December 15, 2025 • 29 mins
If you’re always busy but nothing really seems to move forward, this episode is for you.
In part two of our Team Leaders series, we take a closer look at what gets in the way of consistent leadership and how to get back on track. It’s a practical conversation about replacing firefighting with focus and giving your team (and yourself) a clearer sense of direction.
From endless meetings to shifting priorities, we explore what’s actually worth your time and how to make it count.
We cover:
- Spotting the difference between busy and making progress
- Using 3 daily non-negotiables to take control of your day
- Building a 90-day plan and creating a proper leader’s playbook
- Making sure your metrics match your values and culture
- Letting your calendar speak for your leadership
- Quietly fixing one small thing each week
- Seeing why remote accompaniment matters more than ever
Whether you’re new to leading a team or you’ve been doing it for years, this episode offers honest, realistic ways to manage your time, your work and your team.
Haven’t listened to Part 1 yet? That one’s all about managing people – worth going back for.
For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.
Reality Training - Selling Certainty
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeremy Blake (00:29):
You're listening to The Reality of Business with
Bob Morell and me, Jeremy Blake.
Good day to you, Bobby.
Bob Morrell (00:35):
Hello, hello, hello.
Jeremy Blake (00:37):
How are you?
Bob Morrell (00:38):
Very well indeed.
It's a lovely day down here inSussex, although a very chilly.
Jeremy Blake (00:43):
Yeah, we are in the chilly season, and as we
find you today, we're recordingpart two of a well, it's a hot
topic, not chilly at all.
It's all about team leadership.
And the first part we did,which you can find on the
reality of business, is allabout managing people.
Today in part two, we come totwo aspects managing time, the
(01:05):
time you have available to dothe work, but also managing the
work.
What is the work?
How are you going to do that?
And we're particularly lookingat the role that team leaders
have in this.
And the way the format's goingto work is I'm going to fire
some questions at Bob and he'sgoing to come back and we can
have a discussion.
Right, are you ready to rock?
Bob Morrell (01:26):
Oh, yeah, let's do it.
Jeremy Blake (01:27):
So one of the things that we often start any
project with is this conceptfrom leaders themselves talking
about lack of consistency insales, in service, and of
course, operations, deliverycould be anything that a company
is struggling to have aconsistency in.
But what about the leadershipdoor?
Why don't most organizationshave consistent leadership?
Bob Morrell (01:50):
Well, it's an excellent question, and it's a
massive question.
And there's lots of historicalreasons why.
And it could be something assimple as they only ever think
about consistency in terms ofcustomer interaction, and then
just make an assumption thattheir leadership is by its very
(02:10):
nature consistent if it'srelatively successful.
But the truth is this if youhave um a load of leaders who
are constantly firefighting,then that becomes addictive.
And the organization becomes anorganization that is always
firefighting and always alwayshaving crises.
And that's something that youget into, and if you don't
(02:33):
recognize it, you can stay likethat for years and years.
Jeremy Blake (02:36):
Oh, yes.
Bob Morrell (02:37):
Um, because being in a crisis of some kind
actually feels productive.
Whereas if you are actuallyorganizing what you're doing,
that takes a bit of work, butyou know what?
So does managing those crisesand the chaos that you're
managing all the time.
And so you're better off beingless lazy and saying, right,
(02:59):
what is our consistent approachto leadership?
How are we going to do thismoving forward?
How are we going to stop thisfirefighting so that we are
actually being productive andeffective?
Jeremy Blake (03:12):
And I don't think I think the only thing that's
changed is the channel of thisbusyness in that now people are
pulling people onto Teams andZoom meetings, whereas
previously they're pulling theminto rooms to disfunction
busyness.
Bob Morrell (03:25):
Um I saw a really good thing the other day
actually about meetings.
It said you can easily spot acompany that is dysfunctional,
and it's because they are havingloads and loads of meetings.
You know, the the big questionis when does the actual work get
done?
Jeremy Blake (03:43):
Well, I think some people think meetings is work
now.
Bob Morrell (03:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Blake (03:47):
They go, I've got meetings today, I've got work.
Well, you're havingdiscussions, but you're not
actually doing any work.
I mean, you might be doing someelements of work, but if you're
debating, just debating, you'renot executing or strategizing
or whatever else.
Yeah, very addictive.
Um, now, this next one is myfavorite, and you and I have a
(04:07):
favorite expression that we lovewhen people share it with us.
They tell us they've beendueling.
You know, how's your day going?
I've I've been back to back.
Oh, did you win that duel?
Um back to back.
Bob Morrell (04:19):
Um back to back meetings.
Um, okay, so this comes back tothis thing about meetings.
So anyone who says that they'rereally, really busy, here's the
question.
Um, is that motion withoutimpact?
Because if it is, then it hasno value.
Okay, if you're just doingstuff that doesn't move things
(04:40):
forward, then you're justliterally mouthing in meetings
all the time.
And there's a massive questionhere, and that's a really good
one, I think, and I've beenasking myself this question
recently.
What has moved forward thisweek?
Yeah.
What has moved forward thisweek?
Um, if you've had another weekand things are more or less the
(05:02):
same and there hasn't been anyparticular progress, um, and if
everyone's sitting around going,well, things are okay, aren't
they?
No, they're not, because you'renot progressing, you're not
moving forward.
You're just getting comfortablewith just being okay.
And that isn't what the worldof business is about.
It's about moving forward.
Jeremy Blake (05:21):
Well, that leads us beautifully on to the next
problem because people are busyor think they're busy, they're
discussing things, and they saythey're so flat out they they
don't know where to start.
It's funny, I knocked on aneighbour's door last night to
give her some of my daughter'sclothing that she no longer
wears, and I go, How are you?
And she looked absolutelyflustered, and she says, I'm
going from room to room tryingto tidy this mess.
(05:44):
Um, she's got three children,her husband's away with the army
doing all sorts, and I said shesaid, I just can't seem to
prioritize.
I'm going from one room to thenext and I'm not getting
anything done.
And I said, Okay, which is thesingle biggest room that you'd
like to be tidy?
She said, The kitchen.
I said, forget the rest.
And she went, Thanks.
Um, now what aboutprioritization?
People can't prioritize, canthey?
Bob Morrell (06:06):
Well, the other point is that um we you and I
meet people all the time whohave massive to-do lists, okay?
