EntreLeadership - #241: Dr. Marshall Goldsmith—4 Ways to Win Now

Episode Date: January 8, 2018

After years spent traveling the globe working with top CEOs, world-renowned leadership coach and best-selling author Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has discovered a universal truth: We all make mistakes. And oftentimes, even the seemingly inconsequential ones (for instance, not saying thank you enough) can undermine the most skilled, charismatic leaders. Luckily, there are four behaviors you can adopt right now that can help put you on a more successful—and likely more profitable—leadership path. And though Marshall’s advice is simple and straightforward, don’t expect real change to come overnight without some major commitment and determination on your end. As Marshall likes to say, the challenge in life is not the understanding; it’s the doing. Tune in to find out how to make the most of Marshall’s proven and practical methods in your own business. Also, our very own Armando Lopez, Executive Director of Human Resources, joins us to answer your questions. entreleadership.com/podcast What Got You Here Won't Get You There EntreLeadership Summit Decision Making Checklist 2018 Small Business Marketing Trends Report Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message for Ken with the details. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Really excited to bring to you a leadership coaching legend. None other than Marshall Goldsmith is our feature conversation. world renown, the book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, How Successful People Become Even More Successful.

Now, the book's been out a decade. If you haven't read it, this is going to be a great treat for you. Also, we have a special in-studio guest helping me out with Ken's Electronic Mail. He is Armando Lopez, our executive director of human resources, taking your calls. And then, of course, free tools to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profit. Well, let's get right to it. Marshall Goldsmith has written 35 books. He's got more superlatives than I could possibly read to you, widely considered the most successful, prestigious business coach in the world, a fantastic coach of leaders. And this book has been out a decade. I'm going to give you a

little bit of a walking book report. I know you're going to enjoy it. Here is Marshall Goldsmith. Well, Marshall, this is a great treat to have you with us on the program, and I've got to tell you 10 years since what got you here won't get you there has been out. And I got to tell you, it is such a classic, really excited about our conversation. Now, we won't be able to cover all the 20 habits, but I want to dive into certain chapters that I just found to be so enlightening. I think our audience will love as well, especially if they've not read the books. Let's jump into chapter three entitled The Success Delusion. or why we resist change. I think this is so helpful for all of us because we as human beings, if we can't figure out

what you're writing in this book, there's not a whole lot of hope. So let's talk about it. Why do we resist change? Well, again, my mission in life is helping successful leaders achieve positive long-term change in behavior, which is a little counterintuitive. So if you do a Google search, helping successful leaders, the top 500 hits 450 or me. It's counterintuitive to focus on helping successful people get better. Now, why is it particularly hard for successful people to change?

Any human or, in fact, any animal will replicate behavior that's followed by positive reinforcement. The more successful we are in life, the more positive reinforcement we get, and we fall into something called the superstition trap. Now, what's that sound like? I behave this way. I am successful. therefore I must be successful because I behave this way. Wrong. Everyone I work with is mega successful.

They're all either CEOs or could be CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies. And I always tell them this. You're a success. You behave this way. You're successful because you do a lot of things right in spite of doing some things that are stupid. And you know what? I've never seen anybody that's so wonderful.

We have nothing on that in stupid or nothing on that in spite of category. We all got a little in spite of. Boy, that's true. So how do you square that belief, and I believe that to be true? How do you square that with, you know, there are just some weaknesses that we need to try to mitigate versus try to make better? Because I certainly believe that certain weaknesses we have, we can put a lot of time and effort. We're just not going to be able to improve them enough to be able to market them or do something else. Are you specifically speaking towards behaviors that affect others and our ability to grow?

Well, let me talk about something that's related to what you're talking about kind of like, do you build on your strengths or do you improve your areas for improvement? Yes. And let me explain how I see that. That build on your strength thing makes sense at the level of the occupation. Within the occupation makes absolutely no sense. Let me explain. You're a golfer. You might say, well, I'm a golfer.

I'm real good at driving. I'll just practice drives. The best driver in the world can't even make the pro tour. That's right. Well, if you're a golfer, you have to play the whole game. If you're a CEO, you have to play the whole game. For example, I went to Indiana University. Mark Spitz was there. He's an Olympic champion swimmer. Well, he's a great swimmer. On the other hand, within swimming, he needs to do what it takes to be a great swimmer. The CEOs I coach, you know, they're not comedians and they're not golfers. They're CEOs. They need to do what it takes to be a great CEO, though. And they can't just blow it off and say, I don't like that. Therefore, I'll just. just ignore it. Right. Okay, good. I love that.

I knew you were going to take us there, but I think that's an important distinction for people who maybe focus so much on strengths. What is the mindset when you sit down, I want to take you back to your answer just a few moments ago, when you sit down with a client and these are wildly successful men and women, and you say, all right, let's look at some stuff you need to work on. What is the mindset that you try to get them to so that they can truly receive the instruction and the coaching? Well, in my coaching, I have a unique billing system. I don't get paid one cent if my clients don't get better.

And better is not judged by me or them. It's judged by everyone around them. So my motivation to work with people don't care is incredibly low. Because they're not going to get better and I'm not going to get paid. So the first thing I learned is people don't care. Don't waste your time. So I only work with people who care to start with. I'm not really in the motivational business.

I'm in the help successful people get better business. And I give them feedback, confidential feedback on what everyone around them things. They're key stakeholders. What I say then is, look, here's the way they see you. Now, you told me these people were important. I didn't tell you they were important. You told me. You told me their opinions mattered. Well, okay, I interviewed them all. Here are their opinions. Is this that person you want to be? Now, if it is, fine. You don't need me. If you want to change, I can help you. It's up to you. It's not up to me. You see, what I tell my clients is, I don't get paid because I'm a good coach. I get paid because you're a good client.

don't make it all about me. Because the second, in a coaching relationship, the client makes it about the coach, well, it's all a coach critique. They're not trying to get better. They're just judging the quality of your advice. That's good. All right. So I love this.

