October 12, 2023 • 10 mins
Ever wondered why those Monday morning meetings are so crucial? How can they be a catalyst for fostering an open, collaborative and joyful work culture? This episode is like a treasure map that takes you on a journey towards unlocking the true potential of your team meetings. We'll be navigating the waters of communication, highlighting the importance of creating an environment where everyone feels valued and heard.
Now, let's talk about 'the hard questions', those seemingly challenging queries that can actually serve as a bridge to strengthen your team relationships. We advocate a leadership style that values the hearts and minds of team members, over profits. This episode is brimming with insights on how to build relationships that go beyond work, a culture that appreciates laughter, camaraderie and most importantly, genuine feedback. So sit back, and prepare to revolutionize your team dynamic with this enlightening discussion. Tune in now for a transformative leadership experience!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Monday morning meetings.
Monday morning meetings I knowthis sounds crazy, but there's
like two years that I stoppedmeeting with people Like I met.
But I met sporadically and Imet here on Tuesdays.
I sent me an invite.
When I implemented Mondaymorning meetings back into my
company, I probably it's one ofthe smartest things I ever did.
Let me tell you why Because itwas an organized time where the
(00:24):
people on my team had theopportunity to have a voice.
I think sometimes, especiallywhen companies like CEOs are
like they're not in crisis modebut they're definitely feeling a
little all over the place, theytend to be the only one with a
voice in the company.
So they're constantly goinglike this, they're going like
this, but they don't really takethe time to dissect.
(00:44):
Here we go again.
I feel like every time I havesomething important to tell you,
the train's like oh no, youdon't.
So here is the Phoenix train.
It's the daily team with thetrain.
It is the daily team with thetrain.
Say that that is correct, butthere was this period of time
where I was watching a lot of myclients with their teams and
(01:05):
they were having like onedirectional conversation to try
to grow.
They'd be like okay, companyteam, we need to do all these
things.
And then what they do is theywould go, put the message out,
they would get a little bit offeedback and they would get it
from the manager, from thisperson.
So these one-sidedconversations weren't in a pool,
and what happens is thatemotions get lost, objectives
(01:27):
get lost and when you're allover the place, the last thing
you need is for anything youwant to have happen, or the
energy of whatever is happeningget lost.
Put it in a container.
So a Monday morning meeting isa container.
It is the easiest way for youto bring everybody, at all the
levels, to the same playingfield, so that they feel like
they're part of a collective,they know that they have a voice
(01:48):
.
And it is probably the besttime for you to shut up and let
everybody else just talk.
I know how easy it is to getthere and be like okay, this is
the objectives, and sometimes Ido that too.
But when I realize I'm like offon a tangent not off on a
tangent, but I come talk aboutall the ideas and all the things
, you know what I do I shut up,I extend the meeting for 45
minutes and I just start askingquestions, because it's
(02:09):
important to hear the otherpeople, even if whatever they
have to say is not useful towhat the meeting is about.
Just listen to what otherpeople have to say.
Communication is important, butcommunication has gotten lost
through things like discord,slack, talking through text
messages, talking through DMs,internal IM chats and things
like that.
In a company, nothing canreplace just dialogue and
(02:32):
talking and being together.
One of the things that I relishthe most about my team today,
and any team that I've ever beenhad the luxury of being in
front of, is that, likeeverybody loves, like we like
being there, like we're happy totalk to each other.
You know, we're happy to talkto each other, we're happy to
laugh to each other.
You cannot do that throughemails, zoom meetings, instant
(02:56):
messages on Google platforms.
You can't do that through Slackor Discord.
So for every company it's likeoh no, we have great
communication, you have greatcommunication talking about all
the things related to theproject, talking about all the
things related to the objective,to the planning, to the this.
What about that joke?
That was so funny thateverybody needs to laugh in on.
You know that in my companytoday you can't even get hired
(03:17):
unless you can crack your owngood joke.
It's actually in our employment, like you can.
If you can't crack your owngood joke and make everybody
laugh, you're not even gonnawork here and we don't want you,
no matter how many skills youhave.
It's useless to me and my team.
