EntreLeadership - #387: How to Transition Team Members with Sarah Sloyan

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

It can feel like you got dumped when a team member leaves. But the reality is, healthy things grow, and growing things change—including your business and your team! Whether someone needs to move on, or you need to move them out, your staff will change over time. So you need a game plan. Daniel Tardy and Sarah Sloyan, Vice President and Senior Vice President of EntreLeadership, talk through common scenarios business owners face regarding turnover and what you can do to transition team members with dignity, respect and consistency.   P.S. This episode includes an update about the future of the EntreLeadership Podcast—you definitely want to tune in!   entreleadership.com/podcast EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey Communication Field Guide Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   As an Amazon Associate EntreLeadership earns from qualifying purchases.   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

From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Alex Judd, and today we get to have a little bit of a different conversation because I'm sitting down with Ramsey Operating Board Member and Senior Leader Daniel Tarty. Daniel, it's good to see you today. Alex, thanks for having me here today. This is kind of a different episode. That's right. It's a little bit of a different format. We kind of just jumped right in, and that's because we've got a little bit of news to share. Isn't that right? Yeah, Alex, you've got an announcement to make. You've already told our team about this. I'm not super happy about it, but I've been grieving a little bit, and I've embraced this reality. And I know you've got some news to share with our audience today. And so we're going to use this episode to loop them in about what's going on with you.

That's right. So I guess I'll jump right in because it's easier to rip the Band-Aid off quickly, for me at least. I've made the decision that after four years here at Ramsey Solutions and working with the Entree leadership team, a job that was an absolute dream. job. I've made the decision that I want to go start my own business. And so I'm moving on into that next season. I'm really excited about it. But as of today, I will no longer be the host of the Entree Leadership podcast. Yeah. And we're sad about this. And our audience is going to be sad about this because you have been the voice of Entree leadership for so many people. And I just want to say, as a leader of this area in our company, you know, this happens sometimes. We've we've had many team members come and stay for a season and do incredible work and then move on. And one of the things about entre leadership is, you know, we help business owners win. And so we recruit people who are

passionate about entrepreneurship. And if you don't have a passion about business and entrepreneurship, you don't fit in on our team. You just didn't know that that was going to come back to bite you. But what goes, well, it's a double-edged sword. And so what goes with that is sometimes these people, and I have this bug in me. I mean, there's been times I thought about doing my own thing. I think we all do. you're in our entree leadership team, like, it'd be weird if that didn't crush your mind. That's right. But sometimes God really puts it in somebody's heart to say, hey, your time at Entree leadership was for a season, and now it's your time to go and actually be a small business owner. And so you get to go from being a part of our team to being the marketplace that we serve,

and we're going to be cheering for you. Your future is bright. And I'm sad that it's not going to be directly with our team, but we're excited to continue to walk with you and cheer for you. And God's put some really cool things in you and your story that I can't wait for the world to hear about as you launch your own endeavor. So I just want to say thank you for all this time that you've hosted the podcast and worked with our coaching clients. And we're going to miss you. We've been crying our tears and we've been giving you a hard time and trying to talk you out of it. But we also understand this is what you're supposed to do. And you've given this a lot of thought. And I know that you haven't done this casually. We've had a lot of conversation about this. That's right.

I think whenever I got here four years ago, I was a huge entree leadership fan before I came here. I had read the book and listen to Dave and listen to the podcast regularly. And I remember thinking to myself as I was going through the interview process, 14 interviews. It's like it's exactly what they say it is. Is that really how many was? Oh, my gosh. I feel like half of them were with you, too. We spent a lot of time together.

Oh, man. But I remember thinking to myself, there's no way it's as good as they say. it is. But if it's half as good, I'll be happy. And I swear I've spent the past four years just saying, oh, my gosh, it's better. And I hope that everyone that listens to this podcast knows that the content that you hear about this organization's culture, its leadership, its drive to do the right thing, it's sense of purpose and sense a mission for serving the marketplace. That is true for the 950 people that make up Ramsey Solutions. It's true for Dave Ramsey as a leader. It's true for Daniel and Sarah, who lead Entree leadership, this place is without a shadow of a doubt, the strongest

leadership culture and strongest organization I've ever worked with. And so the opportunity to get to serve as the host of this program for the past year or so, man, it's like a dream. I've gotten to meet so many of you that listen to this podcast at our events and talking to you online. And I just want to let y'all know that I think y'all are the most well-intentioned, most hardworking, just absolute best people on the planet. I just relish in every single opportunity I get to talk with you, so inspired by your growth. I'm so excited about getting to know y'all that I want to be one of y'all. I want to come out and be a small business owner. And so I just want you all to hear for me that this program was never about, honestly, about just-on-ray leadership or about

myself or about Ken Coleman or about Daniel Tarty or about Dave Ramsey even. This program has always been about you, the small business owner. And I know that that's what it's going to stay, too. And I'm just so grateful that I got an opportunity to play a small part. Well, you know, you can still come to these events and see these people. You just have to buy a ticket. That's right. Are you literally selling me on the air right now? Is that what that's happening? I'm not above that. Come on. No, in all seriousness, Alex, congratulations. Thank you for the work that you've done for the entre leadership team. You have blessed and been a part of blessing so many small businesses in this country and we'll never know, you know, the seeds that you've helped plant over the next decades

and generations even that the fruit will come from all of that. And so I'm proud of you. I'm proud to call you a friend. It's bittersweet, but I'm proud that you're launching your own thing and we will be cheering for you. And we're excited to see what the next chapter holds for you. So this is a, it's a sad farewell for this audience, but we will continue to check him with you and see how you're doing and see how we can help you because you're going to be one of our, your, you're, small business now, and so we're going to help business owners win, including Alex Judd, even though he left us. But he's going to be a customer, so that's good.

