The way to influence is speaking in terms of the other person and what they want and what their goals are, what their motivations are, right? So that's then how we frame the plan. We wanna make sure people are really clear that there's something there for them, and you have this two-way street conversation.

All of that is gonna set you up for success.  Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where you get a masterclass in managing your team with ease in 15 minutes or less. I'm Lia Garvin, your host and team operations consultant. Through this show and my programs with small businesses and corporate teams, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech into strategies to save you Time, money, and most of all, stress.

Doesn't matter if you're a business owner who realize that running a team isn't as easy as you thought it would be. Are a new manager learning the ropes or are a seasoned manager ready to up their game? Everyone is welcome to hang out with managing made simple from conflicts to feedback to delegating and more.

We leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between. Let's go, let's go, let's go. You're not gonna like this, but AI is not a replacement for you being an effective leader. I know it is so useful. You can get all our ideas together. It can do amazing research.

It can make a plan that can help us figure out how to manage our team, figure out how to get outta the weeds. It can help us streamline so much stuff. I. But it's not a replacement. It's not gonna do your job for you, at least for now. And so today I wanna talk about how to set your team up so that you can utilize the awesome thing that you figure out in AI on how to improve your team.

Alright? People are hard and I get it. I get it. That's why you wanna bring in the robots, right? But we're not quite there yet because we still have people that have to understand the expectations we have for them. We still have people that have to understand what a good job looks like. We still have people that we have to really be clear with.

And then we automate whatever you need to do.  So that's what I wanna share is what do we do before we bring in the ai? So to bring this to life, I wanna share a story. I have a friend that he was struggling, feeling really, really deep in the weeds with his team. He runs an agency and he felt like he was the bottleneck, right?

He had to answer every question. He had a great team that he was really, he really believed in, but he was still very much in the weeds. And this could be any leader, because I hear this from every single person I talk to every day. Whether it's a design agency, whether it's a marketing team, whether it's a med spa owner, whether it's a software engineering manager, whether it's a product manager, whether it isn't anyone, Hey, this is the challenge we are all wrestling with.

It is agnostic of business, of level of how long you've been doing it. I'm a leader and I am just stuck in the weeds and I don't know how to get out from that. Now in that feeling right there, picture with me, what is that feeling to you? That you don't have space and time to really do what you feel like is the most impactful?

Or you're feeling like, ah, no, there's a lot that I'm leaving on the table that I haven't had time to get to. I know I feel like that a lot of times, right? Like, Hey, I'm doing what has to get done, but there's a lot of other stuff that I'd love to do, but I just don't have time for it. Or you feel like, well, I have a great team, but they're not really stepping up as proactively as I want them to.

And so this is how this friend who is everybody I've talked to, is feeling. And so in thinking about how do I get outta the weeds, like what do I do? He entered a bunch of stuff into chat, GDP, and said, Hey, I wanna step into really being the CEO here. I wanna offload this, this, and this. I have a team that's capable of doing these things, and through a little bit of prompt engineering, he came back with this awesome plan and he walks up to me and he is like, oh my God, Lia, this is the best plan ever.

Like, I'm so excited. Tomorrow I'm gonna become the CEO, I'm gonna get outta the weeds. And by the look on my face, he could tell that I was like, nah, no, no, no, no. I gave him a blank stare for a minute, then I pulled it together. I don't have a poker face. I would suggest never inviting me to play poker, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no.

We don't just think of a plan and email it to our team and think that they are going to adopt it. Right? And I get it. Chat, GPT, Claude, whatever, Gemini, you name the assistant, they are going to get you an awesome amount of information, data, research, maybe step by step of what to do. But we're not replacing the human interaction.

That has to happen first, because think about it, if he had just sent this email to his team and he hadn't given the feedback first, that he was feeling sucker, maybe he had, but his team member didn't really realize, well, what does that mean? Or they didn't feel equipped to be able to take on more. They had, they would've been, what the hell would've happened if he's like, okay,  CEO, call me on Friday, get everything done.

What would've happened would be nothing would've happened. Nothing would've gotten done. His team would feel like, what the actual F is going on right here? Like this person who was answering every email, every question like tomorrow. Now they don't do that anymore. Like, no thanks, and they would quit. And if this isn't a smaller business, but what would happen in the corporate world if you as a manager just said, okay, tomorrow I'm not doing this anymore.

Your team would start complaining to your boss. They would go above you or they would look for another job too. It doesn't work that way. We can't just say, Hey, chat PT gave me a great plan. See ya. Drop the mic and think it's gonna work out. The intentions were there. And as I talked to him more and more, I was like, dude, I like the plan that you mapped out.

It's awesome. And here's what we've gotta do first, and that's what I wanna share with you today, is like, well, what do we do first? Right? So we first have to talk to our teams about the challenge that we're facing. Maybe we're feeling like, Hey, we're really far in the weeds. That stuff's not getting done as efficiently as it can be, that we want them to be able to step up and we haven't found the opportunities for them to do that.

Maybe we're missing a really key role and it's caused us to stay in the weeds, right? Like we had a senior person and they left, and we don't have someone that quite can feel that. So we've been dipping down and do everything. Maybe we don't have systems in place. We don't have those operational elements that allow things to run along on their own without constant intervention.

