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How to Turn Your Strategic Vision into Reality (for EVERYONE in the business)
72 Plays8 months ago
Are you struggling to turn your vision into reality? Learn how to become an execution-focused leader and drive results in your organisation.
Monte Pedersen is dedicated to helping organisations manage their strategy execution - he wants this to be a competency within every one of his clients.
He wants to eliminate all the bad habits they’ve developed over the years so they have a repeatable operating model that will teach their teams how to manage execution and get better at doing it each year.
Discover the key to effective strategy execution in this episode and learn why working longer hours doesn't always equal greater productivity.
Topics we covered:
- Strategy is not a linear process: Why strategy doesn't happen in a straight line and how to communicate and adapt as things change.
- Long hours ≠ greater productivity: Why, contrary to popular belief, working longer hours does not necessarily lead to increased productivity.
- Why effective communication is key: And how to make communication the foundation of successful leadership.
- And why you might be getting it wrong if you’re aiming for a work-life balance.
Connect with Monte on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monte-pedersen-9554a1126/
And if you enjoyed the Podcast please share with someone who might benefit and leave a rating and review.
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Transcript
The Necessity of Regular Strategic Communication
00:00:00
Speaker
Strategy, like so many other things, doesn't happen in a linear process. You would like it to, but you've got to maintain contact with your people because things change constantly and there are always
00:00:13
Speaker
emerging details or things that disrupt what you're trying to do and so if you're not talking to your people regularly about your strategy and about what you're trying to accomplish, chances are they're going to take it as far as they understand it and then they're going to just dive back into their day-to-day responsibilities because that's what they know and they're comfortable with or think that they should be doing.
00:00:34
Speaker
And in reality, you need to do both, right? You need to manage the day to day, but you're also trying to improve the organization. So you've got to have your people laser focused on what that is. So if they're doing it, you're being execution focused and you're moving in a positive direction. If you're not doing it, you're just standing still and maintaining the business.
00:00:55
Speaker
Welcome to The Visible Leader, the podcast that challenges conventional leadership and inspires you to create a workplace culture that empowers your team. Join me as I talk to thought leaders and changemakers about practical ways to apply new learning and rethink the status quo. Get ready to become a visible leader in your organization.
The Myth of Long Hours and Productivity
00:01:25
Speaker
Research by the Institute for Employment Studies concluded that working long hours was associated with decreased productivity, poor performance, health problems and lower employee motivation. So why are we so drawn towards working harder?
00:01:43
Speaker
And also, did you know that Harvard Business Review said that 60% to 90% of strategic plans never see the light of day? I find both of these stats fascinating. And in this conversation, I'll be exploring why this might be the case and what you can do about it. Enjoy. My
Introduction to Monty Peterson and Strategy Execution
00:02:05
Speaker
guest today is Monty Peterson.
00:02:08
Speaker
He is all about helping organisations manage strategy execution. He focuses on making this subject a core competency within every one of his clients and he has a goal. He wants to eliminate
00:02:24
Speaker
all the bad habits his clients have developed around strategy execution and help them implement a repeatable operating model for success. So they get better at doing it every day. He's also one of the kindest and most generous people I've not met from LinkedIn yet. So I was very keen to have him on my podcast. Welcome Monty.
00:02:46
Speaker
Thanks, Corinne. That's a great intro. I've not quite been introduced that way before, but it's certainly how I would say it if I were asked. So I appreciate that. My pleasure. And
Challenging Conventional Leadership Practices
00:03:02
Speaker
today's subject that I want to dive into is about leaders having a focus on execution. But this podcast has a theme, which is about challenging some
00:03:16
Speaker
conventional thinking about leadership. And you've offered up some really great ideas about what we could focus on that link with that really nicely. So the two we're going to focus on a bit is long hours equals greater productivity, question mark, and work-life balance and or work-life separation. So Monty, first, can you just
00:03:42
Speaker
kick us off by saying what you mean by those statements and maybe how you see their line with this execution-focused leadership. Yeah, so
Work-Life Integration and Productivity Myths
00:03:53
Speaker
things with respect to strategy don't always go normally. In fact, this is a difficult
00:04:03
Speaker
number to pin down. But it's been said that 70 80 to 90 percent of all strategies either fall short or fail every year in most organizations. So there's this there's this understanding that accomplishing what we want to accomplish is difficult. So how do how do leaders and leadership teams address that. Well they
00:04:25
Speaker
They double down on things. And one of the things that they do is they think that if they work harder and longer, that they're going to be able to get more done or figure out what they're not doing right and that that's going to lead them to success.
