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Ever had a star employee surprise you
by coming up short on a project or
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task? Ever find yourself caught off
card by a terrible higher and finding yourself
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doing major damage control? Early in
my career I learned a really important lesson
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about giving feedback and fixing problems,
and today's episode is all about it.
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You're listening to the creating high performing
teams podcast. I'm your host, Jason.
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00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.960
You vanished ceal of Lighthouse, and
they seems to be the most actionable
7
00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:29.320
podcast on leadership and management. You'll
ever hear our goals for every episode to
8
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:32.880
tell you exactly what you can do
when you take your headphones off your ear
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00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.840
buds out, to help you be
a better leader. And today's episode it's
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00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.920
all about getting the root problem your
team has an issue, because sometimes a
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00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.479
problem you see is merely scratching the
surface and it's much more important to get
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to and fix the root cost.
So let's dive in. So this happened
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really earlier. My Cris was about
ten years ago. Is a past start
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up that I was running and one
of my key employees was starting to really
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drop the ball. A couple projects
were late and then we decided to get
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them some help, and the person
they hired was terrible. Literally would be
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considered the worst hire for any company
I've ever run. They messed up so
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bad we had to let them go
in under a week, and on top
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of that, we had to apologize
to customers because a lot of their mistakes
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were customer facing as well. So
the the higher was supposed to make things
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better for my star team member,
but it made things worse instead, and
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I didn't know what was wrong,
but I knew we had to have a
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strong conversation pastion is straighten things out. At the least I know I had
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taught my star employee the hiring method
I like to use, which generally should
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have filtered out exactly the problems we
saw, which were related to things like
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attention to detail, fixing problems when
they're small, coming for help when you
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get stuck, all those sorts of
things. None of those things happened and
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we paid for it. Because of
this, we quickly parted ways with that
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person, but the bigger isssue was
still at hand. You know, how
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did my star team member make such
a bad hire? Using the prepare Liston
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Act model, which you learned about
an episode two and if you haven't heard
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that, go back and listen to
it. I prepared a great discussion to
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have with my star team member about
how they could do better hiring and why
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we always gave people test projects and
yet somehow this person had made it through
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anyways, and with a big annual
event coming up, we had to do
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something soon to find more help so
we couldn't have the same mistake happen again.
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So the day finally came we were
going to go out to launch me
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and the Star employee to have this
conversation. Hopefully it also just kind of
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cool the air a little bit,
because obviously there were a lot of stress
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for the whole team dealing with the
issues that we had from the bad hire.
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When we sat down, though,
I didn't just immediately start dumping on
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him. Instead, I pause and
I took a moment to get his perspective
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and see how he was doing,
and that's when I found out that they
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were totally exhausted, feeling totally underwhelmed
and under water. They did not think
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that they could handle everything that they
were doing it and they want, they
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really wanted help because they were worried. They're burning out, and so instead
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of talking about hiring, we ended
up talking about getting them a break to
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recharge and d prioritizing some of the
work that they didn't really need to do
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it, because it turns out part
of the reason their plate was full was
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because they were being overly ambitious and
they were taking on things that weren't nearly
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as high r lie as some other
things they were doing. And so we
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spent most of lunch actually talking about
that issue and helping them, as opposed
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to really hammering home anything about recruiting. And so it turns out by immediately
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pivoting to the deeper issue of overwhelm
and burn out, my team felt relieved.
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You could literally feel the tension in
the room drop. They learned they
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could also trust coming to me and
we fixed the route problem. Instead of
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symptoms that would have kept recurring.
We could have changed the hiring process and
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he still would have been overwhelmed and
feeling burnt out. What's most amazing,
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though, is towards the end of
the lunch they brought up the bad hire.
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They knew it was bad and they
talked about how they wanted to do
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better with the replacement higher and how
they actually knew the process that I was
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going to talk about and reinforce that
they needed to follow and they just didn't
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have time to do it right and
they felt guilty about it, and this
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was all admitted. UNPROMPTED, I
didn't even get a chance to bring it
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up, and that only happen because
I build trust with them and I focused
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on what was actually really important,
bothering them. And I think what's really
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telling is even a decade later,
we're still friends, we still keep in
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touch and we work together for another
year after that before I sold that company.
