Be the Host, Not the Hero - Barry Moline on Teamwork

Barry Moline spent years as a CEO hiring for skills - until one bad hire made him switch to hiring for get-along ability first, and it turned his organization around. Barry, President of BJM Solutions, tells Jeremy Rivera what he learned about building teams, taking responsibility and leading people through AI.

Barry speaks on leadership, teamwork, influence and persuasion, and AI and the future of leadership. His one-sentence offer: "I broaden people's knowledge in leadership, teamwork, and influence to accelerate their leadership journey." His 2019 book, Connect! How to Quickly Collaborate for Success in Business and Life, changed how he thinks about teams. He gives away short guides on building teams and influence on his free resources page, and the full episode recap walks through each lesson.

In this episode

• Hire for get-along ability - Barry found that "the most skilled people were not always the best teammates." After one hire who was "a lovely, lovely person" but always wanted her way, he changed the rule: "We're no longer hiring for skills, we're hiring number one for get-along ability." His teams trained the skills instead. "We became a learning organization."
• Complementary skills - Barry's wife connects to emotions while he sees facts, so now he asks her, "What are you feeling here?" It's the same idea Rich Thomas of CHAOS Moto raised about hiring someone different from yourself.
• Be the host, not the hero - when the facilitator-hero leaves the room, the group stalls. "Better to be more like a host." Introduce people first: "When you focus on helping people get to know each other faster, then they'll get the work done."
• Responsibility is the leadership trait - Barry counts something like 53,000 leadership books on Amazon with one trait in common. "To be a leader, you have to step forward consistently and regularly." "Take the reins. And that doesn't mean do it yourself."
• Accountability - Barry ties it to a growth mindset and recalls Steve Jobs telling his leadership team, "I don't know what you do. That's why I hired you."
• Run an AI show-and-tell - Jeremy brings up Daniel Hebert of Oleno and how a team needs shared skills and SOPs to use AI together. Barry's fix: get cross-departmental teams together twice a month to show how they use it. "It's an elephant."
• Ask AI what stays human - update each job description with the employee, then ask your AI: "What tasks can AI help with? And what tasks should remain human?" For a group of industrial laundry operators, that meant safety courses in Spanish and machine manuals searchable from a phone.
• Interview your experts - Jeremy shares Jeremy Moser's advice from uSERP: feed AI real sales calls and interviews with the people who do the work.

Chapters

• (00:00) Meet Barry Moline of BJM Solutions
• (09:09) Hiring for skills vs. get-along ability
• (16:52) Connect!: be the host, not the hero
• (21:13) 53,000 leadership books, one common trait
• (27:41) Teams that use AI differently
• (34:01) Ask AI what stays human in each job
• (39:30) Interview your experts before you prompt
• (42:06) Persist past the no's

Notable quotes

"We're no longer hiring for skills, we're hiring number one for get-along ability." - Barry Moline

"When we know more about each other, we work better together." - Barry Moline

"You have to persist in everything that you do. And when you do, that's how you become successful." - Barry Moline

This episode is also supported by ClearLead Digital, property management marketing, and Blawgy, white label SEO content for agencies.

Sponsor disclosure: uSERP, Oleno, ClearLead Digital and Blawgy are paid sponsors of the Unscripted podcast network. Links to them are marked as sponsored.

Unscripted Small Business is hosted by Jeremy Rivera. More episodes at unscriptedsmallbusiness.com.