Our BEST Tools for Managing Staff Performance with Ben Pickard

Speaker: [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3, 4. Welcome to The Business for Unicorns podcast, where we help gym and studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. Join me and the business unicorns team each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.

Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry.[00:00:30]

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Click the link down below in our show notes to get started. Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? Welcome to another episode of the Business Unicorns podcast and I’m back with Mr. Ben Pickard. How are you sir?

Speaker 2: I’m doing great. How are you doing? Yeah,

Speaker: I’m having a great week so far. We were just catching up on, we’re recording this on a Tuesday and I’ve had a great week, had a great weekend focused on schoolwork, and this week has been really fun.

We’re. Hiring and biso unicorns. I’ve been doing [00:01:30] interviews. It’s been a full but, but really productive and satisfying few weeks honestly. How about you?

Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s been good. I was just saying that we’ve been hoping Liam’s going into grade 10 in September, so he’s in grade nine now, and of course he needs to pick his grade 10 courses like in the next week, which seems wildly early to me, but it’s been in.

Helping him understand the impact of his choices now lead to which doors can be open later. If you don’t take the prerequisites, you can’t take the other course in the future.

Speaker: Oh, [00:02:00] wow.

Speaker 2: While balancing the fact that who expects a 14-year-old to know what they wanna do for the rest of their life.

Speaker: Sure. Yeah.

That’s amazing. I love that you have, you know, you as a strategic thinking person, as a father, to think through, like how do you tee up all these opportunities to make the most of it?

Speaker 2: I appreciate that. I’m trying to balance the. What’s a viable career prospect for you? Sure. What you’re passionate about may not be the career you work in.

That’s not you, the world for everybody, but at the same [00:02:30] time, supporting what he’s actually passionate about, wanting to learn more about. Yep. With the like third variable of nobody had a clue when they were 14, they’re gonna change their mind. So I’m like trying to set some guardrails, but also let him pick stuff.

I’m encouraging him to take some business and he is interested in hands-on stuff, so like tech and construction, or once he’s taken, there’s a cool leadership course they’re offering in grade 11, which ugly sounds. I’m like, I wish I had that opportunity.

Speaker: Yeah. I never had no leadership course in school.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: No,

Speaker: that’s crazy.

Speaker 2: So far so good.

Speaker: Good for you. Doing some parenting. Good for you. Doing

Speaker 2: some [00:03:00] parenting.

Speaker: Yeah. Today what we chose to talk about is actually about management and leadership. In fact, what we’re talking about today is how to really, uh, handle underperforming employees. Like what is a great.

What is our approach? What we wanna cover in today’s episode is talk a little bit about the, just the challenge of underperforming employees. How to balance both being disciplined and how people meet standards with kind of the empathy and care that we know also really is necessary to having good relationships.

So we wanna talk a little bit about that and then I wanna ask Ben and have him walk [00:03:30] through some of like his favorite tools. For actually holding people accountable and trying to change performance underperforming employees and they, I think they just so happen to be some of our favorite tools, generally speaking in business unicorn.

So walk through what to actually do about it, what it actually looks like to try to change performance and hold people accountable to really meeting or exceeding your standards. Let’s dive in. Let’s just start a little bit about when you think about. Balancing Ben being like, uh, an owner who has standards, has high standards and [00:04:00] helps people achieve them with the kind of empathetic, caring leader who also knows that people often have other stuff going on in their lives sometimes.

People are coming with different levels of learning and abilities. So how do you balance both being like kind and empathetic with actually having people meet the standards?

Speaker 2: I wish I had a concise one-liner for this. That would be, that would be Ted Talk worthy. My first thought is it’s tough. But I also recognize that things are only as hard as [00:04:30] you believe them to be in a lot of areas, I’d say with a greater deal of trial and error, and it’s one of those situations where both things can be true.

Let’s say someone’s dealing with some outside of work challenges that are maybe affecting their ability to perform or. Their mental health or their emotional state, perhaps. Perhaps all three. Yeah. While at the same time you’re relying them to show up and open the gym at 5:30 AM to be ready and perform for a 6:00 AM session.

For often clients who aren’t like stoked to be there at 6:00 AM either but know they need to be.

Speaker: [00:05:00] Yeah,

Speaker 2: and both things can be true. It can be challenging, that it can be true, that they’re having a challenging time, and it can be true that they need to perform because if we don’t do anything about this.

