EntreLeadership - The Key to Developing Effective Team Members with Tricia Sciortino

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Does your team know what winning looks like? If not, you’re going to be frustrated that they’re “not doing their job,” and they’re going to be frustrated because they don’t know what success even looks like. You as the leader must clearly communicate the expectations so that your team can win. On this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with BELAY CEO Tricia Sciortino. She tells us her story of how she went from assistant to CEO and how clear role expectations and a growth path got her there. Then, in our second segment, George Kamel sits down with RamseyTrusted Senior Executive Vice President Herb Jenkins to talk about how to create key result areas for your team members.   The EntreLeadership Podcast BELAY’s website One Next Step podcast Download Key Result Areas (KRAs) template. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: EntreLeadership Summit | EntreLeadership Master Series   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: Elite | Advisory Groups | Executive Coaching | Workshops | Weekly Report Tool   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY | Gravy | Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does your team know what winning in their role looks like? Do they know what it takes to grow and get promoted? If not, you're going to be frustrated because they're, quote, not doing their job, and they're going to be frustrated because they don't know what success even looks like. So how do you as a leader clearly communicate expectations so that your team can win? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and today's episode is all about leading your

your team through role clarity and communication, which connects to our business driver of people. Our first guest on the show is Trisha Shortino. She's the CEO and a board member at Belay, which is one of the nation's leading virtual assistant companies as well as a sponsor of this podcast. She's also the host of her own podcast called One Next Step and author of the book Rise Up and Lead Well. We talk about her story of how she went from assistant to CEO and how clear role expectations and a growth path got her there. In our second conversation, I talk with Ramsey leader Herb Jenkins about how to create key result areas for your team members. Up first, my conversation with Trisha. Trisha, it's so good to have you back on the podcast. How you been?

Hey, I'm great, George. It's so great to be back. How are you guys? Well, you know, we just hung out recently at Entree Leadership Masters Series, and now we get to hang out again virtually for the benefit of our podcast listeners. So I'm really excited about this conversation. Yeah, me too. The event. was amazing. Seeing you in person was awesome, and I can't wait to have this conversation. I've heard I look a lot taller in person. Is that true? She's laughing. You're so tall, like six, five. I'm five, six. You got the numbers backwards, but I appreciate that. That's what I meant. I didn't even pay her for that. Well, this is going to be fun. I love what you guys are doing,

and your story is just so inspiring, having gone from one of the assistants at Belay to now becoming the CEO. So kind of give us the elevator pitch. I know it's been a journey, but give us the elevator pitch of what that journey was like. Yeah, I mean, elevator pitch of 10 years of my life. I don't know, George. But yeah, if I was going to summarize, you know, what the last decade of my life has been like, you know, I had the very demanding job career, you know, maybe all professionals hoped to have. But it meant a lot of travel and a lot of being out of the house and being away from home. And then I had my first daughter and decided that there's got to be a better way. I wanted to find more balance.

So I left that job and I stumbled on to working part-time as the first virtual assistant for Brian Miles, the founder of the organization, and really started working with him in a very part-time capacity. and over the last decade, as Belay has really thrived and provided remote services and it's become more common and acceptable for people to use virtual services and virtual assistance, I've just had the opportunity inside the organization to elevate myself and really give in to the company. So went from being a virtual assistant to a manager and a director, a VP. And now I'm honored truly 10 years later to represent the organization as a virtual assistant. it's CEO. So I had the opportunity to really sit on both sides of the equation, went from being a virtual assistant, and now I have a virtual assistant. I love that story. That's really cool that

you've been on both sides of it. No one understands these roles more than you because you've been in it. So you've seen it all the way across the board, and you're doing an incredible job leading the team at Belay. And I want to talk about this idea of the great resignation, because something you're passionate about is investing in your team, keeping employees engaged, keeping them happy. And we're seeing across the nation right now people leaving their jobs and droves to go find more meaningful work, work with more variety, with more room for, you know, flexibility and schedules and where they can work from. So I want you to talk about this idea of people leaving. What do you make of this great resignation?

