Summary:

We’ve all heard “trust your gut” but what happens when you don’t? Joe Wilmoth shares the story of a rushed hiring decision that backfired big time. From cutting corners to ignoring red flags, he breaks down the price of sidelining your instincts and how that painful moment shaped the way he coaches leaders today.

Chapters:

00:00 – When Gut Instincts Go Quiet

03:00 – The Hire That Haunted

05:30 – Internal Referral: Shortcut or Trap?

08:00 – Process? What Process?

12:00 – Red Flags and Rushed Calls

17:00 – How This One Mistake Rippled

21:00 – The Cost of Not Listening to Yourself

24:00 – Building the Gut Muscle for Future Decisions

28:00 – Coaching the Next Generation of Leaders

30:00 – Final Framework: Pause, Check, Align

Host Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Guest Joe Wilmoth: linkedin.com/in/joe-wilmoth

Executive Producer Jim Kanichirayil: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Music Credit: "Lost in Dreams" by Kulakovka

And so when you ignore those patterns, you're essentially silencing the best parts of your hard-earned wisdom. So the lesson here is trust isn't just about believing in others. It starts with believing yourself and sticking to your instinct that you know best.

That's what we're gonna look at in this conversation. Today's guest is Joe Wilmoth. And early in his career, he was confronted with a situation where he had to hire and he had to hire quickly, and he thought he had the hiring decision in the bag because there was an internal referral that he was given, and it seemed like it would be a no-brainer in terms of a hiring decision.

So in a rush to clear that office plate corners were cut. Process steps were ignored, and even red flags that he saw in the moment were pushed to the back and he overrode his gut and made the decision and guess what happened? It didn't work out that great. So today's conversation, we'll dig into how and why that happened and what he learned from that going forward that helped shape him into the leader and coach that he is today.

He champions high impact initiatives that foster continuous professional growth, organizational excellence, and a culture of coaching across all leadership tiers. Some leaders measure success in numbers. Joe measures it in the people whose careers he's helped transform. Joe's built award-winning training programs that's helped develop leaders, strengthen teams, and help shape thriving cultures. His career highlights include launching successful leadership development frameworks and guiding organizations through pivotal growth and transformation. And we are super excited to have Joe share his story today on Transformation Unfiltered joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Wilmoth: Hello, Jim. Welcome. Thank you. It's very great to be here.

So tell us about that.

Joe Wilmoth: Thank you, Jim. I'm thrilled to share with this experience. As leaders, we silence our instincts, right? And I want the audience to think about the last time that you overrode your gut, your instincts, your core beliefs, and did not listen to yourself, your spirit, because we all have tenure, we all have experience.

So what might have happened if you had trusted your gut? And the experience I want to share today is something that took place many years ago in my career. I was a young ti less tenured leader at that moment and I had a big team of about 10 and things were rushing. And if that sounds familiar to you, we don't have a lot of time.

Dr. Jim: let's get right into it. And you talked about hiring as a former recruiter, and I guess you never get the talent acquisition recruiting hat off. This is gonna be really interesting for me. When you talk about hiring mistakes. Was this a mistake of process, a mistake of judgment? Did, was there a disagreement within the panel that was interviewing that you overrode give us the juice.

Joe Wilmoth: Absolutely and a really a little bit of all of the above, time is not on our side, right? It's, we don't have enough of it. And when business priorities are front of mind it takes this priority that we often. Forget what we know. Forget what our core tells us. So here's the situation.

I had my hesitation, but I knew that the business priorities were tight in the long run. It wasn't the best hire, and instead of listening to my gut and to all of these potential red flags, I went with this hire. I didn't really do a lot of reference checks. I didn't do a lot of background. It just felt.

Like it was the right deal to get going and boy did I make the wrong mistake. And so it's a lesson that hiring too quickly in this sense and not listening to your gut can really have lasting effects because the trickle effect of this was, it impacted the team, it impacted management. My time was now spent on this individual versus the other members of the team.

