Adam Strong: Every time your team brings you a problem and you solve it, you teach them one thing. I'll take care of everything. Then you wonder why you can't take the weekend off. So my guest today has spent her, her career researching why smart operators keep building their own prisons. She's the bestselling author of Leading Yourself. also wrote a course which is called Leading Yourself,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: day.
Adam Strong: And it's had over 2 million download the course and take it, we have the amazing Elizabeth Lotardo here on the show. And we have a lot of mutual and connections in leadership and management realm, So Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, thanks for having me, Adam, and thanks for such a great introduction. I love the framing of build your own prisons. It's a little bit more transparent than what I usually say, but it's quite accurate.
Adam Strong: It is pretty accurate, isn't it? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to today's show it's really interesting because, I mean, your background, that you're a researcher, aren't you? And, in, think it's organizational psychology, if I'm not mistaken, is that right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Correct, I have a background in industrial and organizational psychology. I got my master's in that with a focus on employee engagement. And I'm currently a fellow at the Harvard Medical School Institute of Coaching. It's focused on consulting, executive coaching, all the nerdy ways to say, how do we make work less bad?
Adam Strong: Very good. Excellent. love that. I think we've got an expert in the house. so before we kind of get into the juicy stuff or stuff, I'd love to ⁓ kind of know a little bit more, our listeners. I'd love to know more about, before the research, before the book, what was the What pulled you into this fascination of. operator leadership kind of ⁓ blockages, you want to call it that. I'd love to know more about that.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, there wasn't a big clouds parting moment like there are for a lot of researchers, right? So I can't tell you this amazing story about how I was five and I always wanted to study why people spend so much time on the phone. It wasn't like that for me. So I started my career in communications. I worked at an ad agency and I had a really bad experience at work. I burned out really quickly. I felt the work was very transactional. And so like most, you know, mid 20 somethings and emotional crisis, I went to grad school to study, um, um,
Adam Strong: Yeah. Right.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: organizational psychology and sort of unpack why my experience was not what I wanted it to be and why so many of my friends had that same experience. And in that research with a focus on employee engagement, I started to extrapolate out some skills that enabled people to engage themselves to make the most of a bad situation skills that I didn't innately have, but I was fascinated by them because they seemed really important. And that bedrock of skills became the base for my LinkedIn learning course and then my book, Leading Yourself. How do you as an individual chart your own path regardless of what's going on around you? And as I started to get traction with leading yourself in 2018, 2019, when it really started to take off in numbers, I was being called into organizations to speak about the power of self leadership and constantly hearing from leaders. I want my team to step up. I want them to really own it. And I thought, okay, cool, perfect. Like I can teach that. I know all the skills to do that. And then as I started to get deeper, I realized there was this hidden underbelly of the problem and that was an operator that was enabling dependency. So the very person who hired me who said, I want my team to own their own problems was the same person who was picking up all those problems. The second they got a little bit loud, the same person who brought me in and said, I want my team to feel empowered was the same person that would step in the second there was a challenge. And I saw this dynamic play out how desperately operators wanted true partners in their business, how they wanted their team to feel empowered and self-led, but they kept sort of shooting their own foot to use a very American expression in the execution of that and getting in the way of the self-leadership skills they were hoping to see in their team. So that's what took me down the leadership path and ultimately studying why operators build their own prisons to reflect your words back.
Adam Strong: You're going to remember that one. It sounds very contradictory,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I am.
Adam Strong: now the first thing that kind of springs to my mind it's really interesting because you've studied organizational and now I have a real big fascination in psychology myself. And I, and I, one of the questions often comes up in my mind is really questioning why we do what we do, right? whether it's based on certain behaviors, certain actions or whatever it might be. What are some of the common beliefs that a founder or a CEO tends to tell themselves? You know, will it be around excuses ⁓ certain reasoning as to why they act or they believe in a certain way as to based on the topic of what we're talking about today.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So I'll zoom in on what beliefs are sort of driving the behavior to oversolve, right? Is that the basis of your question to jump in, to take it all on, to not leave space? To me, there are three beliefs driving that behavior and they're all well-intended. The first is usually the leader cares a lot. They're usually a founder. They care deeply about the future of the business. They are more exposed than their employees typically financially if they are a founder. So the first is just they care a lot. The second is they don't want their teams to have bad experiences. Again, this is a well-intended belief. They don't want their team to feel frustrated. They don't want their team to feel under supported. They don't want their team carrying the weight of this. So they step in. And the third is still well-intended, borderline, which is no one can solve it better than me. And then fortunate part of that is it's often true. The reckoning that a founder particularly has to make, that an operator has to make is, is the trade off worth it in the-
Adam Strong: You know, it's really interesting. those three belief systems, cause I think you're right. think that, I, again, we're all wired in slightly different ways. Like we've all got different personalities. We all got different leadership styles in the way that we want to build our companies. Um, whether it be small company, big company, whatever it might be. And you know, it's really interesting. I mean, we, we just. really briefly touched on it, which is like what's the detrimental effect, the knock-on effects to those pillars or those three verticals? I'd to talk about that because there must be quite a few.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: course, I started that umbrella statement with this is a well-intended mentality, right? Someone who is really emotionally invested and cares a lot, someone who doesn't want their team to suffer, and someone who believes to some degree accurately that they are the fastest, easiest person to solve the problem. I think the consequence of that belief is not immediate, and that's why it happens. Because if I am your boss, right, and I'm this operator, I'm a go-getter, I know this business inside and out. it's mine and I take a problem from you, the short term, we probably both feel better. I like the business is protected. I feel like I made you happy because now you don't have a big, hairy problem to deal with. And I feel like this got solved quickly. You feel good too because you feel like, know, Elizabeth, she's such a nice boss. She took this big, hairy problem off my plate. So supportive. But in the long term, the summation of that, the compound of that dynamic is really detrimental because in the long term as a founder, I'm going to burn out. I'm going to feel alone. I'm going to feel like I can't scale and you as my employee, while you don't have big hairy problems to deal with, you're going to feel like you're not empowered, like you're not valued, like you can't do anything around here, like your career is not developing in the way you wanted to, which is the long term price. And again, in the immediate term, We feel neutral or even good, both of us, in this dynamic. But in the long term, we're both going to feel good.
Adam Strong: I want to pick up the third one, which is no one can do it better than anybody else. And it, ⁓ honestly, I, ⁓ it's, it's a common system. The other two, not so much, ⁓ but I do believe that do exist. But often when you ⁓ read about leadership pieces or of content, you know, it stems back to no one can do it better than, than I can. Right. Which is. You know, I guess it can be seen as negative. It's more seen as negative. Whereas the other two are kind of more seen as. Well, it seemed more as positive. Do you see what I mean? And I guess in a way it's kind of like, you know, negativity kind of grabs the headlines type of thing. Do you see what I mean?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: see what you mean. And I said when I went through the three that that third one is a little bit gray area. What I think it's twisted in that narrative is all these operators, all these founders saying no one can solve this problem better than me. And the traditional leadership pushback is that's not true. But in my opinion, they're probably right. No one can solve the problem faster and as good as you. But the price to continually solving might be steeper than the disconnect.
Adam Strong: I cannot tell you how many conversations that I've had with really, they look successful on you know, really successful founders. And a really good example this is a legal firm actually ⁓ in London. have a seven figure Love the founder. Like we have really good energy together and stuff like that. ⁓ Literally she flies around like a blue-arsed fly and, and literally does everything. And the thing is, is that what's really interesting about that that the team members that approach me and know straight away, like she does everything. And I'm of like thinking to myself that they seem content about it. And it's like. Well, but you're not getting it. It's like, content, you're happy with that. But when does it get to a point when you're not happy with it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It absolutely makes sense and I obviously haven't met the founder or the team you're talking to, but generally the research tells us it's correlative to performance and ambition. Low performers and people who are not ambitious are quite content to have someone run around solving their own problems. ⁓ High performers who are driven in their careers less so, or at least they have a shorter window of time they're willing to tolerate on it without.
Adam Strong: Yeah. ⁓ it's really interesting and she has a really highly motivated team and everything like that. But I guess they'll get to a point, like you said, ⁓ long-term detrimental effects further on down the line is probably going to have a knock on to performance, motivation, intrinsic motivation, and things like that, guess, isn't it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Absolutely, if you constantly have a boss running around solving your problems, the boss is always the one coming up with the ideas, the boss is always the one doing it perfectly, why would you attempt to do it at 95 %? Right? That's just exposure.
Adam Strong: Exactly. 100%. What does, ⁓ I mean, your, your background in, a researcher, like what does this, what does the science say about the operator's mindset? Is it, is it a behavior change problem? Is it a lack of intelligence? Is it a mindset blockage? ⁓ have you discovered as part of that?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Behavior as part of it, mindset as part of it. I won't say it's lack of intelligence, potentially lack of awareness is probably as gnarly of an insult as I would give to that. The research behind this mentality ⁓ usually correlated to the research of a high performer. And there was a really famous book from Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, right? And some of that is connected to the very dynamic we're discussing.
Adam Strong: Right. my sick.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What got a founder to have a firm, to have a team, to have revenue is the very behavior that often holds them back from scaling. The tendency to over solve, the tendency to get in front of the problem, the tendency to be always on, willing to do whatever it takes. That very behavior that got them to the place where they are is often what holds them back from building a business that scales without their effort.
