February 25, 2024 • 62 mins
Unlock the secrets to transforming your team's dynamic and supercharging your leadership skills with the wisdom of Kevin Herring, a virtuoso in team building and leadership development. We discuss what it takes to evolve from a group of individuals working in silos to a high-performing, cohesive unit where purpose and belonging reign supreme. Witness how an unconventional approach to management can lead to breakthrough performance and discover the power of letting go of traditional leadership to empower and inspire your team.
We dissect the critical relationship between leadership and employee engagement, share insights into the red flags of a disengaged workforce, and provide actionable strategies to breathe life into your team's work ethic. From fostering commitment over accountability to ensuring everyone grasps the impact of their role within the organization, this episode is a treasure trove for leaders eager to cultivate a thriving, passionate workplace.
Learn how authentic communication, from town hall meetings to cross-departmental shadowing, can bridge the gaps between teams and align everyone toward a shared mission. This isn't just a conversation; it's a masterclass in creating a workplace environment that buzzes with innovation, collaboration, and above all, a shared sense of success. Join Kevin and me, Jennifer Furlong, in this enlightening expedition into the heart of what makes teams tick and leaders succeed.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast,
where we communicate about howwe communicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong.
What are we talking about today?
(00:30):
I've had something on my mindfor quite some time and that's
team communication.
We really have not had anopportunity to dive into this
really important topic.
The great thing about workingin an organization is, I think
we all can agree the people arethe most important asset.
(00:50):
But man, people are hard.
People are difficult.
Sometimes we don't always getalong.
I brought in an expert to talkwith us today about how to build
teams.
Take your work group from agroup to a team, improve the
(01:11):
performance, and we're going totalk about some of the
leadership skills that mighthelp improve the team
communication along the way.
As we all know, in this area,communication is critical if
we're going to have ahigh-performing team.
I would love to say thank youto Kevin here for being willing
(01:34):
to be on the show and share hisexpertise with us.
Kevin, thank you so much.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Doing.
Great Thanks for having meAppreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Awesome.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit about
yourself?
What's your origin story?
How did you come to be aconsultant and working
specifically with organizationsto improve leadership and team?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I started early in my career.
Even before I started collegeor just starting college, I had
a summer job working on anassembly line making food
dehydrators.
The interesting thing about itis that it was a self-directed
work team that was never set upto be that.
It just evolved, it justhappened somehow.
(02:22):
There were no formal leaders.
In fact, I was there for weeksbefore I found out who the
manager was.
He was never on the floor,never anywhere to be seen.
It's not like there wereinformal leaders springing up to
fill the void.
It didn't work that way.
It was an entire team allworking together, people setting
(02:44):
their own goals or settinggoals for the team and setting
production records week afterweek through the entire summer.
It was just an amazingexperience.
I already knew I was interestedin business.
I was interested in howorganizations work, how people
work together to makeorganizations successful.
That was just such aninteresting experience that
(03:08):
taught me so much about what ittakes for a team to be
successful, to work together asa team.
What does it not take?
We have a lot of assumptionsabout leadership and what
leaders have to do for a team tobe successful and to be
productive.
(03:29):
That blew a lot of thosetheories out of the water.
Me that became a quest, a realpassion, which is why when I
went to college I studiedorganization effectiveness,
organizational behavior andindustrial organizational
psychology, had an opportunityto work at a corporate-wide
(03:56):
transformation.
It was pretty phenomenal atMagma Copper Company early in my
career.
It was a showcase companywritten about in journal
articles and books.
Harvard Business made a movieof some of the work that we were
doing there.
It was really a greatexperience.
(04:18):
Again, I learned so much fromthat understanding what is
required for people to workindependently, to have
self-directed teams, for peopleto integrate as members of a
team, creating a unifiedorganization or group of people
working toward a common cause.
I saw the amazing productivitythat came out of that.
(04:39):
My goal after that was todiscover what the key
ingredients were.
What did you have to have inplace?
What can a leader do to putthose things in place in their
teams?
How can we do it faster?
We used to say it takes five toseven years to turn around a
company to transform the culture.
(05:00):
Magma Copper did it in abouthalf that time In time.
I always believed that if weunderstood the 80%, we could
have it happen far faster thanthat I was shooting for a year
found that we could really do alot of that in three months.
That's amazing.
(05:21):
If you have the key ingredientsand you have the resources, you
can make the key things happenin three months.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That was really interesting.
The very first example you gavewith the self-running team,
where you really didn't evenknow who the manager was for a
while.
There wasn't clear leadershipcoming, but it still worked.
What made it work?
Because it seems like that waslike lightning in a bottle.
(05:51):
From your observations now youhave the advantage of looking
back.
After all the experiencesyou've had.
What were some of those keyingredients that allowed that
team to function so effectivelythat really there wasn't even a
necessity for a manager orleadership to step forward?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Let me first tell you what it wasn't.
It wasn't a group ofhand-picked A-team people to
come in and just do amazingthings.
It wasn't a group of highlyskilled people that were
specifically chosen.
It wasn't a homogeneous group.
(06:34):
It was a very mixed group ofpeople different ages, genders,
nationalities.
There were students, there weremiddle-aged people, there were
a couple of families that wereSoutheast Asian refugees trying
to start a new life.
Some of those individuals spokealmost no English.
(06:56):
It was challenging On a lot offronts.
I think any leader would findit a difficult team to figure
out how to manage effectively,yet somehow we pulled it all
together.
I think some of the keyelements of any team things that
we know are important forpeople to produce at high levels
, to be highly engaged arethings like a purpose, a purpose
(07:22):
for being there in a sense ofbelonging.
In other words, there's a cause, there's a big picture, there's
something that we're all unitedaround that allows us to create
something bigger than what wecould on our own, and that team
was able to do that.
Now, we didn't have muchinformation about the larger
organization, although weunderstood the final product,
(07:45):
because we produced the wholething and so we didn't have just
pieces of it and we could seethe whole process on the entire
line.
There it was in one facility,so we understood how what each
individual did affected another,and we also could tell what our
(08:08):
numbers were.
We had the information and wedidn't wait for someone to share
it with us.
In fact, nobody ever did.
We knew that the people at theend of the line, the packaging
group, knew what our finalnumbers were, and so the funny
thing was when somebody wouldwrite a number at the top of the
board in front of the group ofthe assembly line.
(08:31):
So you'd come in one day andyou'd see some new number up
there.
And there are a couple, threeindividuals that typically put
the number up just on their ownand say today's goal is some
number.
And people didn't seem to pay alot of attention to it until
about lunchtime they startedgetting excited about trying to
reach the number and peoplewould call out and say, okay,
(08:53):
where are we?
And you'd hear a call back fromway back in the vows of the
packaging group.
Some number would come back,and so this shouting would kind
of happen periodically throughthe afternoon.
When you got closer to the endof the day, then the calls for
(09:15):
data became more frequent.
Right, everybody wanted to knowhow did we stack up against the
goal?
And we almost always well,actually, we always made the
number.
I don't think we ever missed agoal in the ensuing days.
We probably didn't make itevery time, but we stayed pretty
close to that number until anew number was put up on the
(09:37):
board and we went after anothergoal.
So the communication, I think,was important because we knew
what the score was, we knew howwe were doing, we had
challenging goals, we had asense of belonging and purpose,
because we all kind of saw thisas something that was, if
(09:59):
nothing else, interesting to doin a boring job and people just
want to leave at the end of theday feeling like there's some
sense of satisfaction, somemastery, and that was our way of
doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It sounds like y'all were able to, despite you
describing it as a boring job.
Y'all were able to bring insome exciting elements, like
maybe even a little bit ofcompetition.
Here's our number let's see ifwe can get this done and then
motivating one another to beable to at least get close to
the number, if not reach thenumber or surpass that number.
(10:38):
And it sounds like there was alot of transparency as well and
that everybody was really clearon what the mission was and the
why and how are we getting there, and there seemed to be onion
from everyone, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And it was a good collegial group.
People helped each other out.
when somebody was slowing downand falling behind, somebody
else who was a little aheadwould go over and help them
catch up, and we would rotate onour own just for interest, say
you got caught up, got a littleahead, you could move to another
area and work on something elseand people just did things
(11:18):
naturally to keep it interesting.
And I think the point there isto recognize that most people go
to work intrinsically motivatedto do a good job.
People want to contributesomething meaningful and leave
it into the day with a sense ofaccomplishment.
And I think that in mostorganizations we have a leader
(11:41):
who tries to do some of that.
Most of the cases does it wrongand, as a result, people don't
leave like they're satisfiedthat they have a sense of
purpose.
They don't feel like they'veaccomplished anything
significant.
And the reason is that when wetalk about communications and
(12:02):
organizations, particularly inteams, we think about what are
we told about how to communicate?
And when we're trying to raiseproductivity or performance of a
group, what does HR tell usthat we're supposed to do?
Almost always we're supposed toclarify expectations and hold
people more accountable.
That's absolutely the worstadvice anybody could give a team
(12:26):
.
It's actually the worst advice.
So clarifying expectations islike a parent-child kind of
thing.
Why don't we simply create theconditions that enable people to
understand the big picture andwhat needs to be accomplished,
like we had in that fooddehydrator assembly line.
We were able to do it ourselves.
We didn't have a manager tomess it up for us.
(12:50):
We didn't have someone tryingto clarify his or her
expectations.
We were able to understand whatwas needed and so we just
tapped our inherent desires todo a good job and built on that.
And that's what happens in anorganization that has the right
kind of information, the rightkind of conditions to succeed.
(13:12):
Holding people accountable iswhat it's a compliance driving
kind of activity.
You don't get commitment, youdon't get intrinsic motivation,
you don't get high performance,you certainly don't get
engagement.
So holding people accountableis an activity that is
manipulative in nature.
It's where people micromanage,they pressure people, they
(13:36):
basically take on theresponsibility for success
instead of leaving it in thehands of the individual who
otherwise could be accountableon their own.
So I think that's the type ofcommunication that we do in
teams in most organizationcauses us to have those
extremely low engagement ratesthat we find when Gallup does
(13:57):
their surveys and finds thatwe've got less than a third of
the workforce that's trulyengaged at work.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
You know, I've worked for different organizations and
I've been a part of teams thatjust we were vibing right, I
mean we had it just like how youwere describing.
The communication was fantastic.
We all understood what ourmission was and we wanted to do
a good job.
We wanted to be able to leavework feeling like man, that was
(14:26):
a really good day.
We did a damn good job.
And then I've also worked forother organizations where it was
a little more challenging toeven just get motivated to start
the day, because by the end ofthe day you just feel completely
beat up.
