IAM1177- Talent Acquisition Expert Helps Companies with Talent Evaluation
Podcast Interview with Michael Yinger
Michael Yinger has been in the talent acquisition space for almost 20 years, most recently as the Global Lead of Growth, Strategy, and Product Management for PeopleScout. His previous experience in the space includes Aon RPO as Global Delivery Leader, Randstad Sourceright as VP of Implementation and Technology, and as an independent consultant specializing in process and implementation for multiple clients. A well-tenured business executive, Mr. Yinger brings expertise in technology, business design, and strategy to The Sieve, as well as a passion for enhancing the experience of all the participants in the recruitment process. He and his family live in Charlotte, NC, where they take time to enjoy the outdoors and regional entertainment, taking advantage of the mild climate.
- CEO Hack: Monday.com for keeping track of things
- CEO Nugget: Build a network of people you can brainstorm with
- CEO Defined: Being responsible for the success of your people and the company
Website: https://resumesieve.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeyinger/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/68024033/admin/
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Transcription
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00:00 – Intro
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.
00:32 – Michael Yinger
The one thing that surprised me the most is the loneliness of the position. When you've been part of a team, you have people you can lean on, people you can share with, complain to brainstorm with. And sure, I have, you know, a team that I can work with, but it's not the same thing, right? Because, you know, the rule of thumb is that you never complain down, you only complain up. Well, for me to complain, I'm talking to the board of directors. You can't complain to the board of directors.
01:00 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Michael Yanger of the Civ. Michael, it's great to have you on the show.
01:08 – Michael Yinger
Gresh, happy to be here.
01:10 – Gresham Harkless
Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Michael so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Michael has been in the talent acquisition space for almost 20 years, most recently as a global lead of growth strategy and product management for PeopleScout. His previous experience in the space includes Aon RPO as the global delivery leader, Randstad Sourceright as VP of implementation and technology, and as an independent consultant specializing in the process and implementation for multiple clients.
As a tenured business executive, Mr. Jr. Brings experience in technology, business design, and strategy to the SIP, as well as a passion for enhancing the experience of all the participants in the recruitment process. He and his family live in Charlotte, North Atlanta, where they take time to enjoy the outdoors and regional entertainment, including advantage of the mild climate. Michael, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
02:04 – Michael Yinger
Ready to go, Gresh.
02:06 – Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. Hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:14 – Michael Yinger
Sure. So this was a sort of an evolution getting to the role that I'm in today, where I, as you were picking off the things that I've done I've worked my way around the organization and done just about everything I haven't been a finance lead I haven't been an HR lead, but in my current role, I'm doing all those things all at once. So I'm getting the hard experience. So for me, there was definitely a bit of a strategy to learn different parts of what it takes to manage an organization rather than to be sort of vertically specialized in one function. I really have taken the opportunities that they've come up with to do different things within the organization. And I think that's helped me get to this particular role that I'm in today.
03:00 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I almost feel like and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is just what I feel like when you have that approach, I think, especially because it's such a disruptive time where things are changing and a lot of times things aren't in siloed as you kind of mentioned, you need to have that experience I think to be able to think creatively and innovatively about different ideas and ways to approach problems.
03:21 – Michael Yinger
Of course, you're absolutely right with the times right now to be able to roll with the punches. You just don't know what is the market gonna be like where in the past, you could sort of project things, but now we're still discovering what are we gonna get next what is it gonna take to be successful and how can the organization grow and move in whatever direction is appropriate. So it's, I think, you know, having that flexibility has helped me doing what I'm doing.
I still have things I didn't know I didn't know, almost on a daily basis. I'll just be getting less frequent now. Early on, it was happening all the time, but it's a pretty common thing. You know, you just, discover something else. Well, I didn't know I didn't know that and now I do and so okay let's let's see how that integrates in with everything else you have to do.
04:11 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense I think there's a quote that says the more I learn the less I realize I know as you go through that process you start to realize that there's a whole world, there's so many different opportunities, and things that are kind of changing, disrupting, kind of feels like a snap of the finger at times. So I absolutely appreciate that. So I know we brought you to hear a little bit more about the SIPP. Could you take us through a little bit more on what you're doing and how you're serving the clients that you work with?
