In this cognitive episode, Angelo Valenti, Owner of The Company Psychologist, shares how he has been coaching business leaders who want to work on the life side of work/life balance for over 40 years, well before coaching started to take off in the early ’90s.
You will discover:
– the 3 steps you need to take before you interview another candidate
– the 3 attitudes you want in every employee (to achieve Predictable Success)
– why you’re probably making your life a lot harder than it really is
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. Someone who’s been doing this for a minute or two it is the one the only Angelo Valenti. He’s a consulting psychologist based in Nashville, Tennessee, and he obtained his Master’s and PhD in Psychology from the University of Georgia Go Dawgs. And he taught psychology at Oklahoma City University, and served as a consultant it with our HR international Ise conducted organizational studies and psychological assessments, and consulted with management in a variety of industries. He founded the company psychologist in 1982. And his company specializes in helping companies to select candidates who match their cultures, coaching leaders and aspiring leaders, and also assisting in assisting individuals in striving for their optimal selves. He’s also the author of the book, you’re making this way too hard, find your easy way to enjoy life, we’ll hear a little bit about what enjoy life is. It’s, it’s got a very distinct spelling. I’m excited to hear more about that. But a lot of intro for just a brilliant guest. Angelo, it’s so exciting to have you here. Welcome to the show. I kind of want to kick right through here. With with this question, what what would you say is some of the most important work that you’re doing right now with your clients?
Angelo Valenti
Well, some of the most important work I’m doing right now is helping them to bring the right people into their organization. Hiring has become very challenging. There are a lot of people looking for jobs. But it’s important for my clients to make sure that the people they bring into the organization, fit their culture, fit their goals fit their values, and can be a challenge because they get 1000s of resumes. And I think it’s important to hire more for attitude and personality, Inferred skills, because you can teach skills, and you’re not really sure that the skills that the individual obtained in earlier in their career or in school, are going to translate to your organization. So you can teach people to do things the way that you do it in your organization. But if a person doesn’t come in with the right attitude, and the right personality characteristics, you’re not going to fit well with the team, you know, or with their customers.
Scott Ritzheimer
There’s some folks out there listening to this, they’re like, I would love to have 1000s of resumes. Why is that a problem. But But tell us a little bit about what some of the challenges are? Because I’m actually seeing this across a number of organizations. And I’d love to hear what your experience has been. There’s a lot of stuff coming in. But the fit of those resume seems to be very, very low, maybe even an all time low, at least in my experience. How how do you help your clients to kind of filter out what that fit actually is?
Angelo Valenti
Well, that’s part of the reason that they contract with me is they’ve gone through their initial interview process, and I all I do each, my clients how to interview because most people are not very good at interviewing, so I try to make sure that the time that they spend interviewing their clients is interviewing their candidates is as effective as possible. But once you get beyond that, you have to dig fast what the resume says a resume is not a mini bio, a resume is a marketing document. That person is trying to present their best like a first date, they’re trying to present themselves in the best possible light. And you have to find ways to sift go past that and find out what is that person actually accomplished. What have they gone out of their interpersonal relationships been in previous organizations? Because often, what makes a person fail in an organization is not their technical skill. They’re not either they’re not a late, unable to relate to their customers. They have difficulty getting along with their teammates, their communication skills aren’t strong, maybe they have a tendency to be late or to be argumentative. There’s nothing wrong with challenging the status quo. But when you become perpetually argumentative, that can detract from what what the organization is trying to accomplish. So I tried to help companies go past the information that everybody else is getting about that person and really dig in what makes that person unique and why they might or might not be a good fit.
Scott Ritzheimer
And what does that look like? Is that a set of questions, is that some type of an assessment? What’s your kind of philosophy on how to get a clearer picture that candidate in front of you?
Angelo Valenti
Well, my approach is to use a combination of an interview that I’ll conduct with candidate, man, a set of assessments. And over time with my clients, I’ve benchmark those assessments so that we know what they hit certain benchmarks on certain personality characteristics or behavioral characteristics. Those people have a tendency to do better within that given organization, in the interview is designed to help me figure out what makes that person unique. Everybody has a unique set of experiences. And I want it all on specially what decisions they made along the way, why they chose to do the things that they did, what some of their successes were, what some of their failures were. And I’m just as interested in what they consider to be successes and failures as what the actual outcome was, that some people might achieve quite a bit in their career, when they still consider themselves a failure. And that’s really, that’s an attitude on their part. As opposed to reality.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true, you bring up a really interesting point, which again, I’ve been bumping into recently with several of my clients is we tend to under utilize data in the process are more more specifically data about the process. So he talked about benchmarking these assessments and looking at what causes success over time. What are some of the things in a hiring process that you’re looking at to say, hey, how effective is our hiring process? And how can we make it better?