Sometimes you even feeldemoralized, because you're
(14:47):
asking yourself why, what's eventhe purpose of me doing this?
Because it seems like, in thegrand scheme of things, it
doesn't even matter.
How can leadership recognizethose cracks in the pavement?
You know when you can tell thatyour employees are starting to
(15:08):
feel demoralized, they'restarting to question.
You know the why.
They're just not having a goodtime at work and they're not
buying into what's happening.
What does a leader do?
I guess number one how do theyrecognize the cracks in the
pavement?
And then number two what's thefirst step?
Because it can be anoverwhelming task for some
(15:30):
organizations.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Sure, yeah, I mean the obvious thing to look for is
people's engagement levels.
I mean, if people are becomingnot just emotionally exhausted
but physically exhausted as aresult of the emotional effort
that they're putting into thingsand the dissatisfaction they're
(15:52):
experiencing, then you canusually kind of see that that
people don't have as much drive,as much enthusiasm If they're
not taking initiative, if theyneed to be told everything to do
, if, when there's a problem,they always bring it to you as
the manager.
I mean that should be a signthat people are not taking
accountability, they're nottaking things seriously, they're
(16:16):
really looking to somebody elseto do things and they're
working in compliance mode.
They're not really committed,they're not energized to be at
work, which is what you need.
You want people to beenthusiastic about coming to
work and doing the work andlooking for better ways to do
things and that sort of thing.
So, yeah, the common signs arethat people often start to
(16:37):
bicker.
They find petty things to argueabout and disagree with.
They work in silos, they don'tshare, they don't cooperate,
they don't collaborate, handoffsget messed up, communication
People say things like well, Ididn't know that, nobody told me
that when there was a problem,blaming starts occurring.
(17:01):
All those things are symptoms ofthe bigger problem.
So I think some of the thingsthat are really important for a
leader to do is create thatsense of purpose.
You do that by helping peopleunderstand why it's important
for them to come to work and dothe work.
(17:22):
What are they there for in thefirst place?
Make sure they understand whatthey're doing, what they're
producing.
If it's a product, what's theend product?
If they're only doing a pieceof it, let them find out what
the final product is and to seeit, if that's at all possible,
help them to understand what thecustomer needs and receives and
(17:45):
why the things that you do areimportant to make that happen
the right way.
So the big pictureunderstanding the organization,
understanding the product,understanding the market that
the business is in is reallyimportant so they can identify
with the business as a whole,understanding what other teams
(18:06):
do or other individuals in theorganization do at critical
junctures of the process, sothat you can see how you're all
connected together to createwhat it is that you output to
the customer.
So that helps create thatpurpose, at least the beginning
of that.
Now people understand.
Okay, here's why I'm here here'swhy what I do is important and
(18:30):
then help them understand howthey impact others' work and
learn how to connect better witheach other so that they see
themselves as part of a wholesystem, not just a bunch of
isolated silos.
They're a part of a wholesystem and the leader needs to
(18:51):
make sure that that isemphasized.
We're all part of this biggerthing and if we work together
well as individual team members,our team can accomplish more,
and if we work as a team withother teams, the organization
can accomplish more, can be moresuccessful, more effective.
So those are some of the thingsthat we need to do is create
(19:13):
that sense of purpose, so peopleknow why they're there and also
have the information to tellthem how they're doing.
How is our team doing at anygiven point in time?
How do I know whether I or weare doing a good job or not, so
we can make corrections?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
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(20:23):
I want to ask you a follow-upquestion regarding making sure
that the team will really allthe different departments in the
organization understand wherethey fit in the overall mission.
My question is is there a moreeffective way to communicate
that to all of the departmentsand others?
(20:46):
I know some leaders like tosend out a weekly update through
email.
Some leaders like to have thetown hall meeting once a month.
Some leaders like to haveshadowing.
You take someone from onedepartment and have them shadow
(21:06):
somebody in another department,so they can learn what they do.
Do you find that there arecertain ways to accomplish that
that are more effective thanothers?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Absolutely.
I'm a big fan of frequent directcommunication, face-to-face
communication, even if it has tobe virtual.
For people who are workingremotely as much as possible,
getting people physically in thesame space, I think, is
important.
When that's not possible,they'll at least have some
(21:37):
ability to do a face-to-faceconversation, and a direct one,
not one that goes through threeor four hands before it finally
gets communicated to the peoplewho need the information.
I love town halls, I love largegroup events where senior
leaders talk directly to thecore workforce instead of
(21:58):
passing it down through the line.
I think those are very powerfulfor helping people to really
get, and if there's transparencyand there's good communication,
that can be very powerfulhelping people feel part of that
bigger cause, that biggerpurpose.
The other thing is I lovetaking a tour of the site.
(22:19):
Have the front-line leader ormanager take the team out and,
if it's at all possible, ifthere's a plant site, for
instance walk through the plantand see who does what, Get
people connected to those otherparts of the organization.
Help them see how they all fittogether and know who they're
(22:40):
talking to when they have to geton the phone and talk to
somebody about a problem to fixor something.
Those are very important.
I think the studies show thatpeople trust their front-line
leader, whoever they report to,more than anyone else.
That's where the highest trustlevel is.
If your manager gives youinformation on a need-to-know
(23:06):
basis, you're not going to havethat big picture perspective
because everything's withheldfrom you or so many important
pieces.
We need to err on the side oftoo much information.
The more transparent things are, the more trust then can be
built, more credibility leadershave and the more people have
(23:29):
the same kinds of understandingthat those at the higher
echelons in the organizationhave.
We look at, most organizationsstill operate pretty much in a
hierarchy and apyramid-fashioned hierarchy.
It may be a little flatter insome cases than it's been in the
past, but people at the tophave the most information, the
(23:52):
most control over things, themost decision latitude and so on
.
They delegate that down tolesser and lesser degrees as it
moves down toward the people atthe front lines doing the work.
What happens is, by the timethose people the core workforce
gets the information, they'vegot a very select amount of
(24:17):
information that's been screenedand filtered.
They've got the least amount ofinformation, yet they've got
the most critical role ofproducing the product or
servicing the customer.
It's a terrible situation.
I always tell people betransparent.
Give your employees, give yourteams, everything you get.
Share too much information.
(24:39):
Give them everything that givethem so much they don't want it.
I think that's the key is whatyou're trying to do is build
their capacity to contribute ata higher level, to know what you
know, so they can make thedecisions they need to make,
instead of relying on you as aleader to make them.
For them To do that, you've gotto be transparent.
(25:01):
There's very little that isconfidential, that can't be
shared.
Obviously, that has to berespected.
The vast majority ofinformation that gets withheld
can easily and should be shared.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
What are some of the reasons you have learned by
working with these managers?
What are some of the reasonsthey withhold information?
It does seem when you see anorganization that's having some
of those difficulties and if youhave employees who are just
there uninformed or they'remisinformed or they just don't
(25:42):
have no idea what's going on andit seems like there's this
stoppage somewhere, usually it'sthat mid-level manager who's
making that decision.
Oh, they don't need to knowthat In your conversations that
you've had with all thesedifferent organizations.
Why is that?
(26:02):
What are some of the reasonsyou have found that these
managers do that?
So that we can, I guess, maybepinpoint and work on those
skills with those managers sothey can avoid doing that to
their employees.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
That's a great question.
It brings to mind a group thatwe worked with, a plant that was
really struggling and we endedup working with them for about
five or six months and theyincreased productivity over 50%
during that time.
One of the things that heldthem back was that people just
didn't have information.
They didn't know the status ofthings, they didn't know that
(26:44):
they were in trouble, that theywere not producing at a high
enough level, that they weregoing to lose a contract, an
important contract, and a lot ofthose kinds of things.
The reason is the leader justdidn't want to share information
.
Because the leader was worriedthat he was responsible for
employee morale, which was hisfirst mistake.
(27:05):
He was thinking that morale wasin his hands, that individuals
can't manage their own morale.
He had this parent-childrelationship going on where he
was protecting everybody fromanything that would be hard for
them to handle.
As he put it, he didn't shareinformation.
When budgets were going to becut 25%, he didn't tell anybody.
(27:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They're going to find that out somehow.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Exactly I'm in this big meeting and we talked about
it.
People were shocked.
It's funny because I raised theissue because I thought
everybody knew, but apparentlythat wasn't the case.
The leader said why is it thatpeople don't know this?
He said why didn't they thinkthey needed to know what could
(27:54):
have happened if people in termsof the choices people made if
they had that information?
Some people said yeah, when Iordered supplies, I wouldn't
have stocked up.
I would have just gotten whatwe need for the term and just
continue to do that until thingsgot better.
(28:14):
We wouldn't be buying in aslarge quantities, we would
operate differently.
Those were some of the thingsthat this leader needed to learn
that his communication wasaffecting how people worked.
They weren't making gooddecisions because they were
making decisions in a vacuum.
(28:35):
He wasn't providing theinformation.
I think that's it.
There are a couple of things.
One is people think they haveto control other people's
responses.
When they do that, they getmanipulative.
They don't share all theinformation or they spin it to
make it more palatable or asthey think it will be anyway.
(28:55):
The other thing is, when theywithhold information, they're
really trying to get people to…be objects.
They're looking at people asobjects to be moved instead of
people who are capable of makingdecisions, leading adult lives,
(29:18):
managing adult lives like theydo at home, and they don't
believe that people have thecapability of doing more than
they're charged with doing.
And that's part of thedifficulty is, with whole
information we don't enablepeople to have the latitude to
(29:41):
make decisions or we controlresources so tightly that they
don't have the resources theyneed to fully apply their
expertise in the work that theydo.
Then pretty soon they getdemotivated and they really
don't want to come to work.
They really get frustrated andthat's when we see people start
(30:01):
to shut down emotionally andbecome less engaged, because
demotivation is a learnedresponse.
I mean people learn it by theexperiences they have at work.
And the leader is the primaryperson who creates those
conditions.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, so treat them like the adults.
They are no more parent-childrelationships going on in the
workplace.
That's a pretty difficult thingto balance.
I think a lot of organizationstoday and probably most.
I might be wrong, but probablymost organizations today, at
(30:36):
least the culture within thoseorganizations still operate on
that accountability type ofmindset.
So how does one make sure thatthe employees are doing what
they're supposed to be doingwhile treating them like the
adults that they are?
That makes me think ofperformance reviews.
(30:59):
That's always a contentioustopic within any organization.
Do we have performance reviews?
And if we have performancereviews, what kind of
performance reviews and howoften?
And what questions should welook at?
So on and so forth.
So how does that all fit intothis new paradigm of no more
(31:25):
parent-child relationships goingon?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yeah, because those are compliance activities.
