EntreLeadership - How to Make a Habit of Connecting With Your Team with Jeremy Breland and Patrick Lencioni

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks with Executive Vice President of Ramsey Personalities Jeremy Breland. They discuss how to have a habit of connecting with your team on a human level. Later, George sits down with Patrick Lencioni, a bestselling author, a speaker and the president of The Table Group. Patrick shares how to build successful teams that are engaged at work. You’ll learn: •      If you should actually be friends with your boss •      The severe impact of disengaged employees •      The three killers of employee engagement •      Why you should be friends with your team members Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Register for EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/3Uw3PMQ •      The Truth About Employee Engagement by Patrick Lencioni: https://bit.ly/3iLolfx •      EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey: http://bit.ly/3E2ndbP •      If you have a leadership or business question for Dave Ramsey, call and leave a voicemail at: 844.944.1070 •      Listen to The Ken Coleman Show: http://bit.ly/3XAtCVK Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app here: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're kicking off the year with a five-part series on the most important habits you need to develop as a leader. And this is the fifth and final episode in that series. So if you miss the last four episodes, be sure to go back and take a listen. On today's episode, we are talking about how to have the habit of connecting with your team at a human level. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast from the Ramsey Network, where we help you learn the proven principles for winning as a business leader. I'm your host, George Campbell, and each week here on the podcast, I see, sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team,

and your profits. In our first segment, Jeremy Breeland, one of our EVPs here, Ramsey Solutions, is going to talk about how to improve the habit of connecting with your team. Then in our second segment, Patrick Lynchone, best-selling author and president of the table group, is going to join me to talk about how to combat disengagement so that you can build a successful team. So joining me now, Jeremy Breland, EVP of Ramsey personalities and my fearless leader. So great to have you. George, good to be back. So we thought of you specifically for this segment because you are probably the most relational leader I know in this building. Is that fair to say?

Thank you, George. I appreciate that. I don't know if that's fair to say, but I'll take it. Well, I don't know, you're gregarious is a good word for it. But also, you have a way of connecting with the team that I think a lot of leaders, they look up to you in that way, and they go, Jeremy understands how to do this. Was that always the case for you? Did you develop it over time? I mean, my personality, my disc, I'm a high eye. I'm a seven on the end. Neagram, I love people, and I get energy from people. So it's something that's always, I think, come natural to me. So as I moved into leadership, continuing to do that was just, it was kind of

the next natural step. A lot of leaders out there, they're good at all the other things. But connecting with their team, it seems to be a pain point for them. It's something they go, oh, I got to do the one on. I got to ask them about the kids. And how do you overcome that if you're in that zone? I mean, I think you just have to understand that you're not just leading units of production. and you're leading people. And people matter and their lives matter and their lives are all interconnected. And so this myth that people's home life and their work life are completely separate and don't ever intersect, I mean, that's just not true. What happens at home impacts work and what happens at work impacts home. So for me, I had to get to a point where I realized

if I spend all of my time in my meetings with my team just focused on work, I may have a really good handle on what's happening with them on how they're doing at work and completely missed how they're doing as a person. And that's a huge part of leading people well is understanding what's actually going on in their life. And so I've tried to be really intentional with that. And, you know, Dave always says that we exist for the people outside of these walls. But if we're not taking care of the people inside these walls, we're not going to be as effective at reaching and helping people out there. We've got to start here and take care of our people. And they are people and they matter. Well, part of this kind of great resignation and people are leaving their jobs and droves,

we talk about how they're just leaving poor leadership and bad cultures and bad companies. And so part of this is leaders being intentional with this habit of connecting and showing their team that they're valued more than that unit of production. So I want to get into some of the habits you use to consistently connect with your team. What does that rhythm look like for you? It's different depending on what the occasion is or what the meeting is. Probably, I think, place where I do this, most and the most effectively, where it can be done the most effectively is in one-on-one meetings. And when I'm sitting down with people, one-on-one, usually those meetings are weekly or bi-weekly. I try to take the first five minutes or so to just connect with the person.

