One of the biggest challenges is how to coach and grow your team to make them a more valuable part of the team and meet their career goals. In this episode, we will look at how you can apply that leadership to people on your team and get the results you want from them using a simple 3 step process you can start using today.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-48-leadership-3-steps-to-help-you-coach-and-grow-your-team-members/
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One of the biggest challenges is how to coach and grow your team to make them a more valuable part of the team and meet their career goals. In this episode, we will look at how you can apply that leadership to people on your team and get the results you want from them using a simple 3 step process you can start using today.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-48-leadership-3-steps-to-help-you-coach-and-grow-your-team-members/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
What's going on my crazy ones, and welcome to the 48th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and all sorts of things that matter to creative people. Now, if you like the show, be sure that you go into your favorite podcast platform, hit subscribe, because I want to make sure you get the latest episodes whenever they come out about every other week. And if you have a few minutes while you're there, do me a favor. Just take a quick second and leave a review makes a big difference to getting people into the show. And it lets me know that people are actually listening. Now, for those of you who do subscribe to the show, if you're in the United States today, it's Columbus Day, but yet here I am working for you. I have to say I never really believed in celebrating a guy who got lost. And I never really quite understood how a guy discovered something where there were already people living there. But we're going to let another show tackle that problem. And instead what we're going to do is to talk about something that I think is gonna be really useful. According to a lot of you, and that is that over the course of the show, we've talked a lot about a lot of different parts of leading creative teams. And we can talk about leadership toward blue in the face. But it really doesn't do you any good if you don't know how to apply it. And that's one of the things I've heard from people who listen to the show. And it's one of the things as I've just gone back and looked at the shows, have really kind of come to realize that it's something that I've missed. Because leadership, in theory sounds great, it sounds great to go out and change things to do things differently. But if there aren't tangible ways that I can give you tangible practices and processes that let you apply it, well, that becomes a real problem. So today, we're going to talk about one of those things. And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about how to apply your leadership to your team, by coaching and growing your people. Now, the reason I want to talk about this is because you need to be able to coach and grow your people for a lot of different reasons you need Do it to keep them happy. You need to keep them on your team so that they feel like their career is going someplace and that they're actually evolving. But more importantly, you probably also need to do it to keep your sanity. So you can deal with the problems that are going on, you can continue to get a better team, you can continue to do better work. And all of these are incredibly important. And it's a skill that I've had to learn. It's a skill that I've had to evolve. Because over the years, I've come to make peace with the fact that I'm never going to hire a perfect team member, I would argue I don't necessarily think they exist, then a lot of cases, what I'm looking to do whenever I hire somebody, is that I want to hire somebody who has maybe you'll say 70 or 80% of what I need. And then I know that I'm going to need to coach and build the rest of that. But here's the challenge is that everybody's different, their creative processes are different. And this makes it hard to coach people. So over the years, I've developed what really is a simple but effective three step process that I use honestly, every single day. Now, the thing is, is that as we go through this, at first, you're going to have to consciously think about how you apply this. This is the same thing that happens whenever you learn anything new. Whenever you do anything new. You have to think about, okay, what's the first step? What's the second step? What's the third step? But the good news is, and the encouragement that I want to give you is that the more that you do this, the longer that you do this, the more natural it's going to become, to the point where you're not even going to have to think about it anymore. And I think that that's a really important thing. And this is where again, you're going to have to have a little bit of patience, a little bit of determination. But understand that this is what you need to do. Because this is a big part of leadership is that you need to sit down and you need to coach and grow your people. This is what I see too many companies not doing is they let career Has the happenstance they let growth be happenstance. They see leaders who just want to kind of deal with, you know, just sort of the day to day issues, but they don't really want to invest in their people. But this is what makes good teams turn into great teams. So let's talk about this. And let's get into this three step process that I think can help you honestly, starting tomorrow, maybe even today, if you're feeling a little bit ambitious, but to talk about how you can use this to help really grow your team. Now, the first step in this three part process is to just simply establish the problem and establishing the problem. What I mean is, what is it that we need to work on with this person. And this is the thing is that it can honestly be anything with one of your team members. It can be something that you think can be better. It could be something for the entire team. It could