(EOS Episode 31) Issues ARE The Work

This time on EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals, Certified EOS Implementer Michele Mollard challenges the idea that issues are detours and argue that they are the real work of growth and success. 

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

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Reframe

Richard Piet 0:01

Hi, Richard Piet. Welcome to EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals. Certified EOS implementer Michele Mollard is our expert. We quiz her pretty well, pretty often in these episodes, and generally, uh, well, more than generally, all of the time. We come away with some good insights that make you go, hmm. Remember that? Things that make you go, hmm. You might hear some of those in these discussions. Here is one that you might say, oh, issues are the work. So think about that. How often have we heard I'm having an issue with this? I'm having an issue getting this done. I'm having an issue with this part of the process. And Michele, you would say sometimes our interpretation of issues are that they're not part of the work. Is that true?

Michele Mollard 0:56

Yeah, I think that people say issues are an exception. Like, oh, this is an exception, and we just got a problem, and they're always a negative thing. And so I want to read, I was actually reading uh another implementer, and I'll give credit where credit is due, Jill Young down in Dallas, Texas. She says, growth and success do not eliminate issues, it creates it. And so if you want growth and success, change your mindset. And so, Richard, to your point, is right, they just are part of the work, the hard work that we have to do to grow and be successful. Whatever success looks like, whatever growth looks like, right? Whatever that is in your mind as you're listening to this podcast or watching the podcast. Um, but it is the work. And I just want to, you know, kind of riff on this a little bit more as we as we talk about this.

Why Growth Creates More Issues

Richard Piet 1:46

So yeah, uh you made a a connection there between the word issues and problems. We associate issues as a roadblock, um, a problem. Boy, what a pain in the neck. I gotta deal with this issue now. Yeah. This is how we sharpen our tools.

Michele Mollard 2:08

Is that right? Yeah, for sure. Um, and if if those that are listening, you'll you'll know these buzzwords. And those that don't, you can kind of get the gist of them. But what I tell teams often is when we have great vision, right? There's a great vision of the organization where we're going, when we have great people to help us get to that vision and have great data, meaning that we're making decisions on data instead of egos and emotions, we create more issues. And again, I wanted you to share that with you is that that's the growth and success. And so when we have great vision, we have great people and we have great data, we're making those decisions, we're just gonna have more issues. And so our mindset has to shift that this is the work that we need to do. This is the opportunities that we need to do. So the mindset shift that I want is barriers, obstacles, things that aren't working for sure. Got it. Everyone thinks of it that. But I want to think about it: opportunities, ideas, growth, challenges. What's the next thing, right? Uh to date this podcast, we just put Artemis II around the moon today, right? Well, not they're not around it yet, but they launched today or yesterday. Um right there, oh, those are all opportunities. If we didn't think about those things to get us there, we weren't thinking about the opportunities or the ideas to even think about that, right? We can go back to whenever. I'm terrible at history, so don't shame me on that. But we put a man on the moon, like all of that stuff. If we weren't thinking about it, if we're always saying, oh, these are all problems, problems, problems, problems, we never would have done it. It's the work that we need to do about it. So change the mind that it's there and about that piece. Really great way of thinking about it.

The Badge Of Honor Mindset

Richard Piet 3:46

What do we do? What are we prone to doing? We think that we're gonna reach a certain level of success and everything's just gonna be issue free, problem free, no barriers. It's gonna be like like Hawaii on the beach or something. It's gonna be fabulous. Is that what happens? Is that our thinking?

Michele Mollard 4:07

I think it is our thinking, and I think that we need to change it. I I'll tell you two little quick stories. One, more of an antidote, I guess, is think about it as I get to solve. I get to, I have the luxury, I have the beauty, I have the joy, I have the excitement around solving the next issue to solving the problem to get us unstuck. Right. So think about it as a badge of honor to think about that, right? And so that mindset. And so tell a quick story, and Richard, you might have personally heard this, but I have two nephews and I was teaching them how to ski. And in the afternoon, my dad and I would go off and ski some black diamonds, and and uh the boys, I would say, you know, I fell, and they were like, ha ha, I didn't fall. And they were cute, they were 10, 11, right? They're giving me a hard time. And I go, well, then you didn't challenge yourselves enough, boys. You didn't go to the next level. And so think about that, right? From an issue solving standpoint, is is how do I break something? You know, a a process, uh, um, a project, a thing, a mindset, a way of thinking, so I can fix it to have a better mousetrap. Right. And so I kind of riffed off there a little bit, but I do think it's uh thinking about as a badge of honor to be able to, I get to fix something. I get to move this.