Angelo Valenti
Well, the things that I think people should be looking for in the hiring process, because I remembered the importance of attitude. Resiliency, how are people able to bounce back from setbacks, disappointments, quote, unquote, failures, resiliency, you can learn to be more resilient. But many people reason they’re not further along in their career, or the reason they haven’t been successful in their career is that they give up too quickly. When something bad happens, they think something bad is always going to happen. So they did quit cried and resilient people are able to learn from a negative experience and say to themselves, how can I use this to help me get better, and they’re able to bounce back and they keep right on going? The other thing is accountability. I really want people who hold themselves personally accountable. Yeah. And if you realize that you have more control over your life than you think you do, and are you you’re willing to own both your successes and your failures, that’s really important. And so many people like to blame other people or blame circumstances or blame, where they were born, when they were born, when they were born to, to chart the course of their life when they have, if they hold themselves accountable for where they are, now they have a better chance of being successful in the future. And the third thing I look for, is does a person have a learning mindset. And that again, that’s an attitude. Some people are sponges for knowledge, they’re really eager to learn. And some people, the last book they read was The Last textbook they read when they were in college. Now, I don’t think that’s the way to sharpen the saw, as Steven Bobby said. So I think people with a learning mindset are going to be coachable. They’re going to be teachable, they want to learn, they want to get better. So that’s kind of what I encourage my clients to look for when they’re bringing people into the organization.
Scott Ritzheimer
So as a, as a company psychologist, how does the way you purchase work differ from that of a more traditional coach or consultant?
Angelo Valenti
Well as as a psychologist, I think I can get a little deeper sense of what a person has been through their experiences and how that’s led them to where they are. Most, not all, but most coaches and most consultants don’t have the background, the psychological background. And the way I was taught, who assessed people was through our HR International and they are a psychological consulting firm, and they’re an international firm and they had an approach that really resonated with me. It took me a long time to learn how to do it well. But just like anything else I’ve got, I think I’ve got my 10,000 hours in it now, after 40 years. So. So that’s how I think I’m a little bit different. It’s is in how I interview people. And how I looked at the data that comes from the B assessments that I use.
Scott Ritzheimer
You jumped reached straight to my next point, I think we’re on the same page here. And that is, you mentioned earlier that a lot of companies don’t hire very well, a lot of folks that are in the process, just don’t know how to do it. What are a couple tips, tricks, traits, practices, and any one of those or two or three things that folks should know before they walk into the next interview as an interviewer?
Angelo Valenti
Well, I think what they should do is a little background on look at why people in their organization have not worked. What are some of the reasons that I mean, because they hired those vegetables, people with high hopes they thought they were the right person for the job. So why didn’t those people work out. And you really have to take sometimes a look at yourself, and realize that may be their manager, or boss, their team leader, whatever term you want to use, grow them away, either by their, their leadership style, maybe they were abusive, maybe they’re autocratic, maybe they weren’t communicative. Maybe they just neglected that person. If a person doesn’t feel challenged, and appreciated, they’re not going to stick around. So what did what did we do as an organization to cause that person leave? We’ve organizations very seldom fire people, because they don’t know how to do their job. Yeah, that’s right. So I think so the organization, organization really needs to take a good look at itself. And when you’re interviewing individuals, you really want to look past, I have a degree in this or because you really don’t know what they actually did in law in their previous jobs, and he can say what they did. And one of the things I caution against is, don’t hire somebody with 20 years of experience, unless you know, whether that’s really 20 years of experience or whether it’s one, one year of experience 20 times and they grown in their job. Do they have this? What what did they do to enhance their value, both to the organization and to their customers? Because that’s really what counts is how valuable they are. To the people who have that bad organization’s doing business?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to shift gears a little bit here. Because the second part of your intro, and your book that you have out now is it’s got much more of a of an individual taste to it, right. It’s not necessarily written for big companies. It’s written for individuals like you and me. Let me let’s dive in a little further. First question I have in it is, who specifically did you write that book for? And what were you hoping that they would get out of it?