be for an individual, it could be big, it could be small. It could be any of these different things. But the thing really is, how do I spot this? How do I understand this? And it's like I said, I think one is just use yourself as a baseline, use the standard that you set. If you see somebody or some part of someone who isn't rising up to meet that standard, then that is a coaching moment. That's a problem that needs to be solved. If you see behavioral issues where people aren't kind of acting a particular way, if you see, there's a skill that they need to work on if you even see a client who needs to work with your team differently. And I really think that's the thing is that this can honestly be used internally or externally problems big or small. But the first step is to figure out what is it you want to solve. And the key to this is that I want to identify the way that the person thinks, not just the way they behave, and I've talked about this in the past. And the reason why I bring this up again, is because if all I'm doing is changing the way somebody behaves tends to be a short term fix, it tends to be something that I'm just triage it but ultimately the problem is going to come back. Because the thinking that's driving the behavior isn't changing. And I think this is where a lot of leaders get it wrong. Because this is the problem is, you know what I want to get to the root of what's going on, I want to find out the heart of what that is. Now, the challenges is that there's a couple things here. One is that it requires me to take the time, and to do the analysis and to figure out beyond the obvious what's actually happening. And it requires me to actually be able to go in and plan to have what may be an uncomfortable or difficult conversation around this. Here. Again, I see too many people that just simply opt for the easy. They like the leadership part, but they don't want conflict. They like the leadership part, but they don't really want to have to invest in their people. Because this is the thing is that whenever you become a leader, especially of creative teams, one of the things that it's going to mean Is that you need to give up doing hands on work, or at least give up for the majority of the time. Because now what it is that I'm doing is I'm trusting my team. I'm letting them do it. I'm trying to guide them. But this is the thing is that too many leaders, they just don't want to hold on to a completely. They want to do all the work and then give it to their team. They want to spend all their time in doing the design. This is a fatal flaw partially for on the one hand, because one, people don't want to work for people who are just simply going to tell them what to do. People do want to work for people that let them use their process. People don't want to work for people who just criticize them all the time. They do want to work for people who will actually help them get over these problems. But this is the thing is that you have to take the time to invest and look and understand what's going on to get to really what's the heart of the problem. Now let's actually just take a theoretical example here to try to give you an example or look at what it is I'm talking about. Now let's say that we have a team Remember, and that this person isn't speaking up in meetings. And honestly, most of the time, I'm starting to get annoyed because every time I'm in a meeting with them, they're always on their laptop. Now, I think what you would see is that most leaders are just going to go to them, and they're going to just tell them that they need to talk more in meetings and did not bring your laptop. I would say that here again, that's triaging behavior. It's not actually going after the thinking, because just simply saying talk more. And that you know, don't bring your laptop. These are short term fixes, I'm not actually getting it something that's going to change behavior. And I want to get to the underlying problem. Now what I would say for this particular person, that you know, what might what might actually be going on here, what the real problem might be, is that this person is insecure. And so talking makes them uncomfortable, and they use their laptop as a distraction and a way to hide in meetings so that they aren't called on so that they don't have to interact so that they can have this shield that's going to let them sit there and have something to do As opposed to being somebody that has to be engaged in the meeting. So this is the thing, this is the real problem. And this is the person's thinking that we need to work on. And that's what I said before is that the reason most people don't want to look deeply into these things, is that it's harder and the problems are bigger. And the conversation I'm going to have to have is much more around emotions and feelings. And is this person insecure? Is this person, somebody who you know, is, is has a problem that we're gonna need to work on, and I'm gonna need to invest in them to do that. The easier thing once again, just simply talk, don't bring your laptop. But that's why I said the problem is going to recur, because at first they'll they'll do exactly what you say. They'll try to speak up more, they won't bring their laptop, but then slowly over time, you're going to see it start to creep back in, and it becomes a cycle. And I think if you think about how maybe you've struggled with this, how you struggled with this, from a leadership perspective, that's an incredibly clear telltale sign of if it's working or not, because if If you're actually getting to the root of the problem, then you change what is going on, you don't see the problem come back. If you're just simply triaging the behavior, then you see the cycle of they behave really well. And then slowly over time it comes back again. And then you have to start all over again and again and again. And the reason why I think that you have to do this is that yes, the conversation is harder. Yes, you do have to look deeper, but the change is real. And I think that that is really important so that I'm not caught in this constant cycle of having to triage the