6/24/26 - 2152: How kingdom leaders hire the right people

Jim: This is iWork4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: There are several hundred thousand Christian-owned businesses in the United States, another couple hundred thousand Christian nonprofits, and over 330,000 churches across the United States.

How many people do these Christian-run organizations employ? The number's in the millions. It's assumed that if you work for a quote, unquote, "Christian", or in a Christian nonprofit or a church, that the workplace environment is healthier because people follow Jesus. The people following Jesus are running it.

But of course, that isn't always true. Sure, there are companies that are incredible to work for. Hobby Lobby's one of them, Chick-fil-A another, and they employ tens of thousands. But where does one go to find the right Jesus-following leader to run a business or a Christian nonprofit or a church? How do you weed out the wheat from the chaff?

As believers in Jesus, everything about us should be different from the world, especially how we hire and manage people. These are two things that Jesus did brilliantly, and we can learn from him. Bob Spence has been helping kingdom companies hire super high quality leaders for decades, and he's here to give us some advice, some counsel, and some encouragement.

Bob released a new book last year entitled A Game Plan for Hiring the Right People. It's an awesome read. Literally awesome read. I can't wait for the sequel. Bob Spence, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Bob Spence: Thank you, Jim and Martha. Glad to be here.

Jim: Bob, my opening question for you is this: Why is it that so many companies are not careful, fastidious, judicious when it comes to hiring?

Bob Spence: Number one, they don't place the right value on hiring. They treat it as something they have to do rather than looking at it as something they need to do to build the right team that will work together very effectively. And what happens is too often they'll get on one of these resume sites and get resumes.

And the resumes will come in, and they'll hire somebody on the basis of a resume. That's insanity because they keep doing it over, over again, so I know it's insanity. But the resume doesn't tell you anything. It's like when Jesus chose the disciples, I wasn't there. I don't know if he interviewed them or what he did or didn't do, but I know one thing. He looked into their heart. And if business leaders would start looking into the heart of people, they would hire a whole lot better.

Jim: And honestly, kingdom leaders, people following Jesus should know this. Just, they should just know it, shouldn't even - just know that you should look into the heart. Why do you think it is that Christ followers don't do this better?

Bob Spence: They've never been taught how to do it, and any time you mention training and teaching them how to hire or how to interview, their reaction is, "Oh, I know how to do that. I've done that for years." "How successful have you been?" I need to talk to you about that." But I don't know why people won't get trained on how to interview and how to hire.

I don't understand that. Doesn't make any sense. They also don't wanna spend any money on hiring, and yet they'll spend all kinds of money on pieces of equipment and not on people. Doesn't make sense.

Martha: No, it doesn't. In fact, it just made me think of this analogy, Bob. How many people have you talked to that have said that they don't sleep well, but they don't wanna invest in a new mattress?

But it's okay, so you know what the issue is, you know where you need to put the investment, but you don't wanna do it. And you go to the chiropractor, buy 12 different pillows and try... you spend as much money on that, but you didn't go to the mattress. I just think we have that conversation all the time.

Jim: With my mother. (laughter)

Martha: Over and over again. With lots of people. But- Yeah ... so I just think about how impor- it's like a marriage in a sense. When you hire somebody, that's a really big step. So what do you - what do you see, and I think maybe you already said it, what do you see as the number one mistake that companies make when they're hiring people?

Bob Spence: Number one, they don't prepare. In other words, "Oh, we need to hire somebody. Somebody put an ad on the internet. Somebody... Oh, put an ad on LinkedIn, put an ad on Indeed, put an ad on ZipRecruiter. Let's get some resumes." Resumes come in. "What resume looks good to you? That one? Okay, bring him in. Schedule... i'd like to have a 15-minute interview with him."

I don't know what you can do in 15 minutes, but anyway, they treat it that way. Years ago many years ago, I was working with a company out in California, and the owner, strong Christian leader, and he said to me one day, he said, "Bob, now will your system here help me hire only Christians?"

