EntreLeadership - #326: The Necessity of Conflict with Patrick Lencioni

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Sure, conflict at work may feel uncomfortable at times, but best-selling author and leadership expert Patrick Lencioni says it’s absolutely vital to the health of your organization. Tune in to hear Pat explain why the right kind of conflict (i.e. not mean spirited) builds trust, improves relationships, boosts productivity, and more. Also joining us are members of the Ramsey Solutions operating board, answering questions on a wide range of topics from attendees at this year’s EntreLeadership Summit.   entreleadership.com/podcast Best-selling business books by Patrick Lencioni Patrick Lencioni’s website Download: 5 Habits that Kill Team Unity EntreLeadership Summit 2020   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflict on a team is good. The fear of conflict is a dysfunction. If something matters and you have a difference of opinion, speak it out. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Entree 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.

here's what we've got coming up for you today. Pat Lynchione, he's been on the program so many times. He may have been on more than me. I don't even know. It's up there. He's one of our dear friends and a phenomenal speaker. We're going to bring you a portion of a talk he did for us recently. And we're going to have a Q&A with Ramsey Solutions board members

led by our very own entree leadership coach, Alex Judd. So let's get right to it. You know Pat Lynchione. Well, he needs no introduction. If he needs an introduction, you should feel ashamed of yourself. go Google Pat Lanchione and then buy everything he's ever done, read it, and practice it. Again, a top-rated speaker at our 2019 Entree Leadership Summit. The crowd always loves him.

He's always brilliant. So good on the producers. They decided to give you a portion of Pat's keynote from the Entree Leadership Summit stage. Here is Pat. The foundation of a great team and of a great organization is that the leaders have vulnerability-based trust with one another. It's not weird. there's nothing touch you feely about vulnerability-based trust. It's about sitting in a room and knowing that if somebody doesn't know the answer,

they're going to admit it. And if you came up with a better idea than them, they're going to go, that's a great idea. Or if they're being a total jerk, they're going to go, I'm sorry, you guys, I was totally out of line. That is a huge, huge competitive advantage when one organization has it and the other doesn't. The first thing you need to do as a leader is you need to go first and be vulnerable. See, once you go first and you're going to notice other people's

behavior as well. See, if the leader can't be vulnerable, other people on the team are not going to do that. And I've worked with leaders who struggled with us, and I worked with a famous guy in the technology world. You've heard of this guy. He was the CEO of a company, and he was famous, brilliant, and intelligent and intimidating. Nobody on the team ever disagreed with him. No bad news came to him. They never disagreed and never pushed back on him. So the head of human resources, God bless her. She went to him and said, listen, nobody's telling you the truth. You need to get them to open up to you more. You need to do something to open up these relationships. And he didn't really, wasn't into it, but he agreed kind of begrudgingly to do 360 feedback,

which I don't love 360 feedback. I think there's better ways. But sometimes that's what he, that's all he was willing to do. So we did it. We solicited the forms to everybody on his team. They all gave him back to us. We tabulated the results. My firm did this.

We gave him the results. And he proceeded to share those results with no one. So the head of HR went to him and said, hey, you got to show people what you learned about yourself. And he said, okay, I'll do it at the next staff meeting. So at the next staff meeting, he stood up. in front of the team with his report. And he allowed me to observe the meeting since I administered the tool. So I was sitting back here off to the side on a little chair that had wheels on the bottom

of it, which would become relevant here in just a second. And he stands up and he says, okay, it says here I'm not a very good listener. Huh? What do you guys think? And this actually happened. And I remember it because when I saw it, most of my books are fiction. I said, well, I couldn't put that on a book because nobody would believe it. They went around that table and said, I think you're a good listener. I do too. I think you're a fine listener. I think you're a good listener. good yeah yeah you too and he was like okay good and I'm sitting there on my chair thinking oh I can't believe this and he says so the next one says I don't give enough praise or enough feedback huh I thought I'd gotten better at this what do you guys think oh I think you're great I think

you're got a lot better I don't have a problem with I think you're better than last call all around the table I'm sitting there on my little chair thinking if I have any integrity as a consultant this is my first big client if I have any integrity as a consultant this is where I have to lose a client or put one in jeopardy, right? And it's easy to say now, but at the time I was like, oh, no. So I got on my little chair, and I was like, eek, eke, eke, and I skoochied up right next to the CEO. I'm like, excuse me, but you're the only people who filled this out, so somebody in here had to write this stuff. And that's a true story, and it was suddenly very quiet.

And nobody said anything. And finally, poor guy, the head of marketing raised his hand. And there you go. head of marketing. And he was like, well, I, I'd like to get, I mean, my team would like to get more feedback from you. And they only hear from you when, when something goes bad and if they screw up. I think it would be nice if you actually told them if they did something well. I think that's an area you could improve on. I put that in my report. Silence. Until the head lawyer goes, not me. I think you give plenty of feedback. I don't understand. And they're like, yeah, we don't get it.

I don't know what he's talking about. They just killed the guy. The moral of his story is this, so that's the day that CEO lost all credibility. And most importantly, sent a message to his team, don't be vulnerable. I'm not going to be vulnerable. Because he stood up there, like the frigging emperor with no clothes, with his big old butt hanging out. How do I look, guys? They're like, you look fine, boss.

