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Employee turnover is the biggest headache that you will ever have as a leader.
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The pain that you go through to find a great employee in the first place, thinking about a job, maybe you know, saving budget for it, or having to beg for headcount, finally getting to open up that role, screening candidates, interviewing people, taking your team offline to participate in that, getting making the decision, onboarding someone, weeks and weeks of them ramping up.
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All of that effort only to have that person walk out the door, gosh, like there's nothing more frustrating.
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Not only that, there's nothing more expensive.
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Studies show that it costs between 50 and 200% of someone's salary to replace them.
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So if you're paying someone 100K, that could be up to$200,000 in sunk cost in wasted time.
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And so we have to get a hold of employee turnover.
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But the wildest out of all is the fact that 42% of voluntary turnover is preventable.
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Gallup studies found that when asking people who had left, so voluntary turnover basically means you quit, like you weren't laid off, 42% of people that left the company said, yeah, like if my manager talked to me, like if someone intervened, I would have stayed.
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And with that much, if that high of a percentage saying, yeah, like I would have stayed, why are we not doing more to prevent it?
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And this episode is about the one conversation that you need to have to prevent turnover on your team, saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and hours and hours of headaches and frustrations across your whole team.
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Welcome to Managing Made Simple, a real talk podcast about the ins and outs of leading a team.
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I'm Leah Garvin, your host, and bring a decade of experience driving team operations in places like Google, Apple, and Microsoft on a mission to make leading your team easier.
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From delegating to feedback to one-on-ones and more, each week is a mini masterclass on making leading your team easier.
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Whether you're managing one person or a hundred, everyone is welcome to hang out on Managing Made Simple.
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That 42% set, I mean, I know I've talked about it a lot on the show because it blows my mind.
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And it not only blows my mind because it's a it's a wildly high number of people that said, like, yeah, all you needed to do was talk to me and maybe I would have thought about staying.
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But it it blew my mind because it articulated exactly how I felt as an employee in every single role that I left.
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I have to believe that every other person that's part of that 42% is with me, thinking, like, gosh, I liked the job, I liked my colleagues, I just felt like there wasn't a path for me.
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Or no one really recognized the work that I was doing.
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Or maybe I got passed up for promotion and I felt like, you know, I don't, I think I got forgotten about.
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My career's at a standstill.
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Every single one of those thoughts are reasons that I left a job.
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And if a manager had sit down with me and said, hey, Leah, you're doing a great job.
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I want to make sure that you're clear on what the plan is for you and we make sure we're really aligned on your goals and how we're getting there.
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If someone had sat down and talked to me about that, I probably would have stayed at any one of those jobs.
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But I didn't because nobody had that conversation.
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And last week on the show, I talked about the power of the sit-down.
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I walked through the framework, how to utilize it.
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Today I wanted to really sink in that this is the conversation that's gonna save you the nightmare of the revolving door of employees.
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Because even if someone on your team is not your best person, even if they're not the person that, like, oh my gosh, like the whole business stops without them, if they're a good employee, you wanna keep that person.
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If they're showing up and they're dedicated to the work and they're committed, like they're not a throwaway.
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Nobody's a throwaway, first of all.
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But like this is something that you don't want to just like think, oh, it'll work itself out.
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People right now, more than ever, need to feel recognized.
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They need to feel acknowledged, they need to feel appreciated.
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It's not coddling, it's not entitlement, it's different.
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It's that, you know, I think post-COVID, we all got formed different relationships with time, with our own mortality.
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The more hectic and confusing and overwhelming things are in the world, the more we're like, ah, like, I want to know that I'm spending my time in the right way.
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And so if your employees are showing up and they're doing a good job and they're asking, like, hey, where's this going?
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Instead of writing it off like, oh, they're entitled, they just want more money, listen to them.
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Because you also don't need to close that conversation with a commitment about a pay raise, a commitment around a game plan, around something they can focus on, that often has just as much, if not more, value to that person because they see the longer time horizon.
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And it also has so much value when you can't, when you can't give someone the thing that they want.
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I know in in one of my last roles at Google, I went up for promotion and it was like a shoe-in.
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I was doing work a level or two above my, you know, where I was slotted.
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And it was, you know, we had the VP support and like everybody on board.
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But at Google, promotions were decided in committees.
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And there was also, you know, not everybody can get promoted in a cycle.
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And so there's a lot of factors at play.
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Well, I didn't get that last promotion.
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And when my manager told me that, she said, I'm really sorry to share the news.
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Um, you know, this is what happened.
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Your work's great.
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Like, you know, you know, I think for next time it'll be, it'll, you know, you're you're gonna be a shoe-in.
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That conversation did not keep me on that team.
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That conversation did not tell me anything that I needed to know to feel like I would stay.
