How to have the RIGHT discussions with your leadership team

In this episode, I walk you through one of the most powerful tools I use with clients: the Pulse Check. If you're tired of meetings that go nowhere or feel like your leadership team is dodging the tough conversations, this episode is for you. I’ll share the exact questions I ask, how to surface real issues, and how to turn scattered thoughts into focused action. If you want a great company, you need a great leadership team, and that starts with having the right discussions.

Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach

Episode Transcript

Mike Goldman (00:02):
The more a leadership team has the
difficult discussions, theimportant discussions, the more
comfortable and skilled thatteam is gonna get in having
those discussions and, makingthe tough decisions.
And, and by the way, that that'snot gonna happen in weekly

(00:22):
status meetings.
When everybody's just talkingabout what they did, and we only
have 45 minutes, so we can't digdeeper into an issue.
You made it to the betterleadership team show, the place

(00:42):
where you learn how to surroundyourself with the right people,
doing the right things.
So you can grow your businesswithout losing your mind.
I'm your host and leadershipteam coach, Mike Goldman.
I'm going to show you how toimprove top and bottom line
growth, fulfillment, and thevalue your company adds to the
world by building a betterleadership team.

(01:03):
All right, let's go.
Leadership teams need to set thedirection and priorities for the
entire organization, and thatmeans leadership teams need to
have the right conversations.

(01:25):
It means they need to discusswhat really matters, not just go
through the motion of statusmeeting after status meeting.
And if the discussions don'thappen, if the right discussions
don't happen as a team, theytend to happen in the meeting.
After the meeting when two orthree people get together and
say, could you believe we didn'ttalk about X?

(01:47):
Could you believe what's goingon here?
You know, I don't believe we'vegot the right strategy.
Why aren't we talking more aboutoperations?
and when those meetings happenwithout all parties involved,
when those meetings happen inthe meeting, after the meeting,
you're not gonna come to theright conclusions.
'cause the right people aren'tinvolved.

(02:10):
You are also not building trust.
You are hurting trust because inthat meeting, after the meeting,
you are showing a misalignmentacross the leadership team.
The more a leadership team hasthe difficult discussions, the
important discussions, the morecomfortable and skilled that

(02:33):
team is gonna get in havingthose discussions and making the
tough decisions.
So the more you have these toughdiscussions, the better you're
gonna get at these toughdiscussions.
And, and by the way, that's notgonna happen in weekly status
meetings.
When everybody's just talkingabout what they did, and we only

(02:53):
have 45 minutes, so we can't digdeeper into an issue.
These are conversations thatcan't be rushed, so they tend to
happen in meetings like annualplanning retreats, which for my
clients are two day sessions,quarterly planning meetings,

(03:14):
which may be one or two daysessions, monthly check-in
meetings, which are typically.
Two to four hours, you know, orcertainly ad hoc meetings for
the sole purpose of discussiondiscussing an issue.
So you've gotta have the right.
mediums the right types ofmeetings to discuss these issues

(03:35):
as a team.
But in addition to that, I'mgonna give you one really
important technique that I usewith my clients that makes sure
you're not just going throughthe motions, and it's called a
pulse check when I do myquarterly planning sessions and
my annual planning sessions withmy clients, and you can do this

(03:56):
in your monthly meetings aswell.
But when I do these meetings, Ialways start with good news, but
then right after going aroundand getting some good news and
getting started on a positivepath with, with a right,
positive opportunistic focus, wemove into what I call pulse
check questions.
Pulse check questions aretypically two to four questions

(04:21):
that get to the heart of.
How folks around the table arefeeling, where folks see issues,
where they see opportunities,where, where we need to have the
difficult discussions, what weneed to have difficult and deep
discussions about.

(04:42):
And, and when I do the pulsecheck, and in a minute I'll
share a whole bunch of potentialpulse check questions with you.
The way I do it is I don'tsimply ask a question and then
spark discussion.
Around the room.
There's two problems with that.
One is you might wind upspending a lot of time and going
deep on a whole bunch of thingsthat don't matter very much.

(05:06):
The other thing is when you justask a question and let the group
discuss, the folks that tend totalk a lot are gonna talk a lot.
The folks that tend to sit inthe background are gonna sit in
the background and you're notgonna get.
Everyone's thoughts, you're notgonna identify all of the
different ideas and topics fordiscussion that you really need.

(05:28):
So I'm a big user, and if you.
or a listener of this, podcastfor more than a few episodes, I
probably talk about how I useflip charts and, and post-it
notes.
So for each of these two to fourpulse check questions, people
write their answers on a post-itnote, put it up on a flip chart.
So we've got everybody'sthinking and everybody's equal.

(05:52):
Up on that flip chart.
Now the two to four questions Iuse are not always the same.
I vary those questions.
I may come back to the samequestions from time to time, but
I vary the questions.
So what I wanna do is actuallywanna take you through 26, and I
know that sounds a lot.

