Character Counts: Rethinking How We Hire and Lead w/ Sean Vassilaros

In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with Sean Vassilaros, CEO and co-founder of Kanny, about what’s missing from hiring—and it’s not experience or skills. It’s character.

Sean dives deep into how character—not personality—drives behavior, shapes culture, and ultimately determines long-term success in the workplace. He shares why traditional hiring tools like resumes and references are fundamentally flawed, how peer-driven feedback can bring accountability to both employees and hiring managers, and why data-backed character insights could be the future of leadership and culture.

We talk:

• Why 75% of hires are still mis-hires
• How character traits like humility and accountability can be measured
• The rise of “Character Intelligence” as a cultural north star
• Creating development plans from day one
• What Glassdoor reviews reveal about accountability
• One question you should ask in every work relationship

If you’ve ever made a bad hire, been burned by a toxic teammate, or want to build a team of high-character humans—this episode is for you.

And connect with me for more great content!

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Transcript

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Russel Lolacher: On the show today, we have Sean Vassilaros, and here is why he is awesome. He's the CEO and co-founder, co-founder, in fact, of Kanny, adding peer driven character to improve the hiring process. He's an adjunct professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in their college of Engineering and applied science, board member at Spectrum Science and Independent Healthcare Agency specializing in health and science communications.

He founded and serves as chairman of the board for the Haley Mays Foundation. Named in honor of his daughter providing therapy to thousands of special needs children for over a decade, and he is here. Hello Sean.

Sean Vassilaros: Hey Russel, how are you?

Russel Lolacher: I'm delightful. I get everything good there except the actual co-founder of the business you're in now. I apologize for that.

Sean Vassilaros: That's okay.

Russel Lolacher: Kanny, Kanny, Kanny. Got it done. Okay, perfect. Moving on. Most important question I have to ask you. Well, actually, it's not the most important, but it is the funnest question I have to ask before we get into the funner ones. Oh, this is gonna be a fun conversation. The first question I ask, which is, what is your Sean, best or worst employee experience?

Sean Vassilaros: It is, it's so funny. I I went through kind of the whole process trying to figure out what story to tell, and I think today I'm gonna tell a story of redemption. So I worked with a gentleman, about starting around 2005 to about 2015, so about for a decade. So talented, so good at what he does, what he does and what he did, but absolutely toxic, right?

He had a hard time working with others, was mean and critical of others, brought his team along for, to make them critical of others and overall just kind of really overbearing and difficult to work with. And he thought that was fun. He thought it was fun. I got along with him great just because I, I really tend to not get too worked up about those things.

But overall he was absolutely toxic and, and difficult to work with. Fast forward a few years after we, after I left that organization he calls me out of the blue, hadn't talked to him probably for five years, and he's like, Sean, I just wanted to call and apologize. I was like, apologize? That is off brand for you, my friend.

And he's look, I, I had a problem. I'm now in the program and I have realized how much of a jerk I was, and I'm trying to be better. I'm like, that's awesome, and how much courage does it take to call people? And so he was telling me that he was kind of going one by one through the process and and, and, and making those phone calls. And it, it's to the point where I probably would've never worked with him again. Not that I didn't think he was talented, ultra talented, not just talented, but ultra talented. But never on my list of people to call to the point where he came around and I've used him for quite a few projects since then, and he's a delight. An absolute delight. So he has since written a book and gone down the path of putting together a podcast and has helped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that are dealing with similar challenges with sobriety and the workforce. And and so to me, I love the opportunity for anyone to redeem themselves, right?

To, to find their weaknesses, turn them into strengths. And that honestly, it's one of my favorite stories.

Russel Lolacher: Moving from toxic to delightful. That's, that is a nice spectrum to.

Sean Vassilaros: Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Russel Lolacher: So the question I have is how does that shape your own leadership? Because you even said previously, you got along with him fine, knowing full well that he was perpetuating toxicity in those around him and in himself, but now learning that actually there was a lot more to it in his home life and so forth.

So how does that help your own self-awareness, situational awareness?

Sean Vassilaros: Well, I think there's two factors there. One, I think the, the leadership in that organization were aware, right? So when you sit there and you wonder like, how does a toxic employee stick around for so long? I think that they were aware and were trying to help. And, and they just didn't tell the rank and file.