And it's like, more importantly, all he had to do, all he had to do is say, hey, you guys, I know I'm not great of these things. I know I've had this in performance reviews throughout my career. My wife tells me once a week or so that I'm bad at this. And so I know I'm not great at it. I'll give it a shot. I'll try to get better. I want to acknowledge it in front of you.

Now, what about you guys? What's yours? He didn't do that. So everybody said, don't admit you have a problem in front of the CEO. Within a few years, that company was sold for a fraction of its worth really damaged an entire regional economy. Thousands of jobs and families affected. What did the Wall Street Journal say?

Oh, they had some strategic problems. They made some technical, tactical errors. Of course they did, but those were downstream symptoms of the problem, and that was there was no trust on the executive team. There was nothing that they were talking about realistically, so it was inevitable they were going to have those things. But the forensic analysis didn't go far enough. It was because the leader of the team couldn't say, I don't know, I need help.

Trust is critical on a team. Why is it so important? Because the more you can build trust, the better chance you are having at overcoming the next one, which is one of my favorites to talk about, which is conflict. Conflict on a team is good. The fear of conflict is a dysfunction. Conflict on a team is a good thing. In fact, I won't even say good. It's actually necessary. It's not okay. It's necessary. Okay? But we're not talking about mean conflict. Even though it can feel like that, we're talking about spirited disagreement around an issue. I called ideological conflict.

What's the right way to do this? Everybody on the team has to say this is what we agree. to, and here's the most important thing, we are never going to hold back our opinions on anything important. We're not going to calculate the political cost. We're not going to think about the ramifications. If something matters and you have a difference of opinion, you will speak it out. Because when we don't, bad things happen. When we don't, bad things happen. Conflict is a really good thing on a team. Now, I have an advantage over most people in that I am Italian and Irish. Conflict is pretty easy for us. We grew up that way, you know. My wife is neither Italian nor Irish, but she's a convert. Converts are better than people born into things,

so she can argue, you've got to see this. It's crazy. You know, it's funny. And so when we were dating, we learned to argue well, and right up until the time we got married, and then the year after we got married, my wife's little sister, my sister-in-law, married my old roommate. So he became my my brother-in-law. And we would go to dinner with them. My wife and I would argue, they got along so well. A year and a half later, they got divorced. He left her. And he came to me later and he said, Pat, I always thought that you and Laura, my wife, had a bad marriage because you argued. And he said, now we, I came to realize that we had a bad marriage because we couldn't argue, which is not to say that the quality of your marriage is directly proportionate to the number of fights you have,

but it is to say, and you all know this if you're married or have strong relationships and friends, that if you can't go through, you've got to learn to go through that. But now remember this, it's based on trust. Without trust, conflict is very dangerous. It's politics. When you have conflict with somebody who don't trust, you're trying to manipulate them to win. When you have conflict with somebody that you trust,

you are pursuing nothing but the truth and the best answer possible. So arguing suddenly becomes, I care so much that I'm willing to say, come on but the minute they say something that wins the day you're going to go whoa okay i'm i'm done see we're we're just trying to convince or be convinced conflict with trust is a beautiful thing now there are some kinds of organizations that are really bad at conflict and they are the ones where people get hurt the worst in behind the scenes what do you think one of those organizations

call it out what of what industry what kind of organizations don't have conflict church churches that's right Who said churches? Raise your hands if you said churches. You are cynical. But, no, you're right. So I volunteer. I work in my church, you know, and here's how it works in the church. Here's how works in a church. So let's say we have a parish council meeting, like parishers get together. And the pastor says, how can we get people excited about the parish in their faith? And some really nice lady who volunteers, she has been for 50 years, says, I think we should have a festival of balloons next week or some ridiculous idea, right? And we're all like, what is that? But what do we say?

Okay, Shirley, Festival of Balloons. All right, thanks. When we go through the meeting, thank you, Shirley. Shirley's great, okay. And then after the meeting, we go on the parking lot with our buddy, and we go, Shirley's kind of a dingbat, isn't she? And we go to the next meeting, and Shirley comes up with an idea. We're like, okay, and then we're kind of roll our eyes, whatever.

Finally, Shirley says to one of her friends, they never listen to my ideas. And they say, yeah, they think you're a dingbat, Shirley. Now we've crushed her spirit, but at least we didn't disagree with her idea. See, when we fail to have conflict around ideas, it naturally, inevitably ferments into disagreement about the person. Instead of saying, Shirley, what the heck is a festival of balloons? We go, oh, I'm a Christian. We're at church.

I can't disagree. That would be not kind. Thank you, Shirley. And eventually, she feels horrible about herself, but at least she can't blame me. If we're not having conflict around issues, it's fermenting into conflict around people. It's a terrible thing. Being nice, you should always be kind, but you should be true.