You took us right to chapter six of the book, which is entitled Feedback. For those of you taking notes, page 114, Marshall lays out the four commitments. And you just talked about it when you coach somebody, they give you the list of important people. you go to those important people and you ask them to make the following four commitments. And I bring this up, folks, because in this chapter, Marshall says, okay, this is how you need to be using these four commitments with people as you want to get better as you lead other people and you're working with other people. So here they are. I'll just quickly list them out, Marshall, and let you kind of teach a bit. Number one is let go of the past.

Number two is tell the truth. Number three, be supportive and helpful, not cynical or negative. and then finally, number four, pick something to improve yourself, so everyone is focused more on improving than judging. Why those four commitments, Marshall? Well, I ask my clients, number one, my coaching process is very different in terms of my clients, it's not a secret they have a coach. My book Triggers has endorsed by 27 major CEOs. Now, I'm very proud of that because 30 years ago, no CEO would admit to having to coach. Today, these 27 very important people, CEO of the year in the United States, President of the World Bank, head of the mail clinic, etc. They'll stand up and say they have a coach. Mine is all very open and transparent. Everyone has to reach out to their stakeholders and I say, you know, I got feedback, for example. I want to be a better listener. Please give me ideas to help me. Now, the four commitments, let's take one at a time. The first one is let go of the past. After they've already got feedback, I tell their key stakeholders, don't talk about the past. You can't change it anyway. Focus on the future.

not the past, focus on what they can do, not what they cannot do. Number two, be positive and supportive, not cynical or sarcastic. If I reach out to you and try to improve and you're my stakeholder, and you act cynical, sarcastic, negative, I'm going to quit. I'll say, to heck with this, it's not worth it. If you're positive and supportive, I'll continue. Then tell the truth. Everyone around my clients, I say, look, tell the truth.

Now, I make them all swear to tell the truth. I'm not naive. I know they're not all going to tell the truth, but improves the odds it will. And then finally, you pick something to do better. So, for example, if you reach out to me and say, you know, stakeholder Marshall, I want to be a better listener. Please give me ideas to help me. Then I also say, you know what, I can get better too. Here's something I want to get better at.

Please give me ideas to help me. The client I coached probably had the biggest improvement, needed to improve the least, by the way. 200 people got better. Why everyone started trying to help each other, not judge each other. Wow. Okay. staying in chapter six, one big heading, you say you challenge the reader, stop asking for feedback and then expressing your opinion. It seems intuitive, yet it isn't. Why is that? It is so hard.

The first thing that we want to do when we ask for input is the last thing we should do. What's that? Ask for input, then express my opinion. If I ask you for feedback or input and start expressing my opinion, what does that sound like, almost invariably? Defensiveness, denial, rationalization, and making excuses. You know, I have feedback back at the office from thousands of people evaluating their bosses. Half a do I have feedback that sounds like this. You know, I think you're a great boss because I love the quality of your excuses. Never read that before. Fight that urge to make excuses and just shut up and listen. Now, I also teach people, promise to do everything people say. Leadership's not a popularity contest. What I'd say is,

look, thank you for your ideas. I can't promise to do everything. I'm going to listen and do what I can. Can't change the past. I can change your future. And you know what? I can't get better to everything. I can certainly get better at this. And I'm going to work hard and involve you and ask you to help me get better. You also challenge us in this chapter number six on how to get good feedback on our own. It's kind of like out in the field, the everyday office, get those radars up or those antennas up, rather. A couple of things you list on page 119, I want to just have you teach on. Solicit contrary opinions. Again, I think this is really hard for human beings in general, certainly strong personalities who have their own opinion. And then you've got to go solicit. Wait a second, Marshall. You're telling me I got to solicit, ask for contrary opinions?

I have two-part question there. Number one, what's the best way to do that? And then number two, what's the best way to receive the opinion? Well, okay, let me answer both. The first thing is, in terms of soliciting the opinions, you need to let people know where you are on the decision curve. So, for example, if the decision is already made, don't solicit a contrary opinion.

Right. You know, if it's a done deal, don't sit there and say, what do you think because it really doesn't matter what they think. On the other hand, there's a continuum. You might say to the person, you know, I'm probably going to do it this way. I've almost made up my mind, but I'd like to know everything that could possibly go wrong. That's fine. You may say, you know, I'm really not sure how I'm going to do it. There's my idea right now. I'm totally kind of confused. What do you think? Or you might say, really, I want to know different opinions. I haven't really got any idea about this one. What do you think? So you see, there's a whole curve. The key is

none of those are right or wrong. It's just which one fits the exact situation. And then when you get a different opinion, realize different people have different views and it's okay. Fight that urge to judge the opinion, to prove they're wrong, to prove their right, and learn to just shut up and listen and thank them and let them know you're going to think about it. Now, for example, I say, I want to be a better listener, give me three ideas. What I teach people is you don't judge what they say, you listen, even in a positive way. Now, you might say, why not positive? You give me three ideas. First idea, that's a great idea.

Second idea. Well, that's an interesting idea. Third idea. Nothing. What message did I give you about your ideas? Excellent, fair, fail. You see, I'm not listening. I'm grading.

I'm judging. And when especially leaders do that to people, they learn to look in your eyes. You know what they're going to tell you? Exactly what they think you want to hear. They're just going to feed ideas to you that they think you want to hear. You're not going to learn anything. Boy, that is such a great point.

I want to stay here because you also challenge us to do what you just said, which is just listen in meetings, become a better listener. Now, we've got a lot of small business owners, entrepreneurs, strong personalities, listening in Marshall. So this question is on behalf of them, all right? So if they're honest, they probably are saying, all right, I don't know if my team in key meetings are really telling me what they think. Like Marshall just said, they're reading me.