How'd the weekend go? What did you do this weekend? Your mom had that appointment last week. You know, she was sick. What happened with that? You know, your kid was sick. Just being a human being, just connecting with somebody before you jump into the work stuff. I think that's really an important place to do that. And it shows the person you care about them. If you never ask about those things and you're only focused at work, it kind of shows them that's really all you're interested in. Another way to do that is weekly reports. We're big on weekly reports here. And I probably get 70 or 80 weekly reports every week. And a lot of those people I don't meet with on a regular basis, except passing them in the hall. I don't see them on a regular basis. And so that's a

really important touch point for me to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on with a larger team. And it's a great prompt for me to be able to send somebody drop a handwritten note to them. Hey, congratulations on the baby that was born, or sorry, I heard about your grandfather passing or whatever it is, like a great touch point with them, with somebody that I don't always connect with in person. And also just kind of walking by somebody in the hall. You know, hey, we'll be praying for your folks on what I read in your weekly report. And it shows them that you're actually reading it and that you care about those things, even if it's not somebody that you're connecting with on a real regular basis. That's really important. And all of this, you know, the motive here is not to

just go, all right, I check the box off, but it's really to create a bond, a trust, a relationship, because we say that business moves at the speed of trust. So what have you found the connection point to be between that habit of connecting and the end result, maybe for the business, for the growth of the company, whatever it may be? They're definitely connected. You know, you're right. We say that a lot. Business moves at the speed of trust, and you don't get trust without relationship, and you don't get relationship without connecting with people on a human level. So it absolutely is connected. This is something that it's a non-negotiable.

You have to do it. And the reality is it's going to make you a much more effective leader. And it's going to cause you to, when you lean in with people, it's going to cause you to care about people more. You know what's going on in their life. You're going to care about them more. And honestly, it makes leading more fun. Like, I'd much rather be to have a connection to the people that I'm leading than just walking through a series of, okay, you know, did you get the TPS report done? Like, that's no fun.

You know, you've got to do that part. That's part of the job. But connecting with people, building relationship with people is really where the magic is. And we've talked about this before on the podcast, but having a personal relationship with people on your team beyond just business, that's uncomfortable for a lot of people out there. And a lot of team members, they go, well, I'm not trying to be friends with my boss. That's weird. But you've been known to hang out with direct reports outside of work. Well, we've got, you know, our team, as you know, consists of a wide range of people.

You've got folks that are single. You've got folks that are newly married, people with little kids, people with grown kids. So it's not like every Friday night. Our whole team has a bowling night or something like that. We don't do that kind of thing. A lot of our team does hang out on the weekends. What I try to do, though, is now that we moved into the building that we're in, we have a cafe, and we do have lunch regularly with our team.

But what I like to do is once or twice a month, just grab one or two of our team members and go off site for lunch. You're in the car for 10 or 15 minutes. You sit down to lunch for 45 minutes or an hour. hour, you drive back, that's a different level of connection with that team member or with those team members than you will have in a weekly meeting. And I'll do that in addition to. The other thing that has really been helpful for me that I've started to do, and I'm going to do even more of this year, is schedule time in the evening to do dinner with team members with our spouses. I've done that

some over the years, and that has been really, really valuable time. So I've actually carved out time every month throughout this year to have a dinner. My wife and I already have time set aside to do a dinner. I don't know who we're going to invite in February or April or whatever, whenever the month is, but we've got that time set aside and we're going to make it a priority. And it may be one or two of our personalities and their spouses or a couple of leaders. Or it might even be somebody that's not even on the personalities team that we want to go and spend time with. You can really fast track a relationship and trust by breaking bread with people. And the other thing, it gives you an opportunity to do too, is say thanks to a team member for doing a great job and brag on them