Being nice and untrue is not love. Then what you have to do as a leader, you have to come in and say, and even as a team member and say, listen, conflict is really important. We've got to do this. And the first time you see anybody do it, it's going to be about something minor. They're going to be like, I'm not sure that's the best font for this slide like oh my gosh i can't believe they said that you know and the first time you see any conflict here's what's going to be true they're going to feel uncomfortable and your job is to do something

counterintuitive and interrupt them in the middle of it so these people they're arguing for i mean not even arguing they're just like well i don't know if that's the best well maybe we could do it this way and you're going to whoa whoa whoa whoa katie megan you know this thing you're talking about right now this is awesome this is exactly the kind of conversations we need more of around here so i know you're disagreeing but don't think you're doing anything bad in fact this is good it's going to help us make a better decision. I've done this with Fortune 500 executives who you think they're going to go, listen, I'm not a kindergartner. And they're like, oh, okay, they need to be given, we call it real-time permission. Interrupt them in the middle of their minor conflict and say,

don't feel bad. What you're doing is actually good. And adults are going to go, okay, because they feel terrible. The reason why we don't like conflict on teams is because the last thing in our society today, anybody ever wants to be accused of, is being mean. So when you go, man, I don't think that's a very good idea. I can't believe you said that. I mean, you're right, and it would save us millions of dollars, but still. And so the leader needs to go, I need this, I want this, I love what you're doing right now, keep going. And you do that for months, and the culture starts to change.

But it's going to take that constantly interrupting them and reminding them and then encouraging them to go, keep going. Okay? Okay. The biggest problem we find in almost every organization is not enough. So when people go, but what happens if somebody goes too far? It's like, yeah, that's a high class problem. Now, the problem is we can so worry about going too far that we never go even close to far enough.

Now, if people start to get more emotional than you think makes sense giving the topic, I think a good idea is to interrupt and just go, everybody's intentions here are really good. All we're trying to do is solve this problem. let's make sure that we're receiving it that way. But again, I would take it, I would rather see it go over the top a few times

because then you recover. By the way, when you recover for a conflict, do you know that scar tissue heals better than tissue that's never been broken? A broken bone when it heals is actually stronger. God made us to heal better than we were originally put together. That is an amazing thing. We need to actually exercise that.

So if somebody does go over the line, what a great thing for them to come back and go, I think I went over the line yesterday. I'm really sorry, Katie. I see I've broken your foot. And that was too much, she has a broken foot. And you know, Katie, and the thing about it is, though, I apologize.

I had the good intentions, but I really hurt your feelings. Do you know that when people recover from that and forgive each other, their relationship is stronger than what it would have been before? So when we avoid every potential for it going too far, we're actually ensuring that we're not going to grow. See, if the team doesn't have consequences, and it makes a decision, but nobody really weighed in honestly,

you can't have very little confidence that there's actual true commitment. The company Intel, they used to have this great culture where they said disagree and commit. Go into meetings and be, and they would be brutal with each other. It was kind of a sport. Like, you're an idiot, that's a dumb. And then after the meeting, they go, okay, so what's the decision? All right, we're going out together. So they prep them for that.

Better to have conflict that leads to real commitment than it is to go, hey, let's not talk about this, and then I will just make the decision as a leader. Because when the leader makes a decision and avoids the team having any conflict, which is very tempting, because, like, you listen, I don't want them to disagree. I don't want them to have any conflict.

I'll just make the decision. Are they going to actively commit to that decision? No. You know what they're going to do? They're going to nod their heads and smile. Then they're going to go back to their teams and they're going to go, I don't know if this is a good idea.

Then they're going to alligator arm that decision. Oh, let me help with that. No? Oh, okay. They're not going to really dive in and help. If you want commitment, the kind of commitment that comes from people are like, I am totally in with you.

You have to entertain conflict. And you know something? Even if at the end of that conflict, they don't agree. Even at the end of that conflict, Kerry says, I still don't know if this is the right decision. And you have to say as the leader, I know it, but I've listened to you all and I get your opinion, Carrie, and maybe you're right.

But here's the deal. we've talked about this and I'm the leader and I have to break this time and I need your support. Do you know 99 times out of 100, Carrie will support that decision? Because she knows that her input was heard. She knows it was factored in and it can be explained. People don't need to have their way. I mean, how many people are here? Like, if I don't get my way, I can't support a decision.

None of us are like that, unless it's unethical or immoral. But most times, as long as we know we've been heard and we understand the process that the leader went through to make the decision, we'll support it. When we don't have conflict, we make it impossible for people to truly. commit. Conflict is that important for commitment. Now commitment is important. Why do I need to know that all these people truly bought in? You know why? At some point, they're going to have to do something that if they don't think they've committed, they're never going to do it, and it's hold each other accountable. Definitely not a negative thing. Accountability is a wonderful thing. We made an agreement that this is what we're going to have to do. We committed to it. Now, somebody, everybody at some point,

is going to do something that's not quite on plan, either knowingly or unknowingly. You need to have the confidence to hold one another accountable when you see somebody go off plan to say, hey, hey, Cecil, you got to do a better job at this, because this isn't what we agreed to. But is Rebecca going to do that if she doesn't think Cecil committed to that decision? No. See, the strongest form, by the way, notice I didn't say, am I as the leader going to hold Cecil accountable? I said, is Rebecca, his colleague, going to hold him accountable?

