Dive into the world of conflict resolution with our latest podcast episode, 'Mastering the Trade: Navigating Conflicts in Your Business.' Gain invaluable insights from industry experts on handling conflicts effectively in the trade industry. We explore the nuances of conflict resolution, essential leadership skills, and strategies to foster a productive team environment. Whether you're a business owner, team leader, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode offers practical tips and real-world solutions to manage conflicts and drive your business towards success. Tune in to transform the way you approach conflicts in your business.
Watch the video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/tsEqtr90swY
Discussion Points:
00:00 30 years of knowledge: high-performing teams, leadership.
06:04 Natural leadership progression overlooked in traditional training.
08:07 No one-way approach, success depends on understanding.
11:43 Different personalities in organisations can lead to conflicts.
16:15 Leadership must foster communication and engagement actively.
17:35 Maximising meeting effectiveness and communication in business.
22:17 Strategic meetings focus on company goals and tactics.
25:13 Communication, questions, and surprises in meetings.
29:04 Clear leadership ensures team alignment and success.
31:25 Challenging habits, change, and observation for improvement.
37:06 Multitasking for productivity, focus on right meetings.
38:46 Leadership requires effective systems and processes.
40:59 Discussing meeting structure, outcome responsibility, and feedback.
45:10 Regular, positive check-ins for performance feedback.
49:52 Hiring from within is crucial for development.
50:46 Building a strong team and leadership structure.
Resources:
Have a conversation with us! Go to tradie.wiki/pod and book a call.
Check this out:
Connect with me on LinkedIn. For more podcast episodes, you can also visit our website.
Thank you for tuning in!
If you enjoyed this podcast and this series, please take 5 to leave us a review:
Dive into the world of conflict resolution with our latest podcast episode, 'Mastering the Trade: Navigating Conflicts in Your Business.' Gain invaluable insights from industry experts on handling conflicts effectively in the trade industry. We explore the nuances of conflict resolution, essential leadership skills, and strategies to foster a productive team environment. Whether you're a business owner, team leader, or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode offers practical tips and real-world solutions to manage conflicts and drive your business towards success. Tune in to transform the way you approach conflicts in your business.
Watch the video version of this podcast at https://youtu.be/tsEqtr90swY
Discussion Points:
00:00 30 years of knowledge: high-performing teams, leadership.
06:04 Natural leadership progression overlooked in traditional training.
08:07 No one-way approach, success depends on understanding.
11:43 Different personalities in organisations can lead to conflicts.
16:15 Leadership must foster communication and engagement actively.
17:35 Maximising meeting effectiveness and communication in business.
22:17 Strategic meetings focus on company goals and tactics.
25:13 Communication, questions, and surprises in meetings.
29:04 Clear leadership ensures team alignment and success.
31:25 Challenging habits, change, and observation for improvement.
37:06 Multitasking for productivity, focus on right meetings.
38:46 Leadership requires effective systems and processes.
40:59 Discussing meeting structure, outcome responsibility, and feedback.
45:10 Regular, positive check-ins for performance feedback.
49:52 Hiring from within is crucial for development.
50:46 Building a strong team and leadership structure.
Resources:
Have a conversation with us! Go to tradie.wiki/pod and book a call.
Check this out:
Connect with me on LinkedIn. For more podcast episodes, you can also visit our website.
Thank you for tuning in!
If you enjoyed this podcast and this series, please take 5 to leave us a review:
Matt Jones:
Hi. It's Matt Jones here. If you wanna check out the video version of this podcast, click on the 1st link in the description.
Margie Oleson:
So the other thing that affects culture, and this happens if you're if you've ever raised a pet or a child, is anyone who gets away with not being on video and it says right across the top you need to be on video, your culture just tanked. This
Matt Jones:
Correct. Yeah. Baji, welcome to the Sideshow Podcast.
Margie Oleson:
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Matt Jones:
Slight technical hiccup there, but we're back. Better to address these things early in the piece, I have learned, especially of late. So thanks for thanks for joining us all the way from, Twin Cities, Minnesota?
Margie Oleson:
Correct. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, up by the Canadian border.
Matt Jones:
Absolutely. And whereas I think you're the closest city to where my wife's from in Winnipeg.
Margie Oleson:
Wonderful.
Matt Jones:
I've been there. Every time we go back to Winnipeg, we we transit, Well, pretty much anyway, which pretty much transit through Minneapolis if we're flying through the states.
Margie Oleson:
Sure.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. So, Yeah. Anyway, so we're here today to talk about, leading high performance teams in the trades, A conversation which I think will be very well received, based on a number of things, but especially the fact that there's quite a, labor shortage around the world and the ability to lead these teams and, you know, Make sure that they're on track and all that kind of stuff is becoming more and more relevant, I think, every day. It's I mean, I guess it's a topic that never gets old.
Margie Oleson:
Efforts. It it's very constant.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. I'd love to hear a bit about, before we jump in, who you are, where you're from, what you do, And how we ended up on this call?
Margie Oleson:
Sure. So I am a corporate America refugee. I was in corporate America for several decades. And after, being in many different types of industries and sizes of organizations and noticing the same issues over and over again, I'm not the kind of person who's gonna lift the hood on a car. I'm not curious. I'm not gonna take the toaster apart, but I really did wanna understand organizations. So I went back to school, and I earned a doctorate in organization development. I wanted to understand how organizations work.
Margie Oleson:
And after 4 years of coursework, I realized that we did know what we needed to know. So for 3 decades at that point, now four plus, we do know how to be a high performing team. We do know how to grow and be a high performing leader. We know how to manage the organization across whether it's small, medium, and large regardless of the type of industry. And so then I focused my research on, what does this tell us then? Why do all the organizations I've been hanging out in struggle with their teams, struggle with growing leaders, and I wanted to find that out. And it was exciting to learn some of the things that we can do, applying the art and science. And so then, rather than spending a lot more time in corporate America, I became an entrepreneur and wanted to bring this, wisdom, this art and science in what I call the top team accelerator into organizations.