It's useless to me and my teamBecause we're a collective and
when we come to work, whetherit's a good day, bad day,
(03:38):
pressures on, pressures off, itdoesn't matter.
We've gotta be able to laugh.
But we have to have like abelly laugh, the kind of laugh
that you feel here and you'regoing.
Ah, you know, if it's just likea chuckle, chuckle, chuckle,
it's like get out of here, gowork next door, go to Starbucks,
go to the entire area, go toDunkin Donuts or something.
That's literally how I feel,and me included.
I have to be able to crack agood joke, even if I'm sick,
even if I'm not happening, evenif we owe money, even if there
(04:00):
are problems, if we messed upall of the above.
So that is it.
That is the best and most thingI could tell you in this moment
of the daily tea.
It's like go company meetings,meet in person, connect, sit and
make it a must, so that you canfind out what's really
happening in your company andyou can actually make a real
change that will last and changesomething.
Don't get disconnected for twoyears, like I tried to.
(04:22):
Don't get disconnected for fiveminutes like I did, whoa.
So here's the other thought.
Wait, I have one more thought.
So in this let me tell you, youknow, the other day I was
reading something and it wastalking about like serving
people, serving the people inyour company, the easiest way
for you to find out what'shappening, what's not happening.
(04:44):
And I really believe that I wasthinking to myself yeah, but if
I send out a survey and thesurvey's like how much do you
like your job?
Right, yes or no is the option.
How much of an answer you'regoing to get?
If you're the employer, youranswer is better all be yes.
If not, that's bad.
Right.
So nobody's going to answer youcorrectly.
These bogus surveys that areinside of some of the surveys
are good.
Let me not discredit all ofthem, but a lot of them.
(05:06):
They're just like, they're justalmost.
They're like fillers.
Imagine if you were to do a realsurvey where you brought
everybody into your office, likethat's how I did it.
So in the month of July we hada tough July.
And we had a tough July becauseI overlooked something and a
lot of things hit the fan andI'm responsible, I'm the CEO
(05:27):
right, there's no way out ofthis thing.
But the truth of the matter isthat I brought everybody in
front of me one by one and Istarted having these private
conversations.
Now, before I had the bigmeeting, I had preliminary
meetings that were to the bigmeeting and I just asked the
same question.
I asked questions and let themtalk.
I asked questions and let themtalk.
The things that I respondedwith were like qualifying
(05:48):
questions, you know, like ifthey said something that I
didn't really get, I would ask aqualifying question.
What was great about that isthat it allowed me to get a
collective and a census for whatthe problems were, what the
challenges were, and then Icalled a meeting, but I didn't
just call one meeting.
I basically like I realized Idid this now I don't think I
realized it then, but Idefinitely put everybody.
(06:09):
I almost shut us down for like aweek, even though we attended
to emails and stuff like Iindirectly shut us down for a
week and we just sat and I askedhard questions.
What are the hardest questionsyou could ask your team right
now, or even ask yourself?
Because first I had to askmyself, asking myself these
questions are really hard, likeyou ask yourself questions and
(06:30):
then you don't really askyourself the questions because
you don't want to hear theanswer.
But as a leader, I knew that.
I knew that.
I knew that I had to startasking myself hard questions.
If you're willing to ask acouple of hard questions, if
you're willing to ask a coupleof hard questions, and it'll be
really easy for you to get thehard answer.
(06:50):
But the hard answer gets theresults.
So here are a couple of hardquestions.
Here are questions you couldask right now.
Number one would be like wheredo you feel that we suck the
most?
Where do we suck the most?
Sounds crazy, but not likewhere can we improve?
You ask that soft question.
I know I'm going to answer youcorrectly when do we suck the
(07:12):
most?
That's like question number one.
Question number two would belike what do you feel like is
the number one thing this yearthat we did that we could have
done better?
The next thing I would say isprobably where do you feel?
What do you feel is not beingattended Like?
What do you feel like isactually not being managed or
(07:34):
handled correctly in our company?
That was a tough question forme, but I knew the answer.
But I got one to hear the otheranswer.
Number four is how could I helpyou?
How can I support you better?