The most powerful source of accountability on a team is not the leader. The primary source of accountability on a team is not the leader. It's their team member. Peer-to-peer accountability is far more effective, far more powerful than the leader to subordinate. The best teams in the world, look in the military, look in police, look in sports, look in the best companies. They don't wait for the leader, the boss. They don't go, hey, boss, Cecil did something here.

And don't tell them I told you, but you got to, and then the leader's like, oh, great, Cecil, who told you? It doesn't matter. Now it's politics. Rebecca turns to Cecil and says, hey, Cecil, you got to do better on this. That is so effective. And if you're a leader and you're sitting here thinking, wow, this is fantastic. I don't have to be the primary source of accountability anymore.

Pat, how do I get my teammates to start doing that? Here's the thing. You have to prove to them that you're willing to do it. Because see, while you should not be the primary source of accountability on a team, you are the ultimate source. They have to know that when push comes to shove, you are going to do that. Okay? Now, so the leader has to be the source of accountability and say, you've got to quit doing that. Once it happened to me, I worked directly for the CEO of a company before I started mine,

and I was in charge of leadership development and communication. So I had my annual budget review with the CFO. So I went, and I brought my binder to work with the CFO, and he said, before we to get into the numbers, Pat, I just want you know, if it were up to me, I'd fire you and your department, the people in your department, because I think the stuff you do is silly. But since I'm from California, I thanked him for sharing, you know, I thank you for sharing. And I said, Fred, here's the deal. Your next door neighbor in this 5,000-person company is the CEO. Okay? You need to go talk to him and tell him why you think my programs are stupid and put me out of

my misery or else to let him talk you into it and get on board. He goes, I'm not going to do that. I said, I will. Next day, I knocked on the CEO's door. I said, Mark, Fred hates this stuff that I'm doing for you. He doesn't want to fund it. He doesn't send his people to it. You need to talk to him. The CEO said, oh, that's just how Fred is. And I was like, well, not everybody knows Fred.

It doesn't matter. It still makes the programs look bad. It hurts the executives. You just got to talk to me. He said, Pat, I don't have time. I've got Wall Street issues. I got angry customers. I got lawsuits to deal with.

So many leaders would rather wait until the numbers came in so they can say, well, I like you and all, but you're just not doing it. And yet they saw two quarters earlier the behavior that was leading to that. If you're a great leader, you have to be willing to say to somebody, hey, come here, after the meeting.

You know something, Brian? You talk too much during the meeting, and nobody else gets a word in. It hurts your credibility, and we're not listening. We're not hearing from it. I need you to change that. Or you know something? David, I was at that presentation with a customer,

and the truth is that you didn't have enough discipline. I need you to prepare better. It sets a bad example, and it's not the way we want to show up. And then you might as well throw up and say, and you, Dennis, you have bad breasts. The trifect. You know what I mean? It's like, get them all in there.

The greatest leaders do these things, and the L word, I'll use it. It's because they love the people that work for them. Because when you don't tell somebody things like these things, that's not love. I used to justify my lack of accountability thinking I cared so much about my people. I didn't want them to feel bad. One day I realized I just don't want them to blame me for feeling bad, because ultimately it's going to show up on a performance review or they're going to get let go. And they're not going to come back and say, hey, Pat, thanks for not confronting me.

I got fired, but you really made that. day good for me. You know, we have to confront people about behaviors. We have to be humble enough to do it if they go, oh, you don't understand. This is what I had to go, oh, I guess I didn't see it correctly. I'm sorry, I just want to. That's still better that they know you cared enough to put it out there. It's really hard for people to do this. And yet when you break through the barrier of accountability, it's such a wonderful thing. It's an act of love. It's not punishment. Accountability is huge. Okay. Why is it so important? Because without accountability, if people aren't being held accountable

and the only way they're going to hold each other accountable is if they've committed, they know they committed, the only way they can get that commitment is if they had good conflict and the only way to get that good conflict is if they trust each other to know it's a good thing. All right, I hope you enjoyed Pat's talk. Now let's get you an entree leadership tool, five habits that kill team unity.

Why the cost of a bad work environment makes you go broke. Listen, folks, if you're trying to lead a world-class team but you don't have true team happening, you're never going to get there. It will forever frustrate you. You just heard Pat talk about trust, conflict, and accountability, and how those elements are essential to a healthy team. Another part of that is unity. So this guide is going to help you learn what the five habits are that kill team unity,

so you can root them out of your organization and build a healthy winning team. Here's how you get it. Text the word enemies. Text the word enemies. to 33444. That's 3344. Or you can get the link in this episode's show notes. All right, I'm always excited when Alex Judd, one of our entree leadership coaches and the host of the Entree Leadership Summit and Entree Leadership Master Series, joins me in studio. Alex, welcome back. Ken, thanks so much. Glad to be here. So what we've got coming up next is at Summit, Dave sat down

with his leadership team. Here we call that our operating board. They did a kind of a special side session for members specifically of the All Access coaching program for business leaders. And they get into really the vision, direction, and strategy, but also the tactical side of how they run and lead this business every single day. So that's what you're about to hear is Dave's session with his leadership team. This morning, we're doing something to a degree that we've never done before. We've never had this many board members on a stage all at the same time. So y'all are going to get insight into what board meetings look like at Ramsey. Solutions. And when Dave was talking on the panel yesterday about healthy conflict, this is what he was