Then the questions becomes cool. How many clients need to quit before you do something about this?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And then it’s a much harder conversation ’cause you’re probably a lot more fired up as the owner or manager. So as you led, as you propose that question, it is balancing standards and leadership and management with.

Yeah. [00:05:30] Empathy.

Speaker: Yeah, 100%. And I’ll just add on one of the things that I think I try to do, and I’m, I don’t always do this consistently well every time, but I try to make sure with everyone that I work with, that that’s what I’m trying to do, not in some abstract way, but actually say to them in the conversation like, Hey Ben, we’re gonna talk about your performance and I want you to know from the get go, I wanna balance here the fact that we high, high standards.

I know you can meet them and I’m gonna help you do my best to get there with the [00:06:00] fact that I can’t do it for you. And I’m gonna try and be caring and empathetic to like what you need to get there. But I’m trying to balance both. Like I really, I wanna be available for your needs and it’s not an option for you to not meet these standards.

So you can’t keep this job if you can. Perform at this level. And so know that in this conversation, I am both like your biggest cheerleader and I’m also the person holding the standards on behalf of the business. And I’m gonna try and do both. Alright? And just even just saying that out loud, I think helps [00:06:30] create a dynamic where they can see that there’s a give and take here.

Like you’re not just one thing in this conversation, and none of us are ever really one thing in any conversation, right? But it’s exposing the fact that they’re competing priorities here.

Speaker 2: And that’s a really good point. One of the things I’ve actually applied to a lot of areas in my life from like a leadership, dealing with clients both in my gym and BFU, just name the thing.

Sometimes we give ourselves these, this false pressure, this at least self-inflicted pressure that like we need to get it all right. And [00:07:00] spoiler alert, nobody’s got it. All right. And if somebody says they do run for the hills, that’s a red flag to me. So just naming that, Hey, this is a challenging thing to deal with everything you just said.

I want to be able to balance both. Can you help me navigate it? Now you’re on an even playing field. Now you can have an open and honest conversation about what can they do and not do. And they know that they can’t just not perform, but they also know that you give a shit.

Speaker: Yeah, I, I think that’s exactly it.

When you think back to all the people you’ve managed and continuing to manage, are there any other [00:07:30] ways that, you know, that you’ve, you’ve tried to achieve this balance. Anything else you’ve actually done that has been helpful for you or your team in trying to do this dance?

Speaker 2: Personally, I’ve done well, low sometimes reluctantly when I’ve had help forced upon me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I might thrash a little bit initially and when I know the per person has my best interest in mind, I can. Yeah. Concede that my thrashing is actually them showing love. Sure. Or a version of love. And then I’d say when the other way around, [00:08:00] when I’m the boss, this doesn’t come up super frequently, but in my experience, the sooner you address it, the better.

Speaker: Sure

Speaker 2: by having not a closed door being walked into the principal’s office. But I note Michael, I’ve noticed you’ve been a little bit off lately. Can we just have a quick chat? I wanna make sure we’re here to support you. Yeah. That can get the conversation going. It’s much harder when you find out what’s actually happened to me.

You find out that somebody’s dealing with, like genuine’s the wrong word, diagnosed mental health challenges. Once things have already started to deteriorate, that one [00:08:30] exceptionally poorly for me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: When you address something going on a little bit earlier and someone’s having maybe a death in their family, or they’re caring for a loved one, and you just, you notice something’s off.

You just say that you’ve noticed something off. Often you get the whole picture and then you can get ahead of what do you think you might need and can plan for it. Because I think the challenge is the owner slash manager is that if we get caught off guard. That’s when things are really tough.

Speaker: Yeah. I think sled, I think that’s so important is to engage in the conversations early.

The minute you notice someone’s off [00:09:00] track or missing the standard or moving slower, right? For example, if someone’s onboarding and the onboarding is taking way longer than usual, there’s no point in waiting to talk about that. The minute you realize it’s off track, I, I would address it. Kindly directly and say, Hey Ben, this onboarding’s taking actually a little longer than it tends to.

Tell me a little bit about how are you picking up this material? What’s taking so long? Where can I be helpful? What can we go over? How can we make this move faster? Just start to explore the fact that it’s not really going the [00:09:30] way it usually, or you need it to go. The longer you wait and now we’re 90 days into their onboarding or they’re past their probationary period and we haven’t addressed it yet.

