The Culture–Skill Quadrant Every Leader Faces

In this episode of On the Surface, Seth sits down with Brad and Taylor for an honest, practical conversation about one of the toughest challenges leaders face: building the right team. Using a culture‑versus‑skills quadrant as the framework, they unpack how employees typically fall into four categories—and why where someone lands matters more than leaders often realize.

Seth, Brad, and Taylor break down each quadrant in real‑world terms, from high‑culture, high‑skill “stars” to low‑culture, low‑skill “dead weight,” and the dangerous middle ground of high‑skill, low‑culture employees who can quietly undermine a team. They discuss what culture really looks like in practice—not just surface‑level friendliness, but values, integrity, accountability, and how people show up when no one’s watching.

The conversation dives into hiring decisions leaders wrestle with every day: whether to hire for skill or culture, how urgency often drives rushed choices, and why “no help” can be better than bad help. Brad and Taylor share insight into why skills are often more teachable than attitude, how behavioral‑based interview questions can reveal far more than technical checklists, and why the elusive “purple unicorn” hire is rarely realistic.

Together, they also explore how generational perspectives influence workplace culture, how attitudes and expectations have shifted over time, and why swinging too far toward either culture or performance can hurt a business. They examine the importance of ongoing evaluation, self‑awareness, and giving leaders the space to step back and assess what their team looks like today—and where it needs to be tomorrow.

It’s a grounded, thought‑provoking discussion about leadership, accountability, and making tough people decisions—one that reinforces a simple but powerful truth: great teams aren’t built by accident, and culture and skills must grow together if a business is going to succeed.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome back to On the Surface. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I sit down with Brad and Taylor to discuss a popular team assessment chart lately, creating quadrants based on culture and skills. But first, let's talk about feedback. If you haven't already, please go follow, rate, and review our show on whatever listening app you're using. Additionally, share it with your friends on social media, tagging Delta Companies or any of us. This helps tremendously. All right, let's get into the conversation. So we'll talk about this culture versus skills chart, quadrant, graph. What do you call these things? Quadrant. Quadrant. Okay. I like it. So basically

Understanding Culture vs. Skill

SPEAKER_01 1:00

what we have in front of us, hopefully on your screen, is um a chart graphing, you know, one axis is culture, one axis is uh skills, and so skills go left to right as the x-axis. Culture goes up and down as the y-axis. And so if you look at the bottom left quadrant, it'd be low, low, low skills, low culture, and we have those people called dead weight. We'll get into that later. Uh we have people that are high skill but low culture. No. High culture, low skill. Yeah. Yeah. Top left. Top left. Those are cheerleaders, what we call cheerleaders. You have high skill, high culture in the top right quadrant, which you're calling stars, superstars. And then you have high skill, low culture in the bottom right quadrant, and we're calling those terrorists. Terrorists. They're dangerous. Yeah, for sure, right? They can work against you in so many ways. We can get into that. What do you guys think culture means? How would you define culture?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Culture, I would say, I mean, what it means to me is uh uh the values that you share, the group, the beliefs that you share, uh like a a group of people, the values that group of people have, the beliefs they have, the way they interact with each other. Just kind of a common um yeah, set of values and beliefs, behaviors.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

What is that like? What's an example of that, like in person? Cause that was very like Webster definition. But what does that look like in practice?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Uh I mean to me, I I'll answer this one first and then it's a good one. Go for it, yeah. To me, it's like uh I guess it's the way that uh the way that you feel in with a group of people, the way that you interact with each other. Um so for an example would be you know, in certain offices there is a a family-like feel is what they would say. Folks that come in there are are pretty um they like to hang out with each other, they're kind of into the same things. They maybe talk to each other outside of just work.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Um Do you think culture like that, like that example, do you think c culture is only the like social part of like being able to talk to each other and like create this social environment, or is it also is part of it also like performance driven as well? I think part of it is our values.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I think the the values piece is um, I guess the uh how you carry yourself, how you're expected to carry yourself in your workplace. Uh, you know, the professionalism that you show. I think that can be a that's a cultural thing and those values are set by the business. Um and then you're held to those expectations. I mean, there's accountability around acting a certain a certain way when you're when you're doing business. So I think it's it's not just it's not just social. I think that's a piece of it, but it's also um uh the values that the business has, the people people are in alignment with uh the values that the business has. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Taylor, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 4:59