Like we, we just didn't know. We just bore the brunt of it. And so for me it was, Hey, look, I, I like to be very concrete. And it's if there's someone that is toxic in your workforce, you need to carve them out, right? And we're gonna talk about culture and character and all these things today. And, and, and I don't know that I'm as resolute about it, right?

There's always a backstory and there's always a way. And now, so that's, that's number one. Number two is in, in hindsight probably he, should have moved faster on, on carving him out. And and, 'cause I just saw a swath of bodies in his wake and maybe he would've, come around quicker.

So it's a, it's a really tough one. And, and I think that the takeaway is that like it's very personal and unique, every experience. And, and in all of it just be kind. And that, that's what I really tried to do.

Russel Lolacher: And I wonder, and I obviously can't speak for the leadership at the time that we're aware, but we're trying to help, how much of a pass did he get because he was good at his job? Like how long did they allow it to go on going? You know what? It's okay. You can destroy our culture. You're still making money for us.

And that always worries me that leadership, I'll put air quotes on there, say they want to help and they want to be compassionate, but at the same time their agenda is kind of hurting the organization.

Sean Vassilaros: No, I, I don't disagree. I think, again, armchair quarterback, it's easy to see it now, but, but yes, let us all be better at identifying and moving quickly to upskill, make better, move out.

Russel Lolacher: So two, what you mentioned is something we're gonna talk about today, which is character and especially getting in it in the initial phases, especially in the hiring process. I mean, and I always have a conversation with people about creativity and innovation and diversity. I'm like, okay, that's great. Could we start it a bit earlier? Like, why are we trying to fix our problems 10, 20 years later, bad bosses and so forth. Why are we not nipping it in the bud at the beginning and make sure we're hiring better? Character, I love the idea of integrating character into any type of hiring process. But before we get further down the, the conversation, I love me some definitions, Sean.

Sean Vassilaros: Do it. Do it.

Russel Lolacher: For you, I, I need to ask how would you define character as it, as it pertains to the workplace?

Sean Vassilaros: So I'm gonna give you kind of two points on that. Number one, the definition that we live on is these are the values that drive your behavior. Okay? So it's value driven behavior, and it's not personality. Think about that for a second. What, what, what does that mean to you when I say it's not personality?

Russel Lolacher: Well, that's when you think character, you're like, how you show up, how you impress a room. I, I can see that being a common confusion between character and personality is, hey, you're extroverted. That's part of your character. Well, wait a second.

Sean Vassilaros: Hmm. That's your disposition. That's how you show up and you're, you're spot on there. My disposition is like I'm outgoing. And, and that is not your character at all. Your character is value driven. So if you're like, Hey, that trait, if it's not driven by this core thing that drives you to be who you are, not a character trait. Personality.

And I think that's one of the, I love the fact that you started with a definition because I think a lot of people struggle when we're out there talking about character that they're like, oh yeah, personality, we, we have all these great assessments for personality, and, and they do. They're fantastic assessments, but character, how do you get that?

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, and I don't think if we define what we're talking about, we're having a conversation that will get to a conclusion with no actual impact or usefulness. Until we're speaking from the same song sheet. When we chatted before the podcast, when we back a few months ago when we were preparing for this, you'd brought up the fact that you said a person's character is a single factor to their success. What do you mean by that?

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, I mean, and this is when I say that people ask the same question, they're like, what, what does that actually mean? So we found studies that that show... so we did, we have some primary and secondary research. Studies that show, academic studies, that show that a person's character is an indicator of their success, performance and culture fit.

And then we did our own set of research with HR and executive leaders saying, Hey, what is the impact of culture? And I mean, these... the data that came back was resounding. Look, culture is actually more important than experience, skills, hard and soft skills, right? Like personality, because character is what drives you.

It's what, like when given an opportunity to, to make a decision, it's like your character helps drive that.

Russel Lolacher: Does differing, and going back to definitions, does different definitions of success matter when it comes to character? Because not everybody's idea of success is the same thing.

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, no, I, I get that. In the study it didn't really, really say it was really about performing activities that were beneficial to the company as opposed to performing activities that were not beneficial to the company. Does that make sense? And I don't know that that is the definition of success, but that's how they were talking about whether they were successful in the organization or not.

Russel Lolacher: So why did you feel it was so important to incorporate character into the hiring process?