Adam Strong: So you mentioned around the lack of self-awareness. What are some of the things that, if we, if if we have a listener here nodding their head thinking, yeah, that's me. I'm a high performer. I'm a doer. ⁓ What do you do like from a practical exercise perspective?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Plus one for your
Adam Strong: with these high performance, like how do you, how do you shift that mindset? Where does it begin? Like what's the journey? What's the breakdown? What's the framework?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So if you're listening to this and you think, hmm, that might be me, right? I might be over solving. I might be stepping over my team to a degree that's not being helpful. The first step is to give yourself some behavioral evidence because what we're talking about in terms of a mindset shift is not easy. You've built your whole career on being a high performer, someone who gets out in front of problems and someone who gets these things done. So you're going to have to have a lot of evidence to shift your behavior, right? And the best form of evidence that you can give is when someone comes to you with a problem, right? Your employee, they come to you in a one-on-one, they flag you down right when you get to the office and they tell you all about it and you say nothing. Under the surface, where does the problem lie? Does it lie with you or does it lie with them? And pay attention to their energy when they're telling you this, right? Are they filling you in? In which case, you know, that's just what a good employee does or Are they subtly passing the problem to you? And at the end of that conversation, who is the expected owner of the problem? And just make a study for a couple of weeks, for a couple of months of yourself, your interactions, and where the problems end up. And if they are always assumptively landing on you, you have enough data at your back to sustain yourself in the behavior change.
Adam Strong: Okay, good. So evidence is always a good idea because that kind of then it kind of dictates rationale, doesn't it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Right, because you're trying to overwire a tendency that made you successful up until now, right? So we can't do this based on one podcast episode. You're going to have to have some personal data.
Adam Strong: Agreed. Okay, is there any other steps?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I think getting a handle on that is the first step and an easy layup that I wrote about in an HBR piece. If you want to start shifting responsibility back to your team is to ask, what have you tried? This is a foundational coaching question. Michael Buggy Cider wrote about it in his book that what have you tried questioned as a couple of things. First, it services. Did they actually try something? The answer might surprise you either way. They may have tried three things and none of them worked and there's more ownership than you thought. Or they might have not tried anything and thought, well, this is a problem, so I brought it to you. What do you mean? What did I try? So that question tells you where on the spectrum your team is at present in terms of ownership and self initiative. The second thing it does is over time builds the expectation that they should try something. Even if the first couple of answers are ⁓ yet, like kind of surprised by that question. ⁓ If you continue to ask what have you tried, over time, tries will be had before the issue comes to you. And even if they're not successful, that is a shift in the right direction in terms of passing some ownership and some initiative onto your team.
Adam Strong: Cause I know that I think I read a piece on your, your LinkedIn profile. think there were five questions. Wasn't there? If I remember rightly, is that correct?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: There are. There are. That's number one.
Adam Strong: Okay, let's do the other four.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so the other four questions, let's go to number two. What or who is getting in the way of tackling this? If your employee comes to you with a problem that they've been unable to solve by themselves, they need to at least be able to articulate why. Maybe it's a budget constraint. Maybe it's, this department never signs off on anything. Maybe it's, I'm too nervous to call this client by myself and you're going to be better at it. Get to the root of what is holding back the solve. to reverse that dynamic a little bit. And that question, who or what is getting in the way with the way of you solving this is again, conveying that subtle message of expectation, this is your system.
Adam Strong: love that some good stuff. Absolutely. I'm ready. Sorry, I was waking I make notes, ladies and gentlemen, by the way, I should have told you guys this at the very beginning, make sure you got your notebook and pen handy because honestly, what we get what we're delivering is a masterclass, and if
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: All three? All right. ⁓ I can send you the article link, Adam. Maybe we can put it in the show notes so people don't have to get out there quilling.
Adam Strong: We'll put that in the show notes, don't worry. Absolutely, 100%. Yeah, go ahead, number three.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: All right, question three, what would you do if you were in my seat? The reason I love this question is it builds problem solving skills over time. it makes some appreciation ⁓ to the fore for the problem solver. I'll tell you a dynamic I see so often inside of my clients is the leader takes on the problem, right? There's this big hairy customer issue, for example, and they stay late. They look at all angles of the problem. They research the problem. They think about potential solves to the problem. They call the customer and they eventually solve the problem. And their team witnessed none of that. Right? Their team just sent their problem into the magical void of the leader's office where it always gets solved and who knows how and who knows to what degree of effort, but it always comes out solved. So this question of what would you do if you were in my seat makes problem solving visible. It prompts employees to think through some of the trade-offs to realize how much work it's gonna take to solve this problem and to over time replicate that thinking independently. So that question invites them in instead of letting the transfer happen and kind of like a, let me dump this on your desk format.
Adam Strong: I love that. It's kind of like, you know, taking this and then giving it to somebody else and getting them to think about it. It's taking this. ⁓ like this trade of ownership to somebody else.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And even if they're not solving it, even if they don't know what they would do if you were in, if they were in your seat, it makes problem solving visible in a way that it is often not when the default is to dump the problem on the leaders.
Adam Strong: Yep, I love that. Some good stuff. Very good one. All right, number four.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What support do you need? I'll tell you, this is very different than the well-intended leader question of how can I support you or what support do you need from me? What this question does is open up the potential avenues of support. Instead of just me, your leader helping you, do you need some professional development in this area? Do you need money to solve this problem? Do you need the help of another department? Would they be better at solving this problem than I? be as the leader. That question, what support you need, puts the onus on the employee to identify the support that's lacking and it widens the aperture beyond the leader being the sole support, which is so often the trap in founder led businesses.
Adam Strong: love that. It's a really good perspective. And I love the way that you've reframed the question regards to what's up. And what I one thing that I've noticed here is they're all open ended questions. ⁓ right, cool. What's number five?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: There's no yes or no in there. There's really nowhere to hide. You have to think. Well, you know, I just kind of shot myself in the foot with there's no no because number five, the fifth question that I coach leaders on is, is there anything else I should know? And the reason this is last is because in absence of the other four, if you are in this pattern of being the problem solver, if it is assumed you will take up the big hairy thing and solve it in a vacuum and no one has to deal with the consequences, asking, is there anything else I should know?
Adam Strong: hahahaha ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: still expected that you're going to solve it, right? If you ask that question alone, it's not quite enough to shift the dynamic. But if you ask that question last, that's why it's number five, or if you ask that question after a few months of what have you tried, what's getting in the way, what support do you need, that question can differentiate between is this employee bringing me a problem to solve ⁓ are they just making sure I'm in the loop and I'm not blindsided by it? And oftentimes leaders who fall victim to this over solving behavior, they miss the times that their employees didn't actually want them to solve the problem. They just didn't want them to be surprised. So that question can help you differentiate between what really is asking for your involvement versus what's keeping you.
Adam Strong: Love it. Some good stuff there. I had a thought actually around this whole kind of this mindset of I to do things. I want to do it because it's quicker and easier do it myself, This element of control. And my thought was, is it because I actually don't want to lose control or the fear of losing Or is it? the fact that I'm actually addicted to having that control. And I'm sure that you probably studied the two in terms, you know, if, if, if, if it is an addiction of not being able to, go or whatever it might be, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to defrate if it is fear or if it's an addiction.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I would say it's probably both. in every addiction, there's an undercurrent of fear. In every fear, there's an undercurrent of addiction, right? If you're addicted to keeping control, the fear is that I'm gonna lose it. If you're afraid you're going to lose control, the overcompensating behavior is to maintain all control. So I think those two are closely connected and addiction is a loaded word. And I think, like I said, a lot of these people who fall victim to this behavior trap. They have the best of intentions. They want to build a successful business. They want to build a team that feels empowered and supported and capable of solving problems. And too much of a good thing lands us in this tricky dynamic. So some of both, and I think it's an important question. And if you're listening and you're sitting with that question, you're feeling a little bit unease, you might have a dash of one side of that or both.
Adam Strong: When I think of the word addiction, ⁓ come across like the assumption can come across as quite kind of negative, right? ⁓ Because you're addicted to something, it's generally not seen as healthy if you do think of much of, ⁓ and then when we think about fear, we don't want as leaders, we don't want it to. be judgmental. ⁓ I guess it depends on the different, different prospects. Does that that make sense?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It does. And we're getting into kind of a hairy psyche assessment. But beneath all of this, to me, are a couple of driving factors. And it goes back to those three things that we talked about in the beginning. And they inform this fear and addiction element of it too, right? The desire to build a business that is great. The desire to have people supported, empowered, and the recognition that in a lot of cases in the near term, you are the best solve.
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And to not dismiss that opens the door to actual long-term behavior change. So often it's like, ⁓ they could solve it just as well. That's probably not true, to be honest. Most founders are exceptional solvers. They know the business better than anyone and they care more, but it's not sustainable for anybody.
Adam Strong: Yeah, I agree. for one thing that I have observed, especially operator led businesses that have been around for, I don't know, 20, 25 years, they were all stuck in their ways. And I'm sure that you've come across, they know that there is a problem and They've been, so difficult for them to change. how you help someone is ⁓ so stuck in their ways? in a way they, they, again, it's kind of going back to this belief system of why should I change? there's this chicken and egg situation they know if, if they do change something. It's there's going to be a positive, but then the counteract to that is, I want to resort back to my comfort zone. for those that are listening that have got that established business, they've been in that operator mindset for such a long period of time. And they're trying to break the cycle. Cause it's tough for them. Like they've been in it for so long. Um,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It is. Yeah, and the longer you're in it, the more your employees feed into it, right? There's a cycle with them involved too. It's not just you. So you're having to retrain yourself and you're having to retrain your employees too subconsciously because they don't know you're getting an executive coach or listening to a podcast or whatever you're doing. So I have kind of a contrarian approach to this in my executive coaching clients. And when I ask people to do, because I wrestle with this a lot, an over-functioning founder and over-functioning operator who's tired of people not picking up the ball, is I ask them, to chart out the worst case scenario for letting a few things go. And I asked them to chart out the worst case scenario for continuing to solve everyone else's problems. And what founders often find and operators often find is in the near term, they're about even.
