Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Unlocking Leadership Potential: Carla Fowler on Transformative Performance Reviews, Personalized Learning Strategies, and Achieving High Performance
Unlock the secrets of transforming dreaded performance reviews into powerful motivators with our special guest, Carla Fowler. Explore how leaders can set crystal-clear objectives and embrace the concept of "brutal focus" to prevent burnout and enhance impact. By clearly defining priorities and translating visions into actionable language, leaders not only steer their teams more effectively but also show employees how their efforts are vital to the organization's success. We delve into the strategies for preparing performance evaluations in advance, ensuring that reflection and thoughtful planning drive the process, turning this routine task into an opportunity for growth and motivation.
Ever wondered how to thrive in the unstructured learning environment of a startup? We tackle this challenge by exploring the importance of a personal learning process, contrasting it with traditional learning methods. Learn from Carla as she shares key strategies for identifying valuable resources and setting structured learning goals, all while maintaining a "feed forward" approach to management, fostering a growth-oriented dialogue. Discover how consistent action and flexible strategy adjustments can lead to high performance, allowing you to reach both personal and professional goals. Whether you’re looking to enhance productivity or redefine your approach to learning, this episode is packed with actionable insights to guide your journey.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm your host and founder and CEO to GuidesHR and I'm excited to be talking about a very hot topic in the HR world, which is about performance reviews. We're coming up to that season Everyone's dreading the annual performance reviews.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to have Carla Fowler on the call with us today. We're going to be talking about high performers and big mistakes people make, about performance improvements and some principles. So, carla, welcome. Happy to have you. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thanks, conavere, for having me so a little bit about myself. For the past almost 12 years now, I have been the managing director, but also a founder, of my executive coaching practice, and I really focus on working with leaders. This can be founders. This can also be leaders within bigger companies, but I work with them and help them use performance science to approach and pursue goals that they're setting for themselves.
Speaker 2:So often, this is things that are uncertain. They may have risk associated with them. There are things that aren't an easy get. Let's just say that, and I think often when we're faced with things like that, we want to find some other tools where working harder isn't an option. Again, if you're starting Like again, you know, if you're starting a company, you're probably working a lot of the time already. So these are the folks that I work with and again, we've got that sort of theme of performance science to guide us. So that's a little bit about myself. Grew up in the Seattle area. Now I'm a digital nomad, so I move from place to place with my husband and we're checking out different parts of the country. But yeah, I'm glad to be here and I'm excited to talk about performance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so getting into it. Like I said earlier, it is starting to become performance season. In fact, my husband's like oh, I just got invited to do my performance review again. It's like you know, my agent's heart like it dreads this season, only because I know my employees and managers dread it. But yet, checking in with employees, telling them what they're doing well, where they can improve, hearing back from them, what they're enjoying, learning from them it is an important conversation that we have, so I'd love to kind of dive in from your perspective and talk about some of the things that you're seeing your clients doing well in this area and maybe some of the oops they made, those mistakes, that we could learn from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. One of the things when I think about performance and particularly this is very relevant to not just generally, but also like at this moment in time when people are thinking about performance, assessing performance is the ability to focus and really have some clarity around, like what are our objectives, what are our goals, what are we working on? And that's actually something I know. We often think about reviews as like oh, this is when I get critiqued. But I think one of the nice things about having this as a piece of the cycle is we can actually reframe it as the moment when we all kind of check in at all the levels and get some clarity on what are we trying to do. And one of the things as a leader that I think is the most impactful thing you can do is it's where you help your team know how they win. And one of the principles of performance I often talk about is brutal focus, because I think one of the biggest mistakes that we can make is whether you're leading a company or leading a department within a company or you're founding a company is we are trying to do so much right, Like the list of things we could do or ways in which we could grow or improve ourselves is like so long, and one of the challenges with that is that we often have our effort and our energy diluted. So if we're trying to work on too many different fronts at the same time, then, like our you know, we lose energy. Sometimes we can feel burned out because we're exhausting a lot of energy but not seeing the impact because, you know, it's just spread out. And so one of the great things that I see leaders doing really well is when they actually take some time to say, ok, what is it that we're actually trying to accomplish? How can I actually put those words onto paper? Because I think translating what's in our head like sometimes we have a vision, it's in our head, it's super clear but actually forcing ourselves to translate that into language is really powerful. It forces clarity when we do that and that this is a moment in time where we can both say, all right, like, what is it that we really want to accomplish over the next year? What is it that are the priorities for that? And then you can even start to map that to your team and then imagine if you have a leader doing this. You also then like reporting up to that leader can do this at all the different levels.
