(EOS Episode 26) Vacation As A Management Strategy, Seriously

Welcome back to EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals with Certified EOS Implementer Michele Mollard. 

This time, Michele challenges leaders to let go, run safe experiments that reveal weak spots, and turn small breaks into stronger systems. With EOS tools, core values, and clear process ownership, delegation becomes a repeatable path to growth, time freedom, and a healthier culture.

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EOS-Traction for Your Workplace Goals is a Livemic Communications production.

Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

Richard Piet 0:01

Hi, Richard Piet. Welcome back to EOS. Traction for your workplace goals. Michele Mollard is a certified EOS implementer, and she tells us exactly what we need to hear, some of us, to get our wheels turning and help us think about the issues we might be dealing with and the solutions that can be provided by way of EOS and a guided process that certified EOS implementers conduct for their clients. Hello, Michele.

Michele Mollard 0:34

Hello, Richard.

The Fear Of Delegating

Richard Piet 0:35

By the way, we've talked on several occasions about several aspects of this. So if this is the first time you're hearing it, we invite you to subscribe so you're able to hear some of the others and then be alerted as we go forward with new episodes. This one, I think, you tell me, I think this subject is particularly common. That is to say, an owner or a manager who is at a precipice where they could delegate or certainly maybe assign, reassign some, some duties, but they're reticent to do it. There's a little bit of fear in there. Yeah. This is uh probably common, am I right or no?

Flip The Script: Break To Learn

Michele Mollard 1:20

Oh, it's very common, uh, especially as companies grow, right? It's it's kind of been my baby as sole entrepreneur, and then it's gotten bigger, and I've had to add people, and I'm I'm figuring out who to add, uh, what seats to add. Like, am I having somebody do my marketing for me now because I need to continue to sell, or do I have somebody helping me with the finance? And so, as you had said, Richard, there's plenty of podcasts before that that talk a little bit about this uh delegate and elevate. But I actually just want to flip the script, if I may, and say you are probably not doing your company justice if you don't. Meaning that there is probably a lot of times where you are not letting things go that others can pick up and that others you don't know until you do it, right? And so summarizing this is like go on vacation, right? And don't work. Maybe not a whole month sabbatical, but go for a day, baby test, baby, baby, baby test and let go. Like have everything buttoned up at five o'clock, leave and don't come back until the next, right? Oh, you know, whole day off, come back at eight o'clock, don't touch a thing and see what breaks. And so everything that I've always taught is like, oh, this is how you fix it and this is how you don't get it broken. I want to talk about how you do break it, right? And sometimes we just don't know. And I'll kind of stop there, but I just think it's fun to kind of break some stuff and then realize what got broken and how do we fix it.

Richard Piet 2:56

Now, there may be some folks who listened to that and got more scared. Uh, you know, oh my gosh, we're gonna break something. But it's a destiny of knowledge, right? You you're gonna learn something here. And guess what? Maybe something won't break, but that's part two, I guess, of the conversation. Yes. You have to be able to say, okay, gotta give some freedom here and see what happens. And there's a payoff later. Yes. Uh, we'll get to that. But this whole point of letting go and seeing what breaks, ooh, that sounds a little bit, a little bit tricky.

Michele Mollard 3:35

Yeah, it and definitely a little scary, uh, for sure. Uh, but what I want to realize, um, now if you are an emergency room doctor, maybe not, right? Yeah. Because lives do end up not doing so well, right? We we can people can die. Let's be real, what I'm trying to say. So again, if you are making a widget, if you are providing a service, if you are selling, reselling a manufacturer, like all of these things. Now, granted, of course, things could happen, uh, but the point of it is most of the time that things don't break as badly as we think they will. And so we may bend, but they may not break completely. And so then to your point, Richard, is then how do we learn from it? And so oftentimes, if our employees feel the pressure, that they will step up to the pressure or they won't. I would say most of the time, if you have a core value fit, they will step up to the pressure because they bleed your core values. They know who they are a part of, this company they want to be a part of, and they're bought in. And so they don't want to let anybody else down. And so when you say, This is what I expect you to do Tuesday when I'm on vacation, I am not gonna check in, I'm not gonna follow up, I'm not gonna do everything. We'll have a call or I'll see how it goes on Wednesday when I come back in. That because of that, they don't want to let you down or anybody else down on that team.

Richard Piet 5:12

Wow. There's a camaraderie there that's kind of like a glue.

