Emotions vs. Data: Are Your Leadership Decisions Hurting Your Business?

What happens when empathy collides with accountability?

In this episode of The Business Fix, Chrissy and Josh tackle one of the most challenging leadership debates every business owner and manager faces: Should decisions be driven by emotions or by data?

From promotions and performance management to coaching and terminations, leaders often find themselves making decisions based on personal relationships, comfort, and feelings rather than objective evidence. The result? Inconsistent leadership, frustrated high performers, declining accountability, and cultures where favoritism can quietly take root.

Chrissy introduces her framework of the Three E's: Empathy, Evidence, and Equity, showing how leaders can balance compassion with accountability without becoming cold or robotic. Josh and Chrissy also explore why founders often promote people they relate to instead of the people the business actually needs, how emotional bias damages psychological safety, and why documentation and clear expectations are critical to fair leadership decisions.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why emotional decision-making creates inconsistency in leadership
• The hidden cost of keeping underperformers too long
• How empathy can become an excuse for avoiding difficult conversations
• The role data should play in promotions, coaching, and terminations
• Why high performers leave organizations that reward favoritism
• How to build trust through transparent and objective leadership
• The importance of the Coach, Correct, or Cut framework
• How to balance compassion with accountability

If you're a business owner, executive, manager, or team leader struggling with difficult people's decisions, this episode provides practical tools to help you lead with both heart and logic.

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Transcript

0:55

This is the episode that you have all been waiting for. This is where Chrissy and I have the grudge match. It's emotions versus data. Oh my feelings. And I mean really, you tend to lean more on data to anyways, but I felt like I definitely no one was going to believe it if they called me the emotional one. No. Stay tuned. She's the CEO. He's the marketing and operations guy. If it's broken, you need the business fix. So in this week's episode, we're going to talk about we're going to have the death match about who can give a shit less about how someone feels. I don't think I'm gonna win this one. I don't. I have a tiny bit of empathy. Yeah, no, I do too. It's just. It's hidden. Yeah. Um, it's in there, I guess. It's funny, one of the analogies that I've sometimes made is with, um. And I say this cautiously, but Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. Yeah. Because when he tells people like, look, stop, he's not gonna work, right? He says that out of a place of kindness. He absolutely does. He does not say that kindly. No, but he says it out of a place of kindness and empathy. I think sometimes because he's willing to look at people and say, your baby's ugly. I'm sorry. There's a special place in my heart for Kevin O'Leary because he's honest. Yes. That's that's that's truly I used to think, boy, this guy is a jerk. And like sixteen years later, I'm like, I don't want to say he's my hero. But in the same sense, I truly like he is probably my favorite shark because he's the one that says like, look, I'm gonna stop you right now. Your business is trash, right? You know what? Be offended. He's not wrong, right? He's he's usually one of the first ones to say, what's the numbers? And when he's wrong, he'll say it. Yep. Like he says, I was wrong about the ring doorbell all the time. Yeah. No, he's he was they all were one hundred percent. Um, I, I think this is so funny because no leader will ever admit to this, but most leaders base promotions on who do I like. Um, we talked last episode about friends who's going to be the easiest person to work with, right? And the firings on based based on who's pushed me too far. Um, emotions based decisions create that inconsistency. They like if you promote the person who's nice to you but lacks the KPIs, your high performers are going to be like, see ya. Yeah. I'm out. Um, to me, the emotional whiplash, like we want to help people move from emotional whiplash to data driven decisions. Yes. Um, to me, I'm excited for this because this is something that, believe it or not, like talking about some of the nice leader stuff that we've talked about, talking about some of the other stuff I, I had a big problem with dealing with the emotions of this to now. I mean, once again, you never see the pendulum at the bottom. The pendulum has swung. It's one way or the other far, the other direction. Um, but it is making sure that I, I've gone to that, that data driven decisions more so than anything else. How does the emotional weight of liking someone like, hey, they're my buddy. Oh, how does that emotional weight of liking someone make the leader stay in like, let's say in the coach phase where they're like, you can do it, buddy. Keep going. Right? I got you, buddy. No, like, how does that make people stay in the coach