I'm a strong personality. I'm the founder, whatever it is. And they tell me what I want to hear. So how do I begin to shift that, to get to a point where I'm doing what Marshall says and I'm listening, but I'm not only listening, I have created an environment where people are actually saying what they really think. Well, I'm going to answer that question about three different ways, and they're all going to come from different parts of that book. Oh, that's good. The first one is, as a leader, avoid adding too much value.

Now, what does that mean? You're the entrepreneur, you're the founder. I'm some young, smart, aggressive person. I come to you with an idea. You think it's a great idea. Your natural tendency is that founder, as that leader, so that's a nice idea. Why don't you add this to it?

Well, the problem is the quality of the idea may go up 5%. My commitment to execute may go down 50%. It's no longer my idea. Now it's your idea. Incredibly hard for smart, successful people, especially with technical backgrounds, engineer, scientists, not to constantly go through life, adding value. One of my good coaching clients retired a few years ago, is named J.P. Garnier. JP was the CEO of a large drug company, Glaxo Smith Klein. I asked J.P., what did you learn about

leadership as the CEO of Glaxo Smith Klein? He said, I've learned a very hard lesson. And by the way, when I teach people, I say, every time you get promoted in life, this lesson will become more real for you. He said, my suggestions become more real. orders. Now, if they're smart, they're orders. If they're stupid, they're orders. If they're, I want them to be orders, they're orders. If I don't want them to be orders, they're orders anyway. For nine years, I trained the admiral's in our United States Navy. Was the first thing I trained those fine admirals when you get that little star? Your suggestions become orders. See, admirals don't make suggestions. When an admiral makes a suggestion, what is the response? Yes, sir. Sir, yes, sir. That's

suggestion is an order. I asked my friend JP, what did you learn from me when I was your coach? He said, you taught me one lesson, help me be a better leader and have a happier life. I asked him, what was that one lesson? He said, before I speak, breathe and ask myself one question, is it worth it? Is it worth it? And he said, as the CEO of Glaxo Smith-Kline, 50% of the time before I speak, I'd breathe, is it worth it? You know what I decide? Am I right? Maybe. Was it worth it? No. So back to that small business owner, that founder, you get that suggestion, fight that urge to talk and fight that urge to add value and recognize, yes, your suggestions are probably going to be orders. What does that mean? Don't make so many

stupid suggestions. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, easier said than done, right, Marshall? It's very hard. Let me tell you, one of the great leaders I ever met, a man named Alan Malawi. I don't know if you know, Alan was sealed the Ford Motor Company. Stock went from $1 to $18.40, sense, CEO of the year in the United States, an amazing leader and a wonderful human. I'm Alan's coach, right? He improves more than anyone I've ever coached before and he was great to start with. I talked to Alan. I said, Alan, of all the people I've coached, you know, I spent the least amount of time with you and you improved the most. In fact, I made a chart. On one dimension, it was called time spent with Marshall Goldsmith, and the other dimension

was called improvement. Turned out there was a clear negative correlation between spending time with me and getting better. I thought, that's a troubling chart. I go talk to my friend Alan said, what should I learn about coaching from you? Two lessons. He said, lesson number one, your biggest challenge is a coach is customer selection. You got the right customer you win. You got the wrong customer you lose. And he said, number two, never make coaching about yourself and your ego and how smart

you think you are. Make it about the great people you coach. Then he said, as a CEO for in my job, and that different. I don't design the cars. I don't build the cars. I don't sell the cars. I can have great people. And he said, every day I drove to work, I tell myself,

leadership's not about me, leadership is about them. Well, for that entrepreneurial founder, that's the biggest challenge. You see, Mr. Ms. Founder, you've been a great achiever. You've been a great individual contributor, and it's all been about you. That does not mean you're going to be a great leader because it's all about them. When Alan went to Ford, he didn't know anything about car companies at all. People said, how can you manage a car company? You don't ever been a car company in your life. Stock went from $1 to $18.40. Not too much complaining.

You know why? I'm going to teach you one thing Alan did that your founders, your listeners need to learn. Alan said, back to, give me the bad news, Alan said, okay, top 16 leaders, top five priorities, red, yellow, green, rank them all.

First meeting, companies losing $17 billion, with a B, 17 billion. 16 leaders, top 16, top five priorities, right? All green. So Alan goes, well, let's see. Now, we're losing $17 billion and everybody's on plan. He said, I guess the plan must be to lose at least $17 billion because that's right where we're going. Then he said, let's do it again. Finally, somebody said, red, red. Alan stands up and applauds. And you know what he says? Thank you.

Thank you for having the courage to tell me the truth. Thank you. Then he said, you're red you're not on planning you don't know how to get there you are lost then he said I want to assure you of one thing my name is Alan Malali I am the CEO of the Ford Motor Company and you know what I know a lot less than you do why don't we just find some people to know what they're doing and get him to help us he said 10 minutes later problem was solved how many CEOs have you ever heard say that you're lost and you don't know the answer let me tell you something, I know less. I don't hear that too much. How about you? You heard that a lot?

No, you just don't. It's, it's people are afraid to be that transparent. And you know what? It makes so much sense. You don't have to pretend. Right. And by the way, what if Alan would have said, hey, have you thought of this? What would have happened? They would have immediately moved on it to impress the new series. Sir, yes, sir. That's right. Thank you, sir. And then, oh, by the way, the CEO told me to tell you. That's right. Yeah. Unbelievable. So this takes incredible discipline to do this, by the way. Yeah, it does. I mean, and also let's address some.

I think this is the case, but correct me if I'm wrong. It also takes a very secure and healthy leader to be able to do that. Oh, yeah. It takes a lot of security because we want to, we want to pretend that we know what we don't. That's right. We want to pretend we're smart. I was on the board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years. Now, I got ranked number one leadership thinker in the world.

my intellect compared to Peter Drucker was that of a 10-year-old. A guy was so smart. He taught me so many things. One thing he said is our mission in life is to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart we are and not to prove how right we are. Well, we get so lost trying to prove how smart we are and right we are, we forget I'm not here on earth to prove I'm smart. I'm not here the CEO of the Ford Motor Company to prove I'm smart.