04:37 – Michael Yinger
Yeah, sure. We're focused on the productivity in the recruiting space. And we're today at the very front end of the funnel, we've got some things going on, which we're going to take further down the value chain. But today we're focused on the front end of the funnel, which is to say, how can you more effectively evaluate and rank the candidates you get in the form of resumes?
There are a lot of tools out there, a lot of tools that do matching, a lot of tools that find the right people. There aren't tools that take a look at those that you have in hand, those resumes that you have in hand and tell you what's the order that you maybe should be looking at them based on your criteria, allowing you to set the criteria. So that's where we're focused. We see that there's a real need for this, particularly in the smaller companies that don't have access to the big tools.
There are a lot of tools out there, and that's one of our challenges is there are a lot of tools out there. And there aren't people that are doing what we're doing today. And so what we're finding is we're finding some traction, particularly talking with other companies that are somewhere else in the value proposition and they like what we do and what we do enhances their offering. And then of course we turn around and look at the other way that then enhances our offering. So it's a really interesting time to be in the HR tech space as people are looking for tools to really make it easier to recruit.
When we first started, there were too many people, right? Because We're a completely virtual company. We incorporated it in February last year. Well, what was happening in February? We really constituted the company in May. That's when the board was put together and I came in and we brought in a chief technology officer. We've never met. We've always been virtual and, you know, at that boy, there were just, there were too many people out looking for work. Now there are not enough people looking for work.
And so the sort of the flip side of what you can do with our tools, you can look at people you've looked at in the past, go back and sort of mine that goal that you've got buried in your systems or that you've got buried in your organization. All too many companies don't have any idea of the breadth of skills that they have within their organization. People are hired for a certain job and maybe they're doing a good job with that job, but nobody knows what else it is that they can do. Well, we provide some tools that allow people to do that.
06:53 – Gresham Harkless
And would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself personally or the business or a combination of both, but isn't that ability to, you know, create a better mousetrap, so to speak, but that mousetrap sounds like it could fit in with other kind of ancillary services and what people are doing from a manual standpoint.
07:13 – Michael Yinger
Yeah, actually, I'm part of a mentoring group and they asked the same question, what's your secret sauce? So it's interesting that I can use the same answer twice. What I see and I think that what we're bringing to the market is I see the patterns that are created and it's probably because I've done so many different things. I can see how all the parts fit together. And so certainly that's what we're looking at here.
It's how all those parts fit together in maybe ways that are just, they haven't been done before. Or if you just, it's like the old Rubik's Cube. If you just turn it the other way, then suddenly it fits. And yeah, that's really something that, you know, a lot of it's intuition. And yeah, I rely on it. I do. I will admit, I rely on it to see my way through. Now, you have to check it out. You know, you got to make sure that this is right. You got to get some feedback and all that kind of thing, no question.
And it's, you know, if you can see the pattern and that's what we're talking about with our tool, what's the pattern, what are you looking for? You know, it's, I'll say to somebody, we'll go through a series of resumes and it won't be anybody that qualifies. Well, okay, so what are you looking for? You're looking for something that doesn't exist. You're looking for skills that are mutually exclusive in terms of education and whatnot.
Maybe if you made this preferred instead of required, all those kinds of things, but it's the what-if that's the hardest thing to do today with a lot of the tools, particularly when you then layer in some of the compliance rules about, you know, you have to keep track of the questions that you ask so that if somebody can't come back to you and say, well, look, your process eliminated me unfairly. And that's our approach is it's, you know, it's on the sort of on the up and up and it's inconsistent and it's repeatable. And, you know, let's make sure that we're evaluating people for what they can do, not for, you know, where they happen to live or went to school or something else.
09:07 – Gresham Harkless
I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Booker. I have it that you have. But What's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
09:17 – Michael Yinger
I thought about that question. I'm a big reader, but I read quickly. So there's not a particular book. So we are using an app that I went and found. I didn't know that this app existed. As you can imagine, with a startup, you got a handful of people and you got a bucket full of things that you're working on all at the same time. And so we tried, we use Google, Google Suite. So we tried to use that for keeping track of who was doing what didn't work. So we're using a tool called money.com.
No, I'm not paid by Monday.com. I just love their product. It's a great platform for keeping track of everything you're doing. And so just to give an example, I'm using it for tracking our applicants tracking for keeping track of people we're hiring. We're using it for expense reporting and payment. We're using it for hourly tracking. We're using it for product tracking. We initially used it for CRM. We've since added a purpose-built CRM, but we were originally using it for keeping track of all our customers.