phase longer than they should? Well, I think when you're building a company, people stop feeling like employees and they start feeling like family. Sometimes people because you spend so much time with them, Right. And your emotions cloud things like you're building something together, especially when you're in a small organization or you've been through some hard things, you kind of it's really easy to get emotional about people. So there's three E's we're going to talk about that kind of help us get out of that. Sure. We've got empathy, evidence and equity, and it's not. And they're going to be explained a little bit differently because I'm sure some of you are like she said, equity, stop right now. That's not what I mean. Like, just let me get through them and you're gonna see how they work. Because when I started pulling these together, I'm like, I really think a couple people are like, I don't like, just take a minute, okay? You can have your emotions around it. Let's just sit in the car together and let's figure this out. So empathy leaders with high empathy often overstay in coaching because they deeply understand the human side. And then if they're in that cut phase, they're like, I can't do this. This person has a mortgage. They have kids, their pets on life support. This is it's stressful. Like, I can't, I can't put them under that stress. I can't hold them accountable because it'll stress them out. Their identity is tied to the role. I can't let them go. Empathy is a beautiful thing. I empathy gets us a lot of things as humans, but empathy without boundaries turns into avoidance, and empathy quickly becomes another E, an excuse for why we're not doing the hard thing. Giving feedback. Right? Okay, the next one is evidence. And this is where leaders have to ask what is actually happening repeatedly. Not do I like them? And did they try hard? We're not. It's not a participation trophy. It's not a participation trophy. This is are you? Listen to me, business owners. Your business is not worthy of a participation trophy, okay? No. All right, so we're not going to ask if we like them. We're not going to ask if they tried hard. These are the things we're going to ask. What patterns are we seeing? What behaviors have changed and what has coaching actually improved? That last one is the big one. That's the huge one. That's the big one. Because what does coaching actually improved? Tells you if they are learning and they are getting better. And if the answer is nothing, then we have a clear answer as to the fact that this person may not be the right person in the organization. So that's the where's the evidence? Where's the data? So we've got empathy. So we're not going to get hijacked emotionally. The fact that this person, they could be the most wonderful person on the planet doesn't mean that they need to fit in your business, right? Because we're going to have evidence about it. Not if we like them, but are they actually doing a good job? And can they be coached into doing a good job? And then there's equity. And I think this is the hardest question because it's is my empathy for one person becoming unfair to everyone else because equity is not about does this person have the right access? Did I provide the right tools? No, no no no no. This is about am I harming my business and everyone else because I am trying to take care of this person, right? Because it's amazing. No go. Yeah. Every month, a low performer stays high, performers absorb more, resentment grows and standards drift. And eventually the team's going to realize that feelings matter more than accountability. Empathy should inform leadership. It shouldn't override reality. And equity in this equation is about how this helps the organization as a whole, not about how your feelings are going to prevent everybody from from being able to move forward. I it's, it's funny because I want to go back to something here, like you're talking about the equity on that and you say high performers absorb more. One of the things that I want to make clear is neither one of us believe that everyone on the team is going to perform at the same level. Oh gosh, no, there's a mean and a median. Correct. And to me, it's making sure that the the high performance realize that they're high performers, low performers, realize that they're low performers and everyone realizes where their spot is in the team and that there's balance to things. Yes, that is the biggest piece to it. We're not encouraging you to to say everyone has to be a high performer. No, because we've talked about this. No definition of high performers in this case are people that are meeting the standard of the job. Yep. Because the person that you're looking at going, I can't lose them because they're just a person with they've got a mortgage and they've got kids and they've got a pet and they've got. I don't want to stress them out by making them do all these hard things. That person is not meeting the standard. So everybody else that is meeting the standard now has to absorb more because you're not willing to let that person go, or you're not willing to coach that person one hundred percent, one hundred percent. When it comes to promotions, like how does that unconscious bias or the emotional like that personal affinity destroy? And I mean, I say, I say that emphasis, like, yeah, the psychological safety of the rest of that was a nuclear explosion, by the way. I know I heard it. How does it how does it, how does it destroy that psychological safety for everyone else. Oh, and this happens constantly, especially in founder led businesses, because leaders are going to promote the person they relate to. Yes, they're going to promote the person that makes them feel comfortable. Yep. And the one that gets you. That's my favorite. Why are you promoting them? Well, they just get me. This is not dating. They get you up McDonald's. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what's hard because they're doing that instead of the person who actually fills the organizational gap. Yes. Heaven forbid we actually hire the person or promote the person who is qualified and actually doing the job because we are naturally going to connect. I know. It's so true. I just said it so fast. I dealt with this with a client. I have two. It was a this is a podcast client. This is constant visionary guy kept hiring other visionaries and then wondered why stuff didn't get done. Exactly. He's like, oh, we get along great. So many great ideas. They can't execute on crap, but they've got a ton of good ideas. Oh, and here's the thing. We naturally are going to connect with familiarity. Yes. Right. That's human. We're going to be great. We're going to gravitate towards people that are similar to us. But here's the thing. I don't need a bunch of me's in my business, right? Oh, could you imagine? No, I cannot. I am already annoyed with myself this week. I cannot imagine what it would be like. I can't. We got to think about it. Because here's the thing. Leadership requires us to ask what does the business actually need next? Yes. Not another version of me. God help them all. Not another friend. Not another loyal soldier. But actually, what are the things that we need? A missing skill set. Is there something we need? Emotional maturity in our organization? Do we need strategic thinking? Do we need operational discipline? And this is where always yes. Yes, the answer is yes, we do. Yes. But this is also where psychological safety gets damaged because the team watches promotions very closely. And so if promotions feel political or inconsistent, trust drops, effort drops, and eventually people are going to stop believing that performance matters, right? Because here's the thing. Your strongest people are not often going to complain loudly. Nope. They just stop trying as hard because then they realize the game isn't actually fair. You have to promote people that are, I mean, that are qualified and are supposed to be moving forward, not just because you like them. Or maybe they play bocce or maybe they like, well, they ride motorcycles too. And like, you know, I just, I feel I feel a connection. No, that's not what this is about. Promotions teach the culture what leadership actually values. It's funny, we believe we talked about this before. One of my first jobs, when I saw someone who just no skills whatsoever, but was friends with someone else in the department, they got the job that I like really was it was the perfect fit for me. Yeah. When I saw that, I was just like, I'm out. See you Bye. And that person wasn't qualified. And its definition of toxic culture. Yep. Um, there's a when you like, let's face this. When you've got this empathy for someone. Yeah. The mortgage, the things of that nature, it's going to like you realize that you do have to get rid of them. Yes. There's still an emotional cost to that. How do you like, hold space for that? How do you like how do you still execute? But make sure that you I mean, feel the decision still. Exactly. Well, good leaders should always feel the weight of these decisions. I agree, there should always be some. I mean, it should give you pause when you're you're moving someone out of your organization. Now, granted, you may be giving them another opportunity. Maybe the greatest opportunity that they have is to find another job because they're not fitting in yours. But here's what I'll say. If firing or demoting someone never bothers you, that's a different problem. But if if it does bother you, congratulations. You're human and that's normal. So here's what I will say. We're going to acknowledge the human impact. We are going to acknowledge that dealing with this situation. There is stress, there is fear. There is disappointment probably on your end as well as the end of the other person. But you do not need to be robotic in this. All right? You also don't let emotion erase the reality of where things are. You cannot get hijacked. So at clarity, this is why we lean so heavily into documentation, documented coaching, so that you cannot get emotionally hijacked. Because here's again, here's the data. Here's the paper trail. Yes, here the clear expectations because that's the other. Well, did I set them up for success? Maybe you didn't, but if you didn't, let's make sure that we we have it documented. But then let's put some clear expectations in place either now and put them on a performance