Sean Vassilaros: Hmm. I've been an executive for a very, very long time for, for, for a decade and a half. And I have hired hundreds and hundreds of people. And I look back and I, I like to think I was good at it because I, I feel like I hired a, a lot of very, very amazing people. But if I, if I really was critical about how I did with hiring, I'm probably swinging about a 60% success rate. Six zero. Now, a lot of the executives I talk to are like, oh, that's a hall of fame career. Other oh, that's not that great. I look at it as that's just too bad. That's a shame because all, you know what it's like if you hire the wrong person, you bring in the wrong person for whatever reason.

It has significant impact on the organization. And there's a data point out, there's 75% of all hires are mishires, right? And whether it's hard, soft skills, culture fit, whatever, it doesn't matter. And so looking back at my track record, excuse me, that was difficult to, to kind of, kind of take in. And, and the other thing.

I realized, and this is not just me, this is a team that I've kind of put around this, is that the entire hiring process, every bit of it is curated by the candidate. Right? So the resume, the interview, LinkedIn, references, right? And so it's all curated by the candidate to put this package together that helps you try to make a decision, but at the end of the day, it's still a crapshoot.

Why? Look, I can check the boxes on personality hard and soft skills, like I think there are assessments out there. I think I can assess that fairly well. But there is no way to identify someone's character, are they honest? Will they treat others with respect? Will they take feedback with humility?

That's because a person's character can't be credibly told to you by them, right? Russel, are you honest? What are you, what are you gonna say? And and the hiring process is so short in the grand scheme of things that there's, it's almost impossible for you to ascertain those things.

And then you want the reference checks to tell you. You want that? If you ask anybody about the reference check, you want them to be honest. Tell me the pitfalls, the dangers, the risks. I already like this person. The fact that I'm going through this is an indicator, tell me what I'm signing up for.

But that's not what references do, that's not what it's about. That, that, that process unfortunately doesn't deliver on the things that we as hiring managers and, and, and executives want.

Russel Lolacher: Is there specific character traits we're all looking for? Is it catered specifically maybe to the values of the organization? Because you said character is values driven, and when I think values, I think, hey, poster on the wall, website values. Look at 'em, aren't they cool?

Sean Vassilaros: That is a, a great question. And so it's actually, it's funny, one of one of our first kind of sales questions is, can you send me your company values? And, and whatever their answer is, tells you something about that organization. One, if they're like, yep, here it comes, right? What if, oh, lemme go dig those up. Or wait, we have company values? So you just learn something about that organization. Do value driven efforts and does character matter to this organization? Yes or no? So number one. Number two...

We did some primary res research again to help identify the top six character traits when it comes to someone's work character, right? Everyone's got character traits that are super important in every aspect of your life. But we, we did the research and said, Hey, what's most important success and work and give us a nice cross section and the ones we identified- integrity, respect, accountability, humility, confidence, and grit. Okay. What do you think of that cross section?

Russel Lolacher: It's good. I think my, we go back to definitions again.

Sean Vassilaros: Let's do it.

Russel Lolacher: They're, they're great words, fantastic words, but are they defined differently based on the organization? So grit can be a particular type of thing for one organization, and it might mean something very different to another. Hopefully those values are defined, well, hopefully they communicate it to their hiring people.

So that's, that's where my brain tends to go is what do you mean by those words, Sean?

Sean Vassilaros: So what we do is we try to define them for, so for example, grit is pursuing your goals with determination, right? And so our, our job isn't to necessarily align everyone with every value that you think is important for your organization. What we're trying to do is give you indicators of this person's character.

So no matter how you define grit, it's not gonna be completely night and day from how we define grit. It may have its own nuance, nuances, right? And but if we're able to indicate that this person has below average grit as indicated by their peers, and this is another important aspect, right? Remember I, I talked about references and how they don't give us what we want.

One of the reasons we don't get what we want is that the references are all supplied by the candidate, so we take that out. Kanny finds your previous coworkers, whether you like them or not. Whether they like you or not, doesn't matter. We do the research, we find them, and we ask them to be subjective and helpful and give very candid responses.

So I'll go back to grit. If you had an indicator that however, we defined grit, right? That this person was below average on grit, what would you do with that information?

