P a s s i o n   f o r   G r o w t h

Augesir is driven by a number of core philosophies, helping to both differentiate and guide us in the marketplace.  These range from how to hire, to how to run a business, to how to treat people, how to do business, and beyond.

One of our philosophies is authenticity, so we've dedicated this space to sharing our philosophies with you as we discover them.  Let's start with how we fit in:

Organizations and Projects Always Consist of 2 Parts:

1. Systems – systems are all the logical parts of the organization, they create consistency and stability
2. People – people are the living, changing piece of the organization, they drive change

Every organization is a constant flow between change and stability.  Systems allow for growth, but it is organic, incremental, linear, people inject creativity and drive into an organization or project to create exponential growth, but they still require the stability.  The magic happens in the interaction between the two.  This is where we aim to be the best, in helping organizations to blend systems and people to achieve universally beneficial results.

The Business Side

Hiring the right people requires 3 things:

1. Knowing the specific result you are looking for
2. Recognizing that every organization will change and every person will change it – meaning you have to start by setting a desired change then hire with the intention of getting that change
3. Understanding that people are not positions and you don’t hire positions, you hire characters – meaning ten characters might have the same skill sets but they’ll each drive the organization in a slightly, or perhaps radically, different direction

Hiring someone for a position is putting a box around them.  They will bend and break it no matter what you do, the key is ensuring their character will break it in the direction you want to go.

On Determinants of Hiring:

There are 5 primary determinants to evaluate when hiring someone:

1. Skills/Strengths – aptitude, experience, training
2. Personality – High paced vs. Slow paced, Detail oriented vs. Big picture, Introvert vs. Extrovert, People oriented vs. Task oriented, etc.
3. Character – values, discipline, accountability, etc.
4. Passions/Objectives – what they enjoy and where they want to go
5. Weaknesses/Dislikes – things they aren’t good at, don’t believe in, or aren’t interested in doing

This comes from the understanding that getting to a certain place in a certain period of time requires certain strengths and/or skills.  Even if they can get there, they might not mesh well with the team (personality).  Character determines whether they’ll do it the way we are interested in doing it.  Passions & objectives determine whether they’ll want to do it and consequently be energized to do it.  Weaknesses and dislikes determines whether there will be any major pitfalls in the process.  It might be possible to circumvent these by supporting them through the team, but is a problem if it’s essential to the role.  The key is to create alignment in moving towards the objectives and remaining open to opportunities.

On The Fundamental Questions of Hiring:

Hiring the right person is really the process of effectively answering 3 questions:

1. Can they do it?
2. Will they do it?
3. Do we (the team) want to do it with them?

Skill, will, and culture/brand fit are the three keys but those questions can only be asked once you’ve determined what “it” is.

On Evaluating Candidates:

There are only 4 areas we can examine to reliably and consistently determine what to expect from someone we are hiring:

1. Past Results – while one’s past does not equal their future it is the best indication of future behaviours
2. Present Behaviours – ultimately we don’t care what people have done, we care what they are doing and what they will do, present behaviours give a window into patterns of change and present approach
3. Peer Review – we can’t observe the past but we can ask others who did
4. Personality Profiling

Of these 4 I’m the least supportive of the last because it assumes a standard you’re getting from seeing someone else who is successful and there are many roads to the same destination, one does not exclude others.

On Determining Who You're Looking For:

When determining what you’re looking or in a new hire the 3 most common mistakes, yet most important considerations are:

1. Determine results not tasks – most companies say “I want them to sell” rather than “I want them to achieve sales figures of $1.2 million within the first year and $2.1 million in the second”, anyone can sell, not anyone can achieve those results
2. Measure based on behaviours not characteristics – ultimately, behaviours drive results and define organizations, they are also measureable, while characteristics and feelings are not, so instead of saying “I want someone positive and enthusiastic”, it is more effective to say “I want someone who smiles a lot, speaks fast and with energy (relatively loud)”
3. Consider culture/brand – culture is the holy grail that drives organizations and most organizations give relatively little attention to how to shape it (through the specific, measurable behaviours of their people), every hiring decision should include a discussion of how they want to shape the organization’s culture and brand

By focusing on these three areas we hire the ideal candidates with much higher reliability (90+%), and drive the growth of the organization much further and faster with less effort.