You said that very well. I think the uh the environment has a huge um impact the way that people feel. That's what came to my mind, is how you feel when you're at work. And um culture is a big reason why people stay or leave. If you enjoy coming to work and who you're working with, what you're working towards, um, I think that goes towards culture.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

That's good. I've heard people well if I can ever pull this back up. I'm pretty sure the actual definition of culture was like a shared set of beliefs. Did you read off of that?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

I'm kidding. Uh yeah, basically like a shared set of beliefs um for a group, right? Like in a nutshell. There's like a paragraph if you look it up. But um, I've also heard people describe it as like what people do when boss is on the ground, or like when you don't think people are watching. Like that's a definition of culture. So that's kind of what you were talking about, Brad, like how people act and the decisions they make, uh like based on their values and surrounding expectations, I guess. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Right. The values there would be integrity. And that's that's what you have, uh whether or not people are around or not. You know, we talk about being ethical, making good decisions, um, treating people the way that you want to be treated. Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah. For sure. Those are all. So skills are pretty um a little more straightforward. They're like more tangible, I guess. But how would you define skills? Taylor first, since Brad went first on culture.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

I I think it's just as simple as as your ability to do the job.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Ah Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

In in the in the simple terms of how you're going to complete your task.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Sure. Brad. I agree. I think it's abilities, I think it's uh like technical knowledge. Um could be technical. Could be specific to performing a task.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Uh yeah, I think it's it's just the knowledge that you have for the work that you do.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

That's solid.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Google says skills are learned developed abilities combining technical knowledge or hard skills and behavioral traits or soft skills used to perform tasks efficiently vital for employability. You guys are pretty spot on.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

I like that version better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

We've talked about this a few times over our uh over our careers. Yeah. Hiring for culture or hiring for skills. I know we're gonna get into that. Oh, yeah. That's a great, great uh place to start.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I mean, why don't we just start there? You start there. Or do you want to talk through or do you want to talk through the quadrants first? Because that may make more sense. Okay. So in the order that we listed them out was um dead weight. So that's your bottom left quadrant, right? So that's low skills, low culture. Basically, just get rid of these people, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Their attitude stinks, and they're not good at what they do. So you shouldn't be they they shouldn't be on the team.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, that would be like your fire faster get out, right? Um top left is high culture, low skill. That's what we deemed cheerleaders, right? So basically these people have good attitude, they understand the values, they carry them out, they are probably fantastic team players, fun to work with, but they may just not be super great at their job, right? Whether it's like managing to have difficult conversations or just like their hard skills or technical abilities, like not understanding how to perform their job to the top performance, right? I guess I would assume if they're high culture, they're pr their soft skills are probably okay. That's where my brain goes.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

I think their soft skills are good.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Yeah, yeah, I would agree.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I think they they are good with people. They're people like them. They fit in well. They're people like them. Yeah, they're likable, but they're just not great at their job.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