Characteristics of Execution-Focused Leaders
00:04:41
Speaker
And that's largely a myth. I mean, obviously, if you're focused on the right things and you have the right strategy and right priorities and you
00:04:52
Speaker
you work hard at it, you can accelerate that success. And I think obviously there's a lot of entrepreneurial organizations that have done that. They've tapped into something and a new technology and they've got the wherewithal and they literally work 18 hours a day trying to get it to market or materialize it. But for most organizations, yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker
Longer hours don't equal greater productivity. And then as it relates to work-life balance and work-life separation, I think there's a distinction there. I think they're connected, obviously, because it's work and life. But work-life separation is more about
00:05:38
Speaker
the understanding that you can be authentic, that you can bring your real self to work every day and not live two lives like a lot of people did for many, many years, me included, where it was sort of taboo to bring your work life in any way, shape, or form into the workplace. Now there's an acceptance with that. So how that relates to work-life integration
00:06:06
Speaker
is everybody says work-life balance and to me that's largely a myth because it just doesn't exist. You have to integrate your work and your life because that's the only way it's going to get done and it's the only way you're going to be able to reasonably achieve what you want to achieve is if you can work around those things that you're doing at home and
00:06:34
Speaker
share those with people and make sure they understand where you're at. And perhaps the greatest example of this is, you know, if somebody's having struggles at home, you know, do you want them working on your most critical projects in your organization or, you know, so you, so you've got to gain this understanding. And obviously all of this is people centered, but, but yeah, those three things are, are, are somewhat myths and misunderstandings in the, in the workplace. And
00:07:03
Speaker
the ability to get to the results is dependent on them. So I
Prioritization and Efficient Planning
00:07:11
Speaker
think that's the meat on the bone here with respect to strategy execution and how we get things done.
00:07:24
Speaker
When I first saw that they were the areas you wanted to bring, I immediately thought of a few clients of mine, which if they're listening, they're going to know who they are. But they are in industries which seem to be industry standard to work very long hours. To them, I'm thinking of specifically in construction.
00:07:48
Speaker
I was just wondering your experience of this and how that can change if you're one leader within that type of industry. What are your thoughts on that? Just to clarify within construction per se or just general? Well, I suppose I'm thinking the reason I pick on construction is because they're just
00:08:16
Speaker
I remember having a meeting with the, the MD and the board and they were saying that one of their goals to is reduce their hours. And it, and it was just like from ridiculous hours a week to, you know, semi unbearable, you know, no sense that it was, was coming into more normal. Um, so I'm just curious about whether this is possible for everyone.
00:08:48
Speaker
It is possible, but it takes a lot of upfront effort and a lot of work. Like anything, the devil is in the details and the planning. If you're looking to reduce your hours, you've got to get better at prioritizing. You've got to get better at putting the plans in place that are going to get you to that.
00:09:12
Speaker
to that goal and that takes execution and that's really sort of a premeditated way of getting to your goals. It's
Signs of Dysfunctional Leadership
00:09:23
Speaker
your ability to understand what you're trying to do, break it down into achievable milestones and then obviously break that down even further into tasks and goals and daily activities that your people can understand so that they
00:09:41
Speaker
so that everybody's working together. I think too many times, and it probably sounds like this is consistent with your clients, is that there's just too much dysfunction. They're working against each other too many times, and that just shows a lack of collaboration and effective communication inside the organization.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to come back to communication. It's a meaty subject that I think will be really interesting to hear your views on. So we've
Translating Strategy into Results
00:10:14
Speaker
got this subject of execution focused leadership, which is your area.
00:10:23
Speaker
If we want to challenge that myth of the greater hours means greater productivity, let's just start by understanding what an execution-focused leader looks like. What do they do that might be different from a leader that's working with their laptop on their lap at home in front of the TV? What's the difference between that person and an execution-focused leader?
00:10:49
Speaker
Yeah. So execution focused leaders are obviously dedicated to turning what they're trying to do or strategy into results. And they do that by tackling two things on a constant basis. One is the business itself. They never stop thinking about the business.
00:11:11
Speaker
And the second thing is they never stop thinking about the people who are going to get those things done that they need to succeed. So they work very hard on the pre-planning and the layout of what needs to happen. And again, they don't do this alone. They do this with the people because it's just again, they're very smart people at the top and they can provide the direction.