in front of their spouse, which is a huge deal. Oh, absolutely. And me and my spouse, we've had the pleasure of getting to know you and your family and becoming personal friends. And it really does change the game on the business level, because I know that Jeremy's heart for me is that he cares for me. He wants to see me succeed. And so when you come to me with something, I know your motive. Right. And that changes how I respond, and it changes the dynamic. Well, people think sometimes it'll be easier to have difficult conversations if you're not connected on the personal side or on building a relationship with somebody. But the opposite is true. Having difficult conversations with team members that you have a relationship with and you've actually built trust with, those always go better

if you've got that relationship. It makes it consistently much, much easier to have difficult conversations because just like you said, the person you're talking to actually knows you and knows your motives. So part of this trust building is we have to kind of gauge it. Do you have a way? There's no formula for this, but how do you gauge if a team member is starting to trust you if you have that connection? Well, one of the ways that I do is, you know, like in the one-on-ones where I'll typically have a check-in with somebody in the first five or so minutes of the conversation. One of the ways I know that's working and I'm connected with that person is I don't have to do that anymore. They just come in and know that we're going to have that time and just have a personal connect, like check up with them,

get caught up on life with them, on the weekend, on Christmas, that kind of thing. So it begins to happen automatically. And I've even had, to be honest with you, I've even had some occasions where I've had team members come in and start to share things that I maybe have to tap the brakes and go, hey, you know what, I may not be the best person to have that conversation with. Maybe you should sit down with, you know, somebody else in the building who I know has been through something similar and have a coffee with them. Or it might even be something that, you know, maybe they should see a counselor about.

And that's somebody at Ramsey will help them connect with a counselor. So there may be times where you actually need to gently draw a boundary and go, hey, I'm probably not the best person for that conversation, but I'd much rather them bring that to me and let me do that and help them get connected in the right way with somebody that they should be talking to. But it'll begin to happen naturally and organically, and that's when you know you've made connection with somebody and really building a strong relationship. Yeah, that's a great call out. There's a level of wisdom and discernment in the conversation where you have to maybe draw that boundary line and go, hey, I appreciate you sharing this with me. there may be someone better. Let me connect you with that person or HR or whatever the situation may be. Exactly. Just because they're going there doesn't mean you need to go there and you need to understand as a leader where that line is and help them get connected. So as we wrap here, a lot of leaders this year, they're trying to get better in all of these areas, but the habit of connection may be that pain point for them where they go, I can get better at delegation all day, let's do it. But connection is still that pain point. What is one way they can get better at that? this week. Number one, you just have to decide to do it. You have to know in your heart,

this is something that I have to do. It's critically important to my success as a leader and to my team. So you've got to decide to do it. And every great coach knows the key to great coaching is asking great questions. So if you'll have a few questions in your tool belt that will actually help you open up and begin to make connections, that's really important. My leadership team, last year went through a book called The Coaching Habit. And it's basically seven essential questions that every coach needs to have. And if you just have a few of these, I'll give a couple of examples that I really like. The first one that they talked about in the book, and these are going to seem painfully obvious, but they really work. The first one is simply ask the question,

what's on your mind? And when somebody comes in and sits down in your office for a meeting, and you ask that question, what's on your mind? They're inevitably going to tell you what's on their mind. That may be something that's happening at home. It may be a good thing. It may be a hard thing. It may be something that's happening at work. But it allows them to take control of the conversation and talk about the thing they're actually thinking about. The second question, which I love and is even more obvious than that one, is what else? And what else? Now, the key is you got to be quiet. You got to shut up and listen once you ask those questions. But I've received some of the most important information on the other side of the question and what else that I've ever received

in leadership and with kids, by the way. This works with kids. You know, your kid comes from school, how did school go? Fine. What'd you do? I failed the test. What else? I got in a fight. Well, you could have led with the fight. You know, that was a big... So, like, that is a really important question

that you can have in your tool belt that will cause people to get... Because a lot of times they're not going to lead with the main thing they're thinking about, but if you'll continue to ask questions, they'll get there. And a lot of that is just showing

that you truly care. And people can read through when they're going, okay, you're just checking off the box. You don't really care. They're just asking this because they heard Jeremy talk about it on the podcast.

