EntreLeadership - The 5 Keys to Building Trust With Your Team with Dr. Henry Cloud

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Dr. Henry Cloud. Henry is a leadership expert, clinical psychologist and bestselling author of several books—including his most popular book Boundaries. In this episode, he shares five keys to building trust and how you can use them with your team. Later, George sits down with Daniel Ramsey, the executive vice president of EntreLeadership, to have some fun going over a few right and wrong ways to build trust with your team. A little acting is involved, so you don’t want to miss this! You’ll learn: •      Two starting points for building trust •      Three indicators of a trustworthy person •      How to stop killing your team’s ideas •      The worst form of leadership Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Dr. Henry Cloud’s website: https://bit.ly/3Pjbc7z •      Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend: https://amzn.to/3QjTi5Q •      Learn more about EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/3p7TUzL Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit   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: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, how to build trust with your team so you can move faster. Then, some practical examples of the right and wrong ways to build trust with your team. 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 Camel, and each week here on the podcast, I sit down with some of the best leadership minds out there to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. and we have one of the best leadership minds on the show today, and it is Dr. Henry Cloud. He's a leadership expert, clinical psychologist, and bestselling author of several books, most famously, boundaries. Now here at Entree Leadership, we say that business moves at the speed of trust. You see, a determining factor of success is the level of trust you have with your team

and the level of trust they have with each other. So I'm excited to have Dr. Cloud on today to talk through the five keys for building trust and how you can use them with your team. Let's get to it. Here's our conversation. Dr. Cloud, so good to have you on the show. How are you? George, good to be with you. I've been looking forward to this. Well, Dr. Cloud, it really is great to have you, even virtually here. And we're here to talk about an important issue, and that is trust.

And this is something that you've been talking about for a long time, but we're zeroing in on ways that leaders can build trust to their team, the keys to doing that. And I want to start with this interesting phrase, just trust me. Have you seen that work when a leader says that to the team? Well, I've seen that work if you translate it in a certain way. In other words, if a leader has huge trust and it doesn't have time to explain something to go, guys have to go fast, just have trust me on this and go, then fine. But the trust is not going to come from him or her saying that.

The trust, trust has an anatomy to it and trust is built with very specific components. And if they have it by that time, they're good. If they don't, then, you know, buyer beware. So it's not the best strategy to just tell the team. You've got to show them, you've got to help them understand the bigger context for this. So I want to talk about what your definition is of trust. Well, let me comment on that, that little sentence right there. When you say you've got to show them and you've got to, you know, I'm going to sum all that up in a word persuade.

Okay. You got to persuade them, right? There's nothing more untrue for a leader than the approach of trying to persuade people into anything. And that's the big mistake that leaders make because leaders are proactive. They want to move things forward. Come on. Everybody going. And they think that they're going to talk people into this trust thing.

Well, you might can persuade somebody to, you know, maybe they take a first step or maybe they, whatever. But that's not trust. Trust has to do with a much deeper. It's psychological. It's emotional. It's neurobiological. It has to do with a whole personhood of somebody letting go and moving towards and leaning in. We call that investment.

And when somebody's fully in, they will follow. a leader. But if you've ever been on a team where somebody's got one foot in and one foot out, they're not fully invested. What we're looking for in trust, we're looking for investment, trust fuels investment. And that doesn't come from a sales pitch. See, it's not just a series of the right words. There's a lot more to it. And you're saying that trust is really moving towards. And so the opposite of that, which is distrust, is that pulling away? Well, it kind of is. I mean, that's a good point. You know, when we, it's rooted in the way we're designed, instead of to let go and be careless and trust somebody, we either start to move away. You've heard fight or flight. We either start to move away, that's flight or fight. We start to push against what they're trying to tell us, you know, well, I'm not going to do that, you know, and they start to kind of get defensive or argue with the leader, or they freeze, and they just pause. but it's a systemic response.