It’s just, what are we doing? Why are we waiting to talk about it? It just

Speaker 2: harder, you know, on day 30, why did you wait 90 days to point out they were wrong?

Speaker: Yeah. So it’s that kind of, we talk about this all the time in unicorn society with our members, but it’s you ha as a manager, as a leader, you have to develop this kind of run into the fire mentality.

I think that’s what you’re describing here, right? This. Mindset that we wanna be the [00:10:00] first one to show up when we see something’s not working. We see there’s friction. When we see there’s something broken, we wanna be the first ones to show up with that bucket of water to put off the fire, right? And the same thing goes for people’s underperformance.

I think it’s a really smart move. Okay, so now that we know that there’s like this balance to be had here between. Empathy and holding up the standards. What are some of the tools you use when you do go to hold people accountable? Like when you do go to have these conversations, what are some of the kind of tools and tricks that you’ve used over the years that [00:10:30] have been helpful to you, Ben?

Speaker 2: Well, my favorite, probably my favorite tool of all time for this type of thing is the CPR.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker 2: Tool and it’s how you pull people accountable and give them feedback.

Speaker: I, I think this comes from the crucial accountability book, is that right? Probably. I’m gonna say that’s where it’s from. For those of you out there, there’s a whole series of books, crucial Conversations, crucial Accountability.

I think there’s some other ones out there too. They whole series, they’re really great research. I’m 99% sure that that’s where this is. This is from, so if you like this [00:11:00] idea, go out and read those books. Those are really good ones, but keep on going. I would say,

Speaker 2: and if you hate this idea, that’s why you should read those

Speaker: books.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if this seems so far into you, and this is like an awful thing, you will never try, you should double down on those books. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Good luck having staff and not managing them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So CPR obviously an acronym stands for Content pattern Relationship. And the idea here is that the first time you’re addressing something with somebody, you’re addressing the content of the behavior.

Hey, Michael, noticed you’re running late today. Is everything [00:11:30] okay? And that could be like a. On the floor conversation that you’re just out of ear shot of other people. Then if it needs to become a private meeting, you can have a private meeting. The intent is that it’s not a big deal. People are late sometimes.

What we really are looking for is we don’t want them to be late all the time. We don’t wanna be able to rely on them. Second one is pattern. And this might be where I’m like, I’m just gonna keep pretending you were late, Michael. Hey Michael, can we chat for a second?

Speaker: Sorry, I just looked it up while you were talking.

This comes from, it’s similar series, but I think it’s from, uh, [00:12:00] crucial Confrontations, I think is the book that this one’s in

Speaker 2: Crucial Conversations and crucial confrontations.

Speaker: I think there is. Yeah, so that’s why I was confused. I was like, let me make sure I get this citation. But anyway, they’re all really good books, but great point.

So C and CPR is the first thing you do is address the content of their behavior, just exactly what they’re doing wrong and try to fix it. Then you’re moving on.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker: Pattern, I interrupted you. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: Oh, it’s all good. Pattern might be more like, Hey Michael, can we chat for a few minutes? Come on in.

So I’m not being like cagey or angry about [00:12:30] it, but I’m making it clear that like we need to talk, step into my office and be like, Hey, I noticed you’ve been late a few times over the last couple weeks. This seems to be a pattern of behavior. Name the thing. I know we talked about this two weeks ago, the first time it happened, what’s going on?

And you can open the door to what’s really going on. Hopefully this is the invitation that they are dealing with some other stuff beyond just like they can’t manage their time. You get a feel for what’s going on so you can manage the human and the performance, so to speak. But you can see the stakes have now been raised a little bit.

I’ve noticed a pattern of [00:13:00] behavior. You’re gonna probably say things like, we need this pattern to stop so you can be on time, reach the standards. You’re gonna tie it into the values and the job description that they’ve agreed to do.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: and you’re probably gonna, you’re definitely gonna dangle the stick of, I don’t want the last thing either of us want is for this to continue to escalate in your job to get risk.

So how do we get ahead of this now?

Speaker: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think the other co other thing we talk about often at this level is the impact it’s having, right? So if it’s a pattern now, it’s not just a one-off thing. There’s often an impact. There’s an [00:13:30] impact on clients. Perhaps there’s an impact on team members.