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And that only happened because I was
the kind of manager that trusted them
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and took the time to really listen
and pay attention to what's actually important to
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them, as opposed to just hammering
them on the mistake they made. And
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so let's let's unpackages for a second. What are the lessons for you to
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learn? Well, when you have
an issue with your team, make sure
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you check in on how their world
is going. You may find something super
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important now, and it could be
personal, it could be professional. In
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this case it was professional. He
was overwhelmed by his work, he had
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too much on his plate and we
needed to reduce his workload, but I've
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seen other cases where somebody's going through
a divorce, they just had a kid
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and they're not sleeping well, they
got injured doing something and it's extremely painful
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for them to do a certain task
or or stay focused for a certain amount
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of time. There are a million
things that can happen in people's lives and,
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especially now that we're all almost all
remote, you can't see the visual
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cues. You don't see them coming
to the office five minutes like. You
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don't see them with gigantic bags under
their eyes. Necessarily, you don't see
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them whimping to their desk because they're, you know, at home, and
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so without that context, you have
to be very careful as a manager to
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make sure that you're checking in so
they can tell you and if you do
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see small signs, ask them as
some privately. Obviously don't call them on
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a big meeting and say hey,
Joe, you look really tired, what's
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up, but you can ask that
privately in a one on one and so
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reserve judgment until you hear the full
picture, because if you make it safe
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for them to talk about issues,
you may be surprised how candid, apologetic
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and open your team may be with
you, and this is priceless. This
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is the difference between a good manager
who just seems to always have a good,
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happy team and a bad manager who's
running from fire to fire. They
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had. They can have the exact
same team and have completely different outcomes,
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because one manager is noticing issues early
on and building trust with their team to
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bring those issues up, and the
other managers waiting for disaster and only dealing
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with things when they're huge problems.
So you have to build that trust with
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them to get ahead of that and, of course, as you do,
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look for the root problem, don't
treat symptoms. Try to understand what may
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have caused that and how they ended
up in that situation. You know,
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ask why something disappointing may have happened
and give them the benefit of the doubt.
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Don't judge them. As a quote
I love on the Lighthouse blog we
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use a lot is from Injuryui,
who was the CEO Pepsi. As she
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says, you know, assume positive
intent. You know, assume that your
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team is trying their best and and
they meant well. Obviously, if you
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have an a fairies actor, you
need to get rid of them, but
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a vast, vast majority of people
all are carrying and hard working, and
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you should treat them as such until
there is overwhelming evidence that you're working with
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a psychopath or sociopath, and you
should only assume that as a last stitch
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effort when you're probably about to let
them go. So for most people,
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give them the benefit of the doubt. Work with them to understand the root
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problem. Ask What and how questions. You know what made you decide to
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take that approach. How did you
end up at that decision? How did
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that happen? And do it in
a way where you can be as blameless
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as possible initially, until you can
really get to the root and start to
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work on it. And equally important, even beyond problems, is if your
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best people tell you they're overwhelmed,
if they tell you they might be burning
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out, believe them. It's really, really hard to find replacement stars.
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If they leave because they're like,
I'm done, I need to take two
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months off and just sleep, or
I, you know, I need to
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take a sabbatical or something. Those
people aren't coming back. You've lost them,
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and so it's much better to help
them deal with overwhelm when they're first
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telling you about it. Then it
is to think they're okay and milk another
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couple of months out of them.
I have learned the hard way multiple times
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that if someone tells you they're overwhelmed, you maybe have a few weeks to
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fix it and then you're going to
lose them. And so if you hear
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that, think about how you can
lighten the load. Keep them as a
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star on your most important projects,
but try and get them off a couple
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things that maybe be ans Larry and
someone else could do just as well or
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eighty percent as good and it doesn't
matter. Also, work with them on
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prioritization. A lot of star people, especially young people, will say yes
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to everything, at which point it's
hard for them to prioritize, and so
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you want to make those priorities cleared
for them so that they know, hey,
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this is my top priority, I
need to crush this, and only
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if I have time or when I
have time should I do these other things.
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Also, look for opportunities to give
them a break. You know,
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we at most companies give out,
you know, vacation and sick days.