Well, Daniel, I appreciate you, and I appreciate all of y'all. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. So, guys, you may be wondering, okay, what's that mean for the podcast? I'm going to jump in and be your host for this season. We'll continue to bring you guys incredible content, incredible conversations with world-class thought leaders, speakers, entrepreneurs, people that are in the trenches doing it. Our goal here, Entree leadership and especially with the podcast is to bring you hope, to bring you ideas and solutions and real practical content that you can put into practice in your business and actually get the results that you're looking for. And we will continue to be that lifeline for you

guys. And in today's episode, well, we got a theme here, a team members transitioning. And this isn't unique to Alex and it's not unique to Entree leadership. Team members transition all the time in business. It's one of the joys of small businesses you get to work with some of your best friends and also one of the biggest sorrows is when you get to appoint and you go on a different path and those friends leave to do their own thing or to move on to a different opportunity. And our senior vice president of Entree leadership, Sarah Sloyen and I are going to spend a little time talking about this idea of transitions with team members, how to do it well, how to coach your team to do it in a way that's classy. Alex has been so classy in all the communication

up to this point, this decision. He's included us. We've worked together on this journey. By the time that the decision was made and he made that decision, we all agreed it felt right because of all the conversation that we had been having. And it's really a beautiful thing when it goes well like this. But it's also a nightmare when it doesn't. And so Sarah and I are going to unpack a few of the ways that you can set your team up for success to have a healthy culture that embraces doing transitions well with your team. So check it out. Sarah, we say it all the And that is that healthy things grow and growing things change. When we have a team that's growing and a business that's evolving, there's times when people move on and they do their own thing.

I don't know about you, but I used to just be in denial about this. I thought, we'll hire people. They'll stay forever. We'll all love each other all the time and nobody's ever going to leave. And it's not the case. It's very not the case. It's not, we take a blood oath. It's like you're committed, staying forever. That's not normal out there. It's so hard, though, because, I mean, we put so much energy into hiring the right people and we build these bonds as we become family and working and fighting together.

I mean, what was the first time you remember thinking like, oh, man, I can't believe we're losing this person? Because, I mean, I think we can all think back to the first time. It's such an emotional thing that somebody's moving on. For me, it felt like we're never going to recover from this. We can't lose this person. We're going to die. Yes, I was thinking back to not only my first time, but also the time that probably hit me the most was when I had an admin leave, you know, and we were so close and she just had this gift and this calling to go back into the music industry. But I just remember thinking, oh, my gosh, you know, is there anything I could have done or what am I going to do without her? or that one felt, I think, so personal because we worked so closely together. And that was really, really tough. And we've stayed in touch and we're still great friends.

But I remember thinking that was going to be tough to recover from. But you made it. I made it. In the moment, it always feels like the end of the world. And I think what we have found is that there is a natural thing that happens where somebody else comes along. Sometimes it's even a better fit in the next person. that comes in, you get a chance to kind of upgrade your time. Well, and that's what I've learned is I have gotten progressively better at identifying what I need. Like if you take the admin

example, the first time I ever hired an admin, I didn't know what I even needed help with. You know, people just told me I needed this person. And so the subsequent times that I hired for that role, I had a much clearer understanding of what I needed, the characteristics that I needed, and I was able to articulate that better on the front end to set us up to win even better. And I think that's the same in all of our roles. I think when I am rehiring for a designer role, honestly, sometimes a business has changed and grown so much since the last time I hired for that role that we are looking for a different skill set even at that point. You know, the bar is changed. Andy Stanley often says that the people that start with you many times will not finish with you.

Yeah. And that's tough because you want to believe that the people that were early on, the founders of your team, the ones who really are building this from the grassroots, you have these visions of standing on top of the mountain together, all celebrating the big, long journey that we all went on together. And when that doesn't work out that way, it can be an emotional journey. That's the bitter sweetness of leadership. You know, we're called to lead these people and love them and train them knowing, like you're saying, that a large percentage of them will be called to. to do something else. What I always try to remember is it's a force multiplier when they leave, they are taking the principles that you have shared with them and the kind of unconditional love and acceptance

that you've shown them. And hopefully they are then pouring that out into other places and to other operations. And so that's kind of a cool thing to think about the ripple effect. You know, of course I want everybody just to stay here and be at Ramsey forever. But the idea of them going and starting somewhere else and being able to implement the things that they've learned here, that's pretty cool. Well, I think you've got to have that perspective, otherwise you go crazy. And every time somebody moves on, you know, you're just all been out of shape and around the

axle about it. I think it's really good perspective to remember that, you know, there are other things in life beside your organization, and it doesn't mean these people are evil for them to move on and do something else. In fact, sometimes it's better for the organization. It's better for them. And we're going to talk today about when team members transition, how to handle this well and how to help guide the process as leaders.

there's really kind of two reasons a person would transition. One is they're initiating it and they're trying to move on. And sometimes as leaders, we're initiating it and we're trying to move them out because of a performance issue or something like that. And I know this is something that small business owners deal with a lot. And I'm going to just say the solution is not to hope that it never happens. You have to anticipate this and you have to have a game plan. I know one of the stickiest things for us is not only the complexity of communicating with that purpose. person and navigating how long do we take and how long do we put up with this thing and how much

communication and clarity has actually got to be there before we finally, you know, move them on or if they leave all the sudden and, you know, it didn't end well. How do we handle that? And how do we, how do we handle the communication to the team? You know, the rest of the team that's still there because they've got questions. Why is so-and-so gone? And, you know, what's it mean? And do they get fired? And, you know, the rumor mill can fire up if you're not careful and that can be toxic. So we're going to dive in to all of that stuff today. I'd like to talk about the three components that we look at. And Sarah, you guys, Sarah sits on our HR committee here.