There’s certainly an impact on the you both needing to have this conversation again, right? Yeah. And so I think help making sure they understand that there are real consequences to this pattern. Continuing that go beyond just. You know them being a few minutes late. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Three of the, three of the members in your 6:00 AM session have noticed and they’re feeling a little distraught, like

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: They’ve been waiting in the parking lot for you. Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Great. So we got the C and the P. How about the r?

Speaker 2: R [00:14:00] is relationship, which is really the cost to the relationship, and this is where you start to bring in, it’s definitely a closed door meeting.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker 2: It’s definitely a bit more serious in tone.

Now you’re starting to talk about, I’m starting to have doubts that I can trust you to actually run the sessions appropriately. Those are the four times now where client’s been waiting in the parking lot in the last two weeks for the session to start, and we’re not up and running and it’s leading to this and this, and.

Again, I’m going to trust and I want [00:14:30] to qualify. That trust in my experience is usually the thing that’s happening, especially with lateness. We want, we don’t wanna be, am I gonna get a call at 5:00 AM that the person can’t make it to the gym? It’s usually trust, but the cost of the relationship or the impact could be many things.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker 2: But again, it’s naming the thing that you’re feeling and you’re letting them know the severity of how things are going, where this could be. Now a verbal warning, it could even be a formal written warning, depending what your procedure for escalating disciplinary action is. And, but each time we’re going up these [00:15:00] stairs of you were late once, no big deal, shit happens.

There’s a pattern we wanna get ahead of it. There’s a cost of the relationship, like marbles have been removed from the trust jar and they are going to need to put some back in and you’re gonna need to work together to do that. The place where I see this go wrong is when, let’s say the employer is at level three.

They’re at the r. But the employee has no idea that the employer is feeling that way. Yeah. And they’re like, oh my God, this person’s been late five times, or This [00:15:30] thing happened, or whatever. What do I do? My first question is always, do they know that this is a problem or do they think it’s okay for them to walk in a few minutes late?

Which sounds wild, but it’s possible. And I personally, this is my take on leadership. Doesn’t mean it has to be your. If you’re at a three, but they’re at a one, that gap is up to you to close as the leader because you are the one who is supposed to get ahead of this and say something. Because if you come in hot on that first meeting, Michael, I need to talk to you.

Step into my office. You’ve been late six times, I don’t trust you anymore. The clients are complaining. This might all be [00:16:00] news to them, and I have a hard time seeing that conversation go any way other than poorly compared to, Hey, we talked about this last week. If there’s a pattern of behavior, now there’s starting to be a cost of the relationship and I wanna make sure we continue to work together.

But one of the options might be that we don’t work together anymore. Can we talk about this?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: That’s actually a human conversation that can balance the leadership and empathy we were talking about before without your employee feeling like they were verbally assaulted.

Speaker: Yeah. Said my friend. I think let just zoom out and remind people [00:16:30] the way this normally goes is that you and the people you manage have these Groundhogs Day conversations where you give them the same feedback in the same way multiple times.

Both of you are surprised. Nothing changes, right? And I say that having done this many times, right? Like I don’t live in a glass house here. I’ve done the same thing where it’s like I sweep it under the rug and I only, and I address it halfheartedly, and it’s, I’m not really, I’m not really clear about the standards or what I expect to happen next, but I had the conversation [00:17:00] so they know that it’s not okay.

But they don’t really change anything. And then it happens again. And I have the same kind of conversation again, but it’s halfhearted because I don’t really roughly feathers and I want them to like me. And so I don’t really have any consequences for it. And, and then it doesn’t happen for a while. This time, maybe this is four or five months, and then it happens again, and I have the same kind of conversation.

That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. So like this CPR process is about how to escalate the conversation, how to go from the first one’s, no big deal. Content of [00:17:30] your behavior is exactly the behavior we don’t wanna see and what we want to see instead. Second one is the pattern, and as Ben said in the pattern, you have to up the stakes a little bit.

It’s a little more serious. The tone is more serious. The pattern of behavior is something that’s more serious, has more consequences, has a bigger impact on the business. We get clear that this can and will escalate up to and including maybe termination, right? We have to really start to escalate and then by the third one should absolutely be some sort of verbal written warning.

