High-Performer Sh$t's Holding You Back: How to Stop Your Habits in Their Tracks

High-Performer habits will sneak up on leaders like you. What once got you promoted or helped you hit targets is now keeping you stuck. In this episode, Cathy and Ivan cut the B.S. and show you how to identify the behaviors that hold you back—and what to do instead.

Here’s what we cover:

• The patterns high performers fall into: autopilot habits, overdoing work, always being the “go-to,” and endless availability.
• Why we do it: past success, patterns our brain loves, and habits that were rewarded—and are now limiting growth.
• The cost: burnout, frustration, and holding your team back from stepping up.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Identify your limiting habits: what behaviors are holding you back from leading effectively?
2. Determine what makes sense: for you, the person, and the work in this situation.
3. Step back strategically: let others take ownership and stop reinforcing patterns that don’t serve you.

🔥 Check the show notes for the Bubble Wrap Cheat Sheet, a tool to help cut through the fluff and shift your leadership habits.

💥 Subscribe and share with other entrepreneurs or business leaders who'll want to stop letting their high-performance habits hold them back. You know who they are!

4 Takeaways:

1. Explore Wingspan’s Leader Team Coaching & Advising — the proven path for leaders ready to multiply performance across their teams. Schedule a Clarity Call with one of our expert Advisors right now!
2. Subscribe to the Wingspan Newsletter — get practical leadership insights, podcast episode deep-dives, client spotlights, and weekly tools delivered straight to your inbox.
3. Check out our YouTube Channel for unfiltered clips on behavioral performance and leadership actions that actually work.
4. 📲 Text us for leadership performance advice — real answers for real leaders.

💥 Subscribe to Leading Without The BS now and share this episode with other leaders who want to stop spinning their wheels and start leading with intentional energy. Someone invested in you — now pass it forward.

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Transcript

Cathy Maday 0:00

The routine center of our brain, just like you said, part of our brain is designed for that pattern seeking and building those routines. When we're operating there, if we were looking at your brain activity in an fMRI, there's little to nothing lighting up. Welcome to Leading Without the BS. Unfiltered, unapologetic, unstoppable performance. Today we've got a great episode. It is focused on when your high-performer behaviors start holding you back.

Ivan Konermann 0:34

It's gonna happen to everybody at some point.

Cathy Maday 0:35

Absolutely relevant to all the entrepreneurs and business leaders that we work with because you are hard chargers, high achievers, and you have built these high-performer behaviors that actually start to get counterproductive. And like you said, it happens. As long as people keep pushing and advancing, it's going to happen.

Ivan Konermann 1:05

It is. It's also because we're all people. And we are pattern-seeking, pattern-creating members. This is what we do. We figure out, oh, I can solve this thing this way. What I usually say to leaders when I'm working with them is, how many of you walk into your house and put your keys in the same place? And almost everybody will raise their hands and nod their heads like, of course. And I'm like, well, how come you do that?

Cathy Maday 1:26

Except for those of us who are like, where are my keys?

Ivan Konermann 1:29

Yeah. Are you seeing

Cathy Maday 1:31

my

Ivan Konermann 1:32

keys? No, because they're not mine.

Cathy Maday 1:34

Yeah. There's that small group.

Ivan Konermann 1:35

Yeah. There's that small group. Most of us are high phone shooting mammals. Work to put our stuff in the same place because it's just easy. That way we're not working to figure it out. Where in the heck did I put this or put that? And that makes our life easy. And we do the same thing behaviorally when we figure out how to crack a problem, not just where I put my keys. Also, what do I do when someone doesn't get something done on time? Or what do I do when I want more resources and we figure out how to crack that code? We wind up doing the same thing.

Cathy Maday 2:04

Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 2:04

And then sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Oftentimes people are totally flummoxed as to, wait a minute, I don't know how come it didn't work this time and it did work last time. If they're even really catching what happened.

Cathy Maday 2:16

Yeah. So we're going to get into the most common habits and And then we're going to talk more about habit forming and autopilot and how that really starts to become a big problem. And at some level, every single leader and entrepreneur I've worked with, this is happening. So on some level, it's happening for you. We want to shine a light so that you can see it clearly and then do something about it. Because any time that, as human beings, when we're operating in autopilot or operating out of habit, we're unaware.

Ivan Konermann 2:52

Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about a couple of triggers. The one thing that I – not one thing. A couple of the things I started to think about in terms of where this is going to show up are, number one, if someone gets promoted or they move into a different role. So that's where they oftentimes don't realize I was doing this in this situation with this person doing this kind of work. And then they'll bring that same thing or something very darn similar next. into a different situation. So you change roles, you change scope or responsibility. Well,

Cathy Maday 3:23

for business owners, entrepreneurs, as you're scaling,

Ivan Konermann 3:26

And

Cathy Maday 3:27

so I am embarrassed to admit how many times now that we continue to grow our team here at Wingspan, how many times I'm still doing something. Yes, you are. Even though, yeah, you can talk to any one of my team members. I'm still doing something that doesn't belong to me because it was me doing all the things for so many years. And so all of you entrepreneurs and business leaders who are scaling, this is where it absolutely comes into play.

