The Secret to Thriving Teams: Hire Smart, Lead Strong

The Secret to Thriving Teams: Hire Smart, Lead Strong

Rob Dale [00:00:00]:
Talking a lot about teamwork in general and how essential, the team that you gather is to the success of your business.

Eric Deschamps [00:00:07]:
Individual superstar might be an individual superstar, but a horrible team player.

Rob Dale [00:00:11]:
Right. But being nice doesn’t build businesses. I think you can be compassionate in how you build your business, but there’s a big difference between the 2 when it comes to your staff.

Trefor Munn Venn [00:00:20]:
Let’s see. You need to understand that’s your second job. Your first job is make this organization successful. Your second is to perform that role.

Catherine Fair [00:00:27]:
It hadn’t even occurred to her that it was the team meeting was about them, not her.

Rob Dale [00:00:41]:
Hi, and welcome back everyone to the Living Rich League podcast. We’re so glad that you’ve tuned in again. We’re so thrilled that you continue to support the show, and I’m excited that we’re back again with team Rhapsody. Back together.

Rob Dale [00:00:52]:
Here we

Rob Dale [00:00:52]:
are again.

Rob Dale [00:00:53]:
We’re in the same boat.

Rob Dale [00:00:55]:
Exactly. Right? That’s true. Well, again, a lot of folks who tune into the show, might not know that, Rhapsody is our business that actually sponsors the Living Richly podcast. And here we have at the table 5 master coaches that work with businesses and leaders and have been for a long, long time. I think we we figured out it’s decades decades decades of experience, that comes to the table here.

Rob Dale [00:01:17]:
More years experience than Steve has years.

Eric Deschamps [00:01:21]:
Wow. Wow. That’s that’s a lot of experience because I have a lot of years.

Rob Dale [00:01:25]:
Is that is that Rob Math?

Wendy Dodds [00:01:27]:
That was Rob Math. That’s Rob Math.

Rob Dale [00:01:28]:
Okay. Well, we know it very much. Little we could trust Rob Math. But we’re not here to talk about Rob Math. We’re here to talk about one of the key issues, that is probably the the one of the primary pain points we hear from leaders. And I I could say from the very beginning, when I started working with business leaders, this was the case and is still the case today. Leaders saying, you know what? Finding and keeping the right people is so hard.

Wendy Dodds [00:01:54]:
Yeah. I think it it maybe it’s getting harder. You’re not wrong.

Jason Spears [00:01:58]:
You know, I COVID for sure.

Wendy Dodds [00:01:59]:
I I think the challenge, though, so often is there there’s a gap in the organization. They wanna hire somebody. They and they immediately go into the hiring of someone, but they have not defined the role. Right. And they’re not clear on actually what the business needs. They they can see some pain, and they’re like, oh, we need somebody to do that. But I’m like, that’s not a role. Like, that that’s not a clearly defined role.

Wendy Dodds [00:02:23]:
Getting really clear on what exactly is the is the role that needs to be filled, and what exactly are the requirements that you need. Right? What must like, the must haves. Right? The 3 to 5 must haves, nonnegotiable. You cannot allow them you do not talk to them unless they’ve got these things really clearly. That’s that’s the core. Because I think the wheels fall off right away if they start sacrificing or negotiating those core elements. 100%.

Eric Deschamps [00:02:51]:
Or or they say, I really like that guy. I really like her. I I I want her on my team.

Wendy Dodds [00:02:56]:
They hire themselves. Right? They’re like, they’re really good. They’re just like It’s

Rob Dale [00:02:59]:
like it’s like they’re trying to hire their best friend.

Eric Deschamps [00:03:01]:
Right. Exactly.

Rob Dale [00:03:02]:
And but they’re, again, they’re not getting clear on what the business is.

Rob Dale [00:03:04]:
When you take a step back even with the with the pain point that you just mentioned Yeah. I mean, the reality is is that most, owners, certainly the ones that I’ve worked with, they hire reactively. Right? So they didn’t even think about anything. All they know is is all of a sudden there’s a position to be filled, and it needed to be filled yesterday. And I know certainly, and you probably all had this experience, you you start to talk about gotta get clear on some of this stuff, and they’re like, no,

Rob Dale [00:03:28]:
no, no, I gotta fill a seat.

Rob Dale [00:03:29]:
Right. Right. Yeah. And they haven’t been proactively planning for hires. They’re just reacting, and then they’re grabbing the first person that puts in a resume. They’ll do they they’ll they’ll fill a seat.

Eric Deschamps [00:03:42]:
They’re breathing.

Rob Dale [00:03:42]:
They’re breathing. That’s all they need to hire.

Rob Dale [00:03:44]:
Right. And today’s topic is all about team. We’re starting with how do you find the right people and keep them. But we’re gonna talk be talking a lot about teamwork in general and how essential, the team that you gather is to the success of your business. And if we’re hiring fear based, reactively, emotionally, right, it’s a problem. Mhmm. Right?

Jason Spears [00:04:04]:
I just actually, I was thinking about this. I I was in the eye doctors.

Eric Deschamps [00:04:09]:
Oh, I see what you did

Wendy Dodds [00:04:10]:
there. Uh-huh.

Jason Spears [00:04:11]:
You like that. Our our our

Eric Deschamps [00:04:14]:
I fell into a lens grinder and made a spectacle of myself. Oh.

Wendy Dodds [00:04:19]:
Oh. That joke episode.

Jason Spears [00:04:21]:
See what I have to put up with.

Wendy Dodds [00:04:22]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Spears [00:04:23]:
Anyhow, so I was at the eye doctors, and the 2 doctors are, for those of you who know the lingo in DISC, d. So these are drivers. They’re strong personalities, and their entire staff were s’s.

Rob Dale [00:04:38]:
The opposite.

Jason Spears [00:04:39]:
The opposite. Yeah. Yeah. So very quiet, laid back, not into pushing back on decisions or, you know, they might have more of a tendency to agree when maybe they don’t agree, and it was fascinating to watch this off this office operate really, really poorly

Rob Dale [00:05:02]:
Right.

Wendy Dodds [00:05:02]:
Right.

Jason Spears [00:05:02]:
Right. Right. Result of that.

Rob Dale [00:05:03]:
Well, I think, again, we hire, oftentimes also. There’s a lot of, let’s face it, insecure leaders, out there, and I think we’ve all been there, and we all have those moments of insecurity. But when someone is insecure, like, kinda chronically, we’re gonna surround ourselves with people that bolster our self esteem, not necessarily meet the needs of the business. And so we can hire, basically, our own echo chamber that is only gonna allow us to continue to think and act the same way when, you know, a high performing team is made up of diverse people with diverse points of view that can really help us, think things through at a higher level. Right?

Rob Dale [00:05:42]:
For sure. Finding the right people is so critical because they they really are the the face of your business. They represent what you’re trying to, the message, everything that you’re doing. Your business will rise and fall based on the kind of people that you have as part of the organization.

Eric Deschamps [00:06:00]:
And and one way, back to Trevor’s initial thought, is if if we use the metaphor of right people in the right seats. Right. Right people, right seats. Create the seat first.

Wendy Dodds [00:06:10]:
Yeah. Yes.

Eric Deschamps [00:06:11]:
Yeah. Like, what what are the Yep. 3 to 5 roles? What is their skills, experience? It’s a golden triangle. You’re talking about triangle. Are they the right fit? So what happens is we’re just hiring people. We don’t we don’t really have a clearly defined seat yet.

Rob Dale [00:06:26]:
Right.

