Diversity as a Competitive Edge: Dwain Celistan’s Executive Recruiting Journey

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (14:44.793)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Dwayne Celestan, managing partner of DHR Global, who for more than 30 years has been a leading provider of executive search, leadership consulting, and emerging leader search solutions.

with more than 50 wholly owned locations around the globe. Their consultants deliver senior level executive search and talent advisory services tailored to the unique requirements of their clients. Dwayne himself has been recognized as a top 10 performer in the company multiple times and number one globally three times. He’s worked with 25 Fortune 500 companies, PE backed firms, universities,

and the largest publicly traded company in India. He’s a published speaker, a public speaker, and has published four books. Now, before we get into all that good stuff about Dwayne, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow.

by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency .com. Now, back to our guest today, managing partner of DHR Global, Dwayne. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Dwain Celistan (16:33.558)
Hey, thanks so much. Looking forward to it.

Anthony Codispoti (16:36.286)
Okay, Dwayne, so tell us in your own words, what does DHR Global do?

Dwain Celistan (16:41.772)
We’re largely an executive search firm.

Dwain Celistan (16:48.746)
So when organizations have leadership needs and they can’t fill them themselves and they decide to go outside to a third party, we’re many times the third party that’s selected and we do it globally and we do it from what we call emerging leaders up through board members.

Anthony Codispoti (17:08.372)
Okay, now I’m looking at your LinkedIn page. I see that you’ve been there over 17 years. That’s a long time. I’m curious, how did you first get started there?

Dwain Celistan (17:19.214)
Well, you know, I began my career in corporate America, got an opportunity to be a vice president reporting to the president for most of the last 10 years of my career. And a friend of mine worked at a large search firm, had dinner with me, and he shared all the good things about executive search and why I might be the right type of person to move into that as a career space.

You know, I had a couple of bumps in the road and I pursued this this new Avenue and After three years they acquired the company I was with they unbeknownst to me. They were not financially in a good position and Then I became part of DHR and it’s been a great role for me a great Organization because we have colleagues in areas where I’m not an expert

So we do a collaborative approach in many instances. So if you have a need and a function or an industry where you may not be the expert, you can have a colleague that can come in and bring that expertise. So one plus one can hopefully be greater than two.

Anthony Codispoti (18:34.622)
Can you describe in a little bit more detail what your role entails? Are you going out and looking for the companies that have a need? Are you trying to find the executives who are looking for a new opportunity? What is sort of the push -pull relationship?

Dwain Celistan (18:51.596)
No, great question because it’s not always clear. Most people when they hear executive recruiter, they think, wow, I have a friend that needs a job. That’s usually the first thought that comes to mind. But what it is in an executive or retained search model, not executive, but retained search model, is organizations hire us first. So the beginning is the organization has a need for a leader, be it a board member, a leader of a department function, what have you.

And they know that that is a critical next step for them and they can’t promote someone from within or they want to make a contrast to an external talent to some internal talent. And they come to a third party, they’ve decided to go to a third party to find that external talent. We are one of those firms and we compete with all other retained search firms for that opportunity to support that organization.

be it a for -profit or non -for -profit entity.

Anthony Codispoti (19:52.5)
And so what makes somebody choose Duane Celestan and DHR Global over all the other options out there?

Dwain Celistan (20:00.716)
You know, that’s also the question. And it does vary, you know, because part of it is the personality, because you’re going to work together as a team for three months or more, depending on how complicated or difficult the project will be. So it’s typically someone you’d want to spend that time with, because you have choices as the organization. It’s not like it’s one or two people to choose from. There are hundreds to choose from.

So you want to choose someone that you’re comfortable with interacting over time for what might be stressful at points in time of the process. The other is, I think, what I uniquely bring to the table, which other people have their unique elements. But what I bring uniquely is that I was in corporate America, worked at very large companies at senior roles. I also, being a diverse person, had a different experience in that getting to the

senior levels that I had. So when I speak to my clients, I’m speaking from not just I’ve done this work before as a recruiter, but I many times have had those interactions as a senior executive. I’ve led large teams of a hundred plus people. had a budget of, you know, revenue target of 600 plus million, a budget of a hundred million in spend. So there are many things that I uniquely bring from those.

career experiences that very few other executives who do what I do can bring. The other thing that I do that’s unique and important is I ensure that they have diverse talent in the pool from which they will select their leader or their person from us. And we define diversity as a company, women globally, because gender is the same, you know, choices globally, and people of color and women in the U .S. because we have our own unique.

definitions of what diversity are in the US. And while there many possibilities for that definition, we use people of color and women as the ones that we track and can track over time. not all recruiters believe that they need to do that. Not all clients feel that they need that as part of the pool that’s presented. But that’s something uniquely I do and over 70 % of the people I place fall into that category of diversity.

Anthony Codispoti (22:28.349)
And do you feel like Dwayne, this is so important to you because of your own experiences having gone through corporate America? Did you find it more difficult to move up and to get opportunities? And so this is a way for you to kind of give back.

Dwain Celistan (22:47.726)
I hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but that’s a piece of it. I also, in one of my four books that I wrote, there was some tangible evidence that I had in my career of diverse talent performing admirably relative to more homogeneous talent. One company I worked for for 10 years, they basically were flat.

Anthony Codispoti (23:07.988)
Okay.