You really actually have to care. That's part of being a leader. Right. You prove it by listening. Don't get it in a leadership if that's not part of it. Exactly. And that's why it's so important to be quiet and listen. I think so many times when we're asking questions, we're moving on to the next thing and kind of thinking about, what's the next thing I want to talk about or check in on to the next question I want to ask?

Shut up and listen. Shut up and listen. And be present. And that's a big thing I've noticed with you whenever we meet. You're not still typing the email and checking your phone. You are very present. Direct eye contact. You're there.

So I love that. I love the way you relationally lead. lead our personalities team and how you're such an influential leader at our company. So thank you so much for being on with us today. Absolutely. Good stuff from Jeremy. So many nuggets in there. That is one you got to go back and listen to. It was short, but man, it was sweet. All right. Our next guest, Patrick Lanchione, is going to be joining us for Entree Leadership Summit, 2023. So if you want to hear him alongside the rest of our incredible lineup, speakers like Dr. Jordan Peterson, Malcolm Gladwell, Manit Chohan, Dave Ramsey, and so many more than you've got to get your tickets right now.

And here's the deal. Our platinum and preferred tickets are already sold out, and the remaining tickets are moving fast. And with this lineup, this event will be a sellout. So do not wait. It's happening Nashville, Tennessee, May 30th through June 2nd. Just go to ontrae leadership.com slash summit to secure your spot. Coming up next, Patrick Lanchone on the leader's role when it comes to a disengaged team. All right, we're back with a very special guest, a good friend of ours, Patrick Lanchione, longtime friend of Dave Ramsey and Entree Leadership. He's a best-selling author, speaker, and president of the table group. And we're talking about how to build a successful team that is engaged. Let's get right to it. Patrick, how are you, buddy? It's great to be here.

It always is. It's fun just to chat with you, George. Well, we were chatting offline, and it was so good we had to go live because we were wasting the gold with you. And we're so excited to have you to talk about engagement, which is not a new topic for you. You wrote a book about this called The Truth About Employee engagement way back in 2015. This is BC before COVID. And what was the heart behind that at the time? You know, this was one of my favorite books and frankly was connected to the reason why I got into this field is because even as a kid, I was fascinated by why my dad liked his job and frankly, even more so the times when he was frustrated. So throughout my life, I've been watching people in their jobs thinking, I wonder if they like this. I wonder why they don't like this. And this is like my,

this is my secret passion within the world of organizations. So that was a book I wanted to write. And I probably enjoyed writing that one at the time as much as any I ever did. Well, it's been, you know, eight years since then, and the world has changed. And you called this a tectonic shift that has happened. So in what ways do you see the world has changed as far as employees and engagement goes? Well, you know, I mean, obviously we say COVID, but something else happened because now people are not working in their offices still. And I mean, more than so many more than I thought, you know, you guys at Ramsey went back like within the month. And we were about two months. And so I kind of assumed more people were doing that. And I'm meeting a lot of young people

who are still not working in their office. And I realize now it's not about COVID. It's their companies, I think, are, I don't know, they're either trying to shave some money from paying more rent, or they just don't want to have to tell somebody they have to put their pants on and drive to work. That's it. And so, but what's amazing is it stuck. Now there is no assumption that to have a job you have to go to work, which means people don't know each other very well at work. And most of the young people I know do not work in an office. And as a result of that, some of the most fundamental things that we need in our jobs, we're not getting.