Russel Lolacher: Whew. If they're below average, I, I guess it depends... So my question, I guess is of, of your categories, are they on a scale of value? So when I ask that if you weight certain things more than others, do you, to, to ask that question. So is grit valued more than another thing? That's, that's where I would be asking.

Sean Vassilaros: Okay, so let me, let me answer that two ways. Way number one is what we'll do is in the sales process is we'll take your values and we'll align them through some sort of massive, very smart matrix to say, Hey, look, this is how you should wait our big six. Okay? And so grit may not be important to you as an organization, but you know what is? Accountability.

Okay, if they're low on grit and high on accountability, that's a win. That's okay. So number one is as a company you can select and we can tell you how we think they align, and you can do with that information that you see fit. The second thing is, think about the data that we're gonna be able to publish.

So one of the trends we're seeing, I'll give you an example, is that by role, some of them are character, these character traits are high and low by role. So for example, you're hiring a software engineer, high on integrity, high on accountability, right? High on confidence, low on respect, low on humility.

That is acceptable, right? I would've say, Hey, look, that's acceptable to me. I recognize that these are, two traits that you need to work on and lemme put a development plan around your humility. Your job over the first 60 days that you're here is to go find someone and compliment them. Every day. Every day. Like all of a sudden you can work on someone's core character and help them be better.

Russel Lolacher: So by weighting it that way, you basically created a development plan the minute they walk in the door to get them to be the person you want them to be, the leader or employee, whomever that you need them to be.

Sean Vassilaros: That's correct.

Russel Lolacher: You just hope it's not so low that it's such a lot of work.

Sean Vassilaros: Well, and, and here's the other, here's the, the truth of the matter is if the scores are too low, you won't get the job.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, of course.

Sean Vassilaros: Right. This is, this is accountability, right? And accountability by the people who want to hold you accountable. The people who want to cheer you on. And the other people who are like, this guy is toxic, right?

I want to know that information.

Russel Lolacher: Do you find executives or, or hiring managers might be, you know what, I need tens in every category. I need the perfect human being. Is there unrealistic expectations around that?

Sean Vassilaros: A, a hundred percent. We as humans have a heart. We, we, we are very, one of the funniest responses is oh, I know so many people that I need to run this on. Like, how about yourself? So I did that, right? I ran it on myself like, and it's nerve wracking. Think about this, our system goes out and finds a hundred, 150 people that you've worked with over your career, overlapping work histories, similar departments, like all this data is put together to put together this list, and we reach out to them and we get them to fill in this survey.

It's, it's less than a minute. It's six questions. All sliders, right? Makes it very easy. It's character trait and observable behaviors on each side of the each end point, right? And then they fill that out, and then you get a report. Really, all you do is sign up and at some point you get your report, and that's all the action that you do.

I mean, think how nerve wracking that will be. I had the opportunity to look at the list that the system generated for me and I'm like, oh no. Oh no. And the team laughed, you have to let it run. I was like, absolutely, let's let this run. And, and so I got the report back and I was below average on two traits, humility and integrity.

That's a gut punch, right? Because I would say those are two of my strengths, right? And so at first I was like, ah, I'm not worried about that. Let's keep building this business, right? We got lots to do. And then I was like, I justified it. I was like, I've been an executive for so long. I've made so many decisions that people don't understand or don't agree with, or I've hurt, I've, fired as many people as I've hired.

Like it's, it's tough being making those decisions and I probably just hurt some people. And this is, they're being honest about that. And then I said, Sean, don't be an idiot. There may be something there. And so whether there is something there or not, which I believe there is. That has been top of mind in every interaction I've had with a human since then. Every one of them. System working as intended.

Russel Lolacher: It is almost having the little post-it sign at the bottom of your monitor going be kind in every interaction. Like it's this little reminder of going, oh, I could be, I could be a little bit more humble here. I do not need to be the loudest voice in the room.

Sean Vassilaros: A hundred percent. Be humble.

Russel Lolacher: So what problem are we fixing, Sean? Obviously there's a system that's broken in the hiring process. We're talking lack of objectivity from peer review we're talking about that the employee base, or the prospective employee gets to figure out the best story they want to tell about themselves. So what problem are we trying to fix?

Sean Vassilaros: Well, it depends on what kind of organization you are. I'm gonna go to the extreme for a second. It's a fantastic Tom Cruise movie that came out a couple decades ago called Minority Report. Do you remember? Did you ever see this?