Dwain Celistan (23:14.745)
from a stock performance and many other areas of performance. During my four years there, we had a lot more diverse leaders come in, one that all of operations, which was critical to for costs and in sales marketing and finance. So this was a very different component of leadership than we had had prior to that. And within the four years I was there,

the company went from claiming quality was great and in four years, the quality measured 90 % better on the same metrics. And I was a leader on that team because I challenged the president in my first few weeks. I was saying, well, you you think quality is good, but here’s the data that says it’s parity to many of our key competitors. And I wasn’t challenging him for any other reason than, I’m a fact -based guy.

Anthony Codispoti (23:51.496)
Wow.

Dwain Celistan (24:10.606)
I’m not just going to beat my chest that we think we’re good. I want to demonstrate we’re good. And I thought we had a better product, but we didn’t prove it in the data. And so he said, well, do something about it. And so we did. There are a number of things we did, but 90 % improvement on the same metrics. The other thing we did was we nearly doubled our return on invested capital, which is one of the most difficult measures to move at all, let alone double. And lastly, we tripled our stock price.

in a category with no &A activity. So there were no changes in ownership or structure of our key competitors. And to do that in any time is incredible, but most of our competitors had your normal single digit growth, double digit maybe, we tripled. So far exceeded all of our competitors. So I linked that to the leadership differential.

not to some other factors.

Anthony Codispoti (25:11.572)
So this is really interesting, Dwayne. I want to dig into this a little bit more because what I’m hearing you say is diversity is not just important because morally it’s the right thing to do. You’re saying, hey, listen, I don’t care who you are. What your background is. Look at the data. Look at the numbers. Like what you’re, what you’re just telling me, 90 % improvement in quality. And I want to hear a little bit more about how that got measured, but doubled your return on investment and capital.

tripled your stock price in an industry that was relatively flat. mean, those are beyond phenomenal results. And it sounds like you’re telling me the biggest lever that you pulled was we brought in diversity. We brought in diverse backgrounds, people who had different ideas, they come from different experiences, and that was able to elevate the company in pretty phenomenal ways.

Dwain Celistan (26:06.574)
Absolutely. And one would argue we had a new CEO three years prior, but he had been there three years and the performance was still not appreciably better. rest in peace, he’s no longer with us. This guy was an awesome leader, but the smartest thing he did was guide the players he subsequently brought in. Because the players he had for those three years,

or similar to the players of the previous seven in their performance and output.

Anthony Codispoti (26:42.174)
So let’s go a layer deeper here and tell me what do you think it was about bringing into, like I’m sort of making my own conclusions and connecting dots in my own way. What do you think was the biggest difference in bringing in a more diverse set of executives into the company that allowed for such a huge upward trajectory?

Dwain Celistan (27:06.082)
Well, everyone who was brought in had a very good track record in their space prior to joining. So the person who led operations, which was the bulk of the people and as mentioned, the bulk of the costs. mean, that was overwhelmingly the cost of the product. His leadership style was phenomenal. What he did, many incredible things to drive the cost down and help with the quality, again, the quality improved.

So it’s not, it wasn’t just a cost level. You know, our goals as an organization didn’t change. We still had to go out and do the same things. We didn’t have different goals or objectives, but how we viewed them and approached them. So on the quality front, we didn’t have to convince people that we had a quality product. We had to prove it. So everybody thought we had great quality to begin with. Like everybody associated with our business thought.

our quality was great. It just wasn’t, you know, it was just okay. So what we did was we changed how we shipped the product. We changed how we measured the product. We changed how we recognize people who did a phenomenal job with the product. We did so many things that built on what we already knew and what people already felt. So we didn’t have to convince people, you know, there are times when you, when you’ve had a product issue and now you have to convince people our product is still good. That was not.

situation for us. We had to now say, okay, for those of you who do a phenomenal job, which includes this, so we defined it and people worked towards it and got and I tell you it was so impressive when people were close and didn’t get recognized. Most of them said it’s on us to be better next time because we want that recognition.

Anthony Codispoti (29:00.498)
Hmm.

Dwain Celistan (29:00.738)
You know, we don’t want to be close. We want that perfect score. Cause it was, you have to be perfect and they’re part of the puzzle to be recognized. Anything less than perfect. didn’t get recognized. And then of those who got recognized, they got, you know, all kinds of regulations and know, good things happen for them. So it was really a positive way to build on our strength. And we also had our people do different things. And I was one of eight who we broke up the country into eight areas and my team.

also did the best in quality because I was on the quality team. So we also demonstrated, how you can do it at best in class model and had that cascade to our colleagues in other parts of the country. So it was really exciting and it was fun and it was positive, not punitive kind of an approach.

Anthony Codispoti (29:51.1)
Yeah. So you mentioned that you talk about some of this data in one of your books. Which book is that?

Dwain Celistan (29:58.882)
This is recruiter’s guide to finding diverse talent.

Anthony Codispoti (30:05.268)
Okay. And is that a book that people can find on a website or on Amazon somewhere?

Dwain Celistan (30:11.096)
You know, I did not do it that way. I did publish some books through Amazon and they chose not to pay me for my sales. I don’t feel the need to work with those guys, the largest bookseller probably in the world, but I don’t feel the need to be a part of the ecosystem anymore.

Anthony Codispoti (30:13.683)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (30:30.714)
Yeah, fair enough. I would I’d feel the same way. Can we give voice to maybe one or two of the other books that you’re proud of? What was some of the content there?