Yeah, I think it is real life. It is something as a staffing company, really, that we are seeing not only insider organization, but, you know, throughout the industry and all organizations, both big and small, is that I think that what the pandemic in the last 18 months has done to people has really given them pause to look at their life and say, am I spending my time doing things that I feel good about? Am I spending my time in value? Do I have work that has meaning or purpose, to your point? Flexibility. I think, you know, the last year has really moved a lot of people remotely. And maybe reluctantly, I think a lot of people went remotely.

They didn't want to. They loved being in their office. I think what a lot of people found out is actually they thrive under that circumstance. And so there's so many people who are meant to go back in office and who have decided they don't want to. And maybe there's an opportunity out there for them to find great work that allows them to remain remote. and we're seeing a lot more of those opportunities really flourish in the market

and more people have the opportunity to find great work that they can do remotely. That has helped us as a remote organization because we've had the luxury of being able to employ even more remote employees who want to come contract and work with Belay. But I am thrilled that more and more of our country and our nation are really seeking work that fills their cup, and they're not really just going to the grind. I mean, you know, at the Ramsey organization, you know, working for a place that you love going to on Monday morning? I mean, what a joy.

And so we spend so many hours of our day at our jobs. For me, it's a core value of mine to actually really love what I do. That's so good. I think a lot of people out there had that existential crisis where they went, they zoomed out and went, what am I doing? Why am I here? There's so many opportunities. out there and things have shifted for me and what I value and where I spend my time.

So Marcus Buckingham says this quote that I think is interesting. People leave managers, not companies. Why do you think that is? Are people not leaving the companies, but they're leaving leadership that they just really didn't believe in or maybe it was a toxic situation? Where do you think that's coming from? Yeah, I think that's historically been so very true. And, you know, that quote has been floating around for so many years about people leaving their

managers. I think it's because those are the people that have the most impact on their day to day. So if you work for a great boss who's engaging you in your work and engaging you inside the organization, it could be a very fulfilling experience. I mean, it's really hard to leave a boss you love, a boss that you feel invests in you or a leader that you know cares for you. So I think it's easier to create loyalty if your team is bought in on the fact that you're bought in on them and they're cared for at work.

So I think, you know, the manager's role in retention and employee satisfaction is huge. But I also think at this juncture, we're seeing a lot of people just leave organizations and it has nothing to do with management. It has to do about, like we've talked about, it has to do about they just want to find different, more meaningful work and it has nothing to do with their manager. They're leaving great managers because they're finding more fulfilling work or more purposeful work or more flexible work or work. or work for more money. I mean, right now, salaries in the market are extremely competitive. So I think the leave for manager will always be a thing. And I think the managers have the most impact on your employee satisfaction and retention.

But we're also seeing a lot of just leaving organizations. Yeah. For the small business owner out there, they might be hearing all this. And they're a little freaked out going, Tricia, I can't lose the people I have. Hiring is really hard right now. It's hard to find good people who care. who have the talent, who have the passion, who are on mission. So I want to talk about this idea of loyalty that you mentioned and engagement.

How can we lead through the right expectations and create that engagement? What part for you in your journey did that role and those expectations have and leveling you up from assistant to CEO? Yeah. Engagement and what we reference as relational capital are huge when it comes to employee loyalty and retention. And so there are so many parts. and pieces that can go into manager loyalty, manager retention, employee retention as it relates to the relational part of your work in your team. And so we, at the Lai, spent a lot of time

investing in our employees as whole team members. And so we're super mindful that all of our team members have their KPIs and their performance metrics, but they are married by all of the soft things and how they show up. So how we like to look at measuring great organizational health for us is employee engagement. And for us, employee engagement is the marriage of two things. It's their performance and their satisfaction equally. And so if you, as an organization, a leader, a business owner, are spending an equal amount of time on both, I think you'll find that you have a very committed, loyal, engaged team. So you're equally focused on, are they achieving the job? Are they achieving their metrics? Do they have key performance

indicators in place that are so clear they know where to march towards. But in addition to that, are they satisfied in their work? Do they enjoy what they're doing? Do they have work-life balance? Do they have the flexibility they want? Are they doing the work they enjoy doing? Do they have a good relationship with their peers or inside the team? With you? Do you have open, candid conversation? So I think if you take both of those pieces and you put them together equally, you wind up in a place where you have thriving, healthy organizations and teams. And I think now more than ever, as we've talked about, the employee, your employee is more focused on the am I satisfied part.