Russel Lolacher: I've seen it a few times.

Sean Vassilaros: The whole concept was there are these people that can predict when a crime is about to happen and you go and stop the crime before it ever happens.

Now that is unethical, right? That is not something we should ever do. However, what if you had the opportunity to take a look at someone's, a report of someone's character as assessed by those who are, you have the right and the ability to assess you, and you're able to avoid disaster. There's a recent report that came out by The National Auditors Association, right? Fraud Auditors Association that said something like 60% of all people that they found performed fraud, passed background, criminal, reference checks.

Russel Lolacher: Sure.

Sean Vassilaros: They also said, get a load of this number. 5% of every company's revenue is lost each year in fraud. Everything from pencil theft to inaccurate hours and hours theft. To like straight up stealing, right? So I went to a little bit of the extreme right. Most companies aren't dealing with that, but would probably appreciate an opportunity to get in front of this and say, I'd like to know what I'm getting into when I hire someone, but where actually is really gonna impact the most culture.

So I have this belief that if you want to improve your culture, you go find the people with bad character. Get them outta your organization or upskill them, train them, whatever it is, identify that because there's probably nothing worse than having to sit around and work with someone who's dishonest, work with someone who you know is not capable of receiving feedback, right?

Like these are toxic traits that hurt a company's culture. You want to improve your company's culture? Hire people with high character and reward them for character, not just for performance. Performance can't be the only indicator. Reward people for character.

Russel Lolacher: We've talked about in the show a bit about operationalizing values. Is that what you're talking about is sort of rewarding them with character going, you are exemplifying grit.

Sean Vassilaros: Absolutely.

Russel Lolacher: Okay. So I'm curious about this from a, ugh, the peer review piece I find interesting. Are you going back to the peers with those character traits and examinations going, is this right? Is this wrong? Is this your experience working with this particular person? What are you approaching the peer with?

Sean Vassilaros: So the peers only so you talking about the peers, the ones who fill out the review? Yeah.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, if, if you, so you got a, a candidate, they're work. So maybe I'm getting my ass backwards here a bit.

Sean Vassilaros: Explain it to me.

Russel Lolacher: So if we're doing the peer review to get character, are they the ones that are determining the grit level, the honesty levels? Are they the ones that are providing that information?

Sean Vassilaros: They're the ones, right?

Russel Lolacher: So are, and then how do you define a peer? Is that a colleague? Is that a former boss? A former reporting structure? Like how do you determine what a peer is? Because again, definitions.

Sean Vassilaros: Let's do this. So there's kind of two elements of this survey. Number one is there are six questions around character traits, right? With the sliders then there are multiple relationship questions. Are you a what is your relationship? Direct report manager, peer contractor, don't really know this person, right?

We already know this information, but we verify and validate it, right? Number one. Number two is how long ago did you work with this person? And number three is how long did you work with this person? So you take those bits of kind of relationship data and you throw them into our algorithm. And our system is super smart to weigh things.

So for example, if you work with someone 10 years ago for one year, your impact on their score is gonna be way less than someone who worked with you a year ago for 10 years. Does that make sense? Someone who was your direct report or your manager is gonna have significantly more impact on your, on your insights than, a peer colleague, all of those other things. Does that help?

Russel Lolacher: Absolutely. How do you know this works? Like it, it's not like we're doing a bunch of hiring and then 10 years later we know that that person had a significant, I'm guessing the data isn't in yet on long-term analysis, or do we have it?

Sean Vassilaros: So we are, we're in startup mode. We're literally beta in it with customers right now. And so that's one of the things we're looking for is customers that care about character that want to try this out with us. So we are beta-ing it right now. What we have found is that the in, in the, in the beta test that we've done, we're able to eyeball those 'cause a lot of it's people that we know, we're able to eyeball those and say, yeah, those are, those are accurate enough that we need to continue getting there. So one of our, one of our big business challenges then is managing outcomes data. So for us, we want to be able to say, Hey, in six months, is this person still there?

If not, why is it an indicator of them or does it indicator of something else? And so we want to get to the point where we're able to start putting together outcome data, but it, as you said earlier, it's very, very early.