And I think people forget thatthat the way you work is is a
choice.
You can choose the things thatyou need to focus on, and so if
(06:27):
you choose fewer things to do,but do them with more depth and
consistency, that will have thegreatest effect on the team that
you're working with.
And in fact, it goes the same,it's the same for your teams as
well.
The fact is that simpleactivity is not progress, okay,
it just isn't.
And um, we talked about this onour time management um uh
(06:50):
segment, and it was we talkedabout the success six.
Um, I think for team leaders,what you should do is anchor
your day around three clearpriorities that are planned and
blocked in, and those are yournon-negotiables for the day, and
then have three otheractivities which could change or
(07:11):
shift.
Yeah, but I think if you don'tdo that, you'll spend a whole
day firefighting and respondingto things, and you'll then think
that you're oh, I'm drowning inthe noise and it's too much,
and I can't do anything else.
No, you decide what deservesyour energy.
And we had this this weekactually.
We were working with some withsome team leaders who are
(07:32):
saying, Oh, I I never get timeto to sit with my team members
and um and watch what they do.
And that's because they're notbeing asked to do things that
are more important, they've justdecided that those things are
more important.
They need to decide thatsitting with their team members
deserves their energy and theyneed to focus on that.
(07:54):
So I think a nice little way tothink about it is that
simplicity is a strategy.
You know, the simpler you havea little plan, the more progress
you're gonna make.
And if you've got loads ofstuff complicating what it is
you're doing, that might feelgood.
Oh, I'm so busy, but it masksthe focus of the really
(08:16):
important stuff.
And I think if people couldidentify that, it'd be amazing.
Jeremy Blake (08:20):
I will add one thing to that.
I think there's a tremendousrelief in deciding what you're
not going to do.
Bob Morrell (08:25):
Absolutely.
Jeremy Blake (08:26):
And you take it off your list.
Uh, you know, we managed to dothat in our spare time.
You know, this weekend I wasgonna do this.
No, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm just not gonna do that thisweekend.
Um, I need the break.
Why can't you do that in workand say I'm not it's not
important?
Put it off for two days or evena week.
I don't need to get to thattill X date.
So let's now come to a teamleader.
(08:48):
They've got a team, and let'sjust say, taking your power of
three, there's three prioritiesfor the week that they've got
to, you know, it's it's climbingto Christmas, they've got to do
the do a certain thing with awith a customer group, they've
got to make it very clear thatthis is the tech that that is
working, and they've got to dosome sort of updates on I don't
(09:08):
know, processes or whatever.
Uh, but yet the team will go,well, that's all well and good,
but I've got all these otherthings to do.
How do you marshal a team tojust do less and focus on the
real priorities that will movethe business forward, keep
customers happy in spending,etc., etc.?
Bob Morrell (09:23):
Well, I think one of the big issues that we have
with inconsistent leadership isthat the priorities are changing
every week.
Okay, now you could argue,well, that comes from above, you
know, they go, Oh, we now needyou to do this this week, so
focus on that.
I think leadership is about notchanging priorities on a whim.
(09:46):
Okay, if you do that, peoplethink you're very fragmented and
not very not very focused, aswe've just been talking about.
So I think it's reallyimportant to uh if you look at
what what your what you wantyour team to do, again, it's
about anchoring your energy witha single priority that you
(10:06):
perhaps score or measure everyweek and hold on to it to forge
stability.
So there might be other thingsthat change, but you say uh, you
know, the uh the the higher upshave asked for this, but that
doesn't mean we're gonna loseour focus on this thing, which
is a constant.
So there's always somethingwhich means that you are
(10:28):
maintaining a standard,maintaining a really good level
of um of a requirement, and thenother things might might be
imposed upon that.
But that is really good for ateam to know that our main focus
is this.
And we talked a bit about thatin the last one about your team
should know instinctively whatyour goals are as a team.
(10:48):
If they don't, you're notyou're not conveying that
clearly or repeatedly enough.
Jeremy Blake (10:54):
Well, you you can't fix and repair everything
at once.
And I'll use a sportinganalogy.
Last night I was very lucky toget some amazing squash
coaching.
And uh this guy came on courtand I said, I've got to fix
this, this, this, and he said,Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're just gonna work on thisthing I've identified, which is
your serve.
So when you have the ball,you're in control, you're more
likely to win points when you'reserving.
All I want you to focus on tillI see you again is your serve.
(11:16):
And I thought, wow, makesperfect sense because that's my
control area.
Whereas if you are trying tofix everything, then you're
firefighting all over the place.
Um well, just come back to thetime and work aspect for a
leader.
You start your day, youhopefully a lot of what we've
said already is helping andbuilding up to this, but a a
really good tip for justmanaging time and work um as you
(11:39):
start your day.
Bob Morrell (11:40):
So I think um a really great tip, and as we
know, many large businesses willwork in quarterly, um quarterly
focuses, which uh I havevaried, varied feelings about,
but I understand why they do it,and we've talked about this in
other podcasts.
I think all leaders should havea 90-day planner that uh has
(12:05):
set out all the kind of keyfocuses for that that 90-day
period.
It's actually quite a tightwindow of activity because if
you take out weekends, you know,that's far fewer days that
you're actually um working on.
This gives you a really bigidea of focus for that 90 days,
and then what you can do is takea big goal that you may have
(12:28):
and then break it down into aseries of action steps through
that 90 days, and over time thatdelivers growth.
Now, to be clear, this isn'tjust a notebook with a series of
dates in and and uh check-ins.
What it should be, and this iswhat all leaders should have, is
(12:50):
a playbook of how you do whatyou do.
So, as a leader, and lots ofthe things we covered in the
last edition about managingpeople, um lots of lots of that
can be in here because there'sthe playbook of how you deal
with negative people, theplaybook of how you deal with
sub-performers, the playbook ofhow you're doing coaching.
(13:11):
So this isn't an optional thingthat you come back to at the
end of the 90 days.
This 90 days plan is how theteam prioritises what the team
is doing, and that gives youclarity for leading the system
and how you plan because it'swar down in the playbook.
Jeremy Blake (13:30):
Otherwise, you're dragged into the day, you're
dragged into firefighting, youhaven't got a little vision.
And I think three months isreasonable, it's your 90-day,
which actually, as you say, whenyou take out weekends about 70
days, something like that, evenless, probably late 60s.
Bob Morrell (13:43):
Sure, sure.