Now, I love the fact that some jobs you don't have to go in every day and you have more freedom. get that. I totally do. But the most critical things we need in our jobs are often not happening today. And so there's a whole new generation of workers that are going to think that that's normal to not know, truly know the people that you work with. And I think that's a real dangerous thing. Yeah. Well, there's some interesting data. Gallup State of Workplace 2022 says that employees that are not engaged or actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in loss of productivity, which is 11% of the global GDP. So this is crazy. And you've talked about how productivity levels are falling. And a lot of the work from home folks are saying, I'm way more

productive at home. So how do we define productivity? What's actually happening there? Well, that's like asking my kids if staying at home and just doing their work at school is better. They're going to say, sure. It's like staying up at late at night. Like asking a 17-year-old, hey, do you think you should get more sleep? No, I think I'm fine with four hours sleep. Well, of course, employees that don't want to put their pants on and come to work, we'll say they're more productive. And in some jobs, they are. But the truth is, what we're not measuring or capturing is all the things that happen in between meetings, in between Zoom calls. People, so much of what happens in my life and in my world here at work happens in between things.

And that's where one, we know each other. That's where things happen that we didn't plan on happening and lots of innovation and collaboration. And so to think that we can actually carve that out into 45-minute Zoom calls is crazy. And I know I worked at home too. It is pretty easy to go watch an episode of Seinfeld in between meetings. And since I love my kids, and when they were home,

I spent a lot of time hanging out with them, which is wonderful. But when it comes to productivity, that is not necessarily good. And again, I'm all for an increased level of flexibility around family and all these things. don't get me wrong. But to think that productivity is going to stay the same if people aren't working in a workplace is silly. So I think the numbers bear it out. I just saw a week ago.

The government came out with numbers that said productivity is really, really low right now. And that is how much are we actually getting done for the time that we're working? So it's a real problem. It's going to affect our economy. It's going to affect it already is. It's going to affect more importantly human relationships, I think too. Yeah. And this has got a direct correlation to engagement. And in your book, the truth about employee engagement, you outlined three main reasons team members become disengaged. So I want you to just go through those real quick and then talk about if they're still just as relevant today, if anything's changed there. Sure. By the way, that book was originally titled The Three Signs of a

Miserable Job. That's a hard one to read publicly. That's what happened. We were like, oh, we did, people were like, you know, I like this book, but I can't take it to work because my boss will think, what's wrong. So we literally retitled it because we didn't realize it would be so traumatic. If I rolled into work with that book on the table, Dave Ramsey's going to be like, what's going on there? So these are the three killers of job of employee engagement. And what's important is to understand that there's two things that people need in life. You know, there's some things are called satisfiers. You need enough of them and you're satisfied. Food is one. It's like, if I said to you,

hey, here's a hamburger and a meal. And you said, that's worth a lot to me. And I said, here's two. And you go, no, I'm full. You're satisfied. The value of it kind of goes down. But then there's things that are called drivers, not satisfiers, drivers. It means you can never get enough of them.

And that's what these three things are. It's like the things that we really need and want more of. And money is actually a satisfier. When you pay somebody enough money, after that it's diminishing marginal returns. But there's three things that we all want and we want more of them and they're always good. And the first is we want to be known. The first killer of job employee engagement is to be unknown, anonymity. And that's what's going on in society today.

Does my boss really know me? Does my boss know what's going on in my life, what's going on in my work, what I'm struggling with, what I'm hoping for, and where I am? If a person is not known by their manager or even their manager's manager and their colleagues, they cannot love their work. And you see people who have the apparently sexiest job. in the world, high pain, all these things. And if they feel unknown by their manager, their morale is way down. So known is the first one. The second one is all of us have a God-given

desire to make a difference in other people's lives. And so we want to know that our job is relevant. So irrelevance is a job killer. If a person does something, but they think, I don't think anybody else's life is in any way better off because of what I do for a living, they cannot feel wonderful in their work. And you can see some people in certain jobs that get paid a lot of money and have a lot of notoriety. But at the end of the day, they go, I don't think what I do really matters to anybody. They are usually really unhappy in their jobs, and people are surprised by that.