How can I support you better?
How can I be more useful to you?
Because you know, I think CEOshave this part of the world
twisted.
You believe, like CEOsespecially.
(07:56):
You know, I've now coached somany CEOs black, white, female,
female around the world of $40million to $40,000, $400,000,
I'll say $400,000 is that.
And I'm going to tell you thetruth is, everybody's got to
twist it, like every CEO, almostevery, has it twisted.
The employee doesn't work foryou, you work for the employee.
(08:18):
I know this sounds crazy, butthey are your first customer.
It sounds wild, but your teamis your first customer, very
first customer, most importantcustomer.
So it's like we think that wework for them and them equally,
when the truth is we work forour team here and then we work
(08:39):
for the customer out in themarket.
You get that formula like rightman, it's like so when it came
to that meeting, I didn't sitdown and go.
How could you?
Why didn't we?
Ah, I tried to understand.
Where did I fail my firstcustomer?
Because if I could figure outwhere I failed my first customer
, I'd pull up the process andthen find the resources.
(09:00):
Even if it took me a littlelonger, I'm going to find the
right resources because I don'twant to lose customers and lose
team.
That's not fun for me, but it'snot because I don't want to
lose team, because and I'm goingto challenge everybody to think
differently about what they'rebuilding, because it's not that
I want to I don't want to loseteam because we have to start
over again.
I don't want to lose teambecause I made a promise to the
(09:20):
team member and I like theperson, like I want to be with
them in our future in somecapacity.
And like, if you can thinkbeyond your dollars and think
beyond your bottom line andthink beyond whatever is in
front of you, you could stick to.
Like what are you building, notjust in this business but in
your life.
Like I think there is everysingle employee of hired.
Probably in the last 15 years Icould still invite to a
(09:43):
Christmas party and they'd stillinvite me to a Christmas party
and have a gift from me underthe tree.
You get what I'm saying Like,not just invite me.
I want you to think about that.
Can you say the same foryourself?
You should.
Being a great leader is notlike.
This part of the game is notnecessarily about just dollars
and cents.
It's about not having to buildtwice, and if you can build in
the hearts of people and havethem build with you, regardless
(10:05):
of what they're doing in theirlives, man you're going to like
you'll be rich beyond measure,because it's going to be
richness far past dollars.
I'm done for today.
I got so much stuff on my deskI got to go do and, more
importantly, I have hardquestions that I got to go ask.
I'm about to pick up the phoneand call 40 people.
Monday morning meetings.
Monday morning meetings I knowthis sounds crazy, but there's
like two years that I stoppedmeeting with people Like I met.
But I met sporadically and Imet here on Tuesdays.
I sent me an invite.
When I implemented Mondaymorning meetings back into my
company, I probably it's one ofthe smartest things I ever did.
Let me tell you why Because itwas an organized time where the
(00:24):
people on my team had theopportunity to have a voice.
I think sometimes, especiallywhen companies like CEOs are
like they're not in crisis modebut they're definitely feeling a
little all over the place, theytend to be the only one with a
voice in the company.
So they're constantly goinglike this, they're going like
this, but they don't really takethe time to dissect.
(00:44):
Here we go again.
I feel like every time I havesomething important to tell you,
the train's like oh no, youdon't.
So here is the Phoenix train.
It's the daily team with thetrain.
It is the daily team with thetrain.
Say that that is correct, butthere was this period of time
where I was watching a lot of myclients with their teams and
(01:05):
they were having like onedirectional conversation to try
to grow.
They'd be like okay, companyteam, we need to do all these
things.
And then what they do is theywould go, put the message out,
they would get a little bit offeedback and they would get it
from the manager, from thisperson.
So these one-sidedconversations weren't in a pool,
and what happens is thatemotions get lost, objectives
(01:27):
get lost and when you're allover the place, the last thing
you need is for anything youwant to have happen, or the
energy of whatever is happeningget lost.
Put it in a container.
So a Monday morning meeting isa container.
It is the easiest way for youto bring everybody, at all the
levels, to the same playingfield, so that they feel like
they're part of a collective,they know that they have a voice
(01:48):
.