talking about. So this is going to be real fun. What we want to do to start is just brief introductions. And then what we've done, because it's such a large group and we have such limited time, we've pulled some kind of thematic questions that we always see at things like this. Many of you submitted these at the beginning of the week. And so we want to run through some of those and really get into the tactical nature of how we perceive the answer of those questions at Ramsey's solutions. So let's start with you, Blake. Brief intro, who you are, what you do. I'm Blake Thompson. I'm the chief executive producer of all our media, podcast, YouTube, radio. I'm Jeremy Breeland, and I'm the EVP of Ramsey personalities. So basically, all of the initiatives

around our personalities and finding new ones, that's the area that I lead. Hey, I'm Daniel Ramsey. I'm the senior vice president of Financial Peace and membership team. I'm Luke Lefevre. I'm the chief creative officer, so all the books and brochures and all that stuff. and websites and videos. That's what I'm looking at with anxiety all day. So I'm Jack Galloway. I'm the senior executive vice president of our business to business business units. I'm Jen Severson and I'm our chief marketing officer. Brian Williams. I'm the senior executive vice president of the Financial Peace Channel. I'm Brian Mayfield. I'm the executive vice president of Ramsey Media. I run the business

side of what Blake does on the content. I run all the advertising, distribution syndication side. I'm Suzanne Sims. I'm the senior executive vice president of our business to consumer division. I'm Daniel Tarty. I'm our executive vice president of our business and leadership spoke, which is the entree leadership and business boutique initiatives. Okay, very good. So all of these folks and also the board members at home at Ramsey Solutions are really speaking into on a daily basis, the vision and trajectory and direction of Ramsey Solutions as a whole.

So we're going to start with how many of you have ever had two team members that do not get along? Okay. So how do we, when that occurs at Ramsey Solutions, how do we deal with two team members that don't get along? If you have a team of any kind, this is a problem that you're going to deal with if you haven't already. And the way we deal with it at Ramsey Solutions is the way that we deal with most things and that is we just deal with it head on. Typically, when we have two team members that getting along. What we'll do is rather than go have 27 one-off conversations with different people in a vacuum, we just pull the two people in a room with a leader and we sit down and get to the bottom of what's going on, get to the last 10% of truth. And I've been in a lot of these conversations.

And typically what they look like is just, you know, starting out with a conversation like, hey, this probably isn't going to be a lot of fun. This is going to be awkward. But by bringing the people in the room with you that are basically not getting along or somebody may be mistreating somebody else, you get to the truth quicker. You get to the last 10% of truth. And so we'll do that, have the conversation, get clarity on what's going on and agree on a plan going forward. The other thing that that does, too, with those team members is not only do you come out with a plan pretty quickly to deal with it and get back to productivity, the other thing is people don't enjoy those conversations. They kind of suck.

And they don't want to have them again. And so they'll go out of there and go, wow. So if I continue to act like that, I'm probably going to end up back in here having a similar conversation. and I kind of hated that. So usually that will help. The other thing I would say, too, especially if you've got team members that may be mistreating one another

and that's what's causing it, you may have another conversation that looks like, hey, if you're continuing to do that, I think Pat talked about this day one, you can't continue to be a bonehead to other people and work here. So you're going to have to eventually make a decision about continuing to be a bonehead and leave

or stop being a bonehead and keep working here. So those are the kind of conversations that we just don't shy away from. They're not fun, but they do get to productivity, much more quickly. Next question. This is one we get on masterminds all the time.

There's kind of two things people love to focus on is how do we on board well and then sometimes how do we off board well? So specifically when a leader has left and in this situation on bad terms, how do we deal when a leader is leaving the organization and it's not on a good note? Really, we could talk about any time any leader leaves. When a leader leaves on good terms for whatever the reason is, even if their season is over, if they've decided to move or do something else. If it's on good terms, a lot of times I'll have the leader with me

and the leader and I may tell their team together. When any leader leaves, the most important thing in our organization is being intentional. We have over 800 people being intentional about who hears it together, who hears it first before it just becomes public knowledge. So if they're leaving on good terms, it's easier. But we're going to start with their closest people. we're going to talk to them about what's going on. That leader may chime in.

Then we're going to bring in the next layer of leadership. And then ultimately, it just becomes public knowledge. But we don't want anybody close to that leader learning that the leader has left with the rest of the company. That does a lot of damage. If a leader's leaving on bad terms, it's more sensitive, but I try to do the same thing. And I've had this happen. I will sit down with the closest leaders. And the closest leaders get the most candid information.

And this is something that I never feel like I quite stick the landing on, but here's what I'm attempting to do when I'm talking to that group. I'm trying to give them as much information as they need to trust what's going on and why that leader left, even if under bad conditions. And I'm trying to be respectful of the leader who was probably my friend who may have just gotten fired. There was a time in our history where we would be so respectful of the leader who got fired that we would just say it's none of your business. We're not going to talk about that. and it got to where that started to create anxiety and fear and a little distrust among our team members. And we figured out that it's really better to go ahead. Our team nicknamed it the rapture.