Russel Lolacher: Are you thinking about tying this to the employee journey? For example, so onboarding generally sucks. Nobody does stay interviews. Like they're just barely a whisper for most people, much less, I call 'em Thrive Interviews 'cause I don't want people just to stay. And then there's the exit interview or the whatever.

I see this being very tied to that because it is a organic holistic journey that people are on and if they're hired properly. And as to your point about the learning development plan, that pretty much is given the minute they walk through the door. That can only be beneficial if it's integrated into this, into this check-in performance, character driven sort of journey.

Sean Vassilaros: I, I agree. So one of the, one of the factors, one of the things that we're building is that individuals and employers can generate a development plan that layers job description, resume character insights. Think about how powerful that is. Usually they have the one or the two, right? You put character insights on top of that and we're able to give you a development plan that is super powerful.

And so this is actually one of the few tools that transitions past the bridge from hiring to onboarding and development. Now we, the, the, the tip of our spear is to get to, into the hiring process. We are building a product for development, right? So if you already have a company and you already have employees and you really want to know their character insights, then you'll be able to run this on your employees as part of your 360 year development programs. So then you'll be able to kind of see it all along the way. And, and the, the, the beauty of the, the reason why this is super important for the, the individual or candidates, whoever else is that, think about someone who has applied for 10 jobs and they've had to get three references for each job. I'm willing to help anyone out that I know, but that's gonna get exhausting at some point. We're building this, so you ask them one time, and this becomes a longitudinal look at your character over time. So we're able to, it's kind of like closer to a credit score, a credit report, than it is like a true reference check. And so you own this. This is as a candidate, as a user, you, this is your, your insights. You have the ability to, look at that at any time and take it from employer to employer. And so there's lots of really cool reasons and value that, that candidates find in this.

Russel Lolacher: How do you feel this is gonna benefit leadership in the long term, in employee engagement in long term? Like we've talked about how culture is so vital to the importance of the health of an organization. But to get a little more granular, we're cre, we're we're hiring more character driven, character specific candidates to the organization.

What is the benefit to those leaders, to those employees?

Sean Vassilaros: Well, let's start with being able to just say that. I believe that companies should publicize their stance on character, right? Here's how we stand on character values, whatever it is, right? We reward it and we don't tolerate bad character, and we won't hire people with bad character if. A leader puts a stake in the ground and says, that's important to us I can't think of a single high or good character person that wouldn't wanna work there, that wouldn't want to be part of that company. And so knowing that, that that is something that the leadership cares about... so instantaneously them saying We're gonna start paying attention to character through every aspect of, of our business, I think is a huge, a huge value to the culture of their team, and I think those dividends will be seen very, very quickly.

Russel Lolacher: It seems, and character's such a big piece of, to all your points culture and health and so forth. However, and I'm gonna pull it back a bit here, beyond just... because it is relationships, right? And relationships are really beyond the workplace. I don't know if you've noticed this or not, Sean, but character doesn't seem to be very popular or valued.

Outside in the world we live in, online, the polarization of everything, not, I'm not getting into politics, I'm just straight up going the minute you say blue, somebody says red. The minute you say up, the other person says down. So there is this war and attack on the idea of character and how it might be separately defined for other people. How does that play into this idea of we need to be character driven organizations?

Sean Vassilaros: Well, I love that you, you're taking a step back because we as founders did that exact same exercise. Like, why are we doing this? And the reason we're doing it is because unscrupulous characters are being rewarded. I. The examples that are being set in the business world for our children are that do whatever it takes to get ahead and you'll make money.

And that's amazing, right? Not, hey, if you shake someone's hand and give 'em your word, that's amazing, right? No one's saying that anymore. And so the reason we came together with this is that we think that there's an opportunity to, to broadcast this message that character is important. There's an opportunity for a movement here, and we think that this may be the tip of the iceberg for that movement and a movement around what I'm gonna call character intelligence.

Think about that for a second. There's so many different intelligence that back in the day there was emotional intelligence, right? We've talked about this, that leaders with emotional intelligence are successful and, and, and they have all these great metrics around them. But I would argue that someone with great emotional intelligence without great character intelligence is able to manipulate and run a room.

Russel Lolacher: So...

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, go ahead.

Russel Lolacher: I'm just gonna get you to define what you mean by character intelligence.