And our HR committee, the sole purpose of this is at Ramsey Solutions. We want to do transitions really, really well. Well, it's a natural part of life, right? There's no need to make it awkward. We can totally, you know, this is something we're going to encounter over and over again, and we all need to just go about our business and not make a big deal out of this. So we prioritize spending a lot of time every week. We don't have policies. We don't have transactional mindsets around this. Each person, when they get into a situation that isn't going great, whether it's on

their initiation or our initiation, if it feels like they're a flight risk, we slow way down. We spend a lot of time. We probably err on the side of taking too much time because we care and we want to get it right. And I think when we have a transition, we want to as leaders be able to put our head on the pillow that night and go, we did everything we could to try to work it out and figure out what's best for them, what's best for the team, what's best for our customers and the organization as a whole. And that takes time and each situation, I think, has different context. So we're going to give some frameworks today, but the last thing we can do is just pull this out and say, well, just run it through the filter and let the algorithm spit out whether this person

stays or goes and what we do or don't do about it. I think you have to have heart. We've got to think about the situation and think about in these cases. We have principles that are decided ahead of time. But talk about the importance of never losing your heart and never becoming transactional with this stuff. Totally. I literally wrote on my paper, don't wing it. Like you said, slow down, put some thought behind it, you know, take an hour and think about what's the best way to handle it directly with that person, handle it with the team, and then handle it also if they're client facing.

How do you need to communicate that to your clients? I always think about it's a real shame for someone to work here, whether it's three years or 10 years or whatever. And the very last moment that they remember of their career here, which will inform how they look back and how they communicate to all these people go, oh, you got a new job? How's that going? To be bad. And that that then defines the entire time that they worked here. So I really try to make sure, like you said, that we slow down and we handle it in a way with heart. We are dealing with humans. And it's important to treat them with dignity, even if the decisions that they have made have been poor. And a lot of times it's not. A lot of times it's just a transition. And there's not. tons of emotion around it and you're able to kind of handle it. But the reality is there are going to be several situations that you might make you mad, might make you sad. The decisions of how someone has chosen to go about it may not be great. I often find I go through a little bit of a grieving process sometimes. I find myself getting sad and then angry and whatever. And it's okay to process that, but don't lose that heart in it. And remember, this is a human being. And when they go home that

night and they talk about how things went to their spouse or fill in the blank a friend or a family member you want to be proud of how that represents you as a person and your organization. In a minute, I want to talk about when we're leaning in and leaning on somebody and ultimately we have to fire them, we have to let them go. Let's talk first about the person who's leaving on their own terms. Everything from I'm leaving today, peace out, or here's a two-week notice, or like in Alex's case, I think it was textbook. When, when someone, somebody can say, hey, I'm feeling restless six months before they're ready to leave and they invite you into that conversation. Can you process this with me? Can you work through this restless

feeling that I have? I'm not sure if I need to stay or go. I want to be here, but I'm torn. I'm not sure if it's a fit. What do you think? How do you create an environment where your team feels safe to communicate early while it's, you know, we say it's a two out of ten? They're not ready to walk out the door. They're not shopping around for other opportunities. But at the same time, if they out on their own, they'll wake up one day and they'll just be gone. And so there's a lot of times we can actually save a team member or help them leave well, if that's what we need to get to, if we'll just talk about it together. Totally. The first thing that I always tell people on this is you need to coach your team in advance. So on our team, we talk about, hey, several people will

choose to transition at some point. And we want to take a little bit of the mystery out of it. It's not something you have to be scared of. It's not something that you have to go in secret behind our back and start looking for other jobs, we want to be along this journey with you. And so if you come to us, here's what you will experience. And so that takes a little bit of the fear out of it for team members. If you will just in advance tell your team, hey, this is a normal part of life. And here's how this process will go. You don't have to worry, I'm not going to get mad at you. I'm not going to embarrass you. That kind of takes a little bit of that fear out of it for them. And then they know how to handle it. So you need to tell them how to handle it. The second thing is when they come in,

to talk to you about it. They're usually nervous. A lot of them now, you know, we have people that work for us who are right out of college. They've never had to do this before. So I think the most important thing is to start with just asking questions. Just genuinely be curious about, tell me what you're thinking about. Tell me what's led to that. How long have you been processing on this? All of that kind of stuff. And don't feel the pressure to have to make some kind of decision in the moment. Taking that information and, you know, thank them for sharing that with you and then say, hey, why don't I process this tonight and let's follow back up tomorrow. And that'll give you a chance to kind of collect your thoughts, think about it and not be put on the spot to answer, you know, or make a decision on something right away.

Totally. So you remove the fear. You make it a part of the culture that, hey, it's safe to have this conversation. You're not going to get fired if you come in and you have questions about whether you're supposed to be here or not. I'd like to tell our team that I would be honored if I got to help coach you through a decision that may result in you leaving or may result in you staying. Like as your friend, especially these younger team members that come in, like you said, out of college, they maybe haven't had a parent figure or maybe they don't have a really wise counsel outside of your team that they're processing this with. I can think of a particular team member that they left for an opportunity that I thought, this is crazy. No, you're making great money. It wasn't a selfish thing necessarily as like I selfishly did want them to say because they were a high performer. But I just thought as their friend, as their big brother, I'm going, oh, this is not a, you don't want to do this. But by the time we talked about it, it they had already made up their mind and I was sad that we weren't able to kind of work on that together yes and the other thing is I find a lot of people out in the world don't work for a place

like this so if they tell someone that they're thinking about leaving they're immediately walked out the door and they're shut out of their computer and they're done and I think what is hard is even if you have people who have life experience they've probably never worked somewhere where they're allowed to have a conversation about feeling restless and so they are more likely to kind of go behind your back and look at other jobs and make those decisions without possibly addressing if there's a root frustration or a heads up that they need to be giving or whatever. And so I think by you proactively coaching your team, this place is different. Let me tell you why it's good for us to have a conversation before you just drop your notice on

my desk. You're helping people who've never gone through this, but you're also helping rewire people who have gone through it, but they haven't experienced that. Or people ask their family members, okay, I'm thinking about this thing. What should I do? family member's going to go, oh, well, don't tell them you're thinking about leaving. They don't realize this is a different place. Because that's based on where they work. And that might be the culture there. That's right. So what we're saying is an entree leadership company, someone that's a leader who's really

shepherding the flock, if you will, it's on us to create that environment, to make sure it feels safe, make sure the door is open on this conversation, and to let the people that are coming in know that they don't have to have fear about it, that you're not going to smack them, and that you actually want to be their friend and their guide to help them on what could be one of the biggest decisions of their life. Yes. And know that it's going to feel a little too good to be true when you say that. They're going to be like, is he for real?