same thing over and over again, each time losing my patience a little bit more, each time getting more frustrated with that person. Whenever the real frustration, that real frustration is just sit with me, because I'm failing as a leader. I'm not helping them change and grow. Because the reality is, is that even though a lot of people know what their issues are, they need help. They don't always have the strength or the clarity are the things to know what to change. This is why we are all fantastic at telling other people what should do and we all suck whenever it comes to applying it to ourselves. We're our own biggest blind spot. And there is no way to get around that. So this is where as a leader, we have to step in and work on this. So that's the first part is we want to go in and we want to clearly establish, really, what is this thing that we want to solve? What is the thing in the way that somebody is thinking that we really want to go after? Now from there, what I want to then do is to think about what's the what's the outcome that I want to have happen? What's going to change? And why does this need to change? Because I think this is where leadership really comes into play whenever you need to define the outcome. And here again, this can be daunting, and it can be difficult, because the reality is, is that I am now influencing someone else's life. And that is something that I will never, never take lightly. And this is the thing is that the important thing is that you have to pick an outcome that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. Not too big, not too small. Because here again, I probably don't want to change everything all at once. Because if it's a big change, if I need to ask them to do something significant, it's hard for people to boil the ocean. But at the same point, I don't want to make it too insignificant. I don't want to make it something that almost becomes disposable. And this is really a very specific part, we're here again, your leadership is going to come into play through coaching. because really what coaching is, is coaching is going to be the plan. Because what I want to do is I want to figure out what is the end goal, and the case of the person that we use in this example, I want them to have more confidence be a little bit less insecure. That is a big ask, that's a big thing they need to try to break down. But that's my end goal. And now what I want to do is to break that up into multiple steps that are going to make up the journey because making any change in a person, your team, your process, your creativity or anything else and we've talked about this again. In the past, it's like falling in love. It's like making a best friend. It's a lot of little steps that add up to something much bigger. Because if you think about your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband, your wife, your significant other, there are so many cases, it's not one singular moment, why you love them, there's not a singular moment why you love your parents, there's not a senior moment while you love your best friend. It's a lot of little things that added up to something big. Now, coaching needs the exact same mindset. And this is the thing is that, what I want to do is to break up that big journey into smaller pieces, because I want this person to feel like they can be successful. I want them to feel like they're actually accomplishing something. And then what we're going to do is that for each step in that journey, we're going to go through this three step process again and again and again. But you have to know what that end state is so that all those little journeys can add up to something bigger so you can coach effectively and now that's the thing is that maybe it is something a little maybe it is Only you have to do this process once. Maybe it's something that's really profound. Maybe it's gonna take 20 steps, maybe it's even gonna take years. But this is where your leadership comes into play. This is where your dedication has to come into play. This is where you need to walk your talk and make sure that your dedication to your team is more than just lip service. Because if the thought of that made you roll your eyes, if the thought of that sort of Why the hell would I invest in these people for that amount of time, you need to seriously think about why the hell you're in leadership. Because this is the problem is that too many people step up to this role, because they want the money. They want the title. They like the role that it gives them, but they don't want the hard work that comes with it. They don't want the advancement. They don't want to take their team and their people seriously. And that's what I said before is that we are dealing in people's careers we're dealing in people's lives. And if you just roll your eyes at that, you need to get the hell out of the way and let somebody else who will take it more seriously do this because it is a serious thing. But the reward of that the benefit of that is so incredibly significant, it's so wonderful to be able to see if you can actually help another person, you can see them get better, you can see them get stronger. That's the entire goal of what for me leadership is, because that's the thing is I want there to be a plan, I want to discuss it with them, I want to challenge them with that. And I don't want this to be random or happenstance or something where again, we're not going to create a real change. Because this is up to me to be the coach to be the person who can help do this with them. And the thing is, is that I'm not going to tell them explicitly that this is a three step process. What I'm going to do is to have a conversation on what the problem is to see if they agree that that's what's going on. Have they gotten this feedback in the past? What's going on with that? And then can we both be dedicated to it? Because they have a responsibility in this too. And this is the thing is that both sides have to be dedicated to it. Yes, you as a leadership have a significant burden that you need to carry, but the person also has to be serious about making that change. because