00:11:40
Speaker
but they also need to give the autonomy to their people to participate and to be a part of it because a lot of times, especially if you get into an organization with several layers, that leader is separated from the end user, the people on the ground can know so much more. And if you're not tapping into that as a resource, then you're probably not getting all the details right in terms of that plan. So yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
Planning ahead for the business involving your people are just real, real critical to an execution focus leader if you're all going to come close to the results you want to achieve.
Dysfunction from Outdated Practices
00:12:21
Speaker
And if you've got a senior leadership team that hasn't got that balance right about having an execution focus, what are the maybe hidden signs that there's that dysfunction within the team that might not be really obvious straight away? What kind of things would you look for that would indicate that that is an issue for them?
00:12:47
Speaker
And I don't know if there's so much hidden signs or hidden traps as much as there's just this reliance on how people think of best practices. So if you look at the definition of what a best practice is, it's something that everybody does well. So why would we want to do something that everybody else does well? Other than the obvious of, yeah, there are certain things
00:13:16
Speaker
function-wise that you want to do consistently, but in terms of the business and its strategy and where you want to drive it. The best practices that organizations typically lean on are things like, let's hire real smart people and let them tell us what to do. Again, nothing wrong with hiring smart people.
00:13:40
Speaker
and having them contribute, but you've got to wire them into the organization and what you're trying to achieve. The other thing that they do is they sort of over strategize, right? They build this big, beautiful strategy at the top, for the top.
00:13:58
Speaker
They love it. They fall in love with it. And it goes about one level below them, and then it doesn't go any further. Or else if it does, it's poorly communicated. And so it's just this idea that they always fall back on these
00:14:16
Speaker
consistent practices that just reinforce the status quo and that, you know, if you want to do something different, you know, and you know, that's the way to expect different results, right? Do something considerably different than what you're doing now.
Continuous Strategy Communication
00:14:32
Speaker
So I'm pretty certain there are probably some signs, you know, to identify, but clearly when organizations are going through that repetitive thing that they've been doing for 20 years, that's the trap. That's the problem.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've all seen that. Strategies that beautifully constructed and do not see the light of day or they think they have communicated them beautifully. But then I'll spend a little bit of time with different folks around and chat with them and ask them about what key priorities in the business. And they just look at me blank.
00:15:10
Speaker
or the other day I was chatting to somebody who had a kind of customer relationship sales type role and they really wanted to have confidence in the direction that they were pushing things, but they weren't clear on the strategy. It's interesting because I bet that is not what the people at the top are thinking. I bet they think that it's clear so frequently, that mismatch. They do. They really think that
00:15:40
Speaker
once established a great strategy communicated once or twice, whether that's in a town hall or a roadshow or what have you, that people get it. And the reality is,
00:15:54
Speaker
They don't get it at first glance. And I love Patrick Lencioni's take on this. And this obviously relates to a leadership's vision for their organization. But he doesn't think they should be the chief executive officer. He thinks they should be the chief repetition officer, meaning that the more you communicate the same thing about what you're trying to accomplish to your team, the faster your team will get it.
00:16:23
Speaker
And that makes complete sense because some people may get it the first time, not very many, but most will get it the second or third, some will get it the fourth or fifth time.
00:16:34
Speaker
And I think a reason, a lot of the reasons why leaders and leadership teams don't repeat it often is because they fear they're stepping into a kind of a micromanagement phase. Yeah. And ultimately, the people out there that are hearing it are pretty appreciative of it because of that. Yeah, the fourth or fifth time
00:16:59
Speaker
I finally got it. I think I understand what they need me to do or what we're trying to accomplish. And that's, again, that just doesn't happen in organizations. It's just one of those things they think is wrong so they don't do it.
00:17:16
Speaker
I presume linking us back to the long hours thing, there's a lot on. I suppose
Balancing Daily Tasks and Organizational Improvement
00:17:24
Speaker
doing a strategy workshop and then creating a strategy and communicating it, then you move on to the next load of stuff to do.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah. Strategy, like so many other things, doesn't happen in a linear process. You would like it to. But you've got to maintain contact with your people because things change constantly and there's
00:17:54
Speaker
There are always emerging details or things that disrupt what you're trying to do. And so if you're not talking to your people regularly about your strategy and about what you're trying to accomplish, chances are they're going to take it as far as they understand it and then they're going to just dive back into their day-to-day responsibilities because that's what they know and they're comfortable with it or think that they should be doing.