And I looked at him, I said, "You want to hire only Christians?" "Yes, because I know they have the right heart." And I said some of them do- ... and some of them might not." But I said, "Why don't you just hire the best person that matches your values, and then if they're not a Christian, maybe they'll see this in action and become a Christian."

And thank goodness he agreed with me . And he's gone on, he's no longer alive, but he did a lot of good things while he was here. And he focused on hiring people that were the fit and match, and that's the key. And he learned from me how to prepare for a hire. People don't prepare. They don't do anything except post it, and then they say, "Okay, let's interview." Big deal.

Martha: Which is amazing, because they're planning to invest tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars into that person's work over hopefully a long term. If you're hiring all the time, you're wasting a lot of time in the training and all of that. So hiring, to me, Bob, it makes complete sense to be prepared and to all of that. But this is what we're talking about with you, because you're the expert in seeing what people are doing wrong and and not, and then you've got a way to make it right.

Jim: Hey, you gave a free plug to a couple of organizations that sometimes can discriminate against conservatives or believers. We'd like to give a plug to redballoon.work, because Red Balloon is one of those ones that if you wanna put your faith out there boldly, no problem. Check out Red Balloon, an unpaid advertiser right here on iWork4Him.

Martha: For job postings.

Jim: For job postings, absolutely. Yeah. Red Balloon, run by a phenomenal kingdom leadership team.

All right, Bob, when somebody makes a bad hire, what's the impact on the organization, the company?

Bob Spence: Most people immediately talk about the loss of money because of it, because it's basically three times their annual salary is what it costs you for a mishire. That's the benchmark. I think there's something far worse than the loss of money.

It's the loss of cohesion, it's the loss of team play, because what happens is that mishire does not fit, and there's turmoil day after day, and it can destroy the team easily. And so yeah, the money's important, but the worst part is the impact on your culture and what it does.

Jim: That's a powerful way. That's a powerful word, for sure.

Martha: It really is. So is there a way to get it right every time?

Bob Spence: No.

Jim: Wrong answer. Sorry.

Martha: Is there a way to get it right more times than not?

Bob Spence: I always tell people, because I've had a lot of success with my hiring system, and I tell them, "It will help you, but it's not perfect." Because we're not dealing with robots yet. We're dealing with human beings. And we hope we never have to deal with robots. But anyway, with human beings, everyone's different, and so what you need to remember is, yeah, I'd like to be successful in hiring. Most companies, their success rate is less than 50%.

Jim: Ooh.

Bob Spence: That's horrible. The companies that I've worked with, most of them are roughly 90% successful.

Martha: Wow.

Bob Spence: Because they prepare and another thing they do, they involve the whole team in the interview process. They bring people in and have team interviews to see if they fit with the team.

Jim: Bob, you wrote an amazing book. I wanna give a plug here, but A Game Plan for Hiring the Right People, your book, and we've argued about the title. We won't argue about the title today. No. But in there, it's really an allegory on seeing this, your game plan, your choosing winners system in action, but in a story form, and it was riveting. I loved it. And like I said, I wasn't kidding. I want, I can't wait for the sequel, 'cause I wanna find out what happens next.

Martha: Wait a second. I want you to go back and say that again, because people were not expecting you to say that this was a story that gave an example of a hiring process. They are thinking this is 12 chapters on how to get it done.

Jim: Blah, blah, blah, blah. No way.

Martha: But Jim loves the way Bob writes because it's story form.

Jim: He kills off somebody in the middle of the book.

Martha: Don't tell them that.

Jim: Oh, but I didn't tell you who he kills off. He shoulda killed off the one guy that he... Yeah. In his Porsche. But anyway, okay. All right. Oh. Speaking of getting it right, yeah, every time, Martha.

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Jim: Bob, you've been doing this for decades, this helping people to hire people. You work for companies that are run by Jesus followers and some that aren't. How did you come up with this almost foolproof way to hire the right leaders?

Bob Spence: Years ago, Bob was not a HR consultant, he was a school administrator. And I was faced with the task of hiring teachers as a high school-

Jim: Which are different than business people.