Matt Jones:
Have you ever read the book called The Real MBA?
Margie Oleson:
I have skimmed.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. It's interesting because it's basically his
Margie Oleson:
Tell me about it.
Matt Jones:
Well Did
Margie Oleson:
you like it?
Matt Jones:
It sounds like your story, to be honest. It's a guy who went and When did an MBA and then he realized that he probably would have got more value out of actually starting his own business and extracting information from a bunch of already preexisting book
Margie Oleson:
Oh, that is a true statement.
Matt Jones:
Safe description.
Margie Oleson:
A lot of training. That's a lot of learning. We can we can learn knowledge, but until we apply it, we are not able to truly commit it to memory and take it into the future. And that's actually one of the 4 or 5 things I discovered in my research is people are coming to classes and reading books and listening to podcasts and learning some of these principles, but they're and they're trying some things, but they don't know how to make it stick. And so it's as if it didn't they didn't learn it in the 1st place.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. And I it's I mean, it's it's amazing, you know. I mean, they're coming from the trades myself, formerly a plumber, Where you kind of have well, in in Australia, anyway, there's well, back when I was doing it, there's you have to go through a qualification process, you know, would to to be able to call yourself a certified tradesman, and, I think that standard's dropping a little bit over the years. I don't know. In in the States, it's very different, but, the point is when you're hiring a plumber, you're hiring someone who's been through the certification. And then I went when I start up a a marketing agency, you know, 12 years ago, but from the beginning, I had zero interest in someone who had a marketing degree. I just wanted them to be able to do the thing.
Margie Oleson:
Yes.
Matt Jones:
And there's so many people that would come to us with these, you know, shiny resumes and stuff. Oh, I've got a marketing degree, and I'm like, I Like, what what can you do? You know? So I think that practical real world application today is becoming more and more relevant. I mean, obviously, there are certain verticals that you do require specific certifications for. Like, you don't wanna go, you know, hire a doctor who's not certified as a doctor, but The point is, I think there's a lot of, like, getting your hands dirty and learning these things is where you sort of tend to learn the most.
Margie Oleson:
And this is where my passion is because there's a gap there with leadership. You're right. We do know we better hire someone for supply chain who has an experience in supply chain. If I'm gonna bring on someone in the trades, they're gonna have gone through apprenticeship. We do have that here. They're gonna have had experience. They're gonna show me. They're gonna be able to show me what they know, and then we just let leaders get hired and promoted as if it's magic or as if it's natural.
Margie Oleson:
And I'll say it's actually quite unnatural. So if you think about it, our 1st leaders are the ones who were around when we were born, and our 1st team is anybody around the house at that time. And then we go on to school, and then we join activities, and then we get first jobs. And those are our teams and those are our leaders. And guess what? Those leaders also didn't have a leader with a playbook, didn't have a leader who had an apprenticeship, didn't have a leader who went to training to really know how to do the art and science. And so then leaders get promoted, companies get a little bigger, they join new market, somebody becomes an entrepreneur and starts their own business, and it's they don't even realize that the struggles they're having in being a leader, they're people that they know are having it too, they're just not talking about it openly. And so we have all these leadership development programs, might be a day or 2 or a month, but people are going back to work and they're not getting anything out of it. Maybe a 10 person company brings in a consultant.
Margie Oleson:
They learn some things, they do some things, but it doesn't stick. And so we're making sure that those other things that we are offering, the products and services, that those people have the background. And with leaders, we're kinda making it up as we go along.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. I know. It's a and and I suppose it's one of those things that I've I've said all problem to show, like, you you don't you're not for you guys out there listening to this or watching it, whatever you're doing, like, you're not necessarily expected to know these things. Well, truthfully, you're not expected to know these things because as you go through your trade, you don't these are these aren't things that you're taught. And and truthfully, I'd I would argue, I We're not going through a lot of these programs and things in the past as well, Margie and, like, even having the the knowledge is one thing, but then the application of that knowledge And and especially in the space of leadership, like applying it, it's very style driven, you know, like, it's like, you you I could go through a course on someone who's, you know, completely different personality type teaching me this stuff, and when I try and deliver it that way, it never plays out. So you've always kinda gotta find your own Your own methodology and your own way of doing these things.
Margie Oleson:
And there's no one way. So you can have this star. You can have this this shining light as a leader of a company and someone else who is much more in the background has come up in a different, they can both be as successful as leaders. There really is no recipe. It's actually more about do you know who the people are that are working for you? Do they know what direction you're heading in? Do they understand the customer? Do you know that they have what they need to do the work that that you need them to do, and do they know how you think they are doing. And so we can teach that, and then you have to practice. So we can, so in, I have a method called top team accelerator, and it's building blocks starting at the very beginning. So even if you've been a company for a year or 20 years, you can start anywhere and immediately turn around, the ship turn the ship, completely turn around the bad meetings and the gossiping and the high turnover of people who are talented are very difficult to bring people on because everybody's so busy.
Margie Oleson:
You could turn all that around by putting systems and processes in place and then practicing and getting some coaching and getting some feedback. A new plumber would not be working on their own. They just wouldn't. And it's because they shouldn't have to make it up. They you you're not gonna risk that with a client, and yet all these companies, millions and millions of people, supervisors and managers, and we are risking it because we're not connecting the dots that some of our outcomes that are poor, the the challenges that we have, small and some of the really big ones like workforce challenges, they actually can be fixed. They actually can be worked on. It is that we are just it's all at risk because we're not being intentional about leadership.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm. Yeah. I agree. So we've broken this, into a couple of conversations. In the 1st episode, we're gonna discuss conflict resolution. Yes. And in the last episode, we're gonna talk about change management. So why have you decided those 2 episodes, you know, relevant more or most relevant in this little series we're doing.
Margie Oleson:
The, this is what's hitting leaders, and this is what they're not you're about and the change management piece, which we'll do next, is really, can be sounds like lingo. Oh, there they are talking about change management again. Like, it is something that people just make money on being a consultant or, having a role. But the truth is every leader is a change manager, and that means that whatever your company is going through, people need to understand how the brain operates so they can help their people move through changes that are inevitable and happening all the time. So we can talk about that next. Conflict resolution is really about the the coming together of different ideas. And in your organization, if you don't have conflict, you're missing it. You're missing out.