And so there's options out there. So if you want to keep and retain your employees, focusing on their satisfaction is important. So as a manager, it may be doing new and different things on how you invest in your team and care for them. And there's so many different things that could be brought into the mix, depending on what you're specifically talking about. But it could be global team things like interjecting more fun into your culture. It could be more communication and collaboration. It could be on-site team meetings.

There's so many different options with which you can engage with people. I think it's just being really intentional that you're deciding you will engage with them. for the sake of giving them great satisfaction working for you in your organization. Yeah, it's a decision. It's an intentional act that you have to really work on constantly when it comes to culture and those key results areas that you mentioned. So what was that like for you as you kind of did this 10-year journey from assistant to CEO? What was the role of those expectations in your KRA as well as the culture and your satisfaction? How did that play in your journey? Yeah, well, it was very clear to me what my marching orders were.

It was clear to me what my KRA was at every level along the way. My supervisor, my boss, my organization was clear to me what it was going to mean to succeed in my job. And I think having that clarity is number one. I knew if I wanted to go from, let's say, VA to manager, I very clearly knew what my areas of achievement needed to be. I knew what my KRA was. I knew what I was marching towards. And it was very measurable and easy for me to see success and easy for my leader to measure me against success or exceeding success.

And so for me, it helped me know where to go, and it helped me know what it looked like to be successful, and it helped me know how to exceed the expectation. Because I was driven by wanting the next thing, which mean I wanted to exceed what the KRA was or exceed the expectation. But first you have to know what the expectation is. And so constantly resetting those, you know, you hit the. bar, then you raise the bar, and then you hit the bar, and then you raise the bar again. And so over the years, the bar kept raising, and my goal was to always hit and exceed the expectation in all

of my KRAs and KPIs so that I can continue to advance in the organization. Hit the bar, raise the bar. I like that a lot. Hit the bar, raise the bar. Do you have an example of maybe something that was on that KRA that you remember going, all right, I'm not only going to achieve this, but I'm going to super-serve, the leader, the company in this area, and that created a new opportunity for you. Yeah, absolutely. And so this is a tender, awesome little story right here. The owner of the organization had asked me what my BHAG was. And at the time, my next goal was I wanted to be the president of the organization. I was currently a VP. I was a VP of operations, I think,

at the time. Wanted to be the president of the organization underneath him as CEO. And he said to me, no, I don't think so because I think I'm going to want the president of my organization to live near me because we're an all remote organization, so they were in Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. I think I'm going to need this person

to live in Atlanta, Georgia, because I physically need them near me. And I said, Bullarchy, we are a remote organization, and so my next job will be to prove, to you that I can be 300 miles away and we can have such an effective relationship and I could

lead my division and this organization remotely so well that I will change your mind. And so I created a plan on how I was going to further engage with the team, how I would leave people remotely, the frequency with which I might travel and go in person. I created this plan, these KRAs, these deliverables for what the result would look like in hopes that he would recognize that it didn't matter where I lived. And a year later, promotion, I got the job. He came back and he said, you're absolutely right. It doesn't matter where you live. You've done an amazing job. You've exceeded all these expectations. You filled any gap we thought there might be with you not living in town. And the job is yours. And so that was just a great example of a time when I thought

there was a hurdle that put a plan and some great deliverables in action. And, and the result was the job I wanted. Wow. That's inspirational. So basically you challenged the CEO, and then you met that challenge and said, oh, okay, we'll see about that. And then you went about the business of doing that through your KRA. You did it in a very healthy way, obviously. Sure. You didn't railroad it.

You didn't go around it. It was just, okay, I'm going to prove this to you by the work ethic and buy the strategy and then delivering on those things. So that's incredible. I love that. Yeah. You mentioned investing in your team as a key part of this employee engagement piece. So I want to dive into how your leaders invested in you as an assistant. Before you ever started kind of your journey to CEO, what was that investment like that made you go,

you know what, this is a place that I could see myself for a decade because I can see myself growing. Yeah, that was probably the monumental career-changing relationships for me is the leadership that I got to sit under as a virtual assistant. and I had two amazing leaders as a virtual assistant, Brian Miles, the founder of Belay, who really challenged me to think of myself as the backbone of what he was doing as a CEO of the organization and not to undermine what it meant to be his assistant. It wasn't downplayed.

