EntreLeadership - Align on the Objective, Negotiate on the Nuance

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

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All right, we're speaking with Shanna in Arizona. Shana owns a business, and we're going to check in and see what's going on. How we can help? Shana, how are you? Hey, I'm great, Daniel. Thanks so much. Fantastic. Tell us just a bit about your business.

I know you guys are in Arizona. We are, yeah. We are a financial planning and investment management firm in the Phoenix metro area. Wonderful. And how long have you done this? About 10 years now. And did you found this business? Did you kind of graph?

Okay, good. What was that like? Wow, that's a loaded question. It's been great. I love being an entrepreneur. I also love working with my client. So owning a business for me is kind of the best of both worlds, but it is definitely a labor of love for sure. It can be a double-edged sword, can't it? Well, what's on your mind today? Well, in November of last year, I bought another practice from an advisor that's going to be retiring here in five to seven years. And that has been a great experience. He is an absolutely lovely man. His clients are very similar to mine. We spent about a year doing due diligence on each other. So from that perspective, I feel really good.

The curveball that's kind of come out of left field is that his brother is his assistant and has had some major health issues over the last year. Yeah. And he was never to be part of the deal that was made clear to me at the beginning was that his brother would be phased out. And it has not happened that way. Let me stop you right there. He was not supposed to be a part of the deal, and he is a part of the deal at this point.

Okay. What happened? He never really got moved out of his role of supporting the clients. And so we started handing responsibility over to my assistant as soon as the deal was final. And it was a little bit of, I think, on his part, feeling left out. And a little bit that the clients were really used to interfacing with him. and so it's created more problems than he's solved. And he inserts himself in situations where he shouldn't and kind of mucks up our processes

unintentionally. And it's just been a true source of stress and frustration for everybody in my business. I see. Okay. There's probably three components to this. I want to dive in a little bit more on each of them. First, there's the legal component. There's then the operational component with clients.

And then there's the relationship. with the fact that he's in the family, so to speak. Tell me a little bit legally, structurally, are you 100% ownership at this point as a partnership? I am. Okay. So the brother of the person you acquired this from is technically an employee, W2 employee, I presume. Not even really in that regard. He is licensed in our industry. So I carry the responsibility for supervising him, but he is not in any way getting paid. by me or my company. Okay.

What do you sensing needs to happen here? He needs to be moved out. And the good news is I had a pretty frank conversation last week with my partner and kind of expressing that I understand that it's a difficult situation because it's his brother. How did that go? It went really well, actually better than I would have anticipated. But the problem that I've had with both of them up to this point is follow through. they'll say something, will agree to something, and then it won't quite happen that way.

So I get the intention is there to move him on and do the right thing, but I'm not sure that it will happen in practice. That makes sense. It sounds like you're already doing a great job of leaning into the conflict. And that's emotionally always the most difficult part is kind of breaking the seal and having that first uncomfortable conversation. So congratulations on doing that because I know it takes a little bit of courage. And it also takes being delicate and respectful to the fact that there's kind of a legacy component here. You're talking about somebody who has clients that he brought in and now they're yours technically, but you're trying to honor the relational aspect of this. So I can tell you're being very sensitive to that.

And I think that compassion is something that you will not regret in the long term. So when these things are delicate, it's tempting to just, we want to rip off the bandaid. And every day that goes by, it drives us crazy when this. this thing is festering, but I think it sounds like you're doing a good job of slowing down and trying to really honor everybody involved. But I don't want you to swing that pendulum to the other end of the spectrum where you're being passive and you're tiptoeing on eggshells all the time and this never gets dealt with. And I don't think you will. The thing that I have found in difficult conversations where there needs to be a period of time that things play out,

a couple of the practical tools that really helped me are after that first conversation to send a follow-up, maybe an email, just to recap and say bullet points of what we talked about today, this is what I heard us kind of agree to, and have it in writing so that other person has a chance to confirm. Hopefully they reply back and say, yep, that's what we agree to. That initial email may not even have a deadline in there yet, but I think what you're wanting to do is continue to earn the right to have the next conversation and say, hey, let's check in on this in a week from now and just see what the progress looks like. What I have learned is, Almost anybody can go almost anywhere if they don't have to go tomorrow.

And so if you're walking them toward a common goal and if we can start aligning one conversation at a time on our objective and have some time for them to breathe and process and maybe even negotiate a little bit on some of the nuance, it always goes so much better because what I hear behind all this is you want everybody to come out still liking each other and and still in a positive place relationally. You didn't say that, but I'm kind of reading between the lines there. Give me a little feedback on that. Yeah, absolutely.