And there were lasting impacts within our division.

Joe Wilmoth: Actually this was within the organization. It was someone in a different area, and so there was also a little bit of pressure of an internal referral. There was some people that. Had familiarity with this person and I just thought, okay, this is an easy one. We can pull from internal, it's gonna be a perfect fit and there's a lot of familiarity here and we'll just keep moving.

And boy was that not the case.

So there's a lot of good things from an organization perspective and morale perspective that happened when you. Promote somebody from within,. So let's talk a little bit about how and why this move went sideways. You moved too fast. Tell us about what moving too fast looked like.

Joe Wilmoth: So moving too fast in this particular situation was, not, again, not listening to my gut and. If you are a leader out there that has hiring experience, you probably know there's a process in place and you take your time with hiring. And hiring is one of the most important parts of a leader's job is hiring the right people in the right fit for your team and for the role.

Dr. Jim: When we're talking about being 15, 16 years earlier in your career, you already mentioned several times there was a high velocity within the organization, a lot of business requirements and pressure to produce that's happening. So as an early manager, give us a little bit more insight into all the different things that are pushing on you to make this decision and how that led you the wrong way.

Joe Wilmoth: Yeah, Jim, as leaders we often have this external pressure. That overpowers some of our internal strengths or signals, right? So that might be deadlines resource gaps, high stakes expectations. And we want to perform well, we want to not disappoint those that hired us and put us in that leadership position.

And many leaders are driven by this deep sense of responsibility to their team, to their stakeholders, to those that got them in that position. Their mentors and this can lead to that people pleasing under pressure type mentality, where choosing the option that looks helpful at the moment.

It might be that judgment call even when it's misaligned. The second thing is this paradoxical fear of being wrong. And even with years of success, even the best leaders sometimes second guess themselves, if their instinct conflicts with what most people might think or the perceived safe path.

And that's just our work life. What about our personal lives? So our cognitive overload is high. And that creates this idea that leaders can become more reactive than less reflective. And that continues to sometimes lose access to some of the things that we hold. As our strengths.

And then the last one that I wanted to add is past experiences also can skew judgment. And if a leader has been burned before for speaking up or making an instinct based call, sometimes they may hesitate. And I found that I was doing that My gut was not right, but I went without my gut.

Dr. Jim: So there's a lot in what you said that's interesting. I think one of the things that I want

you to talk a little bit more about, you've talked already about how you went against your gut, but usually the process that's built internally from a recruitment and hiring perspective is there to mitigate gut decision making e on either side of it. Because oftentimes when we talk to a candidate in a recruiting experience, there's that cliche that you make a decision on somebody within the first 10 seconds of meeting them. It's bs, but it's also true where you have the halo or horns effect. Biasing your decision. So that's why you have a longer process to offset that bias on either side. Tell me about how even the process that was in place to make good hires. Went sideways. In this particular instances, what were the things that you ignored and processed that led to this bad hiring decision?

Or in this case, you speed the process up too fast. It creates this idea that you might make. Decisions that aren't the right decision in the long run. You're going with speed versus gut. You're going with speed versus process. You're going with speed versus digging in and understanding the candidate pool.

You're going with almost the first shiny penny. And that's what I did, is I went with a shiny penny, and it turned out that the penny wasn't so shiny when I dug into it. So, Of the first month or two when I hired this person, I saw some red flags By month three, by month four, it was some serious performance management issues.

Dr. Jim: So I like your point about sticking to the process. Especially from the perspective that, I've learned this lesson too. I've now become a slow down to speed up guy where in a lot of different areas I was a run fast and break things guy. I still have a

run fast and break things guy.

That's why I like working at startups. But when you have that. Philosophy slow down to speed up. On the other end of it, you also know from a hiring situation that time kills all deals. So what's your advice on balancing both of those requirements in a way that sticks to process and leads to better outcomes?