They just disappeared. They would come in. They would come in and somebody's gone and nobody's talking about it. And that created a little distrusted. So what we learned is that there is a healthy balance. And this is what you can expect if you leave our organization and you get fired. Yes, we're going to tell your team that you get fired. and we're going to explain why,

and we're going to do it to the best of our ability with your interest at heart so that when we see you at church or at the grocery store, that we still have a good relationship, if that's possible in any way. I would say in not communicating, team members also tend to assume 10 times worse than what actually happened.

And so helping them with, like, we're not going to tell you all the dirty details because it's not fair to them, but here's enough to know that it wasn't something that they're an evil person or you should never talk to them again if you see them in public, we want the leader who's leading to still have dignity with their existing team and hopefully to still be able to have good relationships with that team as they're

still part of that community. It's a very awkward process to know how far up to the line of information to give. Most companies give no information. They use mushroom communication. They keep everybody in the dark and feed them manure. But what we do is we walk up to the line of awkwardness. and of too much information, and then we step slightly over it. Slightly over it.

And so you've got probably a little more information than you should have, not a bunch, but a little bit more than you should have. And what that does is it squashes all the exaggerations in people's brains of what it could have been. Oh, well, they just told us this, but you know what it really was, and that kind of crap, because we all do that in our brains. We always assume it's worse. If I know nothing, then it's always 20 times. I mean, they go from getting fired after six months of working on their competency,

but if you don't say anything, it's ridiculous. People just make up crap. And so you've got to be real clear. And once you get a reputation with your team of being real clear and sharing an awkward amount of information with dignity, respectfully, then the team accepts it. The first time it happens with a new leader watching this happen, it freaks them out because we're like, you're a bunch of freaking adults,

and we're not going to treat you like a bunch of children. We're actually going to tell you too much, and you're going to carry the weight of all this information. And they're like, whoa, that just happened. Daniel, one of the things, I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but one of the things you and Sarah did for our team over the course of the past year was you walked us through kind of the decision-making hierarchy of how you make decisions with regard to team member transitions. Could you just give them that hierarchy real quick?

Yeah, so we're always thinking first and foremost, what's best for the customer and what's best for the mission. And so there are times there's a misalignment with a team member based on that alone. And they started to decide they don't like the mission anymore. They're seasons up. And it's just a natural, they're moving on. And maybe we're still friends, but it's just time to kind of part ways. Then we think about our team. Are they a good part of our team? Are they a healthy culture fit? Are they supporting the team? And so if there's gotten to be a situation where there's gossip or dissension or there's just a really bad behavior pattern where they're not treating people well, then our team's suffering as a result and they've got to

leave. And then lastly, we're thinking about that individual. Like, can we save them? Can we turn them? Can we give them enough time and training so that if there's a competency issue, that we can tolerate it for a season so that they can kind of level up and get back on track? And if so, we try to extend grace and we give a lot of feedback and a lot of coaching. We'll put them on a plan where it's very, very clear what's expected. And if they go through that process and they can't turn it, then the natural part of that is that they're going to exit. And so we tell our team, these are kind of the things that we're looking at. And so if we're not giving you a bazillion details that are tied to the situation, you just need to know this is kind of how we make these decisions. And that increases

trust when you just say it out loud. And everybody understands that we put a lot of thought into it. The other thing that's important to call out is we have an HR committee that spends tons of time wrestling through. And no one leaves our building casually. Nobody is a flippant transaction. Okay, it's over. We talk a lot about the people, about the context, if they had enough leadership in that area to actually win. Are there other chronic issues with that team that this is a byproduct of or is it the person? And so I really respect how much time our HR committee spends wrestling and really going through that rumble case by case every time because we have guidelines, but we don't have a policy that's a formula that just dictates when people leave.

It's always a conversation. and sometimes a really hard and long conversations that distract us from doing the work, but we care so deeply about getting this right that we do that. One last thing I would add is when communicating about particularly a leader leaving, but really anybody on the team to other team members, if somebody's new or even if they've been there a while, I always remind them that that person was not surprised. We have been super clear working a plan with them.

They knew exactly what needed to happen in order for them. them to be able to stay on the team. And they were not surprised because sometimes when somebody on the team will feel like that person's leaving suddenly because it's not, we're not talking to the whole team about the fact as somebody's working through a plan that they're on the plan, right? So only the individual working the plan and, you know, and their leader are really involved in that. And so it's important for the rest of the team from a morale standpoint to be reminded of the fact that, hey, this person was not surprised. And if you were in that position, you wouldn't be surprised either.

Yeah, from a team member perspective, I've seen people leave, but I've never seen anyone get blindsided. So exactly what you're saying. Recognition was a massive theme yesterday. And almost all the talks, what do you all feel is the best way to recognize the team as a whole? And then also how do you recognize individuals within the team?