I'm not here to prove I'm right. I'm here to turn this company around. That's what I'm here for. Yeah. Well, see, Alan, he had the courage to say, look, I don't know the answer. I don't have a clue. It's okay. It's okay. Let's actually talk to some people.

And by the way, it doesn't matter where they are in their hierarchy. Yeah. What if it's a union person? Who cares? That's right. Who cares? Yeah, so 10 minutes later, give us the rest of the story and fast forward. 10 minutes later, they've got a solution.

But you as a leadership coach, what happened in that room? It wasn't just the solution, but what took place in the hearts and the minds of the rest of those 16 leaders as they saw Alan lead that way? Total breakthrough. What happened is I realized we're not here to be pretentious. We're not here to try to look good. We're not here to play games. We're to turn the company around. When Alan went to Ford, he said, we're going to have some rules in terms of how we treat each other.

If you read the book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. It's all right in the book. was his coach. These are things like, you know, don't make destructive comments, don't put people down, treat people with respect, have fun, not at others' expense. Now, he said, they agreed on the rules. He said, this is it. Now, he did something also I've never seen another leader do, no tolerance for bad behavior. He said, once we agree upon the rules, this is the way we're going to act, that sort of might have, maybe. He's in a team meeting. Somebody uses a cell phone. What's he say? Stop. Is there something on a cell phone you need to share with the group?

Two people talk to each other. Stop. Is there something you want to share with the group? Destructive comments, none. Cynicism, zero. Sarcasm? Nata. One guy goes to Bill Ford and says, Bill, this is a childish Boy Scout nonsense.

He can't tell me how to talk and act. Who is this guy? Bill said he's the CEO. Go talk to him. Alan looked at this guy and said, you know what? I made a choice and you made a choice. Goodbye. second guy tries. I made a choice, new made a choice. Goodbye. After that, 14 of the 16 people that led forward to bankruptcy were the same exact people who turned the

company around. What changed him. He didn't bring in new people. He's the same people. And by the way, the two that got fired, fired themselves. That's right. That's right. He made it very clear. Oh, that's so good. My goodness. You know, you should actually just do a brand new audio book where you just tell stories. You don't even write it down. You just tell stories of some of your coaching sessions. This is so great. I've got to get back on track here. So great. I want to go to Chapter 7. And again, folks, we're doing high-level stuff. I mean, we could literally spend hours and hours going through the book. But you call it your magic move. And it's the chapter title, Apologizing. You tell a great little story about Harvey Pinnock's Little Red Book, but why do you call apologizing your magic move? And then what do we as leaders need to hear from you on this? We all make mistakes. It's okay.

Now, what do I teach leaders to do when we make a mistake? You apologize. You get up and say, for example, you know, in the past, I got a lot of feedback. I haven't been listening nearly as effectively as I should. The first thing I'd like to say is, I'm sorry. Please accept my apologies. There is absolutely no excuse. If I've not listened to you or the people around you, I'm sorry.

Please accept my apologies. Here's the key. We all make mistakes. It's okay. When we make a mistake, what should we do? Apologize. And by the way, here's what I teach leaders. If you want everyone else to take responsibility, you go first.

Let them watch you take a little. little responsibility. Let them watch you be responsible for your own behavior. When you make mistake, suck it up, stand there, admit you made the mistake, apologize and move on. Don't make excuses. Don't blame others. Look in the mirror. Take responsibility. When you begin to model that, Marshall, what happens with the culture of not just the leaders or the direct reports that maybe you're apologizing to, but the culture of the entire organization? everybody starts doing the same thing. All of a sudden, it's okay.

Yeah, one of my good coaching clients years ago was Steve Sanger. Steve was CEO of General Mills. And he got feedback on coaching. It was pretty abysmal he talks about. It was like 10 percentile. And he got feedback. He talks to everyone. He says, look, I got this feedback.

I need to be a better coach. Help me. He did everything I taught him. A year later, he got ranked 90. He gets up in front of the group and says, you know what? I got feedback on being a good coach, and it was pretty bad. I worked real hard, and now it's real good. I just want to say thank you.

I couldn't have done this without you. You gave me the feedback in the first place, tell me what I needed to improve. You gave me the idea is to help me improve. Now I'm getting better, and you know what? I'm going to try to get better yet. First thing I want to do is thank you

because I'm only getting better because you helped me. Now, he's the CEO. He didn't have to say that. He did. Yeah. Does his credibility go down or up when he does that? Oh, way off the charts. Way up.

And as a result, the trust. Trust is really this open source kind of leadership and relational leading. It's just going to build such huge trust. Well, that leads us to Chapter 10, which is thanking. And really the source of thanking people comes from gratitude. If a leader feels like they may be their gratitude tank is a little bit bare. It's done a lot in there. How do they build that up, especially when they've got so much going on?

How do we build gratitude? Well, the first thing I would like to say on thanking, I want to go to a couple of examples. One is a story in my own life. I fly all the time. On American Airlines alone, I have over 11 million frequent fly miles. I've been to 100 countries. Had a couple obviously bad experiences. One, I was flying on a small plane, and landing gear didn't work.

That's bad. Landing gear doesn't work, very bad. And this was a small plane, so they had to circle around until they ran out of gas before we landed. Now, see, normally you try to avoid running out of gas. They were attempting to run. This is very bad, right? So I'm thinking, well, there's a high probability. I'm going to be dead here.

Now, when they're out of gas, that means when they crash, I will be lightly toasted rather than char broiled. But I'm thinking, this doesn't sound good. So I thought, what do I regret in life? You know, my biggest regret? I didn't thank enough people. So many people did so many nice things for me, and I should have thanked him.