improvement plan or let's, let's exit because we know that it's not going to work. And the next person that comes in has to have clear expectations. The other part is consistent feedback, right? Because by the time the final decision happens, it should never feel random. I don't know how many times we've said termination should never be a surprise. Nope. They know. Yes. And leaders have to remember. Keeping someone in a role where they're failing is not compassionate because it's I mean, a lot of times it's delaying the person from finding the environment where they can succeed. So stop being the bottleneck to them being able to be successful in their future. And I think that's really why what we talked about in the episode about coach, correct or cut that framework matters so much because it allows that employee to see where they are, what needs to change, and then that final decision, it becomes understandable. It doesn't become it's emotional, but it's explainable and it's fair. I mean, again, the kindest thing is not always keeping someone. Sometimes it's being honest sooner. Yeah. It's funny, I like how you put that because it doesn't remove all emotion from it. It just makes sure you don't add emotion to it. No. And when you let someone like. There are times where I've had a situation where people had to let someone go and I'm like, okay, that was hard. Maybe like, why don't you go home? Why don't you go like you want to go? Like, let's go do something else. Like you don't feel like I'm done and you move on to the next thing. Like you're allowed. Let's look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Let's go do something. Let's just hire another person. Like, give yourself a little bit of moment to like, gather yourself. It's okay if you're like, you know, this was hard. I think I'm gonna go home. I think I'm gonna go take a nap. I think I'm gonna go. Like that's, I mean, the concept of, you know, people are like, oh, self-care. Like there's like taking care of your own emotional well-being when you're dealing with some of these things is really important because you're, you're handling as a business owner, you're handling a lot of stress as a manager, you're handling a lot of stress. And this is for this not to be a stressful situation, to let someone go again, that's a different problem. Yeah. One hundred. I, I've always said I have never been upset by I've never been I've never felt bad about letting someone go. That doesn't mean it wasn't emotional. Yeah. Um, it still sucks. And you still feel bad for the person, but I. I have always been able to do it in a way where I'm like. We've documented things. So when I've had to let them go, I can kind of say, look, this was their decision. Um, we've written this out. They've been given choices. They've been given options. I'm not letting them go. They've kind of made that decision on their own and it sucks. It does. And we'll just. And the best thing to do is to I mean, let's let's move through this quickly, efficiently. Yeah. It's not going to be a debate. It's not going to be yeah. Get through it quickly. So that way I can get back to accounting. Okay. Sure. No, that's a different episode. So let's talk about operations. Josh. Sure. I know you can be creepy calm. No, you do have emotions. I have seen them occasionally. Yeah. But I would say, you know, what steps can someone take to make sure that the data makes the decision. Because not everybody can be creepy calm. No, no. And to me, it's taking that step back. Like it's tough when you're standing with someone who's going to be emotional, to not be emotional yourself, especially when you don't. Yeah. You pass the Kleenex right here, right here. Here's the Kleenex crier. Right, right. Well, and keep one for me. Um, the other thing that I look at with it too, is what's tough is making sure that, like, people have a tendency to escalate each other. Um, oh yeah. I talk about like, if I like when I walk with my dog, if all of a sudden I get nervous about something, he's like, dude, what's what's up? He's nervous too. Now it's that escalation people play. If I'm super happy about something, he's like, hey, this is cool. We're going for a walk. You know what I mean? It's the same thing. So to me, one of the things that I say is you have to have this dashboard for this, and it's looking at patterns over promises. Look at ninety day trends. Once we've you've heard me say this ad nauseam, once is not a pattern before you promote someone because they did one great thing Or fire someone because they did one bad thing unless it was really, really, really bad. Like if they copied their naked butt on the copier or something like that. Yeah, we just let them go. Don't do that. Right. Verify, verify the frequency. One data point is an outlier. Three is a trend. Ten is a change. That's it. Ten is an issue. Three is something that you can like look at really hard and say, okay, yes, but like one data point that's outside is not, is not it? You need established pattern over time to make a binary decision. Um, when you look at that ninety day trend, don't look at the ten minute apology or the one time heroic save. Well, they did bail us out this one