Craig Picken – Recruiting Top Aerospace Execs – EP.249

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(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:02:41) – Craig’s career

(00:06:48) – What has changed the most in aviation recruiting over your career?

(00:08:13) – What are companies doing to attract top talent?

(00:15:43) – Are there any CEOs you admire?

(00:17:37) – Where do you see decisions being made faster?

(00:21:20) – How do you see smaller companies using their size as an advantage in recruiting?

(00:23:49) – How do companies retain culture and speed as they grow?

(00:26:35) – Merging cultures through M&A

(00:30:18) – Where are people entering the industry from?

(00:36:01) – What are companies doing to attract good technicians?

(00:37:51) – Advice for executive hiring

Alex Bridgeman: Craig, it’s good to see you and have you on the podcast. And by the time this comes out, we’ll be hanging out in Miami. So, I’m excited for that to all happened. But in the meantime, it’d be fun to chat all about executive recruiting in aviation. And it would also just be fun to hear about your background in aviation. We were talking about landing aircraft carriers with the Hawkeyes. So, I’d love to hear kind of that start of your aviation journey and like how that led to executive recruiting today. 

Craig Picken: Yeah. So look, I did eight years as a Naval flight officer. So I was actually the guy more in the back seat of the aircraft than the front seat. But I did that for eight years, two carrier tours, 325 traps in the USS Ranger. Then I went over to NATO for a couple of years, spent some time in Europe. And after about eight years in the Navy, I just said it was time to go do something new. I went in the Navy thinking it was going to be a career. But I got to a point where I’m like, yeah, it’s time to move on. So, then I went to, I transitioned from the Navy to Gulfstream aircraft and was really fortunate with Gulfstream and the sales and marketing department and went around the world with a couple of sales execs and did government special military programs as well. We did some really funky Gulfstream aircraft. We did the Air Force VC-25, not VC-25, VC-37, which is the VIP version of the Gulfstream that the Air Force flies around, C-37 aircraft. From there, I went to Bombardier. I spent three years with Bombardier on the sales side of the house with Flexjet. I had a good time there. So that’s kind of my aviation journey. In 2003, I left the industry for a little while, decided to go do something different, and had a great time doing something different, but ultimately the industry called me back in 2008. So, it was kind of an interesting time, and that’s when I started my business as it is now. 

Alex Bridgeman: And you’ve also been podcasting for longer than I have. I think by about six or seven months or so, you had me beat back in March 2018. I started Think Like an Owner in November 2018. So, you’ve got me by a little bit there. What made you start a podcast? 

Craig Picken: I was looking to do something. I was just kind of getting, I don’t want to say bored, but I wanted just something to make it more interesting, and I was talking to somebody and they said, why don’t you do a podcast and talk about industry. Or like everybody’s got a great story. I mean, you can talk to anybody in the world and just say, what’s your story, and it’s an interesting story. You just got to listen. So I’m at this week will be, I think, episode 251 being released. So, it’ll be a great one, with Mike Nasty Manazir, who was a two-star admiral and a guy I had the pleasure of flying with in the Navy back in the 90s. So a lot of fun. He talks topics on leadership. So he’s episode 251. I think episode 250 was George Dom, who was a former commanding officer of the Blue Angels, just came out with a book. And then we’ve got a lot of other, we’ve got some other good, we’ve got some really other good topics coming up in the near future. 

Alex Bridgeman: I love it. I think I’m almost to episode 250. I think I’m probably two, maybe three weeks away. But I’m closing in on it. 

Craig Picken: But most people I know, they can’t get past episode… hey, I’m going to do a podcast, and they haven’t gotten past episode 10, maybe 12. I just saw some guys, they’re suspending their podcast for whatever reason. I guess they’re getting some hate mail. But I’m like, hey, look, get up there and talk about it. Talk about the good, the bad, the ugly. And if people get offended by the ugly, the truth hurts sometimes. And you just got to go do what you got to do. So, I try to, I don’t make- I don’t make my podcast controversial, but I’m not afraid to ask a hard question, and there you go. So yeah, so congratulations to your 250 as well. 