Eric Deschamps [00:06:27]:
And when I know that when we’re working with clients, we’re not looking, at just fixing one thing in the business that needs one person that solve that issue. We help our clients back up and take a bigger picture and say, where does this fit in the vision of the company, where you’re going 3 years from now? Is this the right hire? And so many times, it’s just, as you said, Rob, it

Rob Dale [00:06:50]:
just gets It’s firefighting. It’s firefighting. It’s firefighting at its best. And when if you hire as a firefighter, you might put out one fire and start 5 more. You’ve got to you’ve gotta come up to the 30,000 foot view, and you’ve got to hire as a strategist. Where is the business going? What does it need right now? What’s the seat that I need to create? I I get that sometimes you’re gonna you’re going to encounter some really uniquely talented people that you just want on your team, and you don’t have it completely clarified what you need them to do. But if that’s your hiring strategy as a go to, that’s gonna be really problematic. Let’s just hire them and see what happens.

Rob Dale [00:07:26]:
Steve and I Steve and I are both, sports fans. We both certainly, when it comes to hockey, we’re

Rob Dale [00:07:30]:
Except that you like the Dallas Cowboys. I’m still not sure what that’s about.

Rob Dale [00:07:34]:
Not when it comes to know anything about hockey.

Wendy Dodds [00:07:35]:
Yeah. Exactly. Right? Now when it comes to hockey, Eric,

Rob Dale [00:07:40]:
I was talking to Steve. Oh, okay.

Wendy Dodds [00:07:43]:
But, yeah, you’re fired.

Rob Dale [00:07:44]:
No. But, and we both know this with the teams that we cheer with you cheer for, that you can have a a team that is really significant, really great, and all of a sudden the manager brings on a superstar Mhmm. Who causes incredible conflict within the dressing room and destroys everything that you’ve built to that point. And and that’s the mistake when you hire without systems and without knowing why and who you want to have fill those seats. You can hire somebody that just has this most incredible resume, has all the experience in the world, but it’s a cancer in your in your culture. Right.

Jason Spears [00:08:19]:
Toxic.

Rob Dale [00:08:19]:
Yep. Absolutely. We’ll talk a lot about team dynamics, more on the show, because it it is critical how your team gets along or doesn’t get along and functions together. I mean, we’ve all seen, multi like, teams made up of really talented people, but they can’t access the team dynamic in a way that really makes the magic come forth.

Eric Deschamps [00:08:39]:
Yeah. The one of the great models that we use with our clients is the ideal team player Mhmm. By Patrick, his book pack by Patrick Lencioni. Yeah. And, those three characteristics because, an individual superstar might be an individual superstar, but a horrible team player. Yeah. Yeah. Right? They should be working by themselves somewhere.

Eric Deschamps [00:09:00]:
Right?

Rob Dale [00:09:00]:
Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps [00:09:00]:
But as soon as you integrate into a team to achieve team results, and in that model, it’s Hungry? Hungry. So be passionate. Yeah. A self starter. Humble. Humble. So, you know, put others first, listen, and then be people smart.

Rob Dale [00:09:15]:
Yeah. Smart.

Eric Deschamps [00:09:16]:
So reading the room, emotionally intelligent, agile. And not not every high performer is a great team player. Yeah. And it’s important. In fact, there are tools Yep. That you can use out of that book to interview or ask interview questions. Would this person be a good team player?

Rob Dale [00:09:35]:
Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps [00:09:35]:
Maybe they’re a great salesperson or great technician, but are would they be an actual team player?

Wendy Dodds [00:09:41]:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:09:41]:
That’s really

Jason Spears [00:09:42]:
good news. We’ve talked about 2 tools right now. Right? We’ve talked about the the golden triangle and the ideal team player. So just so everybody knows with the golden triangle, there’s one side of it that’s called the search side of the triangle, and 2 of those letters stand for experience and skills. And what I love about this golden triangle is that you think about when you’ve either, as a business owner, let somebody go or, as a team member, watched somebody be fired, the reason they’ve been fired is because of it’s not their skills and experience.

Rob Dale [00:10:22]:
Right? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Jason Spears [00:10:23]:
They’ve been hired for their skills and experience, but they got fired because of their habits, their attitude. They weren’t a good fit. They didn’t live by the values of the organization, etcetera, etcetera. So that is what I love. That’s how I explain that tool to clients is, hey. You’re gonna hire for skills and experience. You’re gonna fire for something else.

Rob Dale [00:10:47]:
Right.

Jason Spears [00:10:47]:
Why don’t you hire for all those things

Rob Dale [00:10:51]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Spears [00:10:51]:
That you’re gonna fire for so that you get it right the first time?

Rob Dale [00:10:55]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Spears [00:10:56]:
And then the ideal team player tool, that’s all about getting it right the first time as well.

Rob Dale [00:11:01]:
Right.

Jason Spears [00:11:02]:
Right? And so these tools are so important in helping our clients, save themselves, like, an enormous amount of time.

Rob Dale [00:11:11]:
Think of the time, energy, money

Wendy Dodds [00:11:13]:
Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:11:14]:
Right, that organizations are burning through

Jason Spears [00:11:16]:
Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:11:17]:
Because they’re not taking the time to hire strategically. What’s the the the old saying? Right? They we hire too fast and fire too slow.

Wendy Dodds [00:11:25]:
Right? So in the the the fire too slow is a very interesting one because this is where people’s hearts do get in the way. I I I have a client. Their sales team has been a real problem, and they they were trying to increase their sales team by 4 people over the course of a year because each person on average brings in 2,000,000. They’re trying to grow really aggressively. They knew there’d be some onboarding time. By the end of the year, they had the same number of salespeople that they had started with, so they didn’t grow at all around that. And the challenge is they would bring people on, but then they didn’t know how to evaluate them to determine whether or not they should stay there. Right.

Wendy Dodds [00:12:00]:
And this kept happening over and over. And it was, to your point, burning all this time and energy around, people’s focus and trying to bring more people in and trying to say, well, maybe it’s our comp model isn’t right. Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that. What they didn’t have was a nice clear 30, 60, 90 day plan to say and this is what we did. At 30 days, what must they what activities must they be able to do on their own independently, and what results must they have accomplished? And then what does it look like at 60?

Eric Deschamps [00:12:29]:
Excellent. And

Wendy Dodds [00:12:30]:
what does it look like at 90? And if they miss on the first one, they’re out. Right. Right. And and they said, we can’t do that. And I said, you’re good, perfect. Like, you definitely can. You definitely can. I believe in you.

Wendy Dodds [00:12:42]:
You can do it. The, but what you find is your top performers want the 30, 60, 90 because they’re like, how can I do it in 20? How can

Jason Spears [00:12:49]:
I do it in

Wendy Dodds [00:12:50]:
25? Right? And it was it’s just transformative so that you immediately have a mechanism to gauge and to make a a decision, especially when so many organizations have about a 90 day probation period as well, where if you need to let somebody go after that, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Rob Dale [00:13:05]:
I had a conversation with a business owner, recently who had a had had, just acquired a business and was had a a member of their team who clearly isn’t the right fit, but they felt like, well, they’ve been through so much. I I I need to I need to give them the opportunity. I need to give them the chance. I know they’re struggling, but, you know, it’s not fair after all they’ve gone through. And I made the statement to them. I said there is a big difference between being nice and being compassionate. You can be compassionate and still recognize, you know what? You’ve been through a lot, but I’m being compassionate by saying this is the wrong fit for you. You’re feeling it.

Rob Dale [00:13:45]:
We’re feeling it. We need to find either, as you talked about the seats, we need to either find a different seat for you, or we need to help you transition out of the organization. But being nice doesn’t build businesses. I think you can be compassionate in how you build your business, but there’s a big difference between the two when it comes to your stock.

Eric Deschamps [00:14:05]:
Yeah. Even even one of our core values as a company Yeah. Is deep compassion Right. Which doesn’t mean you just let people off the hook

Wendy Dodds [00:14:11]:
or No. No.