It's just a really flexible tool. The primary use is keeping track of all the projects that we're working on. So that we all have visibility and we're all keeping the information in the same place. So that's, that's my right now. That's my go-to is this, this tool Monday, monday.com is the name of the tool the name of the company, and also their web address. So that was pretty good planning on their part.
10:41 – Gresham Harkless
Exactly, exactly. Branding is definitely everything, yes.
10:44 – Michael Yinger
They got it all in one package. That was pretty cool.
10:47 – Gresham Harkless
Exactly, exactly. And of course, starting the week off in the right place. So why not also add that in there too, and have that in your name? So I love that because I think so many times we juggle so many different things, but as you mentioned, like sometimes we're working in different time zones, people are working different hours, maybe they're going on vacation, there are just so many things are moving to be able to have like that transparency that one the place where a lot of those things can go, it allows you to spend more time doing what we're ultimately hoping to do this, which is driving the mission for not trying to remember what and where were the hires and what steps or what was the project that so-and-so was working on. We get that opportunity to have that all in one place so you can be more of your zone of genius.
11:24 – Michael Yinger
Exactly. Yep. That's a cool tool. And there's even a private function so I can keep track of making sure I'm doing all the things that my wife asked me to do.
11:32 – Gresham Harkless
There you go.
11:36 – Michael Yinger
I mean, hey, you know if it's not written down, I'm probably not going to work on it. So I write it all down.
11:43 – Gresham Harkless
Hey, that's the story of my life. I feel like I should have a t-shirt that says that because that's that's what I definitely live by. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say is something you might tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business.
11:58 – Michael Yinger
So The one thing that surprised me the most is the loneliness of the position. When you've been part of a team, you have people you can lean on, people you can share with, complain to brainstorm with. And sure, I have a team that I can work with, but it's not the same thing, right? Because the rule of thumb is that you never complain down, you only complain up. Well, for me to complain, I'm talking to the board of directors. You can't complain to the board of directors.
So what I've done is I've built a small group of like-situated founders who are dealing with issues that again, they don't have anybody to talk to. And so The nugget that comes out of that is building a network. If you're about to make this step, for me it was a surprise. I thought I was being invited to be on the board and they said, well, no, we'd like you to run the company. And I said, okay.
So it was a bit of a change. It was not exactly what I was planning, but it worked out. But build a network, make sure you've got people that you can talk to, people you can bounce ideas off of who are not gonna just give you the answer you wanna give that aren't politically motivated to do whatever because there were a few months, of course, I'd have leaned a lot of my spouse and that's been really helpful. But it is it can be a lonely seat. Even in a small company, I, you know, I can't imagine in a large company, it can be a very lonely seat if you don't have someone else that you can interact with.
13:37 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're open to having different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Michael, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:48 – Michael Yinger
Being a CEO means being responsible for the success of your people, and therefore the success of the company. A company is not going to succeed if the people aren't successful. And, you know, that carries a lot to me anyway, These are, you know, it's livelihood, it's career success, it's success of the business. And that's really the, I think, for me, the core of it. Because you can't do it all yourself.
14:19 – Gresham Harkless
Truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time as well. What I wanted to do was just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're in tune with.
14:33 – Michael Yinger
Okay, well getting ahold of me is pretty easy. My email today is from Michael at resume sieve.com resume just like it sounds sieve.com. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, easy to get a hold of. The thing, one more takeaway that I'll toss out there in addition to some of the other stuff that we've already talked about is that I have learned, I'll give you the analogy, it's about focus. This is something my chairman told me. He said you're driving a train and you're building the track at the same time.
Now the thing about the analogy that really is powerful is that once a train track is built, it's really hard to change. You know, some people talk about ships and driving ships, and I drove ships early in my career. So I know all about ships. Well, you can change the course of a ship, right? Well, once that train starts going, it's going down those tracks, and it's going to wherever those tracks are going.
And so it forces you not only to think about the driving that you're doing but also where you're going. That's what's what are you focused on. Because you can't go in, you know, 3 different directions at the same time, those tracks have to be together, they have to be 8 feet apart, it's whatever the key, you know, however far you want to carry it. So Focus, focus is important on whatever you're working on.