time. No, that's not it. The other thing that I see is that so many owners do incorrectly is they do. The carrot trap is what I like to call it. Um, I dangled a carrot in front of their face and they moved in response. Um, if an employee only responds when there's a specific reward or threat. That's not a promotion, that's not a someone a keep pattern. It's they're making temporary efforts just for the status quo or for the carrot. Yeah. They're not. You want a shift in baseline behavior? Not I gave them the stick and they did the thing. No. And you're hiring for the baseline, right? You're trying to do that? Yeah. Um, if you're relying on the carrots of the sticks, it's your it's manipulative. That's all there is to it. It's a toxic environment. Efforts rented instead of owned. Um, I really feel like you're just renting effort by that point. It's exhausting. Oh, the carrot trap is absolutely exhausting because you get on the hamster wheel of performance for your people. Yeah. No. And then the problem is, is you give them a carrot and then the next time like, well, hey, I'm not going to do anything until I get two carrots. Exactly. Uh, that is not helpful. No, it's definitely not. But I've seen it and I've been a part of it too. It's just like, hey, let's, we'll just, I'll keep motivating them. Right? Right. Right. And it works for two days. Um, it's, it's like when we, one of the first things that we talked about was like yearly reviews and how they're terrible because they motivate someone. I got my raise. I'm going to work for three days. Mhm. The other three hundred and sixty two days of the year, they're just gonna, they're gonna suck again because it's the carrot trap. Well, you want to grow a brilliant jerk? Yeah. Live the carrot trap. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, something else we look at with promotions. This is where you have to pull emotions out of it and look at the data. Once again, you talk to this. It's called filling the gap instead of mirroring the boss. Um, too many people that promote the person that is exactly like them because hey, that's comfortable. Um, I don't need another me. Um, we would have fistfights in the office if I had another me in the office. Probably. I would love to see that. Uh, I don't ever want to see another Chrissy and. Well, then the funny thing is, is I remember the episode of The Office where, where Dwight is talking about how he would defend, and then he ends up beating himself up basically under Jim's. Yeah, that's what that would be. Um, to me, when you're looking at promotion, you have to look at like, what is the machine missing? What is going to make this better? Um, I'm going to make an automotive example here. Like if you're building a race car, you don't say, hey, our car's got a really great motor and it's really fast. So we're going to make it really faster. No, you say I we've got a great race car and it's really fast. We should probably put better tires on it. So that way it goes around corners better. What. Like it? Yeah. If it handles like a shopping cart but has an awesome motor. Don't think I need more motor. Think I need to fix how it handles. Like a shopping cart. Um, to me, if it's strategy, do we need someone to build a roadmap? The direction. Do we need someone to keep the train on the tracks sometimes. I mean, I know both of us were like, oh, hey, look over here. Yeah. Our businesses need the tracks. We're like, oh, over here. Look at the thing that we can do. The shiny weeds. Um. You're right. Do we need the doer? Do we just need the person that's just going to be high velocity output? Yeah. Um, the other thing that I want to look at too is when you're looking at emotions versus data, there is a difference between capacity and velocity when it comes to this. There is a rate at which people in ingest logic and turn it into a repeatable result. High velocity means they get it quickly so they can reach one hundred percent mastery. Um, the, the speed is what they is, how they, how they do it over time. Um, you may be able to get to a level quickly, but the speed is how you're going to do it over time for that. Um, with that, the other thing that I want to go go to too is the, like, we have to go back to that coach. Correct. And cut piece. Um, they may have a high velocity there, learning and grasping the logic, but they've got a low capacity. Well, we've talked about that. That's the coach piece of that where once again you're looking at these two things and you're pulling you're looking at the data behind them, not the emotions behind it. And the reason why I bring up the coach correct and cut piece is because they those are two things where once again, there's data that can quantify that. If you you can look at the other things well, like other people really like them. Um, that that's an emotional thing. That's not a, that's not a reason to keep people around. That's not a people to keep, not a reason to keep people hanging on. No, that's what mascots are for. Sorry, was that too direct? Do you guys have a mascot? We do. They're furry. Yeah. We see. Steve and Rocco. Yeah. Oh, it's the dogs of the mascot. They're the. Oh, yeah. Our mascot is Siva, and Rocco is the mascot. I