Eric Deschamps [00:14:12]:
Let people wallow in their misery because we don’t wanna let them go.

Rob Dale [00:14:16]:
Even Brene Brown says, clear is kind. Clear is kind.

Eric Deschamps [00:14:20]:
This is not a good fit, and that’s the kindest thing you can say to someone. Yeah. And then they find something else later, and they say, I’m so glad that didn’t work out there. I found the where I should be, where I want

Jason Spears [00:14:31]:
to be. Thing that happened to me was the best thing

Eric Deschamps [00:14:33]:
that happened.

Rob Dale [00:14:34]:
Right? And I know that right now we’re talking primarily to business leaders, and we’ll get back to that in a second. Not long ago, we record an entire episode with another local coach. He’s a great friend of the Living Richley Nation,

Rob Dale [00:14:47]:
Michelle Shaffer.

Rob Dale [00:14:48]:
And so if you’re watching the show, listening to this episode, and you’re trying to find sort of your way and your own career path as a team member, that entire show will be such an amazing you you wanna make sure episode episode 99, we call it the Wayne Gretzky episode.

Wendy Dodds [00:15:01]:
You definitely wanna tune in to that one. Such great advice. That was such a rich play

Rob Dale [00:15:02]:
for the cowboys. Right? Such great advice. That was such

Eric Deschamps [00:15:06]:
a great for the cowboys. Right?

Rob Dale [00:15:07]:
He did. He played for the Dallas cowboys, and that’s well, you think they would have done better.

Eric Deschamps [00:15:11]:
You think they would have done better.

Wendy Dodds [00:15:12]:
One of the best basketball players ever.

Rob Dale [00:15:14]:
But but let let me back us up

Wendy Dodds [00:15:16]:
a little bit. Because when

Rob Dale [00:15:17]:
we were together, not long ago, we talked about, organizations struggling to be clear on what their message is and their differentiator and how to create that winning experience that converts clients into raving fans who keep coming back for more. Right? And so much of what we talked about was the need to get clear on who you are, what you stand for, creating a system then to communicate that. How does that apply to hiring? We’ve talked about some of the, the tools that we use, but, like, the organizations a lot so many of the organizations that I talk to don’t really have a a system for attracting them. They don’t even have that defined.

Rob Dale [00:15:53]:
No. And I think to go back to, it’s about clarity. All of this is around clarity. I recently went back and read a book that I’ve read many times, but just just finished reading it over again, and it’s Geno Wickman’s book, Attraction. And just and he he talks before you even build out your hiring process, you wanna create your accountability structure, your chart, right, to figure out what are those keys. And he and he simplifies this and says almost any I I don’t in fact, it’s not original to him. He credited somebody else in the book, and I don’t remember, the individual. But he he really just lays it out and says your entire organization can be built into an integrator, your your sales and marketing seat, your operations seat, and then your finance seat or support seat.

Rob Dale [00:16:39]:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:16:40]:
We call that fine grind and mine.

Rob Dale [00:16:41]:
We call it fine grind mind with and then sometimes you have a visionary on top of the integrator. Creating just that structure, getting clear on the seats that you need in your organization. Great. And then you start to build out the hiring process around how do I hire for those seats.

Rob Dale [00:16:59]:
Yeah. But, Rob, I don’t have time to do it. We’re too busy delivering in the business. This is gonna take too much time. How often do we hear that? Yeah. Right. Is that we continue to do the things that aren’t serving us well, and and we because we’re we’re all we’re counting is the cost and the time In the moment. Require us to do it right.

Eric Deschamps [00:17:19]:
And the invisible cost of time later that Right. Right. Is is way more than the visible Huge. Huge. I was working with a client in the construction industry, just recently, and they were saying we don’t have time to mentor and train the younger, people. And because we got we gotta deliver. We have deadlines, and we don’t have time. And then, of course, a month later, it comes back to bite them.

Eric Deschamps [00:17:42]:
A huge mistake is made that costs 100 of 1,000 of dollars. The cost later to not taking the time is much greater than taking the time today.

Rob Dale [00:17:50]:
Yeah. It’s the again, it’s it’s it’s short term pain for long term gain. Investing the time and energy to put those things in place will serve you so well. It’s the old adage, if you don’t have time to do it right, you must have time to do it over and over and over and over. Right? Like, if you double down if what you’re doing now is not working, doubling down on it’s not gonna help you. You need to you need to change the dance. And part of that is getting clear on who you are as an organization, what’s the seat that we need to fill. Right? And then who’s the best ideal candidate for that seat, and and building in in that regard.

Wendy Dodds [00:18:27]:
The, you know, your question around when are you gonna have time. Right? Everyone’s saying I don’t have time. It’s it’s the truest thing. Yep. No. Something has to give. Right. Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:18:35]:
You you have to make, a decision. You have to make a change.

Rob Dale [00:18:39]:
Right.

Eric Deschamps [00:18:39]:
And that

Wendy Dodds [00:18:40]:
And I think that hiring piece is great, great leverage because think of all the time you’re spending with with staff that aren’t performing in alignment with the needs of the business in part because they probably don’t know the needs of the business. Like, all all of those pieces cascade right from the hiring. So the next I I always encourage people, the next hire, like, let’s prepare for it because that’s when you’re gonna start to gain your time back. Right. Like, that’s one really powerful mechanism you can use. Otherwise, you’d never get it back. Yeah. Right? You just keep repeating it.

Rob Dale [00:19:11]:
Exactly. The same mistake over and over again.

Eric Deschamps [00:19:13]:
And then the other part of the effective team building, of course, is getting the right people in the right seats, but then bringing that team member or team members into the existing, group where there’s already a corporate memory history, inside Joe clicks. Yeah. A little clicks. Like high school. Yep. And I know it’s a really, really ever leave high school? Do we ever I’ve left high school, but high school has not left

Rob Dale [00:19:40]:
me yet.

Wendy Dodds [00:19:43]:
Oh, no.

Rob Dale [00:19:45]:
Are you gonna break into song now?

Eric Deschamps [00:19:46]:
I might you just might yep. Maybe it’s gonna match. Leave. It’s gonna be vanilla ice. Vanilla ice. Vanilla ice. So it’s a really old model, but it’s so proven. And that’s the, forming, storming, norming, and performing.

Eric Deschamps [00:20:01]:
It’s from the sixties. Yep. But it’s still so powerful.

Rob Dale [00:20:04]:
It’s tough, man.

Eric Deschamps [00:20:05]:
Recognizing that there’s when you’re forming your team, there are certain things that you can do to get ahead of, what’s eventually gonna happen, which is some conflict and misunderstanding and different workplace styles. So the way you form it at the beginning, and one great tool that we use is the disc, model. Right. The disc personality assessment, which says you’re coming into a team, and we’ve got some drivers. We’ve got some influencers. We’ve got some steady people. We got some conscientious. And here’s what it’s gonna be like to work on the team.

Eric Deschamps [00:20:36]:
So we’re getting ahead of the the problem before it starts. And so then we when we do hit the storming part, we’re already, prepared.

Rob Dale [00:20:44]:
Well, and the chat and the challenge with that and the challenge though is listen. We’ve all asked this question. Tell tell me about your onboarding process with your client

Wendy Dodds [00:20:53]:
It’s your service. Or with

Rob Dale [00:20:54]:
your with your employee. Well, it’s it’s crickets. It’s crickets or it’s what? What happens?

Jason Spears [00:20:59]:
Fear in the headlights.

Eric Deschamps [00:21:00]:
Yeah. But they they have to sign some forms about HR forms.

Rob Dale [00:21:04]:
The legal stuff is happening. Yeah. Exactly. It’s it’s all the it’s the HR stuff, and then it’s here’s how you do your job. Mhmm. Here’s the actual pieces. Here’s the now go do it. And there’s almost no onboarding around your culture, around your people, around your vision, around your values.