Speaker 2:And practicing that skill set of saying not what are all the things we could do, but what might be most important to do to reach the goal that we're trying to accomplish, is this great practice. Because, number one, it sets you up for success and to avoid the mistake of like I'm working so hard and I'm trying to do so many things and I just feel like I'm failing. But it also really motivates teams, because I think all of us have the very natural human inclination of wanting to know how do I contribute? How do I contribute to the win, how do I be seen and recognized for that? So, yeah, absolutely, you and I talked about like both.
Speaker 2:Like it's always good to know principles, but it's also nice to know like, well, how does one practice focus if you're a leader or if you are working for someone and you have your review coming up like like how would one practice that? And I recommend actually deliberately giving yourself some time to think about it. So, for example, don't leave that review till the last minute. Like actually find your favorite cafe, or like your favorite bar, favorite cafe, or even the quiet room in your house that you just love to like have some time in and actually give yourself a chance to think about, like what is it you want to accomplish, like what would be really thrilling or meaningful to you, and try and put that onto paper, into some words.
Speaker 2:It's great to stare out the window and daydream a little bit, but, like also force yourself to translate the dream and and then use that as a starting point to really ask some of the questions that you might be like wanting to communicate clearly to either your team or maybe it's to your manager. So, like, what's most important to you, what are some of the areas you might really want to grow in that would impact you in your career but also might be a real contribution to the team, so that you can be delivering you know, delivering more value. So that is the tool I recommend is actually giving yourself time to do it, because it tends to not happen in the cracks between things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find that founders younger on in the growth of their cycle, it's really hard to like give yourself that space and to just allow you to sit in that moment and and think and analyze what's happening where you want to go. I think you said it really great earlier. You said put it into words. And I have to get one step further and put it into words that are simple, like you know, if you want to put it into your own words, then throw it into an AI and tell you to simplify it using seventh grade language.
Speaker 1:Maybe your teen needs first grade. Maybe your teen can't do twelfth grade. There is a difference. You should try to put your words in and try all three different grades and see how it comes out. It's kind of fun to do that. But keeping it simple, clean and just making it for everybody to understand, and just making it for everybody to understand. There is no place for miscommunication or misunderstandings because they thought a word meant or the sentiment meant or they read it as X, y, z, when we're real saying A, b, c. So I think that's really important yes, get it into words, but then make it really simple and really make it so that everybody, no matter what level you're talking to, no matter what experience, what department, what people are doing for you, they're all on the same page.
Speaker 1:I was at a really cool conference earlier in the year and one of the speakers she had this great example and I think it will just sit with me forever when they went and had it was a car manufacturing company and they brought all of the dealers in to have a conference and they basically got up and said we make the cars, you sell them. In order for us to make our revenue, we need more trucks to be sold. It's not happening. What do you need from us to sell more trucks? It was literally that first grade. Nobody could go out of that conference and think gosh, did he mean that we need to go and sell more beetles or more you know, more scarves? Like no, you're a car company and you need to sell more cars, but they really need you to sell the trucks, not just the cars on the lot, right, like so I thought that was really, really. I took a lot from that because it's just like it's KISS right, keep it simple. Stupid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, and I think that's a great example of just saying if you read something, one way I say is imagine you had to write something down and then you were going to hand it off to someone else to then make your vision happen and you actually were not going to be involved. That's a great filter to use to say is what I wrote down clear enough? Now, of course, you are going to talk to your team over time this is not going to be a one and done conversation but I think it's really helpful as a filter to say how clear is that really? Are there details that if someone else were actually going to execute this they would need to know? Or disqualifiers so? But I love your example from yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:And so when it comes time to communicate performance, I think you could use the same methodology of just making sure that, when we're talking about performance, it's not just what has been happening, what happened in the past, but how they can grow and learn from that. Conversation with my managers and leaders and executives is really like use this time as a level, set what is expected. And in a startup world, you're constantly shifting, you're agile, you're trying to scale and grow. So what might have worked six months ago is not going to work for you in the next six months, and that's okay, right, that's kind of part of the growing process. So not expecting your employees, even your leaders, uh, to know that, but to communicate that and to say, okay, great that we worked on that this time and it got us to here, but now we need to shift gears and focus on this or we need to double down, do even better next year, whatever the concept might be.