Um and all and also what what Ilike about it is that what
you're trying to do is get intoa rhythm.
Jeremy Blake (13:49):
Yeah.
Bob Morrell (13:49):
You know, if you've got a if you've got a good
rhythm, it's not about all thosedifferent tasks you have, it's
about doing the right actions onrepeat, steady, consistent,
predictable, on the purpose ofwhat you're trying to achieve.
Yeah, that's your focus, andthat planner makes sure that you
do those things, and that thenabsolutely cascades onto the
(14:13):
team.
Jeremy Blake (14:13):
Well, I'll tell you uh a person who does that
particularly well is Mrs.
Blake.
You see, one thing thatteachers have as an advantage is
they divide their year intothese 90-day frameworks.
True.
So this term it's revision,next term it's mocks, next term
it's it's exams for real.
And so we've got to cover acertain amount of syllabus in
the time.
So she has a 90-day rollingplan of what must be covered in
(14:35):
the classroom and what the kidswill have learned.
Then she knows she can move onto the next stage of revision.
So brilliantly organised.
And um, I kind of run my lifein terms, not just by having
children who've been at school,because most of them are out of
it now, only one left.
But being married to a teacher,that kind of termally, what are
we going to get done over this90-day period?
It's actually very, veryhelpful.
(14:55):
Now, here's one of ourfavorites.
Um doing some research for anupcoming episode we're going to
do on standards.
I've had a good look atmetrics.
So you can measure all sorts ofthings.
Um it wasn't Drucker who talkedabout what gets measured, gets
managed, it was somebody else,and it comes from a book, and I
can't remember their name.
But a lot of people areobsessed with various measures
(15:18):
and they use other letters likeKPIs.
In fact, we have done an entireepisode on measures and
metrics.
But if you were to reallysimplify it back again to this
leader we're talking about, teamleaders, what are the really
important metrics for teamleaders?
Bob Morrell (15:33):
Well, I think we need to accept that most team
leaders don't choose the metricsthey're forced to look at.
So that's the first thing.
But I think there's a the thekey thing about metrics is
whatever it is you're you'remeasuring, don't choose those
metrics and then completelyignore the culture.
Because that's going to createmuch bigger problems than you
(15:57):
can give an example.
Jeremy Blake (15:59):
Give an example of that.
Bob Morrell (16:00):
Well, you know, for example, you could have um a
sales target, okay, that's oneof your KPIs.
Um but if you don't link thatto the right behaviors, yeah, as
we know, you could have peopleusing underhand methods to
achieve that target, which couldcost the company deer further
on down the line.
That makes the metricabsolutely cost anyway.
(16:22):
So so I think if you have aresult that is forced, that can
create a toxic culture.
And I think that's what we allneed to avoid.
So if whatever your whateveryour metric you choose, have
that metric linked to a culturalshift, yeah, and then think,
okay, if we were to hit thatthat target, hit that metric,
(16:43):
hit that KPI, what is the humanprice of that?
Am I going to have peopleworking late, starting early?
Am I going to be expecting toomuch from my people to do that?
Yeah.
And can I adjust thatexpectation earlier, which is
better leadership and makes itmore um more achievable for
everyone?
But also it acknowledges yourum your understanding of what is
(17:10):
possible.
And lots of people will knowabout smart objectives, you
know.
Um, you know, specific,measurable, you know, that's
really important and achievable.
If something just isn'tachievable, leadership is about
saying, no, I think a better,more achievable thing would be
this.
We need to make sure we keepthe culture at a good level as
(17:30):
well.
This won't be toxic, this won'tbe too much of a human price
for us to achieve it.
And I think that will then umyou know be a better
achievement.
So that's I think is a is anice way of thinking about
metrics.
Jeremy Blake (17:44):
At reality training, we spend a lot of time
working with team leaders.
Team leaders are a reallyimportant part of modern
businesses.
And if they're skilled atleadership, they can really
create a high-performing,motivated and productive team.
If they lack skills andknowledge, then that's where we
(18:05):
can come in.
We know what it is to be asuccessful team leader, and
we've got a series of modules onareas like presentation skills,
time management, runningmeetings, performance coaching,
delegation, and how to manageremote teams and many more.
These make a really bigdifference to your team leaders'
effectiveness and the resultsthey can produce with their
(18:28):
people.
We know that team leaders areessential these days, probably
more than ever, and we also knowhow to make them really good at
what they do.
For more information on how wecan help your team leaders
transform your business, contactreality training at selling.
To throw in potentially acurveball, but also spell out
(18:50):
the challenge of metrics we havein today, and probably all uh
in a number of Europeancountries, we have a thing
called Black Friday, where themetrics of the last 360 whatever
days have been different.
The metrics today are verysimply how many new people can
we sign up, how many new salescan we make, what can we get
(19:11):
through of new customers?
You know, metrics go right outthe window.
There are sort of Black Fridaymetrics that actually might
throw out an entire amount ofyour behaviours.
Interestingly, um I've seen acouple of companies not doing it
this year that I expectedwould, and they just don't have
anything Black Friday related atall.
(19:31):
But I've seen some other majorcompanies that are hedging their
bets on retention and new andsaying wherever you are with us,
we've got something for you,which is really challenging,
especially in the work that Boband I do with the reality team,
which is all about integrity andselling and and leading and not
discounting and so on and soon.
So let's not go down that holeanymore.
(19:52):
Um personal measure how does ateam leader actually sort of
know they're doing all right?
Bob Morrell (19:58):
Well, I've got a fantastic thing with.
I think all of us should thinkabout.
Let's imagine you were goingfor a job, and that job is to
run a team or a sales team or aa group of people, and they'd
say something like how can youum how can you demonstrate the
(20:22):
way that you manage people orthe your talent for managing
people?
What you should be able to dois look at your calendar um from
five years ago, and thatcalendar will show a number of
things.
It'll show purpose of what itis you were doing then.
Okay, not distraction, it showspurpose.
(20:45):
So in your calendar, it'sblocked out with purposeful
activities and focus that youwere working on.
It also demonstrates that youknow that success is about your
small, repeatable choices.
So there will be lots of notesin that calendar of things that
you're doing again and againwith your people.
There will also be chunks ofyou coaching and mentoring
(21:10):
people in that calendar.
Um, there will also be chunksof time when you're listening to
what your people are doing anduh getting feedback from them on
how they're finding their work.