And what leaders have to understand, and this is so cool, because it can be for a brand, it can be for a person, it can be for a relationship, it could be for inside the team, it could be the culture, is there really isn't an anatomy to trust. There are components that you kind of have to check the boxes to make sure you're hitting all of those. Well, here at Entree leadership, we say all the time that business moves at the speed of trust. It's hard to drive results, drive the vision if there's a lack of trust. So how have you found that to be true in your experience as a leadership coach and consultant? I think it was Cubby.

He quoted it years ago. I don't know if he came up with the phrase or not, but he said, as trust goes up, speed goes up, and costs go down. All right. Now, just think about that little formula for a moment. You know, like Dave and I've been doing stuff together for years, you know, and I trust Dave, you know, implicitly. If he sends me a text and says, hey, you want to do this, this event or you want to do this project or whatever, I go, yeah, what is it? Yeah, I'm in. Okay.

Now, that took five seconds. Speed goes up. And there's no cost. There's no 50 attorneys in the room looking at 12 documents, going back and forth, taking forever. I love your phrase. You know, business moves at the speed of trust. I think that's how you put it. And that's just true.

Now, think about this one, something simple in a team. Somebody that you don't really trust. You get an email and says, I need to talk to you. And that's what it says. And you go, oh, you don't trust this person. What are they up to it? What are they angling? And what do you do?

You pick up the phone. You call somebody else on the team. So I just got this email from, you know, he's in it. And now everybody. So now you're worrying about it all night. And we got a week's worth of activity that's gone into what so-and-so. up to now, as opposed to if it's somebody you trust, you go, I'll call you tomorrow and you get back to work. You know, it doesn't take up that. It is a big trust is everything. Yeah. And it takes a lot

of time to build and it can be easily broken. And so this is an important thing that every leader has to be intentional about with every single team member. And so I want to walk through these five keys that you have to building trust. And you start with understanding. Why is that the starting point. Well, it is the basic, basic, basic, deepest need of a human being is we trust somebody when we feel like they understand me and my needs. Okay, I've got a book coming out on this in the spring. And there's an example in there where if you're an FBI hostage negotiator, I remember I was actually talking about this in a leadership conference, and afterwards, the guy walked up, and said, I'm the lead, I'm the lead hostage negotiator for the FBI and everything you just said

is our program. Okay. So you're a hostage negotiator. A guy's got a bomb strapped to him in a bank. He's got 50 hostages in there. You don't go in there as a negotiator. You don't go in there and say, dude, this is stupid. Now, let me tell you, if you, I mean, this is a met. You're going to blow your and you, and you don't persuade him out of this. See, that's what leaders do. What they do is, Instead, the negotiator goes in and says, hey, you know, I'm George, and they sent me in here to talk to you and tell me your name. He says the name. So how do we get here today? What's going on?

How do we find ourselves here? And they start to pull out the story. Now, as they're pulling out the story, if the name. negotiator knows how to make the guy feel understood. Like, he's really getting his dilemma and why this is his only option and how he got to this point. That's going to begin to let the system relax a little bit. And that's just the first step. You know, if I go into, I just had two knee replacements in the past year. If I go into the surge and said, yeah, I saw your MRI, you know, you got bone on bone and it's not going to be a problem. We'll replace

this thing and and blah, blah, blah. I'm going, okay, but what if I go into the second one? He says, dude, how are you, how are you even walking? I looked at your, I looked at your MRI. Tell me about it. Is this thing hurt all the time? And you're trying to understand. And then the second, in the second example, you're starting to feel that this

guy really understands how bad this is for me. And so he or she knows what my needs are. Now, when a team, for example, when they start, when you feel like somebody on the other side of the table understands how their work and their behavior and everything they're doing impacts you and either slows you down or makes it more difficult or helps you win, when they have your needs really understood in their head, then trust really begins to, you know, to mount. When a leader stands up there and just tells everybody what to do and sends them out and they don't feel like that he or she gets it, what it's going to be like to have to pull that off and everything is going to, they don't understand.