Obviously, yesterday, it was covered in a really, really great way. But I think just as simply as calling them out in front of their peers, recognizing people and giving them the shout out in front of the people that they work with, that they have relationships with. That means a ton of people. It's always great to give people feedback and recognition one-on-one, but it's always better when it's in front of their peers. It's good and it's fun to embarrass them a little bit when you can. When their face is red, you know it's working. So I think there's formal and informal ways you can do this. You know, you should always informally look for opportunities to just walk up to their desk. That's really great.

but you should also put in place some formal things. So maybe it's the start of a meeting. You let your team kind of popcorn give shoutouts to each other. Luke and Tarty, we have a meeting once a month with our leadership team where they do that. We spend 10 minutes where everyone goes around and gives shoutouts to each other. So it's coming from their peers, which means a ton too. So that's a great rhythm you can set in place that creates that environment. Another thing that our team does, our creative director, Jenny Lee, who's sitting back here,

she leads a meeting once a month with our team where we've been. basically have a monthly review. We call it show and tell. It's very informal. It's very fun. It's very upbeat. And we basically look through, hey, here's all the things that we can celebrate that happened over the last several weeks. And it's really great because what she does is she brings up a subject, summarizes it, and then she asks the team member to also talk about it. So that team member gets some spotlight. They get some time in front of the team to be recognized and describe it themselves. So those are two examples of rhythms that we have in place. You mentioned the stand-up we do for creative. This isn't, it wasn't, it wasn't

like we didn't sit down and we weren't like, what's the perfect recognition thing that we can do and script it out and spend two weeks planning? It was like, we need a time where you can get together, shout out what everybody's doing well. So it's like this. Hey, who have you seen winning? Somebody stands up and says, man, Ginny Lee made this workbook and she did a really good job this week and she went above and beyond and it ends up celebrating the things you want to celebrate. And then at the end, we're like, as we're going through this, Brian and I were in this process, as we're going through this, we're like, boy, we need to recognize, like, the person who did, like, the most best. Who really nailed it this week? What should we call the award? I don't know. We should call it the

Nailed It Award. So we got a railroad tie. We pounded it into a block of wood. And this thing that was, like, a really quick decision, three years later, people are, like, hoping they win this piece of wood with a railroad tie in it that says nailed it. And I think it's, it's, that little bit of a thing causes recognition. One thing I would add to that, recognition is empowering. I mean, our team, you know, Dave always says thoroughbreds love to run with thoroughbreds, and that's what we have. And when we recognize these people, there's something that lights a fire in them, not

only in them, but in people around them. And it encourages and empowers people to step out and do things that traditionally they might not do. Daniel flew by something that I just want to call out. He talked about going to their desk, your presence at their desk, the validation that that says just by being present and engaged, I realize one day it's 10 feet from my office to their desk. It's 10 miles from their desk to my office, right?

And so when I go out and I initiate that presence is just massive. Dave does this all the time. He'll just walk around and just check in and say, what are you doing? And you ask questions that you can validate on the spot. Like, that's awesome. Good job. High five. Dave rode in on a hoverboard once.

into the office. That was a great moment. I did that. Gave lessons to some people, but yeah. When you're doing recognition, though, be very careful. And the one thing you need to be careful of is what you are recognizing. Because whatever you recognize, you're going to see it start happening a lot. And so if you randomly recognize something that really isn't that important, but you were just trying to find some way to be affirming, you're going to see this not important

thing being done a lot because people are yearned for it so much that they're going to gravitate towards whatever it is. So if you're going to give a nailed it award, the wood is the railroad tie. The spike is what you drive in it. But anyway, that's the nail it. But yeah, so, yeah, just be careful what you recognize, right? It's horrible.

Yeah. So the second thing is, is go ahead and walk around with some money and give them a $50 handshake and tell them to take their wife or their husband to dinner. Just randomly. You blow. people's minds. Nobody does that. You know, you just walk up and go Friday afternoon, Thursday evening, whatever, and go, you know, hey, I just been watching.

And what you've been doing, it's pretty freaking incredible. I just want to say thanks. Y'all go out to dinner. And don't go home and put that on your dead snowball. Go to dinner. I want you to, this is you being good. And you walk off, you could have given them a car. And it wouldn't have had much more emotional movement.

Yeah, Dave stole mine. I was about to say the same thing. I can remember Dave handed me a $100 bill 20 years ago for something, and I'll never forget that. It goes a long ways. I'll tell you one of my favorites. And I haven't since. I tell you something I've found to be, something I've found to be powerful is find out who's important in that team member's life, whether it's a spouse or a parent or an older brother, and you're probably going to run into them at some point, and you probably get one shot at this, so you've got to be paying attention all the time.

But when you run into that person, stop whatever you're doing, whether you're going to be late to an important meeting, whatever it is, you stop and spend five to ten minutes with that person telling them how awesome that team member is. They'll never get over it. If you're not going to meet them, send the person a note. If it's a grandparent, send them a note that says you need to know

about your granddaughter and what she's, doing in our organization and they will never forget it. When people are scaling and growing and they're needing people in the organization to take on more responsibility, how do you know if and when someone is ready for a promotion? Sometimes it's obvious. And when it's obvious, it's awesome. Because the rest of the team around a person is actually looking to them already to do the job, do the leadership role. They're coming to them with questions. And so that's an easy, way to know that they're ready. Sometimes it's not as clear or sometimes you have a need, maybe somebody left unexpectedly and you have a need to fill that spot and you think that person

maybe is ready. And sometimes what we've done in those situations is almost given them like an interim role, a team leader role where we're testing out to see if they're really going to rise to the challenge. More often than not, they do. If you clearly outline for them what's expected, what we're looking for, what needs to be done, and you're coaching them along the way. More often than not, they will get there. They'll rise to the challenge. But if they didn't, then you haven't kind of put them in a seat before they were ready. A lot of people raise their hand in requests to be promoted into leadership.