And also, as we mentionedearlier, that daily intention in
your calendar, saying, TodayI'm going to achieve this, which
(21:30):
is going to move thingsforward.
Now imagine you're sitting infront of a potential employer
and you can demonstrate how youmanage yourself as a leader.
Okay.
You'd be straight in.
You'll be straight in.
You know, absolutely.
Jeremy Blake (21:44):
It's not about um what you've done today or this
week, you know.
So often people say, I've doneI'm an amazing leader, I've
achieved this right now.
unknown (21:51):
Yeah.
Jeremy Blake (21:52):
What we're saying is you know in your heart of
hearts how well you've beenprogressing, committing to
committing to the rightbehaviours of leadership and so
on.
So let's finish with anabsolute favourite.
Um, what's quite interesting iswhen you start work, and I and
I know that this is alwaysinteresting for me when I think
of the young people entering theworkplace, and I played squash
with a guy last night just on agraduate scheme with Mars, and
(22:14):
and you think, gosh, you'regonna suddenly have team leaders
who are you know getting you todo things.
You don't know when you firststart working whether your
leader's good or not, and thenyou start to have a hunch, you
go on intuition, you startchatting to people.
Um how many people in thisteam?
Is there a lot of turnover?
You start to sort of feel yourway.
But if you weren't relying ongut intuition, how might you as
(22:38):
an individual spot a poorleader?
And we could actually open thisup saying a team leader
spotting a poor leader leadingthem, but also a poor individual
in a team who thinks their teamleader isn't any good and more
senior.
What's a good way of spottingbad leadership?
Bob Morrell (22:54):
Well, the first thing to do is to watch loads of
films, because um if you thinkif you look at lots of films,
they are full of terribleleaders.
Jeremy Blake (23:05):
Because they're interesting to watch.
Bob Morrell (23:07):
They're interesting to watch.
So bad leaders are quiteexciting, bizarrely.
Um whereas whereas if you ifyou went and if you go into a
good, well-led organization, alot of the time it's not too
exciting because people knowwhat they're doing, they're
focused on what they're doing,there's kind of like a unity of
(23:28):
purpose because they'rewell-led.
Whereas if you go into a placethat's going mental, it's
probably and having loads ofmeetings, that's an indication
of poor leadership.
But there's there's a couple ofother things which I think is
quite good to note.
So uh clearly a good leader issomebody who, to use that odd
(23:48):
expression, is leaning in andgetting curious and wanting to
understand as much as they canabout what's happening, okay?
Whereas a bad leader stiffensup, okay, and so doesn't so by
that they don't say very much.
When they do speak, their tonechanges because they their ego
(24:09):
feels threatened because theydon't have all the answers,
because they're not close enoughto what's going on, as a good
leader would be.
They tend to panic a bit tooeasily.
I remember one guy I used towork with, he used to bang his
head repeatedly against the uhthe desk when things went wrong.
Uh, and what they do is theyhide behind their position, they
(24:30):
hide behind policy, so theyhave no flexibility, and they
will be justifying all the timewhat's going on rather than
working with their team toimprove things.
And that is a really good, Ithink that's a great example of
bad leadership.
And I imagine we could allthink of people we've worked for
(24:52):
who you think, oh dear, youknow, I I I I can imagine that
person who telling uh the policyone's very interesting.
Jeremy Blake (24:59):
Telling somebody there's a policy about that, and
you must do that.
Bob Morrell (25:02):
Yeah.
Jeremy Blake (25:03):
When they didn't write the policy, the policy's
out of date.
That doesn't necessarilyinspire me.
Oh god, thank you so much.
Now you've told me we've got apolicy on it.
I'm I'm fine now, I'll go offand crack on.
That that isn't leadership,that isn't explaining our role
and how customers fit in andwhat we're all doing here and
our purpose.
That one is really quitecommon, you know.
You can't do that, why not?
(25:23):
Because I have a clipboard.
Okay.
Bob Morrell (25:26):
Um, I think a lot of team leaders feel in some
ways subjugated by their teams.
If they've been appointed inparticular, and the the teams
are more experienced than them,that can cause, you know,
friction.
Now there's nothing wrong withfriction, as we said in the
previous episode.
You need that to overcome it todemonstrate leadership.
(25:49):
I think that's a really bigtakeaway I want people to take
from from these episodes.
But I think the other point isthis as a new team leader, you
may not be able to changeeverything that your team needs,
but it probably is within yourpower to fix maybe one thing a
week and do it quietly.
Just quietly fix something thathasn't been so good.
(26:11):
And that's not a bad strategyto think, you know, nothing's
perfect.
Lots of organizations have hugeuh issues which take a long
time to overcome.
But if you can gently chip awayand make things better for your
team in one way every week,just a small thing that makes a
difference, that is noticed.
Okay, that is effective work,that is actually moving forward.
(26:33):
Um, and that's not a bad, not abad way of thinking about it.
Jeremy Blake (26:37):
I think one more thing I'd say that's coming out
of a new project I've started uhvery recently is that when we
used to manage time and and workand be in the same building as
people, we could see what theywere doing.
We had an indication of thebehaviors and the work they were
doing, to the quality, to theeffect, whether they're talking
to customers.
One of the challenges withremote working is you can't see
(27:00):
that or witness that.
So if you have if you havemeetings about what someone's
doing, it's actually nearly allhypothetical.
Yeah, this is what I'm doing atthe moment.
Oh, right, okay, good, let'stalk about what you're doing.
But you're not ever witnessingit.
So, one of the things I wouldsay for team leaders, even if
you're spread geographically,you need to see somebody
working.
You need to actually see whatthey're doing.
(27:20):
And so in some other projectswe're running, we're we're
really trying to bring backaccompaniment and spending time
with people and seeing them inaction because otherwise you're
having a wonderful hypotheticalquestion about the work they're
doing, but you don't know aboutthe work they're doing.
Bob Morrell (27:33):
Well, that brings us that brings us on to uh what
we'll be doing in our nextepisode, which I think you
should all um make sure you tunein for because we are going to
be looking at standards.
Yeah, and I think one greatthing a team leader can do is to
enforce a standard becausethat's essential.
And uh we'll be looking atthat, as I say, in more detail
(27:55):
on the next episode.
But for now, we've coveredwork, we've covered time, and in
the previous episode, we'vecovered managing people.