Yeah. You're dust. Well, and it takes a level of patience, too. Most leaders that probably in a rush, they're not really slowing down. I mean, even your pacing when you were asking those. questions. It was a slow, patient, steady. There wasn't this element of what's going on? Okay, well, I got a lot going on, so I need you to figure this out and get out of the room. There is a level of patience that every leader needs to slow down to help understand their team.

Oh, yeah. I remember a merger situation I was consulting with one time where two companies came together, a new CEO stood up and cast a vision, energy was high in the room and all that. And then the lady says, yeah, well, you know, we've got a product line. I've got three thousand people that report to me and we poured all our resources into this. I moved people across the country and the other company who's got exactly the same product. My people are worried sick. What's going to happen to us? And he goes, well, it's not going to be a problem because he explains to her why she doesn't have to worry. Right. Well, you can see the light. He's lost. The lights are dimming in her eyes and she's nodding. But I'm going, dude, you have just missed it.

We walked out and he said, wasn't that grass? I said, no, it's like the worst thing of it. ever seen. You totally invalidated everything that they were trying to tell you. He goes, no, I didn't. I said, shut up. You're doing it to me right now. He wasn't understanding what they were trying to tell him. Now, he didn't have to agree with it that it is going to be impossible, but you understand when somebody, not when you understand them, but when they understand that you understand. So if he had just said, gosh, 3,000 people worried about their jobs. What is that like? I mean, what is your, I can't imagine what your inbox looks like. What are they telling you? How are you dealing with, with all those, I mean, and just kind of, so she feels like he really gets how hard this thing is

going to be. Now we're going to follow him to his answer, but not if he doesn't understand. Yeah, and you got to care. That's good. Big deal. So after we've gone through this understanding phase, another key is knowing intent. And so this comes, is this come down to motive? Yeah, it actually is motive. You know, we trust somebody when we feel like that that they have a motive that's not just about them, that they also are motivated, they have an intent to, I call it, you know, the simple phrase of grace is unmerited favor, that they have favor for you.

They're looking out for you and your interests, not only their own. and they're going to protect you, even when you're not at the table. That's real trust. When we know that somebody's really, their motive is not just about themselves. You've been on a team where some people is kind of all about their little corner and their little silo and their own performance and this and the other. They're not looking out to help the team win or help the bigger vision win. It's kind of all about them. you know, back to the surgeon.

Yeah, I understand your, God, that pain has got to be so bad. How do you? And now I'm trusting. He says, okay, can I do your surgery? And you go, sure. And then he goes, well, that's great. Now, you've got insurance, right? You're going to be able to pay my bill.

And by the way, I got a golf game coming up. So here, go. Susie, can you take care of him or Joey? Can you schedule this guy? I got to go, dude, and make sure they pay. And then he's out of the room. well we know who this surgery practice is about now sure the guy's got to get paid but what if what if he said you know what i this thing is this thing is bad didn't i see you out in the way where who was that

kid with you well that was my you know my son or daughter or grandson or whoever and he says he says look i want you to be able to like saw you stone i want you to be able to go play with your kid we got to get you back out on the golf course. And this is going to be hard surgery and hard decision for you to make. But I want a good 25 years for you. Come on. And he starts where you feel like he's not just in it for himself for herself. And when leaders, when everybody feels like or anybody on a team, they're trying to do

everything kind of like, you know, something that's good for them. It's like walking on to a used car line. I mean, there's just a difference when we feel like somebody wants us to do well. They want us to win. And you see behaviors that actually show that, and here's the bottom line, they've got your back. They're looking out for you when you can't see the enemy. They're guarding you. And that makes us be careless with somebody.