Maybe even depending how severe the [00:18:00] situation is, it moves them to a performance improvement plan, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: But the third one is really about, I don’t have faith that this is the job for you anymore. It’s about the cost of relationship. I’ve lost the trust or the fate that you’re the right person for this job.

And as Ben said, this is a closed door conversation. Your tone has to reflect the severity of the escalation. If you’re the same, like nice, no big deal person in conversation, one that you are in conversation three, and there’s no change to the content of the conversation or the tone of the conversation or the consequences for that.[00:18:30]

You’re gonna wind up having Groundhogs Day conversations again and again.

Speaker 2: Because you’re literally giving them the impression that it’s no big deal.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So they’re receiving it. It’s no big deal. Meaning,

Speaker: yeah,

Speaker 2: it’s not a big deal. They don’t have to change the behavior. Exactly. That is not the message you wanna send.

Speaker: And we, and to be clear, it’s, I think it’s clear that Ben and I are not saying this conversation number three when you’re talking about you don’t need to be yelling. You don’t need to be flipping tables, right? This is, it’s not Real Housewives of New Jersey here, right? Like it can be a civilized [00:19:00] professional conversation, but the tone should be like, this matters and this is serious there.

We have to do something about it and here are the consequences. If we don’t, here’s the impact if we don’t. And so I thank you for sharing that model, Ben. It’s one that I know we’ve used a ton, but yeah. What else do you wanna say about it?

Speaker 2: Yeah, one other thing. The place one where I see it go wrong, like I mentioned.

The employers that they are, and the employee doesn’t even know they’re at a C yet. The other place it can be challenging is connecting dots. So let’s say you have a team member who they were [00:19:30] late once to, like attendance wise, they were late on a couple deliverables or a project, maybe a program was submitted late, they weren’t prepared for a meeting.

There was a bunch of what appear to be small things. Sure. But as the owner or their manager. However you identify, you might start to feel this element of mistrust and like a little bit of friction, and it’s just like it’s a rub of values somewhere probably. It’s really valuable for you to connect the dots for them because it’s understandable for that person to be like, oh, [00:20:00] it’s the first time I was late.

It’s the first time I’ve missed cleaning. That’s the first time I missed a program. That’s the first time I wasn’t prepared for a meeting. This is where you can bring the P into it and be like, well, notice a pattern of just preparedness in this. You can even say, and I encourage you to say, it’s not even about the individual things, it’s about the pattern that things are starting to slip and that lets you get ahead of it before you get to the point where you have this feeling of, I don’t trust John to do this thing anymore.

What do I do about it?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: They don’t know. These things are related and often the employer doesn’t even know they’re [00:20:30] related until the head of coaching call with me and we connect the dots.

Speaker: Totally. And here’s the thing is that, and I think you would agree with this, you’ve probably had the same experience.

In some cases they’re not. Like directly related to any meaningful way. It’s just that we’re pattern makers. Our brains are pattern makers, and we’re storytellers. It’s very easy for us to connect those dots and make that meme. Oh, I saw Ben be late. Once I saw Ben miss his deadline, I saw Ben respond longer than usual to my email.

Getting a sense, Ben, just give a shit. Getting a sense, Ben doesn’t wanna be here anymore. I’m getting a [00:21:00] sense that Ben’s just fucking lazy, right? Like it’s so easy to put the, put like the wrong assumptions together to create a pattern that is not actually helpful. So I think part of the reason why I am agreeing, aggressively agreeing here is that you wouldn’t get in front of it.

So you don’t actually make these unhelpful stories about people that you get in front of it and say, Hey, there’s a pattern. I’m not sure if there’s a connection, but it’s given me this overall sense that like your things are slipping. That’s what I’m seeing. I’m noticing things are being missed. [00:21:30] Whether that means something I don’t know yet, but that’s what I want to get in front of it before I make it mean something about you.

I wanna make sure that we’re clear that these things aren’t acceptable. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. ’cause it’s way more likely that my kid is sick. Then I don’t give a shit about my job outta nowhere. Yeah. But our, yeah, I couldn’t agree more, Michael. I’m glad

Speaker: you brought that up. Or it’s just like, it’s like winter and cold and like I have like mild seasonal depression because no one wants to do anything these days, so I’m just slacking a little bit.

But like when the sun starts to shine, I’ll be fine. It doesn’t have to bean anything. [00:22:00] But I think that’s a really great point. I know we’re already at 20 some minutes. Any other tools you wanna share?