Dwain Celistan (30:39.948)
Yeah, the first one was five simple steps to achieving your dreams and then college students six simple steps to achieving your dreams. And what I wanted to do was, you know, I used to listen to speakers like Les Brown and Tony Robbins when I had a sales role where I was in a lot of windshield time. And I found them really motivating. And I didn’t want to do it quite in the way they did it because they’re great.

because of their skills and uniqueness. And I’m not anything close to those guys. But I did think that there are ways to approach a dream or success that are formulaic, that aren’t so difficult that any individual can’t pursue their dream. Everybody’s dreams are personal, right? Some wanna be super athletic.

Some wanna do something professionally, what have you. And there are also, I’ve listed about 10 broad areas where you might wanna improve. Call it health, call it finances, call it your adventure side. So it’s not only about any one area, it’s not unique about, my professional path. And so I just lay out the five steps.

and who you should and shouldn’t bring into your camp and why. You know, can’t share with everyone your dreams because some people you share them with will tear them down, call you foolish, what have you. But there might, there are those people who will be a thought partner, who will ask you how you’re doing against your dreams, who will be a positive person in your desire to achieve something special. And then I wrote this other book,

around career success, basically how to navigate the career goals and pathways. Because there are things that aren’t obvious to everyone. And I’ve had wild success in corporate America, but I’ve also had some significant bumps and bruises along the way that went well in a very different direction than I would have expected or desired. And some of those things I did and didn’t know. So everybody, you know, I…

Dwain Celistan (33:00.418)
I don’t think I had a mentor in my corporate career. You everybody’s looking for mentors and you know, that’s fine. I didn’t have one. So I learned a lot of things the hard way and listening to these books and tapes and Thinking Grow Rich and The Magic of Thinking Big were two big books that helped me think about the challenges and how to write your own ship, how to help get up and move forward.

how to navigate situations, good, bad, or indifferent, to make them a positive thing. And so many people don’t have, many professionals don’t have that. So I tried to lay out some things, even how do you negotiate? How do you work with your supervisor? The one slide that I created, which is something I’ve used when I’ve coached many people,

is I think, is simple but positive. It’s first, share with your supervisor what you did since the last time you met. You know, some people meet weekly, monthly, quarterly, depends on the nature of your role and your supervisor’s role. But you can assume your supervisor is familiar with all the things you’ve accomplished since the last time.

So that’s first. So you help them say, I didn’t know you did these things because again, you may be one of five or more subordinates for that person. The next thing is here’s what I’m going to do and here’s what I plan to accomplish you. And the power of that is that the supervisor can say one of two or three things. One, great. I like what you’re doing and how you’re prioritizing. Two, you’re missing something.

that should be done between now and the time we connect that’s not on your list. And like, aha, I didn’t have this particular activity on my list and I need to make it a priority in line with my supervisor. Or three, I like what’s on the list, I don’t like the priority. You you’re saying you’re going to do this thing in two weeks, I need that thing tomorrow. So now you have the most important thing with a subordinate and supervisor, alignment. What is important now?

Dwain Celistan (35:21.046)
relative to your supervisor’s expectations. Because the employee that gives the supervisor that output, that alignment, is more likely to be successful with that supervisor than if you’re doing what you think is best. How have you got there? But it’s not what the supervisor is expecting or desires for best outcomes between now and the next time you meet. That is the single most powerful thing.

Anthony Codispoti (35:32.754)
Mm

Dwain Celistan (35:48.44)
that I think a professional can do in their career. Be aligned with their supervisor and then crush those things that are on that alignment and agreement.

Anthony Codispoti (36:00.08)
Is there a way for somebody to access this book?

Dwain Celistan (36:04.078)
Yes. Wow. So I dcelestan at comcast .net. You know, I can give books away because I used to sell them, but they’ve been published for some time and I’m fine with the revenue from that experience.

Anthony Codispoti (36:14.036)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (36:22.718)
Just want to, a nice opportunity to give back to somebody else, you know, who was in a similar position to you. You didn’t have a mentor and that’s why you created a lot of this content. And so very generous of you to make that content available to other folks. Can you say the email address again? And we’ll be sure to put it in the show notes as well.

Dwain Celistan (36:40.301)
yes, D -C -E -L -I -S -T -A -N at Comcast .net.

Anthony Codispoti (36:47.796)
That’s great. So, yeah, we mentioned that you’ve been at DHR Global 17 years. It’s a long time. What is it about the company that keeps you there, Duane?

Dwain Celistan (36:59.554)
You know, I think the people are part of it. And I’ve worked with quite a number of different people. I’ve worked with people in different countries, different markets, different industry areas and functional areas of expertise. And I found that to be great. you know, this was a new career, second career for me. So it took me about four years to be what I would call a decent.

That means almost as good as I was in my other career financially. And I needed a lot of help to get there because in this instance, knowing a lot of people who are in the right position is helpful, but I didn’t know how to convert a friend relationship or a business relationship to one where there’s commerce between me and that person.

And I had to get a colleague that was great. So in the first couple of years, I could get us meetings and his job was to get us business. Because I just didn’t have, I hadn’t developed the muscle yet of converting that relationship to someone that we could do business together. And it just took a long time to get that muscle developed to the level that…

put me in a place where I thought I was at least a competent total professional. I could find the people, but finding the people was far less important if you didn’t have enough assignments where that made a difference. And it did take a while. think somebody’s, I interviewed someone and said about 10 ,000 hours kind of a mindset where you really need to just put in the word and do the loop of

Anthony Codispoti (38:49.423)
Mm.