Yeah, you don't have to be defensive when I know, hey, Henry knows I'm team Henry. We're heading the same direction. That's key. we've got understanding and intent there but then you move into ability and this feels like a very different ballgame here is this about actual talent and know-how well it's actually a little it includes that this past that it's actually about capacity and competency you know that somebody pull off what we're entrusting in them and this is where george it really hits the road because what we do is a lot of times oh you know she's a good woman i trust her she's a good woman i trust her

She's got integrity and, you know, she's great with the people and this, that, and the other, and let's bring her on the team or bring him on the team and whatever. And they've performed well in, you know, whatever scenarios. But we've never really thought about what I'm entrusting them with in this situation. Do they have this specific capacity for that? I'll tell you an example you see this all the time. when somebody's a great COO, like I work with, you know, boards and C-Suite's a lot, and somebody's a great CEO, and they executed well, and they just killed it,

and they get promoted, the board promote, you know, it's a transition, they get promoted to CEO, and they trust them, because they're a great performer with high integrity and this, and the other, and then things fail. And so I've gone in before and said, So how did this, you know, how did, you know, well, he was our C-O-O and now he's a CEO. And I go, where did you get the E? They go, what do you mean? I say, well, he was a C-O-O, you made him C-E-O.

Where do you get the E? Well, we promoted him. Yeah, but where did he get the E? See, executive, chief executive, that's different competencies and abilities than an operational. And so somebody's done well here. doesn't necessarily mean, even though they have great integrity, they understand their mosa great, they performed in the past, do they have the specific abilities that we are going to entrust something with them for this? So back to my surgeon, he understands me, he understands my

pain, he's got great motives and intent, and I go, okay, you can be my surgeon. And then he goes, oh, this is, I'm so excited, he said, because I'm an OB-Gen. I've never done a knee before. This is going to be great. Well, wait a minute. Now I'm not. You've lost all trust. Exactly. And, I mean, you see this in every aspect of life. You see people get married.

Great person, great integrity, great character, this and the other. But they don't really have the competencies that are going to be needed to make a marriage. And on the other side, you alluded to this, but you're talking about there's a difference between integrity and competency. And the next key to building trust is character, which leans into this other side. It's not about your skill. it's about who you are. It's about who you are. And I'm glad you use that phrase, who you are, because that's more than the way we normally think about character. When we think about character, we think they're honest and they have good morality and ethics, and they don't lie, cheater's steel.

Well, fantastic. They don't lie cheating and steal. What do you want a cookie? My daughter is, when they were five years old. Yeah, it's a low bar. And see, that's what a lot of times we think of character. My daughter's at five or six years old, knew not to lie, shoot, or still, but they're not, I'm not going to not going to entrust them with some big, you know, business project or other things like that. What is the makeup, who they are? Okay, I can have, I can sit around a table with a lot of, a lot of really high functioning business people.

And let's say you got to turn a division over that's failing and it's going to be a turnaround situation. one person great skills, great abilities, you know, smarts, business acumen, all that kind of stuff. But they're one of those people that maybe need a line of positive feedback, need things to go, well, need to feel good about themselves. Well, this turnaround is not going to feel good for a year and a half. And you got somebody else who they are, their makeup is they just love to eat problems. They don't need any. Let's just go find the next bad thing and put our arms there.

They've had that perseverance. Now, in some scenarios, I would trust one and not the other and vice versa. You know, I had a brother-in-law who's a Navy seal. And, dude, you talk about going, I mean, if the guns are firing at me and some bad guys after me, I want Mark. I'm going to trust because of who he is. But if my dog dies and I need a shoulder to cry on, it wasn't going to be Mark because that's not who he was.

but I got other friends of care, right, in an empathic kind of way. So we've got to know what are we entrusting to somebody and does who they are match the specific context of what we're entrusting in them? Sometimes you need courage, sometimes you need empathy. Sometimes you need somebody that's tough to go into a situation. Sometimes you need somebody that has higher emotional intelligence in a certain way and can move a group

and repair a lot of broken hearts. I mean, you've, but you can't just say, well, he or she's a good character. Let's go trust them. Yeah, so this comes down more to their strengths, the personality, their unique wiring versus just morally can we trust their character? Good, good call out there. Right. And lastly, the fifth and final key here to building trust in your anatomy of trust

is track record. And that goes back to the beginning where I said, trust happens over time. If I just meet you, it's hard to build instant trust with you. it's got to be, I've seen Henry time and time again do this thing. In the book, I've got a story in there on track record. I think it's on track record, where my wife and I, before GPS on your phone, you know, when you had to use maps and all that, but you're too young.