Adam Strong: ⁓ I like that. You
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: The worst case scenario for letting people solve problems is they make some mistakes, a few things slip, there's some deadline misses and lose a client. The worst case scenario in the near term for continuing to solve is, I'm still gonna be tired. I can't go on vacation, but I've survived up until now, so who's to say? So it's a wash and that's why behavior change doesn't stick. But when you push it to the long term and we say, okay, let's play this out. That's what happens in three months. What happens in three years if this dynamic continues? I can give you some general principles. High performers will not be staying on your team. High performers don't want to work for a leader who constantly oversolves. They want space. They want to be empowered. They want to learn and grow even at the expense of some misses. So you'll lose all your high performers and you won't be able to attract more either. ⁓ side, you will be three years deeper. into perpetual burnout and loneliness with a less capable teen than you have now. Is that incentive enough to change behavior? And usually in the long-term it is. The reason we don't is that long-term picture isn't clear enough in most cases. ⁓
Adam Strong: I'm going to push back on something here and it's really interesting. I've, I had a, I remember this conversation about going back about three years ago. I a ⁓ founder an IT company ⁓ and he'd been his business for like 20 years. Right. So, really nice chap, man all that kind of stuff. And we just have this open conversation and I just kind of, I just, I just basically said, so when are you exiting your business type thing, right? ⁓ I can't exit my business. went, why is that? goes, said me, Elizabeth, said, he said, because I don't trust anyone else. ⁓ went, do mean you don't trust anybody else? He goes, he said, yeah, cause no one's going to work harder than me. No one knows better than business than me that I don't, I don't trust it. And I'm like, well, If you carry around with that belief system, of course it must be true. it was just really interesting here, going back to what you said. There are, I know for a fact that there will be listeners here that have that belief system. What do you say to people like that?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: probably right. No one's gonna want it more, no one's gonna work harder, and no one's gonna care as much as you do. You're right.
Adam Strong: Yeah. and I guess, ⁓ I guess there's no way around it because there's no point in trying to change someone if they don't want to change, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Right, you're right. I wouldn't push back on that at all. That's true. What I would suggest is that with the right coaching and the right behavior change from you as a leader, you could get a good team to 90%. And what would that do for you?
Adam Strong: I that because, there are some really interesting out and they've got wonderful businesses, but my God, you just kind of step back. again, it's not like I'm there to judge people, but I kind of think to myself, like, I don't quite, you want, you want something, whether it be, ⁓ you they want to achieve something big. or they want to make an impact yet they're contradictory in their actions. Do you see what I mean?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Kind of, and that's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to push back on a founder who says, no one's going to care about this as much as I do. Duh, you started the business. You put yourself on the line. You had everything to lose. of course no one's going to care about this as much as you do. And to wait until someone does before you take a vacation, you're never going to take a vacation. But again, to the suggestion of you can get a good group of people to care a lot.
Adam Strong: You Exactly.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And that is more scalable and more sustainable.
Adam Strong: When does like what does ownership and accountability look like to small business owner? Like what ⁓ if is ⁓ been an owner operator mindset, you know, for such a long period of time, they are now ready to change. do you kind of like guide people in terms of setting up certain ⁓ protocols down the line?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So I'll tell you, I keynote most on my book, Leading Yourself, for an employee-based audience, not necessarily a founder, operator-based audience. This conversation we're having about how founders kind of sabotage that is the behind the curtain, like, hey, I just hyped your team up to be empowered. Like, don't blow it. That's an executive coaching piece. But empowerment and accountability. It touches both sides of those and I'll use your word ownership. One of my clients told me I was like the extreme ownership guy, but way nicer and more encouraging. And I felt like that was such a great summation of my work because I do believe in self leadership at all levels and being accountable to yourself, no matter if your behavior changes small, like coming prepared to your one-on-ones or if your behavior changes big, like trying to get over some of these over solving tendencies that happen. highest level of leadership. And wherever you are on that spectrum, whatever level you are in the organization, whatever scale your behavior change, your targeted behavior change is, it comes down to clear trackable steps. If you say, well, I'm going to stop solving my team's problems for them. That podcast really landed with me and I'm going to stop it. You're not going to be successful. If you say, I am going to say, what have you tried? Every single time someone brings me a problem and I'm going to keep a check mark, a list of how many times I asked that question. And if I don't ask it at least 20 times a week, I'm failing because I know more than 20 problems are brought to me every week. And that is going to be the accountability metric I hold myself to. We have to extrapolate these mindset shifts, these leadership principles, this sort of big hairy emotional mess into trackable behaviors, because only when we fall short on something like a clear metric where there's nowhere to hide, like you kind of did or you didn't do it, there's not, tried, well did it a little. That's when you can really, to use your words, have ownership and hold yourself accountable. It's much more effective in driving behavior change.
Adam Strong: With regards to the trackable results that you're talking about, what that look like? Is that like you get to write a worksheet or something like that? What does that look like in principle?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: think that really depends on how each leader works. Whether you have a worksheet, whether you're a digital native, whatever system you are using to track the other metrics that are crucially important to your business, whatever dashboard you're working with, whether it's a stack of Excel sheets every Friday, wherever you're getting your bar on, I being successful here? Add to that. We're not going to come up with a new system. I'm going to make you carry around a worksheet if you're always on.
Adam Strong: I went into kind of give you a of a heads up because you know that I love doing the coaching part of the session, right? So I've, yeah, I know, right. But actually I just had some really great thought processes. So for you guys that listening in, if you're a new listener, what we do in the last third of the session,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I gave away all my questions.
Adam Strong: is we go into coaching mode. That means Elizabeth's going to coach me, right? I'm the student, she's the teacher. Great. based on today's topic, of course, ⁓ And I you to imagine ⁓ that she sitting ⁓ on a next to you. I want you imagine she's you right now. But more importantly, I want you to think about just what she's saying. I want you to Really think about how you can challenge certain belief systems that you have yourself and how it can be, how it can apply to you. So let's get Absolutely. ⁓ ⁓ let give some here because for many years, I have been an owner operator business. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: The scene is set.
Adam Strong: as most management consultants generally are. there are certain belief that I have. And we touched on a couple of them today, but I feel very personal ⁓ about them. my belief is that I think probably the reason why companies, including myself, plateau.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Mm-hmm.
Adam Strong: You know, business only plateaus because of the person that steers the ship type of thing works in a particular way. think there's strong correlations to that. Now don't really have the fear of judgment embedded into my DNA, but I do have a couple of beliefs that I feel like probably needs to be challenged. So I'd like you to challenge them. The first challenge and the belief system that I have is it's quicker and easier to do it all myself. one can do it better than me. ⁓ believe or not, I still have that belief system a lot of the time.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, first of all, I'll say you're probably the most self-aware executive coaching client I've ever had. I have these core sets of beliefs and I need you to challenge me. We a few months with that level of self-awareness.
Adam Strong: Thank you. you. I appreciate that. We did, we did, we did.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So let's get into core belief number one, no one can do it as good as you write as good as fast, whatever it is. You're probably right.
Adam Strong: Okay.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Why do you want to change?
Adam Strong: Well, I think that's a really good question. I, I remember, the way, I haven't mentioned this. Me and Marshall Goldsmith did a, did a coaching. This was, going a couple of years back and it really interesting. It was entertaining because he knows that my, ⁓ my is in, is in elite athletics. Right. So elite sport and, And his thing was all around, but Adam can, you can do it better than anybody else. Can you Adam? No, you can't Adam. And things like that. And that was this kind of egotistical point of me that I never even knew that I had, but clearly I do. what do I want to change? I want to be able to, what's word I'm looking for? I want to be able to trust myself and I want to be able to... I want to be able to make sure that the decisions that I make not good for the business, but it's ⁓ good around.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: If you want to be able to trust yourself, where do you feel like that lack of trust is showing up? Do you feel like you're not making good decisions? You're making too many decisions? I'm sensing there's two different problems here, right? You don't trust anyone else to make decisions, but you also just said you don't trust yourself.
Adam Strong: Well, I think I feel like I have this sense of responsibility and the responsibility, obviously, when you built a business for many years and you tried and tested a lot of things, you go through this experimentation and things like that, this respond, this kind of burden of responsibility, if you want to call it that, because it is, it's like a burden you carry around. I feel like I'd like to be able to. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay.
Adam Strong: Delegate some of that burden or that responsibility to somebody else. I just don't know how
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so you don't trust yourself to delegate effectively and you don't trust the other party to pick up whatever you've delegated. Is that accurate?
Adam Strong: Yeah, I would say, I would say that's a good, that's a good, that's a good description. Yes.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: When you say you have a burden of responsibility, responsibility to who?
Adam Strong: Very good question. Responsibility to clients, responsibility ⁓ Not just my clients, but yeah, I suppose it's my clients is the main one.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Not your employees.
Adam Strong: Not so much. would say my clients more. Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so to set our scene, you feel a huge amount of responsibility to your clients. You don't trust yourself enough to delegate the right things and you don't trust the people you're delegating them to. Is that fair to say on balance?
