Casting Not Hiring

Individual past competency in a new team member, no matter how good, is not enough. Character counts. Chemistry counts. Belief in the team vision counts. If you lead a team, read this book. You will be a better leader. You will have a more effective team.
Founders and leaders pour their heart and soul into their companies. One bad actor can cause devastation to their life's work. In Casting Not Hiring, Jeffrey Madoff and Dan Sullivan shine a radiant spotlight on how casting for successful theatrical ensembles translates into the world of business and beyond. We can't give a front row seat when someone is better suited for the balcony! Character over credentials! Whether you are casting for your company or for people in your personal life, there are countless lessons for everyone in this must-read!
Our team of companies believes that talent and culture will trump strategy. We have become talent and leadership development companies that happen to construct buildings. Dan and Jeff offer in-depth keys to changing your thinking and approach to 'casting' instead of just 'hiring.' This is breakout thinking in order to find and develop the best talent, collaborative teams, and, as a result, very strong cultures.
Most business books tell you how to manage people. This one tells you the truth: you don't build great companies by hiring. You build them by seeing something in someone before anyone else does, and having the courage to bet everything on it. That's not a hiring strategy. That's how you change things. Casting Not Hiring isn't about filling roles. It's about recognizing greatness before the world has caught up to it. Read it once, and you'll never look at a résumé the same way again.
Dan Sullivan and Jeff Madoff have been dear friends of mine for decades, and they both have a rare ability to see something in people that others miss. Casting Not Hiring isn't about filling positions-it's about recognizing talent, creating chemistry, and putting people in roles where they make everyone around them better. This book will completely change the way you think about building a team. Because when you cast the right people, work becomes more meaningful, collaboration becomes more powerful, and the whole company becomes something worth showing up for.
The strongest teams aren't created by simply filling roles. Casting Not Hiring challenges leaders to look beyond a candidate's résumé and recognize the energy, presence, and possibilities they can bring to a role, a team, and an organization. It offers a fresh and compelling approach to building teams that don't just perform-they thrive.
Every exponential entrepreneur I know struggles with the same bottleneck: assembling the right people fast enough. Sullivan and Madoff hand you a repeatable method for doing exactly that. This is the most practical book on team building I've read in a decade.
After four decades of watching entrepreneurs wrestle with talent, I can say without hesitation that this book captures the shift our best clients have already made. Casting is not a metaphor. It's a superior operating system, and Dan and Jeffrey have written down how it actually works.
Casting Not Hiring is an insightful and completely new approach to building a great company. It's a must-read for anyone building a company or leading a team.