Bob Spence: Yes. They are different. However, there are similarities. So at that time, I asked people, "How do you interview? What do you do in an interview?" And so the principal at that time, I was the assistant principal said to me, "You wanna watch me interview somebody?" I said, "Yeah, I'd love to. I wanna see how it's done."

So we sat down, a person came in for a science teaching position, and the principal interviewed him. The guy left the room and the principal said "what'd you think?" I said, "Of your interviewing or the candidate?" He looked at me and he said, "What? What do you mean?" I said Steve, you're not really a good interviewer."

He said, "W- what do you know about interviewing?" I said, "Not a lot, but I know you're not a good interviewer." (laughter) I said, "We just sat here for 30 minutes. I don't know a whole lot about this candidate, but I know a whole lot about you. I know a whole lot about all the championships this school has had. I know about all our academic successes.

But I do know one thing about the candidate. It came through loud and clear." And he said, "What's that?" I said, "He doesn't like kids." He said, "What?" I said, "This guy, don't hire him. He does not like kids and it's gonna be a disaster." And he said "not for me. He's one of yours to supervise." I fired him halfway through the year after he got into a fistfight with a student. And so anyway, the moral of the story is you've got to learn how to interview.

Steve didn't know how to interview, and one of the best things that happened to me was watching him. But then I got busy and I got on the phone and started calling people, and I found this system out in Nebraska that actually had a teacher perceiver interview, and it was structured interview and it was very helpful, so I learned how to use it. And that sort of got me launched, and then I decided to do my own thing and came up with my own ideas and my own successes, and that's how we have a book now. I'll put in a plug.

Martha: Yes, please do.

Jim: I don't know if you want me to do that.

Sure, you're allowed to. Just send a check to iWork4Him, care of... (laughter)

Martha: okay, so for people that are only listening and not watching the YouTube, Bob just held up a copy of his book, a Game Plan for Hiring the Right People ... and we are huge proponents of it.

That's the whole idea is we're trying to give you resources to help you run your kingdom company, do your kingdom job in a way that is not only based on biblical principles, but also sets you up for success. Because you can hear just in Bob's voice and the way he talks about things, it's amazing what a difference it can make when you do things the right way.

So Bob, without, I don't know if you wanna give away all your secrets or not, but what are the some of the key ingredients?

Jim: Maybe you could just give us one.

Martha: Okay, give us one key ingredient in the hiring process that a lot of people miss.

Bob Spence: Put together a position profile describing the person behaviorally, at value-based, and then also take a look at what do we want them to do, and how do we define success, and then spell out what criteria you have to have or want to have. And when you have that document, it's like a blueprint for building a house. I wouldn't wanna build a house without a blueprint. You get this blueprint, and then that's how you start. So that's the first thing.

Jim: And you kinda hinted at it in that, you do it as a team approach, not just the boss that needs to hire somebody underneath them. You involve the people that person underneath that boss are gonna work with in this whole process, and you can find out more in the book, A Game Plan for Hiring the Right People. Again, that book is so good. It's like reading a mystery novel and learning how to hire people all at the same time.

Bob, what's the biggest joy for you in helping companies through this process?

Bob Spence: There's a company in Iowa, I've helped them hire six key leaders and they're all still there. It's been several years we've been doing this. My joy is seeing them go in and be successful, and seeing the company experience success. That's the fun part.

Because what I do when we get done interviewing, we get to the point we got three finalists, and they always ask me, they say, Bob, which of the three would you recommend we hire?" And I say, "I'm not gonna tell you." And they say, "What?" I said, "You have to pick. I have done all my work with these people. It's a long process. It's now up to you."

I will tell you the one I prefer after you make your choice. And he laughed and he said, "Oh, you'll just agree with whatever I say." I said, "That offends me. I would not do that. I will be honest. If we don't agree, I'll tell you." He goes, "Okay." So anyway, I've only had one time out of 350 searches that the client and I didn't agree on the right person.

Martha: Wow.

Jim: Wow. And did they hire the wrong person or the one you said you should've, they should've hired?

Martha: The one?

Jim: The one.

Bob Spence: The one?