You, you work with those that are on your interview panel and maybe not on your interview panel, but you work with those to find out exactly what you are looking for fitting the job description, but also what are the other ideas that need to fit into this person that you may be hiring, right? And so when you do this, it, the communication is key because it gets everyone aligned.

Now, one of the things that I could have done better 15 years ago in this hiring situation is talk to more people, done more referral checks, talk to the candidate more often, had a few more steps to the process to make sure we're being thorough. So communication a thorough process. Make sure you do a really solid debrief with your panel of interviews.

And then pause.

because if you're managing an interview team. Team, there's gonna be people that don't get feedback in a timely manner. They're people that kind of half-ass the feedback that they give. And if you're a leader and if you're somebody that is more of a type A person, you tend to drive the process. That can create its own issues too. So how do you manage those different constraints and still lead to positive outcomes?

Joe Wilmoth: As leaders, there's this pull to not let others down. And we mentioned that earlier. We wanna be the leader to say, yes, we wanna be a leader That raises our hand and said, we got, we've got this right? And not the one that slows things down. It is important in that realm of communication that if the process needs to slow down, that you have that relationship with your leaders.

You will earn respect by making the right hire, and that's what we say as leaders is the one of the top number one priorities is making the correct hire.

Dr. Jim: So when we're talking about making that correct hire, you

mentioned that in the interview process you identified some red flags that you ignored. What are the red flags that you noticed at the time that you ignored that ended up consistently being predictors or indicators of poor performance down the line?

And so the number one red flag is to fact check. Make sure that the dates line up, that the awards line up, that the metrics line up, if that's the case. And make sure that you're doing some sort of re reference checking on those metrics and the facts, the second red flag is really around behaviors.

And when you think of behaviors in a resume, it's important to ask questions that go beyond just what's on the paper. And so asking the why, the how, the what, the outcomes, the challenges in a resume can really dig in. And if you're watching the candidate and you're watching body language, you're using emotional intelligence, you're using your gut.

Then if you still have some ifs about this candidate, that's when you rely on your panel. One more red flag is several of your panel members can start asking either the same questions or different questions to help the relevance of the answer. That way you can double down on the debrief and really dig in to say, is this the right candidate?

Does this feel right? And that will help you as a leader direct your panel.

Joe Wilmoth: Yeah. From a tangible lesson, it's like what we said. It's the process and communication. Those are important factors that will set you up for success as a leader. Number one, you'll look really organized. You'll look really effective and efficient, but the process, people will thank you. Now, remember your panel.

They're also taking time out of their busy schedules to help you with this hiring process. So that's another part of being organized, being efficient. Will be appreciated by your panel. So that's more of a tangible lesson. Be organized, keep it focused, keep it timely and also show gratitude towards your panel.

And so when you ignore those patterns, you're essentially silencing the best parts of your hard-earned wisdom. So the lesson here is trust isn't just about believing in others. It starts with believing yourself and sticking to your instinct that you know best. There's one more. And that's really about this short-term comfort that costs long-term success.

And so the lesson in that one is if it feels hard now, it's probably because it matters later with meaningful impact.

Dr. Jim: I really like everything that you said there, but there's one thing that I'm struggling with and I'm putting myself in the position of somebody that's junior in my career. We're talking about learn how to trust your gut and your instincts, and as a new leader or a new manager. You're trying to prove yourself on one hand, and on the other hand, there's a lot of stuff that you don't know, that you don't know. in that situation, how does a senior leader build that capability in a junior leader to identify and trust their gut in those circumstances?

And trusting in yourself that you'll do the right thing. But remember, there are tools and people that will be there to help you. There's three things that I would recommend as a leader for any stage, but especially for less tenured leaders that may be listening today, number one.

Confidence. You're in that role for a reason, but use those around you that have helped you get in that role. You may have a mentor, you may have a coach, you may have a leader. You may have a peer in another division or another team or another company. Use your network. If you feel like you're in a bind, you're not alone.