I deal with it all the time because they feel like that's the way they climb the corporate ladder and that's the way they grow their career. But they may not be really passionate about leading people. So the key is to sit down with them and really find out what's motivating them because a lot of times I find out they're motivated by one of two things. They want affirmation or recognition. That's really what they want or they just want more compensation. And they think they have to be a leader to get those two things. So find out what's really motivating them and find other ways to achieve that because in our organization when you're in a leadership role, you are held to a very high standard.

As you can imagine, we teach people how to lead. So we hold each other very accountable. And when you're doing a task really well, if you're really good at sales, if you're really good at creative, well, maybe you need to keep doing that because you can get recognition for that. And that doesn't mean because you're good at that, you're going to lead people who do that well. And so you've really got to figure out what their motivation is. Somebody said it yesterday. I can't remember which speaker, but they said someone wants to be a leader, look who's following them. So if no one's following the person, they're probably not ready.

You know, you can put them in positions, but if no one is gathering behind them, asking what they think, looking for their guidance, even before their leadership role, maybe slow down. But if it's natural and you see it happening, let them fly a little bit, you know. This one's related kind of to Simon's talk yesterday about the infinite game. How do you keep individual sales team members on a sales team from competing? internally with each other. Yeah, I see you looking here. I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. You're saying there's a problem.

I'm saying there's a problem. What I would say is if I get asked a question like that, there's probably a deeper question. You probably have a situation with your sales team, and you're probably a really high-ass looking for a solution. I love competition in sales. Everything is a competition from the second you say, hi, my name is Brian. Okay, I'm competing at that point.

And I want my guys competing at that point because at the end of the day, I need to sell a product or a service, but I also need to fulfill a need. I have a responsibility. And if creating competition makes everybody hit go and give me their best, I'm going to stir that competition. Now, if you have unhealthy competition. Yeah, I don't have the toxicity is what you're going. Yeah, if you have unhealthy competition where people are stepping on each other, they're damaging your brand, they're making promises they can't keep, you have a whole other set of problems. But I will tell you this, if someone asked that specifically, I'd love to just spend a few minutes with you and kind of help walk you through it because that question feels unique. But if you have a situation where you have unhealthy competition, you take control, you take charge.

There's one person going to talk and it's going to be me until we all figure this out. So what you do is you set the guardrails. You make sure everybody's in the room at the same time. You talk about the situation. You set the rules. You ask if there are any questions. And if there are no questions, get back to work. There's a quarterback controversy, two guys competing for the starting job.

There's two stories that come out. One of two stories that come out when that happens. one is these two guys love each other, respect each other's ability, line up and do the very best they can to win the job, and secretly are partially rooting for their friend. And if anybody's going to get it other than me, I'm glad it's him. The other story is the two guys line up and it's toxic, and the coach causes them to hate each other, or they just naturally do. The coach allows it.

And so you can love the guy beside you and knock him on his butt and then lift him up. You can line up across from him and go, you're going down, baby. You're going down. And at the end of the day, you know, walk off the field and be friends.

And that's a healthy competition. It's just because I like to win. I like to, you know, I like to have to like to be measured against someone else. I like to race. I don't want to run by myself. I want to run against somebody. but I don't have to kill everybody in the game.

And some of these people, it's kind of almost the finite, infinite game, Simon's stuff yesterday. You know, they get toxic if they see it as a finite game, but if it's sustainable, if we're going to work together for a long time, we're going to love each other well. And if you can do that together, then, I mean, this is not a military operation. We're just trying to sell a book. Now, geez, calm your butt down, you know.

And so it's the exact same set of activities with a different heart. One's a toxic heart and one's a heart full of love. And you just don't tolerate the toxicity. And then you can have fun or what Brian's calling healthy competition. There's also something powerful to having, when your team has a shared vision, strategy, goal, there's something really unifying about a goal. So if a sales team has a collective goal and you're talking about that as the leader, that does a lot to unify the team where they can start celebrating.

at each other because when my teammate has a big sale, it helps the collective goal and we're moving forward. And a lot of our sales teams, they use this competition as a way for them to encourage each other and get recognition. So you kill all the birds with one stone. We digitally show their numbers on the wall for individually and as a team. So the whole team can see if the team is winning and they can see individuals and where they are. And you use that to bring recognition and accountability to push each other.

Will y'all join me in thanking this crew right here? Thank you. All right, great job, Alex. That's always fun when we hear from Dave and our operating board and answering questions. Thanks for being with us. Gosh, thanks so much for having me. That was good. Well, we always love having you on the program.

He'll be back in future episodes, and we love that. Well, that is going to do it. So on behalf of 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 Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses.

If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.