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DO THE DAMN THING Audio Experience
DO THE DAMN THING Audio Experience
Unlocking the Potential of Team Dynamics: Strengthening Relationships through Meetings and Feedback
Ever wondered why those Monday morning meetings are so crucial? How can they be a catalyst for fostering an open, collaborative and joyful work culture? This episode is like a treasure map that takes you on a journey towards unlocking the true potential of your team meetings. We'll be navigating the waters of communication, highlighting the importance of creating an environment where everyone feels valued and heard.
Now, let's talk about 'the hard questions', those seemingly challenging queries that can actually serve as a bridge to strengthen your team relationships. We advocate a leadership style that values the hearts and minds of team members, over profits. This episode is brimming with insights on how to build relationships that go beyond work, a culture that appreciates laughter, camaraderie and most importantly, genuine feedback. So sit back, and prepare to revolutionize your team dynamic with this enlightening discussion. Tune in now for a transformative leadership experience!
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Monday morning meetings. Monday morning meetings I know this sounds crazy, but there's like two years that I stopped meeting with people Like I met. But I met sporadically and I met here on Tuesdays. I sent me an invite. When I implemented Monday morning meetings back into my company, I probably it's one of the smartest things I ever did. Let me tell you why Because it was an organized time where the people on my team had the opportunity to have a voice.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes, especially when companies like CEOs are like they're not in crisis mode but they're definitely feeling a little all over the place, they tend to be the only one with a voice in the company. So they're constantly going like this, they're going like this, but they don't really take the time to dissect. Here we go again. I feel like every time I have something important to tell you, the train's like oh no, you don't. So here is the Phoenix train. It's the daily team with the train. It is the daily team with the train.
Speaker 1:Say that that is correct, but there was this period of time where I was watching a lot of my clients with their teams and they were having like one directional conversation to try to grow. They'd be like okay, company team, we need to do all these things. And then what they do is they would go, put the message out, they would get a little bit of feedback and they would get it from the manager, from this person. So these one-sided conversations weren't in a pool, and what happens is that emotions get lost, objectives get lost and when you're all over the place, the last thing you need is for anything you want to have happen, or the energy of whatever is happening get lost. Put it in a container. So a Monday morning meeting is a container. It is the easiest way for you to bring everybody, at all the levels, to the same playing field, so that they feel like they're part of a collective, they know that they have a voice. And it is probably the best time for you to shut up and let everybody else just talk. I know how easy it is to get there and be like okay, this is the objectives, and sometimes I do that too. But when I realize I'm like off on a tangent not off on a tangent, but I come talk about all the ideas and all the things, you know what I do I shut up, I extend the meeting for 45 minutes and I just start asking questions, because it's important to hear the other people, even if whatever they have to say is not useful to what the meeting is about. Just listen to what other people have to say.
Speaker 1:Communication is important, but communication has gotten lost through things like discord, slack, talking through text messages, talking through DMs, internal IM chats and things like that. In a company, nothing can replace just dialogue and talking and being together. One of the things that I relish the most about my team today, and any team that I've ever been had the luxury of being in front of, is that, like everybody loves, like we like being there, like we're happy to talk to each other. You know, we're happy to talk to each other, we're happy to laugh to each other. You cannot do that through emails, zoom meetings, instant messages on Google platforms. You can't do that through Slack or Discord. So for every company it's like oh no, we have great communication, you have great communication talking about all the things related to the project, talking about all the things related to the objective, to the planning, to the this.
Speaker 1:What about that joke? That was so funny that everybody needs to laugh in on. You know that in my company today you can't even get hired unless you can crack your own good joke. It's actually in our employment, like you can. If you can't crack your own good joke and make everybody laugh, you're not even gonna work here and we don't want you, no matter how many skills you have. It's useless to me and my team. It's useless to me and my team Because we're a collective and when we come to work, whether it's a good day, bad day, pressures on, pressures off, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:We've gotta be able to laugh. But we have to have like a belly laugh, the kind of laugh that you feel here and you're going. Ah, you know, if it's just like a chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, it's like get out of here, go work next door, go to Starbucks, go to the entire area, go to Dunkin Donuts or something. That's literally how I feel, and me included. I have to be able to crack a good joke, even if I'm sick, even if I'm not happening, even if we owe money, even if there are problems, if we messed up all of the above. So that is it. That is the best and most thing I could tell you in this moment of the daily tea. It's like go company meetings, meet in person, connect, sit and make it a must, so that you can find out what's really happening in your company and you can actually make a real change that will last and change something. Don't get disconnected for two years, like I tried to. Don't get disconnected for five minutes like I did, whoa. So here's the other thought. Wait, I have one more thought.