So you have to be then consistent with your communication to the team and in how you handle transitions. You have to back up your words with action that is consistent. Well, and I mentioned, you know, Alex did a great job on this. And he's a case where he came in early. We talked about it together. We kind of all got to this place where it made sense by that. It was his decision.

He wanted to go and start his own thing. But we weren't surprised. We weren't freaked out. We were like, man, we kind of saw this coming because we've been talking together and giving him a lot of air time and every couple weeks we're checking in and how are you doing? And he was journaling and thinking about his life and his purpose. And we're talking about opportunities around here and exploring those kind of things. But it was a really good example of when that goes well.

Let's talk about when it's not going well. Somebody isn't initiating they're going to. to move themselves on, but they maybe need to be moved on. There's different reasons that team members fail. I know in my experience, early as a leader, I was way too eager when somebody started faltering a little bit to say, oh, that's it. We've got to get them out of here. I think it's a salesperson in me. Like, you know when you're talking to somebody and they're talking your ear off and then you hear something, you're like, oh, they're not qualified. I got to move on to the next opportunity. You just dump them real quick. I had some baggage around that where I started doing that emotionally. I found

myself doing that with people. And I would give up on people and not give them a chance to clarify that, hey, you're kind of in hot water here. Let's work on this and not just write you off, but maybe we can get you out of the hot water and get you back in a good spot. Well, let's be real. Coaching people takes a lot of work, you know? Isn't it easier to just hire somebody else? No, it's not really. But in the moment, you're kind of like, oh, okay, this is too much trouble. Let's, I don't really have time. But the reality is our jobs as leaders is to coach people. That is our job. It is to get work done through other people. And in order to make that happen, we have to coach them. And so when things are not doing well, I tend to get introspective

first and say, okay, have I done everything I can as a leader to be clear in writing about expectations? Do they have a clearly written KRA? Do they have a clearly written scorecard where we have agreed on what meeting expectations looks like and what going above and beyond looks like and being under expectations looks like. Are we experiencing a consistent meeting rhythm where we are evaluating how they're doing based on that scorecard and that KRA? That's the first thing I look at.

I wish I would have had all that. My first job, well, I guess it was my first big boy job. Emily and I got married, and we were young and I was working for a dental laboratory. I was selling essentially the services of this lab to dentist in West Texas. And I had a pretty good deal going, and I had built up a bunch of accounts

that I was getting commission on. And I negotiated this setup with my boss after a couple years. I said, hey, I don't want to be out on the road as much. What if you just pay me the commission? I drop my salary and I just service doctors that are here in town. And I still get my commission and I'll be out here hustling and making it happen. Well, we didn't really define the expectation for how much I'd be working. And so I'm getting this commission check.

And it's coming in whether I'm really working, you know, five hours a week or 40 hours a week. And I thought, well, this is kind of nice. Some weeks I can just kind of chill and not really have to put a lot into. it and I'm cashing that check. And I did that for a few weeks. And then I just kind of got a call out of nowhere from my boss. He said, hey, come get your stuff. And in hindsight, like when I put myself in his seat, I'd have made the same call. But knowing what we know now about these principles, I think I probably would have gotten my act together had I gotten some warning like, hey, we didn't clarify this. You're going to get your commission, but you still need to be working a

minimum of whatever, 30, 45 hours a week. I probably would have said, oh, wait, okay, I can do that. You know, had I realized I was going to get fired. And at that time of my life is actually one of the best things that happened to me because it got my attention and it stung. And if you've ever gotten fired before, you can look back and go, I was actually probably really a good life lesson. So I'm not mad at him and I understand why he did it. But the point is, you don't ever want somebody to get that phone call and be surprised. What do you mean? I'm getting, I don't understand. Why am I getting fired? Why am I getting my stuff? And don't you think there's things that might feel obvious to us as a leader that are just not obvious? You know, those people haven't.

live the same life that we have. And so we might have experience in something. I'll go, well, obviously you have to work a minimum of 40 hours to get that thing. When realistically, that might not be obvious to them. There's a lot of things that were not obvious to me and still aren't to this day. I'm a little bit dense. So there's kind of three areas that when we think about team members failing or not performing, I kind of think of it in this way helps me break out the nuance in this.

And there's their head, their hands, and their heart. The head is like their attitude. They're bought into the mission. They're humble. they're a team player, they're eager to learn. If they got a bad attitude and they continue to have a bad attitude and they're not teachable, we're going to have to have some difficult conversations about how that doesn't play here. Yes.

That's different than their hands, their performance of actually doing their job, their competency. If their job is to sell things and they can't ever sell something, they may have a great attitude, but they just struggle to do the actual job. And then their heart is like, am I aligned with the mission? Culturally, like, is the reason God put me on this earth to be at this organization and can I I integrate who I am and what I do every day with the organization and the job description. And, you know, it's not always clear. Sometimes it's all those things are off the rails. Sometimes it's just one of those things. So let's break them down on how we respond as leaders,

depending on if this is a performance thing in the hands, an attitude thing with the head, or a calling purpose thing with their heart. Yeah. So oftentimes, the thing that will get you quickly out the door is usually some kind of morale failure, moral failure. Oh, wow. We're slower on morale failure. Moral failures can get you out of doing too. Oh, my goodness. A moral failure.

So a moral failure in our company constitutes, you know, if you sleep with someone you're not married to, something like that. Yeah, you steal money. You steal money. You fake your calls, stuff like that. You are out the door. Because those are a major breach of trust. Yes. And so if we can't trust you at that level, then we can't go forward and count on you to do your job or be a key part of this team.