Ivan Konermann 4:00

Yeah. And it comes from this pattern we have, again, as humans of, I do this, I get a reward. And the reward can be, I get promoted, I get acknowledged. Hell, I just make my numbers. I'm on track. I get a good raise at the end of the year. So we get these rewards. And whether we recognize it or not, we start to create patterns out of these things. We start to create habits or trends. And then before long, we don't even realize we're using it because we want the same end result. Only we're applying a key to a lock where the key doesn't actually fit. Now something totally different is required to open that door.

Cathy Maday 4:37

Yeah, there are so many good reasons that we're creating habits. And you just talked about one. So this is really important for all of you to recognize is that any habit you have, Any habit you have. It doesn't matter if you're currently labeling it good or bad. Any habit you have, you only built it as a habit because at some point in the past, you got a payoff. Yeah. Or like you said, a reward. And so it's so important to exercise compassion. Solid. And when you're looking at your habits, know that in the past... Over and over again. The only reason we ever build a habit is because we got to pay off from it. It works.

Ivan Konermann 5:26

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 5:26

And so it's our success, actually, that helps us to our success in those moments that help us to build those habits, except sometimes. Then by nature, anytime we're operating out of habit, we're operating in the routine center of our brain. Just like you said, part of our brain is designed for that pattern seeking and building those routines. Same thing. When we're operating there, if we were looking at your brain activity in an fMRI.

Ivan Konermann 5:57

Don't threaten

Cathy Maday 5:58

me. There's little to nothing lighting up.

Ivan Konermann 6:03

We're talking a good day, a regular day, today, whatever. Little

Cathy Maday 6:06

to nothing lighting up. No, that's for any one of us. For any one of us, when we're operating on autopilot, there's little to nothing lighting up because we've done a really good job of building those neural pathways into highways.

Ivan Konermann 6:22

Yeah. The number of folks who have done something, especially in the morning when... when we're first waking up of you go in and some folks will say, oh yeah, I've literally poured orange juice into my cereal. Because you're looking at a bowl of dry stuff. You're thinking, oh, now I put the wet stuff in. And then you go, crap, that's not the wet stuff I meant to put in there. And you throw the whole thing out and start over. Yeah, it's one of those kinds of examples. And some of the rewards we get, one second, because it occurred to me while you were talking that sometimes the rewards we get aren't necessarily like, oh, I get a raise or I get a promotion. It might just be a rewarding I fit in. I sound or I'm doing things like the people

Cathy Maday 7:02

around me. That's why I said payoff. Yeah. Payoff is a better word in the moment because it's not necessarily a reward. We get a benefit.

Ivan Konermann 7:11

Yeah, the benefit. Sure. And that benefit, though, can just be I'm part of the pack. I fit in with the pack. Sure. Because as humans, we like to fit in and we like to do what our fellow primates are doing. And so if we're doing something different, sometimes it can feel really weird. You feel like, oh my gosh, I'm violating the group norm. And that can create a real concern for us, for a stumbling block.

Cathy Maday 7:39

In fact... Total side note.

Ivan Konermann 7:41

Yes.

Cathy Maday 7:41

I'm talking about that in my upcoming keynote. Get on it. Yeah. So that'll be... Good. Anyway. It's

Ivan Konermann 7:48

a teaser for everybody.

Cathy Maday 7:49

Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 7:50

So let's talk about what some of the patterns are that people are bringing to the table.

Cathy Maday 7:54

Well, the... There are so many high performer habits. They really helped us to be successful. Sure. And then... Absolutely. Turn against us as we're in these, you know, anytime that you are expanding your scope of responsibility or expanding your impact doesn't even require a changing of a role necessarily. If you are expanding your scope of impact or scope of responsibility, you're accomplishing more with and through more people. And so here's a, here's a high performer behavior that we'll start with. the willingness to take initiative, the willingness to, well, there's a combination, the willingness to take initiative and also the willingness to take action and make things happen. Well, how in the world does that start to work against us?

Ivan Konermann 8:53

Yeah, great. It's something that I've seen, I've done, where, like you said, we've got a growing, amazing team. There are times where I realize, oh, there's a thing, let me start to do that. Because that's what I'm used to. I'm used to I see a problem, I attack a problem, clobber the problem, and then move on. Only now I'm going, wait a minute, there's a whole team of people we work with who are incredible, amazing, talented folks. I can just hand this off to one of them.

Cathy Maday 9:22

Yes, or you already did. So you're just as guilty as I am. It's already been handed

Ivan Konermann 9:29

off.

Cathy Maday 9:30

I'm less

Ivan Konermann 9:30

guilty of that than you.

Cathy Maday 9:31

Except you're in the habit, though. So this is where... Taking those high performer habits of taking initiative, taking action, it definitely starts to get in the way because a lot of times, yes, those actions aren't ours to take anymore. There's somebody else who owns those actions. That willingness to also take initiative, that comes into play. Those combine, the taking action and taking initiative, those also come into play with the I'll just do it myself habit. Yeah. And we've talked about this in another episode. I'm sure we'll be talking about this. It's so common. It is. So many of the leaders, and I do that. I'll just do it myself.