I think there's a load ofreally good tips there for team
leaders, whether they're new orexperienced, and I hope you can
utilize uh this podcast to giveyou some inspiration to manage
your teams far more effectivelygoing forward.
Jeremy Blake (28:17):
Great, thank you, Bobby.
We will see you and hear you,and you'll hear us on another
episode soon.
Do review us, like us, or sharethis episode with someone who
you think could be a betterleader.
Thanks.
Bob Morrell (28:30):
Hi,
You're listening to The Reality of Business with
Bob Morell and me, Jeremy Blake.
Good day to you, Bobby.
Bob Morrell (00:35):
Hello, hello, hello.
Jeremy Blake (00:37):
How are you?
Bob Morrell (00:38):
Very well indeed.
It's a lovely day down here inSussex, although a very chilly.
Jeremy Blake (00:43):
Yeah, we are in the chilly season, and as we
find you today, we're recordingpart two of a well, it's a hot
topic, not chilly at all.
It's all about team leadership.
And the first part we did,which you can find on the
reality of business, is allabout managing people.
Today in part two, we come totwo aspects managing time, the
(01:05):
time you have available to dothe work, but also managing the
work.
What is the work?
How are you going to do that?
And we're particularly lookingat the role that team leaders
have in this.
And the way the format's goingto work is I'm going to fire
some questions at Bob and he'sgoing to come back and we can
have a discussion.
Right, are you ready to rock?
Bob Morrell (01:26):
Oh, yeah, let's do it.
Jeremy Blake (01:27):
So one of the things that we often start any
project with is this conceptfrom leaders themselves talking
about lack of consistency insales, in service, and of
course, operations, deliverycould be anything that a company
is struggling to have aconsistency in.
But what about the leadershipdoor?
Why don't most organizationshave consistent leadership?
Bob Morrell (01:50):
Well, it's an excellent question, and it's a
massive question.
And there's lots of historicalreasons why.
And it could be something assimple as they only ever think
about consistency in terms ofcustomer interaction, and then
just make an assumption thattheir leadership is by its very
(02:10):
nature consistent if it'srelatively successful.
But the truth is this if youhave um a load of leaders who
are constantly firefighting,then that becomes addictive.
And the organization becomes anorganization that is always
firefighting and always alwayshaving crises.
And that's something that youget into, and if you don't
(02:33):
recognize it, you can stay likethat for years and years.
Jeremy Blake (02:36):
Oh, yes.
Bob Morrell (02:37):
Um, because being in a crisis of some kind
actually feels productive.
Whereas if you are actuallyorganizing what you're doing,
that takes a bit of work, butyou know what?
So does managing those crisesand the chaos that you're
managing all the time.
And so you're better off beingless lazy and saying, right,
(02:59):
what is our consistent approachto leadership?
How are we going to do thismoving forward?
How are we going to stop thisfirefighting so that we are
actually being productive andeffective?
Jeremy Blake (03:12):
And I don't think I think the only thing that's
changed is the channel of thisbusyness in that now people are
pulling people onto Teams andZoom meetings, whereas
previously they're pulling theminto rooms to disfunction
busyness.
Bob Morrell (03:25):
Um I saw a really good thing the other day
actually about meetings.
It said you can easily spot acompany that is dysfunctional,
and it's because they are havingloads and loads of meetings.
You know, the the big questionis when does the actual work get
done?
Jeremy Blake (03:43):
Well, I think some people think meetings is work
now.
Bob Morrell (03:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Blake (03:47):
They go, I've got meetings today, I've got work.
Well, you're havingdiscussions, but you're not
actually doing any work.
I mean, you might be doing someelements of work, but if you're
debating, just debating, you'renot executing or strategizing
or whatever else.
Yeah, very addictive.
Um, now, this next one is myfavorite, and you and I have a
(04:07):
favorite expression that we lovewhen people share it with us.
They tell us they've beendueling.
You know, how's your day going?
I've I've been back to back.
Oh, did you win that duel?
Um back to back.
Bob Morrell (04:19):
Um back to back meetings.
Um, okay, so this comes back tothis thing about meetings.
So anyone who says that they'rereally, really busy, here's the
question.
Um, is that motion withoutimpact?
Because if it is, then it hasno value.
Okay, if you're just doingstuff that doesn't move things
(04:40):
forward, then you're justliterally mouthing in meetings
all the time.
And there's a massive questionhere, and that's a really good
one, I think, and I've beenasking myself this question
recently.
What has moved forward thisweek?
Yeah.
What has moved forward thisweek?
Um, if you've had another weekand things are more or less the
(05:02):
same and there hasn't been anyparticular progress, um, and if
everyone's sitting around going,well, things are okay, aren't
they?
No, they're not, because you'renot progressing, you're not
moving forward.
You're just getting comfortablewith just being okay.
And that isn't what the worldof business is about.
It's about moving forward.
Jeremy Blake (05:21):
Well, that leads us beautifully on to the next
problem because people are busyor think they're busy, they're
discussing things, and they saythey're so flat out they they
don't know where to start.
It's funny, I knocked on aneighbour's door last night to
give her some of my daughter'sclothing that she no longer
wears, and I go, How are you?
And she looked absolutelyflustered, and she says, I'm
going from room to room tryingto tidy this mess.
(05:44):
Um, she's got three children,her husband's away with the army
doing all sorts, and I said shesaid, I just can't seem to
prioritize.
I'm going from one room to thenext and I'm not getting
anything done.
And I said, Okay, which is thesingle biggest room that you'd
like to be tidy?
She said, The kitchen.
I said, forget the rest.
And she went, Thanks.
Um, now what aboutprioritization?
People can't prioritize, canthey?
Bob Morrell (06:06):
Well, the other point is that um we you and I
meet people all the time whohave massive to-do lists, okay?
And I think people forget thatthat the way you work is is a
choice.
You can choose the things thatyou need to focus on, and so if
(06:27):
you choose fewer things to do,but do them with more depth and
consistency, that will have thegreatest effect on the team that
you're working with.
And in fact, it goes the same,it's the same for your teams as
well.
The fact is that simpleactivity is not progress, okay,
it just isn't.
And um, we talked about this onour time management um uh
(06:50):
segment, and it was we talkedabout the success six.