He actually really helped me see the importance of how I was freeing him up to lead this growing organization. and I really felt like I was a part of its growth trajectory by the support I was able to give him, really understanding that freeing him up by him being able to delegate to me and him entrusting me with really big things to be delegated to really helped him grow the organization, focus on the things that only he needed to focus on. And it wasn't until I worked from him that I truly understand the value of what I was bringing to the table for him.

There's so much that goes on behind the seams and leading any organization business owner. There's so much that can distract us from our time. And I found great reward knowing that as a virtual assistant to him, I was able to help him focus on the most important things of growing the organization and taking that stuff off of his plate. So him leading me to understand the importance of what I was doing was very meaningful for me. And I felt very empowered and excited. actually to be sitting in that seat.

And I had the same experience with another leader as actually a virtual assistant to Michael Hyatt from Michael Hyatt and Company as well. And additionally, I mean, seeing how you could add value to a leader or business owner's life and really free them up as just a very rewarding experience.

Yeah, I wonder how many people across the country are leaving their job because they don't feel that purpose. They don't see the value they're adding. They don't see the growth plan. the trajectory they could have for their career, they just feel like, well, I show up and I do my job and I go home. I don't see how this has any future to it. And so you clearly saw that, and it's because of a leader who showed you the importance of that. And clearly it worked out for you as you kept growing and growing in leadership. So that's such a great example of what investing in your team

could look like. So I want to talk about a time you have invested in your team, now sitting in your seat as the CEO. What were some of the things that you did and what were some of the things that you did and what were some of the results of those investments? Yeah, I guess there's so many different ones at different levels. So for me, one of my biggest responsibilities today is to lead the people that work for me. So being the leader of great people is a stewardship and it's a huge responsibility. So me investing in my team to be their very best self only is received back. there's a lot of karma and circle around what you give to your team, you will receive back as well.

And so will the organization. So investing in the team to me looks like empowerment and training and really clear expectations and room and not micromanaging. I've also had the opportunity to work with many virtual assistants along the way and have really been passionate about them growing in their careers. So my last virtual assistant has now moved on and been promoted to our IT department where she's thriving. And so I really looked at us working together as a stewardship of a season of time where we would challenge each other to just be better tomorrow than we were today. And I view leading a team the same way. My job is not to direct work, but to help people have great conversations and make the best decisions for their teams outside of me. It's like the larger the organization gets the fewer decisions I should be making because I'm empowering the people that work under me to make those decisions.

And so investing in them is hard and soft skills. We spend a lot of time on relationship. We're a very relational organization. And again, we really believe that ties back into loyalty and collaboration and cohesion. Cohesive, highly engaged team makes for a very thriving organization. So what are the ways, you know, because you're a remote company, does that look like one-on-one meetings? How do you actually invest in your team, especially with a remote organization where it may be harder to connect? Yeah, tactically, what it looks like is weekly one-on-ones with all reports, and that's organizationally.

So that's me with my direct team and then it's every manager with their direct team. There's at least a weekly one-on-one video mandatory call that's happening. We also have, just like you guys, we actually start. stole this from your team. We have Monday morning staffing meetings, all team call. Ours is on Zoom, so we're not in a big room, but we're a bunch of tiles on a Zoom screen. Again, video mandatory, and that's one of the things that has really increased our engagement is the video portion of all things. Then it rolls out into subgroup teams and how the teams get together and the frequency of that. Because we are remote and we don't have the opportunity

to run into each other in a hallway or jump into a, a meeting room and collaborate on something. We have to be very intentional about how we schedule our time with each other. So it's Zoom time, it's meeting time, it's web time. And then we pair that with in-person time. So we actually get together as a team in person four times a year as a global organization and four additional times inside those subteams. So eight times a year we're with each other, even though we're a remote organization because we do see the value of the in-person. in time. That's really cool. And then virtually, you can have great culture virtually, which I know this has been such a hot topic over the last 18 months. How do you have culture remotely? They don't

understand. And so we do silly things on, you know, we have virtual scavenger hunts and we send the team ice cream gift cards or grubhub treats. We've sent to everybody's home offices to their homes, you know, pop-up cakes and celebratory items. So you just need to get creative on what fun looks like remotely, but you can absolutely have a great culture and not be all together in the same room. I've got to ask about this virtual scavenger hunt. What does that look like? Yes.