Margie Oleson:
So we we have to have conflict even if it's just 5 people. If it's 5 people and 1 person is the leader, then typically those 4 are other 4 are gonna be following that 5th person. And if there is conflict or if there's never conflict, but there are issues, it's probably because there's conflict under the surface. But let's say you're a company of 20 or a100 or a1000. If you don't have conflict, all that means is it's all be happening behind closed doors. You have gossiping. You have complaining. And when you don't have conflict openly, you're missing out on all the ideas and all the problem solving for all the people that you're not hearing from.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm.
Margie Oleson:
And so you have you have a variety of people in your organization even if they all have the same job type. You can have 10 people of the same job type, and they have 10 different personalities, and they bring 10 different profiles. So 1 or 2 of them is highly intuitive and has really great ideas, and they don't even know why they have those ideas. But you're not hearing from them because they're not in power, and it's not okay to raise your head. So that's one type of conflict you absolutely wanna have, that type of conflict. The other conflict that companies have, and then we can delve into these a little more deeply, is negative conflict. So conflict that just doesn't go well. Maybe you have an individual or a couple of individuals that in your culture, it's okay for them to do conflict in an unhealthy way, and then everybody else is just sort of trying to get by.
Margie Oleson:
Talent goes out the door the very first chance they get, and some people actually get hurt wounded. You're everything you do in a company as a leader, you're affecting all those people back home. You're affecting the people in their neighborhood. You're thing, the the the volunteer committee they're on, you're affecting the mom pop place that buy they buy food from. Anything you do as a leader to make it better for the people that are working for you, you're actually making the world a little better place. That is not Pollyanna. That's the truth. So if you have someone who is bullying or who is eating up all the oxygen every time there's a conversation or you're having to solve the same problems over and over again, but the flick just feels like it's taking up too much space, that just means you're not doing it well, and there are ways to do that.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm. Yeah. I suppose the things that, like like, on a on a conflict well, things that I see regularly in in business are The lack of communication, which then resolves in perhaps what could have been constructive, conversations or construct as, you know, have you I don't know if you've read Gino Wickman's book traction, and he talks about in every meeting every meeting there should be It's not a good meeting if there isn't some sort of argumentative discussion taking place.
Margie Oleson:
Meaning, more than 1 idea was presented. Bit.
Matt Jones:
Right. Exactly.
Margie Oleson:
Really one idea and everybody is cool with it, that was an email.
Matt Jones:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think, typically, what, I mean, you you do see a lot of organizations and probably tested what you were saying before is when you disempower people to make the voice their Opinions, then you end up just on the same track and you don't evolve. And there's no
Margie Oleson:
And the way culture works is culture is the combination of your habits. And the way our brain works is 99.99% of what we have up don't going on every day is habit. So if you wanna change your culture or if you wanna change your communication, if If you wanna change how you do conflict, you need to chain you need to put in place different ways of doing it, and then you need to develop habits. So if your culture is full of habits where the conflict is not happening or communication is all being done by 1 person. You have a lot of people who eventually just get a little smaller and a little smaller and a little quieter, and that that's they're they're getting sort of pummeled by the culture. They're getting pummeled by those low performing meetings. And I will say one of the first things I do when I work come into an organization and work with leaders is fix their meetings. Forbes calls bad meetings an $85,000,000,000 problem in the US, and I find it everywhere I go.
Margie Oleson:
And the things we know how to fix for your meetings, we've known those for years. There is nothing new. I can rattle off a list of 5 things that you wanna be doing right now to fix your meetings. But the reason you haven't done that, if you've heard of it so maybe you read an article or listened to a podcast or you had someone come in and give you a little training. If you haven't done it, it's because you've got some underlying things going on which are preventing you from making the kind of changes you need to be able to be more high performing. Not just your meetings, your communication, your the way that you set your goals and and talk about it and meet them, the way you do conflict, all of that has to have this undergirding of what your habits are. And that means that you are addressing openly the problems that you have, not on the 1st day, not as the 1st step to making changes because all of this requires a little bit of trust, a little bit of of getting used to talking a little bit more openly, but to fix your meetings, you do 5 things right away, and then you notice. Hey.
Margie Oleson:
Why is this hard for us? Why are we not just doing these very easy things that don't cost another dime? We don't have to bring anybody in. We can do these things, and we're not why.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm.
Margie Oleson:
Because somebody in leadership likes to do all the talking, because, somebody's some people are now getting a little bit more accustomed to relaxing at work. So if you're if your work is away and you're by yourself doing the work and you're not a part of the mothership often enough to be a part of a workplace, you're missing out on being a part of that team. It's really hard to get the input of that person and the mixing it up of that person, a little bit of conflict, a little bit of different views, if you're on the team and you're in person or you're remote and you're doing things together and we're not hearing from you, we don't get your ideas, it's because you don't want them. The leader gets the the leader gets the level of engagement that they are asking for. The leader gets the level of communication that they are allowing. And so when they blame their workers for not telling them things or why are they afraid of me or why don't they talk in meetings or how come they never come to meetings. Just know that it the buck stops with you. Even if it really does have to do with 1 person or some situation, you're the only thing that you can change.