absolutely love this. Yes, but that's what mascots are for. I absolutely love this. Um, yeah. We do not have a mascot. Um, no, I believe that's too emotional for my business. Um, the other thing that I want to go to though, too, is when, when you're looking at the correct thing, if the once again, when an employee has high capacity, so they do the volume, but they're lower stalling velocity, meaning they are ignoring the new logic or s a s o s, then they are choosing speed over the system. So we've got to we've got to once again, we've got to look at that to see what we're going to do with them. Um, the, the cut thing that we've got to come to with this is it's always tough to figure out, like, how do we pull the emotions out of the cut? Now you spoke to very well, like, hey, look, this is still an emotional thing always. But to me, The documentation, the data has to come back to show that, look, this person does not have a fit in our in our organization. Yeah, it may not like maybe the org chart changed. Maybe the mission and vision has changed. Maybe it's just this is the wrong person for the culture or the jobs have changed one hundred percent. I mean, you can't I'm sorry. I don't know anybody that still has a file clerk unless you're in government. Like they're just they don't that job doesn't exist anymore. You don't have those. No. Do you really? I know, it's amazing. I think that's the other part of it is you have to I mean, your business is going to evolve. The seats are going to evolve. Yeah, one hundred percent. The one thing that I want to address is sometimes there are low data environments. Uh, there are, there are those things that aren't quantifiable. In some cases, they do not necessarily have a direct KPI with them. One of the things that I'm going to equate that to is marketing. You can't always say we did X and it gave us exactly Y. Fair. So how do you how do you look at those types of things? So to me, one of the things that I look at when it comes to stuff like this is when it comes to like the employee, can they explain why they do what they do and how they do it? And to me, like, you know how you remove the emotions from that, does this fit the core values? Does this fit our mission? Does this fit with what we do? That's the way that once again, we're removing the we're, we're trying to remove the emotions from like, what do we do with this person? Or what do we, where do we put this person and making this data because, and it sucks to feel like you're making someone quantify their existence. You don't be like, hey, tell me and I'm gonna, I'm going to be one of the bobs here. So tell me what it is you do here at Initech. Uh huh. Can I, I have, I have a thought, too. Yes. Um, do you want to know when you know someone has no idea how they fit in their organization, or how their manager has no idea how that person fits in the organization? I'd love to hear this. When their response is immediately, they're good for morale. Oh, one first thing you say is they're good for morale. I challenge you to to figure out what they're doing because yeah, there's some really people that are great for the energy in your office, but if that's the only thing they're great for, why are they there? Oh, I go to Tom Sekowski. I'm good with people. Can't you tell? I'm good with people. No you're not. Yes. Here's the one that's tough to do. Mhm. Um, I want you if you're driving, don't do this. But maybe if you're just driving, pull the sun visor down. Um, look in the mirror. Yeah. Uh, you gotta look at yourself. Can you explain why you feel a certain way about this person? And then quant, like, find ways to quantify that. Yeah. With. Now, here's the catch. Consistent examples. Mhm. Um, the good for morale. Like you got to look at that and be like, no, this is one, you have to be able to tie it back to something that's more quantifiable than morale. Yeah. It goes back to your empathy piece. That's the oh, they're good. Correct. We get along. If you can't protect the why using specific data points or some recurring behaviors, you're making an emotional decision, not an operational one. Yeah. Um, the easiest things that I always say to is operational reliability and repeatability. If if they have those things, there's probably a space for them in your organization. If they may not be in the right space. Yeah, but there's probably a space. And that's once again, it's removing that emotion of like, hey, I've, we've really got to find a place to keep this person because they're nice. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Are they like, do they even if it's not the right spot for them, are they reliably doing the thing on time? Like, are they delivering things consistently? Yeah. Um, the boss's mood. We've talked about that once again. Take that fifteen second pause. Look at performance versus personality. Directness is the only kindness. Now once again, there are varying levels of directness. And I have occasionally been accused of a lack of tact. Mhm. I'll own that. Uh, yeah. Chris, he's just nodding over here like tact and truth need to be programming partners, correct? One hundred percent. Um, but to me, it's once again, it's making sure that you are looking things directly, you are adjusting, looking at things with KPIs. And if you don't have a justifiable KPI, you're going back to that, that that low data environment items and putting those, plugging those in and doing those in a vacuum as best as you can. Yeah. Um, like what, what happens when once again, we're going to do that, but I thought we were close. I thought we were friends. What happens when you get that pushback? Like, as like, have you ever gotten that? Um, no, I don't think so. How would you handle that? Well, I mean, I think, well, part of that is you have not clearly defined the separation between leadership and and team members. So that's that's probably the biggest one. Um, I would say you've got to be able to separate identity from position. Yep. And you know, people often hear this role isn't working as I'm failing as a person. And that's not you're not, you're not this is not an assault on your character or humanity. You are not right for the role. So I feel like you can value someone deeply and still know the role isn't right. And role ending is not a human worth judgment, right? What about you? I to me, I, it becomes very simple for me. I'm like, look like I understand that and I appreciate that. Um, if we're talking about the job here, yeah, this is not a role that is currently fitting what you're doing. And as long as you can say, once again, we talked before about it putting, I don't want to say, putting the blame on the machine instead of the person, but look, you're not the right part to fix this machine. No, you do not take a oil filter off of a Honda and try and stick it on a Chevy. It doesn't work. Yeah. That's. Yeah. And I think especially in family businesses, this is probably why when you asked me that question, I'm like, no, I haven't had that problem because I fired family members. Um, but the other part is you've got to be, you got to separate to if you're family business, you separate family from role too. Yes. And it's like, but I thought we were I thought you were my mom. It's like I am your mom, but you're still fired. So I and you probably have not experienced this what I have. I mean, any time I have switched jobs through my employment career, um, that usually followed two or three weeks in by a litany of Facebook friend requests. And I'm like, I'm not your, I'm not your friend. Yeah. I haven't had that because I haven't go anywhere. Right. I'm not, I, I don't want, I don't care what you did on Saturday night. You do karaoke. Oh my God. Now I have even less respect for you. Well, I'm going to tell you and people that are not business owners. Okay? I want you to hear me right now. Do not friend your HR people. Do not. Oh, God, do not they do it with us all the. Here's. Or your fractional HR people like. That's the other part. Like there are times I'm like, really people right? You do not want. No, you just opened the door. You did. Now business owners, please friend me because we need to watch you. And occasionally I need to give you feedback on things that you're doing that may or may not be appropriate. That I have done. I did have a conversation with a business owner. I was like, look, do you realize how many people can actually see every time you get tagged doing certain things? And he's like, what do you mean right? No. Right, right. Guess who doesn't do those things anymore or does, but doesn't let any. I'm like, stop letting people tag you. Correct. Not only that, but then the other thing is too is when they see, hey, you're at the baseball game on a Thursday afternoon that they requested off for. And you're like, sorry, we can't because you're at the baseball game because. And they see that on somebody tagged you. I'm sorry. I'm working really hard. No, you are not. So yes, I know we just did a tangent there, but that's it. I love it. You're welcome, I love it. Um, here's one that I always find interesting because we're trying to, we want to talk about the good side of this too. So the post promotion audit, how do you, how do you, how, how do you track if that data was right? What's that ninety day success metric for new leaders? Yeah. So first let's have this conversation and say that promotions are beginnings, not finish lines. I think oh thank you. Most people think like, oh, okay, we promoted them. Now everything's fine. No promotion should have they have to have measurable success markers. It can't just be, well, I promoted them and now everything's going to be wonderful. So if you do not give them what success looks like, you're setting them up for failure. So you don't just promote people and disappear. Leadership transitions have to have follow up. They can't just be assumptions. Yeah, no, I, it's funny, I agree. Anytime I promote someone anytime I hire someone, hiring or promoting has the same thing to it. Yes. Here's where I want you in thirty days. Here's where I want you. In sixty days, ninety. Here's six months. Here's a year. Yes, this is your timeline. Whether it's a promotion, whether it's a new hire, doesn't matter. You've got a timeline. Yes. And we do not promote or reward people for behavior that we claim to dislike. We do not promote our brilliant jerks or the bad cop or the bad