And I didn't. When I landed, I said, I'm going to start thanking people. I think I do pretty good at that now because I just had that experience of life. And one of my good coaching clients gave me a tool that I'm going to share with everyone listening on how to improve on this issue of recognition and expressing gratitude to people. And it's an amazing tool. It doesn't take much time and it works. This was George Boris.

George was the CEO of Toyota Financial Services. Just a great guy. He came up with his system. I didn't make this up. He did. He taught it to me. He made a list of all the important people in his life. life, friends, family members, coworkers, direct reports, key customers, all the important people,

he made a list and a spreadsheet. One day for every day of the week, every day he looked at that sheet and asked himself, did someone on this page do something I should recognize? If they did, email, voicemail said thank you, not a big deal, but he did something. If they didn't, he didn't do anything. He didn't want to be a hypocrite or a phony. In one year, he went from a six percentile to a 94 percentile and giving recognition. That's all he did.

Wow. Well, it's that day to day to day to day, day to day, day to day reminder. Because if you don't have that day-to-day system and measurement built in, as you say, we get so busy, we just tend to, it doesn't happen. You entitled, Chapter 14 is entitled Special Challenges for People in Charge. And I smiled when I read this because I thought, you know, this is you being very, very honest. And I want you to summarize what you're challenging. we have a lot of leaders who simply put are in charge. Title doesn't matter. They're in charge on many different levels.

Right. And I want you to give us a summary. What's the challenge here? Well, one of them I talk about is letting go. And this is particularly big for entrepreneurs. The biggest challenge for the entrepreneur is, you know, you were the expert. You're the authority. It's you, you, you, you.

And then all of a sudden you got to let go and it's them, them, them. A lot of entrepreneurs can't do it. And ultimately, if you can't delegate and you can't let go, you don't get scale. You can only do so much and the business just stops. I don't know if it's number one, but it's got to be close to the number one problem of entrepreneurial leaders. So a suggestion I have for people to improve delegation is you have a dialogue with each person you manage. You look at each key area of responsibility and you ask them two questions. Question number one, you say, are there areas where, you know, I get too involved?

you may feel a micromanaging. Then you also ask them, on the other hand, are the areas where you'd like me to get more involved. And what they might say is, you know, Mr. Entrepreneurial Manager, over here and here, I don't need that much help. You're overdoing it. Over here, I actually need more help. So you want to let go.

You want to let go in the right way. And then the second question you ask, and this is really good for entrepreneurs, do you ever see me doing something that I, as the founder of, in the CEO of this company don't need to be doing that someone else can do beside me. What is it? Well, you don't have to always agree with just asking these questions, you get great ideas.

And you realize, wait a minute, okay, back when the company started, I used to do that. That made a lot of sense. We've got 200 people working here now. I shouldn't be doing that anymore. I should have someone else do that. I need to let go. So that is one of the great challenges for people in charge, letting go. Yes.

Letting go. Well, there's so much in this book. And again, it's been out for a decade still helping people all around the world. If you're in our audience, you need to run and go get it. What got you here won't get you there. So very, very true. I'd love to have you share with our audience if they can't hire somebody like you. Obviously, they can go get the book and they can read the book.

But this idea beyond the book, ways that they can get coaching, or at least the elements of coaching, when they may not be able to obviously hire a Marshall Goldsmith. What would you challenge them to be thinking about? I'm going to teach your viewers something that takes three minutes a day. Three minutes cost nothing. It will help them get better at almost anything. Wow. Now, some are skeptical.

You know what they're thinking right now? Impossible. Three minutes a day costs nothing. Help me get better at almost anything. Well, that sounds too good to be true. Half the people that start doing this quit within two weeks. And they do not quit because it does not work. They quit because it does work.

This is called the daily question process. I talk about it at the end of the book. Now, I do this every day, and I have a peer coach who does it with me every day. Now her name is Jasmine. Every day I do this. I have a woman call me every day just to listen to me, read questions I wrote and provide answers I wrote every day. Somebody asked me, why do you do this? Don't you know the theory about how to change behavior?

I wrote the theory about how to change behavior. I do this because I know how hard it is. You see, my name is Marshall Goldsmith. I got ranked number one executive coach in the whole world. I pay a woman to call me every day just to listen to me, read questions. I wrote and provide answers I wrote every day. Why do I do this? My name is Marshall Goldsmith.

I'm too cowardly to do this by myself. I'm too undisciplined. I need help, and it's okay. My deepest learning over the past two years, we all need help. It's okay. Get over that silly macho I can do everything on my own nonsense. We all need help. I teach my classes.

I say, who needs to be a better listener? This guy raised his hand. Say, Joe, how many years you've been needing to be a better listener? He says, 30. I said, raise your hand and repeat after me. My name is Joe. I need to be a better listener. I haven't fixed this by myself in 30 years.

Who am I kidding? I'm not going to fix this by myself in the future. I need help. And it's okay. Once we admit it's okay, life is better. Now, let me tell you how the process works. I want every one of your listeners get on an Excel spreadsheet or any kind of spreadsheet. On one column, you write down a series of questions that represent what's most important in your life.

Seven boxes across, one for a day, every day of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Every question has to be answered with yes and no or a number. Then fill out a little thing out every day. Answer those questions every day. Take that test every day. At the end of the week, the Excel spreadsheet will give you a report card. I'm going to warn you in advance. That report card at the end of the week might not be quite as beautiful as the corporate values

Plot Kiff stuck up on a wall. I've been doing this for years. When you do this every day, you know what you quickly learn? Life is easy to talk. It's hard to live. Now, I'm going to share some of my questions. They're not intended to be anybody else's. If you'd like an article about this process, send me an email, Marshall at Marshallgoldsman.com,

Marshall has two wells. And I'll send you a copy of my questions in the process a little write-up about it. But here's how it works. One of my questions every day is, how many times yesterday did you proud to prove you were right? And it wasn't worth it. I almost never got a zero my whole life. Kind of hard for that old professor not to be right all the time. Now, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever tried to be right? just a little too much. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. How many angry or destructive comments did you make about people yesterday? Well, we want to treat people with respect. How come we're stabbing them in the back? How many minutes did you walk? How many push-ups? How many sit-ups? Did you say or do something nice for your wife, your son, your daughter, your grandkids? How many minutes did you write? My friend Jim Moore does this would tell you it saved his life. It didn't kind of save his life or sort of save his life. It did save his life. One of his questions every day. Are you currently updated on your physical examination. First 90 days he did this, he said no every day.