I remember the big flip out, you know, in the car. Mom would have the giant Magellan map. Oh, yeah. There you go. There you go. And then I remember that too. and mama pull this out and it blocks the windshield. Now we're in the ditch, right?

He's like, we're looking at the map. So we're down in South Louisiana, down in Bayou Country. We're going down there to visit some friends for the first time. And we're down on this country road. And I'd stop at a gas station and say, I'm looking for this address. Where is this road? And the lady goes, well, you can just go down on the road. Old little ways, I don't know how.

Not too far. And you'll see a German Shepherd. lying in the grass and when you see that German Shepherd just hang a right and you go a few more miles that'll be on your left I said a German Shepherd I'm gonna see a German Shepherd in the grass she goes yeah he'll be lying there you just when you see the dog just take a right and I'm thinking can we have like a sign that's not going to get up walk away and give me and seriously that she said no don't worry about he'll be there and I said like she goes don't worry if the dog will be there just turn right. I go, okay, I go back and get in the car, and Torrey I drive out there, keep driving.

Lo and a whole, there was a German Shepherd lying in the grass. We turned right, we found everybody's house. Now, how did she know that German Shepherd was going to be there? Because the dog's been there every afternoon for the last 10 years. You see, our minds, God designed our minds to build maps. When you came downstairs this morning and went to the fridge or whatever to make your coffee or your tea or whatever you do, you just walked right there. You weren't looking for minefields. Your mind is built a map based on past experiences.

That's how we negotiate life. So if the last interaction I had with you, what's the track record, well, it's pretty much going to be built over a pattern. But what if, you know, yesterday I walked down, stumbling around after I woke up and going in the kitchen, I tripped over the couch because, you know, my girls are home from school and they moved the furniture to play some game or whatever. I go, now I can't trust my map anymore because something bad happened. And basically what leaders have to understand and what companies have to understand, every interaction is building a map. So if somebody's got a problem

And they want to come to you and work out this strategy problem Or you know something wrong with a customer or whatever And the last time the track record is The last time they took a problem to you You exploded and got defensive And you know, call them on the carpet and all this What are they going to do next time? See the track record is you don't take problems to that leader

Or you don't talk to them about this Or you don't bring failures in Why? Well, we've learned. You don't do that. And it can take one. It can take a pattern. You know, generally when you've built a pattern, then, and when there's a mistake, when you've built a pattern, then people actually, because of the trust, they wonder, if the dog's not there, one day, somebody's go, oh my gosh, I hope the dog's okay, because they trust the dog. So if a leader has a pattern and a track record of everything's great and something looks weird or screwy or they didn't perform whatever, people because of the trust tend to say, gosh, I hope he's okay or she's okay or I wonder what happened because, you know, they always, and we get this pattern that's built on a track record where one mistake can't screw it up. but if you have too many now you're building a pattern and a pattern becomes a track record

and so it's no longer the company that missed a product launch that time you know we missed it so you know everybody makes mistakes now you become known as the company who misses deadlines see now it's an identity because you're track record and that's how mental maps are built So you put all these five together. I mean, you think about it. If you're with people in a team or a leader that you know they really understand you and your needs and what it's going to take for you to be able to pull this off and what you need from them and you know that they want you to win and you know they got the ability to pull off what you're asking them to do

and their character is such, their makeup is such that in the trenches they're going to be able to be the kind of person that you need to do. do this with. And you've seen them do that before. We're ready. Let's go. Yeah, that's where the results happens. That's when great culture is built. And I love the way that you've been helping business leaders for years work on these five areas. And so for every leader listening, there's probably an area that you're not great at, that you maybe miss occasionally. And so I want them to focus on those specific areas for sure. Well, Dr. Cloud, we appreciate you being on with us. Love having you at our conferences and especially on this podcast right here. Thank you for imparting wisdom to our leaders out there. It's been great to be with you. Can I just

