The Dashboard of Team Health: Spotting and Fixing People Problems

Behind every thriving team is a leader who knows how to spot the signs of trouble and take action.

In this episode, Vanderbloemen COO Jennifer Paulson shares practical wisdom for identifying "check engine lights" in team health, from gossip and disengagement to meetings after the meeting. Learn why tough conversations matter, how to lead with transparency and humility, and how to develop future leaders who can do the same.

Whether you're leading a church, nonprofit, or business, this conversation will help you create a culture of trust and accountability that lasts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hey everyone, welcome and thanks for spending some time today investing into your team. I'm joined today by one of my favorite people in dare I say the entire world, and that's not just because she's my boss. That is Boss's boss's boss. Boss's boss's boss. That's right. That's right. Um today we have Jen Paulson and Jen, so thankful that you're able to spend some time with us. Um you are the CEO COO here at Vanderblumen, and we talked last um time you were on, how a lot of the problems that you deal with are people problems. So today the kind of focus of this episode is kind of the dashboard for team health, really. And if you think of the dashboard of a car, when a light pops on and you notice something is wrong, it tells you something is wrong, and then it's up to us to go and fix it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

That's a good analogy, Jared.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Thank you. Actually, can I tell a quick funny story? In high school, my car, I had a car, it was a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and the entire dashboard did not work. So I didn't know how fast I was going. I didn't know how much I didn't know how much gas I had in my car. I had all the lights were on, and it was I called it the fog machine, the favor of God machine. Yes, you can steal that. I did. We stole it the other day, Beth and I didn't. It's it's hilarious. I love it. And and it because I really needed the favor of God to get to point A to point B to without you know crashing or or whatnot. And honestly, the speed was one thing because you can kind of get a flow of traffic, not knowing how much gas you have in a car, it's a little bit anxiety inducing. I won't lie to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I think this speaks more to the fact that your parents trusted you enough to give you a car that had no feedback. Like you had no idea how much gas, the speed, they were just like, we trust you, Jared.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I don't know that they totally knew the extent of it, but did you ever run out of gas? Um, I not that I remember. I I don't I don't think so. I did um that car is since passed away. Sure. Um it was totaled in an accident, but um that's that's okay. Anyways, the fog machine. The the dashboards, dashboards team out. We got a little off track, but I love stories.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, I think I think the takeaway from that is the favor of God was taking care of you in that.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

That's right. And a lot of times with our teams, we need the favor of God to help us out when we're when we're when we're leading. Yeah. Um what are some signs? So maybe like when you have a check engine light on a team, what what are some examples maybe of that, or just what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

So the first thing that comes to mind I think that would kind of give you a little bit of a heads up that there's maybe something that needs to fix is when there's conversations after the meeting. So that's a really big one. So let's say you have a team meeting, um, it's maybe your small team, or maybe it's the all-staff company meeting, and there's little groups of people that talk about things in the that happened in the meeting after the meeting. So the fur that that is a sign that people aren't comfortable um confronting each other or speaking directly about the problems in the meetings.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Wow, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

And then when that starts happening, then the meetings are the meetings are really losing effectiveness because the point of meetings should be to um get people on the same page, yep, or come to decisions, uh, consensus, that type of thing, or to share information. However, if there's meetings after the meetings, that means that the actual meetings aren't getting the job done and people aren't feeling like they're on the same page or that they can talk about what really matters to them. So I think that's a first check engine light. Yep. Is meetings after the meetings. I think another check engine light is if people are um if there's gossip going on in the company. So maybe not even relating to meetings, but um I'm fortunate I have the world's best executive assistant. And she one of the wonderful things about her is that she really has her finger on the pulse of what's going on in the business. A lot of people feel comfortable talking to her. Yes. So she for me is my master check engine, like and she can let me know, you know, I think there's a problem over here in the marketing team or on the sales team, and she can confidentially bring my attention to that issue, and then I can talk to the team manager of that team and kind of find out what's going on. Yeah. Um, but if there's gossip, that's another thing. Um, let me try to think of one more example. Um, I think just another thing, Jared, and I'm I'm blessed that because of my life experiences, I have got um pretty good emotional intelligence. Yes. But I think if you can tell that people just aren't happy coming to work, then that's another big check engine light on in your dashboard. That there's some reason. Why doesn't this person want to come to work? Is there someone that's not treating them well? Are they not liking their job? And we're we'll talk about what to do with all these check engines, like check engine lights, but the big overarching thing is that there's a lack of communication or a lack of trust in the organization.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yep. I think that's really good. And you know, when it comes to some of these um check engine lights of keeping the team uh team health high, yeah. Um how do you kind of view your role in kind of shaping the the culture um and and making sure that each team is healthy? Um and and what are what are some of the things that you try to keep in mind and maybe some uh practical things that you do um when you notice that hey this area, this light's popping up, and now now we gotta go fix it. Yep, we gotta go handle this. What what are some things that you try to maybe keep in mind or some things that you do when you notice that something needs getting fixed?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I guess I think that's good. And you can drill down on some of the things that that I say here, but I think the first the first thing that you have to do as a good leader is you always have to lead by example. And I know that that's an that's an old expression, people always say lead by example, lead by example. But I think most high-level leaders don't actually do that. I think it's very rare that they model the behavior that they want to see from their employees. Yep. So if I want my employees to talk to me about what's going on in their teams or what might be going wrong, I have to model that transparency with them. Yep. And I have to mod work ethic, I have to model work ethic. Um, but the transparency side of things, I think something that people gravitate toward in a good leader is someone that you can trust, and the trust is built by transparency.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