After 90 days, he said, this is embarrassing. I got to get the dumb test or quit asking the question. I'm failing to test every day, and I wrote the question. He got the test. What the doctor said, you have cancer. Now, he's going to be fine. That was many years ago. The doctor also said, had you waited, seven more months, you'd be dead. Well, he was 65 years old. He knew he should have got a physical exam. He just didn't do it. You see, you hold a mirror in your face every day. It's hard to hide. Now, everything I've just told you has been real easy to understand.

Take my word for it. It's real hard to do. Now, you've read that book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. If you read that book, would you agree you read funny story after funny story after funny story? Yep, absolutely. Tempting to read that book and think, what a bunch of idiots. How could those people be so dumb? Those idiots in the book all have IQs of 150 and they're all CEOs of multi-billion-dollar companies.

That's right. You know what they'll all tell you? This stuff is all easy to understand. This stuff is hard to do. And by the way, our challenge in life is not understanding it. Our challenge in life is doing it. Well, folks, sometimes the art of the interview is knowing when to stop. And that was such a great word.

I don't want to add anything else to it other than a sincere, heartfelt thank you on behalf of our entire audience, Marshall. Thank you for being with us. I know you're busy. You've got a lot going on. But we appreciate you here at Entree Leadership. We love your work. And I know our audience appreciate you.

We're all better for our time with you. Thank you. Well, you know, thank you so much for asking me to do this. I'm just honored that you gave me this opportunity. I got to tell you, I almost levitated during the conversation because he started telling Alan Mulali stories. And that's kind of cool because I'm going to get to. to finally meet Alan Mulali at our 2018 summit in San Antonio, Texas.

Alan will be there in person. That's going to be big fun. Hoping to score an interview for you fine folks who won't be able to be there. I'm told we have just a few seats left, and this is not like one of those, like, you know, just pull one over your eyes and try to sell a few more tickets. We opened up more seats. Those almost sold out.

So you better move quickly, May 20 through 23 in, San Antonio, Texas, if you want to get in, text one word, summit 18, summit 18, no spaces. Text that to 33444. That's 3344. That's going to be fun. We'd love to see there. All right, folks, two great resources for you. First, Entree leadership bringing you the decision-making checklist.

Obviously, this is a very valuable and relevant tool as you get started into 2018. Our team has literally put this checklist together. to help you have the structure you need in making key decisions. We know that indecision, uncertainty, all the things that go into making big decisions can't paralyze leaders. We don't want that to happen. This checklist is going to help you power through that. Ten specific things, you need to look over on this checklist

and review as you make big decisions. So you can print this out, hand it around great, great, great resource. If you want to get it, text the word decision to 3344. That's Decision 3344. And then InfusionSoft bringing you the 2018 Small Business Marketing Trends Report. What is this? Well, InfusionSoft has gone out there and talked to industry experts to see what are the actual trends for small businesses in 2018.

This is very important for you to know now because this is happening whether you're involved or not. We want you to get into the flow, know where the trends are going. How does that affect you, your company, the decisions you need to make? So this is just really good information to be aware of. As I said, you're going to get many trends, one of which would be top marketing trends for 2018, top social media insights and trends to help you with your strategy and then how other small businesses are planning to allocate digital marketing budgets.

That's just a sample of all of the trends and information in this valuable report. Go to infusionsoft.com slash 2018 report. That's infusionsoft.com slash 2018 report. If you can't remember that, don't fret. Go to the link in this episode. Show notes at entreleadership.com. All right. Joining me in the studio is Armando Lopez. I like to call him the grand poobah of all things HR. That's not his official title. He'll fix that later. and I'll probably have some disciplinary things that I'll have to go through for that. But honestly, Amanda, wouldn't you rather be called to Grand Puba? If I could talk Dave into it.

You know what? If you could, that would be great. However, though, it's different than what you normally call me as the guru of HR. I know. I change it up all the time. You do. That's the bottom line. That's the bottom line.

There it is, folks. I'm going to have three business cards. I'm going to have, you know, all of the different titles. This is going to be great. I can see it now. You know what, folks, it's just a part of my leadership philosophy. give them a technical title, but then come up with a fun title, because they would appreciate that more than their technical title.

All right. So speaking of HR, all things HR, thrilled to have you in studio. Thanks for being here with us. At every Entree Master Series, we find ourselves together on a panel, and we take these leaders' questions about HR, because it is not your daddy's HR. The world has changed in 2017, and you're one of the best, and we have an amazing culture here that we talk about all the time.

So we're going to open it up for your phone calls. with that? I am. All right, folks, let's go to Daryl, who is on the line. Daryl, you are on Entree Leadership. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. All right, we've got Armando, our guru of HR here for you. This is like, you'd have to pay big bucks for this consulting somewhere else, but you get it free. Thanks to the Entree Leadership Program. What's your question, Darrell? Hi. My question, I hired a human resource person to handle all my department over there, But being a little business like this, I have no idea what a human resource person is supposed to do for my business and how I can better utilize her for my company. Well, that's fantastic.