15:49 – Gresham Harkless
Nice, I definitely appreciate that. We will definitely have the links and information in the show notes, but I am sorry if I can't get ahold of you. I love that kind of analogy and kind of like what that represents as well to always think like looking at focus in unique ways is definitely one of the greatest things that you can do because I think when wherever we're looking at resources and how we're going to get to where we want to be, a lot of times the most successful organizations, those leaders are those people that are able to focus that are able to kind of build those tracks, understand where they want to be and put those tracks in place to kind of reverse engineer for lack of a better term. So I love that. I appreciate you bringing that up. Of course, appreciate your time. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of that.
16:27 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:00 - Intro
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.
00:32 - Michael Yinger
The one thing that surprised me the most is the loneliness of the position. When you've been part of a team, you have people you can lean on, people you can share with, complain to brainstorm with. And sure, I have, you know, a team that I can work with, but it's not the same thing, right? Because, you know, the rule of thumb is that you never complain down, you only complain up. Well, for me to complain, I'm talking to the board of directors. You can't complain to the board of directors.
01:00 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Michael Yanger of the Civ. Michael, it's great to have you on the show.
01:08 - Michael Yinger
Gresh, happy to be here.
01:10 - Gresham Harkless
Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Michael so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Michael has been in the talent acquisition space for almost 20 years, most recently as a global lead of growth strategy and product management for PeopleScout. His previous experience in the space includes Aon RPO as the global delivery leader, Randstad Sourceright as VP of implementation and technology, and as an independent consultant specializing in the process and implementation for multiple clients.
As a tenured business executive, Mr. Jr. Brings experience in technology, business design, and strategy to the SIP, as well as a passion for enhancing the experience of all the participants in the recruitment process. He and his family live in Charlotte, North Atlanta, where they take time to enjoy the outdoors and regional entertainment, including advantage of the mild climate. Michael, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
02:04 - Michael Yinger
Ready to go, Gresh.
02:06 - Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. Hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:14 - Michael Yinger
Sure. So this was a sort of an evolution getting to the role that I'm in today, where I, as you were picking off the things that I've done I've worked my way around the organization and done just about everything I haven't been a finance lead I haven't been an HR lead, but in my current role, I'm doing all those things all at once. So I'm getting the hard experience. So for me, there was definitely a bit of a strategy to learn different parts of what it takes to manage an organization rather than to be sort of vertically specialized in one function. I really have taken the opportunities that they've come up with to do different things within the organization. And I think that's helped me get to this particular role that I'm in today.
03:00 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I almost feel like and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is just what I feel like when you have that approach, I think, especially because it's such a disruptive time where things are changing and a lot of times things aren't in siloed as you kind of mentioned, you need to have that experience I think to be able to think creatively and innovatively about different ideas and ways to approach problems.
03:21 - Michael Yinger
Of course, you're absolutely right with the times right now to be able to roll with the punches. You just don't know what is the market gonna be like where in the past, you could sort of project things, but now we're still discovering what are we gonna get next what is it gonna take to be successful and how can the organization grow and move in whatever direction is appropriate. So it's, I think, you know, having that flexibility has helped me doing what I'm doing.
I still have things I didn't know I didn't know, almost on a daily basis. I'll just be getting less frequent now. Early on, it was happening all the time, but it's a pretty common thing. You know, you just, discover something else. Well, I didn't know I didn't know that and now I do and so okay let's let's see how that integrates in with everything else you have to do.
04:11 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that makes so much sense I think there's a quote that says the more I learn the less I realize I know as you go through that process you start to realize that there's a whole world, there's so many different opportunities, and things that are kind of changing, disrupting, kind of feels like a snap of the finger at times. So I absolutely appreciate that. So I know we brought you to hear a little bit more about the SIPP. Could you take us through a little bit more on what you're doing and how you're serving the clients that you work with?
04:37 - Michael Yinger
Yeah, sure. We're focused on the productivity in the recruiting space. And we're today at the very front end of the funnel, we've got some things going on, which we're going to take further down the value chain. But today we're focused on the front end of the funnel, which is to say, how can you more effectively evaluate and rank the candidates you get in the form of resumes?
There are a lot of tools out there, a lot of tools that do matching, a lot of tools that find the right people. There aren't tools that take a look at those that you have in hand, those resumes that you have in hand and tell you what's the order that you maybe should be looking at them based on your criteria, allowing you to set the criteria. So that's where we're focused. We see that there's a real need for this, particularly in the smaller companies that don't have access to the big tools.
