Less than thirty days after moving Craig into the “executive suite” and everyone committing fully to the new hiring model, everything at VB had changed completely. All open positions had been hired with ideal team players, and the projects were both way ahead of schedule. And every single employee who lacked humility, hunger, and smarts had chosen to leave the company on their own, with no animosity.

Jeff was so happy that he was literally flying around the offices, his feet completely off the ground. And that's how he knew that he was dreaming.

When he woke up, Jeff was immediately thinking about the hospital project and whether it would ever be adequately staffed. Aside from that and a handful of other tactical issues, Jeff was generally pleased with the process that was underway at the company. Perhaps the most important part of that process was the new hiring program that Clare had put in place.

Based on what she and her colleagues had learned in the process of coming up with humble, hungry, and smart, and the experience of testing it with Ted and others, Clare had launched a remarkably simple training program for everyone involved in the hiring process. From recruiting team players to vetting them during interviews, all hiring managers understood the basics of humble, hungry, and smart and their roles in making the model a reality at VB.

As for the hiring itself, they were still not where they wanted to be in terms of numbers. However, that concern was offset by the quality of a few of the more senior people they had hired—people who would have key roles at the hotel and the hospital. With them on board, Clare felt that hiring would get easier because she would have more people out there looking for the kind of employees who fit the company's culture.

One of the biggest moral victories the team had achieved was rehiring Pedro, one of the foremen who had quit amidst the stress and politics at Oak Ridge. The key to bringing him back was Bobby's passion around the new culture being built at VB, and Nancy's humility.

At Jeff's urging, Nancy sat down with Pedro and explained to him how she had let him down in not confronting the issues that had festered at Oak Ridge. Pedro would later tell Bobby that she had never spoken to him that way before, and that if she were any indication of what was happening at the company, he would be glad to be a part of it.

Jeff had been so pleased with Nancy's progress that he decided to take three full days and meet with every one of the company's seventeen foremen and project leads for a re-interview. For those that seemed to have no shortfalls in humble, hungry, or smart, Jeff used the discussion to reinforce his commitment to hiring and nurturing team players and to ensure that every VB leader was ready to make it his or her responsibility to protect the culture.

For the handful of leaders who had clear shortfalls in humble, hungry, or smart, Jeff took a more direct approach. After getting agreement on their need for improvement in one or more of the areas, he kindly assured them of three things. First, improvement was not an option. Second, they would have plenty of support in their development. Third, if they decided to opt out, that would be okay.

Only two people wanted to leave. One of them Jeff convinced to stay, knowing that her motivation for leaving was just the shame of being called on her issue. The other one, a particularly difficult foreman named Tom, got no argument from Jeff at all. Clare was beside herself with relief when Jeff explained that Tom would be leaving, on his own.

“You know,” she said to Jeff after the last of his re-interviews, “this isn't going to be easy, these two projects.”

Jeff smiled and didn't disagree with her.

“But I'm as excited as I've been in years.”

“Me too,” Jeff agreed. “Me too.”