This what you have pulled up on the TV here is different than the one that uh you're looking at on your iPad, just by the way. Yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Uh top right is high culture, high skills, right? So that's what we deemed stars. These people are have all the abilities that you could want, right? And they're probably highly promotable. They're really good at their technical uh job or duties. They also are really good with the culture. They probably are leading that in some capacity, like very likable, good social skills, uh, getting people to follow them, that kind of stuff, right? So you wanna this would be the polar opposite of the dead weights in the bottom left. These people you want to keep for as long as possible and make sure that they're in the correct positions. That's right. Yeah. And I suppose utilize these stars to coach cheerleaders. Mentor. Coach or mentor your cheerleaders because the cheerleaders or top left have all the culture. They just really need the technical skills. So maybe you just figure out that they are better suited for like a different technical role, or maybe it's just they're early in their career or they're a little underdeveloped in their technical abilities. Right. Uh, and then finally, Brad's favorite category, the bottom right, high skill, low culture terrorists. Terrorists.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Do you want to describe what those are? Yeah. Uh I mean, it's somebody that's very good at what they do. Um but they they don't care about fitting in. They're they're not good with people. Um, their attitude towards the company may be negative, or it likely is negative. Um so yeah, they're they're really good at what they do, so they're hard. I mean, it's a hard decision to to cut ties with people like that because they're they're helping you accomplish the work. Uh, but in the you know, while they're helping you accomplish the work, they're they are dragging, they're the bad apple. They're they're dragging the morale uh down for the people that are around them and could be creating a a hard environment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I've seen different versions of this. Like some where the where the people or the chart says like these this quadrant is not really any better than the deadweight quadrant. Like you need to get rid of them. Otherwise, they're like more harmful to your organization than deadweight is. Because they're skilled enough to like tactfully bring down the culture.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Um they're poking holes in the boat.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, but like this chart on the TV says that you could coach them up. So I'm curious what your opinion is on whether it's top left on the TV.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

It's more difficult to coach them than it is to coach the cheerleader. Oh, I see. Yeah. But you can coach them. I think it depends on how close they are to the line, right? If they're if if they're on the far side of of that. Um the far side meaning uh less not good with people. If they're on the far side of it, then then I think that they don't want they will never be coached. They don't want that type of coaching.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yeah. I was thinking this concept of the labels are more descriptive of like the very far end of like people that we really want and people that we really don't want. But yeah. You know, like the workforce needs eight to fivers. Right. Like we need we need people to come in and and do the job and do it well. And maybe they're not chipper all the time, and maybe they're not the most positive poly all the time, but we still need them. Um, but it's when they start getting completely labeled into that dead weight or terrorist is when you need to make an employment decision.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

That's right. That's fair. Yeah, for sure. Um where do you think most organizations live in this? Don't pay attention to the TV. Do you what quadrant do you think most organizations live in?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I feel like with generational changes, like I think there there are some I I will say, and I've heard different talks, um, organizations that are run by baby boomers tend to lean more into uh higher technical ability. Um you know, they're less less social, more more of a dictatorship, um, which I think there still needs to be some of that in in every business. But I feel like uh moving into like more millennial run businesses or or Gen X run businesses, you've got you've you've got more attention to culture, uh, and we're we're seeing that more. So I think like I think particularly for Kolos, they're high in culture. You know, they want to be high in culture, but high in skill. Uh but I feel like we lean more towards being high in culture. It's a good place to work. Uh, you know, you're they care about work-life balance. They want everyone to to like working here. Um and uh that those things get talked about more than the technical side, the technical ability, I feel like.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um why do you think that the generations are like that? Why do you think baby boomers and like old timey stuff like that was more focused on higher skills and now it's higher culture, but both generations obviously have successful and unsuccessful businesses. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