Alex Bridgeman: Likewise to you. Yeah. It’s not every day you get to chat with a fellow podcaster in aviation, especially with 250 episodes. But what do you feel like- so maybe since the start of the podcast, what do you feel like has changed the most on the recruiting side of your business? What trends stick out to you? 

Craig Picken: All right, the one trend, the one trend that will never change is businesses are always looking for good people. And they desperately need the people, the top 10 or top 20% of the people in the world that do the vast majority of the work and get 80 to 90% of the results. That’s it. It’s this microcosm of really good people who get a monster amount of results. And that’s what people are always looking for. And that’s why they hire me. It’s who can we bring in who’s really going to knock this role, this job out of the park and do a great job for us. And it’s a challenge. Finding, hiring good people is, it’s hard. It’s a very- you talk to any business owner and the first thing they’ll talk about is hiring and leading people is hard. So, that’s the one trend that will never, ever, ever, ever, ever change is finding good people. 

Alex Bridgeman: And so, what do you feel like, so within that top 10, 20% of people within aviation, if you kind of cross that over to the company side, the top 10% of companies, what are they doing well or not well to attract that 10 to 20% of people to their companies? 

Craig Picken: Well, what I talk about is, look, I’ve spoken on this topic at Corporate Jet Investor, at NATA, and my theme there was, if you’re looking for good people all the time, as you should be, always looking for good people, think of yourself like a- look, some people say that I hate the sports analogies, but I’m going to use the sports analogies. If you’re always looking for the top players in the community to take your team to the next level, be the team that people want to work for. Set yourself up as the team that people are dying to work for. You think about who are the elite organizations in the world. You think about like, all right, the Navy SEALs. They don’t get paid a lot. It’s a hard job. It’s hard. But people are lining up out the door, down the street, around the corner to become one. What do they do? What’s the esprit de corps that they create that attracts a mindset of people that are this elite group, the special operators or elite groups within the military? So, what are you doing inside your company that will- what are you doing from a cultural perspective? It’s not just compensation, but it’s a little bit from a cultural perspective, from just putting your name out there in a PR perspective. I don’t think companies, big or small, pay enough attention to how they position themselves in the market to attract really, really good talent. 

Alex Bridgeman: Within that, what common mistakes do you see in terms of poor positioning or not telling the story properly or not explaining their mission or culture? Where do people get stuck? 

Craig Picken: It could be a bad website, just a bad website. And I see some of these older companies, small maybe, maybe the component MROs or MROs are just small manufacturing companies. And you go to their website, it’s 20 years old, and you don’t really know what they do, and maybe they got a picture of their old building, which really isn’t that good looking on the front. It’s like, that excites nobody. People are checking you out every day; customers, employees, people in the industry, suppliers, they’re checking you out. And I think the first thing is look at your website. How do you position yourself in the market? How do you brand yourself? The second thing is that you talk about building a culture. Are you building a culture of one that attracts really good people where you hire good folks and you let them do what you pay them to do? Or are you micromanaging them or burying them in a cubicle somewhere and sort of telling them to stay in their lane? I mean, it’s all these little things that individual, range from a big macro to an individual team leader, what are you doing? How are you positioning yourself to attract really, really good folks? 

Alex Bridgeman: What companies do you feel like are well positioned and have done this really well? 

Craig Picken: I’ll tell you some companies that are kind of surprising me a little bit. Weststar Aviation is doing a really good job putting their name out there to attract good people. They’re doing some neat things to position themselves in the market so that the talent is coming to them. John Cuomo at VSC, he’s on social media a lot. He’s talking about really good things that they’re doing there. Solairis Aviation and Clay Lacy Aviation are putting some good press and good PR out there, so that people are going, hey, how do we- NetJets, how do I get a job with NetJets? That’s a lot of the stuff that some of these companies are doing. They’re being present, they’re talking about their successes, there’s an energy to them. Flexjet is doing a really good job right now. There’s an energy to them that attracts people. They’re not just me-too players in the market. 