I want to be a part of one. I'm hilarious. And so imagine all the tiles on your screen. We have 100-some-on people on a screen. And somebody's calling out, okay, first one, first one with a paper clip. And then everyone's jumping out of their seats and scurrying, and then people are running back to their desks. It's chaos. Yeah, holding up a paperclip to their camera like this.

Oh, that's great. So on and on. Super fun. And there's prizes, I assume? There's prizes, yes. And then the biggest one we've had, we would do like a would you rather exercise where everyone would type in there, would you rather? The biggest debate we've had as an organization is if you could only have one for the rest of your life,

would you pick a fork or a spoon? Oh, that's good. And we have had wars. There's like team fork and team spoon over here. on which one's going down. I guess it depends on your favorite food groups. Absolutely. I'm team fork.

I'm like, I don't know how you don't stab something with a fork, but I don't get the spooners, but there's spoon people. Yeah, if you're a soup person, you're going spoon. If you're a meat person, you're going fork. That's a great debate. Yeah, but I'm like, you could drink the soup. Yeah, so we've had a lot of great debate over things like, would you rather? That's awesome.

Well, you mentioned this word micromanaging, and it's interesting when you pair that with this idea of investing in your team. I doubt a lot of people self-describe. themselves as micromanagers, no one thinks they are. But I do wonder how many leaders out there listening are trying to invest in their team, quote, unquote, but it looks a lot like micromanaging to the team members. Where do you think those lines are? How do you avoid being a micromanager to where the team feels engaged and they're trusted? That is a great topic and awesome conversation because it's a really hard line to walk. And I am a recovering, my team would probably say

recovering micromanager myself because I have so much tribal knowledge and I've been here for so long, I think I know everything. But here's the greatest newsflash. I don't. Micromanaging, I think, boils down to the individual leader in need. I think you literally have to ask the question when you're talking about something, do you want my support and help in that or do you have it? And let them decide where they want you involved and not. And so what I find myself saying is, do you have that or can I help you with that and let them say, I've completely got it, I don't need you? Or they say, yeah, I could use some, you know, let me bounce some things off of you. So I let the time I spend with my leaders be determined by the time they think they need of me.

And then I only go down into areas where I think like a red flag has popped up. So if something has shown up in some area where some KPI or metric is off, I might go invest sometimes. in that area. Otherwise, I'm assuming status quo and having visibility into all of your organizational metrics helps you really know where you need to spend your time. But I say, nobody wants to be micromanaged. So give them the freedom and ask where they need you and stay out of it if they don't. It sounds like you're saying you want to serve and support, not control and manage. That's the line you would say is from investing to micromanaging. Yeah. That's really good.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've asked them to truly give feedback to me or push back on me when they feel like, hey, why are you coming down in my business? My director of marketing would always say to me, if you're asking me too many questions, I know I have not done a good job at feeding you information. So her output of that is update you more on things because then the questions stop and I know you know you're in the looom. You know what you need to know and you don't have questions. And that's what I know of myself. If I start asking questions of different managers about something going on in the area, I know it's because the information isn't rolling up

at a pace or a speed or a cadence that I'm comfortable with. And so really what I just ask the team is, I don't want to come down and ask the information. So I need you to just filter it all up to me. And then I can stay out of it. Just setting those expectations and then making sure that communication flow is there. Then you go, hey, I ask you for a weekly update

and here's a weekly update, and now everyone's happy. That's right. That's right. And so that's exactly what we do. We have Monday morning updates. All leaders are putting in all their updates, and I have a good snapshot of everything going on inside the business, and I don't, and then I don't have to. So let's recap here. What would you say are the keys to employee engagement, to keeping people employed and not leaving your company as part of this great resignation? What would you say are the keys? Yeah, I think that people at this point want to feel valued and that the work,

work they do is appreciated and it matters. And so at its core, tying the work back to gratitude, showing appreciation for the work that people do, appreciating the person and where they are in their lot in life, providing care for that person. How are you as a whole person? You're not just another employee that works here. Where is the care and the investment to that person? and then tying it back to the organizational why. And so we tell a lot of stories like, what you do today matters because here's why. Here's how it shows up in our mission vision values,

constantly tying back to our core values of an organization because, again, right now more than ever, purpose and great work matters. And then lastly, I would say be flexible. Flexibility, we just actually surveyed our organization including our contractors. So about 2,000 people we surveyed last month about what is most important to them. And the number one answer, 83% of the people said flexibility.