Adam Strong: I mean, I wouldn't say that I don't have any trust in my team. That's not what I'm saying. I'd say that it's limited, it could be, but it could be better, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, we can work on that. It could be better. Well, based on what you said, I think the trust in you can be better too. So we're gonna work on parallel tracks. Let me ask you a question. happens if things keep staying the way they are? Do you feel like you're not fulfilling your burden of responsibility to your clients? Who's suffering? What's the incentive to change?
Adam Strong: Okay. think if ⁓ stays the same, then nothing changes. That's obviously, you know, that's obvious. But, well, the is, you know, I have these kind of epiphany moments where I kind of feel like... And it's every few years, Elizabeth, go through these, I don't know,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What's wrong with that?
Adam Strong: self-reflective episodes in my life where I think to myself, is this all life can give me? Like, how can I make it massive change, massive improvement? And I really have to get out of my comfort zone to do that. So I think in answer to your question is I'd like to become I'd like to be more, but I'd to have a bigger impact further down the line.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so there is something at stake. The reason I ask is on keeping on is a perfectly fine path for a lot of people. But if there is something at stake and you want to scale, we're going to have to overcome two things based on what I'm hearing. We're going to have to overcome the doubt you have in yourself on your ability to pick and choose what to delegate. And we're going to have to overcome the, your generous framing, little bit of doubt you have in your team to be able to pick up the ball and execute it well.
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What I will push back on is where we started in this conversation of no one's going to do it as fast and as good as me. That's accurate. No one's going to do it as fast and as good as you, especially at first. So we're going to have to work with a little bit of runway and have some tolerance for growing pains if we want this dynamic to change and to get to that place of making a bigger impact that you see and that you feel called to. Fair? So the first experiment we're going to do is this. Over the next week, I'm going to
Adam Strong: Yeah. Sounds good.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: ask you to keep a little mental tally, not a mental tally, a physical tally. You can keep it in your phone, you can keep it on your computer, you can keep it on a sticky note, wherever you can take notes of how many times people bring you a problem. And by problem, I mean a client issue, a logistics issue, a billing issue, a money problem. How many times are you delivered a problem?
Adam Strong: Hmm. ⁓ think it's probably quite high actually. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Do you have a prediction before we get started? It's usually over 100 for liters in your seat.
Adam Strong: Ooh, wow, that's I mean, in a week, wouldn't say I think it depends on how busy we are. ⁓ mean, to me, it feels like a lot.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It's only 20 a day. You know, you're down to two or three an hour. I think that's a fair assessment. It feels like a lot. probably is a lot. And I'll tell you the reason I'm asking you to keep track of these things. Because I know it's a lot, just based on this conversation. And we need to have a metric of success for this. It can't be, I feel a little better. It can't be, I'm a little more trusting. We need to get that number over the course of this engagement down. We're gonna try and cut it by at least a third, hopefully half. Because that metric,
Adam Strong: Okay. Mm-hmm.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: will be evidence of two things. It will be evidence that you are trusting yourself enough to delegate problems, and it will be evidence that your team is capable of picking them up and sustaining that behavior change. And if that number isn't changing over the course of a couple of months, we know we have a different problem than we thought. Fair?
Adam Strong: Sounds good. I guess my, my, my, my thought that came to my mind was, okay, that sounds wonderful. My only doubt would be is, that, is, it would be in my team because I've been taking the big responsibility for a long period of time. My, ⁓ my would be is, do they want to take the burden? I guess I, I guess the only way to answer that question is ask them, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: would caution you against asking them directly. We're going to make a conclusion based on behavior change. And that's one of the reasons why I really think this metric tracking exercise is an important one. Because if you do your part and this number doesn't move, it means we might have a team problem. And to your point, they might not be the right team to step up to take ownership. Maybe there's some marketing to do there. Have them at your team? I don't know. But this number is going to give us a good starting point in terms of the baseline.
Adam Strong: I was going to say. Okay.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And if we see that number starting to move, it is evidence of two things, that you are letting go of some things and that your team is in fact picking up the ball and running with it. Asking someone, do you want to take ownership? First of all, everyone's going to say yes, because no one wants to be the person that tells their boss, no, I don't want any ownership, especially in this economy. based on what you've described in the pattern of behavior, they don't really know what that looks like yet. So we need to work on your part.
Adam Strong: Makes sense.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: in defining what ownership looks like and what problems can be best solved at the teammate level versus brought to you. But the only way we're going to know where we're starting with is to get a handle on what the volume is.
Adam Strong: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a really good question. so I, that's a really good exercise. I think that's, ⁓ for you guys that listening in, the way, that's an excellent exercise to start the, last thought process that came to my mind is once I've got the metrics, once I've collected some data, based on what you just said, I guess then my next question would be is, okay, well, if I'm not directly approaching them, and saying, Hey guys, I need some support. And I guess I then need to evaluate if the people, if the people in my team are in a position where they can either support me or not support me. And I guess that will then be, cause people get stuck in their ways, don't they? We're human beings. We're kind of creatures of habit type of thing, you know? So yeah, I guess that would be, my question would be is what would be after we've collected the data? How do I then evaluate if those are the right people?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So we're going to have our number at the front end, how many problems are being dumped on your desk, and that is our number we're trying to get down. And then we will move into subtly pushing back on some of this problem dumping, and we're going to collect data based on how your team responds. So you're going to use this series of five questions that we just talked about in this podcast episode to kind of break this through little bit for us all. And we're going to let your people tell us in how they respond to those questions.
Adam Strong: Yep. Very good. Mm-hmm.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And it's not gonna be an overnight shift because we're gonna give people credit. They've been working to you for a long time. They wanna please you. They know your default dorms is behavior change takes time. But if you diligently deploy these five questions and you see after 90 days, no evidence of behavior change, then we might have a team problem, but we're not gonna jump there yet.
Adam Strong: Yep. Cool. Sounds good. that is a useful exercise, not just for myself, but for a lot of our listeners, especially if they want to get out of the operator ⁓ trap, if you want to call it that. so thank you much. First of all. I really appreciate that.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: A nice, very mini coaching session. tell you what I find when I ask leaders to do this exercise ⁓ number one, they're usually stunned by the volume. They had annoying feeling that they were getting a lot of problems dumped on them, a lot of small granular things that shouldn't necessarily be dumped on their desk. And they're usually ⁓ to see the volume. The other thing that happens ⁓ ⁓
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: through the course of the exercise, you are kind of forced to assess your own response. you mentally are like problem dumping, there it is, there's a problem dumping, you subconsciously pay attention to, ⁓ okay, how am I receiving this in a way that you don't when you're default in the course of business? So ⁓ has a couple of parts. The tracking is definitely really helpful. It gives you a bar of coaching success. I don't wanna leave someone with no significant improvement. But the second thing it does in a mindset shift is really gets a leader thinking about, okay, all this is clearly happening. I have the numbers to prove it. And what's my part in this? How am I receiving this 100, 150, 200 problems that come to me on a day-to-day basis?
Adam Strong: it's really fascinating about what we, what we've talked about in terms of the exercise that you've said. what's so surprised to me is that a simple exercise like that could actually unlock many different business owners that's to this episode and go help them to go from where they're at right now to something which is more scalable.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It definitely, and what we've talked about here in a variety of different ways is this is a challenging behavior change. It is rewiring the very behavior that made you successful. And that is going to be an impossibility without some concrete data at your back. And the act of tracking this is often incentive enough to push through the discomfort of change because you are confronted with the brutal reality that in one week you've got 375 problems. landed on your desk. And intellectually, you know, it's not scalable, but without tracking it, it just feels like, man, work feels bad. Why can't I go on vacation?
Adam Strong: Yeah. why do I need to take my laptop on vacation?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Yeah, why can't I go to the bathroom without my phone? Geez. You gotta put some numbers to it.
Adam Strong: Love that. curious, like what's next for you? I mean, you've got your book out. You've done some keynotes things that. Like ⁓ what is the, what's the next big thing for you?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Good question. And TBD, to be honest, I mean, I had a book come out in 2024. I wrote a great wave on leading yourself and still riding that wave and keynoting on leading yourself, leading without formal authority, all workplace topics and doing some executive coaching, mostly on this dynamic of leaders who tend to over-thrall problems for their team. But I don't know what's next for me. in a phase where I'm gonna let the universe tell me. I have some ideas, but none I'm gonna yap about on a podcast yet.
Adam Strong: Okay, that's interesting. By the way, we want to give a big shout out to Lisa MacLeod who introduced us. Hey Lisa. ⁓ and you are business partners, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Yeah, so Lisa and I have worked together for a long time. We co-wrote several years ago a book called Selling with Noble Purpose together, which brings her background of sales and scaling sort of the commercial sector of a business together with my background, which is employee engagement, culture, and scalable workplaces. So that was a really fun collaboration. had a great run with that book and it's still very popular.
Adam Strong: It is absolutely. Elizabeth just want say thanks much for jamming ⁓ with me and we've had some, we've had some fun, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Good stuff. Well, thanks for hanging out with me, getting into the nerd stuff, diving into the weeds. I hope your listeners found some insightful coaching questions or at least feel a little bit more seen and their well-intended tendency to oversaw.
Adam Strong: Absolutely. do me a favor, go make sure you go ⁓ connect with Elizabeth over on LinkedIn. Make sure you go check that out and also go check out her book, ⁓ leading yourself as well, which is ⁓ you can go pick it up in Barnes Noble or Amazon whatever it is, your ⁓ good bookstore in your jurisdiction, thanks so much for again. And, from me and Elizabeth today, hope you enjoyed today's episode and we'll speak to you Cheers now. Bye.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: day.
