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Mike Sarraille is an Ex-Navy Seal. George Randle is a Ex- US Army Officer. Together they are on a mission to take on one of today’s most critical issues in the workplace – the assessment, selection, development – and deployment of Talent. Drawing on decades of experience in the special forces and working with elite organizations, they outline the problem in their new book “The Talent War”. Mike and George say that many organizations are already losing this war, and as a result they are not only losing their best people, but losing competitive advantage, market share, and ultimately are in danger of going out of business. But they also say there is a solution for those who are willing to listen.

In this Interview:

02:03 An Ex-Navy Seal’s opinion on the Capitol Riots
04:45 What does it take to become a Navy seal?”
08:03 “Their hiring process is the most robust behavioral interview in the world, that no company can replicate “
08:46 “The training is designed to make sure everyone fails”
08:53 “There’s so many things the business world misses out on that they could learn from the military”
10:00 “The enemy get to vote much like your competition…”
11:16 Why Mike and George wrote the Talent War?
12:40 “oh no HR is a revenue generator”
13:24 The greatest force in the world
14:28 “we’re pretty damn good”
15:03 “Enterprise is the basis of our American democracy”
15:39 “America that’s pretty damn awesome”
15:46 what’s a special about Special Operations Forces?
16:19 “We’ve gotten very good at selecting people based on their potential, not industry experience”
18:21 The core attribute needed by every position
18:55 Talent Profiles
19:19 The surprising difference between industry and Special Operations hiring
21:02 Why does industry default to industry experience to select high performers?
22:23 This is the kind of person you want to hire
22:50 The Talent Mindset
23:53 Quality is more important than quantity
24:11 Yes, but will it scale at an enterprise level? The surprising answer
25:24 The thing every business leader wants, but is also wildly problematic
27:41 Hiring advice for every company and organization
28:40 Are you a Talent Magnet? Here’s the litmus test
30:05 When you make your people a priority this is what happens
30:19 How to change culture to adopt a Talent Mindset
30:30 A case study – Netflix vs. Enron (i.e., Netflix culture deck)
31:51 Your Talent is judging your culture too
32:20 Counterintuitive advice if you take a bad job with a bad culture
33:02 if you have a toxic culture that lacks ethics…you reap what you sew
33:43 Example of failed companies…even Amazon isn’t safe
34:45 Succession planning (industry vs. the military approaches)
37:20 “The military is the greatest leadership training program there is”
37:29 “MBA programs do not produce leaders, they produce business practitioners”
38:25 Hire for character and train for skill
41:00 IQ is not necessarily a predictor of high performance
45:50 Murder Boards and useful hiring pro-tips
48:17 A surprising, underused, and valuable approaches to behavioral interviewing
49:11 The problems with traditional hiring
51:02 What’s the next action after reading “The Talent War”
52:01 The war that can’t be won
52:34 Mike’s secret to his success
53:58 Mike’s greatest lesson
54:22 “run towards the sounds of gun fire”
55:39 Mike’s one piece of advice to the world
56:45 Where to connect with Mike