00:18:21
Speaker
And in reality, you need to do both, right? You need to manage the day-to-day and make sure you're running the business and doing those responsibilities, but you're also trying to improve the organization. So you've got to have your people laser focused on what that is. So they're spending that additional, hopefully extra time they develop going back to
00:18:43
Speaker
longer hours, greater productivity. They've only got so much time to commit to improving the organization. If they're doing it, yeah, you're being execution focused and you're moving in a positive direction. If you're not doing it, you're just standing still and maintaining the business. Absolutely.
00:19:06
Speaker
There's a shift here where leaders finding, turning their vision into reality is the thing that they are potentially struggling to make happen. They might be working long hours because of various reasons, underlying causes.
Separating Strategy from Execution
00:19:32
Speaker
What would you recommend? I know you've got a system. What do you think people listening to this that are listening to this and thinking, yes, I'm on board. I want to be more execution focused. Where do I start? Well, the first thing I would tell them is you need to accept the fact that
00:19:57
Speaker
Execution is a separate discipline from strategy. A lot of people combine the two. And in fact, a lot of people call it strategic planning. And in reality, there is no such thing as strategic planning, right? There's strategy and then there's planning, right? And planning is more closely related to the implementation phase, but it's still not implementation or execution. So you have to accept that and understand that
00:20:28
Speaker
the discipline of execution probably takes 10X the effort that developing the strategy takes. A lot of leaders, again, think that their success is commensurate with how much effort they put into the strategy and the better the strategy is, the better the outcomes. And that's not true, right? It's just strategies are complex, they change constantly. But I would say,
00:20:58
Speaker
And our execution management systems have only been around about 20 years and there aren't that many of them. But look, look for a system, look for a methodology, a framework that you can teach your people that's repeatable, that's easy to understand. And then specifically hire a facilitator, hire someone who is skilled at this because you'll
00:21:24
Speaker
It's just not something that works in a train the trainer type modality. You've got to get someone who will partner with you, who will guide you and embed this in your daily pattern of management. Because if you don't do that, chances are like most training, most learning and development
00:21:48
Speaker
they're going to hang on to it for three or four days and only understand it to the extent they can apply it and remember it. Otherwise, you know, it's gone. Okay. So you find a system of which there are systems out there that you can pick up. So in some
Choosing Effective Strategy Systems
00:22:09
Speaker
ways it sounds a little bit like
00:22:13
Speaker
The system might be less important than the process you use to embed it and make it happen. It is. The systems or frameworks are really there just to make things easier.
00:22:34
Speaker
digitally-based, right? I mean, technology aggregates information, brings data together. It makes it easier. It makes it faster for us to get things done. So you have to be careful because several execution management systems are kind of cloaked in this
00:22:56
Speaker
false identity of an HR enterprise system, right? You know, goal setting, like a lot of these systems will do everything from record your hours on the time clock to setting up your goals and doing your performance management. You can get locked into it and people will say, yeah, our system does execution management. But you want a peer execution management system that focuses
00:23:21
Speaker
on how you can effectively translate strategy at each level so that people understand it. And it creates a feedback loop inside of that organization so that leadership and leaders at every level have line of sight into what's happening below them. And then they can keep that information
00:23:42
Speaker
current and available to leadership so you can make better decisions. So it really is about just keeping the strategy top of mind so that people don't forget about it and people understand what it is they need to do to contribute to the success of the organization. And it's just not the methodology of how you do that. It's a cultural practice as well. The system I use, for example,
00:24:11
Speaker
emphasize this foundation data, which is vision, mission, strategic initiatives, core values, core behaviors, things like that. And so those things are constantly reinforced with people so that they understand
00:24:30
Speaker
If I have a decision to make, those are all things I can lean on because I understand what we're trying to accomplish and I understand what my organization values and how I should do that. And so you sort of need, you need both elements, but yeah, you gotta be careful of, of just buying into a system because a lot of that is just ends up being a software sale when in reality it is the process we're trying to teach.
00:24:59
Speaker
I'm just pulling you away from this episode because I want to share with you how you can get a copy of the free guide that I've created in which I share with you several of the techniques that I use with my coaching clients today and that you can use too, which will help you create more of an impact as a leader, have more influence and the holy grail, have more time away from the doing.
00:25:28
Speaker
You can use this time for key things like focusing on strategic thinking or go for a bike ride. If you want to grab the free guide, check out the show notes and click on the link.