Maybe we haven't set the clearest of expectations. Maybe Priorities have shifted a lot and our team members aren't really clear on what to work on, so they double check. Maybe we've had a little bit tighter of reins on things and we like to be in all the meetings. We are making all the decisions. Okay.

That's something that shows up any environment. I've seen it with small businesses and definitely experienced in the corporate world where I've had managers that are making all the decisions. They've made it really clear they wanna see this stuff before it goes out the door. These are the conditions, right?

This is the context. And so sharing with your team first, before you use Jet GT's plan, before you use that saying, Hey, here's what I'm sensing. Here's what I'm feeling. And getting the feedback like, are we seeing this too? What's showing up for people? Have a conversation with people with words, using yourself, not the robots.

Okay? Talk to your team. This is something that what we can't sort of replace with the script and the plan from chat GBT is what is on the other side. What is our team gonna tell us? Because when we say something like that, like, Hey, I'm feeling really pulled into the weeds and felt like I set really clear expectations and still not seeing folks step up, that might be hard for you to say what's on the other end.

That's gonna be the magic that's gonna help you inform the next step. That's why you don't want the cha GBT plan before you hear the next step, because it might be very different. The response to that, your team member might say, gosh, I really wanted to step up and I fought that because you were involved and this was something you wanted to do.

I had no idea. Like, please let me run with it. I'd love to do that. You might hear that, or you might hear the total opposite. Someone saying like, well, I don't know how to do this now. I can't do this without you. Like you didn't even say, and they're freaking out because they don't know what the work is.

It could be completely different. We don't know that until we've what? Talked to them, right? We gotta talk to them. We don't know what's on the other end. So when we have a whole plan without speaking to anybody, it might be the totally wrong path. Okay? Let's say that you're feeling like, oh, I'm in every single meeting.

I can't step out, I can't even get a minute. I talk about this in the new manager Playbook, the book, right? Because this is something I see people feeling all the time. I'm in every single meeting. My team member's asking me to be in those meetings. They want me to be there because I can give air cover. We have some difficult stakeholders or clients, and they're asking me to stick around.

If we ask the team and say, Hey, I'm feeling a lot of pressure. I am in so many meetings and I'm not feeling like I'm able to really grow this team or grow the business or be strategic or whatever. We say that to our team members and say, what do we think here? Someone might say, Hey, I'd actually love to step up.

I really wanna be able to take more of a leadership responsibility, and can I do that? Can you teach me how to do that? You might get that answer. And on the other side of that, you might get someone saying like, Hey dude, we've really been trying to do that. And you keep coming to the meetings and we actually are feeling stifled by that.

You might hear that. You might hear all the way to the other side saying, I don't really know, like without you there. What if this comes up? What if that? What if this, what if that? And you hear someone's real nervous about it. Well now you can just teach them, okay, well how do you handle and feel these different situations?

A lot of that comes down to saying you don't need to agree to a new deadline or taking on more work. In a meeting, you can say, Hey, thanks for sharing that. I'll come back to you with an answer. Now you can coach that person. None of those things you can do or you don't know which one to do. If you come in with a plan without talking to people first.

You're starting to see a theme here because the response our team members have that informs the plan. That's the magic, and that's why we don't just start coming outta the gate with this perfectly written in your voice, in your tone. They got you. You programmed it. You have your personal avatar, ai, but they don't know what the team's gonna say in the other end.

Even if it really sounds like you. Okay, so we have to get their input right? Once we talk about that, now we share a plan in terms of what's in it for them, because I'm gonna tell you right now, if you say like, I'm in the weeds, I'm stuck and I need you to do this, and this is why it's gonna help me in this way, they're like, F you.

Great. Glad this helps you. Even if they don't frame it that way, that's going on in their mind. It's like, oh, my boss told me to do this because they want it for themselves. No, nobody gets motivated by that. Right? We've all read Dale Carnegie Win Friends and Influence People. The way to Influence is speaking in terms of the other person and what they want and what their goals are, what their motivations are.

Right. So. That's then how we frame the plan, right? We wanna make sure people are really clear that there's something there for them saying, Hey, I really want you to share this goal with me. You wanna develop in this way, and so I wanna create space for you for that. How does that feel? And you have this two-way street conversation.

All of that is gonna set you up for success. Right? And framing in terms of what's in it for them from a goal standpoint, a career development standpoint, from a standpoint of feedback that they've shared. This is what's going to get them bought in. That's, again, it's a conversation. It's not sending a plan over email or chat or Slack or whatever and being like, here's how we're gonna work now.

Boom. Because it doesn't let them feel bought in. Even if you slowly dish out piece by piece, little bits of your AI plan, the feedback is going to get people bought in and asking, okay, well what do you think about that? What would you try here? Getting them bought in, now they're gonna be aligned and they're going to feel like invested.

They're gonna have an interest in it, and they're gonna step up proactively. So that's where that comes in, right? You paint the picture of the problem space, you see what the reaction is, and then you say like, well, here's what I'm thinking of, how to approach it. And I was really thinking of, I gotta make it easier for you all to get your work done for you to achieve the goals you want, because that's what a leader is.