Right. So those are usually quick exits, and we don't give a lot of details to the team on this. I don't want to walk them through all of this person's business and embarrass this person. So it's important to me to give them enough information that they understand that that person will no longer be working here, but not give them all of the dirty laundry. They don't need to know all of those things. I want to talk about that for a minute, and I have a personal experience that was really difficult for me, where as the leader who was walking through a situation with somebody, they were lying, a big lack of integrity on this issue. we could never get to a place where trust was going to be restored and some things happened and they kept denying it. Well, I knew all this context. The team didn't know this. And we got to the point where I had to let this person go. And then we had to let the team know this person's not here anymore. Like I wanted to just say, like if you knew what I knew, like if I could show you all the evidence, you would go. That was absolutely the right decision. And I felt like I had to be the bad guy to do the right thing. And I was kind of caught in the middle going, now the team hates me because I let this guy go, but they don't know the details. And it wouldn't have been fair to them to air their, like you said, air their dirty laundry.

out to the whole team and go, here's the nitty gritty, because we're trying to honor this person and go, look, we're going to move on, but we're not trying to tear them down. So how do you emotionally as a leader? I mean, you mentioned earlier being called to this. This is kind of the burden of leadership, but how do you embrace that and carry that weight as the leader when you're not going to get the credit and not everybody's going to like the decision, but it's still the right decision to make? Oh, this is, I think, one of the toughest times to be a leader. You have reviews out there on Glassdoor and people's social platforms. I mean, leadership is absolutely a calling, and you have to have courage to be able to do what we do and put yourself out there. And like you said, be able to make decisions so that you can put your head on the pillow at night knowing that people will not understand them and that they cannot have all of the context to understand them. It's freaking hard. And so I think that I have to remind myself of that that courage is working through fear. You know, I don't want to be blasted on a social site. and at the end of the day, I'm going to do what I know is right no matter what, and that is all I can do. I'm not going to be this person who just goes around to make other people happy and as a soft leader.

Because by definition, that's not leadership. I love that. Well, and let's talk about the opposite of that. Let's say that we're so concerned about making sure that we're popular with our team or that everyone feels like we're always keeping everybody on board and we're putting up with crap and we're letting people lie and do things that are seedy. and well, if we do that, then what happens? We've sanctioned incompetence, and we've got problems on the other end, which is our customers don't get served. We've got infighting. We've got toxicity.

So, I mean, the truth is, like, it's going to suck either way. Welcome to leadership. Right. There's going to be critics no matter which way you go. So wouldn't you rather do what you know is right? So true. Okay. So that's if somebody's attitude-wise or there's a moral failure, moral failure.

They do something that's just blatant. They just got to leave real quick. and you can't really tell the team the details about it. That sucks. If their attitude is struggling, let's say they're having a rough month. Let's say it's not a black and white, you know, they stole money is really clear. You got to go. I mean, there's it. We can't like work through that. That's something that's just, it's that day you're gone. Because trust has been broken at such a level in that case. But let's say somebody's got, you know, I've been in a rough spot. I've been in a funk. I'm not sure about this place. You know what? I'm not sure about that decision they made. I'm not

sure I can respect that. And they're a little bit out of line, but it's also not black and white. What do you do? How much time do you put up with that? Do you kind of slow walk it? Do you tolerate it for a while and hope it goes away? Do you address it head on? What's the best approach? So usually I'll sit down with that person and understand is there a root thing going on? So is this just like a one-off thing where they were having a bad day and they made a rude comment? Or is this like any time, you know, we have staff meeting, they're being critical. If there is a root thing going on, I am very direct with them. I love you. I want you to be here, but there are some non-negotiables about you being here.

You have to be part of our mission. You have to respect our CEO and leaders. I want you to think about this overnight. Let's sync up tomorrow because if those, two things can't be true, you can't work here. And if they come back and they say, I've thought about it, and I was just having a bad day, I'm totally on board, that is the last time I'm going to have that conversation with them. If they give me lip service and then come back in and they are still being critical in those ways, I'm going to say, hey, remember we had that conversation the other day

and I told you these were non-negotiables to working here? Well, I feel like you're going back into that pattern and maybe that wasn't just a bad day. And then we're going to talk about it some more. And if the reality is they're not going to stop that behavior and they're not behind our mission or they don't respect either our CEO or our leaders, we're not going to be able to make this work here. I love that you're talking about this idea of like is this symptomatic of a root issue. If the bad attitude is a symptom of a in their heart, they are disgruntled. In their heart, they can't trust their leadership team. Ultimately, like, they got to go if they can't get there. They can't trust us and they won't be loyal.

But sometimes it's like self-awareness. Like their heart is gold. And they're going, oh, I didn't know I was coming off that way. I had no idea. And you've got a coachable opportunity. Let's talk about this. I have seen two people do the exact same thing, but how they responded made all the difference on whether they got to stay or not.

So it wasn't the what. So you could have two people. Let me use an example that we've had them past. You can have two people who both fake sales call logs. One of the person you bring in, you say, what's going on? Why are you doing this? And they get defensive and they lie. And they say, oh, I don't know.

That must just be your logs are wrong. You're out. We're not tolerating that. You can have the second person come in. You say, hey, this is really strange. It looks like you're patting your call logs. If they are immediately, I'm so sorry, that was a bad decision that I made. I was feeling really stressed out.

I have the situation at home. I was scared. I didn't know what else to do. I'm an idiot. Yes. I'm a real person. I have a bad day. You know, we're not perfect people.

We don't make perfect choices. And so I have a lot of empathy for someone, and it actually grows my respect for that person when they can own a bad decision. Now, obviously, it matters the magnitude of that decision. Like you're saying, if they embezzle money, okay, you're not coming back from that. But if there are minor infractions, the way they respond to that is a really big deal to me. It's kind of the old, it's not the crime. It's the cover up. You know, I mean, you can screw stuff up.

I mean, thank God you don't have to be perfect to stay here because I'd have been gone really. really quick. And I still screw things up. I still make bad decisions. And there's grace for that. As leaders, we have to extend grace. We have to extend mercy. We just had a situation recently where Dave was talking to our entire leadership team, walking us through a situation where we have to balance judgment and making tough decisions, but also be wise and extend grace and mercy and have compassion for people and use the context of a situation to inform that. And so much of that has to do with that person's attitude. Let's talk about one thing that can be really tough for people.