So, irrelevance is another one. We all want to know that our job matters, whether it's to a customer or a colleague or a vendor, somebody's life has to be in some way better because of what we do. And the last one, George, is what we call it immeasurement. That's a job killer. And that is, I don't have any way to assess or understand if I'm doing a good job, if I'm actually succeeding. Everybody needs a scorecard or an indicator or some sort of feedback that allows them

to discern for themselves that they're either doing a good job or that they're not doing a good job and they need to get better. So what people really, really want and need is to be known, to know that the their job is relevant to someone and to know whether they're doing a good job. And without those, no amount of salary perks or being able to work from home in your underwear is going to make somebody engaged in their job. That is powerful. And there's so much inside of each of those that we could get into. But I want to know as a leader, if you're looking out at your team right now, how can you spot if someone on your team is disengaged? How can you spot one of these things to know

and kind of assess. Yeah, it's a great question, and you don't wait for some metric. You don't wait for some productivity statistic. What you can tell because, and literally, it's like, and I like to discern things, I kind of gut feel around this, you can tell if there's joy in your office.

You can tell if people are smiling and talking to one another and if they seem enthusiastic. That is the first, joy is the leading indicator of employee engagement and productivity. Joy is the leading indicator. Now, ask yourself too, like, are they coming in and are they excited about the work they're doing?

Do you feel like they're doing the minimum amount? Do you feel like they're leaving, you know, relieved to be leaving? Really, it's that. And you can just ask people, like, where's your energy level? And you can usually see it. You can usually see it. You don't have to wait to look at just the numbers. And so I think it's best to go with the leading indicator and discern it whether people are

engaged with one another and experiencing joy. If people are sitting at their desk all day and not talking to one another, that's a pretty good indication that there's not a lot of engagement. Yeah, and that's probably a lot of workplaces. Let's be real. There's a lot of places that are like this that don't have joy. If you're listening to this podcast, you're the type that goes, I don't want that.

I don't want to work at a miserable place. I have to tell you something. We had our 25th anniversary of our company. It was our Christmas party and 25th anniversary. And we invited family and friends to come, and it was really great. And there was this one young lady who was there who worked, at one of the big accounting firms. And it was like a two and a half day event.

And on the second day, she was really bummed out. And she was with a friend and somebody said, what's wrong? And she said, my company isn't like this at all. And is that how it's supposed to be? Nobody's really enthusiastic about seeing one another. Nobody really knows what's going on in their lives. And she was seeing all of us that were like, and I know it's the same way I've been to the office there at Ramsey Solutions.

people are bouncing off the walls in the hallways they're super busy but they're laughing and they're doing stuff and they're helping each other and it's interesting when somebody sees that and realizes that their company doesn't have any of that it's really disappointing because they see how it could be and i think god put us on this earth to be our best selves at work and to love one another and so love is really what life is about and people should be loving each other and loving their customers, loving the person that comes at to Ramsey Solutions to do the debt scream. You know, everybody gets so excited to see that. So that's how what we have to be on the lookout for.

Yeah. Dave calls that rare air around here when people walk in the doors and they go, it's just different here. Like people want to be here. The spirit is different and people can sense that when they walk in a room. And it shouldn't be rare. And the saddest thing is when people come to the conclusion that that's just how it is. And my dad, God rest his soul, once said to be bad, if it were fun, they wouldn't call it work.

And I was like, wow, I don't want that to be true for me, you know, but it's still true for far, far, far too many people. So we have to combat these three things, obviously. And when it comes to anonymity, obviously you have to get to know someone on your team. And we talk about on this podcast one-on-ones and team meetings and cultural events and all kinds of ways you can do that. But at the end of the day, there's a tension between a team member saying, I want to be known, but don't make it weird and don't make it personal. And I don't want to tell you about my family. How do you kind of bridge the gap there and make it just genuine and not weird? Well, for all the weird times, there's 100 examples of not going far enough.