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If somebody looks like they're fried,
tell them to take Friday off or tell
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them take them Monday off or after
a big project ships. Tell them literally,
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I don't want to see your face
at work tomorrow. We're past the
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ship. You need to break to
recharge. Tell people to take some time
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and if they haven't taken a vacation
in twelve months or something, tell them
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to take one. They'll feel better
for it and they'll be glad you push
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them to do it, because all
of this, you know, having someone
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go away for a week, having
someone take one day off, that is
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much better than losing them entirely.
And it's too easy as a manager to
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take good people for granted and think
they'll never leave. But guess what,
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they will, and so think about
how to make it a sustainable race for
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you and your team, not not
to fry them out, but also,
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you know, we do want to
keep the caveat. You do want to
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maintain a standard. Even with my
star employee I was talking about before,
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we did ultimately talk about the recruiting
issue and we just talked about the right
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way to do it, because it
was a problem. But we fixed the
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root issue first and then when we
did hire a replacement later, we followed
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the process and that person turned out
to be awesome. So it all worked
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out, but we first fixed the
root issue and then only after that did
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we worry about the smaller lesson,
which seems so much less important. Like
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yeah, we needed to talk about
it, but it was not the most
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important conversation we had that day by
far, and it was so much easier
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for for him to hear that feedback
after we had fixed the root issue,
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because now all the tension in his
stomach was gone and we could just focus
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on yes, mechanically, you're recruiting
steps. You missed a very important,
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critical step. Let's make sure we
do that next time. Let's review it
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real quick and, oh by the
way, after the meeting I follow up
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again and helped him actually create the
assignment we would use for the new hire.
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That ended up then helping us make
sure we hired the right person.
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So in the end, next time
you have a team member the surprises you
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by coming in below your expectations with
them, remember the lesson I learned here
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and dig deeper before correcting the surface
level issues. Dig In, find out
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what's going on, read their body
language, read their faces, see what's
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actually going on in their world and
do your best accommodate and help them,
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because that's how you become a great
manager, and that's how you build high
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performing teams.
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00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.680
Ever had a star employee surprise you
by coming up short on a project or
2
00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:08.160
task? Ever find yourself caught off
card by a terrible higher and finding yourself
3
00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:12.320
doing major damage control? Early in
my career I learned a really important lesson
4
00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.280
about giving feedback and fixing problems,
and today's episode is all about it.
5
00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:21.120
You're listening to the creating high performing
teams podcast. I'm your host, Jason.
6
00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.960
You vanished ceal of Lighthouse, and
they seems to be the most actionable
7
00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:29.320
podcast on leadership and management. You'll
ever hear our goals for every episode to
8
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:32.880
tell you exactly what you can do
when you take your headphones off your ear
9
00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.840
buds out, to help you be
a better leader. And today's episode it's
10
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.920
all about getting the root problem your
team has an issue, because sometimes a
11
00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.479
problem you see is merely scratching the
surface and it's much more important to get
12
00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:50.840
to and fix the root cost.
So let's dive in. So this happened
13
00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:54.159
really earlier. My Cris was about
ten years ago. Is a past start
14
00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:57.799
up that I was running and one
of my key employees was starting to really
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00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:02.079
drop the ball. A couple projects
were late and then we decided to get
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00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:06.640
them some help, and the person
they hired was terrible. Literally would be
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00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:10.680
considered the worst hire for any company
I've ever run. They messed up so
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00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:14.879
bad we had to let them go
in under a week, and on top
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of that, we had to apologize
to customers because a lot of their mistakes
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00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:23.519
were customer facing as well. So
the the higher was supposed to make things
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better for my star team member,
but it made things worse instead, and
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I didn't know what was wrong,
but I knew we had to have a
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00:01:29.319 --> 00:01:32.480
strong conversation pastion is straighten things out. At the least I know I had
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00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:37.000
taught my star employee the hiring method
I like to use, which generally should
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00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:40.640
have filtered out exactly the problems we
saw, which were related to things like
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00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:46.040
attention to detail, fixing problems when
they're small, coming for help when you
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00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:49.359
get stuck, all those sorts of
things. None of those things happened and
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00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:55.040
we paid for it. Because of
this, we quickly parted ways with that
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00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:57.599
person, but the bigger isssue was
still at hand. You know, how
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00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:02.280
did my star team member make such
a bad hire? Using the prepare Liston
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00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:06.000
Act model, which you learned about
an episode two and if you haven't heard
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that, go back and listen to
it. I prepared a great discussion to
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have with my star team member about
how they could do better hiring and why
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we always gave people test projects and
yet somehow this person had made it through
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anyways, and with a big annual
event coming up, we had to do
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something soon to find more help so
we couldn't have the same mistake happen again.