Dwain Celistan (38:55.618)
What am I doing well? What do I need to improve upon? What is and isn’t working? And be honest with yourself. One of the things that really slowed me down was I was trying to do too many things. You come from corporate and it’s clear what you need to do for a week, a month. And you really don’t, I really didn’t have much time to do other things professionally. There’s just not enough time. If I had another three hours, there are plenty of things as a leader of a function.

that I would have needed to do. So if I was going to work three more hours, I needed to work on those things to be great at my job. Whereas I got free, so I started speaking. I wrote articles, I wrote books, I coached people. I was just doing so many things. And I was fair to Midland at most of them. I wasn’t awesome at any of these other things. And what I realized is I need to focus. I need to go from light to a laser.

Anthony Codispoti (39:46.514)
Mm

Dwain Celistan (39:55.264)
And so moving to a position of, I’m going to focus on search and I’m going to use all those other things to reinforce search and particularly on finding diverse talent in search. So this is my unique proposition. Here’s how I’m different slash better than everybody else doing the work. And here’s why a client will select me of that large pool of possibilities. And that really helped me.

because it helped me in my elevator speeches, it helped me in my presentations, panel discussions, webinars, but it was all reinforcing a very similar message as opposed to all this diffusion of what does Dwayne stand for, what is Dwayne trying to accomplish in the marketplace.

Anthony Codispoti (40:43.764)
So this was going to be a question I wanted to ask, which was, say it took you four years to kind of build that muscle on being able to convert and close the sale. And I would love, cause you know, there’s a lot of people, you know, in sales, trying to get into sales, trying to figure this part of the path out. And so one of the things I’m hearing you say is, man, I was all over the place. I was a public speaker. I was publishing articles. was writing books and I was okay at those, but I wasn’t.

And I wanted to be amazing at something. so Dwayne says, okay, I got a laser focus. Who am I? What do I stand for? What’s my unique selling proposition? And you found it in, I’m the guy that can bring diversity to the table and I can back it up with data that shows why that’s better for your business. So that is, I would think either a unique or a very special.

selling proposition that not a lot of people can bring to the table. Is that the only thing that contributed to the increase in closings and converting into sales or were there other things from year zero to year four that you changed that helped with that?

Dwain Celistan (42:02.19)
Good question. So for perspective, I made in year one the least amount of money I made in like 25 years. So I was working from my perspective, a very low base. You I can’t speak for anyone else. I established what the numbers are for me. My second year, I nearly doubled that. And it was still, from my standpoint, I wasn’t even at six figures. So, you know, I’m like, this isn’t working.

Anthony Codispoti (42:11.667)
Mm

Dwain Celistan (42:30.83)
50 % more the next year, I’m making like a decent living for many, not anywhere close to what I was doing as a vice president in a large company, reporting to the president level VP. And then the next year I got to almost what I did in my last year at corporate, almost. So in that journey, I realized my close rate wasn’t that good. I wasn’t probably touching enough people.

I knew my messaging wasn’t optimal. But when you win more, because I was winning more each year, you get some positive feedback. Okay, that’s working, but it’s not working enough. You still, your hit rate was still well below what I need to be, in my own mind, at least good in this new space. I clearly recognize I was a relative rookie, you know, early stage player.

You know, and this isn’t like pro sports where, you know, some rookie of the year can be phenomenal. I was a rookie. That was the only thing that I was, was a rookie and an early stage player. So it took more time to develop. Look, and by working with a variety of people, I was able to see different things that they did, how they were better at either presenting, closing, asking for the order, following up.

getting meetings, you know, many of the smaller attributes that you need to win. You you can’t win if you don’t present to enough people. And who are the people you need to present to and a whole host of things. And there’s another dimension that sometimes it takes a while to secure a client. have clients that’s taken me five to 10 years before I got any business. So clearly in year four, those people who would give me

Anthony Codispoti (44:21.705)
Wow.

Dwain Celistan (44:28.716)
would be open to giving me business at some point, they hadn’t gotten there yet. The maturity of our relationship, the confidence they had that I could do what was needed relative to others, you know, we just hadn’t gotten to that point yet. And so sometimes it has to marinate. Well, how would you know that in year two that you need more than two years to really do business with some of the folks that…

find you okay, but not good enough to give you an agreement yet. And so those were some of the lessons that some of them you just can’t, you you just don’t know because you haven’t been there long enough. So yes, it was quite a few pieces that turned in and I have continued to tweak and modify approaches, you know, each year I do a plan and there are areas that I want to continue to improve upon and.

colleagues that I work with that again, I still learn from them because many of my colleagues are phenomenal and they just don’t do it the same way I do it. And I can’t necessarily mimic them, but I can maybe take a piece from some of their best practices. And many times that’s just a key to get me just a little bit better each year looking at some of my colleagues and some of the approaches they use. Sometimes it’s not a technique, it’s just the way they do.

the search process that I’ve learned from. So continue to learn.

Anthony Codispoti (46:00.422)
Yeah, always be in learning mode. Dwayne, what would be maybe just if you could distill down into one significant piece of advice that you could give to somebody in sales?

Dwain Celistan (46:14.026)
I think, wow, one, yeah, yeah, one is to, I think if you know your customer and your product, so knowledge, because it’s very difficult to sell your customer if you’ve not done sufficient homework on them, business, them as an individual, their business, because in a dialogue,

Anthony Codispoti (46:16.436)
That’s a big one.