Right, all the things you justtalked about, those are
compliance activities.
You don't get high performancefrom that, you don't get high
engagement from it, and so Ilike to compare it to popcorn.
So how do you make popcorn?
You put popcorn in a pan, youput some oil, you put some heat
(31:48):
on it and, with the conditionsare right, it pops.
And so managers like to thinkthat people are like popcorn.
Sometimes they can just throwthem in the pan, the workforce,
so to speak, or the work.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Who like the fire?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, like the fire, and if they're any good they'll
pop, if they're not any good,they won't, but if they don't,
we turn up the heat and put morepressure on them to try to get
them to pop.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
If they still don't pop, they're a dud.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
They're a dud and then they're discarded, right
and yeah.
What people are forgetting isthat the conditions have to be
right.
Even in popcorn, you can't usejust any oil, and some oils work
better than others, and theheat has to be right, and so on.
People are the same way.
I mean we all have the abilityto succeed when the conditions
are right.
I worked with a group I wasworking with a couple of groups
(32:37):
at once and I was asked to helpout these engineers, and what I
discovered when I did anassessment of the organization
is they had a bunch of engineers, a large group, very smart
people, a lot of engineeringPhDs, and they worked very, very
hard, but they were failingmiserably.
(32:58):
They worked on this projectthat was way behind schedule.
It was way over budget.
They weren't going to meet thenext milestone.
That was clear and I figured itwas.
The program would probably getcanceled than it was because the
leadership was unwilling tomake changes.
They were unwilling to do thethings that would create the
(33:19):
conditions for that group ofpeople to be able to succeed.
They were highly talentedpeople, they had a lot to offer
and they were wonderful peopleto work with, but there were
underlying conditions that hadto change for them to be able to
succeed, and leaders in thatorganization were not willing to
make those changes.
And that's the issue here is inany organization, if you want
(33:44):
people to be successful, youwant to create a high-engaging
kind of workplace where peoplecan bring their whole selves to
work, and work with purpose andbe able to produce at high
levels, then you have to createthe conditions for that to
happen.
And those conditions are notaround compliance activities,
not created from complianceactivities.
(34:05):
They are created when youaccept the inherent motivation
that most people bring with themto work and you nurture that.
And you do that by creating awhole system's view that you're
not operating selfishly in yourown interests at the expense of
others.
You set the example and youinstill that in your team, that
(34:26):
you act in the interest of thewhole team and business unit and
you do things like focus onfinding better ways to do things
and you don't punishexperimentation, you encourage
it.
You encourage people to try andfail and try again, and you set
up conditions that enablepeople to want to bring their
(34:46):
ingenuity, their ideas, theircreativity, their innovation to
bear on situations to help theteam to be more successful.
You have to create the providethe information to help people
know how they're doing so.
If you and I impact each otherin the work, then I need to know
(35:07):
what you need for me and youneed to know what I need from
you, and we need to make somecommitments around what we're
going to do to help each other.
And so those kinds ofactivities help integrate us and
unite us as a team and help usto work together for that
greater purpose, the big picturethat we've shown everybody.
(35:30):
So everybody knows why we cometo work and what's important.
A great analogy or example ofthat is the business of
professional sports, which is,in fact, a business, and if you
go into look we did the SuperBowl not too long ago and you
look at, what is it that allowsthose teams to gel as a team
(35:53):
that enables them to perform atsuch incredibly high levels?
Well, all these things are inplace.
Everything we're talking aboutat a major level, far better
than any other type of businessthat we get involved in
typically.
So they know the marketplace.
(36:14):
They know who the other playersare or who the other teams are,
and they know what thestandings are.
They know what's at stake inevery game.
They know what the strengthsand weaknesses are of the teams
and of the players.
They have a game plan.
They know what each needs fromthe other to succeed in
executing the plays.
When they play, they haveimmediate feedback.
(36:37):
You have a scoreboard.
They've got all kinds of datathat is being tracked that they
get, in many cases, instantaccess to, so they know how
they're doing.
If it's football, there arelines on the field.
There are first down lines orgoal lines, there are all kinds
of indicators of progress andsuccess, and so they can make
(37:00):
adjustments.
And, because they have thissense of belonging, they're part
of a team.
They're not in there justworking independently of
everybody else, but it's anintegrated, interdependent group
of people trying to accomplisha goal together.
If something goes wrong,everybody's accountable.
Nobody can say, well, it's notmy problem, or I did what I was
(37:27):
supposed to do, it's now intheir hands.
That doesn't happen whenthere's a loose ball.
Everybody is responsible formaking the right decision to get
that ball under control and dowhatever needs to be done with
it, which is why people don'tstand around waiting for the
(37:48):
ball carrier to pick it up.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
That's right.
I love the sports analogy whenyou think about it working in
teams.
We all do have differentstrengths and if we can learn
how to play to those strengths,we don't have to be the best at
everything all the time whenwe're working together.
I so there is a certain amountof ego that we have to be
(38:11):
willing to let go of.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, do you have those types of conversations as
well?
Do you ever go in and you cantell immediately there are some
big egos in this room?
How do you have thoseconversations?
Because you're right In a team,you might have a certain
strength in one area, I mighthave a certain strength in
another area, and it's okay tosay, hey, you handle this part,
(38:38):
because I know for a fact thatI'm probably not going to do as
good of a job as you would inthat area.
How do you call people out ontheir ego trips?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, humility is an incredibly important attribute
for leaders, and knowing thatthe leader doesn't have all the
answers doesn't need to have allthe answers.
In some cases, that doesn'teven need to have very many of
the answers.
If they are doing their job asa leader and they're building a
team's capacity by teaching them, by sharing information and
(39:16):
giving them opportunities tooperate more independently from
them and become moreself-reliant as a team, then
they're going to get far moreout of that team.
People are going to be morehighly engaged and they're going
to produce at a higher level.
But what happens is oftenbecause egos are involved.
People don't want managers,don't want to share information,
(39:39):
as like we discussed earlier,and they're often afraid that
people are going to make thewrong decision and they're not
going to look good to the rightpeople, and I was asking one of
the questions I asked.
So if you are afraid todelegate or to let go of this
particular activity orresponsibility, then let's talk
(40:01):
about what's holding you back.
What is preventing you fromdoing that?
What are you concerned about?
What would happen if you didthat?
And they said well, what I'mafraid of is what would happen
is they'd make the wrongdecision.
Okay, great, let's explore that.
Why would they make the wrongdecision?
And we go down that path and wefind out that, well, because
(40:21):
they don't know what I know theywouldn't make the decision I
would make, and maybe itwouldn't be a good decision, but
it's not the one I would make.
Or maybe they don't have enoughinformation, they don't have
the skills or whatever.
They don't have the context.
Okay, what's the solution toall those things?
If they don't have theinformation, what's the solution
?
Give them the information right.
(40:43):
If they don't have the skills,what's the solution?
Build their skills.
If they don't have context,what's the solution?
Share the context, build theirunderstanding.
That's the leader's role.
And I think at some point, aleader has to decide what they
want to do.
Do they want to build ahigh-performing team or do they
(41:06):
want to keep things status quo?
Because they already know howto keep things status quo.
That's easy.
Just keep doing what you'redoing.
I say, but if you want ahigh-performing team, if you
want people to be highly engagedwhich they're going to have to
be if you're going to have ahigh-performing team, then
you're going to have to dosomething different.
And so here's the question Ifyou are uncomfortable with that,
(41:28):
then Are there pieces of whatI'm teaching you or telling you
that you can, you can grab ahold of and you can act on it?
And if the answer is yes, thenwe have a start.
Okay, let's start Making someof those changes and move
forward and see what happens.
If the answer is no Iabsolutely can't buy into this
(41:51):
then are you willing to take aleap of faith and Let go of the
past, let go of your fears andgive it a chance to work?
Because if you are, we can makethe changes and you can see the
results and then you'll be onboard.
But if you're not willing to atleast take a leap of faith,
then we're never gonna get there.
(42:11):
And I can tell you, there was aguy in a we worked with in a
company as a large naturalresources company, and his
division had always been thehighest producing division in
the company for years and he wasa tough guy to work for and
(42:33):
people really struggled Workingfor him, but he but he did
produce results.
And at some point the CEO satdown with them and said said,
mike, I got to tell you, yeah,our company is not succeeding,
we've got to do some thingsdifferently and we know that
(42:53):
we're not managing correctly.
So we're gonna do things thatwill help engage employees to be
able to, to bring their more ofthemselves to work, produce
more, get more engaged andparticipate more in deciding how
the work it's done.
Because we're missing all thatgreat Information that people
have, all that institutionalknowledge, because we're not
(43:14):
tapping it right now we're justdictating to people what to do
and how to do it, and and so,mike, that means you're gonna
have to change.
And he said behind the highestproducing, you know, manager in
the in the company, I mean whywould, why should I have to
change?
And he said because what you'redoing is not enough.
What everybody else is doing isnot enough.
(43:35):
Everyone is going to have tochange, including you, mike.
You have to produce at a higherlevel.
We all do.
And and and he said well, whatdo you want me to do?
And he said and the CEO saidwell, look, people hate you.
They hate working for you.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
It would be hard to hear.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
But, but, but.
But they do what I say.
And he said but Mike, that'snot good enough.
We have to have a differentenvironment.
We have to create theconditions that enable them to
choose a higher level ofcommitment and accountability,
instead of people trying to holdthem accountable all the time
and getting compliance results.
And so we want you to change.
We're gonna teach you how tochange and we want to help you
(44:21):
Any way we can, but you have tomake the change.
If you're not comfortable doingit, if you're not willing to do
that, then let's have thatconversation and we will help
you with whatever.
Whatever we can do, we'll helpyou to transition to some other
organization where you canContinue to be successful.
But to be here, you're gonnahave to make the change.
(44:42):
But it's your.
It's your decision.
We're not gonna pressure you.
You need to decide, but we hopeyou'll decide to stay and make
the changes, because we thinkyou can do it and we think
you'll be a great asset.
So Mike did it, gave him acouple of weeks to think about
it.
He wrestled with it because hedidn't think he could make those
changes.
But eventually he came back andhe said you know, I'm scared to
(45:03):
death.
This is not the way I've beenoperating for 25 years and
you're telling me to change mypersonality in a sense.
But I'm willing to give it atry.
I'm gonna need your help.
I'm gonna need a lot ofpatience and the CEO says Mike,
you've, you've got it.
We're backing you, we want youto succeed, we're gonna, we're
(45:23):
gonna help you succeed and Iknow you can do it.
Well, mike did work at it.
He worked really, really hardand he did turn around.
He did become a differentmanager completely and the whole
organization did so much betterafter that.
