About Us

Just like everything we do as an organization, creating our moniker was a deliberate and purpose-driven process. It had to be something that summed up what we’re about and help establish us as a leader in this industry. Here’s how we got to Y Scouts.

Let’s start with the letter Y.

First and foremost, the letter Y stands for “what’s your why” in terms of your purpose–The reason you do everything. Our first tagline ever was “what’s your why.”

The Y also stands for a fork in the road. Do you take the easy route where maybe you don’t have the alignment of purpose in meaning in your work? Or do you take the road less traveled and go the direction that helps lead to more purposeful work and meaning in your life.

When it comes to management style, there are two contrasting concepts—Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X assumes that people dislike work and must be coerced, controlled, and directed toward organizational goals. Furthermore, most people prefer to be treated this way, so they can avoid responsibility.

Theory Y on the other hand is rooted in the integration of goals and emphasizes the average person’s intrinsic interest in his work, his desire to be self-directing and to seek responsibility, and his capacity to be creative in solving business problems.

The difference between Theory X and Theory Y is all about the human factors in hiring leadership. It’s about getting past the resumes—whether honest or BS—and understanding the real person.

Here is where SCOUTS comes into the equation.

Using a word cloud, we included a collection of executive search firm competitors to give us a visual representation of the most often mentioned names. The word SCOUT was nowhere to be found. It differentiated us—and so did our mission.

We recognized that making such matches at the leadership level is not easy and that the old methods of recruiting were no longer working. So, we set out to entirely rethink methods for locating, aligning, and vetting people able to lead companies to superb performance in a rapidly changing world.