You're elevating others. That's the whole point. That's like the definition of it. So it's not just like me, I need you to do this 'cause I'm paying you. Because that doesn't motivate people. They will leave and they will be paid by someone that treats them with respect. Right? So again, the motivation is fine and how to frame the plan using ai.

I love it and I do that too, but what I don't want us to replace is these conversations that we have to have along the way. Now from there, well now once you have set the context, gotten that feedback, shared what you're thinking of doing, ways in which you're gonna be stepping out or making shifts and getting their inputs right, asking what they think.

Well now, now step three, roll out that robot plan. Well, I love it. I love it. No, and I'm being silly here because just whatever, but like I use ai. I think it's an incredibly powerful tool. There's no getting around it. We all like need to be becoming familiar with it. It saves a ton of time. It's fantastic for research and formulating your ideas.

I think sharing what you need to kind of get like, okay, here's a really cool approach, but it does not replace the human dynamic, right? Because we don't know what path to take. It could be a number of different permutations of a plan once we figure out the next thing. So that's what I wanna encourage us to do, and maybe you keep going.

You take the information and you keep refining that plan you're making in AI so that you have the right approach. But it doesn't come first. And so I urge you before you jump into like sending out a big email with a change or shifting things overnight because you had a plan that you felt was really solid, take the first piece, socialize that, then build from there, socialize that.

These are conversations that are really important to be having and that's really one of the main things that I do with teams and business owners is help that leader have that conversation and read well, what do these inputs mean in different ways? I'll give you a parallel example that one of the big areas that I support Google in a team within Google is on interpreting the data that comes in their annual survey.

So  one of the teams that I work with at Google, let's say, they got feedback that folks priorities and decision making is really low scoring. Now, I'll just give you a spoiler. Those are low scoring elements in any big company because decision making can feel opaque and there's a lot of priorities. So this is kind of a prominent theme that I've seen, right?

And so if we just said, oh, priorities are low scoring, that means I've decided that means people don't agree with the priorities. Or there's too many, like let's just say we taken a path and we don't talk to people. We have no idea what that means, if that was the challenge or decisions. Oh, they don't like the decisions.

If it's low scoring, it means people don't like that. Well, what I do with this team at Google is we have focus groups every year where we take the low scoring questions and we say, Hey, what did you mean by this? What would make it better for you? How is this showing up for your team? And by asking people those questions, that's how I create an action plan for how to move the needle on those things.

Right, because we can't just decide, oh, people don't like the decisions being made. And what I've learned in things like in these forums is there's a number of permutations, again, that that show up for people with priorities. Maybe it's too many, maybe it's that they feel like they were working on something really cool and the priorities shifted and they're feeling bummed out because they feel like they have throwaway work.

Very different. Maybe they feel like priorities are stuff that they're just not excited about, and so it's low scoring. Maybe they feel like, Hey, I feel like I'm being underutilized. I'm not being prioritized. My skillset. Four different answers to one low scoring, like bucket of or theme. We have to talk to people. 

And what I've found in doing this work is by getting really, really precise, then we can deploy fewer actions. So with this work around the company survey, we pick one thing to roll out every year that moves the needle. Because having 10 different things to solve 50 different problems is not helpful because it gets confusing to people.

So it saves time and it allows people to think, wow, they really, really understood what I was struggling with, and they made this change that's going to help me. I want you to bring that same exact thing to when you feel like you've gotta make a change in your team, you gotta figure out, well, why is it showing up?

Because let's be honest, you are the leader. You got a role in it. There's something you're doing that has something to do with this issue that you're feeling stuck in. And I'll tell you at the very end of the day, if through all this you realize, gosh, I have the wrong people that are not bought in, they don't get it.

Whatever. Okay, fine, that's over here. But we have to take all these steps to figure that out. Because replacing people is very expensive. Now. We should do it fast when we figure out they don't work out. I have an episode, uh, coming up around the cost of an action, so I think we should move quickly, but we have to run through these steps first.

In doing this, what I talked about today, that might be over a series of like two meetings. This might take you like 20, 30 minutes to do. I'm not talking about taking weeks, but this is the order of operation so that we can make sure that we really understand if folks can be bought in, if we can make these ships.

Because if someone's been on your team, they're already bought in, right? They already get it. They already understand how things work in your business, in your team, in your company. So it's really worth trying and starting there. And a lot of times, more often than not. We see that our team members are able to rise to the occasion, and that is the best possible outcome.

Okay, so before you just send out the AI plan, do these steps. Remember to set the context, share what's going on, get their buy-in, talk about the plan, and then roll it out. Like I said, so much more often than not, people are gonna be on board and it saves you so much more time, stress, and money and all the things, all right?

And if that's an area you're getting stuck with, this is literally one of my favorite places to support teams, is really getting under the surface. This is where my team whispering really comes in full effect. Figuring out really what are the challenges and how do we communicate this new plan? How do we get people bought in?

So really supporting folks on steps one and two. I'd love to support. Send me an email at hello@liagarvin.com and let's do this. All right, see you next time. That's all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple Podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.