00:25:48
Speaker
So, Montyann, I know that you have a system that you use with your clients and it would be good to understand what the key components are of that that you feel need to be there for it to be successful.
Cultural Elements of Execution Systems
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, there are actually about four or five components. And again, I want to be careful here because it really is the process that I teach that's important.
00:26:18
Speaker
The system I use has a software platform that supports it, but I don't talk about that a lot because it gets confused with human resource enterprise systems and other things that briefly touch on some components of execution but don't focus on it directly. So there's a cultural element.
00:26:41
Speaker
that's really important. And that's nothing more than mission, vision, core behaviors, core values, strategic initiatives. Those are what we call foundational data. They're really critical for our people to understand and to make decisions from. So if you look at culture as somewhat your values and beliefs, if you know what you believe in and why, it's pretty easy to make decisions at any level of the organization based on that.
00:27:10
Speaker
The other part of it is we have two other elements that are ultra critical. And the first one is something that we call a performance agreement. And a performance agreement is nothing more than a collaboratively developed
00:27:26
Speaker
document between a manager and a direct report that lays out their primary job responsibilities and their goals and tasks. So basically, every year, those two parties sit down, they figure out, here are your key responsibilities, here's what we need you doing, and then here are the goals and tasks that are over and above your day-to-day responsibilities that we need you to focus on.
00:27:52
Speaker
And the reason everybody has a performance agreement, and when I implement this, I implement from the CEO on down. So even the CEO has a performance agreement. And these things are all openly shared in the organization. But how this all culminates is through a monthly practice or an every 30-day check-in that we call a progress meeting. And again, a progress meeting is
00:28:19
Speaker
where the execution actually occurs. We sit down, we focus on how you're doing on your responsibilities. We have a very simple rating system. Your manager will rate you from their perception of how you're doing, and you'll rate yourself. Those things are done in a vacuum. They're brought together, and those sort of form the outline of the meeting. And so it's a very structured, directed meeting.
00:28:47
Speaker
The beauty of a progress meeting is that every person on the team every month gets at least an hour with their boss, focusing on their performance, solely on their performance. And that doesn't happen in most organizations.
00:29:05
Speaker
It maybe happens once or twice in an organization and it's usually it's called a performance review, right? Um, but these aren't performance reviews. These are, these are coaching, guiding, leading sessions where you're sitting down and you're saying, how are we doing? You know, what can I do to help you? We've gotten off track here. How do I, how do I, you know, what can I do to help you get back on track? Because this is important to what we're trying to accomplish.
00:29:29
Speaker
And so strategy execution is constantly reinforced every 30 days. And this is where the software platform comes in.
00:29:39
Speaker
It aggregates the data, the information from those meetings, and leadership has a line of sight into all of it, so they can kind of see. Here's objective A, and we've got all these goals against it, and here are the key initiatives that are being accomplished inside the organization. How are we tracking on those?
00:29:59
Speaker
And so if we're tracking towards them, we feel confident about it. We keep doing what we're doing. If we're not tracking that way, we look at the goals we've set up and the initiatives we've developed and we change them. And we do it in as quick or as real time as possible. So it's really just those three or four elements combined with
00:30:24
Speaker
a management oversight that says, yeah, we talk to each other, we communicate on a regular basis, but are we talking about the right things and are we focused on the right priorities? Yeah.
Communication and Trust in Leadership
00:30:37
Speaker
Frequently, we noticed that the right conversations aren't happening. I've got a massive issue with these annual appraisal type
00:30:48
Speaker
reviewing type conversations. So the monthly 30 day check-ins fits. And the fact you've said it takes that coaching approach and collaboration. So I love that because it's like you can't have the strategy without the execution and the execution happens in the everyday of that relationship between the people in the organization.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, it does. And so, and so going back to, you know, our initial angle of, you know, does working more hours equal greater productivity? No, you know, you, you, you've got to have that planning, you've got to have those details. And the only way you're going to, the only way you're going to get those details is to get feedback and as close to the moment as possible.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, one of the things I know we've also touched on between us is command and control being a bit of a dinosaur, but still showing up sometimes in the way organizations operate. How do you make sure that the process you're talking about isn't too top down and doesn't fall into any of those command and control type traps? Yeah. So the way we work through that is
00:32:11
Speaker
Everyone has a performance agreement and basically the direct report owns that agreement. So they manage it. They're the only ones who can enter information into it. Their manager can communicate through it and see it obviously, but they own it. So the key function here is collaboration. We get people involved in everything and
00:32:38
Speaker
When we get people involved, we ask them their opinion, their perspective, and they give us their input, especially as it relates to their role and what it is they're doing. We get an exceedingly high level of buy-in from those people versus if they're being dictated to, they're probably taking in 20, 30 percent of it and doing the minimal because nobody likes to be
00:33:04
Speaker
you know, told what to do. And again, I don't want to underplay leadership providing direction because that does have to happen. But where it impacts them personally, you've got to be asking for their input.
