Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Welcome. Welcome to the Small Business Hustle. And hello. Hello. I'm Molly B. Your host and owner of MJ's Market, a small general store in South Dakota. This is a weekly podcast where we discuss operating a small business.
[00:00:31] All right, welcome, welcome. So today's quote is leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
[00:00:43] And that is by John C. Maxwell. So I thought that quote would fit nicely with what we're going to talk about today, which is leadership. So on today's talk, we are going to chat about leadership.
[00:00:56] All right, here's the deal. When it comes to leadership, someone has to be in charge. So we put them in the role, even if they are unsure of how to lead, how to motivate, and how to inspire people.
[00:01:11] So when we are unsure of how to deal with these emotions, let's say not knowing how to lead someone or get the result that we want, maybe we just don't know how we're going to be able to get them to do the things that we need them to do and to reach those goals. And we don't know how to deal with those emotions. A lot of people sort of go to this place where they throw a fit or a tantrum.
[00:01:36] I akin this to a toddler.
[00:01:39] It's the manager toddler phenomenon. And it is where your manager is as emotionally developed in their management skills as a toddler is at dealing with not getting pudding when they want it. All right, so we display our anger and our frustration because we don't know how to solve the problem. We are limited in our knowledge and experience and therefore we don't know the actions or words to solve the problem. So instead we try to manage by fear or anger and frustration.
[00:02:12] This is pretty common you'll see in a lot of situations, whether it is in parenting or whether it is in leadership, where the leader themselves is not able to figure out a way to get the people to do what they want. So they bully. They make angry gestures and thoughts towards these people so that they will try to force them to do what it is they want them to do.
[00:02:37] A common time that you will see this occur is when an employee isn't as strongly skilled at their job.
[00:02:44] You know, in this situation, you will have a low skill manager leading a low skill employee. All right, you put both of those together. So the manager is not very skilled and neither is the employee. This is almost always going to lead to an unpleasant workplace experience every time.
[00:03:05] The solution is easy as it is difficult, which is to say that there are easy solutions. However, you may not have the right people, and then the solution will never work. All right, so the solution is to give them both more tools to work with.
[00:03:24] However, not all employees or not all managers or leaders are going to be able to utilize those new tools.
[00:03:33] So today we're going to focus on what we can do for the managers or the leaders. So how can we make them better leaders? How can we move them out of that? So we're not going to talk as much about the employee side as what the manager could be doing.
[00:03:48] So for managers, learning better coaching skills is one of the best that I have found.
[00:03:54] If in myself frustration arose, then what I would do is I would reframe my mindset, and then I would be able to feel better about the situation. So therefore, I could approach it in a much more positive mindset. And mindset is a huge percentage of the ability to really lead and do well.
[00:04:19] All right, so here's an example of a.
[00:04:22] An underperforming employee. You can either think of them as a problem in the workplace. Oh, man, Tommy's working.
[00:04:30] Sorry if your name's Tommy.
[00:04:33] Or you can see it as an opportunity to practice my excellent coaching skills. So. Meaning that Tommy may be a great opportunity for me to show that I can make an impact, that I am a good leader, that I am able to take someone who is not very good at their job and make them better at their job. And so if I have that A plus employee, they might not really need much of my leadership. They might have been fine without my leadership.
[00:04:58] I may be really irrelevant other than pulling them down. Bad managers can pull a good employee down, but other than that, I. I may not really have much of anything to do with their success or their lack thereof. They. The. The poor performing employee. Now that is somewhere where I can really shine as a manager and show how I can lift them up.
[00:05:22] All right? Some workplaces are great at the ability to acquire the best workers with the best pay. They are jobs that are really desirable. They're jobs that are just, you know, everybody wants those jobs. And then they pay well on top of that. So they're able to get the best of the best, the cream of the crop. But then there's the rest of us.
[00:05:47] So let's be honest. As a society, we rank people. We rank them in all sorts of ways. We rank them by income, we rank them by skills, by likability, right? Like there's people that are less likable than others, and they aren't going to Be our friends, we don't prefer them.
[00:06:04] So no matter the workplace, someone will be low in the ranking, even if it isn't necessarily an overall rating. So it might not be a situation where we say, you know, this person is clearly the weakest link. It may be that it's just they are low in a particular skill, okay? So just that particular skill they are not very good at and we rank them lower.
[00:06:29] So when managers see a low performing employee as an opportunity for them to showcase their leadership skills, they are going to be much more positive and therefore motivating to the employee.
[00:06:42] The example in this is, can you say I took a five star employee and I kept them at a five star?
[00:06:50] Or can you say I took a two star employee and I made them a four star employee?
[00:06:55] Now kind of working through this, would that five star employee, would they have been maybe promoted with or without you?