Margie Oleson:
If you have a certain level of communication as a leader, you're getting what you're setting them up for. If you want it different, if you want more conflict and in a different way, you need to change that.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. So, I mean, why don't we dive in maybe a little bit at the start of that level with with meetings and how to how to run a construct I mean, I've had the, Amazing mister Al Levy on our show a 1000000 times, you know, and he has we have spoken about meeting structures for, well, much similar to what you're saying yourself, like, just having a a regular cadence with meetings, which most businesses don't do. But then more importantly, like, within that cadence, having a structure to the specific meetings so that you're not wasting time, but it's specific, and it doesn't have to be a long drawn out process, you know, it could be like a 10 minute power meeting where you and you talk about specific things and then move on to the next, or or equip the team with what they need to be doing that day, You know, that kind of stuff. So what are maybe we can start there with some of the, because truthfully, like, and I've I've I've say this over and over again, like, Communication conversation will will resolve 99% of the problems that you have with any in any business. And in a lot of cases, it's you can resolve them before they arise. It's it's the reason why, you know, we have Processes within business and more importantly, we'll have, like, processes for clients to follow or even maybe content for them to consume before they come on board so you can kind of eliminate And remove some of their objections before they arise in the space of expectations and whatever it might be. So So I'd love to hear at a meeting level with team what that might look like Sure.
Margie Oleson:
The trade Sure. Yep. And I I love to think about how as a species, we're is we have communication as a gift, and we have executive function. And I would say that there's also this metaphysical thing going on at all times where I'm creative, I'm a creative being whether I'm talking or not. So if you can tap into my good ideas, tap into my problem solving, tap into my creativity through my communication, you're gonna get it's like I'm handing you cash. I'm handing you gold. I have a family member who has an HVAC company. They own an HVAC company.
Margie Oleson:
And sometimes I ask, well, have you met about that or whatever? And they're not necessarily doing meetings, but they're on the phone with each other all day long, which is very inefficient. And, also, sometimes people are driving, so not my favorite. But there is a, there is a benefit to being intentional about the structure that you have for meetings, and that does not have to be the 100%. So, yes, there is something to do with cadence. And the first thing that I do with organizations is separate out your meetings so that you're having the tactical conversations, those day to day operational conversations like what they were doing on the phone to get the work done day to day and put out the fires day to day. But then you wanna have strategic conversations that are deeper dives and a little bit longer term, invest a little bit more time, take time away from work, do not be working on the phone with a customer or have your phone out so that your people can be calling you when they're at customers, you need to take the time away. And when you're in the strategic discussion and there's a and there's a a comment or a question that comes up about the daily tactical, you've developed the discipline to say, oh, that's a actually a tactical question. Let's put that on the list for tomorrow's operations meeting.
Margie Oleson:
And after a while, you begin to develop that habit. And the same thing happens with the tactical. So you're in the tactical conversation, and someone brings up how hard it is to hire right now. And that's huge. You wanna fix that. And you're trying to get your tactical done, and you're trying to get your tactical done with the right people in the room so that you don't have to keep having the same fires or the same problems. So if you've got a strategic conversation plan and you're gonna look at workforce, what can we do to bring on 3 more people or 40 more people or enter this new market. What certifications do we need to be able to do this new capability? You wanna make sure that the right people are in that conversation.
Margie Oleson:
So that's not necessarily the tactical people. So why would you put the tactical people through having conversations around workforce development when it's not their thing? Now we have FOMO, so the fear of missing out. So in companies small and large, the meetings are including people that don't need to be there, but you don't wanna tell them to not come. And that level of discourse, that level of on dishonesty is one of your biggest challenges. If you can't tell your people you're not needed for this meeting, you have much bigger problems. And your your, ability to get customers to pay, your ability to get new customers, your ability to bring on and retain talent are all being impacted because you can't even have real conversations. Business. You wanna have real conversations, and your meetings need to be real conversations.
Margie Oleson:
So we attack the FOMO, the fear of missing out, and we attack politics. Sometimes meetings have people in there to be politically safe. No. Your tactical meetings are to get your operations to where you need to go for the leaders goals and priorities for today. Where is our company headed? Where do we need to be 12 months from now and 6 months from now and 3 months from now? The tactics, the operations need to meet that, we need to meet with the people that can give us that information, and we can troubleshoot and talk about what's next. When we're gonna have a strategy conversation about building another building or completely letting go of one arm of what we've been doing because it's not bringing us money or it's taking way too many people power or, actually, we don't have enough people that have those certifications that we're gonna shift. You wanna have a really long, luxurious conversation where the people are the right people in the conversation, but, also, they came with the right information. So you plan for that meeting.
Margie Oleson:
So you bring in data from your own company, and you bring in what, you know, Wall Street and Main Street is saying about that particular certification or that particular market. But then you have time for those people in the meeting who you don't always hear from, who have intuition, who have creativity, who have maybe a family member who's gone through this and knows what do, and but you haven't been hearing from them, so you don't even know that there is a way to solve this. And so once you start to put in that discipline, and then you follow the few things that are absolutely required. Number 1, make sure you have a purpose for the meeting and agenda, and everybody knows what it is. Don't be in the meeting if you're not supposed if you don't need to be there or they're gonna talk about something that you don't need to be, that you don't need to weigh in on. And don't talk about don't say at the beginning of the meeting, what else should we put on the agenda?
Matt Jones:
Right.
Margie Oleson:
Because as soon as you do that, you've just lost your strategy. You're not now you're not being intentional. Now you're just letting it be free form. So, no, we're here to talk about the the these 3 metrics, these 2 people, and what's what what clients are coming up next week. That's what we're talking about today. Or if it's the strategy meeting, we're here to talk about these 2 big issues that they have. The new building that's taking longer to build and how are we gonna get these people in these certifications. We're not gonna talk about other things, but we're gonna make sure that the that we have an agenda.
Margie Oleson:
And then we're going to track, what you're saying in the meetings so that people know at the same time what were the decisions that were made, what were the questions that were raised that still need to be answered, and what were the follow-up actions. I once worked with a 4 person leadership team who had been together for a year. They were doing this big rollout of something new. And when they brought me in, they're having issues with traction, getting it going. And when they brought me in and I did my 1st initial meetings around, hey. Who are you, and what are you doing? And I did individual interviews, and and then we came back together, and there are 4 different people, 4 different answers for what they were supposed to get done. Mhmm. Four different answers on what the the rollout looked like.