Ivan Konermann 10:18

Yeah, and sometimes there's a good driver behind it, only it's not final tuned. For example, I've had leaders I've worked with just last week, a leader I worked with just last week who said, Yeah, this piece of this thing, this is the critical 5%. If this thing isn't done really, really well, then the rest of it, the whole thing isn't going to work. And so instead of him just doing that 5% and handing off the other 95%, he did the whole darn thing instead of working to figure out how does he slice this more finely. So there's sometimes spaces in there where people will realize I could give some guidance. I could... Hand off pieces of this to the team and just hold on to other parts.

Cathy Maday 11:04

Sure. Yeah. And we can go back and forth too on what most people do and what to do about it. Though you're spot on in terms of instead of someone thoughtfully selecting. Yeah. In fact, that's part of how leaders can get out of this jam is to start selecting. Though instead of selecting, it's just... The whole enchilada. The whole enchilada, yeah. The whole enchilada. Yeah, for sure. And, okay, I know, you know, all the hard chargers that we work with, those high achievers, most of us have some control issues. So... Just a few. And that comes into play, too. And, again, they're high-performing behaviors up until now. Yeah. Except... Now, whoever is in charge of this project, like with your client, and it could be many people who are in charge of parts of it. Well, now they're wondering, because who do we want to call him? Sam.

Ivan Konermann 12:12

Steve, sure.

Cathy Maday 12:13

Sam is jumping in and taking the whole enchilada and doing it. Well, now his team members are wondering a lot of things. Yeah. Doesn't he trust me? Yeah. Doesn't Sam trust me to get this done?

Ivan Konermann 12:30

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 12:31

What else is happening?

Ivan Konermann 12:32

Well, they're not getting a chance to learn. So Sam knows how to do this. And if Sam wants George or Sally to be ready to take his role at some point in the future or even be able to do this kind of work in the future... They're not getting any kind of an education when he just does it on his own. So he's really short-stopping the development of the skill bench that his team is bringing to the table.

Cathy Maday 12:56

Well, there's the growth and learning part of it. There's also the, you said this was my responsibility.

Ivan Konermann 13:04

Well, that part specifically, yeah.

Cathy Maday 13:06

You said this was my responsibility. Now you're doing it.

Ivan Konermann 13:09

That's a whole other game. So that's where...

Cathy Maday 13:11

So either like... Do you not trust me? Do you not think I'm capable? Why did you hire me?

Ivan Konermann 13:18

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 13:19

If you're just going to keep doing it.

Ivan Konermann 13:21

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 13:22

Yeah. And of course, that just cascades into a bunch of problems.

Ivan Konermann 13:26

And the bad part. Well, one of the other bad parts about this is because people aren't aren't often even saying these things out loud to that to say them. So they're just telling themselves stories instead of Sam just going, oh, golly, I'm a freaking knucklehead. I am so sorry, man. This was yours. I gave this to you, and I stepped back in. I'm going to step out. This person just tells themselves all kinds of stories without any input from Sam, and Sam doesn't even realize the dynamic that's been created. And so it can create this disconnect, and sometimes people are going, what the hell? Flaking. sally was such a solid worker and allison she seems a bit aloof and she seems turned off and i don't know what's what's going on and sally's telling ourselves these stories without saying anything to her manager sam

Cathy Maday 14:13

yeah it's a multi it's definitely a multi-faceted problem because when when sam is on autopilot yeah um anytime any one of us are in autopilot we are unaware Yeah. We're hypo-aware. And so unknowingly, Sam is doing this. And then, like you said, yes. So now Sally is stepping back.

Ivan Konermann 14:37

Also an autopilot.

Cathy Maday 14:38

And wondering, even if she's not, though, now she's hesitating. Well, he said this was mine, and then he took it back and started doing it. Well, now what happens? Now, what am I supposed to be doing? Yeah. And so now she's hesitant. She's confused. And like you said, they're not talking about it. So this problem just continues to compound and get worse because they're unaware.

Ivan Konermann 15:10

It's a... It's one of these spots where, and I wanted to highlight the Sally spot or the Sally component of it, because this is where if one person's an autopilot and the other person isn't, the situation can more readily be adjusted. If both folks are on autopilot, it's going to be pretty hard for that to get resolved until one of them pops out of autopilot. So even if Sally is, like if you hand something to me and then you start to do it, I'm highly likely going to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, you just gave this thing to me, now you're starting to do it.

Cathy Maday 15:43

Are you Ivan talking to Kathy?

Ivan Konermann 15:44

I'm Ivan talking to Kathy, lady. Oh, okay. If you give something to me, I'm going to say, you're my manager, I'm going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you gave this to me, now you're starting to do it, so who do you actually want to do this work? Because I'm going to show up in my performance zone, and that's

Cathy Maday 16:01

not okay. Well, you're not normal.

Ivan Konermann 16:02

Totally get that.

Cathy Maday 16:03

You're not normal, Ivan. That's not the purpose of this podcast. That's a different one. You know for a fact what is happening almost all of the time. Sally, when her manager, Sam, is taken aback, Sally is not having that kind of conversation anymore. She doesn't know how to. She's afraid to. Have that kind of conversation with her manager. So that's how the costs just continue to add up over time. And sometimes Sally will leave. Sam still continues to be oblivious as to what he's doing because he's operating out of autopilot.

Ivan Konermann 16:44

Yeah, and then he'll go hire another person like Sally and then commit the same sins and then wonder how come the next person is frustrated, pissed off, whatever, and then bolts.