00:33:21
Speaker
you're potentially missing a great opportunity. One, because you never know where a great idea is going to come from. And two, they'll feel more ownership. They'll just feel engaged and involved. And everybody's out there trying to figure out the engagement plan. And the reality of that is, have you gone to your people and talked to them? Just ask them what it is they think they need. They'll tell you.
00:33:47
Speaker
You know, I mean, if you're sincere and obviously have a psychological safe environment, but yeah, we don't, we don't do the right things. We, you know, we think it's all, all wrapped up in extra perks and benefits and things that the organization doing wrong. Well, the one thing they're doing wrong is, you know, they're just not talking to us.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I love that a lot of this comes round to those great conversations. And when you encounter leaders when you're helping them implement, how often are you coming across skill level to be able to have those really good quality one-to-ones? Are you kind of pleasantly surprised or is there a bit of a gap still?
00:34:32
Speaker
There is a gap, but here's what we find, that the whole process of engaging through a performance agreement builds trust and respect over time.
00:34:47
Speaker
I mean, again, I don't want to, you know, just continue to highlight my process, but ideally, you want people focused on, you know, what you need them to do. And if you're constantly talking to them about it and asking their perspective, and, you know, again, they're feeling a part of it that they're
00:35:07
Speaker
They're not afraid to share and to talk. And so this trust and respect in the relationship builds up. And you know, as well as I do, when you have a conversation with somebody that you trust and respect, there are just certain things that just get communicated automatically. And you always think positive intent. So it really is the conversation
00:35:33
Speaker
Really is key, but if you don't I mean by definition if there's not trust and respect in that relationship manager and direct report or you know colleague to colleague whether that's vertical or horizontal the true definition is It either needs to get fixed or one or both should leave the organization I mean that's it's a simple as that because you've got a bottleneck you've got a problem there if you can't if you can't do that and
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So important, isn't it? And I think, I love what you say about building that over time with these check-ins, these, you know, if your skill level at having them isn't where it kind of needs to be potentially, if you're having them every 30 days, you are going to start building skill in that area.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's no question about it. And one of the pushbacks I get from people all the time with execution management is, well, I talk to my people. I talk to my people every day. And I don't disagree. I see that. But the reality is you're not spending the quality time focused on the needs of your individual manager.
00:36:44
Speaker
if you were spending that quality time and you had that trust and respect built up, chances are pretty good you'd be spending less time talking with them and more time letting them do their job. Yeah, because a lot of that time is operational, firefighting, checking. And the other thing is I'm like, and how? I can just hear them saying, I've got like,
00:37:12
Speaker
I mean, a lot of people have too many direct reports anyway, don't they? But like, I've got 10 direct reports. If I'm like an hour a month with them, I'm not going to be chained to my desk. But how do you respond to that?
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah, I get that one a lot too. And well, the first thing I would do if they had 10 direct reports, I'd go to the leader and tell them to reorganize. Yeah. Because that's kind of a futile effort right there trying to, you know, like herding cats, right, trying to manage, you know, 10 different people and, you know, do an effective job at it. But but yeah, you know, I just always say, you know, you're, you're, you're likely not
00:37:54
Speaker
you know, spending an hour totally focused on that individual and, you know, their needs. And again, they're
00:38:05
Speaker
You know, these are, these are opportunities to coach guide and lead people. They're not, they're not a series of monthly performance appraisals. Yeah. So after a while people kind of look at, they look forward to it and good information is surface substitute. Things are talked about and people leave those meetings feeling good and looking forward to the next one because they're getting the attention they need so that they can do their jobs even better.
00:38:34
Speaker
And then coming back to this subject of working long hours and not necessarily being that productive.
Role of Communication in Productivity
00:38:45
Speaker
When I do talk to people in business at all levels, the one word that comes back at me a lot in various different ways is communication.