Dwain Celistan (46:44.302)
They will know what you know. If you speak long enough, if you get past just introductory, if you go maybe 20 plus minutes, they will know based on their knowledge and other people who do what you do, where you fit on the understanding of them, their issues, their business. And I’ve been in situations where I didn’t do homework and I’ve seen colleagues who did homework well beyond.

any homework I had ever planned to do and how much more effective they were in that meeting. And I was like, my gosh, I was like 25 % of the homework this colleague did in a meeting. I still remember it now. I had called him in because I was unable to personally go to the meeting. So I was on the phone and he was personally there. And he knew so much about the people we’re meeting with. He went to their…

collegiate backgrounds and he had made some connections with that. He knew their business, the size, the growth, the scope. And I was at a much, much higher level of my knowledge of my client, the people in the company. We subsequently didn’t win, but it wasn’t, he was really going to be the lead horse on this particular assignment. But I was so impressed with his approach that I’ve become a lot better at that. But he was…

I still can’t match him on the preparation just because that’s not the approach I like, but I was quite impressed and I knew the client was impressed with the level of preparation. So I think that preparation that a salesperson can do can be a key plus because they may realize, well, there’s something about my product that I can highlight based on their need. Something I’ve learned that.

can help them hopefully bridge the gap from doing business to not doing business. From not doing business to doing business. Excuse me.

Anthony Codispoti (48:48.712)
Yeah. And some of that homework that you’re not incorporating to the level that he does, but what are some of the ways that you perform that homework, especially if it’s not a publicly traded company? How do you find this information?

Dwain Celistan (49:01.122)
Those are much more difficult because the level of content is less. Publicly traded companies, you know, I usually look at a few quarterly reports, annual reports, get big picture, look at the leaders because they’re typically on website, you know, who the board members are, who the senior leadership team is. Some private companies have a portion of that data, typically less.

A little more challenging to get that level of homework. But you can still do some homework. can understand who they compete with because they do provide information. It’s just not as much as a publicly traded company does.

Anthony Codispoti (49:48.712)
Gotcha. And who is it typically at the company that you’re connecting with, Duane? Who’s your contact there? Is it like head of HR? Is it somebody else?

Dwain Celistan (49:56.206)
Great question.

Great question. It varies. Sometimes I’ve gotten in through the board members and they’ve cascaded down to senior leaders, sometimes the CEO, sometimes the talent acquisition person, which reports to the CHRO or not. Because sometimes that organization has given them enough room to make the decision on selecting me or my competitors.

So every organization is a little bit different and you learn about it along the way. All of them have worked and all of them have not worked. That’s the beauty of this particular game. But I did lead a sales organization many times and for them, it wasn’t the same as what I do now because we already did business with the client. We already did business with large organizations and medium and small.

So the question was, how do we do more? And for them, the homework was different. The homework was the data. Here’s what we saw, here are the things, here are the items you do or do not carry. So it’s a different kind of homework that you go into your presentation really with, know, here’s how we’re to do better this year with you or the next period of time. So the homework is still there, but it’s more knowledge in your homework because your existing business relationship.

And how do I take that to the next level? So there’s still homework, but different.

Anthony Codispoti (51:33.756)
you. Dwayne, from your experience, what are some of the most common mistakes that companies make when looking to fill executive level positions?

Dwain Celistan (51:50.776)
So sometimes.

It’s my friends, my relationships that I already have. Organization says, boy, I know this group of people really well. They helped me five years ago, eight years ago, what have you, in another organization that was perhaps doing something different, but I’m comfortable with them. So I will bring them, you know, friends of John kind of mindset. And I think that can be the biggest detriment to…

How high can I go? Most of the time in my 17 years, I’ve probably placed the person I knew and said, wow, they’re right for that role less than 10 times. So we’re always listening to how are you defining the role? How is the hiring manager defining the role now? What do they really want from that talent? What are the subtle things that make a talent?

better than someone else. Because this is not a generic better. This is not someone who’s scored higher on a test. Everybody can have an undergraduate, a graduate degree, or a CPA, or some other certification. That’s not the tiebreaker. The tiebreakers are, have you done a turnaround three times? Have you reduced costs dramatically? Have you introduced some kind of innovation multiple times that led to some improvement?

They’re looking for those things to be a member of their team. And sometimes when you just bring your buddy over, that buddy may not have all of the things that they would ask of us. So I’ve had a few times where, remember this one client that, I don’t know if they fired me, I fired them, but we fired each other. my gosh, it was painful.

Anthony Codispoti (53:44.767)
It was a mutual parting of ways.

Dwain Celistan (53:50.882)
The hiring manager could not define success, which is always challenging. Because I can’t find for you what you can’t define. So this person couldn’t define success because every candidate, was a new group of what about this? So you couldn’t, then when you find that, it was all over the map. And so we laid out, well, here are the things we’ve discussed and tried to box it in.

to, you know, what are the three to five things that if they have this, you’ll be pleased and that will be the kind of leader that had to team. And they just weren’t trying to have that kind of conversation. They just wanted a free flowing, really broad range of possibilities. So shortly thereafter, they hired someone who had none of the characteristics of the people they had said. They were so bad.