Richard Piet 5:25

Well, that makes sense. And from the angle that if you didn't have this level of progress, you might not get to deal with that issue.

Michele Mollard 5:33

Yeah, for sure.

Richard Piet 5:34

Think about that.

Michele Mollard 5:35

Think about that as right. Absolutely.

Busting Through The Ceiling

Richard Piet 5:37

Yeah. So we need a mindset adjustment. Yeah. Then uh if we dream about whatever success looks like when we get there, Hawaii Beach, something, Waikiki, I don't know, Kawaii. Uh, and and then we get there and uh, you know, we're still where we are, and there's issues, uh, that means we still get to deal with that. Yeah, we shouldn't be deflated or demotivated by that.

Michele Mollard 6:06

No, and think about it, if you can, um, and I'll you know I'll try to describe this as uh people are listening, but if I have my hand up on an angle of a trajectory of growth, right? And then sometimes I put my hand on top of it to kind of make a T, a little bit of a top, right? To to that we've kind of hit the ceiling. Yeah. And so when we hit the ceiling, we've got to bust through that somewhere, or we will just end up camping out, right? And just kind of settling out. And so when you settle out, you could flatline the company or you could tank it or you could get through it again. And so I just wanted to talk about like there's a tool in this, and so I want to dive into that a little bit more as we're getting into this. But oftentimes we think of it as I can't get through there. And the mindset is that I don't want to do it because I might hurt somebody's feelings. I might tell them that their process is broken, or right. And so it's really about changing the mindset of I get to badge of honor. But that doesn't always get us across the finish line about how to be open and honest. We do our best work when we can. And I know we've done some segments before about feeling, you know, safe and feeling having clarity and all those things. And those things have to all still be here. So listen to some of those things. But we have to be able to have those conversations and to call it out and be real. And I think that's what we all that we fear the uncomfortable. Uh, and so take it as two things, right? I need to have this badge of honor to do it, but don't feel the fear the uncomfortable. If you do, we'll just get stuck. It'll just hold you back to a minor growth or a minor success when you want full growth and full success. Again, whatever that means to some people.

Richard Piet 7:43

So I think what you're saying is sometimes, whatever the issue is, it also keeps us from acting on it. Some of us maybe. For sure. And that just means it lingers and becomes more significant. Is that the right word?

Identify Discuss Solve And Five Whys

Staying Curious To Find Root Cause

Michele Mollard 8:01

Yeah, yeah. And I would say causes misalignment. And we're specifically talking about uh organizations. It's the misalignment. And so the tool that I want to share, and maybe we've heard some other podcasts, is is this tool of identify, discuss, and solve. And so I want to share this with you as if you are in an organization. So we've already talked about the mindset. Let's just say you've shifted your mindset and say, okay, I get to. Now let's bring all these issues to light. How do I solve them? Like this is great, Michele. I've got 36 issues. This is great. I don't know what to do now. So I want to help you with that too. Oftentimes the issues that we bring up in conversation are a symptom to a bigger problem. And so one of the skill sets that I want to teach is when we talk about, like Richard, you and I are in an organization and we say the process is broken. And I would say, Why do you think the process is broken? And you're gonna share a story. And I'm like, Why do you think Sally's the problem to the process being broken? And then why is that, right? And so you're hearing me say this why. There's a skill set out there called the five whys. There's a reason why children learn really, really fast. And there's a reason why children don't have these kind of caveats of entering the right. Some kids will be like, why do you have variscos veins? They don't think about the ramifications of why do you have freckles, Michele? Why they don't think that that is hurtful. It's not to be, I love my freckles. Um, but they have no filter like that. And so when you're trying to solve issues for organizations, don't have a filter. They don't understand the discomfort because they don't have it. And so enter it, get comfortable asking the questions of what is the root cause? Because oftentimes the symptom, the thing that we bring up isn't at the root cause. And spend a lot of time digging in there as a leadership team, as a team, as a department, as a husband and wife, whatever it is, because this goes the same way into relationships, is dig into what's there and find the root cause. Because if we solve a symptom, that root cause will still be there. So think about teeth, right? We could say, oh, it's just a cavity when we should have done a root canal, right? No, we didn't get there. Root pun intended. I didn't realize I just did that. It wasn't intended, but it is now because I'm just gonna own it. Um, and we're gonna go with it, right? But like that's what I'm getting at, right? And so this whole identify, and then we can discuss, right? Once we get to the root cause, we can have the conversation of how do we build a better mousetrop? That's quick, quick, quick, because we got to the root cause. And then the solve is just to do's, right? And so Richard, you have this to do, I have this part to do, Sally, you have this part to do, good, here we go. And then we just hold each other accountable. That's for a whole nother thing. But how do we identify the root cause five wise, dig really deep, and then quickly go to discuss with everybody giving their input once around the room, and then we go to solve and it's gone for the greater good. And it's so amazing.