Cathy Maday 16:55

Yeah, that's what's really challenging around habits. Whether they were high performer before, they're not now.

Ivan Konermann 17:06

And

Cathy Maday 17:07

yet they're a habit. And so when we're in habit, we're unaware. It can really turn into this vicious cycle.

Ivan Konermann 17:14

Yes. Yeah.

Cathy Maday 17:16

Here, as I was doing some research, actually for that keynote, this is astounding. I can ask Lauren to make sure that we... We put a link. If anyone else wants to geek out on the science and the research behind some of this, like I do, there's a study. I'm forgetting the names. I know Dweck was part of the study. And they found that by the time we're adults, anywhere from 45% up to 95%, we are operating autopilot.

Ivan Konermann 17:52

Holy smokes.

Cathy Maday 17:53

When we're in a stable state, environment, like a stable, consistent environment, it gets up to 95%.

Ivan Konermann 17:59

Holy cow.

Cathy Maday 18:00

Which is shocking. And yet at the same time, when I, how many of us are working? Like I do, you know, we're most of the time we're working from home. I'm in my stable environment and I, there's a lot that I'm in the habit of doing from like in the morning. I'm not Putting orange juice in my... Though if someone moved the coffee machine, I'm not sure what would happen because I am definitely, you know, I'm in Ottawa. I've got my little routine and I like my little routine. Different parts of the day, I like my routine. So isn't that shocking though? Like 45 to 95% were operating out of habit.

Ivan Konermann 18:45

It's that surprising, right? It's also, because you talked about a lot of folks who are from home, a lot of folks are still working, though, from some kind of an office or working someplace. So even if it's, I drive to a customer site and I do this, customer site A, customer site B, customer site C, blah, blah, then they start to all turn into... the same or same-ish thing. And that could feel like a consistent work environment. Yeah. And certainly if you're in the office and there's so-and-so and so-and-so who are your office mates, that could very quickly feel like a stable work environment. So I would bet that that happens a lot more for people than just folks who work from home.

Cathy Maday 19:21

Oh, for sure. For sure. So really important to, one, that's... a fact to come to grips with. It's really, and of course, you know, as we work with leaders every day on this, they're also shocked to really start to see clearly, as we pointed out to them, what their habits are. And so, again, the habits that got you here will keep you here. Now, the vast majority of you, at least the leaders and entrepreneurs that we work with, Don't want to stay where they're at. They want to continue advancing, growing, scaling, getting to the next level for themselves, whatever that looks like for them. They don't want to stay where they're at. And yet those old habits will absolutely keep you where you're at.

Ivan Konermann 20:12

Yeah, I would go a step further, which is to say those old habits may not even keep you where you're at. They will help you secure where you were. If you get promoted, though, if you're at this level and you get promoted to this level, the habits from this level may not even keep you at this level. Let me finish. They may get you fired from that level.

Cathy Maday 20:31

That's what I mean, though. The habits will keep your performance, will keep you where you're at in terms of your level of performance. Where you were when

Ivan Konermann 20:38

you created, I'm sure.

Cathy Maday 20:40

Now, you're spot on, though, in illustrating that. Yeah. Your habits are going to keep your level of performance where you're at.

Ivan Konermann 20:48

Except

Cathy Maday 20:48

now, you're expected to be performing here.

Ivan Konermann 20:52

Yeah, because you're at a different level.

Cathy Maday 20:53

And not just expectations from others, expectations of yourself. Yeah. And this is that when leaders have started to encounter some stress and pain from this gap, that's usually when they call us in.

Ivan Konermann 21:12

Let's open a couple of other more patterns that people bring to the table. One that I hear is Call me whenever you run into any problem. So managers who want to be super helpful and then they'll tell their team members, team members, oh yeah, as soon as you run into something, just come let me know. And I used to be terrible about this. Absolutely terrible about it.

Cathy Maday 21:33

Well, yeah. I remember, it's seductive for, at least it used to for sure, it's seductive to to be that go-to person.

Ivan Konermann 21:49

Yeah, feel important.

Cathy Maday 21:50

To feel important, yes, yes. So like years ago, like a gabillion years ago, when I, this is gonna age me, you guys, when I had a, a pager that I wore. So back when I did systems administration for a mutual fund company, all their financial systems, so the systems on their trading desk, the systems that the portfolio managers used, and the other employees in the company. When something would go down, I was one of two or three that got paged. Beep, beep, beep. Yeah, I felt it.

Ivan Konermann 22:25

Super Cathy.

Cathy Maday 22:26

Yeah, I felt important. I was really proud of that.

Ivan Konermann 22:31

I bet.

Cathy Maday 22:31

And, uh, and that happens in so many ways for, for entrepreneurs. And again, it's one of those to, to be the go-to that's fantastic.

Ivan Konermann 22:44

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 22:44

Except if you continue to

Ivan Konermann 22:47

go too long.