So figuring out how to give people flexibility and removing rigidity in their work, I think is a great place to invest in retaining great people. I love that. Well, as we wrap here, I want you to encourage the leaders out there. They're listening. They want to set these clear expectations so that they can keep their team members engaged so that there's no frustration on either side, but they don't know where to start. What is one step that the business leader can take this week to set those clear

expectations so that they have a more engaged employee? Yeah, I would say schedule the first meeting, your next one-on-one you have with this person, and really let it be a reset. You know, how are they holistically? How are they doing at work? How do they feel about their workload? Do a real good check-in. How are they personally? How's their bandwidth? How is their life? And let them. them know that going forward, you're going to check in on all of those things and develop a cadence with which you do. We actually have templates for our one-on-one meetings, and one of the questions, I mean, truly at the bottom is, how are you? Just keep it front and center, keep them front and center, and then just keep it religiously on cadence and don't let it drop. Keep those one-on-ones on cadence.

And that in of itself, your investment of your time into them and their relationship, you'll receive that back 10-fold. Oh, Trisha, it's very clear how much you care about your team, and it's one of the reasons you are in the seat you are as CEO of Belay. So before you sign off, I want you to talk about who Belay is for for the business leader listening, and they're going, okay, I know a little bit about Belay, but I don't know if this is for me. Who are you guys really trying to serve? Yeah, I mean, we are trying to serve the business owner or leader who is doing too much. They've got too much on their plate. they need to delegate. They have to get out of the weeds.

They're looking for a trusted, fractional support for their business, whether it's for a virtual assistant or a bookkeeping or social media. And they finally got to the place where they realize, I am trying to do too many things. I need to bring somebody else to support me so that I can pay attention to what it means to grow my business and get out of the weeds. We are here to take care of the weeds

for the leaders and executives. and business owners. That's our job. Well, Trisha, I love what you guys are doing at Belay. It's been an honor for our team here at Entree Leadership to partner with you guys and spread the word about all the things that you're up to. And I got to say, we had a great time at Entree Leadership Master's Series. It was so good to see you, and it's great to see you again remotely. Thanks for being with us.

Thanks, George. It's always great to be with your team, especially in person. Thanks so much, Trisha, for an awesome conversation. As she mentioned, clear role expectations helped her level up at Belay. So how can you do the same for your team so they can level up in your company? We'll have a conversation about that right after this. Our second conversation is with Herb Jenkins. He's one of our operating board members here at Ramsey

and senior executive vice president of Ramsey trusted. And we talk about how to create effective key result areas for your team. Herb, welcome back to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hey, George, thanks for having me. We are talking about one of America's favorite topics today, KRAs, results areas. America's favorite. That's why you brought me here. And you are the foremost expert in this building that I can think of when it comes to this. You are very passionate about KRAs. So let's talk about the components that business owners need to be thinking through when it comes to these KRAs.

Absolutely. Yep. I've spent a lot of time creating KRAs and updating KRAs with my team members. It's something I'm very passionate about, mostly because of all the times I've screwed up, doing it the wrong way, understanding how important it is to do it the right way. So like you said, three parts. I'd love to cover with you. The first one is how to create a great KRA. The second one is how to put it into action. And the third is how to manage to it.

So three parts. This is the stuff that as we implement KRAs here at Ramsey. This is stuff that we've seen in the trenches work really well. And I'm excited to share it. So this may not be on every business owner's top 10 favorite things to do. And at the end of the day, it's a piece of paper, but it's a really important one. So tell us first the role that a KRA should play in your business,

why it's important. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it'd be on the bottom 10 if we created that list. They don't want to say that, but you said it. So, I mean, why it's so important, honestly, is, so as business leaders, most of us business leaders, we started off as accidental leaders. We didn't say, you know, this is the job I want to do on paper before you actually start doing it. You just get in there and you figure stuff out and you figure stuff out. And over time, if we were to summarize that stuff, you could say, yeah, that's what I do.