When someone is walking through something like a divorce or close family member has passed away. Or one of their kids is going crazy. 100%. You will see a dip in performance. The important thing is that you have empathy in that moment. You understand why that is happening. You both are connected and on the same page that this is happening. You're not ignoring it.

And that you have a plan to dig back out of this hole. This can't be a three-year I'm in a rut because, you know, I had this situation. Like, we can give grace for a couple of months, but they then need to start trending for their own sake. They need to then start trending up. So if you have a salesperson and they're going through a divorce, I can understand some empathy and cut them a little slack on the numbers. But you do have to get on the same page and have a plan for, okay, we need to start seeing a trend up at this point. Again, for their own sake as much as for the business. Yeah, it's what's good for them. And I mean, again, this is where we say sometimes we're the coach as their leader, sometimes it's the tough love. And then there's sometimes where the pastor, when they're hurting and we sit down with them and we say, I'm going to walk with you through this. But I'm also going to lead you to the next mountaintop. And for your sake, I'm going to push you a little bit to move through this season appropriate and loving them well, not just because you need more performance out of them, but because like what you're saying, so they can be restored into some normal.

we'll see. And you'll find a lot of times when people are going through a really hard situation, sometimes work, they need to not be there to deal with stuff. And sometimes they need to come to work, so they've got some anchoring. I just went through my dad being sick and losing my dad. And it was extremely tough. And there's a lot of days I wasn't here. And then there were some days like, I just needed to be here because I needed to be around my friends. And I needed to be in a, I needed to just do whatever my calendar told me to do that day, because it gave me some level of just kind of like an anchoring into a normal life. And you know, you got to realize that people are going to process these things different ways. And you've got to have, again, you've got to have a heart and connect

with where they're at. So we've talked about their head and their attitude. What about when their performance is off and they're struggling? You know, the salesperson that can't make a sale or they're maybe not quite making enough sales or the admin who's really good at certain things, but then over here balls get dropped and you're cleaning up messes. And you're just going, oh, gosh, this person's like, they never quite get their. How do you address that? Yeah. So I go back to what we were talking about earlier.

Was I clear on my expectations? Are we aligned on what winning looks like in this person's role? And I really like for that to be in writing. I think there's a lot less wiggle room in terms of how you can or cannot interpret things. And I think the more specific you can be, the better if someone's struggling. So if they're a salesperson, you're talking specifically about how many calls, what are our goals, that kind of thing. and they're hitting, especially the things that they can control, they are then hitting those things. So what is, I mean, because we talk about everyone needs to have a key results area, a one-pageer of their job description essentially.

Nobody works here without having that. So at this point, are we saying they need a little bit more clarity than what their initial job description was laid out to be? Yes. I like to go ahead and create a scorecard where we talk about what is meeting expectations look like. So if you think about a scale of one, two, three, four, five, three is meeting expectations. So if you sit down, you define this is at minimum what needs to be done, right? Okay, now let's talk about what exceeding expectations look like. And if you're under a three, we don't really need to define that because you're not even meeting expectations. So you talk to them later after, let's say we give them the scorecard a few weeks goes by. You check back in and you go, hey, this is, remember we said I had to be a three, it's still a one.

And then you're saying, okay, here's what it looks like to be at a three. Are we clear, right? And so at some point, you know that you've given lots and lots of clarity, and it's not for a lack of training. It's not for a lack of clarity. It's just either they can't or they won't get there. That's right. And at that point, we have to have a conversation about either moving them to another job or maybe moving them off the bus. Well, we never move a problem.

So if you cannot perform in your current role, you do not get the option here to move to another role. I'm not going to just transfer a problem to someone. I mean, can you imagine someone from another team, a leader from another team coming and saying, hey, I heard so-and-so would like to apply for this role. I wouldn't be able to look them in the eye and recommend that person. I'd have to be honest and say, well, they're really underperforming. So here, you are not allowed to move into a different role if you have not figured out how to meet expectations on your current role. So talk about this, because I think there's some nuance on, and I agree. I mean, we can't move our problems from one other. If somebody's struggling, they've got to

deal with that issue. They have to own that thing. Talk about this and the difference between this and like somebody's you know they're a rock star player but they're a tight in trying to play quarterback and you're like we need to make you in a tight end role and it's not like a performance or attitude thing you realize no this is actually going to be better for you and better for us how do you know when it's time to shift somebody because of how they're wired and getting them into a better seat on the bus versus like you're moving the baggage on to another situation totally I think if they are doing everything to control their controllables if they're on the phone and they're hitting their numbers and everything I am open to having a

conversation then about, hey, this is not the best fit. We've had a situation like that. Actually, this is kind of an interesting move. We had someone who was in sales and wanted to be in product and definitely was better wiring for product thinking. And so I have no problem talking about, okay, there's a different seat on the bus, but they have to be playing all out. If I feel like they're just kind of phoning it in, we're not going to have any other conversations. So the new opportunity cannot be a bandaid for an underlying problem. It has to be a solution to something we all see. Yeah, this is a good step for everybody. Okay, so when somebody's got a bad attitude and they do something stupid and it's none of the team's

business, we just say, hey, this person's gone and it's none of your business. When somebody has a performance issue, I imagine the team that works around them has been sensing it. And so if we get to the point where this person has to move on, we fire them, we're generous, we're clear, we give lots of time, we give great severance, we treat them well on the way out the door. But then we've got address the team and say this person's not here anymore. Well, and let's back up because the beauty of having clarity around whether or not they are winning is that they will often opt out. So if you look at someone and you say, hey, this is what winning looks like. We both agree that this is what meeting expectation looks like and this is what exceeding expectation looks like.

And I say, I need to see a difference in the next 90 days we need to be trending up consistently. No bad weeks. If we then every week are checking in on that, Don't you think by week three of not performing, they're kind of going, oh, they're feeling miserable. Yeah. And so I do often give people like, hey, we can keep going through this 90-day plan. And in the next couple of weeks, if we're still not trending up knowing you're going to be fired, or if you are really feeling like you're not called to do this and you're not able to do this, you can opt out. And we will often do a severance option for that. Well, and I think sometimes people need to hear, they know it's not going well, but no one wants to say, like, guys, I'm failing.