Speaker 1:So setting those expectations, I think, actually for me, is the most critical part of the conversation of your performance review cycle, whether you're doing it annually hopefully not semi-annually, quarterly, whatever is happening just having that reset moment of you've done well, here's where you can continue to grow and oh, by the way, we're kind of shifting gears. Here's what we're going to be focusing on as a company, and that means this for you, and my expectation of you and our team is why and having that just really out there, what did you get from that? Circling back and saying, hey, what was your perspective of that conversation? What are you thinking about doing differently in the next quarter or six months, whatever timeframe it might be?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well and and I love what you brought up. So this, I think, brings up another, another interesting area of performance, right, like another, another principle we can be thinking about at this time of year, and it was you had brought up this point about like one. One of the pieces of this conversation is often where do you want to grow in the next year? And so one way to think about this as a leader, but also as someone like within an organization is to more or less say how is it that every year, like I, could identify something that makes my value or my impact to the company like better, and as a leader, that might look different than you know if you're in a role within the company, but actually it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:There are things that we all need to like learn, because, as you said, what, what was enough or what was working six months ago, particularly in a volatile and somewhat uncertain like climate, but also just the fact that, as human beings, we want to grow when we while part of us likes to be comfortable, and certainly when we're operating outside of our comfort zone, when we're a beginner at something, again, it is uncomfortable. However, things move fast in a startup world and often require continual growth and learning. And so, rather than expect that that is somehow going to like happen on the side, and I can tell you, like the way our biology is built, we don't like being uncertain, like our natural instincts will not be to gravitate towards that, and so I think it is really helpful to call out this is a thing I'm willing to be a beginner at again.
Speaker 2:This is a thing I'm willing to be a beginner at again and also talk about why would it be valuable. So, as a founder, for example again very busy your time is really valuable, so you need to be pretty focused about if you're going to be learning about something. Where are you focusing that? But it's still a really important question to say what would give me the most value if I were able to go from zero to one or one to 10 in that thing this year, based on where the industry is going, where my startup is going, all of that. So when I think about learning, so we know it can be uncomfortable, but that is why it's often very helpful to give yourself some process, because most of the learning we do as adults it's not structured like to give yourself some process, because most of the learning we do as adults it's not structured like the way we were when we were in school.
Speaker 2:Like you got to show up like there was a process already defined. There were people actually devoted to make sure you got through, and even the resources right, there's usually a textbook. And then there were clear test yourself moments right, there's usually a textbook. And then there were clear test yourself moments right, when you got recognition and feedback about how you were doing. Okay, Once we're learning as adults when we are in the workplace, and particularly when the learning is around something like a startup growing a company, where the whole point is not necessarily to do it how everyone else did it before, because you're trying to make a unique impact on the market, it's more challenging because we didn't learn how to learn that way, and so one of the things I think is really important is to give yourself some process.
Speaker 2:So this idea of saying even starting and saying well, what do I know already about this thing and what do I think might be some of the most important resources to use this can also be people to talk to. Again, they're no longer textbooks, but we have chat, GPT, we have tons I mean, I don't know millions, billions of hours of YouTube videos.
Speaker 2:There's just there is a lot out there.
Speaker 1:And so I often recommend TikTok has now become a place that people use as well for training. In fact, I have a coworker who said his daughter she's like let's Google, she searches everything on TikTok. And I was like, wow, generation gaps. Just the way that you use technology so different too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you identify what will be useful to learn, then I recommend saying what resources could you use and just brainstorm the list of. Sometimes a one hour conversation with an expert is worth reading like five books. That being said, sometimes there are topics like, for example, when people want to learn about sales and become better at sales. There are fabulous resources out there Like it can be worth reading a book. And then I often recommend plan a start date and identify what your zero to one is.
Speaker 2:Zero to one might be. I'm going to spend 30 minutes, identify three articles that seem like the best. I'm going to read those articles and then I'm going to map out like what did I learn and what gaps, like where did it point me in terms of what else I might need to learn or who else I might go talk to. And so often it's really helpful to say, well, if I were going to invest 20 hours in this this year, after you've done like a zero to one, you then might be able to map out like here's where I might spend the next like five hours. And then, from that five hours, you could say, well, what would be worth spending the next period of time on.
Speaker 2:But I think this is yeah, it's something that we don't always get taught how to do, but we can't mess it up, it's just. I think it's one of those things where we have to acknowledge that there isn't a process, but that we can put a process to it, and then often the most important thing is get going. Don't stop too early Right, and make sure you plan some time for it.