Speaker 2: We do have the five steps for giving feedback. Happy to hit it quickly. Now. We could also make its own podcast.

These two go together

Speaker: ly. Yeah. Why don’t we just do a quick version. We won’t do a deep dive. Maybe you just wanna go through, because I think the five steps are getting feedback are just really great to give a little extra context to this conversation. Maybe another podcast we’ll dive in a little more deeply.

But yeah, do you wanna go through it quickly?

Speaker 2: Five steps. First, get consent. Second, share both facts [00:22:30] and feelings. Third, acknowledge their perspective. Fourth, share your wants. IE what are the standards need to hit sometimes? And then five, the often missed one is agreed to action. So how these go together is number two of facts and feelings is really part of the CPR.

Yes. The fact is you were late once or the fact is there’s a pattern of behavior or the feeling I have is you don’t give a fuck about your job anymore and you want to give them a chance to tell you that’s wrong.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So what that can look like is, Hey Michael, I have some feedback for you. Is now a good time?

Great. I [00:23:00] noticed you’re late this one time. Let’s make, not make that a pattern. Anything you need from me. I’m obviously paraphrasing here. Yeah. But it’s a little lighter. Yeah. Step two is share those facts and make sure that it’s all clear to them so they know not just what you noticed. ’cause like maybe they actually were on time and your clock was wrong.

That’s rare nowadays that we all use phones, but like our watches didn’t always sync up before.

Speaker: Yeah. Also say just one of the, one of the one, one detail I will say about step. Two, is there’s a reason why we share our feelings, right? ’cause the reason we share our feelings is that way we’d [00:23:30] hope that the negative feeling that their behavior creates in us is one of the first consequences they feel to this behavior, right?

So if someone missed a deadline, right? I might say, Hey Ben, the facts are, you said, have you done on Friday? I got it on Saturday. And it’s making me feel just a little disappointed because I know that how much and how important this thing is to have on time because it. Does X, Y, Z for our clients. And so I’m just like disappointed that you would let it slip through the cracks, and I’m hoping my disappointment is stings a little bit.

I hope [00:24:00] Ben doesn’t want me to be disappointed. I hope that’s a one of the first consequences that he feels. From having missed that deadline now, and that might not be the case a hundred percent of the time, but sharing the feeling lets them know there is an impact. There’s an impact on me, and there might be an impact on others, which you’ll talk about also.

But

Speaker 2: yeah, because sometimes we rationalize, ah, a day doesn’t matter, like sometimes it genuinely doesn’t. But there is like an integrity element and a trust element that if I’ve agreed to get Michael whatever I agreed to do by a certain date, and I don’t do it. [00:24:30] Like even if he wasn’t gonna use it that day, the fact that I agreed and didn’t do it, there’s still a cost to that.

Yeah,

Speaker: 100%. So we got step one and step two. Keep going. Sorry.

Speaker 2: Step three is acknowledge their perspective. What has your experience been that can be like, uh, that’s interesting. I didn’t actually think I was late. What day was that? Or, oh, I didn’t know that. That was disappointing to you. I rationalized it in blah, blah, blah way.

It’s a useful get on the same emotional page conversation. ’cause if you’re just going from what you saw and you may have had some [00:25:00] misinformation ’cause somebody told you who told someone else who, whatever, it can always be broken telephone in there unless you witnessed everything directly, which is sometimes rare in a gym.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, just add one thing to that to say, one of the mantras that I often keep in my head about this is that feedback should be a dialogue, not a monologue, right? So if you are going into a feedback conversation and you’re just like talking at your employee for 15 minutes and they don’t have a chance to talk, you’re doing it wrong.

That’s not it, right? Feedback should be a dialogue, should be, we should be [00:25:30] collaborating together on what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s next. And so if you’re just talking at them. Pause. Part of getting your perspective is, like Ben said, asking them what’s been going on with you? How do you see this?

What’s your experience been? How do you feel about the situation? What have you been noticing? Anything that gets them to share? This should be a two-way street. So I just wanna say that idea of like dialogue over monologue is like a running theme and feedback conversations.

Speaker 2: That’s a good point. I like that too.[00:26:00]

Step number four is share your wants. This is an opportunity for you to realign. Your expectations of them and the standards. Again, this literally happened with a team member from ages ago, or it wasn’t clear to him that starting at 9:00 AM meant ready to work at 9:00 AM He saw that as walking through the door at 9:00 AM and I’m like, bro.