It's one of those weird things. We'll say, like, oh, I don't want to ask people about their personal lives. It could be awkward. And so 99% of the time people feel like, I don't think these people care about me. And we think that's okay because we're trying to avoid the real. rare occasion when somebody goes too far. You know, we are not even close to going too far. And as you build up trust and a relationship with a person, you get to know them better and better and things become more part of the conversation. But again, this is not going to happen on Zoom,

especially when there's five other people on the call. It happens when you're in the office and you're talking to somebody or you're, you know, you're hanging out at lunch or something's going on. So I think that we have to be less afraid of it getting weird. Again, there is always that lady who's like, how is it going? And she's like, well, my cat has worms and she's going like too far. And you're like, whoa, TMI. But for every one of those, there's 99 people that are so glad you're interested in what's going on in their life. And so I think it's an excuse. And George, you really hint at something that's really important. And that is, so why don't people do this? And I think oftentimes we're embarrassed because we haven't been doing it for a long time. The idea of starting to do it will feel so

awkward. And so I always tell managers and leaders, I said, so go sit down with your people and say, listen, I'm embarrassed that I don't know very much about what's going on in your life. And I feel bad for that. But I would like to know more. I'd like to know what's going on. I don't even know what's going on with your kids and where you're at in your life. And let me tell you, nobody's ever quit and said, that's it. I'm out of here because they're like, oh, I'm really appreciative of the fact that you care. And they'll share what they feel like sharing. But man, human beings want to be known. I think God put us on this to be known and loved, and I think we shouldn't go to work and set that aside. Yeah, well, so many people are going,

well, I'm not trying to be friends with my coworkers and my leader, but at the same time, they're leaving because they don't feel valued and seen. And so at some point, we have to look in the mirror as leaders or team members and go, oh, I'm the problem. Do you know that being your friend and being your leader are not mutually exclusive? Now, they're not, they're not concentric circles. You know, they're not exactly the same thing. Neither should they be. But to the idea that we're not meant to be friends with the people we work with, I mean, I will tell you, so we've been around for 25 years,

there's a few people here that I've known and spent about seven to eight to nine hours a day with five days a week for the last 25 years. I hope the hell I'm their friend, you know. And so the idea that you should go to work and not be friends is crazy. Now, does that mean there's not some boundaries because I'm your leader and so there's certain things I have to be careful about? Sure. But again, don't err on the side of being unfriend-like in order to avoid an HR issue. And as a result of that, create 99 situations where people go to work and feel uncared for. So I think it's like there's nothing wrong with being friends and leaders and colleagues. Just there's some boundaries and there's some limitations to that. But heck, people don't even get close to those limitations usually. So for leaders that want to get better at this habit of engaging with their team, connecting with their team, what are some of the ways you do that, maybe intentionally or some that are just kind of subconscious at this point?

Well, I actually think that it's great when it happens naturally, but like all things in life, we need to be intentional. It's like why we have to go on dates with our spouse is because it's easy to go, well, yeah, we get along great. We haven't been on a date in six months. You've got to schedule time to do that. So I think it's a really good idea to sit down and write down the names of all. your employees on a piece of paper.

Okay. And then write down anonymous, irrelevance, and immeasurement. And just sit down and think and go, what do I really know about Fred? You know, that's a real gap for me. What about Mary? Now, I know Mary pretty well, but, you know, I don't think I, she knows, I bet I even talk to her why her job matters about all the people she makes a difference in their lives. I should sit down and talk to her about that one.

Oh, and then over here I've got John. you know, John, the nature of his work, he probably doesn't even know if he's doing a good job. I'm going to have to sit down with him and help him figure out how to get more feedback from people so he can check in on that. Just do an audit around anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement. And then go sit down with people and say, I want to have a conversation with you. It might seem kind of weird, but I want to start doing this on a regular basis. Because I owe this to you. Again, it might be slightly uncomfortable for those first three months.