Richard Piet 10:56

So as a as a manager, owner, whatever the title is, yeah, there's an issue. Our go-to question then is is this uh is this the cause? Is this the root or is this a symptom? And if it's the latter, what's the root? Right.

Michele Mollard 11:17

And we just keep digging into it and saying, why is that happening? What else could it be? You know, just get curious. I think that sometimes human nature in our world doesn't allow us to the time and the space to get curious to figure it out. We just really want to go to solve. We're all this, this uh, I'm a fixer. So I'll say this with my hat of fixer hat on. I'm a fixer. And so I want to go, got it, got it, got it, and I'm done. And I'm solving it, as opposed to like what else? Like uh I I have a practice manager, Jen. We were talking about HubSpot. We have an issue with HubSpot and how it's happening. And I said, So I'm gonna riff on this, Jen, about the ideas that I have, but I'm not sure that's the root cause of this whole thing. And I want to know your input, right? And so I even say now to her, I don't think it's the root cause. And then she says, Michele, but what about this? And she started the process way back in the beginning. And it was bad data in the front that's causing all the problems here, four steps in. And I'm like, uh, right. So she got curious and asking me a lot of questions about what was happening. And so it's always in the question. I use the word why, but where, when, how, what, you know, why, right? All the W's, uh, that and the H uh that can be there. It's always the one that throws me off. Um that can be there and just getting really curious to dig into it. So don't be afraid of tackling opportunities, right? So I'm just kind of summarizing that, but we've got to be able to get curious, we've got to be open and honest, and we got to dig into the root cause.

Richard Piet 12:42

And if you don't do that and you're stuck on the symptom, you may not solve it.

Final Thoughts And How To Reach Michelle

Michele Mollard 12:47

Yeah, it'll come back. And it's okay. I mean, ultimately it's okay because it'll just come back and you're like, why is this coming back again? And and when you say that to yourself, why is it coming back again? You could say, we obviously didn't get to the root cause. We didn't get to the root of the tree, the whatever, right? Visually thinking of that. We didn't get there.

Richard Piet 13:06

All right. Michele's final thought for this episode.

Michele Mollard 13:10

Yeah, if you're having these problems, right? And so I think there's some things that as we're going through here, you were thinking, oh, it is my mindset. Like I, Michele, I absolutely do dig in, but I only want to talk about right. I'm not, I'm not exploring the idea of opportunities or ideas, then great. Own that and go there, right? And so if you said to your team, hey team, I'm thinking about something three months from now, and I just want to talk about it. I don't need to solve, I don't need to fix, that's fine too. You're prefacing that by saying, I just want to, here's the root issue. I want to discuss, and the solve is all right, Michele's taking that back and she's gonna do some more research. That's a perfectly good solve, right? As opposed to I have to fix it. And that's why we think it has to be a working or a not working or something broken. And so I just want to share that as a final thought is embrace issues as ideas and opportunities. There's lots of final thoughts, but I think that's where we're we're missing some things when we're trying to grow, right? And we're trying to uh be successful. You will never have less issues. You will have more and embrace that. Love to talk to you if you have more issues, love to make your issues listed, love to figure out how you prioritize that. So call me uh anytime, message me, find me on LinkedIn, all the different things. I I chime in on all those different um mediums uh to be able to uh engage with you. So I would love that opportunity.

Richard Piet 14:39

Or you can find Michele's contact information in the show notes for this episode as well. This is Traction for Your Workplace Goals certified EOS implementer, Michele Mollard. Shares wisdom and is ready to help. Subscribe where you get podcasts. Thanks, Michele. We'll see you soon.

Michele Mollard 14:57

Thanks, Richard.