It was just remarkable theresults that they were able to
achieve by creating theconditions that that that
(45:45):
brought more of People'sengagement and therefore more
productivity from them.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Inadequate communication skills can be
costly in terms of relationships, reputation and revenue.
From staff to the C-suite, allemployees deserve quality
training that will help them besuccessful.
If your company is looking toimprove employee morale and
relationships, contactcommunication 24 seven today by
visiting wwwcommunication247.comfor a free 30-minute
(46:15):
consultation.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
So if you're the leader in in that example and
you approach the manager and youexplain to him yeah, the
they're gonna be some changesand and we would love for you to
be able to come along withthese changes, and the manager
Instead said no, you know, anddecided to leave, does that mean
(46:39):
the leader?
What did the leader fail inthat instance?
Or is that actually a goodthing?
Is it one of those things where, yeah, they're, they're kind of
weeding themselves out?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
So yeah, I think it's a good thing, because I think
that if I think the seniorleadership has to decide the
strategy, the organization, whatdo we have to do to be
successful?
And and in I give anotherexample was when I was magma
copper company and they wentthrough their transformation,
initially there were a lot ofthe leaders who said I don't
(47:11):
want to operate that way.
It's always.
It was a mining company, I mean, they had a very old-school
kind of way of operating and andIn some there were a number of
unions and they had Someanimosity there and they just
said I'm not gonna work that way.
And and so the CEO, burgessWinters, said well, you know,
(47:31):
you have a choice.
We're not gonna force anybody.
Or we don't want you to stay ifyou don't want to be here and
make the changes, because thetrain is on the track, it's
going this direction, we'd loveto have you on it, but if you
don't belong on the train, wedon't want you to sort of Drag
in your feet and slowing it downSomehow.
(47:52):
We need you to make a decision,so make it now.
We'll give great packages tomake it easy for you to Take
your severance and then make atransition somewhere else.
But you have to make a choice,and when I work with senior
leaders, quite often I'll havepeople who are uncomfortable,
(48:13):
expressing their ownvulnerabilities to me because
I'm an outsider and or they,they truly are insecure.
And they don't.
They, they aren't willing toeven say that they have some, a
need, that they need to changeanything, and sometimes that's
exacerbated by HR leaders whoare don't have the managerial
(48:37):
courage to tell them what theproblem is, or that they even
have a problem.
And so I get people sometimes Isay why are we having this
conversation?
Why am I here meeting with you?
And they'll say I don't know.
The HR person said it'd be goodfor me in my development.
I said well, what is it thatthat HR person wanted to see?
(48:58):
You do you know what are some ofthe things that you struggle
with the most?
Well, I don't struggle withanything.
I don't have any needs, youknow, and so so I always go to
the leadership first and I say II want you to spell out exactly
what you want to accomplishhere from my coaching this
individual, and then we're gonnahave a three-way meeting.
(49:19):
The three of us are gonna sitout and you're gonna tell that
person what that, what it is andand how important that is.
In other words, if that's aline in the sand kind of thing
that they have to change, thenyou need to say that and I'm
gonna be there to coach you ifyou struggle with it.
And and we have that upfrontconversation.
(49:41):
So it's really clear thatsomething needs to change or
something, they need some helpwith something and how important
it is that they make the shift,so that when I'm working with
them, they understand that I'mthere to help them do that and
or help them choose to dosomething else if they decide
it's that's just not a changethey're willing to make.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
When you go into these organizations, does
compensation ever Come up?
Because I know there are a lotof employees, you know, when you
ask them, well, you know, doyou like your job?
Yeah, it's okay, but you know Ishould get paid more for what I
do.
I mean, that's just, that'ssomething that you hear all the
time.
You know, across the board, youknow, I, there are some
(50:27):
industries that are notoriousfor not paying their employees.
Well, what kind of how do thoseconversations go?
You know, and I don't know, Imight be a little jaded, just a
little bit.
You know working, having workedin the academic field for so
long, and you know, being anadjunct in the academic world, I
(50:51):
can tell you adjuncts don't getpaid near Enough of what you
know, what, what they're havingto Deal with.
You know it's as far as theworkload and how many students
they have, class load and this,that and the other, and make
sure you have a master's degree.
You know, and they what?
All of these qualifications forthis TV, tiny little paycheck,
(51:14):
and so do you ever have to?
Do you ever look at the entirestructure of the organization
and say, okay, wait a minute,we're okay, all of this.
Having said all of this about.
You know the, the structure andPerformance, and you know all
of this other things.
Let's talk about pay.
Let's talk about you know, doyou?
(51:36):
ever have those types ofconversations as well.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Absolutely.
You know, every organizationhas to decide where they want to
be relative to market rates.
Most, most pay relative to somemarket rate.
Either they have a lead policywhere they're leading the market
, or they have a lag policy thatthey they want to stay so much
behind the market and just playcatch up every year.
(52:00):
Or sometimes I just say we'regonna always be at market and
that's, that's what we're gonnapay, and of course then there's
always variable compensationthat can be added to the mix.
I know that I'm a fan ofleading the market.
I just think that people it'slike when you look at
(52:27):
organizations that have acustomer service arm, people who
interface with directly withtheir customers, and they're the
lowest paid people in theentire organization and even
sometimes paid lower than marketrate.
You think, well, is that reallywhat I want?
Do I want my customers talkingto underpaid, overworked,
(52:53):
frustrated people?
That just doesn't seem like agood idea to me.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, customer service is not easy.
It is actually imagination.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
But we do that all the time.
It's just amazed at how much wedo that.
The people who are doing thecore work, producing the
products, interfacing with thecustomers.
We got to be smart about how wepay them.
I'm a big fan of paying abovemarket.
It's an investment that's wellworth it to help us attract
people into the organization andto retain them.
(53:25):
Money isn't going to retain themif the conditions are horrible.
When I say conditions, I don'tmean just the working conditions
are hot or dusty or they have aboss that yells at them, kind
of thing.
But if you don't have theconditions that nurture
engagement, that create thatsense of purpose and belonging
(53:49):
and so on, the autonomy, thethings that people thrive on if
you don't have those things,then money isn't going to keep
them anyway.
They'll go where they thinkthey can get that.
But if we pay people well, weuse variable compensation.
(54:10):
I don't like the most incentiveplans because they're poorly
done.
They really don't accomplishanything.
I like programs like gainsharing programs or things that
share in the gains.
If we work together, we workhard and do well, that there are
some sharing involved, thateverybody gets to participate in
(54:31):
.
It's tied directly to specificthings that are accomplished,
the revenue or the profits thatshow up for the business, and
people can see their impact onthose things.
If they can't see their impact,it's meaningless anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah, or if you have a-.
Yeah, I know of someorganizations that do have that
kind of like a profit sharingtype of plan, but it's only for
certain level managers, Right,that seems like a pretty good
way to invite I don't know justunhappiness and dissatisfaction
(55:22):
with the employees across theboard.
It just doesn't seem likethat's a good idea to me.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
Yeah, I've known managers, in fact, who have
received bonuses that they sharewith their teams, because their
team members don't get bonuses,and they know that it's the
team that enabled them to beable to receive a bonus.
Yeah, also, we've set things upin some places where we've
encouraged the teams to have apool of money that every month
(55:52):
or every quarter or something,that they could vote as a team
to reward somebody who has donesomething above and beyond or
accomplished something reallyspecial.
They don't have to, but theycan if they would like to.
There's some rules around thatso they can't just pass the pot
around and rotate who gets it orthings like that.
(56:15):
But if they truly believe as agroup that there is someone
who's deserving, then they canvote them a bonus.
That's pretty powerful.
I think the recognition fromthe team is pretty meaningful,
and then the financial bitsweetens it for them.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, what a fantastic way to show that you
appreciate a lot of the servicethat someone provides for an
organization to be able to dosomething like that have a vote.
I'm sure that would be prettypopular in some organizations.
Absolutely yeah.
(56:54):
Kevin, I cannot believe it.
We've been talking for 56minutes now Our is coming to an
end.
This has been such a fantasticconversation, A lot of food for
thought, just some really greatadvice for leaders, managers at
(57:16):
an organizational level.
Just things to really thinkabout in order to create that
environment where your employeeswill feel appreciated and they
can understand the largerpicture and feel like they are
contributing in a way to helpthat organization achieve that
(57:38):
mission.
I know that there are probablya lot of questions that still
remain for some of our listenerswho are in those positions
management and leadershippositions on employee engagement
and how to get employeesexcited about being at work
again.
How would they contact you ifthey were interested in
(58:03):
continuing this conversation?
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah, I would love to answer questions or talk with
people.
I would be happy to take callsor however you'd like to reach
out to me.
The easiest way is just go tosuperchargemyteamcom.
Superchargemyteamcom will takeyou to the Ascent Management
Consulting website.
It will take you to their tools.
(58:27):
There there is information.
There is an article sectionLearning Center.
You can also fill out a form.
You can call, you can email.
There are ways that you canreach me and reach our
organization.
If you have questions, you'dlike to just talk a little bit
about what you are dealing withand get a little bit of advice
on how to proceed.
(58:48):
We would be happy to help.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
That's fantastic.
Do not allow your team, yourdepartment, your organization to
implode.
You have resources here thatyou can certainly just reach out
and contact Kevin here.
That's wonderful.
I'll make sure to have thelinks in the show notes for
everyone, all the listeners.
(59:10):
Any parting words of wisdom aswe wrap things up.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I think it's important for people to
challenge some of theconventional advice that they've
received the idea that theyneed to be responsible for
motivating people.
Stop trying to motivate people.
Stop trying to hold themaccountable.
Do the things that create morecompliance and less drive out
(59:39):
the commitment.
One of the ways that you canhelp, as a manager, build a
different kind of anorganization and support
people's engagement is to dowhat we like to call ask, don't
tell.
In other words, stop tellingeverybody.
(59:59):
Start asking questions.
When people have concerns orquestions or a problem to solve,
ask questions.
Give them an opportunity tothink through it.
Give them an opportunity tomake the decisions as to how to
proceed.
Begin sharing responsibilitywith them so that they can grow
from the experience.
(01:00:19):
They can learn more about thebusiness and learn to operate
more as a team, dealing with theday-to-day kinds of things that
come up, instead of having tocome to you as a manager.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Fantastic advice here .
Here, as the communication nerd, asking questions is a
wonderful way to explore, buildthose bridges and give them a
sense of empowerment as well.
That's fantastic advice, kevin.
Thanks again for being a gueston the show and sharing your
(01:00:53):
wisdom with us.
I absolutely enjoyed havingthis conversation with you.
A lot of things to consider, Iknow listeners.
