Recruit Like a Champion Today: How Unconventional Talent Game Plans Can Give Your Team an Edge
Notre Dame hasn’t beaten Ohio State since 1936!
But ND did score a big victory over OSU in a 1960s recruiting battle that not only brought All-American receiver Thom Gatewood to South Bend, but also turned Thom into an enthusiastic Notre Dame advocate that helped attract future talent to the university.
That being said, Gatewood's story isn't just a nice footnote in the lead-up to Monday's national championship game—it's a game plan for a differentiated, 3-step approach that you can use to more effectively attract and retain talent:
1 - Quit trying to keep up with the Joneses.
ND's coach, Ara Parseghian, won over Gatewood with an understated, guarantee-free pitch emphasizing hard work and grit—a very different pitch compared to what other coaches were telling Thom (and a VERY VERY different pitch compared to today's recruiting environment).
2 - Build genuine connections between top talent and senior leadership.
After arriving on campus, Gatewood developed a relationship with ND’s president, Fr. Ted Hesburgh, dispelling any notion that Thom was merely a cog at some large institution. In fact, Thom learned first-hand that he was an integral part of the unique mission and vision that Father Ted had for Notre Dame; and that bond inspired Thom to become a lifelong, enthusiastic promoter of ND.
3 - Showcase a merit-based approach to accolades and opportunities.
Thom Gatewood wasn't appointed as Notre Dame's first Black football captain; he was voted in by his teammates, based on his effort, leadership, and trustworthiness. Compare that to organizations where promotions are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as driven by politics, favoritism, or some short-sighted guarantee that a manager feels forced to abide by.
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"Net-Zero: To boldly go where every corporation has gone—or said they're going to go—before!"
Do you honestly believe that the predictions or resolutions you're making for the new year are "bold?"
Or do you know that what you're saying or promising isn't much different from the scripted and stale words of a CEO trying to convince his stakeholders that his company's long-term net-zero plan—or in some cases, a "plan to come up with a plan"—is something unique or praiseworthy?
Either way, this episode of The Energy Detox will help you realize that there's nothing bolder than taking action TODAY to help yourself and your company (G)row, (P)rotect, and (S)ustain success. RIGHT. NOW.
That being said—and as you devote time and #energy looking ahead to the new year and beyond—take a moment to ponder the words of Marcus Freeman from his first address to the Notre Dame football team as their head coach a few weeks ago:
"This isn't about the future...this is about right now."
Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
What do Inauguration Day, Martin Luther King Day and the college football playoff national championship game all have in common? Well, the obvious answer is that they will all be occurring on Monday, January, 20. But the less obvious answer is that all of them are connected in some way to your ability to attract and retain talent in the oil and gas industry and over the next couple of minutes, I Joe Sinnott will explain how and why those connections make sense, and I promise they do make sense.
00:28
But first, let's start with a statistic related to that upcoming Notre Dame Ohio State game, and that is that Notre Dame has not beaten Ohio State in 88 years. Now they've only played six times in those 88 years, but still, Ohio State has emerged victorious in all of those contests, including last season's heartbreaking last second victory against Notre Dame in South Bend. And of course, I say heartbreaking because I am a Notre Dame fan, and I happen to be at that game, but nevertheless, today on the energy detox, we're going to focus on the positive. We're going to focus on a victory that Notre Dame did have over Ohio State in the last 88 years, albeit not a victory on the field, but a victory in recruiting, because in the late 1960s Notre Dame won the recruiting battle for Thom Gatewood, a star athlete from Baltimore, Maryland, and Tom was heavily recruited by Ohio State and about 200 other schools, but ultimately, he chose Notre Dame, because Notre Dame's message was different. What he heard or didn't hear from Coach Ara Parseghian was different from what he was hearing from everybody else, from all the other coaches, including Woody Hayes of Ohio State, because Ara Parseghian told, Tom, look, I'm not going to tell you that you're going to be an All American. I'm not going to tell you that you're going to come in here and be a starter. All I'm going to tell you is that if you come here and you work hard on the field, well, you know what you might see some playing time, and if you work hard in the classroom, well, then you're gonna play for a lifetime in terms of the game of life, of course, and the value of an education. But beyond that, our parsion made no promises. It was a very understated sales pitch, if you will.