Core Values As The Glue

Michele Mollard 5:17

There is. And again, you've got to have, and I said that and I'll say it again, there's also got to be this core value match, right? That is the glue, right? That is our code of conduct. And when we have that, um, and you may not have everybody in the organization tied into that code of conduct, but you may test this for a day vacation with Richard. I'm just gonna let Richard run with this because I know he's a core value fit. I know he wants to help. I've just got to let him go and skin his knees. Um, and so potentially he won't skin his knees, potentially he'll do great because he wants to. There's already this common thread of, hey, Richard Blee's our core values. He knows like and trusts me, all the things. I'm not gonna let Michele down, or I'm not gonna let Bob down or what have you. So uh I do feel like there needs to be that code. Uh, but at the same time, many times as owners, we just don't let go uh for many other reasons. Um, and it's not only uh our control, but it's that. And so we've got to see things get broken because potentially we don't know where that is. And so if everything's actually been going really well, then let's let go of the vine again and let's see what breaks and then let's learn from it, right? So you added to the second point of the conversation is that's the next level, is then we got to learn from it. You, Richard, as the person that I asked you to do something, me, Michele, as the owner of the company, we all both need to learn through this experience.

Richard Piet 6:42

And there is learning there, significantly so, because now we know where the weak spots might be. Yeah. And we can address that. We didn't know that before.

Trust Signals And Undermining

Process Ownership: “Buy The Broom”

Michele Mollard 6:54

Yeah, for sure. And arguably the whole thing won't implode, right? So let's just say you left the, you've trained this person to do payroll and you're gonna let them do it, right? The whole thing won't implode. They may miss the step, which is still bad, of moving distributions for the 401k, right? Still bad, but we have time to get it back versus not pay everybody, right? And so we've just got to figure that out. And then sometimes it's just the ability to say that we we're going to let that happen and let them go and run with it. And again, you've trained them, you've done those things. It's not like, hey, I'm taking off tomorrow. You've never seen parallel before, I gotta go. That's not what I'm saying, right? I am saying that they have been trained, uh, they have been uh put in charge, except we kind of swoop back in and make sure they're okay, like little baby nests, right in the bird of the nest, being like, You're sure you're okay in the middle of the day. Are you checking in? Do you need anything? Did anything blow up? Like, right? If the employee gets it and will run with it, you have to also imagine what that feels like to them. And so that feels like you don't trust them, that they don't got it right uh in all the things. And so sometimes we don't really realize potentially the undermining that might be happening when we don't let go and just let it happen. And then it's not, I told you so, right? It's okay, what did we learn? And then how do we write a new process? What training do they need more coming alongside of them?

Richard Piet 8:23

Now you just said a word I was thinking about process. I presume that when we get to this point, we have to have had a process that is accurate and with which we are comfortable before we let go. That probably helps the owner let go a little easier.

Michele Mollard 8:42

For sure. Um, and I have a saying, I think I've said it a few times, those that use the broom should buy the broom, meaning that, Mr. Owner, maybe you don't set the process. Maybe we say, okay, I've shown you how to do payroll. And Richard, as I am showing you how to do payroll, you're taking notes of all the steps because they may need different levels of details that you need. All right. And so then they're taking that. And then I might watch them do it using their notes, and they're like, oh, I missed a step. Hey, you missed a step, and I'm catching them right there. But at some point, that yes, to your point, that has to be done. But at some point, we keep, we keep going back and be like, I need to be there, I need to be there. And so then our company is running us. And so this is more of a beg and a plead for the owner to understand that you have to step out. Uh, Richard and I were just talking about I'm I'm running a little bit um uh hectic right now in my life. And so um it's not helping, right? I'm not helping anybody in my organization be calm because I'm not calm. I'm not helping um my clients be calm and understand, right? Because I'm not. And so we have to understand that our hurriedness or our need to control or our need to be in everything is a direct reflection of what we're making as a culture. A hurried in the right, in the weeds, in the no, not letting go. We're making a culture that is exactly resembling us like a mirror.

Culture Mirrors The Owner

Richard Piet 10:06

Yeah, that's a whole other episode, I think. The the notion of our influence on the culture. Wow. There's a there's something. But this makes terrific sense, does it not? The notion that, okay, we have a process and now we're going to embark on this opportunity to help someone understand that process, perhaps master it, and at the same time, we get to go take a day off.