Rob Dale [00:21:25]:
Right? We don’t do any of Not we don’t. Many organizations fail to introduce any of And they just hope they get it at some point. They hope they fit, and they hope they figure out the inside jokes, all of that, because none of that is included in the onboarding.

Jason Spears [00:21:40]:
No. The the phrase that’s missing is at ABC company, this is how we do dot dot dot.

Eric Deschamps [00:21:48]:
Right.

Jason Spears [00:21:49]:
At ABC company. Not the not even the process. It’s the it’s the mental thought, the the the mental pros, the attitude, the spirit. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:21:59]:
I like that. We used to

Rob Dale [00:22:00]:
call it the Rhapsody virus.

Rob Dale [00:22:02]:
We did.

Rob Dale [00:22:02]:
Okay. And then COVID And then COVID changed it to the Rhapsody way. It picks nay on the virus. Virus aye. Yeah. And now we call it the Rhapsody way.

Rob Dale [00:22:11]:
The Rhapsody

Rob Dale [00:22:11]:
way. This is the way. Mhmm.

Wendy Dodds [00:22:14]:
I think people also don’t know how their business works. Right.

Rob Dale [00:22:17]:
Right.

Wendy Dodds [00:22:18]:
So many people are in in organizations that go, hey, listen. I just do my job. This is my thing. I’m like, listen. You need to understand that’s your second job. Your first job is make this organization successful. Your second is to perform that role. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:22:29]:
Right. That’s so good.

Jason Spears [00:22:30]:
Oh, that’s so In that order.

Wendy Dodds [00:22:32]:
In that order.

Jason Spears [00:22:33]:
Yeah. Repeat that for everybody, because that’s that important.

Wendy Dodds [00:22:36]:
First job for everyone is to build the success of the organization, and the second is to perform your role. But if they don’t know how the organization functions, like, what is the core way this this business works and makes money and serves people and does all of those things? You may be performing your role. Great. But it may be not aligned. You can’t offer or make suggestions about how to improve even your own role or your own growth if you don’t understand how it fits in that bigger picture as well. And often people do not have that knowledge. They don’t have that in that that picture of what’s actually happening.

Eric Deschamps [00:23:09]:
In the, you mentioned the traction book. In that model, there’s a tool called the people analyzer. Love that tool. Not a great name.

Jason Spears [00:23:17]:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:23:18]:
But, it’s it’s a very effective tool. Of it.

Rob Dale [00:23:20]:
Yeah. It needs a marketing. Right?

Eric Deschamps [00:23:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. So the, the g

Wendy Dodds [00:23:23]:
I love it, Gino.

Eric Deschamps [00:23:24]:
Yeah. Gino. Great work. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:23:27]:
Gino, if you wanna respond to the podcast, right,

Rob Dale [00:23:29]:
or come on to the podcast or come on to the podcast.

Eric Deschamps [00:23:32]:
Get get it, want it, and capacity, the GWC. And that first part is get it. Do you get it? Not and not your job, but do you get how it all fits together? If you’re in operations, do you understand how the process is from from a sales to the operations to administration? And the key, personality or key position rather, not personality. The key position in that is the integrator who helps make sure that everybody gets it. And every and so taking time to do that. And I we all know that the business owners that we work with, they want that. They want people to get it. For a second.

Eric Deschamps [00:24:09]:
There’s a lack of desire.

Rob Dale [00:24:10]:
No. It’s it’s it’s never lack of desire.

Wendy Dodds [00:24:12]:
Yeah. And when they don’t when that so I have a client where, shockingly, sales and operations are fighting with each other.

Rob Dale [00:24:19]:
What? Woah.

Wendy Dodds [00:24:22]:
Never. Never. Yeah. And what happens though is if you can help the entire organization get it, they have tons of respect for one another because they understand we’re on the same team.

Rob Dale [00:24:34]:
Mhmm. Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:24:34]:
We play different roles, but we’re on the same team trying to accomplish the same thing. And and until that picture is there, people will point and blame the other people.

Rob Dale [00:24:45]:
Yeah. The silo thing is

Wendy Dodds [00:24:46]:
such a goes away then. It all goes away. Well

Rob Dale [00:24:49]:
and and and you had shared this a long time ago around the silos, and I use this with clients often is silos themselves are not bad. They’re actually needed and important,

Wendy Dodds [00:24:59]:
and it’s

Rob Dale [00:25:00]:
all right for your team to operate in silos as long as they understand that the job is not the silo. It’s the product. And it’s, again, focusing on that bigger why. The really focusing in on the company over your role allows you to now do really good in your silo and celebrate the role of the other silos in creating the

Rob Dale [00:25:22]:
I would still encourage a different use a different word than use silo because it tends to indicate, like, insulated from everything else. Yes. We want to make sure everyone’s playing in their lane, playing in their role, and doing their job well. I think often the problem is there’s not enough communication happening. We we talked about, again, on that first conversation about, your message and your product and how you deliver it, And we talked about the importance of getting clear in on your your client journey. Right? What is the customer journey from start to finish? Right. Really savvy organizations are, 1, making sure they’re clear on what the client journey is. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:25:58]:
But they also have what is the employee journey. What’s it like from start to finish and all those touch points, and they’re crafting that very deliberately. I think organizations that have been around for any length of time lose touch with their ideal client. They forget what it’s like to be the end user, and they also forget what it’s like to be an employee. They they sometimes forget what it’s like to join a new team.

Jason Spears [00:26:21]:
Well, and some business owners have never been an employee.

Rob Dale [00:26:24]:
Yeah. I’d make a horrible employee. I tell everybody that. I’d that I Yes. You would. I would. I’ve been I tell people I’ve been free too long. I wouldn’t do well.

Eric Deschamps [00:26:32]:
And probably a lot of the listeners, there might be some business owners that are listening, of course, but a lot of people are employed or they’re on teams, And they’re probably feeling the pain, not from a business owner’s perspective, but from a team member’s perspective where it feels like this is not organized. There’s no sequence. Does anybody know what they’re doing? And so there I think, leadership is influence. And so even team members can champion, encourage the business owner, show empathy, and and share resources. There’s a way to influence even if you’re not the business owner to help build team, in in your business.

Rob Dale [00:27:13]:
Let me throw let me throw a a a question on the table here. When we talk about we talk about how many business owners tell us I I wish my people were more engaged. I wish they acted more like owners. And usually what they’re referring to there is buy in engagement, commitment level. Engagement, is that an owner issue, or is it an employee issue? Yes. Yes. Yes. Expand, please.

Rob Dale [00:27:38]:
Our audience wants a Do you

Wendy Dodds [00:27:39]:
wanna do 1? I’ll do the other. Which one do you wanna do?

Eric Deschamps [00:27:41]:
You wanna do followership or leadership? Is that what you’re thinking?

Wendy Dodds [00:27:44]:
Well, I was thinking both have accountability.

Eric Deschamps [00:27:46]:
Oh, yes. Yeah. You

Wendy Dodds [00:27:47]:
go. It’s like a healthy relationship. You’re both a 100% accountable. It’s not 5050. Yeah. I I think leaders need to cultivate an environment where people know how to be engaged. They have pathways to be engaged. Engagement is received well.

Wendy Dodds [00:28:04]:
And respected. Yeah. And respected. People will be offering things, and they’ll be like, shut it down saying, stay in your lane, do your job, keep your head down. All those messages come back. So I think I think leaders need to create that space. But, also, each of us has the power to choose how engaged do I wanna be, how do I wanna engage in this, and we need to own that. Like, we get to own that.

Wendy Dodds [00:28:25]:
Like, that’s ours. That belongs to us. Yeah. And if we go, well, I’ll do it when they say

Jason Spears [00:28:29]:
Yeah. You’re

Wendy Dodds [00:28:30]:
talking about

Rob Dale [00:28:30]:
it. Like Right?