go all things, Ramsey, what you guys do? You help so many people. I send people y'all's all the time. You're the best and just keep at it. We appreciate it. Thanks. Big thanks to Dr. Henry Cloud for joining us today. He gave us the five keys for building trust and explain why the phrase, just trust me, just doesn't work. So what are some other pitfalls to avoid? and more importantly, what does it look like to do this right? We're going to have a conversation about that right after this. All right, up next, I'm sitting down with Daniel Ramsey, EVP of Entree leadership.

He and I are going to have a little fun with some right and wrong ways to build trust with your team. Let's jump right in. Daniel, thanks for being on the podcast. Man, so good to be here, George. Thanks for having me. You've been crushing it leading the Entree team as the EVP, and I want to switch things up. This is not EVP, Daniel. This is me in your office on a Friday.

We're hanging out. We're talking about the week that was. And maybe talking about some things that happened with the team. So this is a little bit of role play, a little bit of improv. Are you ready? You have a theater background? No, man. I'm terrible in that environment.

But I do like shooting from the hip and just talking with a friend. So let's go for that. That's a good angle. Okay. So team member, they come up and they've got an idea for a better way to do something. But honestly, I think I've got a better solution. I have better ideas. And so, you know, what do you do?

You just shut them down and go, hey, that's cute, buddy. But I got a better way to do this. Exactly. Trust me. Exactly. This is how it's going to go. And you don't really acknowledge their idea. You just kind of go, you know what?

That gives me another idea that's better. So thank you for that. That makes the team member feel good. And then you take credit for it. That is the key. You tell everyone, you tell everyone you came up with it by yourself. Without any of the team members help, that's the way to make your team feel seen, heard, and love. all the same time. That's a great culture you're creating, George. Good job. What is the right approach

when a team member comes to you with a solution or an idea? Yeah. So more often than not, when team members coming with ideas, I'm like you, sometimes I'm like, that's a terrible idea. Like, no, we shouldn't do that out loud. No, no, you don't say that out loud. No, but you do, what we're trying to do here is we're trying to create a culture where the team members are empowered to bring ideas. If my team is dependent on me driving the good ideas to move our team forward, we are screwed. Right? Like, that is, I'll come up with a good one of occasionally,

but I need to create a culture where the team is bringing ideas and you have to create a culture where you allow bad ideas to come up and to not be slammed down. You know, you can't just like, man, just knock someone down for a bad idea. And as a team member, I learn very quickly,

I'm not bringing any ideas to that meeting because I'm going to get shunned in front of, All of my peers by Daniel. Or if you bring a good idea, or if a leader takes and steals your idea, then you're going to hold on. You're going to hold on to them and I'm going to really protect them and only let them go at the right opportunity for your career. And so, no, we are one team together. It doesn't matter who gets the credit.

In fact, as a leader, you should not be taking the credit. Every chance you get, you should be giving credit to your team. So, you know, a couple different scenarios here of one of, if the idea is bad, one thing we can do is really seek, ask questions. learn about it, and that helps them be heard about it and be like, hey, thank you so much for this idea. I'm going to put this one to the side. It doesn't seem like the right time right now, but let's come back to it if the timing seems right. Or I might say, hey, have you considered this? Have you considered that? Hey, let me challenge you with some things to think about and then come back and see if you can make this idea stronger because it may not be in the right place where it is.

So I try to get them to critically think more about it in some way. So another scenario is if the idea is actually pretty good, or maybe it just needs a little bit of polishing to get better. So as a leader, I might work with them, do the same thing, ask some challenging questions. Hey, have you considered this? Or we might get up on the whiteboard and build on it together. And that made me be really fun.