Adam Strong: And it's had over 2 million download the course and take it, we have the amazing Elizabeth Lotardo here on the show. And we have a lot of mutual and connections in leadership and management realm, So Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, thanks for having me, Adam, and thanks for such a great introduction. I love the framing of build your own prisons. It's a little bit more transparent than what I usually say, but it's quite accurate.
Adam Strong: It is pretty accurate, isn't it? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to today's show it's really interesting because, I mean, your background, that you're a researcher, aren't you? And, in, think it's organizational psychology, if I'm not mistaken, is that right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Correct, I have a background in industrial and organizational psychology. I got my master's in that with a focus on employee engagement. And I'm currently a fellow at the Harvard Medical School Institute of Coaching. It's focused on consulting, executive coaching, all the nerdy ways to say, how do we make work less bad?
Adam Strong: Very good. Excellent. love that. I think we've got an expert in the house. so before we kind of get into the juicy stuff or stuff, I'd love to ⁓ kind of know a little bit more, our listeners. I'd love to know more about, before the research, before the book, what was the What pulled you into this fascination of. operator leadership kind of ⁓ blockages, you want to call it that. I'd love to know more about that.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, there wasn't a big clouds parting moment like there are for a lot of researchers, right? So I can't tell you this amazing story about how I was five and I always wanted to study why people spend so much time on the phone. It wasn't like that for me. So I started my career in communications. I worked at an ad agency and I had a really bad experience at work. I burned out really quickly. I felt the work was very transactional. And so like most, you know, mid 20 somethings and emotional crisis, I went to grad school to study, um, um,
Adam Strong: Yeah. Right.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: organizational psychology and sort of unpack why my experience was not what I wanted it to be and why so many of my friends had that same experience. And in that research with a focus on employee engagement, I started to extrapolate out some skills that enabled people to engage themselves to make the most of a bad situation skills that I didn't innately have, but I was fascinated by them because they seemed really important. And that bedrock of skills became the base for my LinkedIn learning course and then my book, Leading Yourself. How do you as an individual chart your own path regardless of what's going on around you? And as I started to get traction with leading yourself in 2018, 2019, when it really started to take off in numbers, I was being called into organizations to speak about the power of self leadership and constantly hearing from leaders. I want my team to step up. I want them to really own it. And I thought, okay, cool, perfect. Like I can teach that. I know all the skills to do that. And then as I started to get deeper, I realized there was this hidden underbelly of the problem and that was an operator that was enabling dependency. So the very person who hired me who said, I want my team to own their own problems was the same person who was picking up all those problems. The second they got a little bit loud, the same person who brought me in and said, I want my team to feel empowered was the same person that would step in the second there was a challenge. And I saw this dynamic play out how desperately operators wanted true partners in their business, how they wanted their team to feel empowered and self-led, but they kept sort of shooting their own foot to use a very American expression in the execution of that and getting in the way of the self-leadership skills they were hoping to see in their team. So that's what took me down the leadership path and ultimately studying why operators build their own prisons to reflect your words back.
Adam Strong: You're going to remember that one. It sounds very contradictory,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I am.
Adam Strong: now the first thing that kind of springs to my mind it's really interesting because you've studied organizational and now I have a real big fascination in psychology myself. And I, and I, one of the questions often comes up in my mind is really questioning why we do what we do, right? whether it's based on certain behaviors, certain actions or whatever it might be. What are some of the common beliefs that a founder or a CEO tends to tell themselves? You know, will it be around excuses ⁓ certain reasoning as to why they act or they believe in a certain way as to based on the topic of what we're talking about today.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So I'll zoom in on what beliefs are sort of driving the behavior to oversolve, right? Is that the basis of your question to jump in, to take it all on, to not leave space? To me, there are three beliefs driving that behavior and they're all well-intended. The first is usually the leader cares a lot. They're usually a founder. They care deeply about the future of the business. They are more exposed than their employees typically financially if they are a founder. So the first is just they care a lot. The second is they don't want their teams to have bad experiences. Again, this is a well-intended belief. They don't want their team to feel frustrated. They don't want their team to feel under supported. They don't want their team carrying the weight of this. So they step in. And the third is still well-intended, borderline, which is no one can solve it better than me. And then fortunate part of that is it's often true. The reckoning that a founder particularly has to make, that an operator has to make is, is the trade off worth it in the-
Adam Strong: You know, it's really interesting. those three belief systems, cause I think you're right. think that, I, again, we're all wired in slightly different ways. Like we've all got different personalities. We all got different leadership styles in the way that we want to build our companies. Um, whether it be small company, big company, whatever it might be. And you know, it's really interesting. I mean, we, we just. really briefly touched on it, which is like what's the detrimental effect, the knock-on effects to those pillars or those three verticals? I'd to talk about that because there must be quite a few.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: course, I started that umbrella statement with this is a well-intended mentality, right? Someone who is really emotionally invested and cares a lot, someone who doesn't want their team to suffer, and someone who believes to some degree accurately that they are the fastest, easiest person to solve the problem. I think the consequence of that belief is not immediate, and that's why it happens. Because if I am your boss, right, and I'm this operator, I'm a go-getter, I know this business inside and out. it's mine and I take a problem from you, the short term, we probably both feel better. I like the business is protected. I feel like I made you happy because now you don't have a big, hairy problem to deal with. And I feel like this got solved quickly. You feel good too because you feel like, know, Elizabeth, she's such a nice boss. She took this big, hairy problem off my plate. So supportive. But in the long term, the summation of that, the compound of that dynamic is really detrimental because in the long term as a founder, I'm going to burn out. I'm going to feel alone. I'm going to feel like I can't scale and you as my employee, while you don't have big hairy problems to deal with, you're going to feel like you're not empowered, like you're not valued, like you can't do anything around here, like your career is not developing in the way you wanted to, which is the long term price. And again, in the immediate term, We feel neutral or even good, both of us, in this dynamic. But in the long term, we're both going to feel good.
Adam Strong: I want to pick up the third one, which is no one can do it better than anybody else. And it, ⁓ honestly, I, ⁓ it's, it's a common system. The other two, not so much, ⁓ but I do believe that do exist. But often when you ⁓ read about leadership pieces or of content, you know, it stems back to no one can do it better than, than I can. Right. Which is. You know, I guess it can be seen as negative. It's more seen as negative. Whereas the other two are kind of more seen as. Well, it seemed more as positive. Do you see what I mean? And I guess in a way it's kind of like, you know, negativity kind of grabs the headlines type of thing. Do you see what I mean?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: see what you mean. And I said when I went through the three that that third one is a little bit gray area. What I think it's twisted in that narrative is all these operators, all these founders saying no one can solve this problem better than me. And the traditional leadership pushback is that's not true. But in my opinion, they're probably right. No one can solve the problem faster and as good as you. But the price to continually solving might be steeper than the disconnect.
Adam Strong: I cannot tell you how many conversations that I've had with really, they look successful on you know, really successful founders. And a really good example this is a legal firm actually ⁓ in London. have a seven figure Love the founder. Like we have really good energy together and stuff like that. ⁓ Literally she flies around like a blue-arsed fly and, and literally does everything. And the thing is, is that what's really interesting about that that the team members that approach me and know straight away, like she does everything. And I'm of like thinking to myself that they seem content about it. And it's like. Well, but you're not getting it. It's like, content, you're happy with that. But when does it get to a point when you're not happy with it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It absolutely makes sense and I obviously haven't met the founder or the team you're talking to, but generally the research tells us it's correlative to performance and ambition. Low performers and people who are not ambitious are quite content to have someone run around solving their own problems. ⁓ High performers who are driven in their careers less so, or at least they have a shorter window of time they're willing to tolerate on it without.
Adam Strong: Yeah. ⁓ it's really interesting and she has a really highly motivated team and everything like that. But I guess they'll get to a point, like you said, ⁓ long-term detrimental effects further on down the line is probably going to have a knock on to performance, motivation, intrinsic motivation, and things like that, guess, isn't it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Absolutely, if you constantly have a boss running around solving your problems, the boss is always the one coming up with the ideas, the boss is always the one doing it perfectly, why would you attempt to do it at 95 %? Right? That's just exposure.
Adam Strong: Exactly. 100%. What does, ⁓ I mean, your, your background in, a researcher, like what does this, what does the science say about the operator's mindset? Is it, is it a behavior change problem? Is it a lack of intelligence? Is it a mindset blockage? ⁓ have you discovered as part of that?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Behavior as part of it, mindset as part of it. I won't say it's lack of intelligence, potentially lack of awareness is probably as gnarly of an insult as I would give to that. The research behind this mentality ⁓ usually correlated to the research of a high performer. And there was a really famous book from Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, right? And some of that is connected to the very dynamic we're discussing.
Adam Strong: Right. my sick.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What got a founder to have a firm, to have a team, to have revenue is the very behavior that often holds them back from scaling. The tendency to over solve, the tendency to get in front of the problem, the tendency to be always on, willing to do whatever it takes. That very behavior that got them to the place where they are is often what holds them back from building a business that scales without their effort.