I hope you were keeping trackof all of the golden nuggets
that you were just provided.
If not, make sure you justlisten to the episode over and
over again, because there wereso many things packed into this
(01:01:14):
episode.
I guarantee you, even if youjust try one teeny, tiny little
thing, that little tweak couldmake a big difference within
your team.
I encourage you to just givesome of these suggestions a try.
What's the worst thing thatcould happen?
It could change for the better,absolutely.
You all have a wonderful restof your day and we will see you
(01:01:40):
next time.
Bye, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating and areview.
Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast,
where we communicate about howwe communicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong.
What are we talking about today?
(00:30):
I've had something on my mindfor quite some time and that's
team communication.
We really have not had anopportunity to dive into this
really important topic.
The great thing about workingin an organization is, I think
we all can agree the people arethe most important asset.
(00:50):
But man, people are hard.
People are difficult.
Sometimes we don't always getalong.
I brought in an expert to talkwith us today about how to build
teams.
Take your work group from agroup to a team, improve the
(01:11):
performance, and we're going totalk about some of the
leadership skills that mighthelp improve the team
communication along the way.
As we all know, in this area,communication is critical if
we're going to have ahigh-performing team.
I would love to say thank youto Kevin here for being willing
(01:34):
to be on the show and share hisexpertise with us.
Kevin, thank you so much.
How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Doing.
Great Thanks for having meAppreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Awesome.
Why don't you tell ourlisteners a little bit about
yourself?
What's your origin story?
How did you come to be aconsultant and working
specifically with organizationsto improve leadership and team?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I started early in my career.
Even before I started collegeor just starting college, I had
a summer job working on anassembly line making food
dehydrators.
The interesting thing about itis that it was a self-directed
work team that was never set upto be that.
It just evolved, it justhappened somehow.
(02:22):
There were no formal leaders.
In fact, I was there for weeksbefore I found out who the
manager was.
He was never on the floor,never anywhere to be seen.
It's not like there wereinformal leaders springing up to
fill the void.
It didn't work that way.
It was an entire team allworking together, people setting
(02:44):
their own goals or settinggoals for the team and setting
production records week afterweek through the entire summer.
It was just an amazingexperience.
I already knew I was interestedin business.
I was interested in howorganizations work, how people
work together to makeorganizations successful.
That was just such aninteresting experience that
(03:08):
taught me so much about what ittakes for a team to be
successful, to work together asa team.
What does it not take?
We have a lot of assumptionsabout leadership and what
leaders have to do for a team tobe successful and to be
productive.
(03:29):
That blew a lot of thosetheories out of the water.
Me that became a quest, a realpassion, which is why when I
went to college I studiedorganization effectiveness,
organizational behavior andindustrial organizational
psychology, had an opportunityto work at a corporate-wide
(03:56):
transformation.
It was pretty phenomenal atMagma Copper Company early in my
career.
It was a showcase companywritten about in journal
articles and books.
Harvard Business made a movieof some of the work that we were
doing there.
It was really a greatexperience.
(04:18):
Again, I learned so much fromthat understanding what is
required for people to workindependently, to have
self-directed teams, for peopleto integrate as members of a
team, creating a unifiedorganization or group of people
working toward a common cause.
I saw the amazing productivitythat came out of that.
(04:39):
My goal after that was todiscover what the key
ingredients were.
What did you have to have inplace?
What can a leader do to putthose things in place in their
teams?
How can we do it faster?
We used to say it takes five toseven years to turn around a
company to transform the culture.
(05:00):
Magma Copper did it in abouthalf that time In time.
I always believed that if weunderstood the 80%, we could
have it happen far faster thanthat I was shooting for a year
found that we could really do alot of that in three months.
That's amazing.
(05:21):
If you have the key ingredientsand you have the resources, you
can make the key things happenin three months.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That was really interesting.
The very first example you gavewith the self-running team,
where you really didn't evenknow who the manager was for a
while.
There wasn't clear leadershipcoming, but it still worked.
What made it work?
Because it seems like that waslike lightning in a bottle.
(05:51):
From your observations now youhave the advantage of looking
back.
After all the experiencesyou've had.
What were some of those keyingredients that allowed that
team to function so effectivelythat really there wasn't even a
necessity for a manager orleadership to step forward?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Let me first tell you what it wasn't.
It wasn't a group ofhand-picked A-team people to
come in and just do amazingthings.
It wasn't a group of highlyskilled people that were
specifically chosen.
It wasn't a homogeneous group.
(06:34):
It was a very mixed group ofpeople different ages, genders,
nationalities.
There were students, there weremiddle-aged people, there were
a couple of families that wereSoutheast Asian refugees trying
to start a new life.
Some of those individuals spokealmost no English.
(06:56):
It was challenging On a lot offronts.
I think any leader would findit a difficult team to figure
out how to manage effectively,yet somehow we pulled it all
together.
I think some of the keyelements of any team things that
we know are important forpeople to produce at high levels
, to be highly engaged arethings like a purpose, a purpose
(07:22):
for being there in a sense ofbelonging.
In other words, there's a cause, there's a big picture, there's
something that we're all unitedaround that allows us to create
something bigger than what wecould on our own, and that team
was able to do that.
Now, we didn't have muchinformation about the larger
organization, although weunderstood the final product,
(07:45):
because we produced the wholething and so we didn't have just
pieces of it and we could seethe whole process on the entire
line.
There it was in one facility,so we understood how what each
individual did affected another,and we also could tell what our
(08:08):
numbers were.
We had the information and wedidn't wait for someone to share
it with us.
In fact, nobody ever did.
We knew that the people at theend of the line, the packaging
group, knew what our finalnumbers were, and so the funny
thing was when somebody wouldwrite a number at the top of the
board in front of the group ofthe assembly line.
(08:31):
So you'd come in one day andyou'd see some new number up
there.
And there are a couple, threeindividuals that typically put
the number up just on their ownand say today's goal is some
number.
And people didn't seem to pay alot of attention to it until
about lunchtime they startedgetting excited about trying to
reach the number and peoplewould call out and say, okay,
(08:53):
where are we?
And you'd hear a call back fromway back in the vows of the
packaging group.
Some number would come back,and so this shouting would kind
of happen periodically throughthe afternoon.
When you got closer to the endof the day, then the calls for
(09:15):
data became more frequent.
Right, everybody wanted to knowhow did we stack up against the
goal?
And we almost always well,actually, we always made the
number.
I don't think we ever missed agoal in the ensuing days.
We probably didn't make itevery time, but we stayed pretty
close to that number until anew number was put up on the
(09:37):
board and we went after anothergoal.
So the communication, I think,was important because we knew
what the score was, we knew howwe were doing, we had
challenging goals, we had asense of belonging and purpose,
because we all kind of saw thisas something that was, if
(09:59):
nothing else, interesting to doin a boring job and people just
want to leave at the end of theday feeling like there's some
sense of satisfaction, somemastery, and that was our way of
doing that.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It sounds like y'all were able to, despite you
describing it as a boring job.
Y'all were able to bring insome exciting elements, like
maybe even a little bit ofcompetition.
Here's our number let's see ifwe can get this done and then
motivating one another to beable to at least get close to
the number, if not reach thenumber or surpass that number.
(10:38):
And it sounds like there was alot of transparency as well and
that everybody was really clearon what the mission was and the
why and how are we getting there, and there seemed to be onion
from everyone, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
And it was a good collegial group.
People helped each other out.
when somebody was slowing downand falling behind, somebody
else who was a little aheadwould go over and help them
catch up, and we would rotate onour own just for interest, say
you got caught up, got a littleahead, you could move to another
area and work on something elseand people just did things
(11:18):
naturally to keep it interesting.
And I think the point there isto recognize that most people go
to work intrinsically motivatedto do a good job.
People want to contributesomething meaningful and leave
it into the day with a sense ofaccomplishment.
And I think that in mostorganizations we have a leader
(11:41):
who tries to do some of that.
Most of the cases does it wrongand, as a result, people don't
leave like they're satisfiedthat they have a sense of
purpose.
They don't feel like they'veaccomplished anything
significant.
And the reason is that when wetalk about communications and
(12:02):
organizations, particularly inteams, we think about what are
we told about how to communicate?
And when we're trying to raiseproductivity or performance of a
group, what does HR tell usthat we're supposed to do?
Almost always we're supposed toclarify expectations and hold
people more accountable.
That's absolutely the worstadvice anybody could give a team
(12:26):
.
It's actually the worst advice.
So clarifying expectations islike a parent-child kind of
thing.
Why don't we simply create theconditions that enable people to
understand the big picture andwhat needs to be accomplished,
like we had in that fooddehydrator assembly line.
We were able to do it ourselves.
We didn't have a manager tomess it up for us.
(12:50):
We didn't have someone tryingto clarify his or her
expectations.
We were able to understand whatwas needed and so we just
tapped our inherent desires todo a good job and built on that.
And that's what happens in anorganization that has the right
kind of information, the rightkind of conditions to succeed.
(13:12):
Holding people accountable iswhat it's a compliance driving
kind of activity.
You don't get commitment, youdon't get intrinsic motivation,
you don't get high performance,you certainly don't get
engagement.
So holding people accountableis an activity that is
manipulative in nature.
It's where people micromanage,they pressure people, they
(13:36):
basically take on theresponsibility for success
instead of leaving it in thehands of the individual who
otherwise could be accountableon their own.
So I think that's the type ofcommunication that we do in
teams in most organizationcauses us to have those
extremely low engagement ratesthat we find when Gallup does
(13:57):
their surveys and finds thatwe've got less than a third of
the workforce that's trulyengaged at work.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
You know, I've worked for different organizations and
I've been a part of teams thatjust we were vibing right, I
mean we had it just like how youwere describing.
The communication was fantastic.
We all understood what ourmission was and we wanted to do
a good job.
We wanted to be able to leavework feeling like man, that was
(14:26):
a really good day.
We did a damn good job.
And then I've also worked forother organizations where it was
a little more challenging toeven just get motivated to start
the day, because by the end ofthe day you just feel completely
beat up.
Sometimes you even feeldemoralized, because you're
(14:47):
asking yourself why, what's eventhe purpose of me doing this?
Because it seems like, in thegrand scheme of things, it
doesn't even matter.
How can leadership recognizethose cracks in the pavement?
You know when you can tell thatyour employees are starting to
(15:08):
feel demoralized, they'restarting to question.
You know the why.
They're just not having a goodtime at work and they're not
buying into what's happening.
What does a leader do?
I guess number one how do theyrecognize the cracks in the
pavement?
And then number two what's thefirst step?