So ask yourself, if there were no deadline, would you make the same call? And that little question can create space for your instinct to speak up. Now it might be 30 seconds, it might be overnight. It may, I'll see you Monday. But sometimes that pause will really help with a clear head. And then the last one is really.

Check your li check your alignment. It's not just about urgency. Pressure period makes us focus on speed and alignment is what drives success from that speed. And so the question to ask yourself is, does this choice reflect the standards that I'd expect from anyone else? And if those standards aren't there.

Dr. Jim: That's great stuff. And I especially like your prompt about if there was no deadline, would I make this call. And I think that's that's something that anybody that listens to this conversation, they should keep that in their back pocket. Because if you're not immediately saying yes in that circumstance. You definitely need to do a lot more than a brain pause or a brain breath in that instance. And the other thing that, that I find interesting about what you said, we've spent a lot of time talking about pressure building the need for speed. The only reason pressure exists, and I would welcome those environments or those circumstances where there is pressure, because in those situations that means people are expecting a lot from you. I would be more afraid of scenarios where I'm not feeling pressure. And in fact in those circumstances where I haven't felt pressure to deliver something of high value is often where I've like. Not delivered the [00:25:00] best. So you always wanna seek out those pressure situations, but then rely on the process that's in place that empowers you to build a good outcome.

So I like how we've tied that together. I wanna wind this back a little bit. So this happened early in your career and we already talked about all of the missteps that happened in that instance, but you learned a lot from that experience. So when you think about having refined this over time, refining that muscle over time, what are some of the interesting ways that this has actually helped you build strong teams going forward that you learned from this experience?

Joe Wilmoth: You know,

It's a great question, Jim, and where I will take that answer is now in my career, my role is people development and I've been able to take years of experience being a less tenured manager and then growing through mistakes and triumphs and joys, and then some falling on my face to take that into now.

All of these experiences that I took over the last 25 years in this industry, now I'm taking that and I'm trying to pay it forward, and I get the fun job of coaching other people, other leaders, to be even better at their leadership skills. And so part of that is tactical experience, building processes, communication, being better leaders and more organized and more efficient.

But we also coach that gut emotional intelligence, how to have better conversations, how to be better communicators, and you wind all this together and it is a joy to be able to do what I do and pay it forward to future leaders.

Joe Wilmoth: It is a simple word. Listen, if you're doing most of the talking, you're missing quite a few bonuses, right? And so the number one word that I would add for that question is, listen. And the way we take that is listen to yourself, listen to your voices, listen to your gut, but make sure you listen to others.

And your brand is incredibly important in your career. It will follow you. You will make mistakes. We are imperfect, but learning from those mistakes through the years will build your brand and will build the way people will follow you and want to be on your teams.

Dr. Jim: If people wanna continue the conversation and I have a gut feeling, see what I did there I have a gut feeling that that they'll wanna reach out to you. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Joe Wilmoth: I'm happy to speak to anyone about these kind of topics. It's a fun topic. It's a human topic and let's do it. Let's compare some notes. I'm happy to chat with someone. I'm on LinkedIn. Joe Wilmuth is my LinkedIn. You can easily find me my contact information is there and I'd welcome a conversation.

that's what I drew out of this conversation from the mistake that you made, more than a decade and a half ago.

So I think when you're looking at driving positive hiring outcomes.

The more process that you can put in and the more mapping that you can do behaviors to benchmarks, to outcomes, the better off you're gonna be. And that's just one small thing that I took away from this conversation. So I appreciate you sharing that with us and hanging out with us. For those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you hanging out. If you like the show, make sure you leave us a five star review and then tune in next time on transformation and filtered where we have another great leader hanging out with us, sharing with us the moments that they thought, oh no, I'm gonna get fired. That actually ended up helping them hit fast forward on their careers.