Speaker 1:And even that time, don't let. Don't let other things on your calendar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that and I think, as you're talking through a little bit of a sidebar twist of the conversation here, is one of the things as a manager myself, when I'm interacting with my employees and helping them grow you said earlier, you know, grow and learn from, maybe you shadow them, maybe you kind of do a more junior kind of activity with them, with them over watching and helping you, not like completely fall down. Right, it might catch you a little bit, but I don't remember where I learned the term feed forward, but I know that a lot of times, a lot of like resentment around performance conversations is that you just feel like you're being attacked and what you've done bad Right. So it's like let's have a conversation with what's really going well and then changing the wording to be about where we can talk about and we can continue to grow and if you've created a space where people recognize no one is 100% perfect in every aspect.
Speaker 1:We all have places we can grow. Then let's use that as the foundation to say what are the areas that will be beneficial in your role for this company, for the things you need to focus on in this quarter or year. However, like you, know, being in a startup.
Speaker 1:Sometimes quarters feels like five years, so I tend to see kind of like things in quarterly perspective not annually and then constantly providing feedback on how they're doing, but I call it feed forward. And it just feels like. Feed forward is like hey, let's learn from this. I'm not coming at you and putting you out in a timeout or telling you that you did anything wrong, but here's how you could do it better in the future. And I feel like the wording is so important because then you're we don't put our shackles up, we don't, like you know, put our walls up. Like we're like oh my gosh, I'm being told I'm horrible. No, no, no. It's like here's how you can grow. And and then then those things that get triggered in all of us from our past experiences and our own lives and our own way of interpreting the world doesn't get triggered. Hopefully, and it's it's you're still open to hearing what you're being told so that you can execute on growing in that area.
Speaker 2:I love that and this is like as a piece of the conversation. So one piece of our learning structure is how might we measure our progress? And so one of the great things that can even be a question that you ask someone to say, hey, this is the area you want to learn and grow in. Awesome. Like, how should we measure progress? Like, for example, one thing that could be a piece of that is feedback. Like what do you think is the right frequency Right, like sometimes, for example, you're getting feedback too frequently. Like it can feel like hey, I haven't had enough time since the last you know piece of feedback you gave me to integrate, build the muscle memory like and fully manifest that feedback, even if you're actively working on it, and so it can feel really disheartening if you get feedback the next day which is like oh yeah, like how you're presenting a meeting still isn't how we talked about it.
Speaker 1:And so even having a flip of the switch right.
Speaker 2:Exactly Great, but like having someone who, as they're thinking about their growth pathway, letting them buy into, like how should we do the feedback? Like what feels like the right rhythm and that way they own it also. So it's not like something being delivered to them, it's something that they're like yep, I want that feedback because I do wanna get better. I know it's coming. Like, yep, I want that feedback because I do want to get better, I know it's coming. And this is a part of my learning process and my structure that I'm creating for myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, making them a part of the conversation. Not talking at them, but talking with them Exactly. I love that. That is so awesome. I feel like we could probably sit here and talk all day about different ways to you know, manage performance. We didn't even get into the high performer conversation, which I really wanted, so I'll have to have you on again at some point in time. But as we wrap up here, is there any last thoughts, final ideas, tricks, tips, tools that you could share with the audience today?
Speaker 2:Oh, that is an interesting question. I think one of my best tips and this is something that we all get wrong sometimes. But sometimes we find that we're looking around for something new, like a new hack, a new tip, a new trick and, particularly as we're looking ahead to the year, trying to think about how to maybe optimize our performance over the next year, it's very easy to think, yeah, I need, yes, I need an innovative, new thing. There's something I'm just not getting that. Maybe everyone else knows it. Or I find that we often can spend a ton of time thinking through that, looking for that new, like the silver bullet or the thing when we actually have we already know some very useful, effective tool that we could start applying tomorrow.
Speaker 2:And my advice and my tip is that take the thing you know is effective and focus on doing it. So, like, don't say how am I going to find that new idea. I think often is way more valuable to say, sit down with your calendar and start to actually map what is the time and when I'm going to start doing the thing that I know would be effective it might not be new or flashy or innovative, but would be effective and actually spend your time figuring out how to start executing on that thing consistently and that most often, the people who are performing at a high level are using that. They are saying I already know many things that would be great to do. Focus on one of those. And yeah, if I truly encounter a very good idea, like great, I can always change and start implementing that. But don't wait to get started. Just get started with something you know would be effective. So that's probably my last tip.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you so much, carla, and I hope the audience got some things out of it. I know I did and thanks for joining us today and we'll see you on the next one. Awesome Thanks for having me, gwenaver. Absolutely Bye, guys. Thank you.