Adam Strong: So you mentioned around the lack of self-awareness. What are some of the things that, if we, if if we have a listener here nodding their head thinking, yeah, that's me. I'm a high performer. I'm a doer. ⁓ What do you do like from a practical exercise perspective?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Plus one for your
Adam Strong: with these high performance, like how do you, how do you shift that mindset? Where does it begin? Like what's the journey? What's the breakdown? What's the framework?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So if you're listening to this and you think, hmm, that might be me, right? I might be over solving. I might be stepping over my team to a degree that's not being helpful. The first step is to give yourself some behavioral evidence because what we're talking about in terms of a mindset shift is not easy. You've built your whole career on being a high performer, someone who gets out in front of problems and someone who gets these things done. So you're going to have to have a lot of evidence to shift your behavior, right? And the best form of evidence that you can give is when someone comes to you with a problem, right? Your employee, they come to you in a one-on-one, they flag you down right when you get to the office and they tell you all about it and you say nothing. Under the surface, where does the problem lie? Does it lie with you or does it lie with them? And pay attention to their energy when they're telling you this, right? Are they filling you in? In which case, you know, that's just what a good employee does or Are they subtly passing the problem to you? And at the end of that conversation, who is the expected owner of the problem? And just make a study for a couple of weeks, for a couple of months of yourself, your interactions, and where the problems end up. And if they are always assumptively landing on you, you have enough data at your back to sustain yourself in the behavior change.
Adam Strong: Okay, good. So evidence is always a good idea because that kind of then it kind of dictates rationale, doesn't it?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Right, because you're trying to overwire a tendency that made you successful up until now, right? So we can't do this based on one podcast episode. You're going to have to have some personal data.
Adam Strong: Agreed. Okay, is there any other steps?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I think getting a handle on that is the first step and an easy layup that I wrote about in an HBR piece. If you want to start shifting responsibility back to your team is to ask, what have you tried? This is a foundational coaching question. Michael Buggy Cider wrote about it in his book that what have you tried questioned as a couple of things. First, it services. Did they actually try something? The answer might surprise you either way. They may have tried three things and none of them worked and there's more ownership than you thought. Or they might have not tried anything and thought, well, this is a problem, so I brought it to you. What do you mean? What did I try? So that question tells you where on the spectrum your team is at present in terms of ownership and self initiative. The second thing it does is over time builds the expectation that they should try something. Even if the first couple of answers are ⁓ yet, like kind of surprised by that question. ⁓ If you continue to ask what have you tried, over time, tries will be had before the issue comes to you. And even if they're not successful, that is a shift in the right direction in terms of passing some ownership and some initiative onto your team.
Adam Strong: Cause I know that I think I read a piece on your, your LinkedIn profile. think there were five questions. Wasn't there? If I remember rightly, is that correct?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: There are. There are. That's number one.
Adam Strong: Okay, let's do the other four.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so the other four questions, let's go to number two. What or who is getting in the way of tackling this? If your employee comes to you with a problem that they've been unable to solve by themselves, they need to at least be able to articulate why. Maybe it's a budget constraint. Maybe it's, this department never signs off on anything. Maybe it's, I'm too nervous to call this client by myself and you're going to be better at it. Get to the root of what is holding back the solve. to reverse that dynamic a little bit. And that question, who or what is getting in the way with the way of you solving this is again, conveying that subtle message of expectation, this is your system.
Adam Strong: love that some good stuff. Absolutely. I'm ready. Sorry, I was waking I make notes, ladies and gentlemen, by the way, I should have told you guys this at the very beginning, make sure you got your notebook and pen handy because honestly, what we get what we're delivering is a masterclass, and if
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: All three? All right. ⁓ I can send you the article link, Adam. Maybe we can put it in the show notes so people don't have to get out there quilling.
Adam Strong: We'll put that in the show notes, don't worry. Absolutely, 100%. Yeah, go ahead, number three.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: All right, question three, what would you do if you were in my seat? The reason I love this question is it builds problem solving skills over time. it makes some appreciation ⁓ to the fore for the problem solver. I'll tell you a dynamic I see so often inside of my clients is the leader takes on the problem, right? There's this big hairy customer issue, for example, and they stay late. They look at all angles of the problem. They research the problem. They think about potential solves to the problem. They call the customer and they eventually solve the problem. And their team witnessed none of that. Right? Their team just sent their problem into the magical void of the leader's office where it always gets solved and who knows how and who knows to what degree of effort, but it always comes out solved. So this question of what would you do if you were in my seat makes problem solving visible. It prompts employees to think through some of the trade-offs to realize how much work it's gonna take to solve this problem and to over time replicate that thinking independently. So that question invites them in instead of letting the transfer happen and kind of like a, let me dump this on your desk format.
Adam Strong: I love that. It's kind of like, you know, taking this and then giving it to somebody else and getting them to think about it. It's taking this. ⁓ like this trade of ownership to somebody else.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And even if they're not solving it, even if they don't know what they would do if you were in, if they were in your seat, it makes problem solving visible in a way that it is often not when the default is to dump the problem on the leaders.
Adam Strong: Yep, I love that. Some good stuff. Very good one. All right, number four.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What support do you need? I'll tell you, this is very different than the well-intended leader question of how can I support you or what support do you need from me? What this question does is open up the potential avenues of support. Instead of just me, your leader helping you, do you need some professional development in this area? Do you need money to solve this problem? Do you need the help of another department? Would they be better at solving this problem than I? be as the leader. That question, what support you need, puts the onus on the employee to identify the support that's lacking and it widens the aperture beyond the leader being the sole support, which is so often the trap in founder led businesses.
Adam Strong: love that. It's a really good perspective. And I love the way that you've reframed the question regards to what's up. And what I one thing that I've noticed here is they're all open ended questions. ⁓ right, cool. What's number five?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: There's no yes or no in there. There's really nowhere to hide. You have to think. Well, you know, I just kind of shot myself in the foot with there's no no because number five, the fifth question that I coach leaders on is, is there anything else I should know? And the reason this is last is because in absence of the other four, if you are in this pattern of being the problem solver, if it is assumed you will take up the big hairy thing and solve it in a vacuum and no one has to deal with the consequences, asking, is there anything else I should know?
Adam Strong: hahahaha ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: still expected that you're going to solve it, right? If you ask that question alone, it's not quite enough to shift the dynamic. But if you ask that question last, that's why it's number five, or if you ask that question after a few months of what have you tried, what's getting in the way, what support do you need, that question can differentiate between is this employee bringing me a problem to solve ⁓ are they just making sure I'm in the loop and I'm not blindsided by it? And oftentimes leaders who fall victim to this over solving behavior, they miss the times that their employees didn't actually want them to solve the problem. They just didn't want them to be surprised. So that question can help you differentiate between what really is asking for your involvement versus what's keeping you.
Adam Strong: Love it. Some good stuff there. I had a thought actually around this whole kind of this mindset of I to do things. I want to do it because it's quicker and easier do it myself, This element of control. And my thought was, is it because I actually don't want to lose control or the fear of losing Or is it? the fact that I'm actually addicted to having that control. And I'm sure that you probably studied the two in terms, you know, if, if, if, if it is an addiction of not being able to, go or whatever it might be, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to defrate if it is fear or if it's an addiction.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I would say it's probably both. in every addiction, there's an undercurrent of fear. In every fear, there's an undercurrent of addiction, right? If you're addicted to keeping control, the fear is that I'm gonna lose it. If you're afraid you're going to lose control, the overcompensating behavior is to maintain all control. So I think those two are closely connected and addiction is a loaded word. And I think, like I said, a lot of these people who fall victim to this behavior trap. They have the best of intentions. They want to build a successful business. They want to build a team that feels empowered and supported and capable of solving problems. And too much of a good thing lands us in this tricky dynamic. So some of both, and I think it's an important question. And if you're listening and you're sitting with that question, you're feeling a little bit unease, you might have a dash of one side of that or both.
Adam Strong: When I think of the word addiction, ⁓ come across like the assumption can come across as quite kind of negative, right? ⁓ Because you're addicted to something, it's generally not seen as healthy if you do think of much of, ⁓ and then when we think about fear, we don't want as leaders, we don't want it to. be judgmental. ⁓ I guess it depends on the different, different prospects. Does that that make sense?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It does. And we're getting into kind of a hairy psyche assessment. But beneath all of this, to me, are a couple of driving factors. And it goes back to those three things that we talked about in the beginning. And they inform this fear and addiction element of it too, right? The desire to build a business that is great. The desire to have people supported, empowered, and the recognition that in a lot of cases in the near term, you are the best solve.
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And to not dismiss that opens the door to actual long-term behavior change. So often it's like, ⁓ they could solve it just as well. That's probably not true, to be honest. Most founders are exceptional solvers. They know the business better than anyone and they care more, but it's not sustainable for anybody.
Adam Strong: Yeah, I agree. for one thing that I have observed, especially operator led businesses that have been around for, I don't know, 20, 25 years, they were all stuck in their ways. And I'm sure that you've come across, they know that there is a problem and They've been, so difficult for them to change. how you help someone is ⁓ so stuck in their ways? in a way they, they, again, it's kind of going back to this belief system of why should I change? there's this chicken and egg situation they know if, if they do change something. It's there's going to be a positive, but then the counteract to that is, I want to resort back to my comfort zone. for those that are listening that have got that established business, they've been in that operator mindset for such a long period of time. And they're trying to break the cycle. Cause it's tough for them. Like they've been in it for so long. Um,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It is. Yeah, and the longer you're in it, the more your employees feed into it, right? There's a cycle with them involved too. It's not just you. So you're having to retrain yourself and you're having to retrain your employees too subconsciously because they don't know you're getting an executive coach or listening to a podcast or whatever you're doing. So I have kind of a contrarian approach to this in my executive coaching clients. And when I ask people to do, because I wrestle with this a lot, an over-functioning founder and over-functioning operator who's tired of people not picking up the ball, is I ask them, to chart out the worst case scenario for letting a few things go. And I asked them to chart out the worst case scenario for continuing to solve everyone else's problems. And what founders often find and operators often find is in the near term, they're about even.