Baby Steps And Capacity To Grow

Michele Mollard 10:36

Yeah, right. And again, baby steps. And so then it's like, okay, I'm gonna do this with this person this day on payroll day. Good. Then I'm gonna take two days, and it's gonna affect payroll day and uh purchasing day. And we're gonna see how that goes, right? And so then eventually the point of all this is you should have time for other passions as owners. And so I tell companies, I say, hey, I really, really want to grow, Michele, and I really want to do EOS, uh, I think it will be great, but I can't work longer. And so you're telling me you work with growth-oriented companies and they need to want to grow, but I can't work more hours. And I'm saying, how about you work 40 hours and double in size? And they're like, there's no way, right? And so if you're thinking that uh as you're listening to this yes way, right? We've just got to be able to let go. We've got to find the right people to let go to. Now, granted, if you can't, there's a reason why. And I don't know why you're you're potentially hanging on to a B player or a C player if you're not able to. Um, and they can't ax the whole company, meaning you can't, you know, fire them all if they're all C players. But how do you take the most critical, you know, arguably the ones, the things that you don't like the most, uh, and then getting that out, right? And so I'm like, I don't like to do that, hire that. I don't like to do that, hire that. Right. And the stuff that you love, then hold on for a little time longer, right? And so that's just the way to start that process of really looking at it and saying to yourself as an owner, as a leader, you deserve time off. Everybody does.

Richard Piet 12:05

There has to be a person or two listening to this who understands conceptually what you're saying.

Michele Mollard 12:13

Yeah.

Richard Piet 12:13

But when they think about themselves, they say, I don't know. I don't know if I can let go. Now we're you what you just said is there's some other issue there we're gonna have to dig up.

Michele Mollard 12:27

Yeah, I think that to evaluate why you can't let go, right? And so do some soul searching around the why, right? And saying, I can't go on this two-week sabbatical because I have five of the 12 people on my team that are brand new. Uh, probably rightly so, right? It's not I can't go on because I don't trust them, right? Or I don't think they'll do a good job. And so the two extremes, granted, right, just to point out the point, yeah, um, is that we can't just let go too soon. Uh, but oftentimes we say to ourselves that if the saying is coming out of your brain, well, I can do it faster than they can, I'll just do it. Now it's on you.

Richard Piet 13:12

Yeah.

Why You’re Not Letting Go

Michele Mollard 13:13

Now it's on you, right? Because you can't. You have to be able to get things off of your plate so you can do better and bigger things. Not better, but bigger things, well, better for the organization, right? Better and bigger for the organization. Um, and so if you say, well, I can do it in it only takes me 10 minutes, it only takes me a day, and it would take somebody new three days. So it's a day.

Richard Piet 13:36

It's a long-term vision, though, here, isn't it? Sure. Uh I've heard that too. Well, in the time it takes me to teach them, I can do the yeah. But in the long term, yeah, look at the freedom you may get to focus on something else. We're not necessarily talking about taking a week to go to Tahiti, although, you know, maybe. But you might be better focused in another area of the organization instead of this. Uh I can relate to that personally.

Team Trust And Ownership

Michele Mollard 14:03

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah, we we've been talking about days off, right? But it is. Where is your effort? Uh, where why do you need to still be there? Uh, I have a team out in Montana that uh is the same way. Like, why do you still need to be over that seat? Why, what what is she? It happens to be a she. What is she doing wrong that makes you feel like that? Well, nothing. Oh. So then, well, how do you feel that yeah, it's about this right now. It's about the owner not letting go. Um, and that person, now I've asked the question, I go, how do you feel when they swoop in? And like, I feel like you don't trust me. And then we got into a team building, a health issue, not health like heart attack health, but like a team health, a pulse on trust. And it wasn't there. And so then how are they gonna take the reins and wanna own it and want to feel like they can run with it or bring new ideas, fresh looks, right? So there's so many things that we're not realizing that if we don't just let go and try to break something, we don't know all the things that are not broken and or are broken or what the next level is. There's so much to that.

Richard Piet 15:11

So, bottom line, this process can help you become clearer about where critical areas may be, but also provide you with a path to focus on the things you really need to focus on, whether that's Tahiti or something else.

Michele Mollard 15:29

Right. Yep.

Richard Piet 15:30

It's as clear as that.

Michele Mollard 15:31

It is, and it's very scary. So don't let me uh, you know, kind of walk through this very nonchalantly. It is definitely very scary. I've been there, you've been there, but it it's what leaders do, right? It's clear communication, it's driving the organization forward. And so we're just not at that level of leadership if we're not. And so that's my challenge uh through this podcast is up your leadership, up that ability, find out if they're ready to own it, uh, and then check yourself of why you're not letting go. Uh, that would be the thing, is that you know, it's more internal than you think it is. You know, it's been your baby, I get it, but you can't grow that way.

Richard Piet 16:07

All right, there you are. If this resonates and you're rolling this around in your mind right now, saying, I think she's talking about me, maybe you should speak to Michele directly about it. Contact information in the show notes. Meanwhile, click the subscribe button, be alerted when these episodes come available, and stick with us. EOS traction for your workplace goals, the entrepreneurial operating system, expertly focused upon and guided by certified EOS implementer, Michele Mollard. Until next time, we'll see you then.