cop. Because the team watches who gets elevated, and then promotion and culture are broadcast into what that elevation is, and you are creating a toxic environment one hundred percent, one hundred percent, uh, some key takeaways out of this. Uh, to me, your gut, the next time you feel like you want to fire or promote someone, write down three pieces of hard data to support it. Yeah, wait thirty days, get documentation. Yeah. My simplification to that would be separate emotion from evidence. You're going to feel the emotion, but you are going to verify the pattern. Yeah. And something that we've both kind of said is taking the time to pull yourself out, like to do other things that pull you out of the emotional state. So to me, it's like if I was a third party consultant looking at this spreadsheet or whatever, what would I tell the owner to do if I was looking at these KPIs, what would I tell the owner to do? Yeah. Remove the emotion from yourself. Yep. Yep. And then promotion signal value. So the team learns what matters by watching who advances. So it's not just about who you keep or who you let go. It's about who you elevate. You're one hundred percent. Um. Directness I found also prevents drama. We're pretty low drama. We're at pedal stomper. Yes you are. Um, tell the team exactly why someone was promoted. They hit X metrics filled Y skill gap. We really were looking forward to this. Yeah. Um, if you just leave it open, people are going to fill in the blanks on their own. I would say compassion requires clarity. Being empathetic does not mean avoiding those hard decisions one hundred percent. Be equitable for the whole team. Yep. Yep. Uh, here's a I was looking forward to this question just to see your eyes roll all the way across the floor. Um, is it ever okay to hire or promote a friend over a more qualified stranger? Only if the evidence supports it. Friendship is not a qualification. No. I like them, we're friends. Do you know what a recipe for disaster is? Is when you're just. When you promote or you hire. I just like them. I just like them. I've seen it. I have too, and it never ends well because those are also the ones that you never get the performance agreements in place. You never do the employment agreement. You never do the separation agreement, right. You never do a non-disclosure non-solicitation because you're friends. We're friends. Well, my dad used to say, we're all friends until we're not. I feel like he was being Yogi Berra, but that's just it's a very. It's clear until it's over. It's not. But we're all friends until we're not. And that is in the insurance industry. That is so true. And it has bitten me and I'm just not going to do it anymore. How do you like work with a team to get past the survivor guilt? If someone's let go after like the rest of the team's like, mm, that sucks. Bob's gone. So you normalize the emotion, you reinforce the direction, you know? Yeah, this is hard, but this is the direction that we're going. The team needs stability after change. They don't need you to be, like, put on your superhero cape and tell them everything's going to be fine. They don't need you to trash the person and say that like, we're better off. Don't do that either. God, I've had that happen. I have to like you. Just just give them stability. Hey, this is who we are. This is where we're aligning and this is where we're going. To me, what's funny about it is, is like I, in most cases, it's brutally obvious, but I explain why exactly they didn't meet X, Y, and Z. We worked with them over six months. Yeah, this is it. And chances are your employees, your team members are way less surprised than you are about the termination coming because they've watched it way longer than you have. Yeah. And I mean they know what was coming. Yeah. And when you acknowledge that and say, hey, I was X, Y, and Z, they're like, oh yeah. So we were right. Yep. Sure. That validation, they're like, oh, this is great. Yeah. What's the one metric that never lies when someone walks into a room? Oh, I like that, I agree. Uh, it, it truly is like all the oxygen gets sucked out. Yep. And what's funny is, is, is this is where this is this is a great, I think this is a great way to end this because to me, this is where emotions are hard data. Yeah. They are. Absolutely. You see everyone like, oh damn, that guy's in the meeting. Yeah. Um, if they if like everybody smiles, everybody sits up. Yeah. As opposed to they slouch and they're like, oh, they reach for their phones. It was funny. Why all of a sudden is everyone texting? I was at a conference the other day, and I saw that as soon as someone got up on the stage, everyone's like, oh, this guy. And everyone grabbed their phones and I'm like, oh, okay. I'm not expecting a barn burner of a speech here. Nope. Speaking of barn burner speeches, you guys need to make sure that you tune in again next week. We haven't even picked the topic yet for that. No we haven't. We're winging it. Aha! Oh, boy. We will not be winging it. So make sure you show up for that one. That being said, do us a favor. Go to business podcast dot com. As always, take care of yourself if you can take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.