[00:07:04] Did you make an impact with or without your leadership? Did you have the main juice in that to make them better? Or was there something inherently better with them? Or where that two star employee is already showing what they've got? They've got two stars, that's it. And you're able to coach them and make them a four star.
[00:07:26] I would argue in most workplaces that it would be true to say that stable three and four star employees are vital for some business stability.
[00:07:36] I had a challenge when I was working in a store that I had been lucky enough to develop three really great leaders in one store. They were phenomenal. And I think in some ways having maybe myself being a good leader and then me developing another good leader helps to maybe the domino effect of making that third leader and then that fourth leader. And in this situation I had these really great leaders and they're basically competing for one hypothetical spot, one promotion.
[00:08:11] And this is really hard to keep all of them engaged equally unless they are all able to be promoted or they want to move to a different place. Because in this scenario we were a ways from any other store. So the problem with that is that now we're going to be plucking out these leadership people in the store and all of a sudden we might end up with a bunch of churn all at the same time, which is going to be really hard for our organization to stay in a good place where if maybe even just one of those leaders had been a three or four star, they're probably gonna be happy staying in the role that they're in and they're gonna give us a little bit more stability.
[00:08:48] And I'm not saying that you shouldn't want the best of the best, but you know, you've gotta have an organization set up in a way that you're not going to demotivate them when there isn't enough promotion above them to keep them moving upward.
[00:09:03] So what we're gonna talk about now is the best tools for managers that are, these are the quick wins. Okay? These are things that you can try to just implement right away and you can make really great improvements that will help propel you towards this positive place where you can get better and more complex tools, you can do more things, but these first ones are going to be just really good quick wins. Okay?
[00:09:32] Number one is be aware that you have a tendency towards frustration or anger. So if that is you and you have this low performing employee and they just get you mad, you know, and you just, you're not sure why you get so frustrated. But if you really start just being aware, you'll go, oh, it's because I'm not meeting this target, I'm not meeting this goal. You know, my boss has put this on me that I need to make these certain goals, these certain outcomes. And now all of a sudden I, um, I'm getting frustrated because this low performer is not helping support that. So that awareness in and of itself is going to be a huge tool for you just to be aware. Because now you can see what triggers it, what causes me to have this frustration.
[00:10:16] Okay, I see. It's when A, B and C are not done correctly. So now I can, okay, let's focus on A, B and C. I can see that that's the problem. All right, number two, focus on the behavior you want from your employees. Focus on the behavior you want and become obsessed with it. Seek out everything you see that is a behavior you want to see and mention it. This will shift your own mindset because it will help you to view positive things. You will see more value in your team and constantly look for progress and improvement.
[00:10:52] This shift will already give you a leg up on moving in the right direction because you will have given some deposits to some lower performing employees.
[00:11:03] So what, let's, let's break this down a little bit and decide what we're actually saying here. So if you are a manager and you come into the workplace after a shift and you're supposed to be seeing what is going on, our immediate human nature tells us to focus on all of these things that are not right.
[00:11:25] We just automatically point out things that are not the way they should be and we, we comment on Those, we write those down, we say, this needs done, that needs done. This still is inappropriate.
[00:11:36] But if we suddenly decide that we're going to say, you know what, this is the behavior I really want. And I'm going to just be obsessed with it. Every time I see it, I'm going to be like, look at this, look at this. Oh my gosh, here it is again. This is the thing I want. All of a sudden you're. Your team is going to be like, wait a minute, this is the thing they want. Let's all look at this. We're obsessed with this one thing. And whatever those results may be, I'm breaking it down to really, really basic nuts and bolts. And maybe it is a number, you know, we need to get this number every shift. Or maybe it is a certain amount of progress. And whatever measurable thing it is, whatever behavior it is, you're going to focus on it, whether it's a customer service role, and maybe in that situation it's getting positive customer interaction. So that's what we're focusing on, whatever that may be.
[00:12:26] We're going to just become obsessed with it and focus on that behavior. And now we're going to be looking for those positive things. And then so the other part is to put some deposits in. If you are now looking just at these really desirable behaviors, you might see some of your lower performing employees doing those tasks. And now you're going to point it out and you're going to say, hey, this is what I wanted to see. And by essence, you're putting a deposit in the bank with that employee.
[00:12:54] So now all of a sudden you have more clout with that employee because you have just given them something positive. So when you pull from that and you say, okay, I need a little bit more improvement over here, you have already given that deposit, you have already noted that they have value, you saw something that they do well, and so now you can move that forward. And to me, putting those deposits in the bank is so important in order to continue to develop your organization.
[00:13:21] Let's move on to number three.