No. Shoot me. But if you say, look, hey, we love you. It feels like this isn't going well. Tell you what, what if you walk out with your head held high, here's some money, we're going to be friends. Let's just call it. Let's call it for what it is. This is not who you are and what this is not the best fit. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're not going to thrive in another opportunity. But do you feel like this is going to end with you winning? Not really. Okay. Well, hey, look, we're not going to embarrass you. Right. We're going to cheer. We'll help you for you. find your next opportunity if we can. We know people. It allows them to leave with dignity.

Instead of going through a miserable process where for weeks they're trying to be good at something that they know they're not wired to do. Well, let's talk about the third one. You know, we've talked about their head, their attitude bought into our mission. We've talked about their performance. I think this third one is the most sticky, and that is their heart, who they are, why God put them on this planet and their purpose and life and their life plan, being aligned with the organization's mission, being aligned with, in our case, the crusade that we're on. You know, there's times that people have been here for a season, and they've been incredible contributors. And then God tells them they need to do something else with their life. And they move on because the performance is good, their

attitude's good, but they just had a change of heart. That can be difficult to identify. Some people aren't self-aware and they don't realize when that's happening. And we see it as their leader. And we go, hey, what's going on here? Or sometimes they bring it up to us and we're going, no, oh, please don't leave. Hey, pray about it some more. Get God to tell you that you should still be here. God told you're really supposed to be here. So how do we handle this one?

I mean, what I know is we've got to spend time with this one. We can't just force the decision. This is where the relationship and the trust and the coaching all come together. You know, this is where you take that person to coffee and you say, hey, you have been yourself for the last, to be honest, three months. What's going on, you know? And when they say, well, you know, it's fine. I just, you know, I'm just tired all the time. Like, what, what do you think?

Why is that? Why is that? Why do you think you're tired all the time? This is where you lead them and you ask questions and you get to the root of what's going on and you help them realize, you know, and a lot of times people feel uncomfortable at the idea of leaving. It's very stressful to think about searching for a job and making a change. So they're resisting that. But meanwhile, they're not supposed to be here anymore, you know, they're not aligned to something, you know, with a mission or, you know, they personally are called to do something else. And so I think that's where you really have to, as a friend, push in and go, hey, I know you're saying that, but I've seen you walk in here grumpy for

three months. This isn't like, oh, three days, been a rough three days. I want to dive on this for a second, and this is a little bit at the risk of sounding like it's age discrimination or something like that. I promise that's not my intent. But younger people fresh out of college, three months into the job, they come in and they're burned out. I am just tired all the time. I've got a little less tolerance for like a long year long. Let's figure this out together. But I mean, if someone comes in, they're in their mid-30s, they know a lot about who they are, who they aren't. They've had a lot of reps. And they've been with this for a while.

And they say, I'm exhausted. I don't know. I'm probably going to walk with that person longer and more intentionally. The 22-year-old who's just bored and they've never worked more than three months anywhere in their life. I'm going to go, no, no, no, no. Double down. Get your reps. Spend a couple years working on this thing.

I mean, didn't we have to do that? Like, you have to do things out of duty sometimes. Nobody cared what I was interested. There's such an idea these days floating around there that I should be able to live in my calling and everything I do should fulfill me and I should be living my destiny and my best life. And, you know, I'm for all that stuff. And I also know the way that life works is there's a season when you got to figure out who you are, what you're good at, and you got to earn the street cred. You got to kind of earn the right to have a conversation about, is this the ideal fit for who I am and all that kind of stuff? Have you found that to be a thing like generationally or what? I mean, is it age or what's the deal?

Well, and I think back to myself, I had jobs I wasn't thrilled about. And in hindsight, there were key foundational things that I learned in those roles that have set me up to win today. And so I feel like when I have people who are young and feeling that way, I try to share that story myself. Like, hey, you're an adult. You can do whatever you want. But let me just kind of share my story. There were roles where I was working crazy hours and getting paid very little. my husband would have to come up to work and bring me dinner just to see me.

And I look back and I'm so grateful for that season because it taught me so much. It really microwaved a lot of things that I would not know today without those seasons. And so what I usually encourage them is sometimes you are in the middle of something that is important to your growth and you don't realize it. And in hindsight, you'll look back and you'll see that this foundational track that has been laid out by these different roles that you've had that haven't been sexy or exciting. or whatever, you know? Well, it sounds like you're saying that there are seasons where, you know, someone might confuse just the fact that they're uncomfortable with, oh, I'm not in my calling. And the fact is that if you're in your calling, there's a lot of time.

You're very uncomfortable. But what's happening is you're in this crucible experience that's transforming who you are. I mean, going to the gym and working out and building bigger muscles, it's very healthy, and it's also extremely uncomfortable. And as mentors, as guides, especially for young. younger team members, again, sometimes they maybe didn't have a parent or a coach or somebody that could say, hey, you need to stick this out. I know you don't love it. I know it's not what you want to do in five years from now when you're more mature in your career. But for right now,

this is actually a really good time to put in those reps and be uncomfortable and learn and soak it up and take people to lunch and ask questions and figure out why you're uncomfortable and earn the right to have a conversation about more responsibility. Well, you know, the best skill set as a human is adaptability. And so what's important at any age, but especially as a young person, is to quickly understand how to learn despite the other stuff, despite the fact that you don't love your job, despite the fact that you're not paid enough, despite the fact that is the most important skill you can learn as a human, is how to win despite. Sarah, I remember when I was, I'd probably been married two or three years. I always struggled in school and in the academic world I didn't connect

with very much. And so as a result, I didn't read. And I met somebody who said, hey, you should really be reading. They gave me this book. It was Robert Kiyosaki's rich dad, poor dad. And I devoured this thing. Something about it. I was just turning the pages and I got through it like literally in one sitting. And I remember him talking about assets and liabilities. And it was the first time I remember connecting reading a book with growth, something I was excited about. And I immediately went without, I do not recommend this without telling my wife, I sold our car, I took all the cash, I put it into a stupid investment. Oh, no. I'm doing the rich dad, poor dad thing. She said, you did what? I said, trust me. I read a book about it. It's going to be fine.