02:18
And Thom loved it. Thom loved that this guy, this coach, was leaning on integrity, was leaning on the fact that merit was gonna help him move up again, if Thom put the effort in. But that was it certainly different from what you see today in terms of name, image and likeness deals and all of the various promises and guarantees that athletes are expecting from universities, but setting aside the perhaps refreshing nature of that recruiting approach in the 1960s versus 2025 let's bring it back to you. What are you doing that mirrors our parsecians, confident, understated approach that doesn't try to keep up with the Joneses, that doesn't try to lean on a bunch of promises that he may not have been able to keep, but instead, again, leans on integrity, leans on confidence, leans on a sales pitch that really shifts things to the recruit. What opportunities do you have to say hey here at our company, or here on my team, we really are not into making promises and guarantees that we can't keep, or that are going to leave us in a lurch down the road. So if you trust our approach, and if you're willing to work hard, come and join us. Otherwise, we're not for you.
03:38
Again, that takes confidence and now, sure, you need to keep up with the Joneses to a certain extent when it comes to compensation and titles and work arrangements and maybe work from home promises if necessary. But at the end of the day, the underlying principle should be integrity and opportunity and a merit based approach. So ask yourself, are you communicating that, or do you find yourself in this sometimes sickening position where you're just trying to offer what everybody else is offering to attract and retain talent? That being said, let's move on to the next connection.
04:18
Let's move on to Martin Luther King Day. What does Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Day have to do with recruiting? Well, as I said, Thom Gatewood was recruited in the late 1960s and if you're familiar with the late 1960s there's a bit of strife here in the United States, especially when it came to race relations. In fact, Thom Gatewood signed with Notre Dame just a couple of months before Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, and when he got on campus, he knew, and again, these are his words. He knew that he was walking into an environment that was hell bent on attracting the best talent. Possible regardless of the color of people's skin. Now, in fairness, there was still only a couple of African Americans on the Notre Dame team, but he knew that the President of the University at the time, Father Ted Hesburgh, had a strong relationship with Martin Luther King Jr, was sitting on civil rights commissions and factors a famous photo of Father Ted Hesburgh linking arms with MLK. So Tom Gatewood knew this going in when he accepted the offer from Notre Dame. In fact, his high school coach, George Young, told Tom Gatewood ahead of time. He said, hey, look, there's two people at this school, Notre Dame, Ara Paseghian and Theodore Hesburgh. If those two people are influencing your life, they can make a big difference. So Tom knew this going in, but when he got to the university, when this talented individual was there already on the team, he had the opportunity to form a personal relationship with the president of Notre Dame. And it was that personal relationship. It was the conversations with Father Ted that led to insights and understanding about the mission of the university and its leader that you might not expect of your average college athlete, and bringing it back to you and your organization, really, it's a matter of existing talent. How connected do they actually feel to the mission and the vision of the company's leaders? Maybe not the president, but senior leadership in general. Do they feel that bond? Do they feel that connection? You know, in the case of Father Ted and Thom Gatewood, Father Ted, you know, shared very openly his vision for the University. In fact, he shared his vision for Tom Gatewood. Now Tom, in many ways, mirror Jackie Robinson, had the potential to break barriers.