(06:12):
But an inventory of 26 potentialpulse check questions.
Don't use them all in a meetingplease.
like I said, I typically use twoto four, but this is an
inventory of 26 pulse checkquestions that you can.
Choose from.
So if you are driving your car,uh, you know, come back to this

(06:34):
at a later time when you havetime to kind of pause and take
some notes.
But let me tell you what these26 are and then I'll tell you
how we discuss them.
So the first one, this first oneis one I use almost every time I
get together with the team, therest of them vary, but the first
one very simply says, how areyou feeling about the company?

(06:56):
At this time, and certainly youare, you are hoping and you are
working towards by buildingtrust in the room.
You are, are hoping and workingtowards getting honest and
sometimes brutally honestanswers to that question.
That's literally just taking thepulse of how everybody's
feeling.
That's question number one.

(07:17):
Question number two, what do youbelieve is the number one issue
facing the company at this time?
Number three, what issues do wesee recurring with our
employees?
Number four, what issues do wesee recurring with our customers
or clients?

(07:38):
Number five, what other issuesmust be addressed today?
Normally, that will be the lastquestion and I actually allow
people to answer with, with morethan one.
Item if they've got any or, oranswer with nothing if they
think, uh, everything else hasbeen covered.
Number six, what oneconversation do we need to have

(08:01):
that we are afraid to have?
Number seven, the concerns Ihave about this group and or our
tasks are dot dot dot.
What should we be most proud ofas a team?
That was number eight.
Number nine, what should we bemost proud of as a company?

(08:22):
Number 10, what exciting newopportunity is on the horizon?
Number 11, what should we stopdoing?
Number 12, what should we startdoing?
Number 13, what are ourcompetitors doing that we need
to discuss?
Number 14.
What's the most important thingwe need to improve upon as a

(08:44):
leadership team?
Number 15.
The ideal outcome for thismeeting is dot dot dot.
Number 16.
What would you tackle next ifyou knew you couldn't fail?
Number 17, what's the one thingthat will change the game
entirely for you?

(09:05):
What's the one thing that wouldchange the game entirely, For
the company?
It's both within Question number17.
Number 18, what do you need totackle currently that scares
you?
Number 19.
If you can change one thingabout our current strategy, what
would it be?
Number 20, what opportunity dowe need to move faster on?

(09:29):
Number 21, what did you fail toaccomplish this quarter that you
should have?
Number 22.
What is your biggest currentbusiness problem you are trying
to work through or solve?
Number 23.
Looking back over the quarter,what should we have done
differently?
Number 24, what's the biggestbarrier to the company moving

(09:50):
forward right now?
Number 25.
What's something we ought to bethinking and talking more about?
And number 26, what's the numberone concern you have with the
leadership team?
Now that's a great inventory of26 questions, but you could
probably come up with 50 more.
So don't stick to thesequestions.

(10:12):
they're meant as a greatstarting point, I hope a great
starting point for you.
And again, you're going to usetwo, three, or four in a monthly
meeting, quarterly meeting,annual meeting, or some other ad
hoc meeting where you have morethan 45 minutes or an hour.
To discuss.
Now, let's talk about how todiscuss, because when you do

(10:35):
that, if you've got a leadershipteam of 5, 6, 7, 8 people, you
are gonna wind up by asking,let's say three questions.
You are gonna have a whole bunchof post-it notes up there, 15,
20, 25, whatever it is, post-itnotes up there, and if you dig
deep.
Into every single one.

(10:56):
Half the day goes by and youwill probably have spent a lot
of time on items that justaren't that important to talk
about.
So what we wanna do is, and, andwhat I do with my clients is I
set ground rules when we havethese discussions.
and you know, I say we're gonna,we're gonna read through each
one of these.

(11:17):
And, and one of the things I do,by the way that's important is
group like items together.
Because if you've got threequestions times five people,
you're probably not gonna have15 post-it notes to discuss.
there are probably really onlyeight or nine real ideas there
when you group like itemstogether.
So that's the first step.

(11:37):
Once we do that, I tell thegroup we're gonna read through
each one of these.
We're gonna talk about it enoughjust to understand.
What it says.
Now that discussion may last 30seconds, or it could last five
or seven minutes.
Hopefully more like a coupleminutes we're gonna read through

(11:58):
to understand it and then beforewe just dive deep and try to
solve a problem or, or figureout how to go after an
opportunity, we're gonna figureout, after understanding it,
we're gonna figure out whatwe're gonna do with it.
And there are really a fewdifferent options.
When you read through one ofthose Post-It notes that says

(12:20):
something like, you know, ourclients are, you know, angry
that we're not deliveringproduct on time, I give the
group a few different options.
Number one.
Is this something that needsquick action?
In other words, I'm asking, isthis something where it could

(12:41):
be, you know, Susan is going totake, you know, do X on this by
Tuesday, and we take what I calla who, what, when, who's
accountable, what are theydoing, when are they getting it
done by?
That's typically, if there's aquicker tactical answer to the
problem, the second thing we cando, and, and both of these are

(13:03):
different.
Levels of action.
The second thing we can do issay, Hey, that's a great idea
for a potential quarterlypriority or what I call a a
quarterly rock.
And for those things thataren't, Hey, Joe's gonna get it
done by Tuesday.
The things that are a little bitmore strategic, a little bit

(13:23):
more meaty, it's like, Hey,we're gonna take action on that.
But that might be a quarterlypriority.
That may be a quarterly rock.
So number one thing we can do iswe could take action either A,
who, what, when, tacticalaction, or a bigger meteor rock.
Number two after action is wecould say, well, we're not even
sure what action we would takebecause we need to discuss this.