So, for example, Jared, I have to tell you like what's going on, not necessarily everything in the business, but the parts that relate to you. And then you kind of can see what I'm talking about, and then that makes you trust what I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So I think the first thing a leader can do, lead by example, and one of the ways you lead by example is with that transparency. Yep. Um, you also have to be another thing, William has talked about this before, but you have to be vulnerable as a leader. Um people trust you a lot more if I can say, I don't really know the answer to that, but let's talk about it together and see if we can figure out a solution. Yep. Or I thought the answer was this, and this is what we tried, but it didn't work. And that shows that you have some humility, and it also shows people that um that you care about what they're saying.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

One more tran one more um tip that that could be helpful is to treat everyone like equals. You can't there can't be a hierarchy. People need to feel that you like that. Jared, our marketing coordinator. That's right. Recently promoted, congratulations. Thank you. Um, has as much to say as William or as me or as our director of marketing, Maddie. Like we have to make sure that everyone feels like their voice can be heard. Really good. And a lot of times people think, oh, Jared's, you know, Jared's young, he wouldn't necessarily have the right ideas, or we he we shouldn't ask him, but nine times out of ten, he's got fresh eyes and he does have valuable insight. So I think that's another thing that a leader can model is being open to feedback from everyone and considering everyone's opinion rather than just saying this is how we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah, I think that's really good. And it's kind of the difference between um like telling someone what to do and almost a collaborative effort. Um, and that's something that we that you do here very, very well, and making everyone feel like, hey, if I have this idea, it's not just going to be immediately passed over by someone who may be a little bit um uh maybe uh a level of leadership higher than I. Um, and it makes you willing to share as well. And I think that's something for our senior leaders that may be listening today to keep in mind is that when you are able to maintain a healthy and collaborative team, yeah, you're able to work together to create the best possible solution. And um, you know, it's easy for me to say, I definitely know that I don't have the best ideas always in the room, and um uh with respect, I would say that each one person is not gonna be able to come up with the best idea on their own, but as a team, we can collaboratively um yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

I have something to say about that. Yes, I have two things. One is one of my favorite quotes is weigh in equals buy-in. That's so people need to be able to weigh in on a decision in order for them to have buy-in into it. Really good. If I tell you this is what we're gonna do, but you haven't gotten to speak into it, you're gonna have less desire to make sure that that whatever the decision is works. And then the other thing is let's give them the example. We had marketing meetings last week. Yes, and William gave us a really neat project at the end of the first day. He said, Um, everyone go home and think about how to do X. There was kind of a problem that we're trying to solve. And William said, Every single person in this room, so that's everyone on our sales team, everyone on our marketing team, take you know, take 12 hours, think about it, and then come back and tell us what your idea was. Yeah. And when we came back the next morning, people had really great ideas. They did. And these were people from all levels of the business, and they were able to take the time to explain their idea, and then we kind of talked through all of them and voted on which ideas we wanted to implement. But the idea from William or from me was no was treated with no more weight than the idea from you or other other newer employees.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

That's right. That's right. Um, what's something that people would maybe misunderstand, or maybe you think that maybe a lot of senior leaders get wrong when they consider um organizational health, whether it be in a church or what are some things that they would maybe get wrong?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