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And I'm not saying that conversation is why I left, but there's so much more that manager could have done.
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So the manager, when when she shared that feedback with me, she said, you know, your previous team, they didn't uh write a lot of feedback, so we didn't have, you know, a ton to really work off of.
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And so she kind of pointed the finger in other directions.
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Now, that's not, you know, like she, she, you know, that that may have been the case, but when you're hearing that after you didn't get a promotion and you realize like there was stuff that should have happened, like that's just a bummer.
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That also doesn't tell me anything as the employee to want to stay.
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And so my manager just kind of glossed over it, pointed fingers, and then said, Hey, like, keep doing what you're doing, and like, I'm sure it'll be next time.
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That gave me nothing.
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Now, let's reimagine this conversation.
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Here's here's what it would have been like if she used the sit-down framework.
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Now, I want to remind you what that framework is.
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It is a 30-minute conversation where you start by taking responsibility as that manager, as that leader, for your role in the situation.
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Second, you share the specific news, the feedback, the recognition, whatever you have to, kind of the meat of the message.
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And then third, you make an action plan with next steps so that it's so the person on the other end knows, okay, well, like here do we go, here's where we go from here.
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So, what would have happened if my manager used the sit-down?
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So she might have started the conversation, said, Hey, Leah, um, you know, I have some tough news to share with you.
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And I, and I want to first take responsibility that um, I know I when we talked about the promotion, I said it was a shoe-in, I said it was in the bag, and there was a lot of more factors at play that I actually I didn't get ahead of.
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And I apologize.
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And I want to take responsibility for that.
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Unfortunately, there was a lot of awesome folks, you know, doing incredible work that were up for promotion this cycle.
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And even though you have done incredible work, and and I've been such an advocate, as has our VP, um, this time around it the promotion didn't land.
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So, you know, I know you have been doing incredible work.
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I want to get really specific and precise around the one or two gaps to close so that you can get that promotion next time.
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And I have a good sense of what those are, and let's discuss that next week so we can make an action plan that you can really own and drive and make sure it happens next time.
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What would have changed if she said that?
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I would have felt like there was a plan.
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I would have felt like there was hope there.
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And instead of having a 30-minute conversation where she said, sorry it didn't happen, it wasn't my fault.
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We have a conversation around, hey, I realize as your manager, I didn't really like survey the situation the right way.
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I'm owning that.
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And there were some gaps.
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Now you're gonna own those and you're gonna own the actions, like, wow.
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And I think about these moments throughout my career when all that was needed was a conversation.
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And it's hard to reflect on.
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Like candidly, it's kind of like what might have been.
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I think we all do that with all sorts of stuff.
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If you're more of an anxiety-prone person like me, maybe those conversations go all the way back to seventh grade.
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But I'm sharing this because I don't think we spend enough time thinking about what is going on in the mind of our employees, and then we feel blindsided, we feel shocked when something happens, we feel like, gosh, why didn't they tell us?
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Why didn't they say anything?
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How could they be leaving?
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And and if we spend a little bit more time thinking about, well, how do I need to deliver this message so this person can receive it?
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How how am I approaching this whole situation knowing that I have someone else's fate in my hands?
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And the sit down is the way that you acknowledge when maybe you didn't get it right.
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It doesn't mean you're a bad leader, it doesn't mean you're a bad manager, it doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing, it doesn't mean you're gonna give someone the thing they wanted if you can't make it possible.
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But it humanizes you and it and it gives someone a sense of, okay, we're all like owning our stuff and trying to figure this out together.
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And and I reflect on these moments because now working on the other side of this, working hand in hand with business owners and founders and leaders in in Fortune 500 companies of teams of all different sizes, we spend a lot of time wanting to say the thing that we want to say, having the behavior change, wanting to have the awkward conversation go by faster, not wanting to lose the person that did a great job, but like not being able to promise things all the time.
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We spend a lot of time on what am I gonna say and are they gonna this and that.
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And what I coach all of my clients with, again, whether they are fortune 500, fortune, 100 leaders, VPs to a business owner with a team of two, what I coach them on, what I coach you on as a listener to the show, is thinking about the person on the other end.
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And that is what the sit-down demonstrates.
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That's why it is so powerful.
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That's why I love sharing about it, teaching about it, why I'm doing episodes after episode about it.
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Because it's it's your secret weapon that you had, you know, in your toe belt the whole time that you didn't realize how to deploy.
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It's taking responsibility, it's being specific, and it's showing someone there's a plan.
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And that can be used for corrective feedback, for disappointing news, for for recognition, showing someone like, yes, do more of that.
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Let's let's see it here, here, and here.
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I want to share another example of a retention conversation that would have saved me in a job that I loved, in a job that I felt like I was born to do.