Margie Oleson:
One was it gonna be and how was it gonna go? What was the scope? And they kinda laughed. They're they're they're a little bit of tears. They were surprised that these people that they'd spent all this time with, they hadn't checked. So you're talking about communication. You and I can listen to something about, let's say, some sport thing, and then if you if you out, loud ask me, what did I hear him say? And you they ask you, what did you hear her say? You're gonna hear that it's actually different. So you always end your meetings 5 or 10 minutes early, and you re you stay out loud. What did we decide? What questions do we have that are outstanding? Inning and what follow-up actions, and pretty soon people say, oh, that's not what I thought. And it was only 20 minutes ago.
Margie Oleson:
Mhmm. 20 minutes ago, we made a decision, and 2 people in this conversation thought it was different. And I wish that was rare. That happens all the time. So you can see if you start to implement what's not rocket science, it's it's it's practices that can really help you. You really can make big changes, but they're a little awkward at first. If you're not doing it now, it's probably because you're just being a little too comfortable. You're trying to get the meeting done.
Margie Oleson:
Meetings aren't your thing. You'd rather be out doing stuff or you'd rather be out in the job or talking to new customers. But so if you can get past when when you get past the awkward and also when you can start to laugh with each other about, hey. This meeting's terrible. Let's start again. Or you know what? I don't think we have the right people in this meeting. Let's call it. Let's save everybody's time.
Margie Oleson:
Let's revisit, come back in a couple of days, and let's make sure we have a, b, and c in play. If you can art being as intentional and, hypervigilant about your meetings the way you would be about a recipe that has to be up to code or some sort of a a of a new product that has to be a 100%, you know, correct, if you would be that vigilant about your meetings, you would fix them pretty quickly, and you would someday look back and say, I would never go back to how it was before. The way you're doing meetings now are just habits rather than intentional.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. And I think as well, like and I've noticed this even within our own team meetings now. It's it's become, like, so habitual That they're losing their they've they've lost their potency, and they've lost this, like, the specific the specificity around the outcome, which is what the whole meeting was there for. You know? Like, it just it sort of become a I don't like a department levels. Excuse me. It sort of become, like, a bit more of just a game of ticking boxes that I feel, like, actionable, you know
Margie Oleson:
And, unfortunately, you might have certain people who have gotten comfortable with that.
Matt Jones:
Oh, okay.
Margie Oleson:
And so it's going to be challenging for them to make these changes, but you wanna know that too. You wanna know who's not on board with having better meetings. You wanna know that.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. I think there are so many layers to, like, resolving conflicts, like, within and and, again, leadership conversation, you know, like, we've we see it all the time, and we see we in our in our own business, we see it in client's businesses, and all that goes up where it just becomes a game of Sort of passing the buck to the next person if there's an issue there with and it's it's clearly as a result of the not someone not taking ownership of the actual overarching, thing. You know?
Margie Oleson:
And you don't wanna ask for volunteers for that. You want your business to be set up so it's really clear who owns what.
Matt Jones:
Right.
Margie Oleson:
And if you have decisions or, ventures that you can that that work to to dole out to employees and say, hey. Take this. Run with it. Let me know how it you know, what you need from me and how it's going. Fine. Identify those. But a lot of what you're doing in your business, you have nonnegotiables. You cannot get it wrong, and the buck stops with you, the leader.
Margie Oleson:
And so the leader needs to be very clear that it's my so if I'm the leader, it's my goals. It's my priorities to to meet those goals. So if I have 5 people reporting to me and they have people reporting to them, working for them, they need to all have their boats rowing in my direction. And so conflict can happen when there's a mismatch with that. There are some people on your team who are really good at this stuff, and they're just sitting back going, we never get to the real meat of what we ought to be talking about. And if the leader is clear that they really do own a lot of those outcomes, a lot of those decisions, a lot of the insisting on people doing what they're supposed to, calling them out when, you know, holding them accountable, conflict goes down, the kind of conflict that you don't want. And then the conflict that goes up is the mixing it up and comparing ideas and advocating hard for your position. But then as a group, giving it back over to the leader, the leader decides, and everyone pulls in and agrees to be aligned on that and will pull their teams in to move forward in that direction.
Margie Oleson:
I see so many companies where they've got teams that are just sort of rolling off in their own direction, and leaders are reluctant to call them on that. And that's a different type of conflict. That's a very internal uncomfortable it's like a virus that starts to infect throughout. You people know it. They feel it on a gut level, but it's not being talked about out loud. It's an undiscussable, and you can't have undiscussables at work, not about the strategy, not about where you're going, and not about how people are doing.
Matt Jones:
You see a lot in In this space of leadership, leaders or maybe I mean, what we see I see this a lot, like, in, like, in the different departments in the business, and I just think there's people there that They they're just not proactively coming to the table with ideas on how to improve Things, they're just constantly doing the same thing.
Margie Oleson:
Yes.
Matt Jones:
I mean and and kind of expect you know, kind of expecting a different result, you know, fine quote, but I mean Correct. It I mean, I know you can look at these things really quickly and just go, why do you keep doing this? Like, it's not working. It's not it's not Working towards the outcomes on our scorecard, why do you keep doing this? You know?
Margie Oleson:
And what you're describing gets by because they're not talking about it out loud, because they've gotten into the habits of where it's not you can't talk about it openly. So what we do is we interrupt that. We just sort of implode. We we come in and we say, you're you're gonna you're about to do things very differently, and it's gonna feel awkward. It's gonna feel like you're using your nondominant hand, your nondominant leg and feet for for a while. And and and so I think of it like 95% of what you do is down dancing down on the dance floor, and then 5% of the time we go up to the balcony and we look and we say, how's it going? So we're gonna spend some time up in the balcony initially changing the dynamics of some of those, processes that are habits that aren't helpful. So let's say you put into place systems and processes for let's let's take the, a team at the top. Let's say there's an owner and maybe there's several people that are the ones that spend the most time with the owner and then everybody else is out here underneath somebody there.