I would not have even interviewed that person, let alone interview and subsequently presented that person. I mean, eventually that person was fired because even though they were a C -level executive, they were way over the head. But that’s happened to me a few times where the client eventually went with someone who was far below what they were asking us to do. And perhaps it was a relationship or something like that.

that led them to make those decisions. that’s probably the worst thing that an organization can do is simply go with the known versus the unknown. Unknown will be more challenging in the short term, clearly the first three, six months or more than a known. But if that unknown meets your criteria, and we’d go through a rigorous evaluation process, which isn’t foolproof, but

It usually helps. I think over a year plus that unknown will typically be a better performer.

Anthony Codispoti (55:58.196)
Dwayne, a little bit earlier in our conversation, you mentioned bumps and bruises you’ve had along the way. Would love to maybe hear about a particular bump or bruise, a particular challenge that you had to overcome personally or professionally and maybe some lessons that you learned coming out the other side.

Dwain Celistan (56:16.402)
yes. Well, I’m only in search because of one of those bumps and bruises. So I was doing quite well in my career at a company and my colleague was, I was the chief commercial officer and we had a chief finance officer. Neither of us got promoted when our boss was promoted. And I was, if he had gotten promoted, I would have been fine. If I had gotten promoted, I think he would have been fine. Neither of us were

And I was just beside myself. And so when the opportunity presented itself for me to join another firm, I pursued it with gusto. And I was competing against someone I happened to know, and I knew I was stronger for that role than that person, just the nature. I knew the person. So they selected me, and within a short time, less than a year, I didn’t work out.

You know, the people who were reported for me, you know, they didn’t like my approach, my style, because it was different than what they were. Long story short, I was out. Then I joined another organization and something else went wrong and boom, I was out there. So in two senior level commercial roles, highly compensated, big title, big business card, I’m out.

So I realized, the next time I interview with someone, if I were them, I’d say, well, why are you here? And then what happened at the prior thing? It’s like, golly, so my first who knows how many minutes I’m on the defensive trying to explain why I’m even actively looking for my third role in, you year three kind of thing, which is not position A.

And so I referenced earlier, a friend of mine that had spoken to me about the search business. So I realized I needed to be somewhere where I had opportunity to control time, like how much I worked, where I worked space and income. Because while it took years to make anything close to what I was, would be comfortable with or happy about, eventually I thought I would be able to do reasonably well.

Dwain Celistan (58:41.702)
And if I worked hard, you know, the upside was there. getting fired twice was probably, back to back was probably the most difficult thing, but I never lost confidence in myself. I didn’t think it was, boy, I’m a terrible leader or a terrible marketeer, which is why I was fired. know, I mean, clearly it didn’t work out. Clearly they saw something.

that I didn’t, but I never lost confidence in my ability to do the job. And I think you have to have your own set of confidence because that could be a confidence wrecker. know, being fired once is certainly for cost, not breaking rules, but they say you’re not performing well. Therefore, we want you to separate from this role. Sometimes that can be separated as in lower position or something.

are out exiting, but we want you out of the role you’re in now and not at a bigger role. This is not a promotional conversation. That was tough. Back to back was really tough. And then coming into the first two years of my search career, not performing anywhere close to where I had been 20 years before. So I had like a four year run of

not a lot of great news that could be crushing. You know, when you’ve had professional success or athletic success or whatever kind of success one has had, and then to go to the four years of each year is a, at the end of the year, you say, wow, this wasn’t nearly as good as prior years. You know, have I peaked? Have I gotten to a point of Peter principle or anything that you could say if you go the negative route? But I didn’t.

I believed in myself, I believed in hard work. I didn’t get anywhere successfully from taking the easy route. So I knew if I worked really hard and dedicated myself that I would get better. The question was how much better? And if you recall, I mentioned trying to do too many things because I wasn’t quite sure which thing would lead me to the success route.

Dwain Celistan (01:01:03.054)
say, wow, I can do that like that guy or this like this woman or whatever. And you realize you just have to focus and be really intentional on the thing you think you can be really good at. And it goes back to my early career. I started my career at Procter & Gamble, phenomenal company. And I remember someone was asking me to sell insurance, you know, and I said, wow, to be okay, I need at least 10 hours a week.

to get any kind of business at all, whatever this is going to entail. And I said, if I spend those 10 hours on my P &G job, I know I can get promoted. I know I learned my craft better. I know that will lead to more promotions over time and I’ll be a better marketeer, my day job, not a decent marketeer and making a little bit on the side from this other activity.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:44.852)
Mm.

Dwain Celistan (01:02:01.932)
And I think there are many, people in different professions, you know, try this dichotomy of, I want my profession, it’s okay, but I really want to pursue this other thing on the side. And when I interview people like that, many times they’re kind of satisfied, but they’re probably as good at either one as they could be if they were all in.

And I can’t speak for choices. You some people just like the difference of two unrelated career paths. But for me, going all in and going all in hard and saying, I’m playing to win. I’m playing to be great for my family. You know, I’m not going to have my family have a different lifestyle because dad dropped the ball and didn’t know. Dad is going to rise up.