Alex Bridgeman: We talked about that with their CEO guests and one common theme is that the CEO has to be the leader of that story and the main voice and face of the company and that can drive the most value is having the top leadership forward in that storytelling. 

Craig Picken: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And when the CEO is up out there, I think Boeing’s new Kelly Ortberg, I think he’s going to be a great CEO for Boeing. And the reason I say that is this, is when he was at Rockwell Collins, I used to talk to hundreds of Rockwell Collins people. And the interesting thing about Collins at the time was Kelly was a senior executive there, and not one of them, nobody, ever said a cross word about Kelly. Everybody, no matter who you talked to, Kelly’s a good guy. He’s a great person. He comes down and he gets into the trenches with us. He gets into the trenches, just good person. I think now that the strike is over at Boeing or they just voted to end the strike, I’m starting to think that the bad news is becoming, is getting behind Boeing, and the blue skies are, pardon the pun, are starting to formulate. I think he’s going to be a really good guy. Who else from the cultural standpoint? I just see a lot of people that are really doing… There’s a guy in Florida, Abdol Moabery, GA Telesis, and during COVID, he used to take pictures of himself on like empty airplanes. He’s like, I’m going to go visit a customer. He’s wearing his mask. He’s like, I’m going to visit a customer. I always looked at him like, that’s pretty cool. Everybody else is chicken. Everybody else is hiding behind the excuse, nobody wants to see me anyway. There’s no meetings happening. Nobody wants to meet face to face. But yet here he is spending thousands of dollars on plane tickets to go see customers. I always thought that was a really good, I always thought that was a really good PR play that he’s out there in front, leading from the front. 

Alex Bridgeman: What other characteristics stand out to you when you think of other aviation CEOs you admire? 

Craig Picken: Oh my gosh, there’s a lot of aviation CEOs I admire. A lot of these small company folks, I just like them. FTAI, I like these guys. They’re smart, they move fast. Sam Hammoud and the crowd at FTAI, when I first started working with them, their stock was like seven bucks. Now, it’s a 100, I looked at it the other day, it’s like 140, give or take a dollar or two, it’s fluctuating around 140. Him, Stacy Cooper is up there. They move fast. They will make a decision in 30 minutes that some companies take months, weeks or months to make. Like a $3 million investment, okay, run the numbers, 30 minutes later, yeah, go do it. So, I like the fact that they move fast. That attracts people. They’re kind of fearless. Those are the people… I see Dave Lamb and the guys at Clay Lacy Aviation where they talk about their culture and they talk about the five things that are integral to their culture and what they’re trying to achieve and how their excellence in people every day is driving their business. And they’ve done a great job. They’ve become a real force in business aviation. So I like how they lead from the front. They’re not leading from the back, not hiding in their offices. They’re just out there every day. That’s what employees want to see. 

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, as an aspiring aviation CEO, the move fast piece definitely resonates. Where else do you see that? What decisions do you see are often able to be made maybe faster than a larger company could, like spending 30 minutes on a big decision? Where do you see those decisions made faster? 