06:51
So yes, I understand that in the world of corporate America and different sized companies, it's not always practical that every individual employee is going to meet once a year with a president of the company. I don't think ExxonMobil necessarily has the time and energy to arrange meetings between its president and every one of its employees, necessarily, but there are other ways to form those connections, and that's the point today. How do you build those connections such that you're not leaning on corporate speak and mass emails and, you know, the occasional Town Hall, but instead, can really share insights of what that leader from a personal level level wants. How do you strengthen the bond between the people the very top of the organization and every other employee, so that those employees don't feel like they're just a cog in a system. Much like Tom Gatewood did not feel like he was just some cog in some giant organization there at Notre Dame. He wasn't just a player, but he had this personal relationship that's the holy grail there, especially when it comes to retaining talent. But also, you think about what Thom Gatewood then did for the university. For the next 50 years, he became one of the best advocates possible. Do you want to talk about attracting future talent? Well, you talk about bringing somebody in like Tom Gatewood, who clearly felt connected to the Notre Dame family because of his relationship with the President. So ask yourself, How do you form that relationship? How do you get people to be excited and engaged to the level where they want to go out for you and recruit formally and informally, because if that's not the culture in your organization, if you don't have people that are willingly wanting to go out, perhaps on social media and tout what a difference your institution is relative to other companies to other opportunities, well, something's amiss, and it's up to you to figure out what exactly is missing. And by and large, it's likely that connection between upper management and your average employee.
08:53
That being said, be remiss not to focus on the fact that Martin Luther King also, of course, had a differentiated message. So we started with our parsecians differentiated message. And as a quick aside, let's emphasize the fact that Martin Luther King also had a differentiated message, that of course, being non violence, non violent protests. Now in fairness, though, that is a bit at odds with the current coach of Notre Dame Marcus Freeman, who is on record talking about the need for his team to embrace violence and play with violence and choose violence. But nevertheless, obviously we're talking about different violence here, and we're also talking about, of course, the fact that Notre Dame's coach Marcus Freeman has an opportunity to be the first African American Coach to win a college football national championship.
09:44
Which actually brings us to our third and final connection that being Inauguration Day, we're going to have a new president, or an old new president, or however, that's going to work here in a couple of days and Inauguration Day. And what's worth noting is that, you know, I just said that Marcus Freeman. It stands to be the first African American head coach to win a national championship, although I think he's actually already the first African American to play for a national championship as a coach. And it's worth noting that Thom Gatewood was the first African American captain of Notre Dame. And why do I bring that up? What does that have to do with well, Inauguration Day? Well, it's because Tom Gatewood was elected. He was voted in to be captain of the Notre Dame team. He was not appointed. He was not selected by a coach. It was his teammates who voted him in. And again, Tom is on record talking about how important that was to him, because clearly, he was recognized for his efforts. It was merit, it was hard work. It was the recognition from his teammates that got him that title. It wasn't somebody else handing it to him. And so again, what did that have to do with you and your organization? Well, again, if you actually have an organization that relies on merit to recognize people, and if you actually have an organization that promotes people who are clearly in, clearly connected with their peers, with their colleagues, well that's a winning formula, right? Versus companies that seem to make selections that are based on God knows what, just politics based on a coin flip, based on personal favors, again, regardless of what the real story is, if there's a narrative, if there's a perception at your organization, that it isn't a matter of choosing the person that actually has the best influence on everybody else, that has actually achieved results, that's actually earned the right based on merit? Well, again, you're not going to have long term success, and you're certainly not going to have a culture that is going to attract and retain talent, because much like President Trump, who of course, won the election, you know, he had to earn the trust of however many million voters selected him to be the next President of the United States. He wasn't appointed. He wasn't selected. He was voted in much as Tom Gatewood was voted into office.
12:11
So again, do you have an environment where the perception, at least, is that the best candidates are being chosen for jobs, or do you have an environment where it seems like people are just being hand picked for some reason, and slotted into roles that really don't align with the will of the people, so to speak? And again, I'm not suggesting, of course, that your organization is a democracy of any sort, not suggesting that people should vote for who the next promotions or the round of promotions should should be, but it is necessary to make sure that you can clearly show, clearly demonstrate, to both your existing talent and future talent that you rely on merit first.
12:54
And so with that, as always, I thank you for tuning into the energy detox. Thank you for joining me on this frigid day here at the confluence of the Allegheny Monongahela and Ohio rivers, as we forced in some analogies here the confluence of Inauguration Day Martin Luther King Day and the college football playoff, of course. And I'd be remiss not to force in a final pun, because I am, of course, standing at the gateway to the west here at Point State Park, as we talked about Thom Gatewood. So with forced puns and dad jokes aside, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. And of course, Go Irish.