Because it can be anoverwhelming task for some
(15:30):
organizations.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Sure, yeah, I mean the obvious thing to look for is
people's engagement levels.
I mean, if people are becomingnot just emotionally exhausted
but physically exhausted as aresult of the emotional effort
that they're putting into thingsand the dissatisfaction they're
(15:52):
experiencing, then you canusually kind of see that that
people don't have as much drive,as much enthusiasm If they're
not taking initiative, if theyneed to be told everything to do
, if, when there's a problem,they always bring it to you as
the manager.
I mean that should be a signthat people are not taking
accountability, they're nottaking things seriously, they're
(16:16):
really looking to somebody elseto do things and they're
working in compliance mode.
They're not really committed,they're not energized to be at
work, which is what you need.
You want people to beenthusiastic about coming to
work and doing the work andlooking for better ways to do
things and that sort of thing.
So, yeah, the common signs arethat people often start to
(16:37):
bicker.
They find petty things to argueabout and disagree with.
They work in silos, they don'tshare, they don't cooperate,
they don't collaborate, handoffsget messed up, communication
People say things like well, Ididn't know that, nobody told me
that when there was a problem,blaming starts occurring.
(17:01):
All those things are symptoms ofthe bigger problem.
So I think some of the thingsthat are really important for a
leader to do is create thatsense of purpose.
You do that by helping peopleunderstand why it's important
for them to come to work and dothe work.
(17:22):
What are they there for in thefirst place?
Make sure they understand whatthey're doing, what they're
producing.
If it's a product, what's theend product?
If they're only doing a pieceof it, let them find out what
the final product is and to seeit, if that's at all possible,
help them to understand what thecustomer needs and receives and
(17:45):
why the things that you do areimportant to make that happen
the right way.
So the big pictureunderstanding the organization,
understanding the product,understanding the market that
the business is in is reallyimportant so they can identify
with the business as a whole,understanding what other teams
(18:06):
do or other individuals in theorganization do at critical
junctures of the process, sothat you can see how you're all
connected together to createwhat it is that you output to
the customer.
So that helps create thatpurpose, at least the beginning
of that.
Now people understand.
Okay, here's why I'm here here'swhy what I do is important and
(18:30):
then help them understand howthey impact others' work and
learn how to connect better witheach other so that they see
themselves as part of a wholesystem, not just a bunch of
isolated silos.
They're a part of a wholesystem and the leader needs to
(18:51):
make sure that that isemphasized.
We're all part of this biggerthing and if we work together
well as individual team members,our team can accomplish more,
and if we work as a team withother teams, the organization
can accomplish more, can be moresuccessful, more effective.
So those are some of the thingsthat we need to do is create
(19:13):
that sense of purpose, so peopleknow why they're there and also
have the information to tellthem how they're doing.
How is our team doing at anygiven point in time?
How do I know whether I or weare doing a good job or not, so
we can make corrections?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
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(20:23):
I want to ask you a follow-upquestion regarding making sure
that the team will really allthe different departments in the
organization understand wherethey fit in the overall mission.
My question is is there a moreeffective way to communicate
that to all of the departmentsand others?
(20:46):
I know some leaders like tosend out a weekly update through
email.
Some leaders like to have thetown hall meeting once a month.
Some leaders like to haveshadowing.
You take someone from onedepartment and have them shadow
(21:06):
somebody in another department,so they can learn what they do.
Do you find that there arecertain ways to accomplish that
that are more effective thanothers?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Absolutely.
I'm a big fan of frequent directcommunication, face-to-face
communication, even if it has tobe virtual.
For people who are workingremotely as much as possible,
getting people physically in thesame space, I think, is
important.
When that's not possible,they'll at least have some
(21:37):
ability to do a face-to-faceconversation, and a direct one,
not one that goes through threeor four hands before it finally
gets communicated to the peoplewho need the information.
I love town halls, I love largegroup events where senior
leaders talk directly to thecore workforce instead of
(21:58):
passing it down through the line.
I think those are very powerfulfor helping people to really
get, and if there's transparencyand there's good communication,
that can be very powerfulhelping people feel part of that
bigger cause, that biggerpurpose.
The other thing is I lovetaking a tour of the site.
(22:19):
Have the front-line leader ormanager take the team out and,
if it's at all possible, ifthere's a plant site, for
instance walk through the plantand see who does what, Get
people connected to those otherparts of the organization.
Help them see how they all fittogether and know who they're
(22:40):
talking to when they have to geton the phone and talk to
somebody about a problem to fixor something.
Those are very important.
I think the studies show thatpeople trust their front-line
leader, whoever they report to,more than anyone else.
That's where the highest trustlevel is.
If your manager gives youinformation on a need-to-know
(23:06):
basis, you're not going to havethat big picture perspective
because everything's withheldfrom you or so many important
pieces.
We need to err on the side oftoo much information.
The more transparent things are, the more trust then can be
built, more credibility leadershave and the more people have
(23:29):
the same kinds of understandingthat those at the higher
echelons in the organizationhave.
We look at, most organizationsstill operate pretty much in a
hierarchy and apyramid-fashioned hierarchy.
It may be a little flatter insome cases than it's been in the
past, but people at the tophave the most information, the
(23:52):
most control over things, themost decision latitude and so on
.
They delegate that down tolesser and lesser degrees as it
moves down toward the people atthe front lines doing the work.
What happens is, by the timethose people the core workforce
gets the information, they'vegot a very select amount of
(24:17):
information that's been screenedand filtered.
They've got the least amount ofinformation, yet they've got
the most critical role ofproducing the product or
servicing the customer.
It's a terrible situation.
I always tell people betransparent.
Give your employees, give yourteams, everything you get.
Share too much information.
(24:39):
Give them everything that givethem so much they don't want it.
I think that's the key is whatyou're trying to do is build
their capacity to contribute ata higher level, to know what you
know, so they can make thedecisions they need to make,
instead of relying on you as aleader to make them.
For them To do that, you've gotto be transparent.
(25:01):
There's very little that isconfidential, that can't be
shared.
Obviously, that has to berespected.
The vast majority ofinformation that gets withheld
can easily and should be shared.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
What are some of the reasons you have learned by
working with these managers?
What are some of the reasonsthey withhold information?
It does seem when you see anorganization that's having some
of those difficulties and if youhave employees who are just
there uninformed or they'remisinformed or they just don't
(25:42):
have no idea what's going on andit seems like there's this
stoppage somewhere, usually it'sthat mid-level manager who's
making that decision.
Oh, they don't need to knowthat In your conversations that
you've had with all thesedifferent organizations.
Why is that?
(26:02):
What are some of the reasonsyou have found that these
managers do that?
So that we can, I guess, maybepinpoint and work on those
skills with those managers sothey can avoid doing that to
their employees.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
That's a great question.
It brings to mind a group thatwe worked with, a plant that was
really struggling and we endedup working with them for about
five or six months and theyincreased productivity over 50%
during that time.
One of the things that heldthem back was that people just
didn't have information.
They didn't know the status ofthings, they didn't know that
(26:44):
they were in trouble, that theywere not producing at a high
enough level, that they weregoing to lose a contract, an
important contract, and a lot ofthose kinds of things.
The reason is the leader justdidn't want to share information
.
Because the leader was worriedthat he was responsible for
employee morale, which was hisfirst mistake.
(27:05):
He was thinking that morale wasin his hands, that individuals
can't manage their own morale.
He had this parent-childrelationship going on where he
was protecting everybody fromanything that would be hard for
them to handle.
As he put it, he didn't shareinformation.
When budgets were going to becut 25%, he didn't tell anybody.
(27:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They're going to find that out somehow.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Exactly I'm in this big meeting and we talked about
it.
People were shocked.
It's funny because I raised theissue because I thought
everybody knew, but apparentlythat wasn't the case.
The leader said why is it thatpeople don't know this?
He said why didn't they thinkthey needed to know what could
(27:54):
have happened if people in termsof the choices people made if
they had that information?
Some people said yeah, when Iordered supplies, I wouldn't
have stocked up.
I would have just gotten whatwe need for the term and just
continue to do that until thingsgot better.
(28:14):
We wouldn't be buying in aslarge quantities, we would
operate differently.
Those were some of the thingsthat this leader needed to learn
that his communication wasaffecting how people worked.
They weren't making gooddecisions because they were
making decisions in a vacuum.
(28:35):
He wasn't providing theinformation.
I think that's it.
There are a couple of things.
One is people think they haveto control other people's
responses.
When they do that, they getmanipulative.
They don't share all theinformation or they spin it to
make it more palatable or asthey think it will be anyway.
(28:55):
The other thing is, when theywithhold information, they're
really trying to get people to…be objects.
They're looking at people asobjects to be moved instead of
people who are capable of makingdecisions, leading adult lives,
(29:18):
managing adult lives like theydo at home, and they don't
believe that people have thecapability of doing more than
they're charged with doing.
And that's part of thedifficulty is, with whole
information we don't enablepeople to have the latitude to
(29:41):
make decisions or we controlresources so tightly that they
don't have the resources theyneed to fully apply their
expertise in the work that theydo.
Then pretty soon they getdemotivated and they really
don't want to come to work.
They really get frustrated andthat's when we see people start
(30:01):
to shut down emotionally andbecome less engaged, because
demotivation is a learnedresponse.
I mean people learn it by theexperiences they have at work.
And the leader is the primaryperson who creates those
conditions.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, so treat them like the adults.
They are no more parent-childrelationships going on in the
workplace.
That's a pretty difficult thingto balance.
I think a lot of organizationstoday and probably most.
I might be wrong, but probablymost organizations today, at
(30:36):
least the culture within thoseorganizations still operate on
that accountability type ofmindset.
So how does one make sure thatthe employees are doing what
they're supposed to be doingwhile treating them like the
adults that they are?
That makes me think ofperformance reviews.
(30:59):
That's always a contentioustopic within any organization.
Do we have performance reviews?
And if we have performancereviews, what kind of
performance reviews and howoften?
And what questions should welook at?
So on and so forth.
So how does that all fit intothis new paradigm of no more
(31:25):
parent-child relationships goingon?
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yeah, because those are compliance activities.
Right, all the things you justtalked about, those are
compliance activities.
You don't get high performancefrom that, you don't get high
engagement from it, and so Ilike to compare it to popcorn.
So how do you make popcorn?
You put popcorn in a pan, youput some oil, you put some heat
(31:48):
on it and, with the conditionsare right, it pops.
And so managers like to thinkthat people are like popcorn.
Sometimes they can just throwthem in the pan, the workforce,
so to speak, or the work.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Who like the fire?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, like the fire, and if they're any good they'll
pop, if they're not any good,they won't, but if they don't,
we turn up the heat and put morepressure on them to try to get
them to pop.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
If they still don't pop, they're a dud.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
They're a dud and then they're discarded, right
and yeah.