Margie Oleson:
So the people that are at the top with the owner, they're gonna have to start that we will do. We do assessments, we do, conversations, we, have, certain activities that we do that even if you've never met each other or even if you've been together other for 20 years, you will start to develop a different way of thinking about each other and start to get to be more on the same page. And then we start to talk openly about how we need every person to be heard from. And this is where the leader always gets started. So it starts with the leader. So the leader, the first thing they do when I coach with them is really be clear about what their goals are. What are we working on this year? What we cannot solve 27 things, and we cannot go after 27 things. We can't.
Margie Oleson:
We shouldn't. We're not going to. We can try, but it's not gonna be so it wasn't successful last year. We might as well just learn from that. What are those 3 to 5 laser like focus things that you're going after this year? And then all the little threads need to aim in that direction. So those 3 or 4 people are bringing their teams along and following those threads. And once you start to focus your meetings, your conversations on those priorities, it starts first of all, it gets more energizing. People get a little bit happier.
Margie Oleson:
They wanna have those conversations. But you have to have hard conversations about the things you're saying no to now are the things that you're not gonna do anymore, but you weren't gonna do them. You're just we're pretending that you were. There's this level of of what's below the surf the communication below the surface that some people pick up on, but it makes them feel crazy that it's not being talked about openly or it's not being dealt with. So some of those people that you haven't heard from who aren't bringing ideas to the table, who aren't creative, all they do is complain, some of them actually change. As soon as you put in things that that bring more clarity, people are a lot more clear about who we are and who we aren't, what are we working on right now compared to what we're not, who's doing well, who's not, then and and the they start to become more aligned. And all of a sudden, some people sorta come out of their shell, and you start to hear from them more. They have more of a reason because they understand that it's their role.
Margie Oleson:
And then you find people who may not make it through this process because they've kinda liked being loafing around. They've kinda liked doing their own thing. They kinda liked being under the radar. Once you start to break be above board about a lot more things, you will find that there are certain people that won't make it through that process. And then you can replace them with people who bring ideas, but they're willing to share their ideas, but then align with you and go in your direction because you're the leader.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm. I mean, one thing that I'm gonna like, I mean, we say this a lot with I mean, we have a, like, a quite remote team, and there's there's things that really, I think have resulted in, like, poor culture due to like, for example, a lot of the team offshore won't have their cameras on in meetings. Even though it's a policy line in the sand, you must have cameras on, but most of them won't do it. So, you know and and there's little things like that which lend themselves like
Margie Oleson:
And when you say your team, do you mean that people report up to someone who reports up to you?
Matt Jones:
Yeah. I mean, there's, like, they have yeah. So there's team departments, And they're normally led by an individual, whatever, but the point is regardless that, you know, I I don't know if it's the Western culture thing where you kind of expect to just everyone be talking face to face because it's polite, but, you know, for whatever reasons, I I feel like there's certain things that happen over there. And I I think that's, like, one of the things that it does affect culture, like the fact that, you know, people are are doing things a certain way, which perhaps they shouldn't be. And Yes.
Margie Oleson:
And the other thing that affects culture and this happens if you're if you've ever raised a pet or a child is anyone who gets away with not being on video and it says right across the hop you need to be on video, your culture just tanked.
Matt Jones:
Correct. Yeah. Exactly.
Margie Oleson:
So if I'm a leader, unless I mean, let's just be let's just be brutally honest. This should not be hard, but this is brutally honest, I guess, for some. If I'm the leader and I want them to be on camera, why aren't they on camera? And so this is what I'm talking about is there's a 100 of those things that if I'm the leader, I've sort of, I've I have, abdicated my responsibility and my role. I will say that people need to be on camera. Mhmm. A 100%. And and so, yep, there can be cultural differences. However, there is a there's an exchange that happens when I can look you in the eye, but, also, there's a lot of things happening when you're not on camera.
Margie Oleson:
And, even if it's multitasking because you're trying to be even more productive for your company, even if it has nothing to do with your personal life or hobbies, if it really is, I'm multitasking because I got get I've got these 3 things I have to get done by the end of this week, and I'm on this meeting. Still, when you are not on camera, you are we're it's it's not it's not the human experience that we need to be productive together. It's not teamwork. And I will also say that sometimes people aren't on camera because they're they don't need to be in the meeting anyway. So let's just get them out of the meeting. Let's get them out of the meeting. Let's separate our strategic from our tactical conversations. Let's make sure we have the right people in the right conversations at the right time, and then we we need to be on camera for the meetings that require that kind of engagement.
Margie Oleson:
And if someone gets away with not being on the cam on camera, I would be really uncomfortable as a leader thinking, who do they think I am? And and how what is our culture if they're not even doing that?
Matt Jones:
I I raise I raise that as well because there's a lot of guys that especially, like, during and now post COVID, like, with the field technicians, and they would have, Instead of bringing team members into their office for the meetings, they would send the guys to site and do their morning meetings remotely and they On-site
Margie Oleson:
or remotely. So on I'm on my phone then. I'm standing on a site, and I'm on my phone.
Matt Jones:
Correct.
Margie Oleson:
And I'm probably I'm probably ready to get to the site and do my thing.
Matt Jones:
Well, that's what you would hope. Right?
Margie Oleson:
Yeah. But I
Matt Jones:
think Yeah. I think the the feedback that I was getting from A lot of people was, uh-oh. Oh, my camera's not working today. Like, just, you know, like bullshit smokescreen. Excuse me.
Margie Oleson:
Would say is still
Matt Jones:
in bed or at the coffee shop. You know?
Margie Oleson:
I will say, and we'll just say this, and then we'll we'll, go back to the conversation. There are we we uncovered reality of what a lot of us knew when we were starting to shelter in place, that there it's really hard to just run a household when there are children and pets and seniors that you're taking care of and all of that. So that is an issue. But I but to go back to, effective leadership, when you put in place systems and processes to be a high performing leader leading a high performing team, you get to free up time and energy to talk about these things. So you don't need to, just give an order and go back to your work and then hope that people follow it. You can say we're gonna be on camera, and here's how we're gonna do that. If you're gonna be at the site, that's not gonna work, so we gotta figure this out. What's the best time? Whatever.