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One that I look back on now, I don't know how many years later, 15 years later, wishing it had gone differently.
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And I want to tell this story because it's not our employees' responsibility to have the sit down with us.
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I think sometimes you can think about this and say, well, if if someone's unhappy, if they want to leave, they should tell me.
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And yeah, they should.
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But because I've been on the other end like so many times, I think a lot of times your employees are sending you signals and you're missing them.
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Or you're busy and you don't realize it's a signal.
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And and you also aren't recognizing there's a really big power dynamic.
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Uh, you know, there's a lot at stake for your employee to say, hey, you know, I don't know if if this is good for me, if I need something.
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A lot of people are afraid to do that.
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And recognizing this is the reality, even if you're approachable, even if you're nice, like it is on you.
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It is on you to have the conversation, to, to be proactive.
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And that's why the sit-down framework, I've made it so simple.
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It's three, three steps, 30 minutes.
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I'm not saying to meet with people for hours.
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But think about the story I'm gonna share and how powerful if only we had had the sit-down, if only my VP had had the sit-down with me.
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So, about a year after I got married, uh, my husband was in school, we were living in San Francisco, and I got an email that said hello for Microsoft.
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When that email came in, first of all, it came to my spam folder.
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So, this is like I have been the person that checks their spam folder every single day because of this.
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It was the most important email of my life.
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Um, I knew, oh, I'm being recruited to Microsoft.
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My life is about to change.
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I grew up in the Bay Area adjacent to tech, everything that was going on here, but I wasn't uh, I didn't have a computer science background and MBA, so I thought, like, well, I could never work in tech.
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And this was my ticket.
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And so my husband had to stay in San Francisco, finish school.
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I ended up having to rent a studio apartment.
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Uh, we had to feel like cover two rents, this long-distance relationship early in our marriage, but we knew it was worth it.
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And so I moved to Seattle, start the job, and a couple weeks, actually, maybe a month or two into the role, uh, my boss says that she's leaving.
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And I loved the job before, but I was like, oh, this is it.
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This is it for me.
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And so I was acting chief of staff for the next several months.
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And in that role, like I was living there by myself.
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I was, I didn't have a big nightlife because my husband was back at home.
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So I just like worked 12 plus hours a day.
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I went into the office at like seven in the morning.
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I worked all the time.
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I had all these ideas, all these projects.
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This was a chief of staff internal comms manager.
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So, along with overseeing kind of org development types of things, I was building out this whole comms strategy for our VP.
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We would meet there on Saturday morning and film a video, and we'd have a weekly update.
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And I learned After Effects to like have all these, this was way before Capcat, my friends, all this stuff.
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I was so into the role so that we could have compelling graphics and motion and all these things and get people engaged in the work.
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I was close with each of the members of his leadership team, helping them define their own communication strategies to really build alignment through their org.
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And I said the VP, like, you know, I really want this job full time.
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And he said, Okay, you know, I'm thinking about what direction I want to go if I want to hire more of a technical, you know, an engineering background, but yeah, I'll keep that in mind.
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I said, you know, I really know I can do it.
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I, you know, I really hope, you know, I hope you consider me.
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He kind of brushed it off to be handily, but you know, I said it.
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Um, a couple months later, we go to India and China to meet the teams in person.
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I'm traveling side by side, managing every single detail about it, um, scheduling all like doing driving all of our demos, showing all the product stuff, like literally doing this this job end to end.
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And he's always telling me, you know, doing a great job, love what your your ideas.
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This is awesome.
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Then one day I'm sitting in my office and I hear a rustling next door where my previous manager, like where her office was.
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And I get up and I walk over to um to see what's going on.
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And someone says, Hi, I'm Gabe.
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I'm your new manager.
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And like I it's it's literally hard to tell the story.
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I remember how viscerally just like I feel right now like I'm about to throw up.
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That feeling comes back a punch in the gut, shock, humiliation, shame that I thought it was my job, that I thought he he thought I was doing it.
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Every single feeling flooded.
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And then the one of I kind of put my marriage at like at risk for this.
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The VP had hired someone else to be to take on the chief of staff job.
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He didn't tell me he was even interviewing anyone, and the guy started that day.
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And I mean, to say that was the beginning of the end is the understatement of of of you know the year.
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Um but but like yeah, and I I thought, okay, like I guess I guess he sent his message, so I started looking for other jobs.
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Now, meanwhile, over the next few months, um, the VP still leaned on me for for all the work, for the, you know, still went to another India trip where we had to set up all the, you know, everything with the team and do all the demos and drive all the projects, um, still made the weekly video, and we still worked really closely together.
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And he was saying, you know, hey, you're doing a great job, but there was this looming situation that there was this other guy that got the job that I had asked for, and he never talked about it.