Rob Dale [00:28:32]:
Right. Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:28:32]:
So that’s what came to mind for me. What was it for you?

Eric Deschamps [00:28:34]:
Well well, leaders leadership and then this beautiful word followership Yeah. Which there’s an art to to leadership where we could say, well, the leader better do something. Here I am. I’m waiting for the leader to show better leadership. Where’s the leadership?

Wendy Dodds [00:28:47]:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:28:48]:
There you can take responsibility and say, okay. Followership. Am I a great follower? Because there’s it’s always a one to many. There’s always 1 or 2 or 3 leaders and then 15, 20, 30 followers. That’s the way life is. Yep. And there are certain attributes that make people great followers. Mhmm.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:05]:
Right. And that’s not diminishing. Not at all. That’s actually really empowering. Yeah. And I I don’t know how many times I’ve been on Living Richly podcast, but I I feel like every time Not enough. Not enough. More, Steve.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:17]:
More, Steve. I feel like every time I bring up this really proven tool that we use, which is above the line and below

Jason Spears [00:29:25]:
the line.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:25]:
Yeah. And above so you have a line?

Jason Spears [00:29:27]:
Above the line behavior. Above the line behavior, which

Eric Deschamps [00:29:30]:
is own taking ownership, taking responsibility, showing determined action. This is me impacting my world. And then below the line is victim behavior Mhmm. Which is, pointing fingers, shifting blame. It’s the it’s life happening to me. Yeah. It’s a it’s

Rob Dale [00:29:47]:
a yeah. Victim mentality at its worst.

Eric Deschamps [00:29:49]:
So when you’re on a team Yeah. And if it’s not going great in some areas, you can still be great. Yeah. You can still be a great follower, a great team member, that circle of control. And and and you’re able to say, you know, this may not be my my perfect world because there is no perfect world, but I’m gonna take responsibility and ownership for for my life.

Rob Dale [00:30:09]:
And and I and I think it goes to, again, the creating the right systems. Look. Here’s what I know is that very few people woke up this morning and thought, I can’t wait to go to work and screw up. Right? I can’t wait to have somebody yelling at me because of the the what I’ve done. And yet it happens all the time. Now there might be a few that do wake up and think that, but they are in the minority. Definitely. People are asking, does what I do matter? Does anyone care? Right? They are they are it was Harvard Business Journal that wrote an article, written by Eric Deschamps.

Rob Dale [00:30:44]:
The, but that but but there is that is the reality of what people are looking for. And it’s our job as leaders, as business owners, to create that followership system and structure. Because I’ve heard people, I’ve heard followers say, I tried that. I tried stepping out and me taking initiative, and I got slapped down for it because they did it the wrong way, because they weren’t shown how you take initiative in this organization. They weren’t shown what you can take initiative with in the organization. Those are all the followership systems instructors that are vital that we put into every company.

Jason Spears [00:31:23]:
Now there’s a lot of people out there watching, I’m sure, who are in organizations that don’t have good leadership, and so they’ve had that experience that Rob just talked about where they’ve tried, and and it didn’t go well for them. You know? They’re they’re gun shy now. So for for the listeners, here’s one great way for you to stay in that organization and not feel like you’re a victim, and that’s by understanding what drama behavior is. So if we go back to the model that Steve was talking about, above the line behavior, below the line behavior, below the line behavior is victim behavior, and a lot of the behaviors associated with victim like behavior is really drama. And drama shows up as things like, well, I can’t believe they’re making us do that. And then you turn to your buddy, and you say, did you see that? And and you get angry about it, and you you talk to other

Eric Deschamps [00:32:30]:
people about it.

Rob Dale [00:32:31]:
Yeah. You you end up projecting it.

Jason Spears [00:32:33]:
Project it

Wendy Dodds [00:32:33]:
on others instead of projecting

Jason Spears [00:32:33]:
it to the right people. Instead of projecting it to the right people. That’s an example of of drama

Rob Dale [00:32:40]:
Well, there’s no drama in the workplace, is there? I mean, do we see drama in the workplace? Well, I read somewhere that the average adult, when they find themselves in any kind of anxiety, social anxiety, or conflict, revert back to childhood, adolescent behavior. So people will pout. Mhmm. People will fight. People will retreat. And that’s all the

Jason Spears [00:33:02]:
drama stuff.

Rob Dale [00:33:03]:
That’s all the drama stuff. And you think of how much productivity is being impacted by drama in the workplace. If you could reduce drama in the workplace by 15, 20%, think of how life changing

Wendy Dodds [00:33:14]:
sign now 3 days drama free.

Rob Dale [00:33:18]:
3 days without a drama incident. Right?

Rob Dale [00:33:21]:
Michelle on her, episode, she talked about the latest dynamic that’s happening. We see it in work culture and act it’s interesting. I just read an article about

Rob Dale [00:33:29]:
this morning. I hadn’t heard of it.

Rob Dale [00:33:30]:
I know. But it just it came in an article today, around there’s a large organization that just made an announcement about everybody being in, and, they’re rage applying. That’s right. Right? And that’s what’s happening. Rage applying. So so I’m mad at what my boss has decided, so I’m rage applying to other jobs. No intention on taping them, but I’m rage applying to and she said that’s a very common thing

Wendy Dodds [00:33:55]:
that’s happening. Need a system to be able to clearly identify, does

Rob Dale [00:33:59]:
this person meet your needs or expectations?

Rob Dale [00:34:01]:
Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:34:01]:
Because you’re gonna get flooded with stuff, and you need a fast way to figure out, are they right?

Jason Spears [00:34:06]:
And by the same by the same token, people are drama, applying as well. Like, they don’t wanna be in these toxic environments.

Rob Dale [00:34:15]:
Well, we said it earlier. You know? They we hire for skill and experience, but we probably fire for different reasons as owners. Let’s face it. Let’s turn the tables. Most people don’t quit a job. They quit a leader. Yes. Right, because of the experience.

Rob Dale [00:34:30]:
So, 100% agree that, responsibility and accountability belongs on both sides of that equation. Like any relationship, no one is responsible to only carry the whole thing. But only leaders, truly can set the tone in the organization that then others can support and champion, but it’s the leader’s responsibility to make

Rob Dale [00:34:49]:
sure rises

Rob Dale [00:34:51]:
or falls on on leadership.

Eric Deschamps [00:34:53]:
We know we know we know at least 2 frameworks or pathways. We know more, but there’s 2 that we use very effectively. Yep. So that it’s not just a chaotic formation of teams. There’s an actual sequence in place. I’m gonna share about 1 a little bit, and someone else can take the other one. But, the 5 behaviors of cohesive team is a framework that you that you can just start, and there is a sequence that start and you mentioned the word very briefly a moment ago or a few minutes ago, and that’s that word trust. Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:35:25]:
So it it starts with trust and then from trust. So, Stephen Covey, the book,

Rob Dale [00:35:34]:
the speed

Eric Deschamps [00:35:34]:
the speed of trust, high trust organizations, high speed organizations. Low trust, organizations, low speed.

Rob Dale [00:35:42]:
Low to no speed.

Eric Deschamps [00:35:43]:
Yeah. Always second guessing, always looking over your shoulder. Right. Never stepping up, never volunteering an idea, holding back. In those organizations, asking a question can be asking for trouble. Exactly. Exactly. So so that so, again, it’s a Patrick Glencioni resource.

Eric Deschamps [00:35:58]:
We’ve delivered it dozens and maybe 100. Quantifiable. It’s quantifiable. There’s measurable. It’s a very, very, what’s the word, pragmatic. It’s you like, it really is. It’s not theoretical. You actually get a trust score for your team, a conflict score, commitment, and engagement score.