too many times and too many unfortunate, really creative people, whenever I've tried to do this, they don't want to face the problem. They don't want to make that change. They just want to keep going on and just kind of using that excuse, using that reason as an excuse as a crutch as something, they can go, Oh, well, no, I know that that's just who I am. I've always done that. That's bullshit. That's not the way this is it requires both sides to be able to do this. And the reality is, and the thing that I'll try to coach that person on is whether they want to face it now, whether they want to face it on this team with me, or if they want to kick the can down the road, the problems not going to go away. And that that's the way I want to position it with them is that this is something that is for their benefit for today for tomorrow for next week, next month and next year, because it's going to be something that's going to continue to be a problem. And if you run away with it, you know, if you run from it, you can't run fast enough to outrun your problems. It's a cliched thing that people say but this is why. Now, once I've gone through and I've tried to set up what is this outcome and then What are the steps that I want to put together to go through and be able to create that coaching? The other thing that I want to create, and again, I think for the people that even will do the first two steps really well, the place where they tend to struggle is on that third step. And the third step is what I call the RLS. And because I think with most leadership, with most effective leadership, there needs to be this last important step over the rails. And what I mean by this is that I want to step that's going to spell out what's going to happen. If that desired outcome doesn't happen. What's going to happen if the person doesn't put in the effort, what's going to happen if this person doesn't recognize that this is a problem, because this is really the thing that most people need is that I want to put the responsibility accountability on them to be the one that's making the change. As leaders, we cannot be responsible for everyone's happiness. We can't be there babysitting everyone to make this change. Like I said before, it is equal parts on both parties. Because as a leader babysitting isn't easy. Sustainable leadership, Jake think. So you have to make that clear what's going to happen. Because that's the problem is there has to be consequences, there has to be something that's going to happen. Because if not, and what some people without this, they're not motivated enough to make the change, even if they know that they have to do it, even if they know that it's holding their career back. And that this is the thing is there has to be an or else now, this isn't meant to be sinister. It's not meant to be evil or anything like that. But what it's meant to be is motivating. And it also has to set a clear paradigm on my team and from my leadership style, that if there is an ask, there needs to be some effort. And if there is an effort, then there's going to be a reaction on my part, because that's the thing because without that without the reaction without the RLS your leadership becomes very hollow. Because the assets become well they just become asks, people go through and they say, Oh, well, no, I yeah, I should, I should do that you've got a good point. But if there's not an or else What's the motivation? What's, why should I listen to you? Why should I do that it then becomes completely up to my own kind of scalable system of my engagement and enthusiasm for how much I want to engage with that. And here again, as a leader, I need to guard I need to make sure that what I'm doing, I'm effective at, and that this is part of that. And like I said before, this is the step that I think too many leaders skip because it's a hard conversation. A lot of this if done, right? Isn't light, it isn't happy. Now don't get me wrong. It's not like, you know, dynasty or some, you know, big Machiavellian drama. But these are real conversations. These are real people's lives. And for real change to happen. It needs to be up to that person to invest in themselves to make it happen. And the other thing for me here is that I like this because the street the three steps, create a plan. And the reason why this is important is because it gives me a plan that I can work with With that person, I can help grow them and coach them. But the other thing that it does is that in so often, that person is affecting the team. It could be the creative team, it could be the broader team, it could be a lot of different people. And so in many cases, what I need is I need to share that I recognize this problem with partners or with team members, and that I understand the scale of what this problem is. And the thing is, is that then I can share what it is that we're doing about it. I can have other people help I can have other people's support or watch them or to be able to help coach on a day to day basis or do different things. Because that's really the part of this is that I want to go back and I want this to be about something that is a positive experience. I want it to be about how do I bring about this change? And it lets my said Is it so often it can't just be siloed because that's the other part. If I have partners or clients are coming to me and saying, look, Steve, I really have a problem with this person. If I don't have a plan, if I I don't have a way that I'm going to coach them. If I don't have an answer for what I'm going to do about that. Here, again, my leadership erodes the trust in me erodes. And these are things that I can't happen because I need to stay in charge, it can't just simply be a title. And these people are going to need to see tangible change. So here again, that's why I have an outcome and an RLS. So again, I've said, This is what it is we're going to do about it. This is what I'm gonna, this is what's going to happen if they don't do it. And this is the timeframe that we're going to work at it in. So that again, they know that I'm in control of this, and then I'm actually working