This Series:
Part 1 (Intro) | Part 2 (Hire Strange Renegades) | Part 3 (Build Craftsmen) | Part 4 (Create Artisan Products) | Part 5 (Earn Raving Fans) | Part 6 (Forge an Inimitable Brand)
The longer I am in this seat as the CEO at risk3sixty the more convicted I become that you can't do a single thing worth it's weight without hiring strange renegades - at every level of the business.
Because yes, every organization wants great outcomes - innovative products, loyal clients, a strong reputation. But the fact is that no leaders' individual efforts are enough to shape the success of a company. No amount of micromanagement is going to get it done. You need people across the business focusing their energy when you aren't in the room. People innovating, serving customers, building solutions, sending invoices, running payroll, and everything else it takes to run a good business.
That's why at risk3sixty our Flywheel begins with Hiring Strange Renegades.
Several years back I read the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. Scaling up offers a playbook for growing businesses that became foundational for us at risk3sixty. (We give a copy to every new hire that joins risk3sixty.) On page 61 Verne says that the best teams are a group of "renegades" and might even be a little bit "strange".
And the first time I read those words I knew it perfectly described what we were building over here at risk3sixty. So we adopted the phrase "Strange Renegade" for ourselves. Soon it landed on t-shirts and became part of our internal vocabulary.
A Strange Renegade isn’t satisfied with “good enough.” They care deeply about the quality of their work and the impact it has on others. They’re humble enough to learn, but bold enough to challenge. They’re mission-driven, values-aligned, and relentless in pursuit of excellence. Specifically, they uniquely align to our core values.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
While we have alumni from top consulting firms, industry leaders, and Universities this mindset doesn’t always show up on a résumé. It’s often found in people who took an unconventional path - career changers, self-taught experts, or individuals who’ve excelled outside traditional molds. What unites them is the way they think and the way they care.
When it comes to hiring Strange Renegades I give a lot of the credit to our "people" function led by our VP of People, Jessica Andree. Over the years she has helped us develop processes, community, and an employee value proposition that helps us attract and retain very talented individuals.
Our team works tirelessly to build relationships with top Universities and professional organizations to help us source top talent. We make significant investments to sponsor student programs at top Universities, internship programs, mentoring, and we speak at events dozens of times a year. That kind of investment is our attempt to pour into the community who in return pours back into us.
Jessica and her team also push us to be thoughtful and crystal clear about the roles we open and the type of people we are looking for. Every job we open has been carefully crafted based on specific need and the long term vision of the company. That means that every candidate is a strategic hire with a promising long term future - not just a cog in the wheel.
In fact, every member of our leadership team was promoted from within the company. Many starting in our delivery team and working their way to operational positions or as members of the leadership team. For example, ever member of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) started in delivery directly serving our customers.
We look for people who demonstrate curiosity, craftsmanship, and have a track record of success. Individuals who are ready to contribute to something bigger than themselves. Whether they come from a Fortune 500 company, a start-up, or a completely different industry, we care most about mindset and mission alignment.
We also take assessing candidates very seriously. Our philosophy is that it is better for us at risk3sixty as well as the candidate to have a rigorous interview process. One where we are fully transparent to the candidate and where we can gain a lot of confidence the candidate will be successful.
Our assessment process includes both behavior interviews (based on the GWC Core Values interview process) as well as case studies or technical assignments (depending on the role.)
Our team asks questions that reveal grit, curiosity, and craftsmanship. We explore real-world scenarios, not trick questions. The goal isn’t to catch anyone off guard, but to understand how they approach challenges, how they think about excellence, and whether they share our passion for continuous improvement.
Of course we have misses from time to time, but over the last decade this assessment process has served us well.
We would be fooling ourselves if we believed you can attract and retain great people if you fail to offer an amazing team member experience. Great people deserve a great workplace where they are challenges, where they grow, and earn an excellent living for themselves and their family.
That is why we strive to offer an unparalleled team member experience:
Our goal is simple: create an environment where extraordinary people can do their best work, grow their skills, and build a career they’re proud of.
Everything good that we do at risk3sixty starts with great people. Period. Those are just the facts. When you hire Strange Renegades, everything else gets easier. Not just easier, everything is better.
Strange Renegades raise the bar for the people around them. They take ownership of their work. They bring energy, creativity, and craftsmanship that spreads across the organization.
Over time, this creates a compounding effect that feeds directly into the rest of our strategy flywheel:
Do you see how that is the essence of the flywheel?
Each turn of the flywheel gains momentum from the last. Hiring the right people is how we start the motion, and once it’s spinning, it reinforces every other part of the system.
Hiring Strange Renegades is only the beginning. Once they’re here, our next responsibility is to help them grow - to turn their raw potential into mastery.
In the next post in this series, we’ll explore the second stage of the Flywheel: Build Craftsmen - how we invest in our people, nurture excellence, and create an environment where growth and craftsmanship are part of the daily rhythm.
Check our part 3 ---> Build Craftsmen