Eric Deschamps [00:36:18]:
So that’s that’s a really good one. And the other one is the sophisticated team model that maybe, Eric, you wanna share about that because you were really one of the drivers of creating that.

Rob Dale [00:36:27]:
Right. Well, it came out of the sophisticated leader model that we built, which basically says that the journey of any leader kind of naturally progresses through these stages. And, somewhat like Tuckman’s model on forming, storming, norming, performing, you can’t skip any stage. He tried to just talk about how teams naturally evolve. And understanding that, I think, is critical for any leader because we it’s funny how how conflict averse most of us are. And yet high performing teams right after trust, Lencioni’s model would tell us, productive conflict is where we go. If we trust each other enough, we can enter into the arena, we can debate ideas, we can debate strategy, and no one’s getting offended because we’re recognizing it isn’t personal. I trust you on my back.

Rob Dale [00:37:10]:
We only want the best ideas emerging. Well, in the same way leaders go through, I think, a progression, and you can’t skip it. You’re an emerging leader, new leader that’s just learning the ropes. Hopefully, you become an accomplishing leader that’s getting results, and that’s kind of exciting, right, to watch that happen. And, usually, those accomplishments, your team starts to rally around you, and you start to see a lot of productivity happen. Right. Good mojo right in that team because who wants to be part of a team that’s not getting anything done. Right? That’s kinda like, a life sucking as opposed to life giving.

Rob Dale [00:37:40]:
But most leaders get stuck there. They get stuck at that accomplishing leader stage, and all of a sudden, they they find themselves overwhelmed. Every decision they have to make, everything comes across their desk. Their team becomes in many ways, it feels more like a star with a supporting cast. Right, and that can be exhausting in time. It’s a necessary stage, but you don’t wanna live there very long because it’s it’s actually restricting your growth, the growth of your team, the growth of your company. Quickly empowering team a power leader is where you wanna go next. The empowering leader is the coach, the mentor, empowering others.

Rob Dale [00:38:14]:
It goes from star and supporting cast to supporting a cast of stars Wow. Where now you decentralize. And the very power that you had, at the accomplishing level, you’re now giving more of that. This is truly power to and power with. That’s power dynamics. We can talk about that another time, but you’re truly giving power away, which is releasing the genius of your team. And then, ultimately, sophisticated leaders are folks that have been practicing that for a long time and have a track record. They are people will leave a well paying job and take a pay cut to work for a sophisticated leader because you become something more when you work with this kind of leader who’s got a track record for investing.

Rob Dale [00:38:51]:
And and I can’t wait for the 3rd part of this series, this kinda mini series of Rhapsody coaches where we talk about, you know, those leaders and the ability. You you can’t progress your team to those points of being able to release them to be the the the cast of stars if you’re all insecure and worried, and you need the attention on yourself. If you can’t grow as a leader, you if your ego is you’re stuck in your ego, you’ll never get that in a team. And often, we see this with organizations where the owner is blaming, I’ve got a lousy team, and it’s constantly the team. Maybe we need to look into a mirror and see what’s really what’s really there.

Eric Deschamps [00:39:30]:
I was delivering the sophisticated team training with a client, and, the business owner kept calling it by the wrong name. He instead of sophisticated team, he called it, Steve, come and tell us more about the elegant team. And

Rob Dale [00:39:44]:
But but a sophisticated team is elegant in many, many ways.

Eric Deschamps [00:39:47]:
That’s what I was gonna say. There is an elegance.

Rob Dale [00:39:49]:
There is.

Eric Deschamps [00:39:50]:
There’s something beautiful Yeah. About a a machine or a team that’s graceful. It’s all working together in sync. Oarsmen pulling all in the same direction, and it’s just a it is elegant. And when you’re sophisticated.

Rob Dale [00:40:06]:
And, are so afraid of disrupting the peace, and yet, we think we I think a lot of people bought into the lie that an absence of conflict, if there’s no sparks, that means we have unity. And, actually, I heard someone say years ago that, actually, the absence of sparks doesn’t mean unity. It means apathy. No one gives a shit enough to actually fight for what they believe in. And, again, we’re not talking here about destructive conflict that’s personal and ugly. That we wanna minimize. That’s part of that drama, that that happens all the time. And often, the drama is actually not even directed at the person that you have an issue with.

Rob Dale [00:40:41]:
We’re going over here. That’s a whole other issue.

Jason Spears [00:40:43]:
Back to the 5 year old.

Rob Dale [00:40:44]:
Right? It goes back to that childish sort of adolescent behavior that we engage in. But it’s this notion again of of of, understanding that, mature teams that have trust with one another are able to enter that arena and have those difficult conversations. And we’ve said it so many times. An organization is the sum of its conversations, but I think most of the converse like, can we talk team meetings?

Wendy Dodds [00:41:09]:
If we’re gonna talk about

Rob Dale [00:41:10]:
the conversation, can we talk about team meetings? Leaving. I’m leaving. Yeah. Like, what do you what what are you guys seeing, and why are why is the team meeting so ineffective in most cases?

Wendy Dodds [00:41:21]:
Oh god. It’s like where to start. Wait. We’re gonna owe money there. Another 3 episodes. Meeting another episode. What’s the purpose? Why are we meeting? It’s like yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:41:31]:
So frame framing the meeting in advance.

Wendy Dodds [00:41:33]:
Yes. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:41:34]:
So that’s not there.

Eric Deschamps [00:41:35]:
Yeah. People are coming to a meeting. They don’t know what’s gonna be talked about. Their their apprehension is high. Anxiety is high. So they’re they’re already entering into the meeting fearful. Right. Right.

Eric Deschamps [00:41:46]:
Is somebody getting fired in this one?

Wendy Dodds [00:41:48]:
Or what

Eric Deschamps [00:41:48]:
are we talking about? Who’s in trouble today?

Rob Dale [00:41:50]:
Or is this another colossal waste of my time? Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:41:52]:
Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:41:54]:
Most meetings

Wendy Dodds [00:41:55]:
are Nine times out of 10. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:41:56]:
The the amount of owners that I talk to, and they’re they they literally wing it when it comes to their meetings. Right? They don’t have any structure. They don’t have any plan. They haven’t defined outcomes. All of these things that we recognize as being significantly important to having effective meetings, and they’re just winging it, hoping the best is gonna happen, and, of course, it never does.

Rob Dale [00:42:15]:
Crazy that is. Right? Think of, I’m not my team’s not performing the way that I want, where my my they don’t they don’t have clarity. And, like, the one opportunity you have to bring them together weekly, biweekly where you could, right, give that clarity, and you’re not even preparing for it. You come in there and wing it at top of mind, and then you wonder, like, your structure is getting you exactly the results you’re setting up for.

Wendy Dodds [00:42:38]:
Right?

Jason Spears [00:42:38]:
And one of the reasons I hear from business leaders that they don’t like meetings is is is because they think their team don’t like them. And so I did They probably don’t. Well, they probably don’t. Yeah. Except I did this little thing with one client where she had said, no. No. No. You know, I stopped doing those.

Jason Spears [00:42:59]:
I said, oh, why did you stop doing the team meetings? And she said, I didn’t think they were important. I said, okay. She only had a team of 5 or 6 people. So I said, come on. And I took her, and we went around and we talked to each of the 6 team members, and I said, scale of 1 to 10, how did how what did you think of the team meetings? Oh, it was like a 9. I loved those things. Why did they ever stop? Same thing with the next person, same thing with the next person. And she was blown away because she it it hadn’t even occurred to her that it was the team meeting was about them, not her.

Jason Spears [00:43:37]:
And when she got that, the light bulb went off.

Wendy Dodds [00:43:40]:
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. You know, so much of the work that we do, we prepare to engage with our team, and the meeting is the moment of engagement. Yeah. Right. Like, that that’s when that’s when that thing happens.