And, know, while I was just an OK rookie made the squad, but I wasn’t starting, you know, that’s how I felt in my first four years. Like I was just on the team, not really a starter. I said, no, I know I can be an All -Star. You know, I know I can make the make the the starting team and then I can make the Pro Bowl and an All -Star game. And that was really my goal. How do you get to the All -Star game? You know, and that

That led me to continuous learning and led me to getting to the type of performance that’s far better than I had in my corporate career from a objective and revenue standpoint. So while I wanted to be a president in my old life, and I still think that was a goal that was worth pursuing, being in the top…

of our company. can’t compare to my colleague, you know, competitors in the same space. But I do feel good about some of the accomplishments I’ve made in this space and it fuels me to try and hopefully stay at a high level of performance.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:04.914)
I appreciate you sharing all that, Dwayne. Going through what you did, for folks who haven’t had that sort of hiccups, not even the right word, I mean, that was a pretty huge bump in the road, series of bumps in the road. People who haven’t been through that probably can’t appreciate how challenging that is. You’re a person that had been on the rise in your professional career. You’ve been doing really well, working your way up.

And then, okay, one time you get let go. mean, that’s enough to crush anybody, anybody. Then it happens again a year later. And now you’re reinventing yourself, going into search, you’re going into a whole new industry. You know, you don’t know how it works. You don’t know the lingo. You don’t have the, maybe the connections. Like you, you’re starting from scratch at a point, you know, when you thought you were going to, you know,

continue to be up and to the right. And so to do that and to stick with it two, three, four years until you get to a point where you’re like, okay, like I got this, I know what I’m doing, I’m back, Dwayne is back, the man is back, right? Like that is, that’s a rocky road. And I’m hearing you say, I never lost confidence in myself. That’s astounding.

I mean, to go through each of those challenges and for the extended period of time that you went through them, to never lose confidence in yourself, I gotta hear more about that. How do you hold on to this sense of self and this, can do this, I will rise again?

Dwain Celistan (01:05:52.974)
You know, great question, especially when you, when I reflect on it as the number of years, because you’ve gotten this bad feedback. But, you know, I had been a really good student in high school, college, grad school, you know, high top of the class, kind of, you know, top 5 % performer. So I know in the world of people and professionals, where I fit.

You know, I know I’ve got this again, independent, many independent data points. I worked at Procter & Gamble where these people were phenomenal. Every day I’m working with them and kind of competing in a little bit. I mean, not really, but kind of, because you’re competing for when you get promoted accolades and those types of things.

you know, been promoted multiple places. So you say, wow, you know, that guy is still in there. You just got to find a way to get that person, you know, in the marketplace in the right situation. But that person still exists. You know, that person’s in there in the market. And then we got in the search in the downturn. But when you’re new to something, you don’t realize that it’s a downturn.

downturn for you and your industry. I had no idea. So, which is probably better for me because think about it, if I had had wild success in those two years, I’m feeling I’m bulletproof, even though I still would have had the same skill opportunities, you know, in a new industry. But if it had been super robust and I had been getting business with the level of skill I had.

that would have probably not been as good for me over time because I would have felt like I knew things that I really didn’t know. I might have just been a beneficiary of the rising tide, so to speak. The other thing that I did though, I looked at it as searches buying a franchise. So I said, let’s say it’s going to take five years. So my wife and I planned it out.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:49.414)
Mm -hmm.

Dwain Celistan (01:08:08.952)
here’s how much we’re gonna pull down per month. So our lifestyle is the same. And so if I do better than that, you know, good for us, we just pull down less or pull down none. But we had that plan. So I was hoping I wouldn’t have to pull down for too many years or months, but.

Mentally, have, you know, when you buy a franchise, it could be a phenomenal franchise, but it may not be great for you in the first two or three years because of your location or the team you hire and what, you know, things, again, it’s new. And I think that was helpful to realize that, you know, this is not the same game. It is, it’s similar, but there are so many unique elements to it that you can’t just assume.

this will be an easy transition because again, if it’s easy, anybody can do it and then everybody makes a little, know, call it flipping burgers. You know, it’s easy job. You can hire a and a person and they can start within a day and get it done. As you move up the challenge pyramid, it takes more to do those things well. And that more takes time.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:31.924)
I like what you said there. And I didn’t realize that the transition took place during the downturn 2008, 2009, right? When nobody’s hiring, right? Companies are not growing. They’re retracting. The great recession. Everybody’s worried about what’s happening, what’s going to come. And so this is the time that you’re starting a new career, probably the worst time to be an executive search. But I love how you found the silver lining in that.

because you’re like, hey, this was actually a good thing. Cause it caused me to have to sharpen my sword. And if I had come in during boom times, yeah, but I thought I’m bulletproof. I got this, know, Dwayne just, he rocks and rolls in anything he does. But the fact that you started in something new in a lean time made you have to really get better. Had to, you know, look for big things and little dials to turn at the same time so that.

Dwain Celistan (01:10:06.72)
us.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:29.004)
As the economy started coming back, you were well positioned to better take advantage of those opportunities that you were able to get in front of.

Dwain Celistan (01:10:37.048)
Yes. And then that’s part of the DHR story, which had a better brand than the firm they acquired and more colleagues that did more things well. And so I was able to learn from many more people than I was in the smaller entity. So I could contrast my approach to more colleagues who had a different slash better.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:45.022)
Hmm.

Dwain Celistan (01:11:06.478)
I mean, it didn’t take much to have a better approach, I think. I I wasn’t the worst, but I wasn’t looking at who am I better than. I’m looking at who are the top of the hip parade? Who are the most successful people in this game? Because that’s always been the approach. Who’s successful and why? And I’m not going to beat all of them or maybe any of them, but I want to understand what makes them really good, what allows them to win business.