on it. And it's like I said, it's just those three simple steps. And this may sound simple, but this is a serious part of your leadership because you're affecting people's careers and their lives. If this is something you aren't used to doing. This is something you don't have a lot of experience with, then you need to be smart about this. You need to go out and ask your peers, other people inside of the team are inside of the company who you trust to be able to get their perspective on it. You need to research and listen to them. So let's read uh, you know, read a book or listen to a podcast, or do something to increase your knowledge and your reference points. Because the more experienced the more reference points you have, the better you're going to be at all of this, the more that you can be reflective and think about whenever I went through this problem, or is there somebody I know who is like this, who got over it? Can I go talk to them and try to find an insight about what's going on there? It does. This is one of those. And this is one of those skills that nobody talks about and leadership is that it requires you to be much more of a sociologist and a psychologist, than just somebody who's good at creativity or design or copywriting or anything like that. And that's really the challenge is because creativity is an emotional thing. And because of anything that's emotional, it can become difficult to coach and you need reference points, relatable reference points to these people you need to hear again, build empathy. Empathy is something a theme that keeps coming up again and again. But this is the reason why is because what we're dealing What is human capital, we're dealing with people and their emotions and their life experiences. And a lot of these things, this is not a mechanical, this is not a set structure. And that's why this is important. But here again, this requires you to step in, to lead your team to be able to define the problem, be able to look at what is the outcome that you want? How am I going to coach them? How am I going to break this up into tangible steps, so they can see real growth, they can start to believe in themselves, they can start to see that things can be different. And they can start to believe in themselves about some maybe some really deep seated problems. And then there's an RLS to help guide and motivate to help build my leadership. It's also to make sure that they take this stuff seriously. Because we all do this. We don't want to face what really is a problem. We can know that it's sitting there. It's so much easier to look the other way it's so much easier to just simply ignore than to know you have to face it. But this is why careers all over this industry are dead ended where they shouldn't be because there is Isn't the leadership and there isn't the self discipline to drive it further to make people actually grow. And this is the part of it that I'll just kind of end this with is that at this point in my career, the things that I'm the most proud of the things that I think have been my biggest successes will never appear in my portfolio. They're the people that I've helped the problems that I've helped them overcome, that people that they've grown into whenever they were disregarded, overlooked, dejected, you know, unclear about what to do next really lost, but to help them grow, to help them watch them become leaders inside of my team become leaders and people who affect this industry as they've gone on to lead my team and they do other things. That's some of the proudest moments that I have. That's a massive, massive contribution. And the problem is, and this is where most companies most recruiters don't get it is that that's hard to quantify. It's hard to put in a portfolio or put into a book and be able to write down Oh, this is what it is at best. It's a little The references. But if you can do that, the loyalty that you will engender in people, the change that you will bring, that way your team will rally around you is going to be absolutely fantastic. And do not make it a mistake for one second, that will absolutely show up in the work. Because the work is the truth at the end of the day. And if you're helping people, if they're invested, if they feel supported, they work harder, the work is better, they raise their level they're getting through what those problems are. So this isn't something that's throwaway. This is an incredibly core part of what we all do. And it's about time we all start using this process and start taking it a hell of a lot more seriously. Now, if you found any of this the slightest bit useful, like I said at the beginning, do me a quick favor, go into your favorite podcast platform, hit subscribe, and while you're there, give me just a couple seconds and leave a review. As always, you can find out more about this podcast related articles I've written All sorts of other things. Listen to all the episodes get the show notes all that sort of stuff just head over to podcast Stephen Gates calm. Stephen is still STP h e n gates like Bill Gates. No, I'm not a relation and yes, I've heard the joke for 40 years, so just go ahead and skip it. But to go and do it just go over there and be able to check all that out. If you liked the show if you want to hear more about stuff less about stuff if you have a question or anything else where to head over to Facebook, just type in The Crazy One podcast go in and like that page. I'm posting articles and different things all the time answering viewer questions whenever those come in. Now the boys done illegal always want me to remind you that the views here are all my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are all just my opinions. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that any of us have. I'm always incredibly humbled that any of you want to spend any of it listening to me. So until next time, hopefully after you've gone out started to invest in your people putting this three step process to you making this world a better place, making your team better and stronger. And while you're doing all of that, just remember, stay crazy