Um, I think for team leaders,what you should do is anchor
your day around three clearpriorities that are planned and
blocked in, and those are yournon-negotiables for the day, and
then have three otheractivities which could change or
(07:11):
shift.
Yeah, but I think if you don'tdo that, you'll spend a whole
day firefighting and respondingto things, and you'll then think
that you're oh, I'm drowning inthe noise and it's too much,
and I can't do anything else.
No, you decide what deservesyour energy.
And we had this this weekactually.
We were working with some withsome team leaders who are
(07:32):
saying, Oh, I I never get timeto to sit with my team members
and um and watch what they do.
And that's because they're notbeing asked to do things that
are more important, they've justdecided that those things are
more important.
They need to decide thatsitting with their team members
deserves their energy and theyneed to focus on that.
(07:54):
So I think a nice little way tothink about it is that
simplicity is a strategy.
You know, the simpler you havea little plan, the more progress
you're gonna make.
And if you've got loads ofstuff complicating what it is
you're doing, that might feelgood.
Oh, I'm so busy, but it masksthe focus of the really
(08:16):
important stuff.
And I think if people couldidentify that, it'd be amazing.
Jeremy Blake (08:20):
I will add one thing to that.
I think there's a tremendousrelief in deciding what you're
not going to do.
Bob Morrell (08:25):
Absolutely.
Jeremy Blake (08:26):
And you take it off your list.
Uh, you know, we managed to dothat in our spare time.
You know, this weekend I wasgonna do this.
No, I'm not gonna do that.
I'm just not gonna do that thisweekend.
Um, I need the break.
Why can't you do that in workand say I'm not it's not
important?
Put it off for two days or evena week.
I don't need to get to thattill X date.
So let's now come to a teamleader.
(08:48):
They've got a team, and let'sjust say, taking your power of
three, there's three prioritiesfor the week that they've got
to, you know, it's it's climbingto Christmas, they've got to do
the do a certain thing with awith a customer group, they've
got to make it very clear thatthis is the tech that that is
working, and they've got to dosome sort of updates on I don't
(09:08):
know, processes or whatever.
Uh, but yet the team will go,well, that's all well and good,
but I've got all these otherthings to do.
How do you marshal a team tojust do less and focus on the
real priorities that will movethe business forward, keep
customers happy in spending,etc., etc.?
Bob Morrell (09:23):
Well, I think one of the big issues that we have
with inconsistent leadership isthat the priorities are changing
every week.
Okay, now you could argue,well, that comes from above, you
know, they go, Oh, we now needyou to do this this week, so
focus on that.
I think leadership is about notchanging priorities on a whim.
(09:46):
Okay, if you do that, peoplethink you're very fragmented and
not very not very focused, aswe've just been talking about.
So I think it's reallyimportant to uh if you look at
what what your what you wantyour team to do, again, it's
about anchoring your energy witha single priority that you
(10:06):
perhaps score or measure everyweek and hold on to it to forge
stability.
So there might be other thingsthat change, but you say uh, you
know, the uh the the higher upshave asked for this, but that
doesn't mean we're gonna loseour focus on this thing, which
is a constant.
So there's always somethingwhich means that you are
(10:28):
maintaining a standard,maintaining a really good level
of um of a requirement, and thenother things might might be
imposed upon that.
But that is really good for ateam to know that our main focus
is this.
And we talked a bit about thatin the last one about your team
should know instinctively whatyour goals are as a team.
(10:48):
If they don't, you're notyou're not conveying that
clearly or repeatedly enough.
Jeremy Blake (10:54):
Well, you you can't fix and repair everything
at once.
And I'll use a sportinganalogy.
Last night I was very lucky toget some amazing squash
coaching.
And uh this guy came on courtand I said, I've got to fix
this, this, this, and he said,Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We're just gonna work on thisthing I've identified, which is
your serve.
So when you have the ball,you're in control, you're more
likely to win points when you'reserving.
All I want you to focus on tillI see you again is your serve.
(11:16):
And I thought, wow, makesperfect sense because that's my
control area.
Whereas if you are trying tofix everything, then you're
firefighting all over the place.
Um well, just come back to thetime and work aspect for a
leader.
You start your day, youhopefully a lot of what we've
said already is helping andbuilding up to this, but a a
really good tip for justmanaging time and work um as you
(11:39):
start your day.
Bob Morrell (11:40):
So I think um a really great tip, and as we
know, many large businesses willwork in quarterly, um quarterly
focuses, which uh I havevaried, varied feelings about,
but I understand why they do it,and we've talked about this in
other podcasts.
I think all leaders should havea 90-day planner that uh has
(12:05):
set out all the kind of keyfocuses for that that 90-day
period.
It's actually quite a tightwindow of activity because if
you take out weekends, you know,that's far fewer days that
you're actually um working on.
This gives you a really bigidea of focus for that 90 days,
and then what you can do is takea big goal that you may have
(12:28):
and then break it down into aseries of action steps through
that 90 days, and over time thatdelivers growth.
Now, to be clear, this isn'tjust a notebook with a series of
dates in and and uh check-ins.
What it should be, and this iswhat all leaders should have, is
(12:50):
a playbook of how you do whatyou do.
So, as a leader, and lots ofthe things we covered in the
last edition about managingpeople, um lots of lots of that
can be in here because there'sthe playbook of how you deal
with negative people, theplaybook of how you deal with
sub-performers, the playbook ofhow you're doing coaching.
(13:11):
So this isn't an optional thingthat you come back to at the
end of the 90 days.
This 90 days plan is how theteam prioritises what the team
is doing, and that gives youclarity for leading the system
and how you plan because it'swar down in the playbook.
Jeremy Blake (13:30):
Otherwise, you're dragged into the day, you're
dragged into firefighting, youhaven't got a little vision.
And I think three months isreasonable, it's your 90-day,
which actually, as you say, whenyou take out weekends about 70
days, something like that, evenless, probably late 60s.
Bob Morrell (13:43):
Sure, sure.
Um and all and also what what Ilike about it is that what
you're trying to do is get intoa rhythm.
Jeremy Blake (13:49):
Yeah.
Bob Morrell (13:49):
You know, if you've got a if you've got a good
rhythm, it's not about all thosedifferent tasks you have, it's
about doing the right actions onrepeat, steady, consistent,
predictable, on the purpose ofwhat you're trying to achieve.
Yeah, that's your focus, andthat planner makes sure that you
do those things, and that thenabsolutely cascades onto the
(14:13):
team.