Craig Picken: Why at Boeing, Lockheed, or some of these bigger companies for just a director level person, the biggest complaint you’ll hear from a director level person or even a VP is that the interview process took six to eight months. And I had to talk to 150 different people and yack, yack, yack, yack, yack. That’s a problem. Small companies can make a decision in a minute, or in a couple of days. You meet two or three, four people. It’s like the decision is made. You meet them on Monday. The decision is made by Wednesday. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Or some of these bigger companies, you hear about people that are going through this process, I know a guy at Boeing, it took him a year to get on board. Can you imagine going through an interview process for a year to get on board? I’m like, no, I wouldn’t even think about doing that. So, that’s the nimbleness of smaller companies. I call it the tugboat theory. Anybody who’s listened to me talk, they know I talk about tugboats. It started one day, I was down in Savannah, my daughter and I, my daughter was probably 12, 10 or 12. We went down to the river, and there was a big Costco container ship going, getting ready to head up the river, leaving port, and it was being escorted by two tugboats. I was looking at my daughter, I’m like, who’s got the harder job? The guy on the big ship, the captain of the big ship, or the guy who’s driving the tugboat? She’s like, I don’t know. The tugboat. And here’s why. Because on the big ship, it’s a harbor pilot. The captain of the ship doesn’t have control of his ship. He’s got a harbor pilot until he gets out of harbor. And then once he gets out of the harbor, he sets his autopilot to China or Japan or wherever he’s going. And he sits back and he just monitors the controls. And then when he gets near the next port, the next harbor pilot comes on board, and he brings them into port, and the tugboats put them in a berth, and the process starts all over again. So, you have a big thousand foot long, what, 100,000, 200,000 ton vessel with a captain. Versus a tugboat with a crew of four maybe, and they’re pushing ships in and out, taking ships in and out of port a dozen times a day. They’re navigating tides all day long. There’s a lot of decisions that need to be made at any given moment. And you think about the smaller ship, but there’s a lot going on. So that’s why I was talking about the people who have the big jobs at the big companies who are afraid to go to smaller companies. That’s why I’m like, hey, this is why you should look at smaller companies. If you really want to get down and dirty and learn how to really do business, then it’s all done in smaller companies. And that’s how that theory came about. 

Alex Bridgeman: I like that theory. How else do you see small companies using their size as an advantage when recruiting against larger competitors? 

Craig Picken: Look, it can be really good. But there’s a cultural thing that people need to understand. A lot of people will go run to the big companies because there’s a safety net. They feel like big companies are safer, more stable, no highs, no lows, and they could have a long career. Versus the smaller companies where there’s a lot going on. It could be very dramatic, a lot of highs, a lot of lows. We got to make the quarter, yack, yack, yack. And I think that a lot of big company people aren’t suited for little companies because they just, there’s too much uncertainty. There’s too much ambiguity. And look, some people just are not suited for a big amount of ambiguity of their lives. On the flip side, small company people don’t necessarily fit inside the big company. Because you get to the big company, it’s like stay in your lane. This is your job. Somebody else is there to do that job. You may have been doing five different jobs at your small company, and you get to a big company, and all of a sudden, it’s now stay in your lane. You’re like, whoa, I’m not- Decision making is slower, I’m not used to that. So, I think what I tell people is you’ve got to understand where your personality is really suited, what type of company is your personality really suited for. Small companies can attract really, really good people by simply saying your voice matters here, you will be in the decision-making process. Not only does your voice matter, your vote counts. We will listen to you. You will be in the thick of things every day. That’s how small companies can attract really, really good people. Because there’s a lot of people out there that really need, that crave that type of daily interaction. 

Alex Bridgeman: So, if you’re a CEO of a smaller company and you’re ambitious and trying to become a larger company over time, how do you retain some of that speed and ownership culture and fast pace as you get larger? Are there companies that you’ve seen do a good job of keeping that kind of culture as they grow? 

Craig Picken: Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen a lot of companies, the challenge you have with a lot of small companies is that, in today’s environment, there’s a lot of M&A activity going on. And it’s a little bit like tech. You’ve got these small companies that are nimble and they’re entrepreneurial, they’re nimble, they get in and out of stuff, they make decisions quickly, and they get to a certain size. And then for them to get to the next level, they either need more capital or there’s something that they need to do to get to the next level. A lot of times, that’s capital intensive. So a bigger company comes in and buys them. And then what happens? All the entrepreneurial spirit leaves because it becomes a process, the process of a bigger company. So, I know a lot of small companies are like, hey, look, we’re very happy. We’re very happy with where we’re at. We like our size. We like our place in the market. We’re good. We’ll just keep this… we’ll keep on this track. Eventually, the founder or the CEO or the shareholders will want to sell. And that may happen. But then you have the big company who’s got to come in and ultimately assimilate everybody. And then all of a sudden, now the culture’s changed, and you’ve got to figure that out. So, that’s the big… Look, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, they need their process. Lockheed Martin deals with, you got black programs, you’ve got classified programs, you’ve got tech programs, which are ITAR restricted. Lockheed Martin’s an incredibly well-run company with incredibly smart people, but they have to maintain a lot of controls over every division, every process, and every element of the business for a lot of different reasons. You’ve got a small company which makes widgets for Lockheed Martin, that’s not necessarily the case. They just kind of, they’re on a rapid growth path. They just want to do more business. Their constraints are a little bit different, a little bit maybe less, a little bit- their motivations are a little bit different. You have to understand what’s behind the culture of each company. 