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And one day I went into his office and I said, Hey, you know, I I found another role.
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I'm gonna be moving on.
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And he was shocked.
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He looked at me like like he was blindsided, like he was, like he was hurt, like he was sad.
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And he said, What do you mean?
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Like, I need you, you're doing such an amazing job.
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Like, you can't leave.
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And I said, uh, I I thought when you hired Gabe, you kind of you sent a message.
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And he said, No, like you but you still were doing all the things, like we still made the videos and you came to India, like all like what do you mean?
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Like, I I didn't know I I I needed you.
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And and I said, Hey, you know, I I don't know, it's too late.
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I I I never felt that after I just I'm sorry, it's too late.
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And and I left and I changed teams.
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And I think about that so often because it was a job that I loved.
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It was a job that I was crushing.
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It was a job that I could have done for years.
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I would have.
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But he never had a conversation.
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He never had the sit down.
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He never went and said, Hey, you know, um, I had to make a really tough decision.
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I needed a technical architect to help me with some of the future things around the org.
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.279
It is not a replacement of you, it's completely complementary.
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:32.240
Um, I really realize I need these two roles.
00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:38.000
And I know because the reporting structure, because he's senior to you, it feels like, you know, you got slighted.
00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:41.759
And I want you to know that I would feel the same way if it was in if I was in those shoes.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.160
But Leah, you are crushing it in this role.
00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.440
And I want you to know that there is a there is a whole path for you here.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.960
And I see so much scope for you, I see so much potential for you.
00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:54.880
What if he had that freaking conversation?
00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.359
Ah, it hurts to talk about it.
00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:11.440
You have the power to keep people from leaving, even in the most disappointing situations, even when you can't give them what they want, by just confronting it, by taking responsibility.
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:12.799
That is the sit down.
00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:20.240
And I hope these two stories really give you a sense of the power of this framework.
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:26.480
Because again, it's not only when everything's going great and you're saying, like, hey, Leah, you've been doing great.
00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:29.839
I want I forgot to sit down with you, so I want to tell you you're doing great, keep doing great.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.559
That is not the retention conversation.
00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:40.880
It's also not the feedback conversation, which the sit down is fantastic for, saying, Hey, you know, there's been some balls drop for a while.
00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.799
I, you know, I take responsibility for not stopping and kind of getting ahead of this earlier.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:46.640
Here's the feedback, here's the plan.
00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:51.200
This is the most powerful moment of the sit down.
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:56.880
Because let's face it, the world is just what it is right now.
00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.079
There's gonna be a lot of disappointments people have to face.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.279
And as leaders, it sucks to have to carry that.
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:06.000
It sucks to have to think, how am I gonna say this to someone?
00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:07.920
I can't give them the thing they want.
00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:10.240
And no, they're probably gonna quit.
00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:11.759
Well, guess what?
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:14.400
They might not quit if you have the sit down.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.319
They probably won't because they see that you care.
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:25.599
And right now, when most people don't demonstrate that they care, you are going to be the manager that people want to work for.
00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:28.079
You're gonna be the leader that people stay for.
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.559
Try this, use this with your teams.
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:37.680
This is your most powerful tool that again, you had at your disposal, and now you are gonna sharpen it and use it.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:40.880
Have the sit down, use it for these moments.
00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:49.759
Because I assure you, having been there time after time after time, the conversation in the way I just described, that would have kept me.
00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:58.880
That would have kept their high performer, that would have kept their 10Xer, that would have sustained the work that was going so well that I had been driving.
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:04.319
That would have made a a conversation that ended up being the end, just a blip on the radar.
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.319
That's the power of the sit down.
00:21:07.519 --> 00:21:08.880
And it's only three steps.
00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:06.320
Employee turnover is the biggest headache that you will ever have as a leader.
00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:28.960
The pain that you go through to find a great employee in the first place, thinking about a job, maybe you know, saving budget for it, or having to beg for headcount, finally getting to open up that role, screening candidates, interviewing people, taking your team offline to participate in that, getting making the decision, onboarding someone, weeks and weeks of them ramping up.
00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:35.359
All of that effort only to have that person walk out the door, gosh, like there's nothing more frustrating.
00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:37.840
Not only that, there's nothing more expensive.
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Studies show that it costs between 50 and 200% of someone's salary to replace them.
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So if you're paying someone 100K, that could be up to$200,000 in sunk cost in wasted time.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:55.039
And so we have to get a hold of employee turnover.
00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:02.719
But the wildest out of all is the fact that 42% of voluntary turnover is preventable.
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:19.680
Gallup studies found that when asking people who had left, so voluntary turnover basically means you quit, like you weren't laid off, 42% of people that left the company said, yeah, like if my manager talked to me, like if someone intervened, I would have stayed.