And it is probably the besttime for you to shut up and let
everybody else just talk.
I know how easy it is to getthere and be like okay, this is
the objectives, and sometimes Ido that too.
But when I realize I'm like offon a tangent not off on a
tangent, but I come talk aboutall the ideas and all the things
, you know what I do I shut up,I extend the meeting for 45
minutes and I just start askingquestions, because it's
(02:09):
important to hear the otherpeople, even if whatever they
have to say is not useful towhat the meeting is about.
Just listen to what otherpeople have to say.
Communication is important, butcommunication has gotten lost
through things like discord,slack, talking through text
messages, talking through DMs,internal IM chats and things
like that.
In a company, nothing canreplace just dialogue and
(02:32):
talking and being together.
One of the things that I relishthe most about my team today,
and any team that I've ever beenhad the luxury of being in
front of, is that, likeeverybody loves, like we like
being there, like we're happy totalk to each other.
You know, we're happy to talkto each other, we're happy to
laugh to each other.
You cannot do that throughemails, zoom meetings, instant
(02:56):
messages on Google platforms.
You can't do that through Slackor Discord.
So for every company it's likeoh no, we have great
communication, you have greatcommunication talking about all
the things related to theproject, talking about all the
things related to the objective,to the planning, to the this.
What about that joke?
That was so funny thateverybody needs to laugh in on.
You know that in my companytoday you can't even get hired
(03:17):
unless you can crack your owngood joke.
It's actually in our employment, like you can.
If you can't crack your owngood joke and make everybody
laugh, you're not even gonnawork here and we don't want you,
no matter how many skills youhave.
It's useless to me and my team.
It's useless to me and my teamBecause we're a collective and
when we come to work, whetherit's a good day, bad day,
(03:38):
pressures on, pressures off, itdoesn't matter.
We've gotta be able to laugh.
But we have to have like abelly laugh, the kind of laugh
that you feel here and you'regoing.
Ah, you know, if it's just likea chuckle, chuckle, chuckle,
it's like get out of here, gowork next door, go to Starbucks,
go to the entire area, go toDunkin Donuts or something.
That's literally how I feel,and me included.
I have to be able to crack agood joke, even if I'm sick,
even if I'm not happening, evenif we owe money, even if there
(04:00):
are problems, if we messed upall of the above.
So that is it.
That is the best and most thingI could tell you in this moment
of the daily tea.
It's like go company meetings,meet in person, connect, sit and
make it a must, so that you canfind out what's really
happening in your company andyou can actually make a real
change that will last and changesomething.
Don't get disconnected for twoyears, like I tried to.
(04:22):
Don't get disconnected for fiveminutes like I did, whoa.
So here's the other thought.
Wait, I have one more thought.
So in this let me tell you, youknow, the other day I was
reading something and it wastalking about like serving
people, serving the people inyour company, the easiest way
for you to find out what'shappening, what's not happening.
(04:44):
And I really believe that I wasthinking to myself yeah, but if
I send out a survey and thesurvey's like how much do you
like your job?
Right, yes or no is the option.
How much of an answer you'regoing to get?
If you're the employer, youranswer is better all be yes.
If not, that's bad.
Right.
So nobody's going to answer youcorrectly.
These bogus surveys that areinside of some of the surveys
are good.
Let me not discredit all ofthem, but a lot of them.
(05:06):
They're just like, they're justalmost.
They're like fillers.
Imagine if you were to do a realsurvey where you brought
everybody into your office, likethat's how I did it.
So in the month of July we hada tough July.
And we had a tough July becauseI overlooked something and a
lot of things hit the fan andI'm responsible, I'm the CEO
(05:27):
right, there's no way out ofthis thing.
But the truth of the matter isthat I brought everybody in
front of me one by one and Istarted having these private
conversations.
Now, before I had the bigmeeting, I had preliminary
meetings that were to the bigmeeting and I just asked the
same question.
I asked questions and let themtalk.
I asked questions and let themtalk.
The things that I respondedwith were like qualifying
(05:48):
questions, you know, like ifthey said something that I
didn't really get, I would ask aqualifying question.