Jeremy Blake (14:13):
Well, I'll tell you uh a person who does that
particularly well is Mrs.
Blake.
You see, one thing thatteachers have as an advantage is
they divide their year intothese 90-day frameworks.
True.
So this term it's revision,next term it's mocks, next term
it's it's exams for real.
And so we've got to cover acertain amount of syllabus in
the time.
So she has a 90-day rollingplan of what must be covered in
(14:35):
the classroom and what the kidswill have learned.
Then she knows she can move onto the next stage of revision.
So brilliantly organised.
And um, I kind of run my lifein terms, not just by having
children who've been at school,because most of them are out of
it now, only one left.
But being married to a teacher,that kind of termally, what are
we going to get done over this90-day period?
It's actually very, veryhelpful.
(14:55):
Now, here's one of ourfavorites.
Um doing some research for anupcoming episode we're going to
do on standards.
I've had a good look atmetrics.
So you can measure all sorts ofthings.
Um it wasn't Drucker who talkedabout what gets measured, gets
managed, it was somebody else,and it comes from a book, and I
can't remember their name.
But a lot of people areobsessed with various measures
(15:18):
and they use other letters likeKPIs.
In fact, we have done an entireepisode on measures and
metrics.
But if you were to reallysimplify it back again to this
leader we're talking about, teamleaders, what are the really
important metrics for teamleaders?
Bob Morrell (15:33):
Well, I think we need to accept that most team
leaders don't choose the metricsthey're forced to look at.
So that's the first thing.
But I think there's a the thekey thing about metrics is
whatever it is you're you'remeasuring, don't choose those
metrics and then completelyignore the culture.
Because that's going to createmuch bigger problems than you
(15:57):
can give an example.
Jeremy Blake (15:59):
Give an example of that.
Bob Morrell (16:00):
Well, you know, for example, you could have um a
sales target, okay, that's oneof your KPIs.
Um but if you don't link thatto the right behaviors, yeah, as
we know, you could have peopleusing underhand methods to
achieve that target, which couldcost the company deer further
on down the line.
That makes the metricabsolutely cost anyway.
(16:22):
So so I think if you have aresult that is forced, that can
create a toxic culture.
And I think that's what we allneed to avoid.
So if whatever your whateveryour metric you choose, have
that metric linked to a culturalshift, yeah, and then think,
okay, if we were to hit thatthat target, hit that metric,
(16:43):
hit that KPI, what is the humanprice of that?
Am I going to have peopleworking late, starting early?
Am I going to be expecting toomuch from my people to do that?
Yeah.
And can I adjust thatexpectation earlier, which is
better leadership and makes itmore um more achievable for
everyone?
But also it acknowledges yourum your understanding of what is
(17:10):
possible.
And lots of people will knowabout smart objectives, you
know.
Um, you know, specific,measurable, you know, that's
really important and achievable.
If something just isn'tachievable, leadership is about
saying, no, I think a better,more achievable thing would be
this.
We need to make sure we keepthe culture at a good level as
(17:30):
well.
This won't be toxic, this won'tbe too much of a human price
for us to achieve it.
And I think that will then umyou know be a better
achievement.
So that's I think is a is anice way of thinking about
metrics.
Jeremy Blake (17:44):
At reality training, we spend a lot of time
working with team leaders.
Team leaders are a reallyimportant part of modern
businesses.
And if they're skilled atleadership, they can really
create a high-performing,motivated and productive team.
If they lack skills andknowledge, then that's where we
(18:05):
can come in.
We know what it is to be asuccessful team leader, and
we've got a series of modules onareas like presentation skills,
time management, runningmeetings, performance coaching,
delegation, and how to manageremote teams and many more.
These make a really bigdifference to your team leaders'
effectiveness and the resultsthey can produce with their
(18:28):
people.
We know that team leaders areessential these days, probably
more than ever, and we also knowhow to make them really good at
what they do.
For more information on how wecan help your team leaders
transform your business, contactreality training at selling.
To throw in potentially acurveball, but also spell out
(18:50):
the challenge of metrics we havein today, and probably all uh
in a number of Europeancountries, we have a thing
called Black Friday, where themetrics of the last 360 whatever
days have been different.
The metrics today are verysimply how many new people can
we sign up, how many new salescan we make, what can we get
(19:11):
through of new customers?
You know, metrics go right outthe window.
There are sort of Black Fridaymetrics that actually might
throw out an entire amount ofyour behaviours.
Interestingly, um I've seen acouple of companies not doing it
this year that I expectedwould, and they just don't have
anything Black Friday related atall.
(19:31):
But I've seen some other majorcompanies that are hedging their
bets on retention and new andsaying wherever you are with us,
we've got something for you,which is really challenging,
especially in the work that Boband I do with the reality team,
which is all about integrity andselling and and leading and not
discounting and so on and soon.
So let's not go down that holeanymore.
(19:52):
Um personal measure how does ateam leader actually sort of
know they're doing all right?
Bob Morrell (19:58):
Well, I've got a fantastic thing with.
I think all of us should thinkabout.
Let's imagine you were goingfor a job, and that job is to
run a team or a sales team or aa group of people, and they'd
say something like how can youum how can you demonstrate the
(20:22):
way that you manage people orthe your talent for managing
people?
What you should be able to dois look at your calendar um from
five years ago, and thatcalendar will show a number of
things.
It'll show purpose of what itis you were doing then.
Okay, not distraction, it showspurpose.
(20:45):
So in your calendar, it'sblocked out with purposeful
activities and focus that youwere working on.
It also demonstrates that youknow that success is about your
small, repeatable choices.
So there will be lots of notesin that calendar of things that
you're doing again and againwith your people.
There will also be chunks ofyou coaching and mentoring
(21:10):
people in that calendar.
Um, there will also be chunksof time when you're listening to
what your people are doing anduh getting feedback from them on
how they're finding their work.
And also, as we mentionedearlier, that daily intention in
your calendar, saying, TodayI'm going to achieve this, which
(21:30):
is going to move thingsforward.
Now imagine you're sitting infront of a potential employer
and you can demonstrate how youmanage yourself as a leader.
Okay.
You'd be straight in.
You'll be straight in.
You know, absolutely.
Jeremy Blake (21:44):
It's not about um what you've done today or this
week, you know.