00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:28.799
And with that much, if that high of a percentage saying, yeah, like I would have stayed, why are we not doing more to prevent it?
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:43.200
And this episode is about the one conversation that you need to have to prevent turnover on your team, saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and hours and hours of headaches and frustrations across your whole team.
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Welcome to Managing Made Simple, a real talk podcast about the ins and outs of leading a team.
00:01:48.719 --> 00:01:56.719
I'm Leah Garvin, your host, and bring a decade of experience driving team operations in places like Google, Apple, and Microsoft on a mission to make leading your team easier.
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From delegating to feedback to one-on-ones and more, each week is a mini masterclass on making leading your team easier.
00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:07.680
Whether you're managing one person or a hundred, everyone is welcome to hang out on Managing Made Simple.
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That 42% set, I mean, I know I've talked about it a lot on the show because it blows my mind.
00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:22.560
And it not only blows my mind because it's a it's a wildly high number of people that said, like, yeah, all you needed to do was talk to me and maybe I would have thought about staying.
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But it it blew my mind because it articulated exactly how I felt as an employee in every single role that I left.
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I have to believe that every other person that's part of that 42% is with me, thinking, like, gosh, I liked the job, I liked my colleagues, I just felt like there wasn't a path for me.
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Or no one really recognized the work that I was doing.
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Or maybe I got passed up for promotion and I felt like, you know, I don't, I think I got forgotten about.
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My career's at a standstill.
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Every single one of those thoughts are reasons that I left a job.
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And if a manager had sit down with me and said, hey, Leah, you're doing a great job.
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I want to make sure that you're clear on what the plan is for you and we make sure we're really aligned on your goals and how we're getting there.
00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:12.560
If someone had sat down and talked to me about that, I probably would have stayed at any one of those jobs.
00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:16.080
But I didn't because nobody had that conversation.
00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:19.680
And last week on the show, I talked about the power of the sit-down.
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I walked through the framework, how to utilize it.
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Today I wanted to really sink in that this is the conversation that's gonna save you the nightmare of the revolving door of employees.
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Because even if someone on your team is not your best person, even if they're not the person that, like, oh my gosh, like the whole business stops without them, if they're a good employee, you wanna keep that person.
00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:47.120
If they're showing up and they're dedicated to the work and they're committed, like they're not a throwaway.
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Nobody's a throwaway, first of all.
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But like this is something that you don't want to just like think, oh, it'll work itself out.
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People right now, more than ever, need to feel recognized.
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They need to feel acknowledged, they need to feel appreciated.
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It's not coddling, it's not entitlement, it's different.
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It's that, you know, I think post-COVID, we all got formed different relationships with time, with our own mortality.
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The more hectic and confusing and overwhelming things are in the world, the more we're like, ah, like, I want to know that I'm spending my time in the right way.
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And so if your employees are showing up and they're doing a good job and they're asking, like, hey, where's this going?
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Instead of writing it off like, oh, they're entitled, they just want more money, listen to them.
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Because you also don't need to close that conversation with a commitment about a pay raise, a commitment around a game plan, around something they can focus on, that often has just as much, if not more, value to that person because they see the longer time horizon.
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And it also has so much value when you can't, when you can't give someone the thing that they want.
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I know in in one of my last roles at Google, I went up for promotion and it was like a shoe-in.
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I was doing work a level or two above my, you know, where I was slotted.
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And it was, you know, we had the VP support and like everybody on board.
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But at Google, promotions were decided in committees.
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And there was also, you know, not everybody can get promoted in a cycle.
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And so there's a lot of factors at play.
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Well, I didn't get that last promotion.
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And when my manager told me that, she said, I'm really sorry to share the news.
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Um, you know, this is what happened.
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Your work's great.
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Like, you know, you know, I think for next time it'll be, it'll, you know, you're you're gonna be a shoe-in.
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That conversation did not keep me on that team.
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That conversation did not tell me anything that I needed to know to feel like I would stay.
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And I'm not saying that conversation is why I left, but there's so much more that manager could have done.
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So the manager, when when she shared that feedback with me, she said, you know, your previous team, they didn't uh write a lot of feedback, so we didn't have, you know, a ton to really work off of.
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And so she kind of pointed the finger in other directions.
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Now, that's not, you know, like she, she, you know, that that may have been the case, but when you're hearing that after you didn't get a promotion and you realize like there was stuff that should have happened, like that's just a bummer.
00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:18.079
That also doesn't tell me anything as the employee to want to stay.
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And so my manager just kind of glossed over it, pointed fingers, and then said, Hey, like, keep doing what you're doing, and like, I'm sure it'll be next time.
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That gave me nothing.