That's really the hardest part of this for me is that I'm super sensitive to the fact that there's a history there. And I'm also really, really sensitive to the fact that in 15 or 20 years, this is going to be me on the other end of it. So I'm really looking at this on how I would want to be treated. And, you know, so that's super important to me. but it's also going through all of the COVID-19 stress, like the last thing we need is to be dealing with this every day.

And I get that totally as well. So, you know, I feel a bit conflicted at times. Give me a sense of the magnitude of the operational issues. If one is it's slightly annoying and 10 is that it's catastrophic in terms of how it's impacting business and customers, What size of an issue is this on a day-to-day basis? Seven and eight, maybe. And that's the unfortunate part. Thankfully, it hasn't really impacted customers because my assistant is good at, you know,

sticking her nose in and digging in and rolling her sleeves up. But it has definitely impacted her, my relationship with my husband, who's also a partner in my business. And that is not something I'm willing to tolerate either. So, you know, that's kind of where I feel like the line. it needs to get drawn. And I think the good news is, you know, we do have that agreement. And following our conversation last week, I did just what you, what you just recommended. And maybe I pushed a bit too hard trying to get a date that this was all going to happen. And I got some

pushback a little bit. And that's where I'm like, okay, well, for me, I'm hesitant to feel comfortable that it's moving towards that resolution because I don't see a line in the sand yet. What do you feel like as a reasonable timeline for this to be buttoned up? You know, I was kind of hoping for maybe like May 15th at the very latest May 30th. You know, I think we've come to a solution where there will be an email forwarding rule placed on his email so that we get client emails and he gets everything else because he's still remaining somewhat active in the business on a completely different capacity. but it won't be in servicing our mutual clients. So we do have some resolution on how that's going to play out. And I think that an easy way to deal with that could be just to say,

as of this date, that's when this is going to occur. But I think there's still a little bit of fear, hesitation, uncertainty from their part to give me that line in the sand. What's the fear for Shannon? Well, I think the fear for me is that it's going to start to be a problem for the clients. and that I spent a lot of money and a lot of time acquiring this business. And if the relationship starts to deteriorate, then so does my investment. And if Shannon's investment deteriorates, then what?

Wow. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot writing on this going well personally. But what's to say about you personally? Well, I think ultimately it sort of would make me feel like it made a bad decision. Is that true? No. I don't think so, but that's the easiest place for me to go.

I don't think it's true either, but it's good to identify that fear and to give it a name so that you can step into these conversations where you put that fear in its appropriate spot, which is on a shelf and you can acknowledge and say there's a chance that I made a bad decision, but I know that's really not. not true. And when you can bring your whole heart, not with fear, to these discussions, that's the only place we can really be that perfect balance of firm and confident while also caring and kind. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's good to be aware of that. I think practically it's also really good to pose the same question I asked you earlier. What's a reasonable timeline? giving your partner a chance to answer that question. And if they say, you know, May 30th, you can go, I can live with two weeks. If they say by Christmas, then you're having a different conversation, which is why that's not a reasonable expectation.

And you may have to turn up the heat. And there could be a point, Shanna, where the relationships may not be intact because you're fighting for the relationships with your client and your husband and your team. And those are the worst places that we end up in as leaders. Emotionally, it's so hard when we have to choose between relationships. We want all the relationships to work all the time. And there are times when other people put us in the position to have to make the tough call. And you know where you're going to land. Logically, you already understand that.

But sometimes we, I don't know where you're at. I check in out sometimes when I'm having to pick between relationships and difficult conversations. where I know this is going to hurt somebody for me to stand firm on the relationships that I value the most and the ones where I feel like I'm making a wise decision. And that's a tough spot to be in. But I don't think you're there yet. I think you guys can, it sounds like he's agreeable and open to, you at least have mutually identified the problem and the root issue. It sounds like you guys are aligned on that. But that's the hardest part to get alignment. If you can get alignment there, then you can negotiate a little bit on nuance and timeline and the scope of how quickly

things are getting phased out. I would be much more open to negotiating on those things as long as we're aligned on the objective and as long as there's consistent progress towards that objective. But you've called out a real risk, which is that we can put out the platitudes and give lip service to the problem and never be making incremental progress. And that would be a big flag. And I would say this is, we could not move forward any more than, you know, a week cannot go by when we haven't seen agreed upon progress and specific steps towards what's the next meeting, what's the next conversation, what are the things with the email where you can actually feel like we are moving towards this shared outcome. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I think that, you know, in the past, I've just

sort of trusted that things were going to get done and now I'm going to have to start being a little more forceful and I'm willing to be the bad cop and I made that very clear last week to preserve his relationship with his brother. I'll be the fall guy if I need to be. So that's also clear. I think you're looking at this exactly the right way. I will encourage you that oftentimes we want to trust other people just like we expect people to trust us.