If you had a meeting at nine and you walked in at nine, you had to get your shit out. That means you’re starting the meeting late. Like,

Speaker: yeah,

Speaker 2: if it takes you 10 minutes to get your shit together, walk in the door, 11 [00:26:30] minutes early kind of deal. That was just a thing that like, obviously I didn’t say it the way to him that I did on this podcast, but that was a thing where we were like, he wasn’t aware.

That was the standard I had in my head. And his too is in his defense, I probably don’t have that written down anywhere.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker 2: So he wasn’t actually wrong about that.

Speaker: Yeah. Great example.

Speaker 2: And then step five is GRE action, and this looks like how can I hold us accountable? Now this one can be challenging because I’m asking Michael, who I have seen has screwed something up or some version of [00:27:00] that, what I can do to help him maybe get to work on time.

There might be nothing I can do to work at Michael. I work to work on time that I’m actually realistically willing to do. But it opens the conversation for what do you need? To make sure that you get your ass here on time and how can I support you in that? And if they don’t know, you’re probably gonna want to actually, lemme back up.

You should assume that they probably don’t know often if they knew this was a problem and they knew what to do about it, they would’ve probably started to solve it. So it’s likely that they might [00:27:30] not have put those together yet. So you might want to come prepared with a couple ideas. It could be something as I can remind you of deadlines for the next three weeks until it becomes the norm for you.

Or I’m gonna make a note to point out that you’re on time for a meeting to reinforce specific positive behaviors. I wanna see, like nothing else is coming to mind off the top of my head ’cause it’s all hypotheticals. But you want to have a couple ideas prepared so that you don’t just leave it as like, Michael, I want you to do this, and you’re like, okay.

Bye

Speaker: bye. Yeah. I mean, it shows that [00:28:00] we’re in this together. Right? That like this is a standard that is set in this business that I as a manager am responsible for upkeeping or that maybe the owner, maybe I made it right. And if you’re not meeting it, it’s both of our problems. We’re in this together until this behavior changes.

So when we talk about how can I hold us accountable, I really do mean us. Like I really do mean what? What are we gonna do together to make sure this gets back on track? And they might need to do more of the actual change and work. But we’re in it together. And I, and I think following up here [00:28:30] is the thing that prevents you, again, from having Groundhog’s Day conversations following up, is really like the thing that helps make sure this doesn’t become a pattern.

But I think those are. We could say there’s more to say here, but I think those five steps really speak for themselves when you put them together and they can happen very quickly. Those five steps are something you can easily write down and follow, and they can happen very quickly in a short conversation or be spread out to a much longer conversation.

But do you wanna maybe repeat them and one last time for our listeners, [00:29:00] Ben?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And this is like the action item here is, so CPR is content, pattern behavior. The action item is to like get clear on both. Where are you and they at on that level. If you haven’t talked to ’em about it yet, they’re by default at C.

If you’re at R, you’re gonna need to simmer down a little bit and meet them where they’re they’re at. And then the five steps are to consent, share facts, feelings, acknowledge their perspective, share your wants, and agree to action. And the pro tip here is before you go into this conversation. Write down your talking [00:29:30] points, like you probably don’t need any, forget consent, other than is now a good time, but what are the facts you saw?

What are the feelings you’re having? Can you name those feelings? You don’t have any talking points for their perspective, so you have to let them come up with it and then be clear on what you want, as well as how you could help hold you and them accountable so that it’s not just a blind conversation across the board.

People have been nervous with a conversation like this, and they go under prepared. The feedback I receive is they knock it outta the park. The people who go in blind and unprepared. [00:30:00] It’s a coin toss.

Speaker: Yeah. So my friend, what a great summary. Let’s leave it there. I think we covered a lot of ground. This was one of our longer podcasts recently, but I think it’s obviously a topic that matters a lot to us and we have a lot of tools and resources that have both helped us and help all of our Unicorn Society members.

So hopefully your listeners, you were taking lots of good notes and for those of you who are familiar with those tools, hopefully this was a good refresher for how to use them and why they matter. Thanks, Ben. This is a really great one, and I will see you all on the next episode. Have a kick ass week.

Speaker 2: Thanks, you too.

Speaker: [00:30:30] Bye.