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So the day finally came we were
going to go out to launch me
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and the Star employee to have this
conversation. Hopefully it also just kind of
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cool the air a little bit,
because obviously there were a lot of stress
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for the whole team dealing with the
issues that we had from the bad hire.
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When we sat down, though,
I didn't just immediately start dumping on
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him. Instead, I pause and
I took a moment to get his perspective
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and see how he was doing,
and that's when I found out that they
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were totally exhausted, feeling totally underwhelmed
and under water. They did not think
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that they could handle everything that they
were doing it and they want, they
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really wanted help because they were worried. They're burning out, and so instead
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of talking about hiring, we ended
up talking about getting them a break to
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recharge and d prioritizing some of the
work that they didn't really need to do
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it, because it turns out part
of the reason their plate was full was
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because they were being overly ambitious and
they were taking on things that weren't nearly
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as high r lie as some other
things they were doing. And so we
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spent most of lunch actually talking about
that issue and helping them, as opposed
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to really hammering home anything about recruiting. And so it turns out by immediately
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pivoting to the deeper issue of overwhelm
and burn out, my team felt relieved.
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You could literally feel the tension in
the room drop. They learned they
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could also trust coming to me and
we fixed the route problem. Instead of
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symptoms that would have kept recurring.
We could have changed the hiring process and
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he still would have been overwhelmed and
feeling burnt out. What's most amazing,
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though, is towards the end of
the lunch they brought up the bad hire.
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They knew it was bad and they
talked about how they wanted to do
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better with the replacement higher and how
they actually knew the process that I was
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going to talk about and reinforce that
they needed to follow and they just didn't
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have time to do it right and
they felt guilty about it, and this
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was all admitted. UNPROMPTED, I
didn't even get a chance to bring it
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up, and that only happen because
I build trust with them and I focused
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on what was actually really important,
bothering them. And I think what's really
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telling is even a decade later,
we're still friends, we still keep in
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touch and we work together for another
year after that before I sold that company.
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And that only happened because I was
the kind of manager that trusted them
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and took the time to really listen
and pay attention to what's actually important to
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them, as opposed to just hammering
them on the mistake they made. And
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so let's let's unpackages for a second. What are the lessons for you to
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learn? Well, when you have
an issue with your team, make sure
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you check in on how their world
is going. You may find something super
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important now, and it could be
personal, it could be professional. In
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this case it was professional. He
was overwhelmed by his work, he had
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too much on his plate and we
needed to reduce his workload, but I've
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seen other cases where somebody's going through
a divorce, they just had a kid
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and they're not sleeping well, they
got injured doing something and it's extremely painful
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for them to do a certain task
or or stay focused for a certain amount
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of time. There are a million
things that can happen in people's lives and,
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especially now that we're all almost all
remote, you can't see the visual
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cues. You don't see them coming
to the office five minutes like. You
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don't see them with gigantic bags under
their eyes. Necessarily, you don't see
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them whimping to their desk because they're, you know, at home, and
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so without that context, you have
to be very careful as a manager to
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make sure that you're checking in so
they can tell you and if you do
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see small signs, ask them as
some privately. Obviously don't call them on
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a big meeting and say hey,
Joe, you look really tired, what's
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up, but you can ask that
privately in a one on one and so
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reserve judgment until you hear the full
picture, because if you make it safe
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for them to talk about issues,
you may be surprised how candid, apologetic
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and open your team may be with
you, and this is priceless. This
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is the difference between a good manager
who just seems to always have a good,
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happy team and a bad manager who's
running from fire to fire. They
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had. They can have the exact
same team and have completely different outcomes,
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because one manager is noticing issues early
on and building trust with their team to
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bring those issues up, and the
other managers waiting for disaster and only dealing
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with things when they're huge problems.
So you have to build that trust with
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them to get ahead of that and, of course, as you do,
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look for the root problem, don't
treat symptoms. Try to understand what may
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have caused that and how they ended
up in that situation. You know,
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ask why something disappointing may have happened
and give them the benefit of the doubt.