Wendy Dodds [00:43:53]:
That’s when you get to shine as a leader.

Eric Deschamps [00:43:55]:
Like right?

Wendy Dodds [00:43:56]:
And that’s why I I think being clear about what’s the purpose of the meeting. And if it’s a standing meeting, you gotta check-in on that purpose from time to time and say, is this still relevant? Do we need to keep doing this? Mhmm. The, getting really clear about what actually gets decided and who’s actually going to do things and to be both specific and terrific. Oh. Steve dropped this a little bit earlier. It was pretty good. The, this is pretty good. Pretty good.

Eric Deschamps [00:44:22]:
Yeah. 7 7 out of 10. 7 out of 10.

Wendy Dodds [00:44:26]:
Oh, and then having the accountability to follow-up from the decisions that were made at the previous meeting.

Rob Dale [00:44:30]:
So we

Wendy Dodds [00:44:31]:
actually know are we are we doing the things that we need. And those simple actions actually equip your team members on how to actually have a meeting so their skills improve so that they can grow into leaders as well. Because if you’ve got a team that’s that has no opportunity for growth and no capacity, and then you take away your models of growth, which is you, if you’re leading in that moment, where do they turn to? Right. Right.

Rob Dale [00:44:55]:
Yeah.

Eric Deschamps [00:44:56]:
Right. Yeah. The other thing that is a meeting killer is if you try to accomplish too much Yeah. In one meeting. And then you’re rushing through everything, and you you address one topic, and they say, everybody got it? Okay. Next. And nobody’s disgusted.

Rob Dale [00:45:11]:
Hey. Hey. While while we’re all here.

Eric Deschamps [00:45:13]:
Yeah. While, yeah, while we’re all here. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:45:15]:
Just add another item to the agenda.

Eric Deschamps [00:45:17]:
So one of, one of my favorite things I’ve ever heard Trevor say was, he was giving me giving me some help on strategic planning and gave me this great question, which I love to use. It’s this one. What do we need to get absolutely right? And you could even apply that to your, meeting agenda.

Wendy Dodds [00:45:34]:
Yeah. To

Rob Dale [00:45:35]:
any part of the business. But definitely not.

Eric Deschamps [00:45:36]:
You could have 6 or 7 items on there. But if the if the owner can say, the one thing I need to get absolutely right in this meeting is this Yeah. And then spend the bulk of time on that, discussing that, coming to clear, decisions, solving issues. I think that’s a really good way to get to have a powerful meeting agenda.

Rob Dale [00:45:55]:
I would add to that though. Like, the, we teach people a real time agenda model. Because the the problem with most business leaders, 1, they’re we’ve already mentioned, they’re coming unprepared. Secondly, if they are coming with an agenda, they created it into what’s top of mind. Right? It’s what’s what are the the fires that are burning brightest right now, burning the hottest right now? And, again, all that encourages is more firefighting behavior. There’s there’s very little strategy. I would say the vast majority of the leaders we work with are great tacticians and firefighters, but they really struggle at the strategic level. You need to have a meeting structure that pulls you out of top of mind thinking, especially when we’re talking, like checkup meetings or or tactical meetings about how are we doing as an organization and what’s in our way.

Rob Dale [00:46:41]:
You need to have an agenda that checks in on key performance areas of the business so that you’re looking at it high level and saying, is there anything here that that of concern? Right? And you’re not the only good thinker at the table. If you wanna unleash the genius of your team, part of that agenda is what are burning topics or issues or questions that the team has. And then before you jump in, you end up prioritizing together what are the top 3 or 4 things that we’re gonna discuss today, and then we can action the other things. But often, again, our approach to it is flawed, so our results reflect that.

Rob Dale [00:47:13]:
Tony has, one of his quotes in the 5 behaviors is people can’t buy in until they weigh in. Right. Right. And we don’t give them the opportunity to weigh in. We are often treating our meetings as an opportunity to provide a whole bunch of information. You know, we’ve all seen the meme, this could have been an email. This could have been an email. And the reality is, And the reality is that is the case.

Rob Dale [00:47:31]:
Yeah. Most of the information we wanna use in a a meeting should be sent by email. That’s the best option is send it by email in advance. Now you can actually dive into the dialogue and the issues and whatever the top of mind those those most critical things in the meeting without spending 45 minutes going through a bunch of information, updating Right. Stuff that could have been sent in advance. Yeah.

Jason Spears [00:47:55]:
And one of the things I loved about, Get a Grip, I believe it was, or it could have been Patrick Lencioni’s Death by Meeting. I can’t remember which of them. They really emphasized this, and I love things about brain physiology, and it’s don’t try and do strategic and tactical

Eric Deschamps [00:48:13]:
meetings. Patricencio.

Jason Spears [00:48:14]:
It was. Okay. Yeah. Or is. He’s still with us.

Rob Dale [00:48:19]:
He is still with us. Yes. Very much.

Wendy Dodds [00:48:20]:
Very vibrant. Alive and well. Very vibrant. Yep. Empathy. Yep. We go, Patrick.

Jason Spears [00:48:24]:
Table group. Patrick, if you’re

Rob Dale [00:48:26]:
wrestling, we’d love to have yours again.

Jason Spears [00:48:27]:
We’d love to have yours. But his his big thing is don’t do those in the same meeting because it’s left and right brain thinking, and the brain does not switch well Yeah. Back and forth between those two sides.

Rob Dale [00:48:43]:
Exactly. Exactly. Let me throw out one more thing on meetings, and then I want us to switch the conversation perhaps to what organizations are doing to raise up their leaders, right, to train their leaders, and also even looking to the future when we talk about scaling and succession, even what are they doing to raise up their next gen leaders, right, beyond that. I’ll say this last thing about meetings, and we could talk about this again all day long. But, another problem with the modern day meeting is if we go back to the personality type, training that we do, we we 2 of those personality types, the d and the I, the dominant and the influencer are very outspoken typically and and are not shy to speak their mind and voice their opinion. The the s’s, the steadiness, the conscientious folks, they have great ideas, but they tend to hold on to them. They don’t share them as eagerly. The modern day business meeting is built for 2 of the 4.

Rob Dale [00:49:34]:
We have we have not done a good job. Most organizations are not doing a good job of tapping into the genius of their less outgoing personality types. We assume I call it, it’s the difference between leadership and loudership. We we we think that the louder the leader is, the more outspoken theirs, the smarter they are, and there’s absolutely zero research that would show that. As a matter of fact, some of your quiet people, if you’re listening as a leader, some of your quieter team members, stop trying to push them to be something they’re not and start tapping into how do I get, their opinion? How do I get their feedback? And often that requires maybe some prework, some postwork after a meeting, or creating some space for them in the meeting.

Eric Deschamps [00:50:11]:
Or just even asking them. Even asking them. Think about that?

Rob Dale [00:50:14]:
Exactly. Exactly. There’s a lot of work to be done on that. But Again,

Rob Dale [00:50:16]:
I was about to say the the all the quietly or followers that are listening are going, yes. And then I thought, no. They’re not. They’re going,

Jason Spears [00:50:25]:
yes. But don’t call on

Wendy Dodds [00:50:27]:
me directly in a meeting.

Rob Dale [00:50:28]:
Don’t embarrass me in a meeting because I’m gonna die a 1,000 deaths. But, like, let’s talk about, again, how does an organization let’s face it. Let me queue let me queue the conversation up this way if I might. Most leaders became a good leader. They got promoted into a management role or a leadership role not because they of their leadership skills. They got promoted because of their doing skills. Like, whatever their job was, they were doing a a a a good a better than average job and probably were demonstrating some characteristics that were appealing to the owners and the the leaders of the day, and so they got promoted. And immediately now are promoted to a role that they’re not competent at.

