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If there was ever a case study that puts textbook concepts into application, it is Patrick Lencioni’s The Ideal Team Player. Various concepts surrounding staffing are addressed in the story of Jeff and Valley Builders construction company and their hiring process during a crucial time of growth for the company. At the core of the issue: the company landed two large jobs that have the potential to determine the company’s future success or failure, but in order to proceed with the jobs they will need to add sixty people to their staff in nearly all areas of the company, ranging from foremen and project managers to engineers and contractors (Lencioni, 2016, p. 30). They address the issues that accompany staffing a new project, such as turnover and trying to hire only team players while encouraging a more positive and team-centered environment within their existing employees. One of the major issues the company faced was the urgency of such a large hire and the fact that they needed to better balance their standards of expectations and hiring process. Because the owner, Bob, had allowed people who did not fit the company culture to stick around, he had inadvertently promoted a culture that did not align with the truth of the company. They began the process of identifying characteristics and employees that needed to be changed in order to promote team work, and from there went about addressing the teamwork issues within the company. By eventually promoting an employee, Craig, into an administrative position and launching a simply training process for those working on hiring, the company was able to finally find ways of pushing their company culture of “humble, hungry, and smart” into interviews and training (Lencioni, 2016, p. 144). They were able to hire solid people and keep turnover at a minimum, all while promoting company culture. A year into Jeff’s stint as CEO, recruiting had shifted to a more internal structure, morale improved, and client satisfaction was through the roof. Few things could indicate a successful shift more than these three accomplishments.

Although one of the main focuses of the story was the importance of the three virtues, humility, hunger and smarts, I think one of the other main points is the importance of using a hiring process that best identifies the needs of the company. These needs could be company culture, preparing for growth, evaluating current employees, or many other things; however, one of the concepts I believe this book best explained was the importance of strategic staffing. As we have discussed in class, strategic staffing involves much more than just getting a new hire to stay on board, but rather it identifies the strengths and shortcomings of the organization and then staffs to improve and combat problems. Strategic staffing incorporates future planning and goals to support a strategy which promotes the organization’s overall health and wellness. In this situation, the team at Valley Builders used strategic staffing methods at each step along the way, from the initial stages of planning all the way to retaining talent. They took their time to address the qualities they deemed necessary for their staff in the planning stage, sourced potential employees from other similar businesses, and although it was not talked about much, they must have been strategic with their recruitment and selection processes in order to choose employees who promoted the business’ values and mission. In the end, many of their employees were recruited through word of mouth by their current employees, which further supported their company values and lessened the burden of those involved in the hiring process because they knew that they had hired a solid core staff already, and that their staff would recommend people with similar values. Finally, they were able to reach the goals they set and retain much of their strongest talent. The team identified their strengths and weaknesses in order to create the strongest and smoothest-running company possible and revitalize and grow the company during a difficult transition and potential period of development.Overall, the Valley Builders case study was an excellent example of thoughtful and thorough strategic staffing.