I mean, the answer uh my answer would be around the the talk that I've heard, and I think it's true that a lot of baby boomers were raised by the the greatest generation, and the and those people were uh they went through a lot of very hard things. They went through the Great Depression, they went through wars. Um, they were very self-reliant. Jobs were hard to come by. So when you had a job, you need to do your job well, and you need to make sure that you do your job better than other people, and kind of a lot of times hold hold your skills close uh because you don't want your job taken away. So I think some of some of that, you know, some of those lessons or tendencies were bred into baby boomers, and you know, that's how that's how they operate. It's tend to be less social, more on what I can do and how I perform, and it's uh, you know, skills-based.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Uh you were just saying that uh they were brought up like that by the previous generation. Do you think that's like a more pessimistic viewpoint? You think it sounds like you do? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts? Do you think that's a pessimistic? I think that's a I mean that's a generality, right? That's not I don't know. There are there are a lot of people that fall like in the margins. They're they're not exactly that way, but that's true. That's I mean, that that culture is or that generation is defined by those things.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Their work ethic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just think generation stuff is super interesting. Like why I guess you could look at it depends on what parts of your life that you look at, right? Like, so what I've heard out of generational speakers is like typically each generation swings like a pendulum from the previous generation. So if you were raised by your parents in one generation, you're gonna hang on to the things that you liked about the way they parented you, and you're gonna do a complete 180 on the things that you didn't like how they raised you. And so then you focus there, and then it just keeps going back and forth and like finding different iterations of it, right? Like uh, here's a good example that's probably relative for a lot of people is our parents as millennials, which I think we all are, Brad Barely in there. Uh it's true. Uh as millennials, we were told by our like raised and told by our parents that you have to do better than we did, so you all have to go to college. Right. Everybody's got to get a college degree. Just go to college, even if you don't know one, don't know what you want to do, and go from there, figure out how to get jobs, right? Or they just assume that all these jobs would be there. Well, the further that you get in, and like depending on, I mean, I think the data is pretty solid for this, is like there's not jobs for everybody. And it's not worth it to go to college for everybody to go to college, right? So now, like the next generation below us, maybe not the next, but the one after that is like, yeah, that sounds awful. Like, that sounds like a bunch of debt for no reason with no guaranteed job. Like, I'm just gonna go work a trade right out of high school and like make this money and be home and like have a life type of thing, spend time with family, yada yada.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Now all of a sudden they're being raised as the baby boomers were being raised. It it is cyclical. I know, yeah. Cyclical, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah. Um anyway, we kind of got off on a tangent, but and I said I had no rants in me today.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I mean, relating that back to culture and skill. I think the the baby boomer led company is more get the job done. Like I want you to, I care about the culture, but I just want you to do your job. You know, I don't yeah, I would like for you to be happy, but if you're not, I really don't care.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Just get to work. Yeah. And I think there's somewhere in the middle is is where it needs to be.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Right. We can take it. You can you can swing too far on the culture side though, too. So you hire, you have a bunch of culture hires, and you have a lot of happy people that are not getting anything done. Well, you just have an unsuccessful business, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Which is a you'd probably fail at some point. It's just a slow death. Yeah. Yeah. To your business. Yeah. Um, so where what did you ask earlier? When do you hire, when do you focus hires on culture or skills?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah. What what do you think is more important? Which which one's easier? We could go about it a few different ways.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

I have always taken the approach Of I want to find somebody with that's like relatable, likable, and has good values, and I can teach them how to do the technical parts of the job. But like but somewhere in there, they've had to convey that they're smart. Yeah. No, I agree with that. Intelligent. That they can Yeah. Like you can't just make a hire off of liking somebody. Like I like my six-year-old. She can't, she's just not advanced enough to, you know, do the job. So you have to have some sort of background in there. But I mean, I think that I've for sure said in interviews where somebody's been highly skilled, but I cannot like have a conversation with them, right? Or they're just like their values don't fit, or pretty quickly you're just like, yeah, there's, you know, there's 10 other people that work on this team or in this office, and this person is not gonna fit in this type of thing. So then you just go back to the drawing board on finding somebody. And I don't think that's I wouldn't use as as like an excuse or a reason to only hire based on culture, right? It's just like skills I think are more teachable than culture.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Mm-hmm. I think unfortunately, a lot of times when you're hiring, you're hiring in a hurry. Like you need you need someone in that seat tomorrow. And so it's very common to hire for skill and maybe overlook some of those other pieces that you should really look at. Um has that happened to you? Oh, it it it it happens because at the end of the day, uh, we have a business to run. And if you can get someone in the seat tomorrow who already knows the buttons to push and the systems and how things operate, and you kind of feel like they're gonna be there on time and hopefully they get along with everybody, let's go. Let's give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah. That's tough. I mean, I've um I think that we've done the same thing everywhere. Everybody's guilty of that, right? Because you feel like this stress that you have to get the job done and you have an open seat. But realistically, in hindsight, like no help for a little bit is better than bad help.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