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Now, let's reimagine this conversation.
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Here's here's what it would have been like if she used the sit-down framework.
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Now, I want to remind you what that framework is.
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It is a 30-minute conversation where you start by taking responsibility as that manager, as that leader, for your role in the situation.
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Second, you share the specific news, the feedback, the recognition, whatever you have to, kind of the meat of the message.
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And then third, you make an action plan with next steps so that it's so the person on the other end knows, okay, well, like here do we go, here's where we go from here.
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So, what would have happened if my manager used the sit-down?
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So she might have started the conversation, said, Hey, Leah, um, you know, I have some tough news to share with you.
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And I, and I want to first take responsibility that um, I know I when we talked about the promotion, I said it was a shoe-in, I said it was in the bag, and there was a lot of more factors at play that I actually I didn't get ahead of.
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And I apologize.
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And I want to take responsibility for that.
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Unfortunately, there was a lot of awesome folks, you know, doing incredible work that were up for promotion this cycle.
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And even though you have done incredible work, and and I've been such an advocate, as has our VP, um, this time around it the promotion didn't land.
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So, you know, I know you have been doing incredible work.
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I want to get really specific and precise around the one or two gaps to close so that you can get that promotion next time.
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And I have a good sense of what those are, and let's discuss that next week so we can make an action plan that you can really own and drive and make sure it happens next time.
00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:09.839
What would have changed if she said that?
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I would have felt like there was a plan.
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I would have felt like there was hope there.
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And instead of having a 30-minute conversation where she said, sorry it didn't happen, it wasn't my fault.
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We have a conversation around, hey, I realize as your manager, I didn't really like survey the situation the right way.
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I'm owning that.
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And there were some gaps.
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Now you're gonna own those and you're gonna own the actions, like, wow.
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And I think about these moments throughout my career when all that was needed was a conversation.
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And it's hard to reflect on.
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Like candidly, it's kind of like what might have been.
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I think we all do that with all sorts of stuff.
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If you're more of an anxiety-prone person like me, maybe those conversations go all the way back to seventh grade.
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But I'm sharing this because I don't think we spend enough time thinking about what is going on in the mind of our employees, and then we feel blindsided, we feel shocked when something happens, we feel like, gosh, why didn't they tell us?
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Why didn't they say anything?
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How could they be leaving?
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And and if we spend a little bit more time thinking about, well, how do I need to deliver this message so this person can receive it?
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How how am I approaching this whole situation knowing that I have someone else's fate in my hands?
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And the sit down is the way that you acknowledge when maybe you didn't get it right.
00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:41.279
It doesn't mean you're a bad leader, it doesn't mean you're a bad manager, it doesn't mean you don't know what you're doing, it doesn't mean you're gonna give someone the thing they wanted if you can't make it possible.
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But it humanizes you and it and it gives someone a sense of, okay, we're all like owning our stuff and trying to figure this out together.
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And and I reflect on these moments because now working on the other side of this, working hand in hand with business owners and founders and leaders in in Fortune 500 companies of teams of all different sizes, we spend a lot of time wanting to say the thing that we want to say, having the behavior change, wanting to have the awkward conversation go by faster, not wanting to lose the person that did a great job, but like not being able to promise things all the time.
00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:28.240
We spend a lot of time on what am I gonna say and are they gonna this and that.
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And what I coach all of my clients with, again, whether they are fortune 500, fortune, 100 leaders, VPs to a business owner with a team of two, what I coach them on, what I coach you on as a listener to the show, is thinking about the person on the other end.
00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:48.480
And that is what the sit-down demonstrates.
00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:49.840
That's why it is so powerful.
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That's why I love sharing about it, teaching about it, why I'm doing episodes after episode about it.
00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:04.720
Because it's it's your secret weapon that you had, you know, in your toe belt the whole time that you didn't realize how to deploy.
00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:10.399
It's taking responsibility, it's being specific, and it's showing someone there's a plan.
00:11:10.639 --> 00:11:18.559
And that can be used for corrective feedback, for disappointing news, for for recognition, showing someone like, yes, do more of that.
00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:20.720
Let's let's see it here, here, and here.
00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:32.879
I want to share another example of a retention conversation that would have saved me in a job that I loved, in a job that I felt like I was born to do.
00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:40.639
One that I look back on now, I don't know how many years later, 15 years later, wishing it had gone differently.
00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:48.399
And I want to tell this story because it's not our employees' responsibility to have the sit down with us.
00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:54.080
I think sometimes you can think about this and say, well, if if someone's unhappy, if they want to leave, they should tell me.
00:11:54.159 --> 00:11:55.600
And yeah, they should.
00:11:55.919 --> 00:12:04.720
But because I've been on the other end like so many times, I think a lot of times your employees are sending you signals and you're missing them.