00:38:58
Speaker
Either people feel like it's done badly, it's top down, it's wasteful. There's so many miscommunications that I hear. I'll speak to people in different groups and I'll hear a message said really drastically differently in the different groups and you think, okay, this is showing up. So what is your take on communication?
00:39:28
Speaker
Is it communication? Is it something else? I would say it's a, it's a, it's a complex mix of a lot of different things, but communication undergirds all of it. And how I would say that is we just don't, we just don't communicate well. We don't, we don't listen in one-to-one interactions. Well, we don't communicate group messaging well.
00:39:54
Speaker
I mean, the easiest way to put it, Corinne, is we pretty much suck at it all the time. I mean, communication drives everything. When you think about it, it's the medium of exchange for how we get things done. It helps us give out instructions in terms of understanding the business and what we need to do. We use it for conflict resolution, ultra-critical. We coordinate and align our teams through communication.
00:40:24
Speaker
And we create solutions to problems and we innovate through communication, right? You know, that collaboration. And all of that's on top of how we get formal and informal feedback as to how we're doing our job. So, you know, if you're not focusing, if you're not having difficult conversations or what I refer to as conversations of consequence,
00:40:55
Speaker
Then chances are you're not getting to the meat of what you need to lead your people and deliver the results that your organization's counting on you for. Yeah. And if it's got multiple underlying causes, when you see this communication dysfunction, are there any other places you look?
00:41:23
Speaker
in terms of solving it? Yeah, trying to get underneath it. Because I think people immediately go, well, actually thinking about it, if you notice something, a message hasn't been received in the way it was intended. I notice leaders often go, well, we need to say it again. I know there's a repetition piece in the strategy, but often
00:41:46
Speaker
that is done at a town hall, if you're a big organization or whatever. I often think to myself what's missing. I think one of the things that might be missing are these great check-ins because if they're missing, then that's an underlying reason why it might not be happening. Yeah. There are skills that obviously accompany that because some
00:42:14
Speaker
Some people are very adept at communicating well and others aren't, but I would say employing empathy and having some humility in terms of how you deal with your people. That's probably the hardest piece because when you think about it, we hire all these people based on their technical capabilities, but then
00:42:40
Speaker
you know, 98.9% of the time, we, you know, we fire them for their inability to get along, you know, with others. Yeah. And so you know, you've got to, you've got to be able to connect with people and talk with them on a level that they'll understand you and appreciate you and know that you're, you know, that you don't have ulterior motives, you know, in terms of in terms of what you're saying, otherwise, they'll, they'll just climb up and
00:43:07
Speaker
you know, sort of toe the party line on things. Um, and that's not what we're, what we're looking for. We're really looking for, you know, just again, authentic, you know, conversations that people can share. I mean, look, we've all got, we've all got issues. We've all got, you know, personal struggles and it's not like you want to become a psychologist and dive into, dive deeply into your, into your team members problems, but you at least want to know.
00:43:36
Speaker
when there's a situation where you either help or get out of the way or just listen. And then as a leader, that helps you position where they're at, understand where they're at, and then maybe you give them a break for a while and you take them off a project and assign something else for them to do while they work through that. But most people come to work each day intent on
00:44:05
Speaker
doing a good job. It's just whether or not we create the environment that allows them to do it. Absolutely. Which comes very neatly back to work-life integration and listening. I've been having some great conversations with some podcasts that are going to be coming out soon about challenging the idea of appraisals.
00:44:30
Speaker
and also another one about vulnerability and confidence. And listening just, it came out so many times that people could do with focusing on that skill. That is a skill that needs attention often. Some people are good at it, but not necessarily. And I think it reaps such rewards. Yeah. So the fundamental problem with performance appraisals and reviews is that they're totally backward looking.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah. And
Continuous Feedback Over Appraisals
00:45:02
Speaker
no one cares about what happened yesterday or two weeks ago or four months ago, let alone we can't remember it, which brings us back to the importance of continuous communication. I think it's a right of every employee to know where they stand with their boss and their organization.