minutes. At the end, it's going to be so much better. When people do this, the morale and engagement of their employees goes up. It absolutely does. There's no doubt about it. And George, if you ask me to measure exactly how much it goes up, I would not be able to do it. But it's just plain true. And I don't care if you're an NFL football coach or you're the pastor of a church or the manager of a small business or the CEO of a company. It's our job to help people understand the relevance and tell people how to figure out if they're doing a good job. And that is going to change the culture of a company in very short order. So just go to sit down and have an audit and conversations with all the people that work for you. I love that. Well, as you're talking,

I'm just thinking of all the ways the entree leadership principles and a lot of the things we do at Ramsey kind of plug into these pieces. Of course. With a debt-free scream, celebrating your customer's journey, using your principles, using your product. We share stories and staff meeting all the time about the impact that our work is having and reminding people that, hey, just because you're behind the scenes and not in the spotlight doesn't mean that that code you wrote, that email you sent didn't make a difference. And with a measurement, we talk about KRAs all the time, key results areas. Does the team know what winning looks like? Have you made it clear? Are you giving them feedback? And so there's so many tactical things that come out of this

that really do change your experience as a team member. Yeah, and you know, we're on the Entree Leadership podcast. That book is fantastic. I mean, honestly, Dave and I are both authors. I sent him a note two days ago, too, by the way. I said, hey, how's my new book supposed to get on the bestseller list when you have two of the top three? He's hog on the spotlight. Come on, Dave. Yes.

The Entree Leadership book, when I read that, I thought, I think this is one of my favorite, well, I think it is my favorite business book because it's so common sense. And it's like Dave understands how to do this. He does all of these things well. It's a great example. And so, yeah, I can't remember what your question was. but I love the book, Entree Leadership. This is the book I think I would give kids kidding out of college. Go read this if you want to know how to write this.

That's so good. Well, the respect is mutual between you and Dave. You guys have been friends for such a long time, and I'm a lucky recipient of writing the coattails of all of that. And we love having you on. You always bring such tactical wisdom to our team, to our listeners, and we love having you at the Entree Leadership events. As we wrap, Pat, is there one thing that you think is the most important piece of all of this?

like at the core of everything we've talked about today when it comes to engagement and connection for a leader to implement this week. What's the encouragement you would give them? I think, don't wait for the perfect time, sit down and be vulnerable enough to say, I should have been doing this better. I want to start now.

And realize this, and the beauty of this is, first of all, I think management is a ministry. You know, I think that being a manager of people is a huge privilege and a ministry, and you are making a difference in their lives. The good news is when you do that, it serves the customers and the organization and the bottom line too. But beyond all that, at the end of the day, when you realize how you affect a person's self-esteem, how you impact their marriage, their family, their relationships with others,

when a manager realizes that, they realize, how can I not do these things? So I would just send people away saying whether you think you're an accountant by trade or a football player or a preacher, you're ministering to the people that work for you. And to do that, these are the ways that you can better minister to them. That is a beautiful paradigm shift. Pat, always love your wisdom. Thank you so much for joining us today. Can't wait to see you at our Entree Leadership Summit event.

God bless you, George. Thank you. All right. Always a good time with Pat Lanchone. I got to go back and listen to that. So many nuggets of wisdom dropped in there. Like I mentioned earlier, if you want to see Pat Linchony at Entree Leadership Summit, I know I do. He's going to be speaking alongside the rest of our incredible lineup.

Go to Entreleadership.com slash summit to secure your spot before the tickets sell out. And a quick reminder, a few weeks ago, we announced that Dave Ramsey himself is going to take over as the host of the Entree Leadership Podcast in just a few weeks. And he's going to be taking your calls. So if you have a leadership or business question for Dave, we want to hear about it. Leave us a voicemail with your question at 844-944-1070. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode of the show, and I hope you did, be sure to follow, subscribe, and give us a five-star review wherever you're listening, and share this episode with someone who needs the encouragement, a friend, a team member, a leader on social media.

We want to spread the impact of this show. You can always follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we've got lots more where that came from on the Ramsey Network. Be sure to check out another show like the Ken Coleman Show. All right, folks, until next time, keep learning, and keep leading.