Oh, no. The first book I've ever read. It was awesome. And I don't know how my marriage survived this experience, but it did. And we laugh about it now. But I picked up two things at that point. One is really healthy. And that is a lifelong habit of reading. books and learning and trying to figure out what are the answers to life's problems. And the fact is there's a lot of wisdom out there. And we say it all the time, leaders are readers. The other habit I picked up, and I didn't realize it was a bad habit until probably a decade in, is I figured that if I could read it in a book, I just take that template and I just plug it in. If the answers are out there, I'll go find them and I'll just do it like that. And I completely bypassed

my own intuition, my own common sense, my own listening to my gut and my head and my heart and advice from friends. And I was just like, all right, the book said it. I'm going to apply it, literally. And it's kind of a shallow approach to personal growth. I want to tell our audience right now, this is an area when you're dealing with people who are going to need to leave your team. You're dealing with their lives. They have families. They have children. They have fear. they have hopes, they have dreams, they're humans. Sarah, you said this earlier, they're human beings. I feel a lot of shame about the number of times that I took the book approach to this issue. And it was a transaction. I was looking for follow the formula. Okay, yeah, that person has to leave.

And my heart was not actually engaged in the process. I missed it. And so what I've since learned is it's good to get advice. It's good to get books. I hope people are getting good information from this podcast as some frameworks and some guidepost. But what I want you to hear is you have to listen to your heart. You have to think about that person sitting across from you. Think about their children. Think about their future. Slow way down. Do not bring out the book or the policy and say, here's how this just fits this boilerplate approach to this thing because this is a person. And the stakes are high for them. And you're going to get to the end of your life. And you're going to be thinking about how you did these things.

And once you've accomplished all your business goals and made all the money and things are going great, you're going to be thinking back going, if you're like me, there's a few I wish I could have back. I wish I could have slowed down and invested my heart more in really loving that person well. So what would you say to the leaders out there who go, I just don't ever have the time and I'm not sure? What's the key? You're just amazing at this. You model this so well. But how do you keep your heart engaged in the process while still leading forward and making these hard decisions? Well, we had a Devo speaker one time that talked about leaving people better than you found them. And I've thought about that a lot in difficult conversations with team members. I believe you can do what's right and you can have hard conversations and they are for that person's betterment. And I can do it in a way that I actually left them better than how I found them. And so that has been kind of my guiding principle is I'm going to say the hard stuff. I'm going to address this stuff because I actually believe it's good for that person. You know, if they're no good at this role or if there's a mismatch in their calling,

I need to help them make that transition, you know? Some people won't make that transition until you help them and guide them through it. You will be instrumental in that. And you will actually have people call you later in life and say, hey, thanks for that. You said the thing that I needed to hear or you helped me make a decision that I was too scared to make on my own. And so I think really remembering that you can leave people better than how you found them through this process. And it is a balance. I actually want to call it is a balance.

I'm not going to spend all night losing sleep over something. I'm going to do it the right way. I'm going to trust my decision on that. And I'm going to choose to continue to move on. Do you know what I mean? I love it. Well, Sarah, as we wrap up, I just want to say I'm inspired by how well you live that out. I know so many people around you are better as a result of you being.

in their life, whether they're still with us or they've moved on. I know I'm better as a person because you're in my life. And it's just so great to see that modeled and to see you live that principle. And I know our audience today will be better as a result of the wisdom that you shared on this very sticky and difficult issue. But it is our job as leaders to get this well. So thanks for being here today. Thanks for having me. Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that conversation and got a lot out of it. Look, here's the thing. In leadership, transitions are going to happen. We've got to embrace this stuff. If you're like me, early in my leadership, I kind of wanted to evade this whole concept. I wanted to hide from it. I wanted to pretend like

transitions would never occur. And so when it happened, I would freak out. I had anxiety about it. You know, I literally would lose sleep anticipating these difficult conversations. And I'm here to tell you, it doesn't have to be that way. The key is making this a normal part of your culture. be willing to communicate with your leadership team about how you're going to do this well. Communicate with your entire team so that they understand where you stand. If the team is clear on the expectations, it alleviates so much anxiety later. Because what I found is the anxiety comes from, oh, we didn't communicate this. And people are going to feel surprised.

And there's no roadmap here. And I'm making it up in real time. And I'm trying to get people to understand the new. of a situation that's all sticky and gross at that point. Well, that's the part that's frustrating. So have a plan for this. Embrace it. Remember, we said, healthy things grow, growing things change. That's how this stuff works. So one of the keys that will help you have less transitions is having really great communication. You guys know this. Communication is the key to building trust. trust is what drives a unified team and really keeps everybody in the boat.

That's the goal here. Get the right people in the boat and keep them there as long as possible. So check it out. Our team put together this incredible resource for you, a free resource to help you win. It's the communication field guide. This guide's designed to help you get started and creating a culture of communication. It's going to include things on how to handle difficult conversations, making the most out of meetings so that they're not a waste of time. So, hey, check it out.

If you want to start improving your communication today, just get this free guide. All you got to do is text the word communication to 33444. Again, text communication to 33444 or click the link down here in the show notes. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. And we want your feedback. We'd love for you to review this episode and tell us how we can improve it. Make sure it's getting good value for you guys.

All you got to do is click the link down here in the show notes. And when you do that, we're going to throw you in a drawing to win a $25 Amazon gift card as a way of saying. Thanks for playing. Be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. And, you know, as always, we love our guys in the booth. Tim Hull produced this episode and it was edited and mixed by Will Rudder. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty. And on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening.

Until next time, keep learning. keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network like the Ken Coleman Show. Are you doing what you were born to do? I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show, where I give you practical advice to help you discover your purpose and then map out a plan to get you there. From accounting to advertising, from plumbing to production, you were created to fill a unique role and the world needs what you have to offer. Join me on the Ken Coleman Show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you.