Alex Bridgeman: What are some nuances in merging cultures through M&A in aviation? Are there any- anything specific to look out for and pay attention to in aerospace M&A? 

Craig Picken: I think it’s just listening to the people. It’s ultimately listening to the people. You’ve got M&A right now is talking to Meggitt and Parker. And Meggitt, Parker bought Meggitt, and now they’re trying to integrate. And they’ve got a couple people out there that are actively, that are just focused on the integration, just focused on matching processes. Well, now you have, whose process is right? Whose process is better? Well, that’s a subjective term. So, typically it becomes, all right, if Parker’s acquiring Meggitt, hey, all you Meggitt people, you’re going to come into the Parker process and we’re going to teach it to you. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t, but it’s the way that it’s going to be to run the business. West Star Aviation just acquired Air East, and Stephen Maiden is the CEO, Alan McReynolds is the COO, and those two actually did a really good job integrating. Or Jet East, not Air East, Jet East, I’m sorry. They’re doing a good job of integrating the two companies. And Stephen’s a great leader, kind person, good wholesome personality that people gravitate to. And Alan is just a good person, get it done guy with a great reputation. They’re working together to say, all right, this is what we need to do to get all these 22 facilities aligned. Let’s do it. It’s just a matter of basic blocking and tackling and convincing people, hey, this is the way it’s got to be because it’s got to be this way. We’re not two companies anymore. We are one, and we can’t have different processes at different facilities because that’s not the way businesses are built. 

Alex Bridgeman: You also talked about in your recent episode with the two of them, you talked about the West Star Academy, their training program. There’s a couple other companies I can think of who are in industries where recruiting is similarly challenging and they’ve created their own training and academy-type programs. Do you think that’s going to be more common in aviation as we go among some of the larger competitors in the space? 

Craig Picken: I think it’s got to be. I think it’s got to be because I think that the military is not really growing a lot of mechanics right now, or enough to, certainly not enough to satisfy the demand of industry. I think people want to know what they’re getting, like, hey, look, if you have a hand in working with a local technical college or community colleges, you’re supporting your communities. And you’re more involved in it, so you’re attracting, hey look, once again, you’re… I think a big part of corporate leadership is being involved in the local environment, from softball teams and kids leagues to, hey, we’re growing our own people, and you’ll have a job here. I think that says a lot. So I think that those kinds of programs are getting better. And if you invest in people and their future, they will be forever appreciative that you invested in them. 

Alex Bridgeman: Where do AMPs come from into the industry? What are the main entry points for those folks today? Are they mostly the colleges or is it-? You mentioned the military is kind of falling off a little bit. Where are these folks kind of coming in from? 

Craig Picken: Look, your junior folks are coming in from a lot of community colleges, a lot of tech colleges, tech schools, and they start out as maybe sheet metal workers or something like that, and they grow into AMP mechanics. Everybody’s struggling for them right now. So they’re in demand for sure. You’ve got a couple of MROs out there that are struggling just because of the fact that, hey, look, the price of mechanics has gone up. We’re in rural areas where it’s maybe more difficult to attract people, or we’re in parts of the country where there’s just not many of them around. So, we have to relevel them in. So, I think they’re just coming from a variety of different places, the University of Kansas, North Dakota, University of North Dakota. So, University, I’m sorry, Kansas State University has got a big aviation program now, which is ranging from mechanics to people who want to get MBAs in aviation management and everything in between, pilot school. University of North Dakota has got a big program. You see a lot of these programs starting to come out. You have your local community colleges around North Carolina, for instance. They’ve got their technical associate’s degrees. There you go. That’s where they’re all going to have to come from because they’re certainly not coming from the military. 

Alex Bridgeman: Why the fall off from the military? What’s causing that, do you think? 