I love that, Seth. I've been saying that for a while. That's why I said it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Higher fast and higher slow. Yeah, yep. Exactly. Yeah. I agree. I think hiring someone with high culture and somewhat lower skill, as long as they provide like some evidence that they're capable of learning and that they're they're smart. They don't have to know everything. I would I it's easier to bring that person up to the level that you need them to be. And I think and I think different levels of the business require it could look different at different levels of the business. I think I think there are operations or more technical roles where they may not be leading a team of people and they don't necessarily have to have that leadership or culture or, you know, the emotional intelligence that that you want your leaders to have. So I think you it's it's definitely role-dependent as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, and we've kind of focused on or maybe my brain is just automatically going to like them being likable or in a social situation, I guess, but you could also be looking at somebody, I think you were getting to this, and maybe I'm just saying it a different way, is like you could have somebody that's been super successful in a role that they've done, and then they're interviewing for or you're entertaining them for a role that's not they don't have any technical experience whatsoever for that role. But just their personality attitude and approach to like learning things and how successful they were in their other job is showing that they have the skills to so they could be high skill to perform the job. They just don't have the um like industry knowledge or nuances about that role, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Which is why behavioral-based questions are so important.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Like if you're a hiring manager listening to this today, it is tough. It it is very difficult to find that right person. And then if you hire someone and they're not killing it, you know, within the first two weeks, people are like, oh my gosh, why'd they hire this guy? And so there's a lot of stress to find that what we call the purple unicorn, um, which is that superstar, someone who can come in and do the job tomorrow and have high culture and get along with everyone and they're familiar with the industry. Those people just aren't out there. And so if you're a hiring manager, you should be looking at opportunities to train this person, asking behavioral-based questions. Are they able to catch on quickly? Can they multitask? Are they going to show up on time? Those types of things.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

And if you see somebody in your organization that may be in a role that may not necessarily take advantage of their social skill or their their cultural skill, I mean you those those people need to be you need to be looking for that. If they're if they're getting their job done and and on the technical side and they stand out on a cultural side, those people are the ones that I'm looking for. Those are the ones to me that are going to move up to the organization. And it has so much to do with just and just attitude. I mean, that's how you see it. Yeah. I think that's how you notice it.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Is uh attitude and effort.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

That's been repeated on multiple podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, it has. That's what that's uh So fundamental. That's what Justin was saying, coaching his um his little 10-year-old baseball team. He starts practice that way. You can control two things attitude and effort. Yeah. Oh yeah, I can see him saying that. He's a he's a good coach. I bet he's a very good coach. Yeah. What Taylor, you were saying you want to find out answers to those questions, like will they show up on time? Um, will they I don't even remember what else you said, but yeah, what are examples of behavioral-based questions to get those answers?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

I think any question that starts with, tell me about a time. And then you fill it in.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

But pretty open-ended.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yeah. So they have to give you the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, and how did you solve a problem. And that's going to tell you tremendously on different language that they pick, on different scenarios that they choose. Is it where they were the victim? And they're like, Yeah, I did it all by myself. Yeah. You know, and so those questions will give you a huge insight to how they handle working with others or a time crunch or something wasn't going their way. How did they respond? Um that could be for any any level of the business. I think behavioral based are super important.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, that's true. Versus like just a straight up technical question, like this is always funny, but uh, finance example is like you always used to ask, Well, how are you, how would you rate yourself between one and ten with Excel? And people would be like, Well, yeah, I'm like an eight or a nine or whatever. And then you hire them. Four months later, you're like, You you don't even know how to spell Excel.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Can you tell me what a pivot table is? I've I've been in a few interviews where John brought up pivot tables, like you can't even build a pivot table. John would know where the button is to do it. Yeah. I think our our typical, like over the years, the our typical interview questions have just not been good enough. I mean, I like you said we've gotten better. Incorporate some of those behavioral-based questions in.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Yeah. At the end of the day, you still have to know what you're doing. I mean, there's there's a skill level to it. We you there are very little positions where you can hire someone who has zero experience. Yeah. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