What people are forgetting isthat the conditions have to be
right.
Even in popcorn, you can't usejust any oil, and some oils work
better than others, and theheat has to be right, and so on.
People are the same way.
I mean we all have the abilityto succeed when the conditions
are right.
I worked with a group I wasworking with a couple of groups
(32:37):
at once and I was asked to helpout these engineers, and what I
discovered when I did anassessment of the organization
is they had a bunch of engineers, a large group, very smart
people, a lot of engineeringPhDs, and they worked very, very
hard, but they were failingmiserably.
(32:58):
They worked on this projectthat was way behind schedule.
It was way over budget.
They weren't going to meet thenext milestone.
That was clear and I figured itwas.
The program would probably getcanceled than it was because the
leadership was unwilling tomake changes.
They were unwilling to do thethings that would create the
(33:19):
conditions for that group ofpeople to be able to succeed.
They were highly talentedpeople, they had a lot to offer
and they were wonderful peopleto work with, but there were
underlying conditions that hadto change for them to be able to
succeed, and leaders in thatorganization were not willing to
make those changes.
And that's the issue here is inany organization, if you want
(33:44):
people to be successful, youwant to create a high-engaging
kind of workplace where peoplecan bring their whole selves to
work, and work with purpose andbe able to produce at high
levels, then you have to createthe conditions for that to
happen.
And those conditions are notaround compliance activities,
not created from complianceactivities.
(34:05):
They are created when youaccept the inherent motivation
that most people bring with themto work and you nurture that.
And you do that by creating awhole system's view that you're
not operating selfishly in yourown interests at the expense of
others.
You set the example and youinstill that in your team, that
(34:26):
you act in the interest of thewhole team and business unit and
you do things like focus onfinding better ways to do things
and you don't punishexperimentation, you encourage
it.
You encourage people to try andfail and try again, and you set
up conditions that enablepeople to want to bring their
(34:46):
ingenuity, their ideas, theircreativity, their innovation to
bear on situations to help theteam to be more successful.
You have to create the providethe information to help people
know how they're doing so.
If you and I impact each otherin the work, then I need to know
(35:07):
what you need for me and youneed to know what I need from
you, and we need to make somecommitments around what we're
going to do to help each other.
And so those kinds ofactivities help integrate us and
unite us as a team and help usto work together for that
greater purpose, the big picturethat we've shown everybody.
(35:30):
So everybody knows why we cometo work and what's important.
A great analogy or example ofthat is the business of
professional sports, which is,in fact, a business, and if you
go into look we did the SuperBowl not too long ago and you
look at, what is it that allowsthose teams to gel as a team
(35:53):
that enables them to perform atsuch incredibly high levels?
Well, all these things are inplace.
Everything we're talking aboutat a major level, far better
than any other type of businessthat we get involved in
typically.
So they know the marketplace.
(36:14):
They know who the other playersare or who the other teams are,
and they know what thestandings are.
They know what's at stake inevery game.
They know what the strengthsand weaknesses are of the teams
and of the players.
They have a game plan.
They know what each needs fromthe other to succeed in
executing the plays.
When they play, they haveimmediate feedback.
(36:37):
You have a scoreboard.
They've got all kinds of datathat is being tracked that they
get, in many cases, instantaccess to, so they know how
they're doing.
If it's football, there arelines on the field.
There are first down lines orgoal lines, there are all kinds
of indicators of progress andsuccess, and so they can make
(37:00):
adjustments.
And, because they have thissense of belonging, they're part
of a team.
They're not in there justworking independently of
everybody else, but it's anintegrated, interdependent group
of people trying to accomplisha goal together.
If something goes wrong,everybody's accountable.
Nobody can say, well, it's notmy problem, or I did what I was
(37:27):
supposed to do, it's now intheir hands.
That doesn't happen whenthere's a loose ball.
Everybody is responsible formaking the right decision to get
that ball under control and dowhatever needs to be done with
it, which is why people don'tstand around waiting for the
(37:48):
ball carrier to pick it up.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
That's right.
I love the sports analogy whenyou think about it working in
teams.
We all do have differentstrengths and if we can learn
how to play to those strengths,we don't have to be the best at
everything all the time whenwe're working together.
I so there is a certain amountof ego that we have to be
(38:11):
willing to let go of.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, do you have those types of conversations as
well?
Do you ever go in and you cantell immediately there are some
big egos in this room?
How do you have thoseconversations?
Because you're right In a team,you might have a certain
strength in one area, I mighthave a certain strength in
another area, and it's okay tosay, hey, you handle this part,
(38:38):
because I know for a fact thatI'm probably not going to do as
good of a job as you would inthat area.
How do you call people out ontheir ego trips?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah, humility is an incredibly important attribute
for leaders, and knowing thatthe leader doesn't have all the
answers doesn't need to have allthe answers.
In some cases, that doesn'teven need to have very many of
the answers.
If they are doing their job asa leader and they're building a
team's capacity by teaching them, by sharing information and
(39:16):
giving them opportunities tooperate more independently from
them and become moreself-reliant as a team, then
they're going to get far moreout of that team.
People are going to be morehighly engaged and they're going
to produce at a higher level.
But what happens is oftenbecause egos are involved.
People don't want managers,don't want to share information,
(39:39):
as like we discussed earlier,and they're often afraid that
people are going to make thewrong decision and they're not
going to look good to the rightpeople, and I was asking one of
the questions I asked.
So if you are afraid todelegate or to let go of this
particular activity orresponsibility, then let's talk
(40:01):
about what's holding you back.
What is preventing you fromdoing that?
What are you concerned about?
What would happen if you didthat?
And they said well, what I'mafraid of is what would happen
is they'd make the wrongdecision.
Okay, great, let's explore that.
Why would they make the wrongdecision?
And we go down that path and wefind out that, well, because
(40:21):
they don't know what I know theywouldn't make the decision I
would make, and maybe itwouldn't be a good decision, but
it's not the one I would make.
Or maybe they don't have enoughinformation, they don't have
the skills or whatever.
They don't have the context.
Okay, what's the solution toall those things?
If they don't have theinformation, what's the solution
?
Give them the information right.
(40:43):
If they don't have the skills,what's the solution?
Build their skills.
If they don't have context,what's the solution?
Share the context, build theirunderstanding.
That's the leader's role.
And I think at some point, aleader has to decide what they
want to do.
Do they want to build ahigh-performing team or do they
(41:06):
want to keep things status quo?
Because they already know howto keep things status quo.
That's easy.
Just keep doing what you'redoing.
I say, but if you want ahigh-performing team, if you
want people to be highly engagedwhich they're going to have to
be if you're going to have ahigh-performing team, then
you're going to have to dosomething different.
And so here's the question Ifyou are uncomfortable with that,
(41:28):
then Are there pieces of whatI'm teaching you or telling you
that you can, you can grab ahold of and you can act on it?
And if the answer is yes, thenwe have a start.
Okay, let's start Making someof those changes and move
forward and see what happens.
If the answer is no Iabsolutely can't buy into this
(41:51):
then are you willing to take aleap of faith and Let go of the
past, let go of your fears andgive it a chance to work?
Because if you are, we can makethe changes and you can see the
results and then you'll be onboard.
But if you're not willing to atleast take a leap of faith,
then we're never gonna get there.
(42:11):
And I can tell you, there was aguy in a we worked with in a
company as a large naturalresources company, and his
division had always been thehighest producing division in
the company for years and he wasa tough guy to work for and
(42:33):
people really struggled Workingfor him, but he but he did
produce results.
And at some point the CEO satdown with them and said said,
mike, I got to tell you, yeah,our company is not succeeding,
we've got to do some thingsdifferently and we know that
(42:53):
we're not managing correctly.
So we're gonna do things thatwill help engage employees to be
able to, to bring their more ofthemselves to work, produce
more, get more engaged andparticipate more in deciding how
the work it's done.
Because we're missing all thatgreat Information that people
have, all that institutionalknowledge, because we're not
(43:14):
tapping it right now we're justdictating to people what to do
and how to do it, and and so,mike, that means you're gonna
have to change.
And he said behind the highestproducing, you know, manager in
the in the company, I mean whywould, why should I have to
change?
And he said because what you'redoing is not enough.
What everybody else is doing isnot enough.
(43:35):
Everyone is going to have tochange, including you, mike.
You have to produce at a higherlevel.
We all do.
And and and he said well, whatdo you want me to do?
And he said and the CEO saidwell, look, people hate you.
They hate working for you.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
It would be hard to hear.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
But, but, but.
But they do what I say.
And he said but Mike, that'snot good enough.
We have to have a differentenvironment.
We have to create theconditions that enable them to
choose a higher level ofcommitment and accountability,
instead of people trying to holdthem accountable all the time
and getting compliance results.
And so we want you to change.
We're gonna teach you how tochange and we want to help you
(44:21):
Any way we can, but you have tomake the change.
If you're not comfortable doingit, if you're not willing to do
that, then let's have thatconversation and we will help
you with whatever.
Whatever we can do, we'll helpyou to transition to some other
organization where you canContinue to be successful.
But to be here, you're gonnahave to make the change.
(44:42):
But it's your.
It's your decision.
We're not gonna pressure you.
You need to decide, but we hopeyou'll decide to stay and make
the changes, because we thinkyou can do it and we think
you'll be a great asset.
So Mike did it, gave him acouple of weeks to think about
it.
He wrestled with it because hedidn't think he could make those
changes.
But eventually he came back andhe said you know, I'm scared to
(45:03):
death.
This is not the way I've beenoperating for 25 years and
you're telling me to change mypersonality in a sense.
But I'm willing to give it atry.
I'm gonna need your help.
I'm gonna need a lot ofpatience and the CEO says Mike,
you've, you've got it.
We're backing you, we want youto succeed, we're gonna, we're
(45:23):
gonna help you succeed and Iknow you can do it.
Well, mike did work at it.
He worked really, really hardand he did turn around.
He did become a differentmanager completely and the whole
organization did so much betterafter that.
It was just remarkable theresults that they were able to
achieve by creating theconditions that that that
(45:45):
brought more of People'sengagement and therefore more
productivity from them.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Inadequate communication skills can be
costly in terms of relationships, reputation and revenue.
From staff to the C-suite, allemployees deserve quality
training that will help them besuccessful.
If your company is looking toimprove employee morale and
relationships, contactcommunication 24 seven today by
visiting wwwcommunication247.comfor a free 30-minute
(46:15):
consultation.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
So if you're the leader in in that example and
you approach the manager and youexplain to him yeah, the
they're gonna be some changesand and we would love for you to
be able to come along withthese changes, and the manager
Instead said no, you know, anddecided to leave, does that mean
(46:39):
the leader?