Craig Picken: Military’s cut back. They’ve just, the aviation, they’ve cut back dramatically. You think about the number of airframes that are down. They’re not training as many pilots anymore, so the number of aircraft are down, and that’s it. And then the military’s doing all they can to hang on to their folks too. So, what used to be a pretty significant training ground for both pilots and mechanics is becoming less so just because of military budgets and the cutbacks. 

Alex Bridgeman: Darn, that’s a shame. Especially with Top Gun Maverick coming out, you would think that those two waves would be helpful and if the military took advantage of them, you’d have a nice inflow, perhaps, but too bad those didn’t align well. 

Craig Picken: Well, it’s interesting. On the pilot side of the house, it’s interesting. I was talking to a guy at the Naval Academy, and he was telling me that they put every mission… This goes back a couple of years, so it may have changed. I’ll put an asterisk around this comment. How’s that? But he was telling me that they put every midshipman through an aviation training program. They all got 10 or 20 hours, 25 hours maybe in a Cessna. And the goal was to determine the aptitude for aviation before they got to Pensacola, and if they started early, there’d be a reduction in washout rates because it’s very expensive. If a pilot or a flight officer washes out of flight training, it’s a very expensive mistake. So, I was talking to him, I said, but you guys are- why do you do the whole class? Why don’t you just do the top half where most of your aviators are coming from? It used to get very- it was very competitive to get aviation. He’s like, oh, no, no, no, you don’t understand. We’re drafting people into aviation from the Naval Academy. Like you might be dead last in your class and you’re getting drafted into aviation because the commitment is so long. So, it’s 10 years after wings. So it might take you two, three years to get wings. So, you’re a 22 year old midshipman graduated from the Naval Academy. You’re looking at 36 years old before you even have an option as to what to do next. It’s less for a- I use that 10 years after wings for a jet pilot. It’d be a little bit less for a helicopter pilot and a little bit less for a flight officer. But the commitments are still pretty big. It’s like, yeah, that’s an issue that we’re working beyond. So, it just shows you how the tides of society are changing, the thought process, people your age are changing a little bit. 

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, no kidding. It was my high school dream to be a fighter pilot. And I didn’t go that route. And every so often, I think about it. And so, hearing that it got maybe a little bit easier, like, oh, darn, that would have been a good time. 

Craig Picken: That’s a hard job. I got a lot of respect for that. I got a lot of respect for those people. It is a grind. It seems like it’s really, the movies can make it very sexy. But you’re in your fourth month of a carrier deployment and you’re tired. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of… I don’t know how to explain it. But the glamor somehow, the glamor fades sometime around month four. 

Alex Bridgeman: Oh man, that’s a shame. So, on the mechanic front then, what do you see companies doing to attract good technicians? Are there any strategies in the last couple years you’ve noticed more companies do to try to attract good mechanics? 

Craig Picken: Once again, it comes down to they’re- the face of the company, they’re putting out a good face to the company and money, but money only goes so far. I was talking to a fellow yesterday, a Jets MRO down in, Suresh, Jets MRO in Dallas. And he was saying, look, you can only do so much with money. Our mechanics are looking for quality of life. They don’t want to be on call. We fixed that. They’re no longer on call. We pay for all of their family health benefits. So, our health benefits cover them and their family and goes, it’s very expensive for us to do that, but that’s what they want. So, we’re trying to create an environment where, hey, look, this is a great place to work. That’s what more and more people are going to have to do. The days of American Airlines, you used to hear about the horror stories between management and labor in Tulsa at American. You’re like, man, how did things get so contentious? Well, those days got to be- you can’t have that kind of friction. Otherwise, if you have that friction, there’s too many opportunities for people to go somewhere else anymore. So, there’s got to be mutual, a lot of mutual respect and understanding that employee engagement is a big thing. 

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, absolutely. You’ve spent a lot of time interviewing top executives in aviation. Is there any advice to other CEOs you would give for things that they should look out for or watch or ask when they’re looking at candidates for a certain position? 