Great question, by the way. Hi, Darrell. Armando here. Hey, Armando. So I guess the first question I would have for you is why, what was the purpose or the need that you saw before hiring that individual? So what was it that you specifically said, if I only have. had someone to do this, that's why I'm hiring. ADP, not sure if you're familiar with that or not, that provides you with a human

resource department side. But it was just to me so I can understand it. That was a high need. Excellent. So you saw the need for someone to run your payroll analysis, kind of maybe give you a breakdown of labor, labor costs, maybe by department to manage that aspect? Yes, versus me trying to do it myself. I had no idea what any of that meant.

Okay, all right. That's fantastic. As well, you don't really need to know if you've got somebody that knows that. Did you see or do you feel other pain points in your business right now? Do you have any problems with recruiting? Are you thinking about changing benefits? Are you wanting a benchmark study that basically lets you know if you're competitive in your area or for your people? Because really those are all disciplines of human resources, right?

So this individual that's coming in, working for you, I don't know her strengths or weaknesses, but all of the things we just mentioned, including a lot more, are all disciplines inside of the human resource function. Those are different things. And I guess because I don't have that knowledge, like how you just ran that off so easily? None of that's in my brain. So I can't run that off as easily as you just did. So a lot of times I don't know what to tell her to do, but I'm paying her a nice salary for the position. And, I mean, she's always willing to work.

I just, I'm like you, I just don't know what to delegate to her to do that would also help benefit my company. Or do I just let her go because I can save that cost and just basically go back to the way I was doing it? Yeah, I think the answer to your question is, do you still have a felt need in the business? And if you have a felt need, why not utilize that resource to help you figure it out? Don't go, I guess a question is, do I just create work for them to do? so that I can keep them busy versus letting them go, then I'm going to tell you to let them go. Don't go create busy work that's not going to benefit your business

or have a return on investment. But if you're saying, hey, there's some things that I don't even know that I need. What does an HR person do? Well, then I'm going to tell you that they do everything from compensation, analysis, and management through benefits, right? So looking at benefits and what you offer your team. And benefits and perks I'm combining, but perks that you could offer that they could negotiate with other businesses that you could then offer to your team members that they would see us a benefit for working there.

Things like analysis of your payroll to let you know where you're winning and where you're not winning, either by project or by area, by department. You could look at them doing all of those kinds of things, and then you could get into, I don't know if you have any employee relations issues, but you could say, hey, can we be proactive on training and teaching this time? and I hate even saying this, but all of the inappropriate conduct that's in the media today, you could have your HR person conduct some training for your team to say what's acceptable, what's not, you know, showing the good faith effort that you're trying to maintain a phenomenal workplace. So you could do all of those things. And, Darrell, let me give you one other thing here. Here's the reality.

You identify that you needed somebody in HR to help you with this whole payroll thing, and now you're looking at, well, this person is getting that done, and it seems to be going well, but I don't feel like they're doing other things with the other time. And I think Armando is giving you a really great thing. Let me give you three R's that I think that if I've got this position, and I'm thinking of you, Daryl, right now, besides doing all the payroll stuff and all the other things that Armando's laid out, I would focus on letting this person help you run your recognition, rewards, and resources towards your team. Okay, those are three R's.

Recognition. How are you recognizing people that are doing things well? in team meetings and things like that. Have them run with that. You've got a million things in the world to think about. That's a big part of HR, culture. So have them come up with a recognition program. Because, again, 83% of people, you're ready for this?

83% of people value recognition and rewards more than they do compensation. The second thing is rewards. This could be a trophy. This could be a day off. This could be a parking space. Again, they can be driving that. And then the third thing is, as Armando said, and I'm calling it. at resources. Are you doing any type of training or investment? You know, you're familiar with

Ramsey Solutions. Are you putting your team through Financial Peace University? I think you should. I think every small business ought to pay for that for their team because if you've got a team that's winning financially, they're winning in the office. So bottom line is that would be a full-time job, Armando right there. Recognition, rewards, resources. That is a great role for an HR person, certainly in a small business where you don't have a full HR team. Absolutely. Absolutely, Ken. And, you know, one of the key things is they're your business partner, right? And so you bring them in to those three things that right now somebody's doing. And so you bring them in, you include them, and you help them, or they help you, rather, run those things.

Thank you so much. Yep. All right, we're going to go to Stacey, who is on the line in Alabama. Stacey, welcome to the Entree Leadership Program. Hi, Ken. How are you today? I am great. How are you?

Good. All right. We've got Armando Lopez, our... our guru of all things, HR here at Ramsey Solutions. So what is your question for Armando? Hi, Armando. Hi, Stacey. I have an employee, a full-time employee.

About a year ago, I noticed that our production was way down. We just weren't putting out the amount of services to our clients that we need to be putting out. And so we had a conversation. Business had increased, and this team member felt very overwhelmed. So we outsourced some of the work, and then eventually back in the summer, we hired a part-time person to help relieve some of that workload. We really dialed in on what was expected of the position, and the job still just hadn't been getting done. My part-time person is doing almost as much work as my full-time person. And I started noticing in the summer that this team member was spending a lot of time on the internet,

that didn't seem to be related to work. And so I did put a tracker on all of our work computers so that I could keep better track on where people are actually spending their time. Some days this team member spends three, three and a half hours on internet pages that aren't related to work. Stacey, can I stop you there for a second? Yes.

Okay, so you have a problem with one team member's production. You have a problem with you believe that they're spending an extraordinary amount of time on the internet on non-business-related things. And because of those two things, you go through the expense of putting in a software program for the entire organization? Yes, it was just three computers. Okay. Did you think about addressing this one person on, I think you're on the internet a lot,

and here's why I believe it? There was some reason that you felt justified by putting the software in, right? The software tracking? Yes. I checked the history, and some of the history had been erased, and some of the history that I could see was a lot of shopping pages. Okay. So this is huge, right? I really was curious about what was really going on. So here's what I think, Stacey, and I may be way off, and I think your question, and I may be wrong, and I may be leading, you're probably going to ask, should you keep her or not, right? Or something to that effect. How should you reprimand or counsel or coach? or really just exit her, right? Right, right.