What was great about that isthat it allowed me to get a
collective and a census for whatthe problems were, what the
challenges were, and then Icalled a meeting, but I didn't
just call one meeting.
I basically like I realized Idid this now I don't think I
realized it then, but Idefinitely put everybody.
(06:09):
I almost shut us down for like aweek, even though we attended
to emails and stuff like Iindirectly shut us down for a
week and we just sat and I askedhard questions.
What are the hardest questionsyou could ask your team right
now, or even ask yourself?
Because first I had to askmyself, asking myself these
questions are really hard, likeyou ask yourself questions and
(06:30):
then you don't really askyourself the questions because
you don't want to hear theanswer.
But as a leader, I knew that.
I knew that.
I knew that I had to startasking myself hard questions.
If you're willing to ask acouple of hard questions, if
you're willing to ask a coupleof hard questions, and it'll be
really easy for you to get thehard answer.
(06:50):
But the hard answer gets theresults.
So here are a couple of hardquestions.
Here are questions you couldask right now.
Number one would be like wheredo you feel that we suck the
most?
Where do we suck the most?
Sounds crazy, but not likewhere can we improve?
You ask that soft question.
I know I'm going to answer youcorrectly when do we suck the
(07:12):
most?
That's like question number one.
Question number two would belike what do you feel like is
the number one thing this yearthat we did that we could have
done better?
The next thing I would say isprobably where do you feel?
What do you feel is not beingattended Like?
What do you feel like isactually not being managed or
(07:34):
handled correctly in our company?
That was a tough question forme, but I knew the answer.
But I got one to hear the otheranswer.
Number four is how could I helpyou?
How can I support you better?
How can I support you better?
How can I be more useful to you?
Because you know, I think CEOshave this part of the world
twisted.
You believe, like CEOsespecially.
(07:56):
You know, I've now coached somany CEOs black, white, female,
female around the world of $40million to $40,000, $400,000,
I'll say $400,000 is that.
And I'm going to tell you thetruth is, everybody's got to
twist it, like every CEO, almostevery, has it twisted.
The employee doesn't work foryou, you work for the employee.
(08:18):
I know this sounds crazy, butthey are your first customer.
It sounds wild, but your teamis your first customer, very
first customer, most importantcustomer.
So it's like we think that wework for them and them equally,
when the truth is we work forour team here and then we work
(08:39):
for the customer out in themarket.
You get that formula like rightman, it's like so when it came
to that meeting, I didn't sitdown and go.
How could you?
Why didn't we?
Ah, I tried to understand.
Where did I fail my firstcustomer?
Because if I could figure outwhere I failed my first customer
, I'd pull up the process andthen find the resources.
(09:00):
Even if it took me a littlelonger, I'm going to find the
right resources because I don'twant to lose customers and lose
team.
That's not fun for me, but it'snot because I don't want to
lose team, because and I'm goingto challenge everybody to think
differently about what they'rebuilding, because it's not that
I want to I don't want to loseteam because we have to start
over again.
I don't want to lose teambecause I made a promise to the
(09:20):
team member and I like theperson, like I want to be with
them in our future in somecapacity.
And like, if you can thinkbeyond your dollars and think
beyond your bottom line andthink beyond whatever is in
front of you, you could stick to.
Like what are you building, notjust in this business but in
your life.
Like I think there is everysingle employee of hired.
Probably in the last 15 years Icould still invite to a
(09:43):
Christmas party and they'd stillinvite me to a Christmas party
and have a gift from me underthe tree.
You get what I'm saying Like,not just invite me.
I want you to think about that.
Can you say the same foryourself?
You should.
Being a great leader is notlike.
This part of the game is notnecessarily about just dollars
and cents.
It's about not having to buildtwice, and if you can build in
the hearts of people and havethem build with you, regardless
(10:05):
of what they're doing in theirlives, man you're going to like
you'll be rich beyond measure,because it's going to be
richness far past dollars.
I'm done for today.
I got so much stuff on my deskI got to go do and, more
importantly, I have hardquestions that I got to go ask.
I'm about to pick up the phoneand call 40 people.
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