You know, some other situations are, you know, this happened actually this week, is Dave had a great idea in a meeting about entree leadership. particularly around our marketing and something we could try. We walked away from that meeting. It was Jason and I, who's the vice president of entree leadership. And I kind of coached Jason up of like, hey, if we just come in and tell the team, hey, Dave said, dude, you go do this exactly like this, it's not going to go over well. You have to get, if it's your idea or someone with a lot of clout in your organization

or power in your organization, bringing an idea forward, you need to help foster the seeds of that idea through the team so that they latch onto it and it becomes their own. Because when an idea is someone's own, they drive it, they push it more with enthusiasm. You're more excited than just being, hey, you go do this task. That's right. So Jason talked about, hey, what is the problem Dave was trying to solve? And so what we did after that is we walked around on the team and we said, hey, did you notice this?

Like, this is a problem? Hey, did you notice that there's a problem here? Hey, have you guys felt that there's a problem here? and when everyone starts nod their head, we say, hey, what do you think we could do to solve that? And then we may see it in, hey, have you seen this other team tried something really cool? Maybe there's something like that.

And we just slowly kind of nudge the team in the right direction through a brainstorming session. And you know what? Most of the time we end on something totally different than what Dave or what I came up with this leader. We come up the way better idea because they took it in their own direction and they owned it and then they spoke into it.

And so if you're coming in as a leader with an idea that's like, hey, Dave said, go do this, or this is my personal opinion, I'm really passionate about this idea, and I don't let the team speak into it, but I just manipulate them to make them feel like they did. You're going to lose every time. Rarely does that go well?

You need to come in, if you have your own opinion, idea, come in with open hands, talk about the problem, let them beat up on your baby idea, and let them take it and rock your baby. And that's hard to do, that's right? So let's talk to another scenario. We've all been here.

You've got a solution to a problem, and you can tell the team, team is not on board. Their body language, their facial expressions, their questions, they're all kind of a little bit puzzled, maybe even a little bit frustrated. And here's what I do. I go, well, guys, trust me, it's just going to work this time. I've got a gut feeling about this. Just go with it. You just shove it down their throats. You drive forward as fast and as hard as you can, and you do not welcome any questions. And then eventually they all get on the trade. That's how to do it. I mean, I feel like Simon Seneca is definitely, he's, he's,

He's taught on that before. This is good entree leadership teaching. No, do not do that. So what's the better way to do that versus just telling them? You know, George, in reality, I'm reflecting over a lot of times where I've actually done this the wrong way and I've really justified it in a lot of ways. And I was nice about it when I did it. Well, sometimes.

Quit let the team decide that. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They probably experience it differently. So the first thing you do, really, if you have an idea of your passion about, you need to start with the why you're tackling it. you talked about Simon Seneca, you start with what the problem is that you're trying to solve. What are you ultimately trying to fix or change?

And so if you can't get alignment on that, you may have bigger issues. You know, maybe you're wrong. Maybe as the leader, that isn't the problem, or that's not the most important problem. Or that's, maybe your team is all wrong, and you need a new team. I don't know. But you need to really take the time to align around what the problem is. then you need to hold your opinions for the solutions to the problem loosely. You need to be committed to solving the problem once you align on it,

but you're going to need to be open-handed with the solutions and allow your team to speak into it, allow them to adjust it, even when it hurts. You need to allow your team to fail. You know, you may see, allow them to fail in ways that don't jeopardize the business completely, but they may not be as strong as you think. And so occasionally, you need to allow your team to take a step forward and to own something. And you can tell them, hey, I don't know if I believe in this. I'm going to let you try it. And we're going to have a check-in. And if it hasn't moved,

if it hasn't hit this milestone, then we're going to pull back and we're going to try a different way. But you can agree on that. You know, don't allow them to go all the way into complete utter catastrophe, you know, destruction. But you can allow them to fail small and then pull back, reassess, and retry stuff. And so, you know, there's been a lot of seasons where I've had a really strong idea and I've pushed it and pushed it and sometimes I've had to let those ideas go or sometimes I've had to let those team members take take my idea and make it better or take it and maybe it doesn't work as well and there's been other times where I've had to say hey I feel a strong conviction where you need to trust me on this one and I do push it forward now if I'm doing that every week every month every