Adam Strong: ⁓ I like that. You
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: The worst case scenario for letting people solve problems is they make some mistakes, a few things slip, there's some deadline misses and lose a client. The worst case scenario in the near term for continuing to solve is, I'm still gonna be tired. I can't go on vacation, but I've survived up until now, so who's to say? So it's a wash and that's why behavior change doesn't stick. But when you push it to the long term and we say, okay, let's play this out. That's what happens in three months. What happens in three years if this dynamic continues? I can give you some general principles. High performers will not be staying on your team. High performers don't want to work for a leader who constantly oversolves. They want space. They want to be empowered. They want to learn and grow even at the expense of some misses. So you'll lose all your high performers and you won't be able to attract more either. ⁓ side, you will be three years deeper. into perpetual burnout and loneliness with a less capable teen than you have now. Is that incentive enough to change behavior? And usually in the long-term it is. The reason we don't is that long-term picture isn't clear enough in most cases. ⁓
Adam Strong: I'm going to push back on something here and it's really interesting. I've, I had a, I remember this conversation about going back about three years ago. I a ⁓ founder an IT company ⁓ and he'd been his business for like 20 years. Right. So, really nice chap, man all that kind of stuff. And we just have this open conversation and I just kind of, I just, I just basically said, so when are you exiting your business type thing, right? ⁓ I can't exit my business. went, why is that? goes, said me, Elizabeth, said, he said, because I don't trust anyone else. ⁓ went, do mean you don't trust anybody else? He goes, he said, yeah, cause no one's going to work harder than me. No one knows better than business than me that I don't, I don't trust it. And I'm like, well, If you carry around with that belief system, of course it must be true. it was just really interesting here, going back to what you said. There are, I know for a fact that there will be listeners here that have that belief system. What do you say to people like that?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: probably right. No one's gonna want it more, no one's gonna work harder, and no one's gonna care as much as you do. You're right.
Adam Strong: Yeah. and I guess, ⁓ I guess there's no way around it because there's no point in trying to change someone if they don't want to change, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Right, you're right. I wouldn't push back on that at all. That's true. What I would suggest is that with the right coaching and the right behavior change from you as a leader, you could get a good team to 90%. And what would that do for you?
Adam Strong: I that because, there are some really interesting out and they've got wonderful businesses, but my God, you just kind of step back. again, it's not like I'm there to judge people, but I kind of think to myself, like, I don't quite, you want, you want something, whether it be, ⁓ you they want to achieve something big. or they want to make an impact yet they're contradictory in their actions. Do you see what I mean?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Kind of, and that's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to push back on a founder who says, no one's going to care about this as much as I do. Duh, you started the business. You put yourself on the line. You had everything to lose. of course no one's going to care about this as much as you do. And to wait until someone does before you take a vacation, you're never going to take a vacation. But again, to the suggestion of you can get a good group of people to care a lot.
Adam Strong: You Exactly.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And that is more scalable and more sustainable.
Adam Strong: When does like what does ownership and accountability look like to small business owner? Like what ⁓ if is ⁓ been an owner operator mindset, you know, for such a long period of time, they are now ready to change. do you kind of like guide people in terms of setting up certain ⁓ protocols down the line?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So I'll tell you, I keynote most on my book, Leading Yourself, for an employee-based audience, not necessarily a founder, operator-based audience. This conversation we're having about how founders kind of sabotage that is the behind the curtain, like, hey, I just hyped your team up to be empowered. Like, don't blow it. That's an executive coaching piece. But empowerment and accountability. It touches both sides of those and I'll use your word ownership. One of my clients told me I was like the extreme ownership guy, but way nicer and more encouraging. And I felt like that was such a great summation of my work because I do believe in self leadership at all levels and being accountable to yourself, no matter if your behavior changes small, like coming prepared to your one-on-ones or if your behavior changes big, like trying to get over some of these over solving tendencies that happen. highest level of leadership. And wherever you are on that spectrum, whatever level you are in the organization, whatever scale your behavior change, your targeted behavior change is, it comes down to clear trackable steps. If you say, well, I'm going to stop solving my team's problems for them. That podcast really landed with me and I'm going to stop it. You're not going to be successful. If you say, I am going to say, what have you tried? Every single time someone brings me a problem and I'm going to keep a check mark, a list of how many times I asked that question. And if I don't ask it at least 20 times a week, I'm failing because I know more than 20 problems are brought to me every week. And that is going to be the accountability metric I hold myself to. We have to extrapolate these mindset shifts, these leadership principles, this sort of big hairy emotional mess into trackable behaviors, because only when we fall short on something like a clear metric where there's nowhere to hide, like you kind of did or you didn't do it, there's not, tried, well did it a little. That's when you can really, to use your words, have ownership and hold yourself accountable. It's much more effective in driving behavior change.
Adam Strong: With regards to the trackable results that you're talking about, what that look like? Is that like you get to write a worksheet or something like that? What does that look like in principle?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: think that really depends on how each leader works. Whether you have a worksheet, whether you're a digital native, whatever system you are using to track the other metrics that are crucially important to your business, whatever dashboard you're working with, whether it's a stack of Excel sheets every Friday, wherever you're getting your bar on, I being successful here? Add to that. We're not going to come up with a new system. I'm going to make you carry around a worksheet if you're always on.
Adam Strong: I went into kind of give you a of a heads up because you know that I love doing the coaching part of the session, right? So I've, yeah, I know, right. But actually I just had some really great thought processes. So for you guys that listening in, if you're a new listener, what we do in the last third of the session,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: I gave away all my questions.
Adam Strong: is we go into coaching mode. That means Elizabeth's going to coach me, right? I'm the student, she's the teacher. Great. based on today's topic, of course, ⁓ And I you to imagine ⁓ that she sitting ⁓ on a next to you. I want you imagine she's you right now. But more importantly, I want you to think about just what she's saying. I want you to Really think about how you can challenge certain belief systems that you have yourself and how it can be, how it can apply to you. So let's get Absolutely. ⁓ ⁓ let give some here because for many years, I have been an owner operator business. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: The scene is set.
Adam Strong: as most management consultants generally are. there are certain belief that I have. And we touched on a couple of them today, but I feel very personal ⁓ about them. my belief is that I think probably the reason why companies, including myself, plateau.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Mm-hmm.
Adam Strong: You know, business only plateaus because of the person that steers the ship type of thing works in a particular way. think there's strong correlations to that. Now don't really have the fear of judgment embedded into my DNA, but I do have a couple of beliefs that I feel like probably needs to be challenged. So I'd like you to challenge them. The first challenge and the belief system that I have is it's quicker and easier to do it all myself. one can do it better than me. ⁓ believe or not, I still have that belief system a lot of the time.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Well, first of all, I'll say you're probably the most self-aware executive coaching client I've ever had. I have these core sets of beliefs and I need you to challenge me. We a few months with that level of self-awareness.
Adam Strong: Thank you. you. I appreciate that. We did, we did, we did.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So let's get into core belief number one, no one can do it as good as you write as good as fast, whatever it is. You're probably right.
Adam Strong: Okay.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Why do you want to change?
Adam Strong: Well, I think that's a really good question. I, I remember, the way, I haven't mentioned this. Me and Marshall Goldsmith did a, did a coaching. This was, going a couple of years back and it really interesting. It was entertaining because he knows that my, ⁓ my is in, is in elite athletics. Right. So elite sport and, And his thing was all around, but Adam can, you can do it better than anybody else. Can you Adam? No, you can't Adam. And things like that. And that was this kind of egotistical point of me that I never even knew that I had, but clearly I do. what do I want to change? I want to be able to, what's word I'm looking for? I want to be able to trust myself and I want to be able to... I want to be able to make sure that the decisions that I make not good for the business, but it's ⁓ good around.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: If you want to be able to trust yourself, where do you feel like that lack of trust is showing up? Do you feel like you're not making good decisions? You're making too many decisions? I'm sensing there's two different problems here, right? You don't trust anyone else to make decisions, but you also just said you don't trust yourself.
Adam Strong: Well, I think I feel like I have this sense of responsibility and the responsibility, obviously, when you built a business for many years and you tried and tested a lot of things, you go through this experimentation and things like that, this respond, this kind of burden of responsibility, if you want to call it that, because it is, it's like a burden you carry around. I feel like I'd like to be able to. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay.
Adam Strong: Delegate some of that burden or that responsibility to somebody else. I just don't know how
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so you don't trust yourself to delegate effectively and you don't trust the other party to pick up whatever you've delegated. Is that accurate?
Adam Strong: Yeah, I would say, I would say that's a good, that's a good, that's a good description. Yes.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: When you say you have a burden of responsibility, responsibility to who?
Adam Strong: Very good question. Responsibility to clients, responsibility ⁓ Not just my clients, but yeah, I suppose it's my clients is the main one.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Not your employees.
Adam Strong: Not so much. would say my clients more. Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so to set our scene, you feel a huge amount of responsibility to your clients. You don't trust yourself enough to delegate the right things and you don't trust the people you're delegating them to. Is that fair to say on balance?
Adam Strong: I mean, I wouldn't say that I don't have any trust in my team. That's not what I'm saying. I'd say that it's limited, it could be, but it could be better, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, we can work on that. It could be better. Well, based on what you said, I think the trust in you can be better too. So we're gonna work on parallel tracks. Let me ask you a question. happens if things keep staying the way they are? Do you feel like you're not fulfilling your burden of responsibility to your clients? Who's suffering? What's the incentive to change?