Cathy Maday 22:47

Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 22:48

Yeah. And that's what I found was I had, I remember one day distinctly, and it really snapped for me. It snapped into clear focus for me. Was that a team member coming to my door and asking me a question? And part of my brain was telling me, something's funky with this conversation. Like you shouldn't be having this conversation with this person. And part of me was still having the conversation. And then I realized at the end, like if I hadn't been there, they would have totally solved this on their own. And so what I started to say to folks after that was, hey, as you run into a problem, take a good couple of swipes at it, go left, go right, attempt this, attempt that, figure it out the best you can. And if you're not getting progress though, after an hour or whatever, depending on what the thing was and how time sensitive it was, then yeah, absolutely, come find me. Those are team members that reported to you? Team members that reported to me. Yeah. Instead of just saying, as soon as you run into a problem, because otherwise, what I quickly found was... It was, they were working or whatever. They run into a problem. They're like, oh, that seems weird. Let me call Ivan. He said to give him a call whenever I run into a problem. And it would be freaking 4.30 in the afternoon. I distinctly remember this, too. 4.30 in the afternoon, and I had hung up a phone call from the last team member who had given me a call that day. And I remember looking at my January's board and going, well, this is all the crap I'm going to get done now. This is the worst of my work day, and I'm going to start at 4.30 in the afternoon. After the meetings and after helping everybody else, I'm going to get my work done. And I used to just wear myself out.

Cathy Maday 24:17

Yeah, we're going to get into that because that's another, you're sliding into another habit. Though coming back to being the go-to, again, it's fantastic that other people know that they can go to you. Sure. The problem is, though, when now there's another person who's the go-to. And yet sometimes it's super subtle how we continue to enforce or enable people to come to us simply by taking the call, by answering the email. We're continuing to say, yep, I'm the go-to. I'm going to give you what you want and yet get frustrated. Yeah. That they're still, why are they still calling me? I'm not even in charge of that anymore. Well, because of your habits, your autopilot behaviors, you keep teaching them you're the go-to. And then, of course, and I know I've got some fantastic examples of this, where being that go-to for where you were, like me, being the go-to for so many different things within Wingspan, well, now I'm the bottleneck. And that's a huge cost for the team, even for the quality of work that you're delivering to your clients, your customers, is that everything's slowed down. Because being the go-to now, it's working against you and you've turned into the bottleneck.

Ivan Konermann 25:47

And I've been... I've been in a spot where I've worked myself into being that go-to. And then what I felt was I felt pressured. I felt pissed off with myself and disappointed that I wasn't helping other people stay on track because they were getting behind. They were getting frustrated. They were getting disappointed. And that really hit me hard because I'm like, they're upset because I'm not doing my part to help them be successful in their job. And that really...

Cathy Maday 26:11

Even though you were no longer... expected to be or responsible for being the go-to.

Ivan Konermann 26:18

Even if I wasn't responsible, I still felt like I'm the one who knows this. I'm letting them down. Because if there wasn't someone else who was necessarily designated, I just felt like I wasn't doing my part. And I've worked with another leader just, gosh, last week or the week before who described almost exactly the same situation. They said, this isn't my thing. No one else, though, has been tagged to do this. Yeah. And so I'm going to keep doing it. And I said, if you can, here's what's going to happen.

Cathy Maday 26:49

Yeah. And, well, what you're also prompting me around is that whole feeling of I don't want to let them down, even with our clients. I might be, you know, hey, contact Stephanie if you want some support scheduling. Totally. Though if you run into problems, you know. You know you can call or text me. And so light bulbs are going off where there are still these little areas where I'm doing it. Yeah. A couple things, though, that people can do around that. to advance. The first one is all those behaviors and even the desire and the commitment to be the go-to, that's fantastic. Now, though, it's time for you to be the go-to for where you're going. So that's a way for you to think about it. Be a go-to for where you're going, not for where you've been. That's one thing for you, one way that you can start to get out of the habit and start building new practices around it.

Ivan Konermann 27:57

One of the things that I used to do, and probably this is It comes from where I worked for a long time, which was a software company. I think about it like a tech support thing, where there's first-line tech support, then there's advanced tech support. And so what I started to say to folks is, hey, if you've got a problem, you can go to this person, this person, this person for that first-level help. If things get really funky or hairy and you're not able to get past that, then come see me. So that'd be one option. Or if it fits into this bucket where it meets this criteria or this criteria, et cetera, then come see me. So that way I'm really narrowing it down for when people are leaning on me for help.

Cathy Maday 28:35

Yeah, I love that you're giving either the criteria or the description. Hey, if it's this, this, or this, you're describing it, then go there. Otherwise, if it gets, yeah, it's really gnarly, come to me. A third way, similar to that, though, a third way for you to, to, to make sure that you're positioning yourself to be the go-to for where you're going is I will, um, I will, it's actually, there's a couple of things. I will not know things on purpose. And then I will also say, you know, I will say, I don't know. So let's say, I don't know. A client asked me a question. about something, like invoicing. I will tell them, I have no idea, because that's the truth. And I'll say, Laura and Amy are the go-to for that. So I will tell them out loud that I don't know. I'll tell them who the go-to is. So I don't say, hey, I don't know. I'll find out and get back to you. Notice that that's something that a lot of us have learned. Again, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just still, okay, now you're the one learning, finding out, getting back to the person. It's sneaky.

Ivan Konermann 30:00

It is.