So often people say, I've doneI'm an amazing leader, I've
achieved this right now.
unknown (21:51):
Yeah.
Jeremy Blake (21:52):
What we're saying is you know in your heart of
hearts how well you've beenprogressing, committing to
committing to the rightbehaviours of leadership and so
on.
So let's finish with anabsolute favourite.
Um, what's quite interesting iswhen you start work, and I and
I know that this is alwaysinteresting for me when I think
of the young people entering theworkplace, and I played squash
with a guy last night just on agraduate scheme with Mars, and
(22:14):
and you think, gosh, you'regonna suddenly have team leaders
who are you know getting you todo things.
You don't know when you firststart working whether your
leader's good or not, and thenyou start to have a hunch, you
go on intuition, you startchatting to people.
Um how many people in thisteam?
Is there a lot of turnover?
You start to sort of feel yourway.
But if you weren't relying ongut intuition, how might you as
(22:38):
an individual spot a poorleader?
And we could actually open thisup saying a team leader
spotting a poor leader leadingthem, but also a poor individual
in a team who thinks their teamleader isn't any good and more
senior.
What's a good way of spottingbad leadership?
Bob Morrell (22:54):
Well, the first thing to do is to watch loads of
films, because um if you thinkif you look at lots of films,
they are full of terribleleaders.
Jeremy Blake (23:05):
Because they're interesting to watch.
Bob Morrell (23:07):
They're interesting to watch.
So bad leaders are quiteexciting, bizarrely.
Um whereas whereas if you ifyou went and if you go into a
good, well-led organization, alot of the time it's not too
exciting because people knowwhat they're doing, they're
focused on what they're doing,there's kind of like a unity of
(23:28):
purpose because they'rewell-led.
Whereas if you go into a placethat's going mental, it's
probably and having loads ofmeetings, that's an indication
of poor leadership.
But there's there's a couple ofother things which I think is
quite good to note.
So uh clearly a good leader issomebody who, to use that odd
(23:48):
expression, is leaning in andgetting curious and wanting to
understand as much as they canabout what's happening, okay?
Whereas a bad leader stiffensup, okay, and so doesn't so by
that they don't say very much.
When they do speak, their tonechanges because they their ego
(24:09):
feels threatened because theydon't have all the answers,
because they're not close enoughto what's going on, as a good
leader would be.
They tend to panic a bit tooeasily.
I remember one guy I used towork with, he used to bang his
head repeatedly against the uhthe desk when things went wrong.
Uh, and what they do is theyhide behind their position, they
(24:30):
hide behind policy, so theyhave no flexibility, and they
will be justifying all the timewhat's going on rather than
working with their team toimprove things.
And that is a really good, Ithink that's a great example of
bad leadership.
And I imagine we could allthink of people we've worked for
(24:52):
who you think, oh dear, youknow, I I I I can imagine that
person who telling uh the policyone's very interesting.
Jeremy Blake (24:59):
Telling somebody there's a policy about that, and
you must do that.
Bob Morrell (25:02):
Yeah.
Jeremy Blake (25:03):
When they didn't write the policy, the policy's
out of date.
That doesn't necessarilyinspire me.
Oh god, thank you so much.
Now you've told me we've got apolicy on it.
I'm I'm fine now, I'll go offand crack on.
That that isn't leadership,that isn't explaining our role
and how customers fit in andwhat we're all doing here and
our purpose.
That one is really quitecommon, you know.
You can't do that, why not?
(25:23):
Because I have a clipboard.
Okay.
Bob Morrell (25:26):
Um, I think a lot of team leaders feel in some
ways subjugated by their teams.
If they've been appointed inparticular, and the the teams
are more experienced than them,that can cause, you know,
friction.
Now there's nothing wrong withfriction, as we said in the
previous episode.
You need that to overcome it todemonstrate leadership.
(25:49):
I think that's a really bigtakeaway I want people to take
from from these episodes.
But I think the other point isthis as a new team leader, you
may not be able to changeeverything that your team needs,
but it probably is within yourpower to fix maybe one thing a
week and do it quietly.
Just quietly fix something thathasn't been so good.
(26:11):
And that's not a bad strategyto think, you know, nothing's
perfect.
Lots of organizations have hugeuh issues which take a long
time to overcome.
But if you can gently chip awayand make things better for your
team in one way every week,just a small thing that makes a
difference, that is noticed.
Okay, that is effective work,that is actually moving forward.
(26:33):
Um, and that's not a bad, not abad way of thinking about it.
Jeremy Blake (26:37):
I think one more thing I'd say that's coming out
of a new project I've started uhvery recently is that when we
used to manage time and and workand be in the same building as
people, we could see what theywere doing.
We had an indication of thebehaviors and the work they were
doing, to the quality, to theeffect, whether they're talking
to customers.
One of the challenges withremote working is you can't see
(27:00):
that or witness that.
So if you have if you havemeetings about what someone's
doing, it's actually nearly allhypothetical.
Yeah, this is what I'm doing atthe moment.
Oh, right, okay, good, let'stalk about what you're doing.
But you're not ever witnessingit.
So, one of the things I wouldsay for team leaders, even if
you're spread geographically,you need to see somebody
working.
You need to actually see whatthey're doing.
(27:20):
And so in some other projectswe're running, we're we're
really trying to bring backaccompaniment and spending time
with people and seeing them inaction because otherwise you're
having a wonderful hypotheticalquestion about the work they're
doing, but you don't know aboutthe work they're doing.
Bob Morrell (27:33):
Well, that brings us that brings us on to uh what
we'll be doing in our nextepisode, which I think you
should all um make sure you tunein for because we are going to
be looking at standards.
Yeah, and I think one greatthing a team leader can do is to
enforce a standard becausethat's essential.
And uh we'll be looking atthat, as I say, in more detail
(27:55):
on the next episode.
But for now, we've coveredwork, we've covered time, and in
the previous episode, we'vecovered managing people.
I think there's a load ofreally good tips there for team
leaders, whether they're new orexperienced, and I hope you can
utilize uh this podcast to giveyou some inspiration to manage
your teams far more effectivelygoing forward.
Jeremy Blake (28:17):
Great, thank you, Bobby.
We will see you and hear you,and you'll hear us on another
episode soon.
Do review us, like us, or sharethis episode with someone who
you think could be a betterleader.
Thanks.
Bob Morrell (28:30):
Hi,
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