Adam Strong: Okay. think if ⁓ stays the same, then nothing changes. That's obviously, you know, that's obvious. But, well, the is, you know, I have these kind of epiphany moments where I kind of feel like... And it's every few years, Elizabeth, go through these, I don't know,
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What's wrong with that?
Adam Strong: self-reflective episodes in my life where I think to myself, is this all life can give me? Like, how can I make it massive change, massive improvement? And I really have to get out of my comfort zone to do that. So I think in answer to your question is I'd like to become I'd like to be more, but I'd to have a bigger impact further down the line.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Okay, so there is something at stake. The reason I ask is on keeping on is a perfectly fine path for a lot of people. But if there is something at stake and you want to scale, we're going to have to overcome two things based on what I'm hearing. We're going to have to overcome the doubt you have in yourself on your ability to pick and choose what to delegate. And we're going to have to overcome the, your generous framing, little bit of doubt you have in your team to be able to pick up the ball and execute it well.
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: What I will push back on is where we started in this conversation of no one's going to do it as fast and as good as me. That's accurate. No one's going to do it as fast and as good as you, especially at first. So we're going to have to work with a little bit of runway and have some tolerance for growing pains if we want this dynamic to change and to get to that place of making a bigger impact that you see and that you feel called to. Fair? So the first experiment we're going to do is this. Over the next week, I'm going to
Adam Strong: Yeah. Sounds good.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: ask you to keep a little mental tally, not a mental tally, a physical tally. You can keep it in your phone, you can keep it on your computer, you can keep it on a sticky note, wherever you can take notes of how many times people bring you a problem. And by problem, I mean a client issue, a logistics issue, a billing issue, a money problem. How many times are you delivered a problem?
Adam Strong: Hmm. ⁓ think it's probably quite high actually. ⁓
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Do you have a prediction before we get started? It's usually over 100 for liters in your seat.
Adam Strong: Ooh, wow, that's I mean, in a week, wouldn't say I think it depends on how busy we are. ⁓ mean, to me, it feels like a lot.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It's only 20 a day. You know, you're down to two or three an hour. I think that's a fair assessment. It feels like a lot. probably is a lot. And I'll tell you the reason I'm asking you to keep track of these things. Because I know it's a lot, just based on this conversation. And we need to have a metric of success for this. It can't be, I feel a little better. It can't be, I'm a little more trusting. We need to get that number over the course of this engagement down. We're gonna try and cut it by at least a third, hopefully half. Because that metric,
Adam Strong: Okay. Mm-hmm.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: will be evidence of two things. It will be evidence that you are trusting yourself enough to delegate problems, and it will be evidence that your team is capable of picking them up and sustaining that behavior change. And if that number isn't changing over the course of a couple of months, we know we have a different problem than we thought. Fair?
Adam Strong: Sounds good. I guess my, my, my, my thought that came to my mind was, okay, that sounds wonderful. My only doubt would be is, that, is, it would be in my team because I've been taking the big responsibility for a long period of time. My, ⁓ my would be is, do they want to take the burden? I guess I, I guess the only way to answer that question is ask them, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: would caution you against asking them directly. We're going to make a conclusion based on behavior change. And that's one of the reasons why I really think this metric tracking exercise is an important one. Because if you do your part and this number doesn't move, it means we might have a team problem. And to your point, they might not be the right team to step up to take ownership. Maybe there's some marketing to do there. Have them at your team? I don't know. But this number is going to give us a good starting point in terms of the baseline.
Adam Strong: I was going to say. Okay.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And if we see that number starting to move, it is evidence of two things, that you are letting go of some things and that your team is in fact picking up the ball and running with it. Asking someone, do you want to take ownership? First of all, everyone's going to say yes, because no one wants to be the person that tells their boss, no, I don't want any ownership, especially in this economy. based on what you've described in the pattern of behavior, they don't really know what that looks like yet. So we need to work on your part.
Adam Strong: Makes sense.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: in defining what ownership looks like and what problems can be best solved at the teammate level versus brought to you. But the only way we're going to know where we're starting with is to get a handle on what the volume is.
Adam Strong: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a really good question. so I, that's a really good exercise. I think that's, ⁓ for you guys that listening in, the way, that's an excellent exercise to start the, last thought process that came to my mind is once I've got the metrics, once I've collected some data, based on what you just said, I guess then my next question would be is, okay, well, if I'm not directly approaching them, and saying, Hey guys, I need some support. And I guess I then need to evaluate if the people, if the people in my team are in a position where they can either support me or not support me. And I guess that will then be, cause people get stuck in their ways, don't they? We're human beings. We're kind of creatures of habit type of thing, you know? So yeah, I guess that would be, my question would be is what would be after we've collected the data? How do I then evaluate if those are the right people?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: So we're going to have our number at the front end, how many problems are being dumped on your desk, and that is our number we're trying to get down. And then we will move into subtly pushing back on some of this problem dumping, and we're going to collect data based on how your team responds. So you're going to use this series of five questions that we just talked about in this podcast episode to kind of break this through little bit for us all. And we're going to let your people tell us in how they respond to those questions.
Adam Strong: Yep. Very good. Mm-hmm.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: And it's not gonna be an overnight shift because we're gonna give people credit. They've been working to you for a long time. They wanna please you. They know your default dorms is behavior change takes time. But if you diligently deploy these five questions and you see after 90 days, no evidence of behavior change, then we might have a team problem, but we're not gonna jump there yet.
Adam Strong: Yep. Cool. Sounds good. that is a useful exercise, not just for myself, but for a lot of our listeners, especially if they want to get out of the operator ⁓ trap, if you want to call it that. so thank you much. First of all. I really appreciate that.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: A nice, very mini coaching session. tell you what I find when I ask leaders to do this exercise ⁓ number one, they're usually stunned by the volume. They had annoying feeling that they were getting a lot of problems dumped on them, a lot of small granular things that shouldn't necessarily be dumped on their desk. And they're usually ⁓ to see the volume. The other thing that happens ⁓ ⁓
Adam Strong: Yeah.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: through the course of the exercise, you are kind of forced to assess your own response. you mentally are like problem dumping, there it is, there's a problem dumping, you subconsciously pay attention to, ⁓ okay, how am I receiving this in a way that you don't when you're default in the course of business? So ⁓ has a couple of parts. The tracking is definitely really helpful. It gives you a bar of coaching success. I don't wanna leave someone with no significant improvement. But the second thing it does in a mindset shift is really gets a leader thinking about, okay, all this is clearly happening. I have the numbers to prove it. And what's my part in this? How am I receiving this 100, 150, 200 problems that come to me on a day-to-day basis?
Adam Strong: it's really fascinating about what we, what we've talked about in terms of the exercise that you've said. what's so surprised to me is that a simple exercise like that could actually unlock many different business owners that's to this episode and go help them to go from where they're at right now to something which is more scalable.
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: It definitely, and what we've talked about here in a variety of different ways is this is a challenging behavior change. It is rewiring the very behavior that made you successful. And that is going to be an impossibility without some concrete data at your back. And the act of tracking this is often incentive enough to push through the discomfort of change because you are confronted with the brutal reality that in one week you've got 375 problems. landed on your desk. And intellectually, you know, it's not scalable, but without tracking it, it just feels like, man, work feels bad. Why can't I go on vacation?
Adam Strong: Yeah. why do I need to take my laptop on vacation?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Yeah, why can't I go to the bathroom without my phone? Geez. You gotta put some numbers to it.
Adam Strong: Love that. curious, like what's next for you? I mean, you've got your book out. You've done some keynotes things that. Like ⁓ what is the, what's the next big thing for you?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Good question. And TBD, to be honest, I mean, I had a book come out in 2024. I wrote a great wave on leading yourself and still riding that wave and keynoting on leading yourself, leading without formal authority, all workplace topics and doing some executive coaching, mostly on this dynamic of leaders who tend to over-thrall problems for their team. But I don't know what's next for me. in a phase where I'm gonna let the universe tell me. I have some ideas, but none I'm gonna yap about on a podcast yet.
Adam Strong: Okay, that's interesting. By the way, we want to give a big shout out to Lisa MacLeod who introduced us. Hey Lisa. ⁓ and you are business partners, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Yeah, so Lisa and I have worked together for a long time. We co-wrote several years ago a book called Selling with Noble Purpose together, which brings her background of sales and scaling sort of the commercial sector of a business together with my background, which is employee engagement, culture, and scalable workplaces. So that was a really fun collaboration. had a great run with that book and it's still very popular.
Adam Strong: It is absolutely. Elizabeth just want say thanks much for jamming ⁓ with me and we've had some, we've had some fun, right?
ELIZABETH LOTARDO: Good stuff. Well, thanks for hanging out with me, getting into the nerd stuff, diving into the weeds. I hope your listeners found some insightful coaching questions or at least feel a little bit more seen and their well-intended tendency to oversaw.
Adam Strong: Absolutely. do me a favor, go make sure you go ⁓ connect with Elizabeth over on LinkedIn. Make sure you go check that out and also go check out her book, ⁓ leading yourself as well, which is ⁓ you can go pick it up in Barnes Noble or Amazon whatever it is, your ⁓ good bookstore in your jurisdiction, thanks so much for again. And, from me and Elizabeth today, hope you enjoyed today's episode and we'll speak to you Cheers now. Bye.