00:45:22
Speaker
at a minimum every 30 days. I mean, I think if you did it any, you know, it would be way too repetitive and overbearing if you tried to do it every couple of weeks or weekly or whatever. But every 30 days, and again, through our progress meetings, that's what we do. We reinforce and they understand where they're at. And if they have two or three bad months in a row, we're
00:45:48
Speaker
we're having the conversations around that and why. And we're either putting the corrective behavior and actions in place to get them back on track or we're talking about, you know, them doing something else in the organization or potentially even an execution of, I'm sorry, an exit strategy. Yeah. Slip of the tongue there. We're not going to execute anyone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think you fix performance appraisals by having
00:46:15
Speaker
that continuous documented, you know, communication on a monthly basis. And then, and then the, the last meeting of the year is really just to, just to wrap up the year and put it all into perspective and tie it off. And I think, I think people would be much more ease with that and understand your related action, you know, whether you're demoting them or giving them an increase or, or, you know, promoting them. Okay. So we've,
00:46:44
Speaker
covered quite a lot of ground and I'm thinking, how can we tie this together to summarize and maybe get practical?
Actionable Steps for Leaders
00:46:56
Speaker
And I know we have gone to some practical things as we've been talking, but do you think there's a way of us going, okay, so strategy, execution,
00:47:10
Speaker
30 day check-ins and then communication. These are probably our, and some of the skills of leaders. Have you got any practical, I'm a leader, listen to this podcast. As of tomorrow, these are some steps I can take, which will push me some experiments that will put me more in the direction of the type of leadership that you were talking about, Monty and we both agree.
00:47:39
Speaker
is the direction to travel. Yeah, I would say there's a few things. The first one, as a leader or as a follower or team member, own every inch of real estate that you walk on.
00:47:58
Speaker
What that means is take responsibility, personal responsibility for what it is you do. Okay. Every day, talk about it openly and honestly. And you know, when, when you screw up, admit it, when, uh, when somebody does good, you know, encourage them, reward them. Um, but know that you have, you, you have a certain responsibility for everything under your control and, and,
00:48:28
Speaker
things are just much easier when you, when you accept the fact that, that you have ownership and if it doesn't happen, that's a failure on your part or a success. If you do it, you know, if you're thinking the other way, nice, nice and straightforward. Yeah. Yeah. Um, always remember that the work is not about you.
00:48:46
Speaker
It's about your people, okay? Because the way we achieve success is through people. And if people have your back and they're looking after your interests, you should be looking after theirs. So your ability to make their life better comes back positively and impacts you.
00:49:07
Speaker
And then the last one is prioritize, plan, and execute. It's in the details. If you're going to work hard and commit yourself to what it is you're doing, you need to get the results. Because if we're just out there working sort of aimlessly and doing something and it's not connected to anything,
00:49:30
Speaker
There's no value in that, right? There's just no, there's no energy. There's nothing. And so it should make us mad when we don't get the results we're looking for because of the effort we put in. And again, going back to working more hours and expecting greater results, we should be trying to work less hours and get better results.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And setting that as a great role model for the team as well, rather than the expectation that people will have poor working habits. Like maybe if that's what you are doing yourself, then that's what you could expect the people around you might start copying. Yeah. And again, it's going to happen because if you look at
00:50:22
Speaker
at change, which is really what we're talking about. There's a great book called Detonate by a couple of former Deloitte consultants who they coined it as the first subatomic law of business that
00:50:37
Speaker
If you're going to change anything, you're going to find yourself asking a human to do something different than what they're doing today. And so it takes that leadership. It takes that role modeling, right? Otherwise, if you don't care or you accept and tolerate bad behavior, that's just going to reaffirm it. And that's what people are going to do. But if you ask them to change and say, here's what I'm doing, chances are they're probably going to change.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Starts with you. Well, fascinating. Thank you so much, Monty. It's an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you, Corn. I enjoyed it very much. Great food for thought. So over to you, leaders. Do
Key Takeaways for Leaders
00:51:22
Speaker
you have a strategy or is it getting dusty somewhere? And if it is a live document,
00:51:32
Speaker
Does it stop at board level? If I stopped one of your people in the street and asked them what the key priorities are in your business, would they know? What does the execution plan look like? And how are you going to work with your people to bring it to life?
00:51:53
Speaker
And my favorite one of all is about check-ins. If you've listened to any of my podcasts, you'll realize I'm a big fan of talking to your people regularly. It seems pretty obvious, but having the right quality of conversation does seem a bit of a rare thing. So I hope you're inspired. Monty's details will be in the show notes. And if you did enjoy this episode, please give me some feedback and rate and review the show. Bye for now.
00:52:29
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Visible Leader podcast. To stay up to date with the latest episode, hit the subscribe button. And I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave me a review. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me. Corinne Hines on LinkedIn.