[00:13:22] So I think that it is crazy important to touch base one on one with your employees. And this does not need to be a crazy amount of time. I do like it to be slightly more formal than just chatting at the time clock. If you chat at the time clock, it's different than if you pull them aside and say, like, hey, let's have a quick one on one. It can still be informal, but making sure that they understand it's on purpose. I Think that's the important piece.
[00:13:56] So a one on one that is on purpose and it doesn't have to be long, 5 minutes, 10 minutes in this time, you can make time for one win. Okay? So the win couldn't be either they've met a goal that you've asked for them or an opportunity for you to have positive ground to connect on.
[00:14:17] From there, you can then make one goal. So. So a new goal, a new stretch, something that you can have for your next win.
[00:14:25] And then also somewhere in there, whether it's at the beginning or at the end, you want to ask a question and listen to what they have to say. Because what you're going to do is make sure that they feel heard.
[00:14:39] And now you have a more vested interest in them as an individual. So you both are going to work towards a common goal. Also these one on ones, you, as you have them and you set a common goal together, if you see them slipping, you're now going to have that vested interest in getting that win for the next time. Okay. And maybe there are situations in which these meetings, it's hard to come up with a win, but even just having the meeting can be a win in of itself. Okay.
[00:15:11] What you're also doing is you're building trust. And this is a great opportunity to celebrate a win and put a deposit in the bank. Okay. It is a great way to just say like, I am actually going to take the time to point out something positive to this employee in this meeting so I can make sure that I have done that with every employee.
[00:15:34] So number four, let's move on to number four.
[00:15:37] This one is a little bit harder to do as a manager. And this is part of the reason why this is hard is how we got into this position in the first place is that we didn't know how to communicate to our employees what we want them to do. We didn't know how to build up somebody who's a poor performer. We didn't know how to explain to them what we wanted. And so this task, number four is to spend time breaking down the desired behaviors. All right? So many times managers can't describe exactly what a good worker does.
[00:16:09] I mean, yes, they get the result. Yes, they are talented.
[00:16:14] So, you know, there's obvious things there that you can say. Well, you know, they got the widget made quickly and they did it good. But how did they do that? How what was the exact process?
[00:16:27] And so in this, maybe it's that they have an organized process that always allows them to reduce mistakes because Their process is so organized. And in that organized process they are also now more proficient.
[00:16:43] So if we can really define that, we can really look at this and say, okay, we need an organized process.
[00:16:51] And this is what the organized process works. And you actually define this organized process. You say A plus B plus C. And then you know, this is how you get from A to B, and this is how you get from B to C. And if you have, you know this or that, you route it this way. Okay? So when you do that, now that you have thoroughly defined that you've spent time breaking down these desired behaviors, now you can use that to coach others to do the same. You can take that lower performing employee and you can say, okay, I want you to do it this way. And maybe they'll never be as good as that really good employee, but because they have these new tools that you have coached them with, they may be better than they were before.
[00:17:35] So even if they aren't as amazing, they're going to improve their own self. And then maybe they'll come up with a few little changes to the ABC that works or makes sense for them. But now all of a sudden because of that, they've got a better leg up to move forward because maybe they were doing B, C, A. And so you can say, oh no, A has to be done first. And it might not be obvious that A has to be done first, but this will save you a ton of time.
[00:18:02] So I'm gonna break down for a second here and give you an example of something like this. I worked in a retail store and was really good at building displays.
[00:18:12] When it came down to the point of me not always being able to build the displays and I needed to teach others how to do it, sometimes they were just really bad at it.
[00:18:20] The other problem is they would build a display but like get interrupted and then their shift would be over and they would leave these unfinished projects that, you know, needed something. Maybe they needed price tags, or maybe it just was only half done and, and no one else knew, you know, the communication to pass it over to the next person wasn't there, or the next person already had their own project they had to do. The other thing that would happen is maybe the next person didn't have the skill needed to build that display.
[00:18:50] And because of this problem, I thought, I have to figure out how to solve this because I understand how to do this well, but I can't describe it to someone else.
[00:19:02] Why can I not describe this? And so I spent a lot of time like reflecting and looking back and thinking about it and really breaking it down into baby steps. And one of the things, the insights that I found was the most important was the person building the display knows what they are building, but there might be something else on the display first.
[00:19:26] So the natural progress of what people do is they remove the product on the old display and they go and put it away and dispense of that stuff. Then they go get the new stuff and they build the display. And in all of that time they will end up maybe losing track of time with customers or something like that, and they will not get it fully built.
[00:19:48] So what I had, I trained people to do was to get everything together for the new display. And they would have to use an extra cart for this. They would bring everything over to the display. They would take all the old stuff off and put it on one empty cart. They would take the new stuff and put it up immediately. So the new display is now done, it has been completed, and the only thing we have to contend with now is putting away the old stuff. And so that is much easier to pass off to someone else.