Rob Dale [00:51:05]:
And in most organizations, there’s very little, training, or development. So what have you seen, and how do you address that when you’re working with your leaders?

Eric Deschamps [00:51:14]:
Well, it has to be well thought out. Mhmm. So whether you call it a succession or preparing someone for a new role, it all comes back to the leader taking time to think it through strategically. Right. And and, the second order thinking, which is, okay, if I do this with this leader, then what happens? And then what happens? And then what happens? So you you’re you’re stepping back all as a leader, you wanna be stepping back all the time and say, where is this gonna take me in in the future? So I think that doesn’t solve all the problems. But part part of the problem is we’re just putting people in and promoting them without without thinking too clearly about it. Right. 100%.

Rob Dale [00:51:57]:
It’s hard to do it alone. Mhmm. Right? This is one of those exercises and and, yeah, shameless plug to coaching. It is hard to do this when you are the one who is in it.

Rob Dale [00:52:10]:
Right. Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:52:10]:
And to be I I love what you said there about the ability to step back and look at everything and to review it is really, really hard for most owners to do. Even for us at Rhapsody, right, why we have an external coach of people that we have that come in and do training with our team is because sometimes we can get so caught up in what we’re passionate about. It’s very difficult to make that step and pull away.

Eric Deschamps [00:52:34]:
Trevor, I know you you like to say, it’s you can’t facilitate yourself. And so the the gift that we, give is this to our clients is that space for an hour or 75 minutes to get out of the firefighting and think more, strategically. But having said that, the the that moving that person into that place, promoting them to the point of failure, that that can be avoided by just some real practical things. Right. Just, like Yeah. Do an internal interview. Right? Like, do don’t just promote them. Like, ask use it.

Eric Deschamps [00:53:11]:
We talked about the golden triangle. Right? Do the interview all over again, but do it internally. And then give them a test drive. Give them a couple of months and see how it goes. And and I love that, Steve.

Rob Dale [00:53:22]:
Because we we make so many assumptions in that process. Right? Because they’re good at their job, because they’re loyal, because they show up a certain way, they’re gonna make a great leader. That person might not want to be in a leadership role, and we may actually sabotage what could have been a really successful two way relationship there because we think the only way to move a person up or keep them engaged is to promote them into another role. There’s all kinds of other ways

Wendy Dodds [00:53:46]:
Yes.

Rob Dale [00:53:46]:
That we can tap into motivation.

Rob Dale [00:53:48]:
You’ve lost somebody who’s doing a great job in this role, and you’ve gained somebody who’s doing a doing a horrible job in another role.

Rob Dale [00:53:54]:
But let’s face it. Like, when for think of the first time you were in a leadership role. Think of the fear, the anxiety around that. You go from feeling competent at your job and defining yourself as adding value to the organization a certain way, And now all of a sudden, you’re put into a role where you don’t have the experience, you don’t have the training, and you feel incompetent.

Jason Spears [00:54:13]:
And talk about imposter syndrome.

Rob Dale [00:54:14]:
Yeah. Big time. Big time. It comes on the proser.

Wendy Dodds [00:54:17]:
You need to be deliberate. Right? And do it do it over time. Yeah. The you know, so many leaders saying, I’m burned out. I’m doing so much, but they won’t hand anything over either. I’m kinda going, that’s the you thing, you know. And I think that’s where you can start as a leader to hand over some of those functions to those individuals to try it out. And to say, let’s try some stuff out.

Wendy Dodds [00:54:41]:
Let’s test it. And if it works or doesn’t, we can then make some decisions around that. And one of the greatest ways you can do it is and it’s so this is so tactical tip here. Is every time you go on vacation, delegate one thing. You know you’re gonna hand things off to other people around you? If you’ve got someone who’s reporting to you that you’ve handed something to them, like, give them an extra hour of time and support and explanation, and never take that task back.

Rob Dale [00:55:08]:
Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:55:09]:
And so each year, if you take vacation 2, 3, 4 times a year, whatever that’s going to be, each time you should be permanently handing something off to 1 someone on your team so that they’re building their skills. You’re freeing up time. They get to grow. You get to learn about their capacity to lead, and you can help them through it. If it’s getting bumpy, you can do that. I think that’s that’s a nice tactical way to do it. The other piece around the introverts, extroverts is to equip people to not be captured by their style. Right? Yeah.

Wendy Dodds [00:55:39]:
Right. So extroverts, own your behavior. Shut up for a minute. Why am I talking? Invite other people to speak. You know, poll the room a little bit. Say, I’d like to hear some thoughts. Be a little more organized and provide information in advance. Don’t want stuff last minute.

Wendy Dodds [00:55:58]:
Introverts, step into it. Like, get into the conversation.

Jason Spears [00:56:02]:
Be willing to interrupt.

Wendy Dodds [00:56:03]:
Yeah. And so it has to did there? I I noticed. No. No. Yeah. The right? Like, everyone needs to not just, own their label, but but say, what behavior does the business require from from me in this moment? Yeah. And if it’s in a meeting, go, but I don’t feel comfortable speaking. I’m like, this isn’t a comfort question.

Wendy Dodds [00:56:23]:
Yeah. This is what’s required, so you need to step into that discomfort and

Rob Dale [00:56:27]:
to own that. That’s awesome.

Wendy Dodds [00:56:28]:
And that’s a practice as well that requires support.

Rob Dale [00:56:30]:
I’m gonna go lightning round for the 3 of you. That’s great advice from Trev. What closing word or words just on the team side of things would you have for the business owners that are listening or perhaps team owners or team members, that are listening starting with Steve?

Eric Deschamps [00:56:45]:
I’m gonna say when you think about results, focus on team results, not just my my results. Right. Because I think we want to win the championship, as a as a team or as an organization. So maybe you’re only thinking about your results. Just look up a little higher and say, what are the team results that I can help contribute to getting that to winning that championship? Yeah.

Rob Dale [00:57:11]:
Love that.

Rob Dale [00:57:11]:
Yeah. I would say, whether you are a leader who thinks you have a bad team or you are a team member who thinks you’ve got a bad leader, the reality is you control what you control, and you need to focus in on the things that are within your control, and allow yourself to become really focused there. You’ll begin to influence the rest as you do that, but the most important thing is get really clear on the things that are within your control. Love that.

Jason Spears [00:57:37]:
And to that same point is if you’re in a place where you’ve been hired into a new position within the organization, you have it within yourself to get clear from your boss, from your manager. Yep. Ask them, where’s my job description? It’s not detailed enough. What what what’s gonna tick you off in in this role? Get specific. Keep asking questions. Ask for metrics. Ask how you’re gonna get a pay increase. Ask all of those things.

Jason Spears [00:58:11]:
Take control over that. You have that option.

Rob Dale [00:58:13]:
That’s right. Take ownership of your role. And I would say, as we prepare to close, whether you find yourself as a team member or a team leader or a business owner, you’re never as stuck as you think you are. There’s always a way forward. There’s always a better way. Folks, thank you for tuning in. I hope you found this conversation helpful. This conversation about teams today and how crucial they are to your business’s success.

Rob Dale [00:58:34]:
Living Richly Nation, thanks for tuning in. Of course, we encourage you all to check out our website, livingrichly.me, where you can find out all the information about the 15 day life vision challenge and the Living Richly Nation, which is our exclusive Facebook group. 100 and 100 of wonderful people in that community that are doing their best to live their best life, and we encourage you to join that. And, of course, if you’ve heard something here today from these master coaches, at Rhapsody that has piqued your interest either as a team leader or as a business owner, then check out rhapsodystrategies.com. That’s our website where you can find out how to get great help to take your business, your team, and your leadership to the next level. Folks, thanks for tuning in and until next time, get out there and live your best life.

 

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