00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:08.080
Or you're busy and you don't realize it's a signal.
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:12.559
And and you also aren't recognizing there's a really big power dynamic.
00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:19.919
Uh, you know, there's a lot at stake for your employee to say, hey, you know, I don't know if if this is good for me, if I need something.
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:21.840
A lot of people are afraid to do that.
00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:29.120
And recognizing this is the reality, even if you're approachable, even if you're nice, like it is on you.
00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:32.799
It is on you to have the conversation, to, to be proactive.
00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:35.440
And that's why the sit-down framework, I've made it so simple.
00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:37.360
It's three, three steps, 30 minutes.
00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:39.679
I'm not saying to meet with people for hours.
00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:48.559
But think about the story I'm gonna share and how powerful if only we had had the sit-down, if only my VP had had the sit-down with me.
00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:56.799
So, about a year after I got married, uh, my husband was in school, we were living in San Francisco, and I got an email that said hello for Microsoft.
00:12:57.039 --> 00:13:00.320
When that email came in, first of all, it came to my spam folder.
00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:05.759
So, this is like I have been the person that checks their spam folder every single day because of this.
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.240
It was the most important email of my life.
00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:12.320
Um, I knew, oh, I'm being recruited to Microsoft.
00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:13.600
My life is about to change.
00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:23.200
I grew up in the Bay Area adjacent to tech, everything that was going on here, but I wasn't uh, I didn't have a computer science background and MBA, so I thought, like, well, I could never work in tech.
00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:25.120
And this was my ticket.
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.559
And so my husband had to stay in San Francisco, finish school.
00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:31.360
I ended up having to rent a studio apartment.
00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:38.000
Uh, we had to feel like cover two rents, this long-distance relationship early in our marriage, but we knew it was worth it.
00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:46.879
And so I moved to Seattle, start the job, and a couple weeks, actually, maybe a month or two into the role, uh, my boss says that she's leaving.
00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.960
And I loved the job before, but I was like, oh, this is it.
00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:52.720
This is it for me.
00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:56.080
And so I was acting chief of staff for the next several months.
00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.639
And in that role, like I was living there by myself.
00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:02.080
I was, I didn't have a big nightlife because my husband was back at home.
00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.120
So I just like worked 12 plus hours a day.
00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:07.440
I went into the office at like seven in the morning.
00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:08.080
I worked all the time.
00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:10.399
I had all these ideas, all these projects.
00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:13.120
This was a chief of staff internal comms manager.
00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:21.600
So, along with overseeing kind of org development types of things, I was building out this whole comms strategy for our VP.
00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:25.679
We would meet there on Saturday morning and film a video, and we'd have a weekly update.
00:14:25.759 --> 00:14:31.440
And I learned After Effects to like have all these, this was way before Capcat, my friends, all this stuff.
00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:38.000
I was so into the role so that we could have compelling graphics and motion and all these things and get people engaged in the work.
00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:45.840
I was close with each of the members of his leadership team, helping them define their own communication strategies to really build alignment through their org.
00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.759
And I said the VP, like, you know, I really want this job full time.
00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:57.200
And he said, Okay, you know, I'm thinking about what direction I want to go if I want to hire more of a technical, you know, an engineering background, but yeah, I'll keep that in mind.
00:14:57.360 --> 00:14:59.120
I said, you know, I really know I can do it.
00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:02.080
I, you know, I really hope, you know, I hope you consider me.
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.200
He kind of brushed it off to be handily, but you know, I said it.
00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:10.720
Um, a couple months later, we go to India and China to meet the teams in person.
00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:22.320
I'm traveling side by side, managing every single detail about it, um, scheduling all like doing driving all of our demos, showing all the product stuff, like literally doing this this job end to end.
00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:25.759
And he's always telling me, you know, doing a great job, love what your your ideas.
00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:27.279
This is awesome.
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:34.879
Then one day I'm sitting in my office and I hear a rustling next door where my previous manager, like where her office was.
00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:38.799
And I get up and I walk over to um to see what's going on.
00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:41.519
And someone says, Hi, I'm Gabe.
00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:43.120
I'm your new manager.
00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:48.399
And like I it's it's literally hard to tell the story.
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:54.240
I remember how viscerally just like I feel right now like I'm about to throw up.
00:15:54.399 --> 00:16:02.240
That feeling comes back a punch in the gut, shock, humiliation, shame that I thought it was my job, that I thought he he thought I was doing it.
00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:05.600
Every single feeling flooded.
00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:12.399
And then the one of I kind of put my marriage at like at risk for this.
00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:18.480
The VP had hired someone else to be to take on the chief of staff job.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:25.039
He didn't tell me he was even interviewing anyone, and the guy started that day.