That's my KRA. But then as we bring on more people, we just figured it out. We kind of expect them to just figure it out. But that doesn't scale. People don't ever figure it out the same way we do. And somehow in the process, we get confused, frustrated, angry that they haven't figured it out like we have. So KRAs are so important because we should. we shouldn't just expect everybody in our team to just figure out their jobs the way we would have figured it out

because they're different people with different thinking wavelengths, and this is all about clarity and this is all about communication. So when you do a KRA well, you know you put on paper the stuff that you know inside of what this person needs to do, and what's most important is they understand it like you do. When you get to there, people can actually do a job that you expect them to do in a way that they would never do otherwise. So really important to invest the time into here. It can be a little bit cumbersome at first, but then you start getting into a groove and eventually it just becomes how you manage your business. I love that.

So it really sets some expectations and it can help avoid frustration on both sides from the team member and the leader. This is super important. And to make this clear, you didn't invent this. And we've got a copy of Entree leadership that you brought with you. I'm very impressed. I mean, I always bring my copy of Entree leadership with me. I just happen to bring it here. That's fantastic.

And Dave talks about this in the book. which has been out for a decade now. So what does it talk about in the book when it comes to KRAs? That's right. The first time I've ever read Entry Leadership, this part really stood out to me because I wasn't doing KRAs or a version of KRAs before this.

But, you know, one of the things that Dave writes about in page 224... Great reference. Thank you. I knew that before opening the book. I just wanted to let that be known. Dave wrote about KRAs. KRAs are a vital type of communication

because we have to continually define what winning looks like with our team. We are communicating that doing these three or four things, not a lot, but the three or four most important things with proper passion, creativity, and attitude is winning. And when I first read that, it was like, that makes so much sense. But I wasn't doing it.

And the thing that I've learned the most from that passage over time that I didn't really appreciate up front is the continual communication. part. If you want to have a great KRA that's actually being lived out by your team member, like up front, let me just say, you cannot communicate that once and expect them to get it. It's like vision. It's like your mission. I mean, anything that we say you need to come back to again and again and reinforce your team, KRAs are no different. You've got to approach them the exact same way. So let's talk about creating this KRA. What makes a great KRA? What are the components in it?

Yep, really simple. We've tried to make the KRA creation as simple as possible. And I think that's because most of us, when we're drafting something like this, tend to use $10 words and use language we never do in our day to day. But it somehow sounds impressive, and the team member that we're working with is going to be more impressed. Like some resume on LinkedIn where we're saying, oh, we leveraged strategies. And nobody actually does that day to day. So we've tried to make KRAs be really. what we call cookies on the bottom shelf. And it's really as straightforward and simple as possible. So almost every KRA I've done can fit on one page. And so really simply, if you were to say, like, I've got a blank sheet of paper here, how do I create a KRA? All I would do is, I mean, literally put their name, title, effective date at the top, you know, just who this is for, what their job is. Maybe a two to three sentence description, just a summary of overall, a high-level

description of their job. Clean, simple, easy, but just common language, what is the job all about? And then bullet point, three to five things that are the most important things they need to do in that job. That's really it. So bullet points, I mean, really, it's like a one-sentence bullet point with maybe a little bit of descriptor on each, maybe. But you can easily fit that on a page, whether it's a new team member or it's updating and existing team members or there's just a team member who doesn't have one and we missed it and we need to create a, one for them, which is more common than you would think. It really should be a 20 to 30 minute exercise for you, the leader at most. Right. So when you distill it down to something that's

simple, it really shouldn't take more time than that. So that's all it is. It's really that's straightforward from like a formatting standpoint. And the funny thing is as you write that out, a lot of it will kind of feel like, well, duh, this is the stuff that I already knew that they should be doing. But that's not the point. Sure, feel that. that way, that's great. It's not about you feeling that way. It's about them. Do they know all the stuff that you just put down on that piece of paper? And usually, in my experience, the answer is no. And that's usually where all the frustration and anger and just, you know, how do they not know what their job is type feelings come from is that you have a really clear understanding of what their job is, but they

don't. The first step, just simply putting that on paper. Yeah. And that clarity is up to the leader to put those expected outcomes in the KRA so the team member knows, here's what my role is. Here's what I need to be doing to win in this role. That's right. So once we've got this KRA, we've got the bullets there, how do we actually put this into action? What role does that team member play in putting this into action? Great question. The answer is not take that sheet of paper and then hand it to them and say, go do this.