Cathy Maday 30:01

Instead of saying, hey, Laura and Amy handle that. They're the go-to. I have no idea. Yeah. I wouldn't even, you know, start to meddle in that. I'll make sure that they, I'll make sure they get back to you or, you know, whatever. I might send an email to, to the client and to making that introduction. And then I'm out.

Ivan Konermann 30:22

And in this case, in our business, that kind of thing makes sense. What I've seen happen, what I know I've done, and I'm sure plenty of people watching or listening or realize they've done is person A comes to them to ask for something and you know, or I know, actually person B does that, and instead of just saying, oh, hey, go talk to person B, and now they're out of it, what a lot of people want to do to be nice and to be helpful is, oh, hey, I'll go tell person B you want this, and now you're still... You're still carrying it. You're still in the middle of the darn

Cathy Maday 30:55

work. Spending time. Yeah,

Ivan Konermann 30:56

yeah, because you want to be nice. And what I remind folks of is, no, no, no. If this is important to them and they come to you and say, hey, I want X. Oh, okay, great. Person B is a person you really want to talk to for that. And if people say, oh, well, will you tell person B? I'll just say, oh, no, here's their information or here's their email address and such and such. Or you can find them on the company roster or whatever the heck it is.

Cathy Maday 31:19

Oh, like internal too.

Ivan Konermann 31:21

Internal, yeah. And that way it's making it real clean to back the heck out of it and not continue to do that

Cathy Maday 31:29

because you're

Ivan Konermann 31:29

being helpful.

Cathy Maday 31:30

Yeah, you're holding their hand, like holding a little child's hand on the way.

Ivan Konermann 31:34

Yeah, I'm a little buddy. We'll go get some gum at the store.

Cathy Maday 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. That's good. I like it. A lot of, again, though, that it's another behavior that it's another habit. We didn't even plan on. Well, we did talk about the giving the answers repeatedly, though. A lot of us have the habits around having the answers. Sure. Because we were expected to rewarded for having the answers. And so it is. As you continue to advance, again, in your scope of impact and you're accomplishing more through more people, having the answers isn't your job. And sometimes that's really...

Ivan Konermann 32:24

It's

Cathy Maday 32:25

a

Ivan Konermann 32:25

mind bender.

Cathy Maday 32:27

It's a mind bender, yeah. Versus, first of all, having the questions is now more powerful. And it's... Like I said earlier, being willing to not have the answers on purpose.

Ivan Konermann 32:43

Yeah. And when I've said to folks, your job is to have the answers, your job is to have the questions, or to be able to redirect folks, they look at me like I have three heads. Yeah. And they're like, what the hell do you mean? Because most of us have built our careers on I'm the smartest person in the room, or I'm a really smart person on this planet. And so we see our value as being super tightly connected to problem, I have the solution. And what I tell leaders, especially the more senior they get is your job isn't to have the answers. Your job is to have the questions to be able to say, What do you think? How would you do this in this situation? Or what factors are going to be different about this than they were about that? Or we've done something similar before. So helping other people think through it now becomes the value they bring to the table, not having that answer.

Cathy Maday 33:31

Yeah. And I don't know. I'm having a hard time recalling one leader who didn't have the habit of giving the answers when team members came to them. It doesn't, whether it's direct reports, colleagues, you know, again, we're rewarded for that. And we get that little boost of what chemical is it? The dopamine, like the good feeling chemicals about, Hey, I know, I know the answer. A couple of things to help with that is, um, a reminder and talking about clients looking at you like you've got three heads, uh, When I tell them, you don't have the answer. They look at me like.

Ivan Konermann 34:20

The hell I

Cathy Maday 34:21

don't. Exactly. And I remind them, you have an answer. Yeah. For one thing. And your job isn't to give the answer. Your job isn't to. These are not your problems to solve anymore.

Ivan Konermann 34:36

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 34:37

Your responsibility is now helping people get better at solving problems and getting answers. That's a huge shift for leaders.

Ivan Konermann 34:48

I like to shine a light on that by asking leaders, what's the number one responsibility you have? Getting past your annual goals and objectives, if you were to peel back from any year, what's the number one responsibility you have? And a lot of times in that conversation, what pops out is, growing the team, developing the team, ensuring that we're solid in how we're tackling things, growing our skill set and our bench depth in multiple areas are going to be critical for the business over the next three to five years. I'm like, great. If that's the answer, then the best way you can do it is by stop giving the answer, which provides this crutch for folks to get along and you help them start to, yeah, that is a tough nut to crack. How do you want to crack it? And tell folks the first time people are prompted with that. They're not used to that. It can be a little bit of a, Whoa, what the, all of a sudden I'm in charge of coming up with the answer. What? And I said, that's okay. Just tell them, Hey, this is going to be different. And this is how we're going to be working through this from now on.

Cathy Maday 35:48

Well, yeah. And in addition to it's they, your team members were hired or promoted into the role because they're qualified. And so it's, you can not give the answer and still acknowledge or encourage them around their capabilities. Yeah. Um, they, they're, our team members are really totally capable. And sometimes, sometimes your team members are coming to you for quote unquote and answer, even though they have an answer, they're simply not confident. They're unsure of themselves. Yeah. And so, so make any time that you are in the habit of still giving the answer, um, they're walking away still unsure of themselves. And so, yeah, your support is more healthy and powerful when you are reminding them how awesome they are, how knowledgeable.