Angelo Valenti
I wrote that book. People being, are looking, judging themselves based on unrealistic expectations that are created by society, social media, different systems that they interact with. And they’ve kind of lost the joy that they had when they were little kids. Because I see some people who are my buys, whatever. Society’s metrics are very successful. I coach a lot of those people, but they’re not enjoying the fruits of their labor, they don’t feel happy. They don’t feel content, they don’t feel fulfilled. And I’m looking around and sail. What’s the point of doing everything that you’re doing if it doesn’t bring you joy and contentment and fulfillment? Go I wrote it for people who want to reach indle or rediscover the joy that they had at some point in their life. And that can be business people. I kind of got the idea from my coaching practice when people who are usually successful but obviously wanted to get better, which just weren’t enjoying themselves. If they had a bad quarter, or if they had a bad month, or if they did it hurt, something happened in the business. It defied them. It ruined Sometimes there are personal relationships that ruin their recreational activities. I think workaholics are some of the most unhappy people there are.
Scott Ritzheimer
So, in the title of the book, you have a very unique spelling for the words enjoy and life, we’ve kind of tucked them together and I have ended up a little bit. So tell us a little Why did you spell it that way? What’s the story behind it?
Angelo Valenti
The story behind that is that that is my license plate on my car, and I’ve had it on every car I’ve had since 1999, 1998, or 99. It’s n NJOYLFE. A, because I think that’s the most important thing every person should be doing is enjoying life. You only get one shot at this, this is a dress rehearsal. And if you’re not enjoying it, now, you’re not going to get the chance to enjoy it. Some other time. Nobody’s guaranteed tomorrow. So I decided that it would be a good idea for me to put that philosophy in a license plate. And 99.9% of the people who comment on my license plate, gonna say, Boy, that is a great license plate. I love it. And I tell that’s, that’s a philosophy that’s not licensed. In 1/10 of 1% of people say why do you have no joy life on your license plate? And I’m thinking first of all, why would anybody go around with no joy life on their license plate? And second of all, you really got to flip how you’re looking at things. That’s it’s that’s how you see my license plate. So.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah we’re an inkblot territory there now, you know, yes,
Angelo Valenti
we are we definitely we Oh, yeah. That needs to I need to refer that person to one of my clinical colleges?
Scott Ritzheimer
I think so i think so I think so. So we’ll make sure folks know how they can get a copy of the book here in just a moment. Before we get that though, there’s a question I like to ask all my guests. And it is this, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish just wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Angelo Valenti
Well, one thing I wish they knew is that they are the product of all of the decisions they’ve made to know. Man, you can look back and realize that you made some good decisions and some bad decisions. But you should also realize that going forward, the future you there’s going to be a product of all the decisions you make from now on. So that decision making process never ends. And the better decisions you make, the better outcomes you get.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Yeah, so folks are listening to this and we’ve we’ve really talked to kind of two groups and there’s probably some overlap in between them as well but they’re struggling to hire great people, right? They’re struggling to find people who fit and stay or there’s folks out there just saying like yeah, I am making this too hard. I want to enjoy my life more for either of those groups who want to learn more about you how can they find out more where can they get in contact?
Angelo Valenti
Well, they can the easiest way is to you want to book a discovery call just go to reachangelo.com And we can talk face to face or you can send me an email [email protected] I’m on LinkedIn Angelo Valenti, PhD. I’m on Facebook Angelo Valenti. I’m on Instagram Angelo Valenti author. And I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to know how we could work together and how I might be able to help you. My book’s available on Amazon, and also through my website angelovalenti.com.
Scott Ritzheimer
Great, great. Well, Angela, it’s just an honor and privilege having you on the show is so much wisdom in there for so many people. I really appreciate you coming and then sharing with us today and for those of you watching and listening you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this time as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Angelo Valenti
Angelo Valenti, a consulting psychologist based in Nashville, TN, obtained his MS and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia. He taught psychology at Oklahoma City University and served as a consultant with RHR International. He conducted organizational studies and psychological assessments and consulted with management in a variety of industries. He founded The Company Psychologist in 1982. His company specializes in helping companies select candidates who match their cultures, coaching leaders and aspiring leaders, and assisting individuals in striving for their optimal selves. He’s also the author of the book You’re Making This Way Too Hard: Find Your Easy Way to Njoylfe.
Want to learn more about Angelo Valenti’s work at The Company Psychologist? Check out his website at https://thecompanypsychologist.com/ or grab a copy of his book at https://angelovalenti.com/books/
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.
Guest requirements:
- As a coach, you should be experiencing some very good momentum AND be grossing $100K or more annually. We’ll be talking about how you help your clients achieve extraordinary results.
- Consider yourself as equally people and results-oriented in your mission.
- High-authority expert management and independent coaches who work with founder-led entrepreneurial organizations of 40 or more employees. We also encourage guests that are operations/strategy and culture consultants, advisors, and leadership coaches to be guests (no specialties in marketing, branding, sales, or IT, please
- Please, no new coaches (under 3 years), published authors, non-independent coaches, or non-business coaches/consultants.