Okay, and what I think, the real question is that why have you waited so long? I think you exited her the moment that you bought the software to track it. You already knew by looking at her history that she was hiding things because she was deleting some of her history. You already know that you walked by and saw her on pages that had nothing to do with work. And rather than, I think, address those things directly, and say, why are you deleting your history? Nobody else does. So let me phrase this a different way.

We don't have software tracking here at Dave Ramsey Solutions because we trust all of our employees. We trust that they're going to do the right thing at the right time and that they're going to be able to do their job. And I think that by doing the things you did, I think there's a lack of, you've lost trust in that team member's ability to do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it.

That's right. And, Stacey, I've got to ask, let me ask, why haven't you fired her right now? Like, why haven't you? Is it fear of the confrontation or is it fear of being able to replace her workload? Fear of the confrontation. I've never had to fire an employee before. Yeah. Okay. That's the hardest thing. Never really had to reprimand one. Hey, so here's the deal. Let's just take away some of the shame right now. Okay, this is normal. If you've never done it before, it's a very difficult thing the first time. Armando, let's just give her a couple of really. real techniques here, some practical next steps, because she knows she wants to fire, she knows she needs to fire her. How does she do it best? So step one, no one should ever be surprised that today is their last day. So she's got to know

how you feel about it, and she's got to know what the next course of action is. In other words, what is the exit strategy? If we're sitting down and role-playing this scenario, Ken, and I've already done all this, I'm guessing that Stacey's already had a conversation with this team member, right? So the first time should just be a conversation. Your workload is down. I see you on the internet a lot. Help me understand what that's all about. The second conversation is a much harder conversation. Your workload is down. We have a software tracking. You're spending a lot of time on things that are not business related. If this continues, you will be gone. And the third conversation is, today will be your last day because your behavior has not improved. And so your behavior has

stayed the same. The part that I think we, especially people that like to avoid confrontation, they jump right to step three. I can minimize all this into one conversation and just say, today's going to be your last day, but that's not the way we would want to be treated. We would want somebody to walk us through and tell us how to correct the behavior. And then if we choose not to, it's no longer on that owner, on that business leader. It's the team members' fault. That's right. They had an opportunity to correct it. They did not. in the process that you laid out, and Stacey, this is huge. I agree. You have total justification to fire tomorrow today. Yep. But there's a chance that she could rehabilitate and go, I've never

been challenged like this before. And you present all the evidence and go, hey, but here's the deal. It's got to be fixed. And she might just fix it. And she might just become one of the most valuable people on your team. And down the road, you look at it. And not only are you rehabilitating a situation and maybe a team member, Armando, but you're learning a valuable leadership lesson. It is a lot easier, in my opinion, to help someone behave better than it is to sometimes replace them. That's beautiful, but it's not where I thought you were going to go. What did you think I was going to do? It's much easier to handle these situations before they blossom. Well, that is true. So the very first time that we have this gut feel, that you know what,

There's something here beyond the fact that the work has escalated, right? The fact she hired somebody else part-time means that Stacey believed, okay, that is too much to ask of one person. Right. But now that I have a part-time person doing more than my full-time person, that's right? That would have been addressed immediately, right, to say, hey, wait a minute, what's going on here? Stacey, are you okay? Are things okay at home? Not Stacy, but Stacey talking to her team member.

That's right. Is there something outside of work, care and concern for our team? How would we want to be treated? And when she says, why are you asking me all these questions? It's because I have a part-time team member that's producing more than you are at full-time. Well, I brought it on because you said you couldn't handle it. And so I'm seeing a disconnect. Here's why I said what I said, Armando, about it's easier many times to, and I'm using the word rehabilitate, that's a heavy word.

But the idea is help someone along than it is to replace them. Here's why. Here's what I know. You know this. The Ken Coleman Show exists because of a recent Gallup poll that said 70% of Americans are That's right. This lady is disengaged at work. And she's not a criminal. Nope. She's spending time on social media and Pinterest and shopping sites. So here's the deal. She's

disengaged. Why is she disengaged? Some of it's on her? I'm going to go ahead and say, Stacey, some of it is on you. Absolutely. So that's why I went where I went. And Ken, I love the second part. I didn't think you were going there, but I love that piece of it because I'm also the guy charged with bringing people in here, right? Of course. And guess what? It is very hard to find people. It's a lot of work.

So it is a lot easier to take an existing team member. We already know them. We know their strengths or weaknesses, and we can put them in the right seat to win. I'm glad you agree with that because I just kind of went with that. And I knew that you might correct me as the HR executive. I was hoping you wouldn't think that. Yeah, no, that's good stuff. Big thanks to Daryl and Stacey for the calls.

Armando, thanks for hanging out with us. Really good stuff. And folks, hey, you want to engage? We'll have Armando back. You've got HR questions. Again, this guy would cost you more money than you probably are willing to pay and you get his advice for free because that's what we do here at Entree leadership. So a couple ways to do it. The way we're going to ask you to do it is email or social media at Entree leadership on social media or, of course, podcast at Entreeleadership.com. And our team will get with you and we'll set up the call. We're excited about this new form of communication. So if you would like to submit your question, you can call our voicemail 844-944-9-4-1070. We also have this number for you in the show notes at entreleadership.com. We do want your questions looking forward to this communication aspect. So, hey, give us a call. 844-944-1070.

well that's going to do it so on behalf of eric the producer our engineers will rudder and jim bab and the entire entree leadership team thank you so much for listening we'll talk with you again very soon hey folks i want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from ramsie solutions here's a sample of chris hogan's retire inspired podcast listen to be vip's people often get overwhelmed with the topics of investing and retirement at how to reach a net worth of a million That's why every episode of Retire Inspired offers effective tools and insights so that you can focus forward, get excited, and reach your high-definition future, baby. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Retire Inspired in iTunes or go to chrishogan 360.com.