Ivan Konermann 36:42

Yeah. Or even going into questions of, hey, what did you choose to focus on when you came up with this answer? Not as a gotcha, as a, hey, step me through your process.

Cathy Maday 36:51

Yes.

Ivan Konermann 36:52

Because what I tell a lot of leaders I work with is one of the most valuable things you can do is help other people be aware of their own mental processes, how they think through problems, how they choose to weight factors differently in situation A versus situation F. Because if they get that, now they've got this, I like to think of it as this giant toolbox at their disposal so they can say, oh, I'm running into that. Okay, I want to use this and some of that and a little bit of this and a touch of that. And that way they're more clear on how come they're choosing these things to tackle that problem.

Cathy Maday 37:28

Well, absolutely. And when a manager is asking, hey, how are you thinking through that? Or how did you come to choose? The manager is getting so much fantastic information about what the team member is seeing, what they're considering, what they're missing. Now the manager gets to be super targeted in how they support that team member as they develop in their skills, in their problem solving, and whatnot. And it's a whole different exchange because a real subtle way that... leaders will be in the habit of giving the answer is they'll start running through a bunch of yes or no questions. They don't realize they're still giving the answer when they're doing that.

Ivan Konermann 38:19

Yeah. I'm laughing because I distinctly remember working with the vice president of ops out of business. We've done a lot of work with and it was a call and he had team members on there and he was wanting to walk them through something. And he said, did you do this? Did you do that? Did you do this other thing? And I said, Ed, stop spoon-feeding them the damn answers. Ask them, what did you do? I said, what do you realize you're doing when you keep asking them all these questions? And he stops and he goes, shit, I'm doing all the thinking. And I go, yeah, you're doing all the mental work. I'm like, who's actually learning from that

Cathy Maday 38:57

process? And if I'm on Ed's team, I'm like... First of all, most of those questions are like, well, no shit, I did this, this, and

Ivan Konermann 39:05

this.

Cathy Maday 39:05

It comes across condescending. It

Ivan Konermann 39:08

can.

Cathy Maday 39:08

Like, do you think I'm stupid? Yeah. And so, again, Ed being oblivious because he's in the habit, having this impact on his team members that he definitely doesn't want to have.

Ivan Konermann 39:23

Nope.

Cathy Maday 39:23

Um, and then I want, you know, I, as one of Ed's team members, I'm already, you know, stressed out. Most people are just, they're working so hard. They care so much. Yeah. And then this is what you have for me. Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan Konermann 39:37

We're

Cathy Maday 39:37

going back to

Ivan Konermann 39:37

kindergarten on this one. Yeah.

Cathy Maday 39:39

Yeah,

Ivan Konermann 39:40

for sure.

Cathy Maday 39:41

But there's, there's, um, right on the heels of giving the answers or, or solving people's problems for them is making decisions.

Ivan Konermann 39:52

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Cathy Maday 39:53

for them.

Ivan Konermann 39:54

Yes.

Cathy Maday 39:56

Go ahead.

Ivan Konermann 39:57

I call it the, I call it the, the team member shows up with a blank piece of paper and a pen and says, hi boss, I've got a problem. What do I do? And they're, they're like, there's ready to take notes on whatever you tell them. And I tell them as I work with, I say, that's a great spot just to ask a simple question. Yeah. Yeah. What do you recommend?

Cathy Maday 40:17

Definitely. What do you recommend? Um, I'm going to raise that.

Ivan Konermann 40:24

Yeah, come

Cathy Maday 40:25

on. Because, again, something subtle is happening in this behavior, in this exchange. If you're my manager, I come to you. Let's say I'm presenting some options. I'm presenting three

Ivan Konermann 40:37

options. Oh, that's different. Yeah, that's good.

Cathy Maday 40:39

Okay, sure. I'm presenting three options. And then you say, what do you recommend? It's still not clear to me that it's my decision to make. And so I encourage leaders to instead say, in this case, you would be saying, Kathy, it's your decision to make. And that, on the receiving end, how I process that is very different. So now you've either confirmed or reinforced or maybe clarified. Yeah. Oh, this is my decision to make. So many... times because specific expectations or clear expectations are so often not set. Same with who has the authority to make, whose decision is this? It's not been stated out loud. And so that is really effective to put into practice.

Ivan Konermann 41:37

I had a conversation with a leader, dang it, a week ago or two weeks ago, who was onboarding a new person. And I said to him, how are you thinking about where this person has decision-making authority right out of the gate and why they don't. And he said, oh, amazing. I hadn't thought about that. And I said, here's what I recommend. I said, because they're new, I said, I think of it in three buckets. You make, you as a team member make this decision totally on your own. I don't even want to know about it. Like it's, you got, you have the badge just to run down that road. I'm not going to get involved. That's one bucket. The middle bucket is I at least get a veto, right? I'm aware, at least get a veto to step in, make minor tweaks, et cetera. The other bucket is I'm pretty heavily involved. I said, so when someone's first starting, you're probably leaning towards the, I'm more heavily involved. I said, what I like to say out loud to people though, is when you're starting, this is what's going to look like, because as we get to know each other and figure out how we're going to work together and how you make decisions, we're going to start with me being more involved. And the goal though, is to push this whole thing towards the end of the spectrum where you do as much as you can autonomously. We're going to start off with the fat end of the bell curve this way, and we want to push it to your end so that you get to run without... me being in the middle of stuff. Sure, there are going to be things where I'm necessary to sign off or I'm required for whatever set of reasons to be involved. The goal, though, is that, that you run as much of it on your own. So that way, now that leader is like, oh, my God, he said, I love that because now I can tell them we're starting at this end of the spectrum. And then over time, we're going to migrate it to that end of the spectrum.