One thing that I really think a lot of senior leaders get wrong is I think that they feel like since they're in the position of leadership, they have to know everything.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And they have to make sure everyone else knows that they do know everything.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Um so the knowing everything and then also seeing things as black and white. So I think that's another problem that senior leaders think, okay, we have to either go with A or with B, and they don't realize that there's a gray area in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

One example of this would be like um if an employee, let's say we're offboarding an employee, um, we can't just say, okay, we're offboarding the employee, you know, snap our fingers and we're done with them. We've got to figure out what we can do to pour into that employee that's leaving, so both so that the employees that are still here can see that and see how much we actually care about employees, but also so that the employee can leave feeling like they were cared for by us. So that's that's something, you know, senior leader, you don't have to know everything. You just have to surround yourself with people that are the right people. I also I also think that senior leaders oftentimes think that they need to be the whole the whole pie. Like they have to have all the different skills. They do not. You have to know what skills you don't have and then hire for those skills so that you've got a well-rounded team. Yep. Um, something that that we've talked about in the past just a little bit is William was saying that he when he first started the company, he hired a lot of people that were exactly like him.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

And then the problem with that is you don't have that whole other skill set. So I think another senior leader flaw is making hiring a bunch of people that are all like you rather than hiring for people who have different skill sets, so that all together you have all the skills you need to run the business.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, that's really good. I think that it kind of goes to like you're you're limiting the organization if you um just hire yourself because then the organization's just gonna be really strong in what you're really strong in. Yeah. And then not so strong in the areas where you may be not so strong. I completely agree. Um, when we think of the team health, um, one aspect of that is dealing with you know people's real lives, and sometimes people go through a tough season in life, and you see maybe some some of the effects of that in their product in the workplace. Um and product is maybe the wrong use. Performance word, yeah, performance. Thank you. Um how do you go about handling situations like that and being able to treat an employee with empathy and trying to understand and caring for them well, but also understanding, you know, at the end of the day, we we have to make sure that this gets done at a level that we're okay with.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah, that's something so I I've come from the business world, and something that I've noticed with um churches in my in my three years here at Vanderbloom and three and a half years, is I think churches lean more toward the empathetic side. And there really has to be a balance because if you lean too much toward the empathetic side, you're gonna end up with a bunch of employees that are going through things that are maybe underperforming, and that's not gonna be good. So the best advice that I can give on this is that you have to you have to um give empathy to the employee, but also address the issues that are going on. So in the in the past six months here at Vanderbiltman, we've had quite a few employees that are going through different personal things, and it has impacted their performance. So here we come back to um direct communication. And the worst thing to do is just say they're going through something, we're just gonna give them space, and then we're gonna keep giving them space, and we're gonna keep giving them space, but meanwhile, their job's not getting done, and other people are having to pick up the pieces, and then that's creating bitterness on the other teams. Yep. So the way I like to handle this, I like to handle most things in my life is just directly handle them. But talk to the employee that's going through the issue and then set some sort of parameters, you know, like maybe you need an extra day off each week to go to your medical appointments or to handle your spouse that's going through something. Yeah, however, we can give you that, but then in exchange, I'm gonna need these things that the your door your job responsibilities, I'm gonna need those completed.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And it you don't always, if an employee is going through something and they can work through it, then that's fine. But if an employee is going through something really serious and they can't get their job done, then you just have to, you have to love them well and let them leave and help them find something that might work better for them. Because as an organization, it's just really unfair to all the other employees if someone's performing at 25%, no matter what the reason is. Um, and yes, we we do want to give grace, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that other employees aren't having to to pick up the pieces from that other employee.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

That's a really good um point to make because if a lot of times if someone maybe is um you know dealing with personal issues and the work is affected of it, it can then affect the work of other people, and then that can end up, you know, it can the ripple effect of that, if not handled properly, can be really devastating.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

I completely agree with you. I've got one employee right now, um, and she was going through some family things and her performance was slipping, and she didn't realize it was slipping because she was so focused on these other family things. Yeah. So then we had uh we had another conversation, what we call them come to Jesus, but it could be called anything, you know, just a regroup conversation. Regroup conversation. And she apologized and she said she didn't realize that it was affecting it that much. Yeah. And then she was able to to um work more on what she needed to work on in the workplace. And then I also just helped her to say, okay, let's drop three these three responsibilities for this period of time, yeah, and let's focus on these. So maybe the workload is less, but at least she's getting that workload done.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