00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:33.279
And I mean, to say that was the beginning of the end is the understatement of of of you know the year.
00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:44.240
Um but but like yeah, and I I thought, okay, like I guess I guess he sent his message, so I started looking for other jobs.
00:16:44.480 --> 00:17:01.440
Now, meanwhile, over the next few months, um, the VP still leaned on me for for all the work, for the, you know, still went to another India trip where we had to set up all the, you know, everything with the team and do all the demos and drive all the projects, um, still made the weekly video, and we still worked really closely together.
00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:12.720
And he was saying, you know, hey, you're doing a great job, but there was this looming situation that there was this other guy that got the job that I had asked for, and he never talked about it.
00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:17.680
And one day I went into his office and I said, Hey, you know, I I found another role.
00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:19.200
I'm gonna be moving on.
00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:21.359
And he was shocked.
00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:26.319
He looked at me like like he was blindsided, like he was, like he was hurt, like he was sad.
00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:27.519
And he said, What do you mean?
00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:29.440
Like, I need you, you're doing such an amazing job.
00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:30.960
Like, you can't leave.
00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:36.400
And I said, uh, I I thought when you hired Gabe, you kind of you sent a message.
00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:42.480
And he said, No, like you but you still were doing all the things, like we still made the videos and you came to India, like all like what do you mean?
00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:46.400
Like, I I didn't know I I I needed you.
00:17:47.039 --> 00:17:50.480
And and I said, Hey, you know, I I don't know, it's too late.
00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:55.839
I I I never felt that after I just I'm sorry, it's too late.
00:17:56.480 --> 00:17:59.200
And and I left and I changed teams.
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:04.880
And I think about that so often because it was a job that I loved.
00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:07.359
It was a job that I was crushing.
00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:10.559
It was a job that I could have done for years.
00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:11.839
I would have.
00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:15.119
But he never had a conversation.
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:16.480
He never had the sit down.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:21.920
He never went and said, Hey, you know, um, I had to make a really tough decision.
00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:25.839
I needed a technical architect to help me with some of the future things around the org.
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.279
It is not a replacement of you, it's completely complementary.
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:32.240
Um, I really realize I need these two roles.
00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:38.000
And I know because the reporting structure, because he's senior to you, it feels like, you know, you got slighted.
00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:41.759
And I want you to know that I would feel the same way if it was in if I was in those shoes.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.160
But Leah, you are crushing it in this role.
00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.440
And I want you to know that there is a there is a whole path for you here.
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.960
And I see so much scope for you, I see so much potential for you.
00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:54.880
What if he had that freaking conversation?
00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.359
Ah, it hurts to talk about it.
00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:11.440
You have the power to keep people from leaving, even in the most disappointing situations, even when you can't give them what they want, by just confronting it, by taking responsibility.
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:12.799
That is the sit down.
00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:20.240
And I hope these two stories really give you a sense of the power of this framework.
00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:26.480
Because again, it's not only when everything's going great and you're saying, like, hey, Leah, you've been doing great.
00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:29.839
I want I forgot to sit down with you, so I want to tell you you're doing great, keep doing great.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.559
That is not the retention conversation.
00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:40.880
It's also not the feedback conversation, which the sit down is fantastic for, saying, Hey, you know, there's been some balls drop for a while.
00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.799
I, you know, I take responsibility for not stopping and kind of getting ahead of this earlier.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:46.640
Here's the feedback, here's the plan.
00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:51.200
This is the most powerful moment of the sit down.
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:56.880
Because let's face it, the world is just what it is right now.
00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.079
There's gonna be a lot of disappointments people have to face.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:03.279
And as leaders, it sucks to have to carry that.
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:06.000
It sucks to have to think, how am I gonna say this to someone?
00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:07.920
I can't give them the thing they want.
00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:10.240
And no, they're probably gonna quit.
00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:11.759
Well, guess what?
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:14.400
They might not quit if you have the sit down.
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.319
They probably won't because they see that you care.
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:25.599
And right now, when most people don't demonstrate that they care, you are going to be the manager that people want to work for.
00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:28.079
You're gonna be the leader that people stay for.
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.559
Try this, use this with your teams.
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:37.680
This is your most powerful tool that again, you had at your disposal, and now you are gonna sharpen it and use it.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:40.880
Have the sit down, use it for these moments.
00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:49.759
Because I assure you, having been there time after time after time, the conversation in the way I just described, that would have kept me.
00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:58.880
That would have kept their high performer, that would have kept their 10Xer, that would have sustained the work that was going so well that I had been driving.
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:04.319
That would have made a a conversation that ended up being the end, just a blip on the radar.
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.319
That's the power of the sit down.
00:21:07.519 --> 00:21:08.880
And it's only three steps.