On The 5 Areas of HR Success:

There are 5 basic areas of HR/Team:

1. Setting up for success – having clarity from the beginning in terms of systems, process, compensation, objectives, values, etc.
2. Effectively hiring the right people – ensuring the people you get are going to grow the company in the right direction
3. Training – ensuring the people you hire continue to grow to support them in growing the organization
4. Evaluating – knowing clearly what they are measured against, how they are doing, and what they might do better
5. Leadership & Management – connecting with the team and working with them to move towards a common goal together

Most organizations fail at step 1, they haven’t set their people and the organization up for success by defining, with clarity the shape and direction of the organization within a flexible framework for the team to operate.  If that weren’t bad enough, they struggle when they hire the wrong people and consume vast resources re-hiring & re-training over and over, or worse, trying to manage toxic influences within the organization.  From there most organizations don’t train their people to ensure success of the organization and the individual as one, let alone continuing to train and improve to adapt to changes and continually raise the standards.  This compounds when there are no clear, measurable standards against which to evaluate, or when there is no regular process of evaluation.  Finally, management fails to guide the team as a whole towards a unifying goal set out in the first step and the team fails to rally around a strong leader supporting them all in going where they haven’t been before and leading by example.

On the 4 Competitive Advantages:

I believe our clients in staffing are primarily concerned with 4 areas:

1. Speed – how quickly we can fill a position
2. Price – how inexpensively we can fill a position
3. Performance – how great the performance of our candidates are
4. Retention – how long our candidates stay with the company

If we achieve a 10% advantage over our competition in each of these areas and deliver 10% better results than a client could do themselves, they’ll choose us.

On Differentiating Ourselves from Tradition:

My philosophy and the philosophy I share with my clients is the traditional view of hiring and staffing is wrong!  We don’t hire based on the task, we hire based on the organization’s growth, don’t change unless it is an improvement.  Consequently, we differentiate ourselves from the beginning through the first stage of our process where we identify your long term goals and then construct an HR plan that aims to answer the who question that will get you there.

The Employee Side

On Job Retention: 

People essentially require three things to stay at a job long term:

1. Love what they do
2. Love the people they are doing it with
3. Make a good living at it (competitive with what they’d get elsewhere both in their own field and other fields they could participate in)

The combination of these three will not ensure long term retention, things happen, but it should ensure at least 90% long term retention.  Our focus is ensuring all 3 of these is true for every individual we place.

Candidates as Partners:

The candidates we place are not resources we move or products we sell, they are our partners in success.  We do our best to ensure they end up with a position they love, working with people they love, earning a great living at it, and in turn we’d like to earn their loyalty so they’ll work with us again and refer us to their friends and family.

On Coaching Candidates:

We don’t believe in coaching employees on how to write better resumes or how to perform better in interviews.  We preach authenticity.  We want to find a genuinely good fit and complete the hiring process as a result of that.  If there isn’t a good fit, I definitely don’t want an individual getting the job because they were good at interview techniques.  We’ll get to know you well, with an extensive process before we ever present you to an employer, and we want our relationships and credibility to be such that if we’ve gotten to know you and believe you’d be good for their company they’ll hire you on the merit of our recommendation, which is far stronger than any trick you might learn for an interview.

On The Significance of Money:

In the majority of cases money is a satisfier not a motivator, different people have different levels of satisfaction.

On The Magic of Expectations:

Being able to clearly lay out expectations in advance improves the quality of relationships, communication, and increases people’s desire to work with you.  We try to ensure our clients (both employees and employers) always lay out expectations very clearly in advance.

On Customer Service:

The experience the customer wants isn’t always congruent with the product he/she wants to buy.  Just because someone wants to save money on a disposable resource doesn’t mean he/she wants to be treated like one.  We aim for the highest level of customer service and then customize our product to suit their needs.

On The Importance of a Full Life:

We believe if you aren’t living a full life with success beyond simply your work, you aren’t truly successful.  Ultimately, your success is defined not only by your work, but your health, your relationships, your personal development, your contribution, your legacy, your story, and much, much more.

On Achieving Success:

Our philosophy is the best result comes when people work passionately and diversely together at their passions and strengths toward common and individual goals. 

Success lies in making a great living doing something you love and using that to make life a thrilling adventure with people you love, preferably both at once.  When people experience this freedom and success they are better able to transform their communities and the world through those passions and strengths.