Cathy Maday 43:18

Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. And it's on this other end. him working autonomously, making decisions and then just notifying or informing you or the team. Um, yeah, for sure. That's, that's fantastic.

Ivan Konermann 43:33

And what helps that to work is you talked about who, authority to make different decisions is to spell out okay right now a b c d fall in this bucket one two three four fall in that bucket etc etc so it's crystal clear it's not a they're guessing where they have the authority to do different things it's really spelled out and then over time it can be hey you know what you're you're showing fantastic decision making on this a b and c are going from this bucket into that bucket you you can run these with just Just a minor oversight or maybe they go in the last bucket. You just run with these on your own. I don't even want to know.

Cathy Maday 44:07

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and what's essential, though, is like you said, it's your both team members are talking about it out loud. Yeah. What makes a big difference? Yeah. Oh, monumental. Yeah, for sure. Another high-performer habit that starts to hinder our progress is open-door policy.

Ivan Konermann 44:35

Oh, yeah.

Cathy Maday 44:35

Being available.

Ivan Konermann 44:37

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 44:38

And a lot of old-school manager leadership training... all of us have been, maybe all of us have been encouraged. Literally, we've learned or we've been trained to have this open door policy.

Ivan Konermann 44:56

Be there for your team.

Cathy Maday 44:57

Yeah, to be available and to be, that absolutely starts, especially with the leaders we work with at a director, GM, VP level, entrepreneurs, business owners, that absolutely starts to hamstring your progress.

Ivan Konermann 45:17

Yeah, I remember I worked for a manager who was in D.C. when I was in Charlotte. And I remember going up to the D.C. office one time and I was like, oh, gosh, you don't want to get some input from a manager. So I went and his door was shut. I remember having this moment of, oh, crap. He's not available. And I could hear him talking on the phone or something. And normally, though, he had his door open even a little bit so you could peek in and he could give you the five minutes or whatever the heck it was. This time it was just shut and he was working. And I was like, oh, man. And I remember going back and eventually just figuring it out or talking to someone else and figuring it out. And then that was when that light bulb clicked for me of, oh, he's not the only person around who can help me solve this problem.

Cathy Maday 45:58

Yeah. Yeah. So many leaders are skeptical.

Ivan Konermann 46:02

Yeah.

Cathy Maday 46:02

Uh, at first when I tell them be less available, give yourself closed door time for the strategic thinking. And because, um, it, you do leaders turn into a crutch. They actually enable team members to thoughtlessly come and get the answer versus like having the moment that you did. Whereas, and, and then that's, what's exciting is leaders are like, Oh dang, this works. It does. They're, they're, They're solving it as if I were not here. Yes, that's exactly what we're aiming for.

Ivan Konermann 46:38

And it can feel weird. I literally had a call last week where a leader said, wait a minute, if folks are solving problems on their own, what am I here for? And I said, lots of other things. We went around the conversation and everyone kicked something out. The key, though, is that's not your job. That's not your sole job. as a leader is to solve the problems of the people who work for you. That is a part of your job. You have so much else to do as well. So remember that if you're just measuring your contribution or value as how am I helping my folks solve their problems, that's not the entirety of the pie. It's a piece of the pie. Yeah,

Cathy Maday 47:14

for sure. For sure. I'm excited. I'm excited for all of you to hopefully recognize yourself in the mirror and in some of our own examples. You might see yourself in some of our examples. And really start to honor the habits that you've had and start to put some stronger leader behavior practices into place.

Ivan Konermann 47:39

Yeah. And by honor, I think we'll... I'm pretty sure I know where you're going with that. I'd say have that compassion for yourself of you're doing this for darn good reasons. And that's the part to remember is it's not that you don't care or it's not that you're wanting to slow anybody down by doing the work for them or accidentally sending a message that they're not capable. It's just what you've learned to do. And it can be really hard for us to reprogram ourselves and think differently about things.

Cathy Maday 48:07

Well, it's... Difficult enough to change behavior. It's even more difficult to change what we've considered good disciplines. Yeah, that's a really good point. And so, yeah, I'm excited, though, for all of you to see what you can gain

Ivan Konermann 48:24

by

Cathy Maday 48:25

putting a little attention on these and really start to scale, scale your business, scale your income. your opportunities. And I'm really excited to hear about it.

Ivan Konermann 48:38

Yeah, absolutely. Let us know like this on whatever platform you are on, like, subscribe, share, and yeah, add your notes in here. Where are you? What else have you realized or some of your patterns or your tendencies that are biting you in the behind that used to be really helpful? We may have missed some. It's always good to hear some more.

Cathy Maday 49:00

Yeah, for sure. Share the love and get out there. Put these into practice and we'll see you next time.

Ivan Konermann 49:08

Take care.