And how do I incorporate that? And I learned quite a few things, some that I still keep today. One thing I learned from a colleague, she was only, she was better than I was, because she had been in the industry, you know, 10 years at the time. She had a little bit of an interesting personality that wouldn’t appeal to a lot of people, but she had this one element that was awesome. It was a one -page grid. And that one -page grid,

for an executive, having been an executive is awesome because in one page I get to see what I need to see about this candidate. And I use that to this day. And because I was an executive for many years, I know they have a short attention span. want it now. They want it crisply, cleanly, and they want to get it really quickly. And so I use that approach. And because I know what many executives, nothing works for everyone.

You know, some still want some crazy amount of content, which is, you know, I don’t believe in that, but for most, the one page is just right what they need. Cause then they can, they can quickly see why they’ve been presented, what the highlights are for that person relative to the need. And almost every time they can say thumbs up, thumbs down, which is what an executive likes to do. Let’s keep moving. Good. You got it. Or.

They’re missing. Ask some questions. What about what? And based on that answers up or down.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:05.989)
You’re taking a whole bunch of data from this person’s background, from their CV, their resume, and you’re distilling it down into bullet points, a grid fashion that’s easy to digest.

Dwain Celistan (01:13:15.33)
Yes, and that was from her. I didn’t learn anything else from her, but that was a huge takeaway. So I wasn’t trying to pick everything from everyone, but that was like, my gosh, this is how I think this is. And it was better than anything I had created up to that point. So I threw all my stuff away about you. And I quickly adopted her piece, and that was something I would not have gotten without DHR, for example.

Anthony Codispoti (01:13:43.838)
Yeah, and the other thing I love about this particular story, Dwayne, is it highlights the importance of, anytime I can go into a conversation with curiosity and the idea that I have something to learn from this person, then I am in a much better position to receive even a tiny little nugget of wisdom. Like the way you’re describing this woman, you know, maybe her personality was…

abrasive or just it wasn’t easy for lot of people to get sort of snuggled up to. And it would have been easy to just dismiss her out of hand. I don’t want to replicate anything she’s doing. But instead, you were able to carve away some of this other stuff and you’re like, man, that grid is awesome. I am going to borrow that and use it in my process. so, yeah, it’s a great reminder for me again, and I’m sure for many of our listeners to say.

Hey, when you can go into a conversation and you approach it with curiosity and don’t assume that you are better than that person, don’t assume that you know more than that person, don’t assume necessarily that you have something to teach that person, but man, what could this person have to teach me? I think that curiosity positions all of us better to learn and move forward. Dwayne, I’ve just got one more question for you today, but before I ask it, I want to do two things.

For those listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, subscribe or share button on your favorite podcast app. Dwayne, I also want to tell people the best way to get in touch with you. And I think we may have already done this. Is that that comcast .net email address or would you rather they use a DHR global?

Dwain Celistan (01:15:21.134)
The comcast .net is fine and you know, I look at both of them daily. It’s D C E L I S as in Sam T as in Tom A N as in Nancy at comcast .net

Anthony Codispoti (01:15:23.356)
Okay, you want to repeat it for us one more time?

Anthony Codispoti (01:15:36.286)
Great. All right, Dwayne, last question for you. I’m curious, how do you see the executive search space evolving in the next few years? What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Dwain Celistan (01:15:47.234)
Well, like many areas, think AI will eventually be more important. Exactly how, I don’t know. think companies will be able to uncover some of the talent better, faster than they do now. And many companies do a great job, you know, without a third party. But the AI may enable them to do some sifting through.

And AI will be able to probably do some video interviews, which is not new information, but allows them to do it better and maybe pivot, you know, not just a straight, you know, here are my five questions, but maybe pivot based on answers. I can see that as an evolution and that could reduce some of the need for third parties to some degree, for some roles.

I think there would be a need for third parties because if you even get contacted by the AI for company X, they still say, that’s company X. I’m not familiar with them. I’m not all that curious. Whereas when we speak to them, we represent the whole alphabet. So while they may not be interested in this particular opportunity, there may be something behind curtain number two that could be interesting.

with a different company, different industry or what have you. So I think there’ll always be an opportunity for us. And maybe AI can help us, you know, do some of the work that we do a little more rapidly as well. But I think a large part is still, as long as there is a people component to a industry or a business, it’ll be helpful to have a person kind of sift through those personalities and.

who will fit with whom, you know, the matchmaking component of the role that we play.

Anthony Codispoti (01:17:46.216)
What do you hear from your peers in this space? Are people more excited or more concerned about the rise of AI in this space?

Dwain Celistan (01:17:54.286)
In the short term, it’s a novelty, so not a lot of concern. But it’s something to observe, like many other areas, like robotics and manufacturing. There was like, my gosh, robots, will there be a need for people? Well, robots have been around since the, what, 70s, early 80s, and manufacturing is still lots and lots of employees that work on the floor, even in the more…

advanced areas are still, you know, fair number of people in those jobs. So, but they’re doing different things and perhaps fewer, but it took many, many years to get there. Similarly, I think that will be the case for us. It won’t be 27, all of a sudden, industry is upside down. I don’t think it’ll be that rapid by any stretch.

Anthony Codispoti (01:18:46.12)
Gotcha. Well, Dwayne, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Dwain Celistan (01:18:53.703)
was great. Thank you so much for the invitation and the questions. Really enjoyed the time.

Anthony Codispoti (01:18:59.316)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.