Craig Picken: Look, what do I look for when… what do I look for? I look for- it’s very subjective. The things I look for are reputation in the industry. Everybody has got reputation in the industry. I never look at- I never accept an unsolicited resume. I might write back, who do you know that I know? And you can talk around all this. People with good reputations, people with good track records. The people I like to talk to are the people who are like, hey, I’m really- I’m doing great. I love my job, I’m doing great. I’m kicking it. If I saw something that would take me to the next level, I want to hear about it. So I might be a director now. I want to be a VP. Or I may be a VP, I want to be a COO. The people who are always thinking about, hey, look. The people I shy away from are the ones who are like, hey, why were you in that job for a year and a half? Oh, well, I was there, and then this happened and this person and that person and I… well, it just didn’t work out. All right. Well, what about the next two? What about the next job you’re in for two years? Oh, well, it was good, and I was having fun, but… There’s always the but. It’s everything before it, what’s the word? Everything before the but is bullshit. There’s always the but. So, it’s… When you see people that, there’s always a reason for their leaving. If someone says, hey, I was at this company, I kicked it, we got sold, decided not to move on with the new company, moved on with somebody different, did great, we kicked it again, here’s my achievements, those are the people you’re looking for. The people you’re looking for are people who can tell you what their achievements were, who can clearly communicate what they’re looking for in a career, who could clearly communicate their value to an organization and what their values are that they expect from an organization, those are the people you want. The people you shy away from are the people who sort of have this frothy, I’m looking for a company where I can be me. They respect my values. And it’s like, well, wait a minute, fantasy land doesn’t exist. It’s a job. 80% of it is going to be great; there’s still 20% that’s going to suck. Can you get through the 20% and see the 80%? And that’s what it’s all about. So those are the people that I am seeking who are- that’s what I tell CEOs, go find the people who just want to do great things and give them a platform where they can do great things, and you’ll find good people. 

Alex Bridgeman: What have I not asked to you about recruiting and hiring that we should talk about? 

Craig Picken: Everybody has in their mind what they’re looking for. I’ll give you a great example. If I had a nickel for everybody who tells me they want a killer. We want a killer. They sit back and they think about, what do I need? I need a killer. Define that. Define what is killer. And I won’t- we’ll talk about- I know a lot of killers. I know killers that show up and they’re very unassuming, but they’re wickedly focused, and you’d never understand it by talking to them. They’re wildly focused. I mean, understand, I think it’s less about kind of the trait you’re looking for. Think about it more in terms of what do you really need this person to do? What does success look like if they do it? And then, sort of start with that in mind and then work back. All right, who do we need for this role? Instead of this generalization, people sitting around. I was laughing. I laugh because I sit back and I think about it. These people must just sit around a room and kick around like, we need a killer. We need a, whatever. No. Let’s talk about a process. What do you need done? Who’s the best person to do it? I’ll give you a great example. A guy I work out with every day. He’s a killer. He’s 30 pounds overweight. He drives a 22-year-old minivan that looks like it’s been around the world twice. He doesn’t really care about social, being social or being out there in the community or the very stupid things that people would say about- doesn’t wear thousand dollar suits. In fact, he shows up most days in shorts and flip-flops. He comes and plops his feet down on my desk behind me in shorts and flip-flops. But he’s a killer. And how do I know he’s a killer? He’s taken five companies public, had a very successful ride at GE. He’s taken five companies public. Private equity groups are calling him all the time looking for advice and a company that he just founded, started and recently sold for 10 figures. There you go. That’s a killer. But if you look at him and say he’s not the guy, you would be sorely mistaken. How’s that? So, that’s what I tell companies. I go, understand what you need done, and then let’s talk about it. Let’s not talk about some pie in the sky trait that you think will magically produce fairy dust and make things good for you.

Alex Bridgeman: I love that. Craig, that’s a great place to close. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for sharing your time. And I’m excited to bring you a free beer in Miami here pretty soon. 

Craig Picken: We’ll go drink Alistair’s beer. How’s that sound? 

Alex Bridgeman: Sounds beautiful. Sounds great. 

Craig Picken: Thanks, Alex, for having me on today.