year then I'm going to lose a ton of credibility to team but if this is a once in a blue moon type thing where it's like, hey, guys, I feel very strong about this, and I can't, I'm going to do my best to describe it, I'm going to do my best to get you on board and talk about it, and I feel really strongly that we need to go out on a limb and we need to take a risk here. Are you all with me? And occasionally, I do call upon the trust and the power I have in my leadership to ask my team to trust me. That's because of your track record. This isn't just out of nowhere. You've built trust with your team. You've built that influence. And the different, there's a huge different in power and authority. Power is influence. Power is built over time and authority is title.

And if I lean on my title and say, hey, I'm the boss. We're doing this. No one's going to buy-in. No one's going to lean in. No one's going to own it. No one's going to be passionate about it. But if I lean on my power and my influence that I've built and the trust I have with them, then because of the relationship I have with them, they will lean into it with their own passion and enthusiasm, them, even if they don't fully wrap their heads around it. Now, they're always going to do it better if they have their minds and hearts wrapped around it as well. So, but that needs to be a card, a card you play rarely. And so it's okay to play it, but it, you know, you need, you're missing an opportunity on building a better culture and empowering your team if you do that all, if you overuse

that card. What's the relationship between being wrong, having a failure as a leader, and building trust because I think there is something about handling that well and owning up to it that actually can build trust. There is no better way to build trust than own your failures. You need to stand up in front of your team occasionally and say, hey guys,

I thought this, I believed in this, I tried this, it didn't work, and here's what I learned from it. And here is how I'm going to improve as a leader to lead you guys better and to move us forward better next time. Which was the team, they don't have to be perfect.

because that's a recipe for disaster too. That's right. And oppositely, there's no way to get your team to roll their eyes at you more than saying, hey, I told you so. I was right. This was my idea. And it worked. That doesn't work in marriage or business.

No, you should never, never. I mean, it just, it breaks your credibility. It breaks your trust. When you win, you need to give your team credit. When you lose, you need to take responsibility and then talk about what you learned from it so we can move forward. Good sportsmanship there. That's right. Well, Daniel, thanks for playing a lot.

with us today. We had some fun, but there was a lot of great takeaways for leaders to build us with their teams, drive the results forward, and do it in a way that builds culture and empowers your team members. That's right. And, you know, it's such a pleasure being part of Ramsey and Entree leadership where we teach these principles. And even though we're the ones teaching it, it's fun reflecting back. It's not fun. It hurts as we're sitting here having these conversation, reflecting back in the times I haven't done this well. And, man, what a blessing is for me to be surrounded by these entree leadership principles here on this team at Ramsey. And so, man, I have a lot of good people holding me accountable to do what we teach at our events and in our book

and on this podcast. So thanks for being that for me, George. Absolutely. Thanks for leading the team so well, super pumped about what you guys are up to over at Entree Leadership. Wow, what a performance from Daniel Ramsey. I hope he gets nominated for an Oscar for that one. And I hope I get best supporting actor. That would mean the world. Well, folks, if you haven't heard Entree Leadership series is coming up next month in Nashville, and Daniel Ramsey will be there so you can congratulate them then. This is our annual conference for business owners where you'll learn strategies we wish we knew years ago for taking on the most challenging parts of running a business. We'll cover topics like hiring and firing, feeling alone as a leader, time management,

strategic planning, and tons more. If you want more info, just go to entreleadership.com or use the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, do us a quick favor, follow or subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. And if you're feeling extra generous, share this episode with your team, with your friends, or on social media. All of that helps us impact more people and more leaders like you. Be sure to also give us a follow at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire team here at Entree Leadership, thank you for listening. Until next time,

Keep learning and keep leading.