Speaker 1:So in this let me tell you, you know, the other day I was reading something and it was talking about like serving people, serving the people in your company, the easiest way for you to find out what's happening, what's not happening. And I really believe that I was thinking to myself yeah, but if I send out a survey and the survey's like how much do you like your job? Right, yes or no is the option. How much of an answer you're going to get? If you're the employer, your answer is better all be yes. If not, that's bad. Right. So nobody's going to answer you correctly. These bogus surveys that are inside of some of the surveys are good. Let me not discredit all of them, but a lot of them. They're just like, they're just almost. They're like fillers.
Speaker 1:Imagine if you were to do a real survey where you brought everybody into your office, like that's how I did it. So in the month of July we had a tough July. And we had a tough July because I overlooked something and a lot of things hit the fan and I'm responsible, I'm the CEO right, there's no way out of this thing. But the truth of the matter is that I brought everybody in front of me one by one and I started having these private conversations. Now, before I had the big meeting, I had preliminary meetings that were to the big meeting and I just asked the same question. I asked questions and let them talk. I asked questions and let them talk. The things that I responded with were like qualifying questions, you know, like if they said something that I didn't really get, I would ask a qualifying question. What was great about that is that it allowed me to get a collective and a census for what the problems were, what the challenges were, and then I called a meeting, but I didn't just call one meeting. I basically like I realized I did this now I don't think I realized it then, but I definitely put everybody.
Speaker 1:I almost shut us down for like a week, even though we attended to emails and stuff like I indirectly shut us down for a week and we just sat and I asked hard questions. What are the hardest questions you could ask your team right now, or even ask yourself? Because first I had to ask myself, asking myself these questions are really hard, like you ask yourself questions and then you don't really ask yourself the questions because you don't want to hear the answer. But as a leader, I knew that. I knew that. I knew that I had to start asking myself hard questions. If you're willing to ask a couple of hard questions, if you're willing to ask a couple of hard questions, and it'll be really easy for you to get the hard answer. But the hard answer gets the results. So here are a couple of hard questions. Here are questions you could ask right now.
Speaker 1:Number one would be like where do you feel that we suck the most? Where do we suck the most? Sounds crazy, but not like where can we improve? You ask that soft question. I know I'm going to answer you correctly when do we suck the most? That's like question number one. Question number two would be like what do you feel like is the number one thing this year that we did that we could have done better? The next thing I would say is probably where do you feel? What do you feel is not being attended Like? What do you feel like is actually not being managed or handled correctly in our company? That was a tough question for me, but I knew the answer. But I got one to hear the other answer.
Speaker 1:Number four is how could I help you? How can I support you better? How can I support you better? How can I be more useful to you? Because you know, I think CEOs have this part of the world twisted. You believe, like CEOs especially. You know, I've now coached so many CEOs black, white, female, female around the world of $40 million to $40,000, $400,000, I'll say $400,000 is that. And I'm going to tell you the truth is, everybody's got to twist it, like every CEO, almost every, has it twisted. The employee doesn't work for you, you work for the employee. I know this sounds crazy, but they are your first customer. It sounds wild, but your team is your first customer, very first customer, most important customer. So it's like we think that we work for them and them equally, when the truth is we work for our team here and then we work for the customer out in the market.
Speaker 1:You get that formula like right man, it's like so when it came to that meeting, I didn't sit down and go. How could you? Why didn't we? Ah, I tried to understand. Where did I fail my first customer? Because if I could figure out where I failed my first customer, I'd pull up the process and then find the resources.
Speaker 1:Even if it took me a little longer, I'm going to find the right resources because I don't want to lose customers and lose team. That's not fun for me, but it's not because I don't want to lose team, because and I'm going to challenge everybody to think differently about what they're building, because it's not that I want to I don't want to lose team because we have to start over again. I don't want to lose team because I made a promise to the team member and I like the person, like I want to be with them in our future in some capacity. And like, if you can think beyond your dollars and think beyond your bottom line and think beyond whatever is in front of you, you could stick to. Like what are you building, not just in this business but in your life. Like I think there is every single employee of hired.
Speaker 1:Probably in the last 15 years I could still invite to a Christmas party and they'd still invite me to a Christmas party and have a gift from me under the tree. You get what I'm saying Like, not just invite me. I want you to think about that. Can you say the same for yourself? You should. Being a great leader is not like. This part of the game is not necessarily about just dollars and cents. It's about not having to build twice, and if you can build in the hearts of people and have them build with you, regardless of what they're doing in their lives, man you're going to like you'll be rich beyond measure, because it's going to be richness far past dollars. I'm done for today. I got so much stuff on my desk I got to go do and, more importantly, I have hard questions that I got to go ask. I'm about to pick up the phone and call 40 people.
