that took the survey, like 86% of them
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  ranked themselves as above average and self awareness. Now,
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  think about that for a second 86% of people are not above
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  average, like that math doesn't work. The point is we are
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  testing people on whether they're self aware, and they
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  showed us in their answer that they're not. And where does that
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  show up? It shows up. If you take an inventory like this, if
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  you learn your Enneagram if you learn your disc, you can start
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  to learn where you'll flourish in business, like, you know, the
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  terrible question that people ask anybody. So tell me about
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  yourself, you know, no, it's horrible. How do you answer that
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  you give your life story. If you're equipped with some self
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  awareness, you can say, well, you know, interviewing for your
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  company is in hockey stick growth. And I know you're, you
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  know, asking me to join marketing, but I'm guessing
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  nearly every job description at your company right now has other
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  duties as necessary. You know, my top skills. I'm an innovator,
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  I don't sit still very well look back at my job at this company
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  where we had to change things to 10 times look at this right to
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  build from scratch with no knowledge at all just had to
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  learn it and go. It's like my career speed and leading up to
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  working with you because the way you're wired and what you want
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  me to do, is exactly what I'm good at. That is a good answer
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  to that question. You know, 30,000 interviews we also asked
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  a question out of the 30,000 How many people in their interview
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  told us that they got fired from a job really low? On my season
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  came to a close? Well, they did this to me or there were budget
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  cuts or I was made redundant or bubbled up but not I screwed up
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  and I got fired. And honestly, if I were the manager of the old
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  me, I would have fired me to. Here's what I've learned since
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  then, like that is just Not in our ability. So that's when if
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  you find some of this self aware, like, honestly, we don't
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  have much that Socrates taught because it was all verbal. He
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  didn't write anything down. But the one teaching that everybody
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  says, yeah, no, he did say that. He said, know yourself, that is
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  the height of wisdom.
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  Host: Well, I can't let you go without touching the super
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  timely topic of AI. In short, William, do we need to be
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  afraid?
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  William Vanderbloemen: Oh, man, you know, that's human nature.
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  But when in business, have we not seen a cycle of we invent
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  something new, it replaces jobs, we figure out new jobs. I mean,
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  industrial revolution, internet, you name it, there's something
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  that creates efficiency that removes some old jobs. And then
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  we figure out new jobs. What I do think, will be as
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  interesting, I was in a small panel discussion at a small
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  business owner thing, where people pitching their ideas kind
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  of a shark tank sort of thing. And one of the sessions was on
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  AI, it was funny, this, this session was titled, What should
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  we title this session, like, as a guy, you know, and one of the
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  three panel people was Google's Chief of Staff, and who's in
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  charge of their whole AI, it was me and like, 50 coders sitting
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  in there, and they're all asking all this, like the back end and
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  the furniture to do to you most will be speaking Greek. I didn't
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  understand a word who said, you know, it was like, Well, you
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  haven't said anything to me. What what question you that I'm
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  like, I have a high school senior, what should I tell them
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  not to major in? They wouldn't answer as bluntly as I want to.
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  But this I'll tell you what to major in liberal arts, the
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  ability for humans to interact with humans is going to be at a
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  premium in the new era. And that's where I think the soft
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  skills, it's really, you know, of all the searches we've done.
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  So many times, the winner of a job is the one who gets along
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  well with others. And if you do any majority of the 12 of these
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  traits, you're gonna find that it's about people being with
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  people, you know, should we be afraid there's some jobs that
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  you know, I would not want to be a second year accountant right
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  now, where you just pour, like that's going away. You know,
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  those coders in that room were scared to death, coding will
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  probably go away. But there are other jobs, nursing. Oh, my
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  goodness. I mean, that's for 9000 Different reasons, a career
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  path that's going to grow, consulting at a very high end
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  where you can't it's not just data, but like, how do I make
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  sense of that? I don't know if I'm afraid. I guess the people
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  that were living at the front end of the Renaissance were
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  probably afraid to but what a cool that would have been to
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  live, right?
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  Host: Where can people find the book, as well as the software
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  tool you mentioned?
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  William Vanderbloemen: Go to the unicorn book.com has got
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  everything in one place.
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  Host: William, thank you for taking the time to rejoin us
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  today. And let's not make it another five years before the
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  next.
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  William Vanderbloemen: That's right. And let's certainly not
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  have another pandemic