What did the leader fail inthat instance?
Or is that actually a goodthing?
Is it one of those things where, yeah, they're, they're kind of
weeding themselves out?
Speaker 3 (46:49):
So yeah, I think it's a good thing, because I think
that if I think the seniorleadership has to decide the
strategy, the organization, whatdo we have to do to be
successful?
And and in I give anotherexample was when I was magma
copper company and they wentthrough their transformation,
initially there were a lot ofthe leaders who said I don't
(47:11):
want to operate that way.
It's always.
It was a mining company, I mean, they had a very old-school
kind of way of operating and andIn some there were a number of
unions and they had Someanimosity there and they just
said I'm not gonna work that way.
And and so the CEO, burgessWinters, said well, you know,
(47:31):
you have a choice.
We're not gonna force anybody.
Or we don't want you to stay ifyou don't want to be here and
make the changes, because thetrain is on the track, it's
going this direction, we'd loveto have you on it, but if you
don't belong on the train, wedon't want you to sort of Drag
in your feet and slowing it downSomehow.
(47:52):
We need you to make a decision,so make it now.
We'll give great packages tomake it easy for you to Take
your severance and then make atransition somewhere else.
But you have to make a choice,and when I work with senior
leaders, quite often I'll havepeople who are uncomfortable,
(48:13):
expressing their ownvulnerabilities to me because
I'm an outsider and or they,they truly are insecure.
And they don't.
They, they aren't willing toeven say that they have some, a
need, that they need to changeanything, and sometimes that's
exacerbated by HR leaders whoare don't have the managerial
(48:37):
courage to tell them what theproblem is, or that they even
have a problem.
And so I get people sometimes Isay why are we having this
conversation?
Why am I here meeting with you?
And they'll say I don't know.
The HR person said it'd be goodfor me in my development.
I said well, what is it thatthat HR person wanted to see?
(48:58):
You do you know what are some ofthe things that you struggle
with the most?
Well, I don't struggle withanything.
I don't have any needs, youknow, and so so I always go to
the leadership first and I say II want you to spell out exactly
what you want to accomplishhere from my coaching this
individual, and then we're gonnahave a three-way meeting.
(49:19):
The three of us are gonna sitout and you're gonna tell that
person what that, what it is andand how important that is.
In other words, if that's aline in the sand kind of thing
that they have to change, thenyou need to say that and I'm
gonna be there to coach you ifyou struggle with it.
And and we have that upfrontconversation.
(49:41):
So it's really clear thatsomething needs to change or
something, they need some helpwith something and how important
it is that they make the shift,so that when I'm working with
them, they understand that I'mthere to help them do that and
or help them choose to dosomething else if they decide
it's that's just not a changethey're willing to make.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
When you go into these organizations, does
compensation ever Come up?
Because I know there are a lotof employees, you know, when you
ask them, well, you know, doyou like your job?
Yeah, it's okay, but you know Ishould get paid more for what I
do.
I mean, that's just, that'ssomething that you hear all the
time.
You know, across the board, youknow, I, there are some
(50:27):
industries that are notoriousfor not paying their employees.
Well, what kind of how do thoseconversations go?
You know, and I don't know, Imight be a little jaded, just a
little bit.
You know working, having workedin the academic field for so
long, and you know, being anadjunct in the academic world, I
(50:51):
can tell you adjuncts don't getpaid near Enough of what you
know, what, what they're havingto Deal with.
You know it's as far as theworkload and how many students
they have, class load and this,that and the other, and make
sure you have a master's degree.
You know, and they what?
All of these qualifications forthis TV, tiny little paycheck,
(51:14):
and so do you ever have to?
Do you ever look at the entirestructure of the organization
and say, okay, wait a minute,we're okay, all of this.
Having said all of this about.
You know the, the structure andPerformance, and you know all
of this other things.
Let's talk about pay.
Let's talk about you know, doyou?
(51:36):
ever have those types ofconversations as well.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Absolutely.
You know, every organizationhas to decide where they want to
be relative to market rates.
Most, most pay relative to somemarket rate.
Either they have a lead policywhere they're leading the market
, or they have a lag policy thatthey they want to stay so much
behind the market and just playcatch up every year.
(52:00):
Or sometimes I just say we'regonna always be at market and
that's, that's what we're gonnapay, and of course then there's
always variable compensationthat can be added to the mix.
I know that I'm a fan ofleading the market.
I just think that people it'slike when you look at
(52:27):
organizations that have acustomer service arm, people who
interface with directly withtheir customers, and they're the
lowest paid people in theentire organization and even
sometimes paid lower than marketrate.
You think, well, is that reallywhat I want?
Do I want my customers talkingto underpaid, overworked,
(52:53):
frustrated people?
That just doesn't seem like agood idea to me.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Yeah, customer service is not easy.
It is actually imagination.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
But we do that all the time.
It's just amazed at how much wedo that.
The people who are doing thecore work, producing the
products, interfacing with thecustomers.
We got to be smart about how wepay them.
I'm a big fan of paying abovemarket.
It's an investment that's wellworth it to help us attract
people into the organization andto retain them.
(53:25):
Money isn't going to retain themif the conditions are horrible.
When I say conditions, I don'tmean just the working conditions
are hot or dusty or they have aboss that yells at them, kind
of thing.
But if you don't have theconditions that nurture
engagement, that create thatsense of purpose and belonging
(53:49):
and so on, the autonomy, thethings that people thrive on if
you don't have those things,then money isn't going to keep
them anyway.
They'll go where they thinkthey can get that.
But if we pay people well, weuse variable compensation.
(54:10):
I don't like the most incentiveplans because they're poorly
done.
They really don't accomplishanything.
I like programs like gainsharing programs or things that
share in the gains.
If we work together, we workhard and do well, that there are
some sharing involved, thateverybody gets to participate in
(54:31):
.
It's tied directly to specificthings that are accomplished,
the revenue or the profits thatshow up for the business, and
people can see their impact onthose things.
If they can't see their impact,it's meaningless anyway.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yeah, or if you have a-.
Yeah, I know of someorganizations that do have that
kind of like a profit sharingtype of plan, but it's only for
certain level managers, Right,that seems like a pretty good
way to invite I don't know justunhappiness and dissatisfaction
(55:22):
with the employees across theboard.
It just doesn't seem likethat's a good idea to me.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
Yeah, I've known managers, in fact, who have
received bonuses that they sharewith their teams, because their
team members don't get bonuses,and they know that it's the
team that enabled them to beable to receive a bonus.
Yeah, also, we've set things upin some places where we've
encouraged the teams to have apool of money that every month
(55:52):
or every quarter or something,that they could vote as a team
to reward somebody who has donesomething above and beyond or
accomplished something reallyspecial.
They don't have to, but theycan if they would like to.
There's some rules around thatso they can't just pass the pot
around and rotate who gets it orthings like that.
(56:15):
But if they truly believe as agroup that there is someone
who's deserving, then they canvote them a bonus.
That's pretty powerful.
I think the recognition fromthe team is pretty meaningful,
and then the financial bitsweetens it for them.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, what a fantastic way to show that you
appreciate a lot of the servicethat someone provides for an
organization to be able to dosomething like that have a vote.
I'm sure that would be prettypopular in some organizations.
Absolutely yeah.
(56:54):
Kevin, I cannot believe it.
We've been talking for 56minutes now Our is coming to an
end.
This has been such a fantasticconversation, A lot of food for
thought, just some really greatadvice for leaders, managers at
(57:16):
an organizational level.
Just things to really thinkabout in order to create that
environment where your employeeswill feel appreciated and they
can understand the largerpicture and feel like they are
contributing in a way to helpthat organization achieve that
(57:38):
mission.
I know that there are probablya lot of questions that still
remain for some of our listenerswho are in those positions
management and leadershippositions on employee engagement
and how to get employeesexcited about being at work
again.
How would they contact you ifthey were interested in
(58:03):
continuing this conversation?
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah, I would love to answer questions or talk with
people.
I would be happy to take callsor however you'd like to reach
out to me.
The easiest way is just go tosuperchargemyteamcom.
Superchargemyteamcom will takeyou to the Ascent Management
Consulting website.
It will take you to their tools.
(58:27):
There there is information.
There is an article sectionLearning Center.
You can also fill out a form.
You can call, you can email.
There are ways that you canreach me and reach our
organization.
If you have questions, you'dlike to just talk a little bit
about what you are dealing withand get a little bit of advice
on how to proceed.
(58:48):
We would be happy to help.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
That's fantastic.
Do not allow your team, yourdepartment, your organization to
implode.
You have resources here thatyou can certainly just reach out
and contact Kevin here.
That's wonderful.
I'll make sure to have thelinks in the show notes for
everyone, all the listeners.
(59:10):
Any parting words of wisdom aswe wrap things up.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
I think it's important for people to
challenge some of theconventional advice that they've
received the idea that theyneed to be responsible for
motivating people.
Stop trying to motivate people.
Stop trying to hold themaccountable.
Do the things that create morecompliance and less drive out
(59:39):
the commitment.
One of the ways that you canhelp, as a manager, build a
different kind of anorganization and support
people's engagement is to dowhat we like to call ask, don't
tell.
In other words, stop tellingeverybody.
(59:59):
Start asking questions.
When people have concerns orquestions or a problem to solve,
ask questions.
Give them an opportunity tothink through it.
Give them an opportunity tomake the decisions as to how to
proceed.
Begin sharing responsibilitywith them so that they can grow
from the experience.
(01:00:19):
They can learn more about thebusiness and learn to operate
more as a team, dealing with theday-to-day kinds of things that
come up, instead of having tocome to you as a manager.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Fantastic advice here .
Here, as the communication nerd, asking questions is a
wonderful way to explore, buildthose bridges and give them a
sense of empowerment as well.
That's fantastic advice, kevin.
Thanks again for being a gueston the show and sharing your
(01:00:53):
wisdom with us.
I absolutely enjoyed havingthis conversation with you.
A lot of things to consider, Iknow listeners.
I hope you were keeping trackof all of the golden nuggets
that you were just provided.
If not, make sure you justlisten to the episode over and
over again, because there wereso many things packed into this
(01:01:14):
episode.
I guarantee you, even if youjust try one teeny, tiny little
thing, that little tweak couldmake a big difference within
your team.
I encourage you to just givesome of these suggestions a try.
What's the worst thing thatcould happen?
It could change for the better,absolutely.
You all have a wonderful restof your day and we will see you
(01:01:40):
next time.
Bye, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating and areview.
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