It's so difficult to figure out what skills people actually have. Like back to that point of like asking that question. It's like, um, because what do you do? Actually look like a for a certification, or just like maybe you can ask questions where they would have to put that technical skill in uh like to the test to solve a problem within the question, right? Like um maybe if it's about like uh aggregates, like a quarry, right? Like, okay, well, in your ideal world, how does the first two hours of a workday go or whatever? And then they have to like work through you want them to be able to work through that scenario and complex problem and the things that they bring up or don't bring up could be answers to your underlying questions, right? Like then you're thinking about one, how they solve problems, how quick they are at that, two, like how they how much structure they have, if they like a ton of structure to their day. Maybe like what their familiarity is with um cruze or like what types of processes they have in place to get the day started, if they like huddles or not huddles, or time card review or whatever. It's kind of like an interesting way for them to work through it.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

And it depends on which position you're hiring for, right? Because if if you're hiring for a uh an more of an entry-level type position, you may be talking to people that don't have much experience that you can look back on and ask about. So then it becomes really hard, like what can you actually do? Can you can you do this job? Can you learn to do this job? Kind of taking a risk there because they're just getting started. But the higher up you go, you know, you're really looking at that experience piece. You want to know how they've built how they've built teams in the past. You want to know what they think about culture and what they versus skills. You know, I think it depends on what level you're looking at, but I would lean towards digging into that experience. Uh what they've already done in the past.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

I think one thing that came to my mind, and and we talk about this a lot on the HR team, is these people exist within your organization, the deadweight, the terrorists. When you described it earlier of the role that they play for your company, it makes you wonder like, why are they even around? Why why do we have them? Why don't we just get rid of them? Um, but there's a reason. So, like, what would you tell people listening to do with those two quadrants? You can't just fire them all.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

I think the dead weight is self-explanatory. They're if they are in that quadrant, they're not helping you. They're not helping you do anything. I think the the terrorist piece to me is more difficult because what we do is hard. It's it's hard and it's not always uh a you know a glorious, gl glamorous job that everybody wants. And it's difficult to learn at times, depending on the position. So if you find somebody that's really talented but they're low on the culture side, you've got to make a decision. You know, are they helping you enough uh to where you think you could coach them and get and get them there, or um are they taking up it's like the 80-20 rule. If they're if they're taking up more of your time dealing with their mess, then that needs to be considered. And there's always somebody else. I think we I think we we scare ourselves into thinking that there's not someone else to perform the job. It may take some time to find it, and and you know, you go through a little bit of pain getting there, but uh there's always somebody else out there that that needs a chance or an opportunity. So may have to make a tough decision and feel like gap for a while. That's what I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

What do you think? You brought it up.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

I think every manager should be evaluating their team. I think what could be difficult is uh I think it's very realistic for people to come in and out of these quadrants, depending on things that are going on in their life. Um and making sure that you're in tune to where people fall because to Brad's point, people are out there. People are actually lined up to come work for us specifically, um, which is a great feeling. We have people all the time call and say, Hey, either I'd like to come back or you know, I've heard you're a great company. And we really need to be evaluating those people and and how do we make our workforce bigger, better, faster, stronger. And it's by our managers constantly evaluating their team to make sure that we're pushing people into those top two quadrants instead of putting up with people in the bottom two.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Mm-hmm. Just picking your head up and looking down the road like the looking at what you want your team to look like and how you want your team to perform. Like you've you got this, you should have this vision of how everything could work great versus today. And if that person is keeping you from getting to where you know you need to be, you know, that's likely to not change unless and if they're in that terrorist box, it's likely to not change without making you know, moving some folks around.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Mm-hmm. If people don't haven't really thought about their team or what it looks like into the future, like a vision, how how do you even go about doing that? Like you just um you know, that can be a learned skill, I think. Like planning for the future and developing a team for not necessarily today, but for where you want to be.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So I guess it's just uh I think it's just setting time aside to assess how everybody's performing. Um in an ideal world, this is what it would look like. You need you I mean, you've really got to block time out if you're a leader, if you're a manager. You gotta block time out and say this is this is what it should look like in an ideal world. This is what everybody should be doing. These are what these positions should this is what I expect of these positions and the performance I think that we should be getting. And then compare to what you have. And the folks that fall outside of where you want them to be, you need to analyze where they're at on this chart. And if you think that you can get them there in a reasonable amount of time. And you're and if you, you know, if you can't, you're making your life easier by making a tough decision.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Yep. And an easy time to do that is performance review time. Is to you're already sitting down with each individual person on your team and asking them how things are going. You're evaluating their performance, you're talking about goals and where they want to go and what they want to be. Um and it's easy for you at that point as a manager to take those scores or those comments and kind of chart them out and figure out what it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