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Don't judge them. As a quote
I love on the Lighthouse blog we
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use a lot is from Injuryui,
who was the CEO Pepsi. As she
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says, you know, assume positive
intent. You know, assume that your
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team is trying their best and and
they meant well. Obviously, if you
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have an a fairies actor, you
need to get rid of them, but
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a vast, vast majority of people
all are carrying and hard working, and
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you should treat them as such until
there is overwhelming evidence that you're working with
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a psychopath or sociopath, and you
should only assume that as a last stitch
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effort when you're probably about to let
them go. So for most people,
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give them the benefit of the doubt. Work with them to understand the root
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problem. Ask What and how questions. You know what made you decide to
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take that approach. How did you
end up at that decision? How did
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that happen? And do it in
a way where you can be as blameless
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as possible initially, until you can
really get to the root and start to
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work on it. And equally important, even beyond problems, is if your
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best people tell you they're overwhelmed,
if they tell you they might be burning
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out, believe them. It's really, really hard to find replacement stars.
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If they leave because they're like,
I'm done, I need to take two
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months off and just sleep, or
I, you know, I need to
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take a sabbatical or something. Those
people aren't coming back. You've lost them,
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and so it's much better to help
them deal with overwhelm when they're first
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telling you about it. Then it
is to think they're okay and milk another
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couple of months out of them.
I have learned the hard way multiple times
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that if someone tells you they're overwhelmed, you maybe have a few weeks to
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fix it and then you're going to
lose them. And so if you hear
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that, think about how you can
lighten the load. Keep them as a
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star on your most important projects,
but try and get them off a couple
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things that maybe be ans Larry and
someone else could do just as well or
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eighty percent as good and it doesn't
matter. Also, work with them on
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prioritization. A lot of star people, especially young people, will say yes
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to everything, at which point it's
hard for them to prioritize, and so
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you want to make those priorities cleared
for them so that they know, hey,
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this is my top priority, I
need to crush this, and only
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if I have time or when I
have time should I do these other things.
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Also, look for opportunities to give
them a break. You know,
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we at most companies give out,
you know, vacation and sick days.
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If somebody looks like they're fried,
tell them to take Friday off or tell
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them take them Monday off or after
a big project ships. Tell them literally,
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I don't want to see your face
at work tomorrow. We're past the
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ship. You need to break to
recharge. Tell people to take some time
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and if they haven't taken a vacation
in twelve months or something, tell them
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to take one. They'll feel better
for it and they'll be glad you push
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them to do it, because all
of this, you know, having someone
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go away for a week, having
someone take one day off, that is
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much better than losing them entirely.
And it's too easy as a manager to
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take good people for granted and think
they'll never leave. But guess what,
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they will, and so think about
how to make it a sustainable race for
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you and your team, not not
to fry them out, but also,
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you know, we do want to
keep the caveat. You do want to
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maintain a standard. Even with my
star employee I was talking about before,
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we did ultimately talk about the recruiting
issue and we just talked about the right
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way to do it, because it
was a problem. But we fixed the
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root issue first and then when we
did hire a replacement later, we followed
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the process and that person turned out
to be awesome. So it all worked
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out, but we first fixed the
root issue and then only after that did
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we worry about the smaller lesson,
which seems so much less important. Like
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yeah, we needed to talk about
it, but it was not the most
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important conversation we had that day by
far, and it was so much easier
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for for him to hear that feedback
after we had fixed the root issue,
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because now all the tension in his
stomach was gone and we could just focus
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on yes, mechanically, you're recruiting
steps. You missed a very important,
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critical step. Let's make sure we
do that next time. Let's review it
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real quick and, oh by the
way, after the meeting I follow up
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again and helped him actually create the
assignment we would use for the new hire.
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That ended up then helping us make
sure we hired the right person.
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So in the end, next time
you have a team member the surprises you
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by coming in below your expectations with
them, remember the lesson I learned here
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and dig deeper before correcting the surface
level issues. Dig In, find out
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what's going on, read their body
language, read their faces, see what's
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actually going on in their world and
do your best accommodate and help them,
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because that's how you become a great
manager, and that's how you build high
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performing teams.