There are a lot of tools out there, and that's one of our challenges is there are a lot of tools out there. And there aren't people that are doing what we're doing today. And so what we're finding is we're finding some traction, particularly talking with other companies that are somewhere else in the value proposition and they like what we do and what we do enhances their offering. And then of course we turn around and look at the other way that then enhances our offering. So it's a really interesting time to be in the HR tech space as people are looking for tools to really make it easier to recruit.
When we first started, there were too many people, right? Because We're a completely virtual company. We incorporated it in February last year. Well, what was happening in February? We really constituted the company in May. That's when the board was put together and I came in and we brought in a chief technology officer. We've never met. We've always been virtual and, you know, at that boy, there were just, there were too many people out looking for work. Now there are not enough people looking for work.
And so the sort of the flip side of what you can do with our tools, you can look at people you've looked at in the past, go back and sort of mine that goal that you've got buried in your systems or that you've got buried in your organization. All too many companies don't have any idea of the breadth of skills that they have within their organization. People are hired for a certain job and maybe they're doing a good job with that job, but nobody knows what else it is that they can do. Well, we provide some tools that allow people to do that.
06:53 - Gresham Harkless
And would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself personally or the business or a combination of both, but isn't that ability to, you know, create a better mousetrap, so to speak, but that mousetrap sounds like it could fit in with other kind of ancillary services and what people are doing from a manual standpoint.
07:13 - Michael Yinger
Yeah, actually, I'm part of a mentoring group and they asked the same question, what's your secret sauce? So it's interesting that I can use the same answer twice. What I see and I think that what we're bringing to the market is I see the patterns that are created and it's probably because I've done so many different things. I can see how all the parts fit together. And so certainly that's what we're looking at here.
It's how all those parts fit together in maybe ways that are just, they haven't been done before. Or if you just, it's like the old Rubik's Cube. If you just turn it the other way, then suddenly it fits. And yeah, that's really something that, you know, a lot of it's intuition. And yeah, I rely on it. I do. I will admit, I rely on it to see my way through. Now, you have to check it out. You know, you got to make sure that this is right. You got to get some feedback and all that kind of thing, no question.
And it's, you know, if you can see the pattern and that's what we're talking about with our tool, what's the pattern, what are you looking for? You know, it's, I'll say to somebody, we'll go through a series of resumes and it won't be anybody that qualifies. Well, okay, so what are you looking for? You're looking for something that doesn't exist. You're looking for skills that are mutually exclusive in terms of education and whatnot.
Maybe if you made this preferred instead of required, all those kinds of things, but it's the what-if that's the hardest thing to do today with a lot of the tools, particularly when you then layer in some of the compliance rules about, you know, you have to keep track of the questions that you ask so that if somebody can't come back to you and say, well, look, your process eliminated me unfairly. And that's our approach is it's, you know, it's on the sort of on the up and up and it's inconsistent and it's repeatable. And, you know, let's make sure that we're evaluating people for what they can do, not for, you know, where they happen to live or went to school or something else.
09:07 - Gresham Harkless
I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Booker. I have it that you have. But What's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
09:17 - Michael Yinger
I thought about that question. I'm a big reader, but I read quickly. So there's not a particular book. So we are using an app that I went and found. I didn't know that this app existed. As you can imagine, with a startup, you got a handful of people and you got a bucket full of things that you're working on all at the same time. And so we tried, we use Google, Google Suite. So we tried to use that for keeping track of who was doing what didn't work. So we're using a tool called money.com.
No, I'm not paid by Monday.com. I just love their product. It's a great platform for keeping track of everything you're doing. And so just to give an example, I'm using it for tracking our applicants tracking for keeping track of people we're hiring. We're using it for expense reporting and payment. We're using it for hourly tracking. We're using it for product tracking. We initially used it for CRM. We've since added a purpose-built CRM, but we were originally using it for keeping track of all our customers.
It's just a really flexible tool. The primary use is keeping track of all the projects that we're working on. So that we all have visibility and we're all keeping the information in the same place. So that's, that's my right now. That's my go-to is this, this tool Monday, monday.com is the name of the tool the name of the company, and also their web address. So that was pretty good planning on their part.
10:41 - Gresham Harkless
Exactly, exactly. Branding is definitely everything, yes.
10:44 - Michael Yinger
They got it all in one package. That was pretty cool.