If you're a if you're an employee and you want to know where you rank, how how would you self-assess where you fall?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

I mean, I think like us personally, we're trying to give people better access to that by like setting up mid-year reviews and year-end reviews. Like, we'd always encourage and I would tell people to meet every two weeks or whatever, right? Like as much as you possibly can for real-time feedback and constant conversations around like how you're doing, performance-based, and what you could be doing better. And like managers and managers should be asking for that feedback from their employees as well. Like, where what are my blind spots? What how could I make your job easier um or this culture better or things like that, right? So I think just opening, having that open line of communication um is how they could, is how you could understand like where you fit in here, at least from your manager's standpoint. Um if you're not having, you know, like regular mandatory performance reviews and stuff like that, I think it's a really tough, it feels really tough to start that conversation with your manager, but you just have to kind of bite the bullet and do it and bring it up in some sort of way. And if your manager is not like willing and open to have that conversation and feedback, then you'll probably find out that you're not in the right spot or place that you want to be anyway, right? Um that's really still just somebody else's viewpoint. Like I think you can have a pretty good idea of where you fall just by working on self-awareness and being very, very self-aware. And that takes like almost really just like setting your own goals, thinking about what you want, understanding and paying attention to like how you show up in groups of people, understanding like and noticing how people react whenever you talk, like and most conversations do you leave them, and the other person you're just talking to is not in a good mood because that's a pretty bad sign, right? Confused. Uh if you feel like you can bring energy and they're energized and optimistic and happy whenever they leave the conversation, that's usually a pretty good sign, right? Um so I think that's key, and there's like lots of ways to work on that. Like it's self-awareness, probably it's a whole episode of content and stuff that you can talk about. A lot of assessments we can we can share. Yeah. But um, you know, I heard somebody a couple weeks ago at uh the NSSGA conference, like a leader talking about like really that's all there is to leadership is self-awareness as the most important part of leadership. So understanding how you show up, what effects you have on people, and knowing that type of stuff helps you understand how you can go about like energizing groups of people to work towards a common goal. That's good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Any closing thoughts? I had uh, I was this has always stuck out to me. I've always remembered it. It was um Sean O'Keen. He was talking at one of our young leader meetings for Arkansas Highsport Pavement Association, and he made the comment that he would rather um crawl with someone with a good attitude versus run with someone with a bad attitude. And that's just that I've always remember that, and I I feel the exact same way. I would rather have a tough, tough time getting to where we need to be with with people that are wanting to be there, having a good attitude and putting the work in than somebody that's difficult to be around and making your life miserable, but they're really good at their job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah. That's because that's a drain on all parts of your life. Not just where you're working. Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

At the end of the day, this is this is a job. Yeah. You know, this is what we do to provide a living for for our life, for our families, right? So it's not everything. And if you have to be miserable um with with your job, with the people that you're with more than your family, then you need to find something else to do. Or you need to find the reason why and make a change.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Amen. If y'all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies, and our website at Delta C O S looks like Deltacos.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.