Jim: Now you said there was one out of 300 and some searches that they, you disagreed on the candidate at the end. Did they hire the one that they- Yours or theirs?

Martha: Yours or theirs? Yeah.

Bob Spence: Theirs. They hired the one I didn't want them to hire.

Jim: Yeah. Oh. How did that-

Bob Spence: I was not comfortable with this candidate for several reasons, and I shared those reasons and did it afterwards 'cause I wanted to see who they would pick. Anyway he managed to stay there 90 days till they got rid of him.

Jim: So you were right, Bob.

Martha: I just wanna say something before we go into our next mention here, Bob, is that you said something that really stuck with me about, that example of that interview where the interviewee did most of the talking, or interviewer did most of the talking and didn't really get to know the candidate.

When you're an organization, likely you have a website, likely you have an About page, likely you've got things highlighted. People can research about you. You assume they've done their due diligence to find out if they wanna work for your company or your organization. But that interview process is for that reason, right? To get to know the candidate.

And so I think so many of us wanna sit and brag about all the reasons they should come to work here, but you made such a good, simple point. Get to know the person because you're inviting them into something very special that you've worked very hard to curate, and boy, we don't wanna upset that apple cart the wrong way. So I just wanted to highlight that because I just thought that was very powerful.

Bob Spence: You have to give the candidates your website and any other information you can. Put it out there right away at the early part so people can look at it and say, "Yeah, I might like that. Eh, I don't think I'd like that." It makes a big difference 'cause then in the interview you can focus on the person. For example, I start my interviews very simply. I just say, "Tell me what you most want me to know about you." And then I just shut up and listen. And then during the interview I ask questions this way. I'll say, "Would you be described as a good communicator?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm a great communicator." That was a worthless question except I then follow up with, "Tell me about a time when you had a problem with communication that had a negative impact on the company." Then I shut up and listen. I tell people, "If you're the interviewer, you get to talk 10% of the interview time. That's it. 90% is the candidate."

And in the book you'll see how these people did it, because the book takes a management team and takes them all the way through this process. You can learn the process just by reading the book. On my bookshelf I have 20 books on hiring and interviewing. 20 books. There's not a one of them I'll recommend. Not one, because all of them are just regurgitating the same thing over and over, and they'll give you a list of worthless questions to ask. You take and write questions for each person for each interview. You don't do the catalog approach.

Jim: Bob, when I was interviewing people, and I ran several businesses, I coached many business owners on how to hire people, and, I was always trying to get... I was an insurance guy, and so I was always trying to find out when I was selling insurance, find out what did the last guy miss so that I could fill that hole and get the new clients.

In the interview process, I was always trying to get them to tell me something they would never tell anybody, but I'd get them to tell me anyway through the process. And my favorite question, and this is free for anybody listening to the show today. Listen, if I were to pick up the phone right now and call your mom and say, "What's this one thing that Jim should be working on today that she's really frustrated about?" What's the one thing your mom says you should be working on that you're not working on? And everybody would answer that question.

Martha: They don't have the opportunity to not tell the answer 'cause they go, gotta tell him

Jim: I had so many people say "my mom's dead." I'm like, "I'm sorry to hear about that. So what about your grandma? If I called your grandma?" And I'd find somebody that was still alive, and they always had an... It was just hilarious. And people would tell you the, they would tell you the truth.

Martha: They'd be honest.

Jim: And you're like, "I am so grateful you told me that truth. The interview's done now. Thank you very much." "Have a great day. Make sure you get a glass of water on your way out."

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Martha: So Bob, do you see the companies that are led by Jesus followers handling the hiring process differently? Or better, I guess I should say, than the industries?

Bob Spence: Generally they're doing it differently.

Martha: Okay.

Bob Spence: Now that's not 100%. But most of the ones I know, the difference is they really focus on the people, and they really focus on discovering who this person really is and what is their belief structure.

Now, they don't break the law, on different things. It's like ... candidates, I'll be interviewing a candidate from a client, and it happened the other day, the person said to me I saw on your website that you're a Christian. I want you to know I am, too." And he s- oh, and then they say, "Ooh, that's probably illegal. I shouldn't have done that." I said, "No." I said, "If I had asked you if you're Christian, I, that'd been my problem. But no, not for you to tell me. But why did you tell me?" What caused you to tell me that?