Sean Vassilaros: Ah, well, this is a not a terribly baked idea. It's something that we're working on right now, but the, the definition for character intelligence, the way I look at it, is the behavior, all behavior is driven by the values that you represent. You human, you company, you organization, you... it doesn't matter what it is.

I believe that companies can have character intelligence and, and the, the output of that intelligence, or the indicators of that intelligence that are what I was saying about earlier, they reward character. They hire character, they stand for their values, and they don't, they, they, they are, they have programs in place that aren't just performance related.

Russel Lolacher: So how do you incorporate that? So back to your original story where you were talking about this toxic individual, but a high performer and he was basically condoned through inaction. Now, if they were more character intelligence and well quote unquote better leadership at the top, they have different metrics in which to put people against other than just, he make dollar. Like just to be blunt, you've got different metrics to measure people against going, are they really fitting the characteristic traits that our culture's demand of them and would like to think that they would remove them sooner than later based on that criteria? Is that what you're hoping organizations move towards?

Sean Vassilaros: Well, that's what we're hoping. And, and the removing probably the, again, the lesson from before is removing or changing. I think most people aren't aware that they are the problem.

Russel Lolacher: Of course.

Sean Vassilaros: So let's start with awareness and help give them paths to change the behavior. There was a great, I, who was it? It was a Jim Rome quote, it was like, character is not something that you've inherited and are stuck with for the rest of your life. Character is something you have to take ownership with and make better over time. I butchered that quote, but you get the sense, right? It's like character can be changed and I have to believe that.

And I've seen it, right? I've seen it with my own two eyes, and so this has to be a redemption story. So yeah, the shorter answer is you would hope that employers would recognize it and move quickly, whatever the movement is. Move quickly.

Russel Lolacher: So you're in beta, you're in the process. We're, we're building up, we're, we're talking to a lot of people. What is your AHA moment? What is that thing you tell others that go, oh, you know what? This is what I need for my organization, or at least it, maybe it's not this particular service, but at least it's that I need to take character a lot more seriously in my organization.

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, so the, the messaging that has really resonated right is when you put this side by side with reference checks, right? When we did our market validation efforts which is part of seeing if there's really a need for this. 95% of the people I talked to said. Yeah, we don't see any value in reference checks.

They still do them. And the reasons they do them are number one, to check the box. Number two, to cover their butts. And number three, there were some people that had great questions that were great for these references. And I, I, and I got to hear some of them and I was like, that's actually really helpful.

But the majority of the population that does hiring and involved in the hiring process, they don't know how to do great reference checks and. The val, the, the value to them is very minimal. So the AHA moment that people have is look, imagine a reference check that actually works the way you want it to, right?

You're going to get real actionable insights on the things that are important, like character from people who have no problem being honest and straight up and, and, and have the knowledge and wherewithal to be able to have that opinion. People love that.

Russel Lolacher: Do you feel this might actually also help with accountability? I bring this up because we've got a hiring managers, and it might be a hiring manager specifically that's a manager that hires people for the organization, or it could be just leaders that are hiring somebody for their team. Here's the thing, a lot of those people will hire bad employees, but it's never their fault. They never get brought before going, Hey, you hired 'em. Like it's never that they, they followed a process, or they ignored red flags or bees flags, however you wanna look at it. But we never put any accountability on them to generally do better next time in their hiring process.

This sounds like a process that kind of removes that.

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, I mean, if you have the data and you still make the wrong decision, right? Let, let's take, let's take two angles here, the hiring manager or the person making the decisions on the hiring process. I feel like they just don't have the appropriate data. You could have 16 interviews. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you can't tell me if that person's honest. You can't tell me if that person's going to act with honesty when it's difficult. And so it's still a crapshoot and our job is to make that not a crapshoot anymore. Make it a, I've got information that backs this up now. We could still be wrong.

That's okay. It's just better than what they've got now, which is nothing. These are indicators. So from an hiring manager standpoint, yes, the accountability's gonna be there. You saw this data and you still made that hire? Or on the flip side is you saw this data and the data was fine, and you made the hire and, and the person still kind of went off the rails. The it, it covers them as well. So it kind of goes both ways.

Russel Lolacher: I just, I like the idea that the data, I mean, there's processes or there's just, Hey, I like the cut of your jib.

Sean Vassilaros: Yeah, totally.