That's right, and doing it with a level of excellence that's um expected in this organization, really.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, that's right. That's a really good, really, really good point. Um, when it comes to a team and noticing that something is off, um, sometimes the reason that a team may be off may be because a certain employee may be off and um and and they may be needing to leave the team. It may be in the team's best interest and the organization's best interest for them to to move on to to find somewhere else. Um how do you go about approaching those moments? Um, as difficult as they may be, um, for not only the person who may be asked to move on, but also from the person who is um overseeing them as well. Do you do you have any thoughts on that? And I do.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

There's an expression that I'm gonna get wrong, and it's either one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel of apples. That's back in the days when apples were apparently restored in barrels, or one rotten banana spoils the whole bunch. Something, some fruit analogy. Yeah, I like it. Um but point being, let's say you have a team of 10 people and one person is really struggling, or more often from what I've seen, one person's really negative, then that negativity or that poor performance does really impact the whole team. Yep. And the worst thing that you can do in that situation is cover your eyes and ignore it. That's the worst thing you can do. Yeah. Because then everyone sees you as the leader, not taking action, and then their performance slumps, and then they start with the drama and the gossip as well. So again, back to one one of Jennifer's main points always is you really have to address it head on. And so I would talk to there's sometimes managers that are better at managing people, and some managers that are that maybe don't like to have the difficult conversations, but really important to put managers in place who can have difficult conversations.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And then if you trust your manager to do that, you would have that conversation and you would say, you know, Jared, I feel like there's this member of your team that might be causing some disagreements or might be causing some negativity among your team. Let's let's have a conversation with them.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

And you really have to address it, and that will also earn you trust with the other team members because they'll see you taking action. One of the biggest ways that an employee can get an employee can get demotivated is if they see poor performance or negativity and they don't see it being handled. Really? There's no real reason for me to be performing at other than because we, you know, we work onto the Lord, not unto man. But it's hard to keep working at 100% performance if you're seeing other people slide by with 60 or 65% performance. Yes. And what's gonna happen if you don't address that is if you look back six months later, everyone's gonna be at the 65%. It's not that one person's gonna pick it back up to the 100. Yeah, they're gonna drop down to the the weakest link level. Yep. So really in that situation, you just have to you have to head on address it. And I'll also tell you that a lot of times people are scared of difficult conversations. But I will say, I mean, I've probably had 200, maybe I'm maybe more than 200 in my life, but nine times out of ten, nine point nine times out of ten, the conversation is not as hard as you expect it to be. So don't let that fear of the difficult conversation prevent you from from having it.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Yeah, that's really, really good. And it kind of goes back to what we um what you touched on at the start of, you know, there I I would presume that, you know, if there's one person who maybe is the reason that a team health is not as operating as it is, maybe they're the ones that are, you know, gossiping or after in the meetings after the meetings, um, so to speak. And I think that's just um really insightful for our leaders and our listeners um that are tuning in today to keep in mind when it comes to maintaining a healthy team, a healthy organization. Um, as we kind of come to a close today, is there any um lasting things that you you'd like to say just when it comes to the when you think of the dashboard of of team health and whether it be noticing it or addressing it? Do you have any?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I think my my biggest takeaway is just really don't ever let anything slide. So just the sooner that you can address something the better, and don't be scared about the addressing of the issue. It's much better to address it than to not address it. I just I really can't tell you how many people in senior leadership are they've gotten to that position somehow, but they don't they don't like having difficult conversations and they'd rather delegate that to other people. Yep. You've got to lead by example, they've got to see you do the hard thing first, yep, and they've got to see you model the hard thing. This isn't something that that's worked for me in the past is the people that you're trying to develop or the people that I'm trying to develop, I bring them along beside me for the difficult conversations, and then the next time they can have those difficult conversations. Because you either, if you're either delegating without showing, then they're doing a poor job of it. Or if you're doing it all the time, you're not equipping the next generation or the next layer of leadership to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

So I think, yeah, I think that would that would be what I would say. Always bring someone that you're developing along into those conversations, but really do not be afraid to have them. It's gonna it's gonna do much more harm than good if you avoid the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

That's so good. That's so good. Thank you so much for being able to join us. You're one of my favorite people, too. Thank you, Jen. Thank you, Jen. I appreciate that. Um well, hey leader, I just want to let you know that you're capable and you are equipped to be able to have the difficult conversations. And when you do have those difficult conversations, it'll be able to take your team to a level that it's never been at before.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're looking for more leadership resources, you can find us at Vanderblumen.com and on socials at Vanderblumen. We'll see you again next week where we continue discussing how to build, run, and keep great teams.