Margie Oleson:
And remember, you shouldn't be in meetings all day long anyway, or you shouldn't have a morning meeting every single morning if you don't really need it. But when you have freed up time and energy because you're in fewer meetings, because you only have to be in the ones that you really need to be in. And now you're putting out fires that don't get lit again, and you're solving problems that don't surface again. Now you actually have time to have conversations with each other about things like meetings and being on video. And, and then, you know, these big, big, big issues that we have with health and the marketplace and the economy, companies aren't getting to those problems because they say, well, we who can? Everybody's got these problems. No. Actually, you could solve some of them for yourself anyway. You don't have to solve the global challenge.
Margie Oleson:
But you, when you free up time and energy in your company to be able to have some some space and ability to talk openly with each other, you can attack some of those problems for yourselves once you're not doing the day to day difficulties that you've been. And it does involve seeing each other, it involves in person sometimes. I do recommend the teams even if they're global. You need to be in person. Maybe maybe it's once a year. You figure that out together because you have talent at the table that can get bring ideas. But there is something about the personal that we cannot take out of productivity and teamwork, it just doesn't help. We have to figure it out, and we figure it out together when we can talk openly about these things.
Matt Jones:
So we've spoken a bit about, I suppose, the, like, the meeting structure and things like that. One thing that I'd like to discuss in relation to And it probably will inevitably tie into the next conversation when we talk about change management as well is individuals', outcomes and their responsibilities and what they're actually and having the communication cadence built in to help it, like, yes. Sure they're on track. So we like, we run the scorecard system in in the business, off the back of doctor Jeff Smart's book who which is kind of also ties into, you know, like, the the EOS system with Gina Wickman, how they have, like, Like the the the quarterly rocks and all that kind of stuff, but, essentially, it's like what are you actually responsible for as The outcome. It's not so much these are my roles and responsibilities because that kinda that that doesn't necessarily deliver the outcome. What the outcome is, this has to be done. Is it done or not, you know, and sort of tying it to a defined yes or no done sort of situation? Like, have you Have you come across that? Had do you do you, like, do you have any feedback in relation to how that might look for, trade businesses as such.
Margie Oleson:
Yep. Yep. So first of all, those are habits too. So those roles and responsibilities, they're they're in terrible shape. Where did those come from? Who drew those up? And and is anybody using them? So, you do need systems and processes in place that identify what are the things you're going after, and then everything needs to have metrics to tell you the right story. But here's the problem. People will maybe bring in a consultant or they'll they'll, have someone who has some knowledge about a particular let's say they're gonna do balanced scorecard from from, you know, years ago. And then they think that they're just picking up the method and they're gonna use it.
Margie Oleson:
But the truth is most companies I find, small or large, have way too many metrics. And if it's way too many, they're not telling the story, and they don't even remember. So we go to the other end of the spectrum, and we start with, okay, leader. What are those 3 to 5 things who you really are this year? What are you going after this year? And if it's more than that, what can you pair back? Because you're just diluting it.
Matt Jones:
Do you do it annually? Is it like a Well,
Margie Oleson:
we first first, we do it once. We do it once. Right. And we because, usually, it needs to be, hair down. Yes. Or, it needs to be, communicated. I once did a, was a came in and did a consulting gig with a consulting firm, a mom and pop shop that had 20 consultants under them, and they actually were married. And when I came in and did the interviews, even the 2 of them, the owners of the company, did not have the same view of what services they were providing.
Matt Jones:
Sure.
Margie Oleson:
So they're everybody's just sort of all over the place. They had job descriptions with all kinds of roles and responsibilities, and all of that was not actually what was happening day to day. So we start so so there's this sort of coming to the the meeting of the minds, and it starts with the leader unless you have ownership that is shared. And you make decisions. You and your top team make decisions about who you are, and then you build some systems, but lowercase s. Not fancy systems, not fancy metrics. Back of the napkin. Back of the napkin met systems and back of the napkin metrics that say, here's what we're going after.
Margie Oleson:
And by the way, here's how we know how we're doing. And if you're not sure what the metric should be, just ask the person in the meeting who doesn't talk much. They know. Collectively, you'll figure it out. And then each person who has a group of people that they lead, that person will call them a manager. Their job is to make sure that every single person let's say there are 5 of them, knows what you 3 to 5 things you're going after, knows the metrics that are gonna tell you how it's going. They each know what your team collectively fits into that bigger picture, and then they each know how their role fits into their team's bigger picture and how the and how you think they're doing. So none of this annual performance stuff, not semiannual, not quarterly.
Margie Oleson:
Performance foreman should be an ongoing conversation, but not a negative. It's, here are the 5 things that you should be doing, and we should be we are checking in routinely, informally, but strategically, we're checking in to talk about the things that you're not getting done, why, and how can I help, and then we start to hold people accountable? So those roles and responsibilities that usually have far too many words or they actually just don't fit. There aren't enough words. They just don't fit what's happening. You get really, really clear and then you document in the simplest way how are we gonna know how we're doing, and then you test it. You run it for a few months. And then you have these strategic conversations where you can take one of your strategy sessions can be about metrics. The other 2 meetings are there's a quarterly conversation that is very that's a half day, and it is completely about how are we doing.
Margie Oleson:
And that would be a place where you would, tweak the goals and talk about, okay. We said we weren't gonna do that anymore, and I see you have a new customer that's that you promise, we're doing that. That's the place to have that conversation. So that's the 3rd type of meeting is the quarterly all day or half day where you get away from work, the leaders, and you lead together and you look at stuff and you say it's not working to these metrics aren't telling us what we need to know. And then the 4th meeting is an annual, and that's an off-site, and that really is setting the goals and the strategy for the next year. But the metrics should be you should be able to write them off recite them off the top of your
Matt Jones:
head. Mhmm.
Margie Oleson:
So if you're if you have 5 nuggets, boulders, whatever you call buckets in your company for the things that you do or go after, Each of those leaders at the top should be able to rattle off the 2 or 3 metrics that go with each of those buckets to tell you how they're doing. And the one thing that we always add when I work with teams is behavior metrics.
Matt Jones:
Mhmm.