(13:47):
We need to figure out how we'regonna respond or if we need to
respond.
And if that's the case, we'llput it on the issues list.
So first option is action andwhich kind of action we're gonna
take.
Second option is, this is reallyimportant, but we've gotta
discuss it.
Let's put it on the issues list.
And then the third option is Noaction.

(14:07):
No action either means whateveris written on that post-it is
not important enough to takeaction on.
More likely.
What it means is, hey, that isan issue, but we're already
dealing with it.
It's not gonna be helpful for usto spend more time on it here.
So it's either an action, twotypes of actions, it goes on the

(14:30):
issues list, or it's a noaction.
Yeah.
Now then we're gonna go at somepoint in the meeting, maybe
right after the pulse check,maybe sometime later in the
meeting, depending on youragenda for the meeting.
We're gonna come back to thatissues list.
And by the way, if it's, ifyou're in an annual planning
meeting or a quarterly planningmeeting or a monthly check-in,

(14:52):
you are also gonna go back tothose potential.
Uh, priorities, those potentialrocks.
Figure out what we do withthose.
But what I wanna focus in onhere is those discussion items.
'cause remember, the whole pointof this podcast is, is having
better discussions, having theright discussions.
So now let's imagine you havegot six or eight items to

(15:15):
discuss up on the issues list.
And let's imagine you've onlygot an hour.
To have that discussion.
You are probably not going toget to six or eight, and it's
probably okay because the six oreight are probably not of equal
importance.
So the first thing we need to dois prioritize, which are the one

(15:38):
or two or three, depending onhow much time we have, which are
the ones we absolutely need todiscuss today, and which are the
ones that are gonna stay on ourissues list until we have.
More time.
So number one, we're gonnaprioritize it.
'cause you may not get, youprobably won't get to all
issues.
In fact, you'll probably have anongoing, almost never ending

(15:59):
issues list to pull from.
If you are having the rightdiscussions and thinking about
the business, I'm not sureyou'll ever get to the point
where you say, we have nothingleft to talk about.
We have no issues.
For those issues, you selectwhat I like to do as opposed to
just taking whatever issue cameout that may be a statement

(16:21):
like, you know, we need toimprove communication between
the customer service team andthe operations team.
Or we need to, figure out howto, you know, get better at.
Closing more sales opportunitieswith prospects, whatever it is.
I like to turn that issue into aquestion.

(16:46):
So rather than saying, you know,we need to, you know, do a
better job of communicatingbetween customer service and
operations.
I'm gonna wanna get morespecific and phrase it as a
question.
That may sound something like,how can we speed communication

(17:07):
of customer issues to operationsso they could better react to
it?
That's gonna narrow the focus ofour discussion and really focus
us on what's most important.
And that's it.
That's it is for each of thoseissues.

(17:29):
Restate it as a question.
And dive in.
And, and the last thing I'd sayis, you know, when you are about
to discuss an issue, it'simportant to know two things.
Number one, who around thatleadership table is accountable
for the resolution of thatissue?
It's not always the CEO, it maybe the CFO, it may be the CIO,

(17:52):
it may be the VP of sales, butwho's accountable and what does
success in that conversationlook like?
What I mean by that is are wetrying to come to a final
decision around the table andsuccess is we align around a
final decision, is it, we'rejust gonna brainstorm a bunch of

(18:13):
ideas.
The VP of sales wants to hearideas from everyone, and then
she's gonna go back, think aboutit, and come back to the team
with a decision.
You know, are we waiting forconsensus?
I hope not, but how, what?
What are you trying to do?
What is success in thatconversation?
Look like.
So again, we need to have themost important conversations as

(18:38):
a leadership team.
So we set the stage, set thepriority, uh, in terms of
actions for the rest of theorganization.
To do that, we need to be havingthe right meetings with the
right amount of time.
We need to throw the rightquestions out.
At the group, these pulse checkquestions are an amazing way to
have discussions you neverwould've had before.

(18:59):
These discussions that come outof the pulse check are almost
always more important thananything I would've had on a
standard agenda.
And then when you come out withwhatever discussion items,
whatever issues list you need totalk about, prioritize it, state
it in the form of a question,and then who's accountable.
And what does success in thediscussion look like?

(19:20):
I hope that helps you have theright discussions.
As a leadership team, as Ialways say, if you want a great
company, you need a greatleadership team.
I hope I got you a bit closerthere today.
Talk to you again soon.