10:47 - Gresham Harkless
Exactly, exactly. And of course, starting the week off in the right place. So why not also add that in there too, and have that in your name? So I love that because I think so many times we juggle so many different things, but as you mentioned, like sometimes we're working in different time zones, people are working different hours, maybe they're going on vacation, there are just so many things are moving to be able to have like that transparency that one the place where a lot of those things can go, it allows you to spend more time doing what we're ultimately hoping to do this, which is driving the mission for not trying to remember what and where were the hires and what steps or what was the project that so-and-so was working on. We get that opportunity to have that all in one place so you can be more of your zone of genius.
11:24 - Michael Yinger
Exactly. Yep. That's a cool tool. And there's even a private function so I can keep track of making sure I'm doing all the things that my wife asked me to do.
11:32 - Gresham Harkless
There you go.
11:36 - Michael Yinger
I mean, hey, you know if it's not written down, I'm probably not going to work on it. So I write it all down.
11:43 - Gresham Harkless
Hey, that's the story of my life. I feel like I should have a t-shirt that says that because that's that's what I definitely live by. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say is something you might tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business.
11:58 - Michael Yinger
So The one thing that surprised me the most is the loneliness of the position. When you've been part of a team, you have people you can lean on, people you can share with, complain to brainstorm with. And sure, I have a team that I can work with, but it's not the same thing, right? Because the rule of thumb is that you never complain down, you only complain up. Well, for me to complain, I'm talking to the board of directors. You can't complain to the board of directors.
So what I've done is I've built a small group of like-situated founders who are dealing with issues that again, they don't have anybody to talk to. And so The nugget that comes out of that is building a network. If you're about to make this step, for me it was a surprise. I thought I was being invited to be on the board and they said, well, no, we'd like you to run the company. And I said, okay.
So it was a bit of a change. It was not exactly what I was planning, but it worked out. But build a network, make sure you've got people that you can talk to, people you can bounce ideas off of who is not gonna just give you the answer you wanna give that aren't politically motivated to do whatever because there were a few months, of course, I'd have leaned a lot of my spouse and that's been really helpful. But it is it can be a lonely seat. Even in a small company, I, you know, I can't imagine in a large company, it can be a very lonely seat if you don't have someone else that you can interact with.
13:37 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're open to having different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Michael, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:48 - Michael Yinger
Being a CEO means being responsible for the success of your people, and therefore the success of the company. A company is not going to succeed if the people aren't successful. And, you know, that carries a lot to me anyway, These are, you know, it's livelihood, it's career success, it's success of the business. And that's really the, I think, for me, the core of it. Because you can't do it all yourself.
14:19 - Gresham Harkless
Truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time as well. What I wanted to do was just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're in tune with.
14:33 - Michael Yinger
Okay, well getting ahold of me is pretty easy. My email today is from Michael at resume sieve.com resume just like it sounds sieve.com. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, easy to get a hold of. The thing, one more takeaway that I'll toss out there in addition to some of the other stuff that we've already talked about is that I have learned, I'll give you the analogy, it's about focus. This is something my chairman told me. He said you're driving a train and you're building the track at the same time.
Now the thing about the analogy that really is powerful is that once a train track is built, it's really hard to change. You know, some people talk about ships and driving ships, and I drove ships early in my career. So I know all about ships. Well, you can change the course of a ship, right? Well, once that train starts going, it's going down those tracks, and it's going to wherever those tracks are going.
And so it forces you not only to think about the driving that you're doing but also where you're going. That's what's what are you focused on. Because you can't go in, you know, 3 different directions at the same time, those tracks have to be together, they have to be 8 feet apart, it's whatever the key, you know, however far you want to carry it. So Focus, focus is important on whatever you're working on.
15:49 - Gresham Harkless
Nice, I definitely appreciate that. We will definitely have the links and information in the show notes, but I am sorry if I can't get ahold of you. I love that kind of analogy and kind of like what that represents as well to always think like looking at focus in unique ways is definitely one of the greatest things that you can do because I think when wherever we're looking at resources and how we're going to get to where we want to be, a lot of times the most successful organizations, those leaders are those people that are able to focus that are able to kind of build those tracks, understand where they want to be and put those tracks in place to kind of reverse engineer for lack of a better term. So I love that. I appreciate you bringing that up. Of course, appreciate your time. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of that.
16:27 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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