Margie Oleson:
Are how are the meetings going? That's a metric. Are people on camera? Are have our meetings gone down? You should have fewer meetings. You by the way, you're gonna have far fewer meetings and get much more done. Are we, are people leaving, you know, before are do people feel trained, fully trained? Are we onboarding in a way that they know what I'm thinking and they know how I think they're doing. That's a metric. You can start adding behavior metrics. And when you do, all of this stuff starts to become more normal because I'll tell you, You do this stuff in other areas of your life. We do this at home sometime some of us.
Margie Oleson:
We're much more open about how what if we have a group, a system that's a group, we do not expect it to go smoothly. We put some practices in place so we can each kind of keep each other up to date, and we're asking to be intentional. That's how you bring the art and science to work is those things that we know about, do them a little bit more intentionally work. Now it takes longer at first, and it doesn't feel good. And it's like any habit, and you do wanna give up. And some, you know, some, things surface that are really unpleasant, but they've been under the surface all the time. Right. But once you start to and, again, none of it's none of it's rocket science.
Margie Oleson:
You really can do all of this. You're spending more money. You can do all of this. It just you have to tweak your process. The leader needs to lead. The top team needs to get in sync, and then they need to cascade and roll their teams in that same direction. Mhmm. And practice, practice, practice.
Matt Jones:
Yeah. Awesome. Alright. Great. Well, I mean, I feel like we could probably talk for days on this one topic, but I suppose in the interest of mapping it up. My my summary from from this is as as I have said earlier and I always say on the show, like, conversations and communication will solve 99% of the issues that are arising or will arise within your business. I think from my experience, having a A cadence and a structure to how you address those conversations, call meetings, or whatever you wanna do, but having some sort of structure to them is quite important, and and like you said earlier, making sure that when you do shop to meetings, there is a you're not wasting time. There's a clear outcome for what that meeting is.
Matt Jones:
I I think that will help people, and, yes, I think, like, one thing I suppose we haven't touched on, and maybe we talk about this in the next episode, and if we do, let me know, but In is the the development and the emergence of leaders within an organization as opposed to, like Like, when you start rolling out this structure, you will inevitably see some people will just leave because they don't like it.
Margie Oleson:
Yep.
Matt Jones:
And some people may step up. And so
Margie Oleson:
And some people may be asked to go.
Matt Jones:
A 100%, yeah, without question. So I that's probably a conversation maybe for the the next the next podcast, but, I think it's important then for you guys that that listening, watching is I I recommend tuning into that because this is an important part of strategic growth when you're trying to get the right team members on board in the right positions, and a lot of the time, it's certainly been my experience anyway when you're trying to develop, It's very hard to hire for higher level managers that haven't been through, the trenches with other areas of the business. You know? Like, it's great having someone who sales process, you could step into, you know, that, like, managing that department because they understand the process, and they understand the metrics, and the KPIs, and the outputs, and all that kind of stuff. So You gotta spend the time in developing those people. It's very hard to hire someone, I found, anyway, directly into that position.
Margie Oleson:
Yep. The other thing you want in your top team is people who have a systems view. They get what it's like to be in someone else's shoes even if they don't know that particular work. They're they're able to lead together as a group, but I'll tease a little bit for our next session. So when we're talking about building a leadership, you're talking about building a leadership structure, a leadership cadence, a leadership development program, a capability so that and that really is your number one job as a leader is to develop the people under you. But I am fascinated that after all these decades of organizations being in existence, how did we get to the point where middle managers are expected to do their jobs and manage up. How did we ever get to the point where it was okay if I'm a senior leader that someone feels like they have to manage me. Imagine if the teenager in the household has to manage up.
Margie Oleson:
The the the bug stops at it starts at the top. It's very linear for some of this. I shouldn't have to manage up. As a matter of fact, you should be available to me as a middle manager. You should help develop me. You should help me be successful, and then I am the part of the network that manages the people that you hired me to manage. And so managing up should not be a thing. That just means that leaders at a higher level are not as engaged.
Margie Oleson:
Mhmm. So we could talk about
Matt Jones:
that next time. Awesome. Well, if it's been a great episode, we better wrap this one up, but, where can people get hold of you, Margie?
Margie Oleson:
So I am Margie dot Olsen. It's o l e s o n on LinkedIn. You'll find all kinds of free resources that I post every day for meetings and cohesion as a team. And then you can go out to my website, olson, oiles0ndashconsulting.com, and you'll find a case study that pulls all this information together and videos and all kinds of about these topics.
Matt Jones:
And I'll put links to all that stuff in the show notes too. I've got them all sitting here in front of me. So if you guys out there that wanna check that out, head across to .com and search Margie, m a r g I e, and, when this episode goes live, you'll be able to find those, links to the, those resources. Margie, let's wrap this up, and we'll come back with the following episode where we're gonna talk specifically about change management, and for those of you guys that aren't familiar with that, what that actually means. It means making change within team structure amongst many other things, I'm sure. Margie, give us a give us a 30,000 foot overview of what that conversation's gonna look
Margie Oleson:
like. So the way the brain is, it does not like change. It's keeping us alive, so it needs everything to be sort of similar. So we have to lead the brain when we want something that is a problem that we need to change or we have something exciting that we wanna go after. The brain has to be led by us, so we'll talk about that. How to help that organizations with multiple people do that at the same time.
Matt Jones:
Beautiful. Okay. Well, that is a wrap. Thanks for tuning in, guys. I hope you enjoyed that podcast. Please, if you did head across the iTunes and leave us review, we would very much appreciate that. Anyway, if you are a project based trade business and you work in solar or bathroom renovations or kitchen renovations or roofing or something along those lines, and you would like to see some of the results that we've been showcasing in our marketing On for your business, thousands of percent return on ad spend. 2000, 3000, 5000, 7000, 13,000% return on ad spend.
Matt Jones:
Please head across the tradie.wikiforward/pod for podcast. That's tradie.wikiforward/pod for podcast. It will be well worth the conversation, and I can't wait to chat with you.