[00:20:20] Not saying that that's not going to create issues. If you're always just, you know, the next shift's coming in and you're like, here's a pile of stuff you have to put away.
[00:20:27] Like that's going to be a good way to cause animosity among coworkers. But in this particular situation, you know, there, there it was easier to hand off and say, okay, I finished this display. I have done all of the things to make this work, but now I just need some help with this piece. And then, then it created better communication among the people because they didn't have to sit there and say, well, this is what the display and this is where these pieces are. And I was in the middle of this and it becomes this huge thing. So that was just one kind of example of how the ABC might not actually be in order that you think it is. And that now all of a sudden, if you flip that order, you're going to be more productive. And so just that little shift because of spending time breaking down those desired behaviors, which the desired behavior was a completed display, not missing price tags or any of the pieces that was the desired result. And so then breaking that down, well, the way that you get there is to do that first.
[00:21:26] And it's not obvious to do that first. And so now that I have defined that, I can teach that to other people. And in this situation, I was the high functioning employee That I had to study and figure out, like, how do I do this? And why can they not do this well, and not that I always built them backwards like that, but I didn't struggle at putting them up as fast. But when I kind of figured out, well, maybe if they do it this way, they're going to get a better result, and they didn't, it went really well. I had a fantastic team, and we just kept moving and building off of that. All right, let's move to number five.
[00:22:06] So one of the things that I struggle, I strive to do in any store that I worked in was to build a culture of positive reinforcement for all.
[00:22:14] And in some ways, I was probably that really annoying boss.
[00:22:18] When people would come to me and they would want to complain about a coworker and say that they're terrible and I can't stand them, and I would always flip the question and I would say, okay, well, how are you helping coach them? Or have you reached out and. And discussed how you can maybe do that better? Or have you shown them this? And I would constantly pair people with each other so they could learn from each other and get better experiences. And then I did a program where I would have a little huddles. And everybody can roll their eyes at these huddles as much as they want, but I dare you to do these huddles as a team for maybe 90 days and try to do them at least a few times a week, and you will find a significant improvement in your team as far as, like, camaraderie and kind of friend coworkers.
[00:23:07] So, you know, yeah, it may be a little cheesy in the moment, but I took the opportunity to share information with my team and then to give praise to employees. So I always like to spread that around. So I try to make sure it wasn't always the same person. We didn't want to get everybody else eye rolling because here's Sally's big, you know, win again.
[00:23:28] And also, does Sally really want to have like a meeting where every time you go, you're just like, sally's amazing. Sally's amazing. Like, that might feel uncomfortable for that person too. So I'd always try to make sure I spread it around and that I shared it among lots of employees and, and found something that they each had done well?
[00:23:45] And in this and building a culture of positive reinforcement for all, you have less of that odd man out mentality with coworkers because in the same way that, you know, our managers get frustrated with a low performer, so do other co workers. And so I, I always think like, yes, coach them either up or out, but either way you've got to coach them. You can't just give up on someone because immediately they don't seem great. I had many examples of times in which somebody just struggled at the beginning and I spent time coaching them and they got better. Maybe they didn't get five star employee better, but they got average better. So in that situation, average better was, was what I preferred over a new employee because a new employee had a lot of unknowns. Were they going to show up to their shifts? Were they going to have, you know, just attendance problems in general? Were they going cause issues with other co workers, like maybe some sort of drama or other issues?
[00:24:46] Were they actually going to work? Like there, there's a difference between not being very good at your job and not doing any work at your job. There are some people who just simply don't care. They don't really want to do the work. They don't really want to be there. And so those employees were way worse for me than somebody who just wasn't that good because those employees brought down the morale for everybody. Somebody who wasn't that good. We could all work and try to help them get.
[00:25:12] And sometimes they would, and sometimes it just wasn't the best role for them. And so we would work together on finding out that this wasn't the best place for you, but it didn't mean that we had to be unkind while we were doing it.
[00:25:23] All right, so those are five things that are quick wins for leaders who are struggling with their leadership and want to try to improve.
[00:25:36] And while we talk about what are the problems with our leadership. So I hope that that helps someone out there. If you have time, give me a review because I appreciate those and that helps other people to find my podcast. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.
[00:25:55] Thank you for joining me this week on the Small Business Hustle. I would love to hear your feedback so I can better serve you. And don't forget to subscribe so you can catch me next week week where we'll continue to talk about small business.
[00:26:10] If you found value in this podcast, you can show your support by sharing our podcast with your audience and your friends. We appreciate you and please spread some positivity today. I promise it will do you wonders.
[00:26:32] It.