Russel Lolacher: There's, there's different versions of this hiring process, but to your point, there's many versions, many of those versions don't include solid data to pull from, to make solid decisions from, so you're almost needing a person with EQ. Character Q. CQ. But also data analysis. You also need almost an extra skill in the hiring process to better understand what data means, what it doesn't mean. It's almost an additional skillset in that hiring process that we don't kind of need. Don't have now.

Sean Vassilaros: That's right. A hundred percent agree. Well, and, and I think that, I mean, we all want to make and say we make data decisions, but when's the last time you hired someone based on data?

Russel Lolacher: Yeah.

Sean Vassilaros: It just never happens. I mean, even personality assessments, which I think there's a huge value for them. But they can be gamed.

I feel like I could take a personality assessment and have the outcome be exactly what my hiring manager's looking for. I may be wrong, but and so this is all about who is taking and giving the opinion, and it's someone else who can be anonymous, but verified and, and that's the magic of it. Now, if it's okay, I want to talk about the second angle of accountability here, which is equally important.

So I want to talk to you about kinda the second angle, which I think is equally important, right? I'm gonna tell a story and that is a story of Glassdoor. You familiar with the, company? So in like 2013, my company, we got our first glassdoor rating, and it was a terrible scathing review, and we knew who it was. It was someone who I had told the hiring manager, please don't hire this person. But they had to make their own decision, right? They were there for three days, they weren't the right person, and when they left, it was a fiery sort of wrath on their way out.

And so if you were to read this review, you would assume this person knew everything about the organization. He knew intimate details of the founders and like, you know, the executive team and, and, and I was crushed. I just was like, 'cause our goal was always to take care of people. We went out of our way to take care of people.

Crushed. Fast forward, not that long ago, my latest Glassdoor review. It was terrible and scathing and we knew who did it, right. And we're there, we're sitting there like, okay, if that person hadn't, you know, completely, you know, been completely toxic, had been able to actually deliver on the things we hired them to do, you know, hadn't had been forthcoming in the hiring process, like we wouldn't have had this problem. Right? And so what happens is, and, and the worst part of it was we knew that this person had just gotten an amazing job. At a, you know, a very large tech company and a, as an executive, and we're like, that's gonna last three months and it probably lasted two months, right? And so what we realized was there's no accountability for bad employees.

Like how many people are frustrated with someone who sits over there and doesn't help and sits over there and you know, is completely toxic and sits over there and is dishonest and gets away with it. Well, what if there was some sort of accountability where these people can say something, we verify and validate that they have the right to say it, but they can say something in a safe environment that's private and that that person, when they ever want to go look for another job, that's on their permanent record, right?

All of a sudden, if people know that they're gonna be held accountable, maybe their behavior changes. Maybe. So we're hoping for a better workplace for all. Maybe that's something that comes out of all of this, but let's give some accountability out and let's see how it goes.

Russel Lolacher: I often talk, when I'm a guest on other podcasts and I talk on the show. I talk about the seven roadblocks to great leadership, and one of the key ones is lack of accountability. It is, I think a huge problem, so any inroads into ensuring that accountability is happening in our organizations, I think it can only help the health of organizations.

Sean Vassilaros: I love that. I agree.

Russel Lolacher: So what a great way to wrap up our conversation, Sean. I have to ask you the one action people can take though, which is one simple action people can do right now to improve their relationships at work?

Sean Vassilaros: So this is, I mean, this is not my idea. I actually was on an on an airplane watching and flipping through channels, and it was on the screen, so I could barely watch this episode of something I never watched. And it was a hospital show, but it actually was super impactful. A a, a, a doctor had taken over as the administrator of the hospital and everyone, all they had to do was complain.

They had complaints, they had challenges, and his answer to everything was, okay, how can I help? Okay, how can I help? Well, this person, okay, how can I help? And so I have tried in every interaction, it drives my wife nuts. 'cause sometimes she just wants me to listen. I say, how can I help? And so my recommendation is no matter where you are on the, on the leadership ladder and, or in beginning in your career, ending your career, if you end every conversation with how can I help?

Right, and you say it genuinely and earnestly. I think that will change your relationship with people. So that's my actionable recommendation. How can I help?

Russel Lolacher: That is Sean Vassilaros. He is the CEO and co-founder of Kanny, which adds peer-driven character to improve the hiring process. Thank you so much for being here, Sean.

Sean Vassilaros: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.