See, that offended me because he's using it as a lever. And you've got to be attuned to the different levers these people will use on you to sway you to something that probably you shouldn't be into.

Jim: That's powerful and so good to know. It should go without saying, Bob, that as believers our hiring process should show the candidates respect, care, that should s- be a standout feature of the interviews that we do. How can we all do a better job hiring? If for 2026, just how can we do a better job hiring?

Bob Spence: Number one, get trained and learn how to do it. Secondly, make sure you're clear on who you want, what you want them to do, and put together your specifications. Makes a world of difference. And then learn how to interview, how to ask questions, how to listen, and then just shut up and listen. Don't talk during interviews.

Do little things like, and my Christian clients do this. When they get resumes in, every resume sender gets an email back, "Thank you for applying for our position and sending us your resume. Here is the process we use to hire. If you don't hear from us by such and such a date, you were not selected for an interview."

See, what happens is my Christian clients have recognized that the way you conduct a hiring process, you're sending powerful messages to people. Think about all the companies that never respond to a resume. I've talked to numerous candidates, "Bob, you're the first guy that's ever acknowledged I sent my resume out. I was wondering if it ever got to anybody."

And you treat people - when you tell somebody, "I'm gonna call you at 2:00 for an interview," you get ready and then you sit here watching the clock, and at 2:00 you dial the phone. It's simple. And then they go yeah, you said 2:00. You meant it." I said, "Yes, that's the way my client works. When they say it, they mean it." So you're teaching as you go through it. And it's powerful.

Martha: Hugely powerful, and even I was thinking about the fact that then you're setting them up for saying, "And that's the environment that we're in, and I trust you to respect showing up for work at the right time when- when you say you're gonna be here at such and such a time, that's what time you're gonna be here." You set that bar and everybody's held to that level of expectation.

Jim: Any final words, Bob?

Martha: Read the book.

 (laughter)

Bob Spence: I would, yeah, read the book. I think it's easy to read. It's entirely different than any other hiring, interviewing book you'll ever read. Guaranteed. Because it's a business fable. It's a business fable. It's a story, and you follow this team all the way through to a hire. And there's some fun stops along the way, and somebody dies, and Jim wanted me to kill this one guy off, but I didn't.

 (laughter)

Jim: Not in the first book you didn't. But there's a second book to come.

Martha: Oh.

Bob Spence: Second book is written. I'm just waiting to get a few more sales of the first book to publish it.

Martha: That's great.

Jim: That's an opportunity for you, our listeners. All right, everybody out there. That's right. Go on to Amazon, get a copy of the book.

Martha: We'll put a link in the show notes.

Jim: We will. That's right. A Game Plan for Hiring the Right People by- you got it under Robert Spence out there, right?

Bob Spence: No, it's Bob.

Jim: It is Bob Spence on there? Okay. Very good. Bob Spence.

Bob Spence: The only person called me Robert was only my mother when I was in trouble.

Jim: Oh, I bet your wife calls you that when you're in trouble, too.

Bob Spence: Yeah. She's meaner than my mother. (laughter)

Jim: Oh, no. Joanne may be listening to this. I'm sorry. I kinda egged him onto that. Bob Spence, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing those wisdom nuggets on hiring. We appreciate you.

Bob Spence: Thank you very much.

Jim: Take care. And that's our conversation with Bob Spence. Hey, if something he shared landed with you today, I encourage you to sit with it and maybe share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, like somebody who does a lot of hiring.

Martha: This podcast runs on the support of people who believe in what we're doing. If that's you, if you want to see more conversations like this one to reach more people, you can support iWork4Him with just $5 a month. That's one cup of coffee. You can go to iwork4him.com/donate, and I'll put those link in the show notes as well.

Jim: And thanks for listening. Thanks for caring about this message. Go live out your faith this week. Wherever you are, whatever you do, we'll see you next time. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.