And when you're a trustworthy person and you're high in integrity, we want to believe that we can treat everybody else the same way. it's just going to work out. Oftentimes that's the case. And I think you let off with the golden rule, which is how would I want to be treated? And foundationally, I think that's really the right place to be coming from. But if you start to see a pattern that someone is not trustworthy, and you've kind of indicated that a little bit, we'll say one thing, but then nothing happens, trust is a big word. You know, it's not necessarily that you wouldn't trust them to watch your children for an evening. But in this issue, you don't have the confidence that they're going to be.

to follow through. And if you continue to have a pattern where your confidence is low in this area, you kind of have to flip it and go, okay, this isn't about what Shanna would do in the situation. If somebody else was on the other side of it, this is about the pattern that this person has of not following through. And that's where you have to have that courage and backbone to go. This is hard. I wouldn't want to be on the other end of this conversation for the sake of your family, your husband and your employee and your clients. I think that's where you can really anchor your courage from and go, I'm not doing it to be against these guys. I'm doing it to be for who this company is for, which is these clients that we serve, and especially for you and your

husband and your relationship. So think of it as fighting for something, not fighting against something, and that'll help you out a little bit too. Yeah, that's a super way to look at it. I appreciate that. So give me a little feedback on what's been the most valuable part of this conversation that you're going to take forward into these next discussions. Yeah, I think that just that last part really spoke to me because that is where I come from in this. I have a set of standards for the people that I surround myself with that I'm not willing to compromise on. And I think I was looking at it more of a us versus them mentality when really that's, it's just me standing in my standards and my, I'm not willing to compromise on those. That's great.

Well, I like your standards and you need to have them. And I also like your tenacity and compassion, all mixed into this one beautiful person as the leader of this organization. You're doing a great job. And you do have what it takes. And I understand the fear of what if I made the wrong decision. You know that that's not true. You made a great decision here. And you in that decision, you adopted all the upside. And you also adopted some of the problems that come with that. And there is zero decision under the sun where you. you wouldn't also inherit some problems. So these are your problems. This is part of the price of of what you are getting with the upside of this business you acquired, but you can do it. You can do it. You already are doing it. And hopefully we can just pump a little wind in your sales to keep going, have these difficult conversations. Get really, really clear. Get it in writing, get specific dates and be kind all the way through, but also be firm. And remember who you're fighting for, not that you're just fighting against these guys. You're doing a great job. You have what it takes, can tell you've got a great vision for where your company is headed. And I would be so lucky

if I got to work for a leader like you, you're killing it. So hang in there. I think you got a few weeks of frustration here. But on the other side of this, I mean, you're going to be breathing a lot easier and sleeping better at night. It just starts to weigh on you, you know, and you just carry it and carry it. And then you feel angry about it and bitter. And then you feel shame and judge yourself. And, you know, all that stuff will release pretty quickly once you just continue to pushed through the muck. Yeah. But you're really close to the other side.

I hope so. Yeah. I think so. I mean, you know, being in the middle of this while we were dealing with all the COVID-19 stuff, it was about my breaking point. Sure. And I think that's why it helped me have that difficult conversation. I was like, listen, I normally tiptoe around this stuff, but there's something I got to say

to you and I'm going to say it. And I'm sorry if it sounds rude, but this is just the way it's got to be. And that was probably the best thing I could have done, even though it was. what I wanted to do. I just needed to get it all off my chest. Now we just need to move forward and get it done. Well, you may also just write out your thoughts ahead of each conversation. I know when I have, it's similar to a performance issue with a team member where you're having to move towards holding them accountable, hoping they make the turn.

But ultimately, if you need to fire this person, you want to have had these kind of clear discussions along the way. I always get so nervous on those conversations that I'm going to fumble my words or that I'm going to be too mean or that I'm going to lay up and not say what I really needed to say. And afterwards, I'm like, oh, I didn't even really tell them what the problem is. And it takes some of the awkwardness out of it for me. If I just say, hey, look, I don't want to screw up these words. So I actually took the time to write them up.

I'm just going to read this for a second. And then I know I got everything out because it was premeditated and I can even slide it across to him afterwards. So they have a copy. Those are just helpful tools for me to not be fumbling around and accidentally overstate something or, or understate something. So do the prep. And that fear of having those conversations goes away when we do a little bit of planning like that.

That gives us a little bit of a safety net. Nope, that totally makes sense. Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it. Hang in there, Shanna. And check back with us after these discussions and after this kind of plays out, let us know how it goes.

And we will continue to be cheering for you as you do. Wonderful. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it. Thanks, Shana. Talk to you soon.