Here's your marching orders. Go. No, I mean, even if you could do that, I mean, take a step back and think, are they really going to be bought in? if I just hand them this and say, go do these things. I found a really effective practice. When you're talking about how do I put this into action and actually have this team member do these things day to day, a great practice is, so you draft it.

You should do that first. Then mentally or physically set it aside and have a conversation with them and say, hey, I'd like to align with you on your KRA. I've got a really simple form. format here. And what I'd like you to do is to take a draft at what you think your KRA is. Right. So you've already got the answer. You know, you could tell them right now, but don't. Get them to fill out their own KRA and then compare notes. Right. And every now and then,

somebody brings something to the table that is one of those like, oh, that makes so much sense. Type aha moments for me. But you do that for a few. reasons. You bring them into the conversation for a few reasons. One, you want this to be a conversation. Like I said, you don't want to just hand them a document and say, just do this. Getting them to do a version and you do a version and us talk about it creates the conversation. But it also creates buy-in. And this is really the most important point here. People are always going to be more bought into something that they have a chance to speak into. And if you just hand them a document and say, go do this. They haven't spoken into anything. If they come up with something that's a

exactly the same as what you've drafted. You get to say, great, you nailed it. You know, great job. You did this spot on. This is the job. Keep going. Usually, though, there's probably about an 80% overlap between the two documents, and that 20% is where the gold is. So talk it out with the team member, talk through some stuff that you have on your document that's not on theirs. And usually, as I have those conversations, it's a surprise to them. I'll never forget. The time that I probably the most convicted by this. I had a project manager on our team. His name was Brad. And Brad did a lot of projects. I mean, project managers typically, most of us know what they do in general. You know, there's a lot of coordinating the work that's being done as we're driving towards

a deadline or launch or, you know, whatever the type of project is. But one of the things that I expected Brad to do was actually help manage the client, provide some level of updates on the project, status updates on here's where we are here's what's coming next and i had just assumed that brad had just gotten that memo brad did not get that memo and that's 100% on me let me say that up front that is 100% on me when we walked through the kr i was talking through account management as part of his care a and he was like no that's not that's that's your job and see there in we got to have a conversation with that's a conversation we should have had when he started, but a conversation that we actually had about six months later.

And I talked to the importance of him and the client keeping a regular line of communication and how important they needed to see from him, not for me, the status updates of the project in the trenches. And if they had questions, go to him, right? All of that stuff we talked about. And from then on, he was doing it and doing it extremely well. But it was just a simple, I mean, he just didn't expect it of himself because I never clarified, hey, I'd like you to do this bullet point on the job description. So those things. you will bump into and you may feel shame you may feel how did I not have this conversation sooner don't dwell on that stuff just think about it as I'm actually surfacing it for the first time

and it could have taken years to actually get around to this but we're doing it now which is great now let's move forward together better late than never that's right that's key so we've created it and now we've kind of put it into action by getting the team member to have some ownership by speaking into it there's been a partnership now and now we've got to manage to it as you call that so this is kind of the, how do we make sure it doesn't sit in a drawer somewhere or a file on our computer, and we just look at it once a year and go, oh, yeah, I'm at a KRA that one time. How do you put this into practice in your weekly rhythms? Great question.

And that's something you always have to guard against. If you're not careful, it'll happen, right? So how do we prevent it from gathering dust, you know, in the drawer? So I've found the most effective way is to, as you align with that team member, and we have now created this carry together. all you got to do is look at the bullet points on there and say what things do I want to either check in on weekly get reports on weekly status updates whatever it might be from this KRA what do I want to be getting regular updates about and whatever those things are drop them into your weekly one-on-one with that team member right so if I want status updates on how's it going with the client as you're reporting updates back to them then I make that an agenda item and we make it part of our regular conversation. So whether it's a project manager and it's how they're communicating with a client or whether

it's a marketer who's managing leads for our business, if leads is one of those things, then I'm saying each week, hey, how are we doing on leads? We're on track, we off track, any curveballs that, you know, have come up in the last week. And that's really where we've seen KRAs come alive, so to speak. if you can weave it into your regular rhythms of business with your team members, that will become a living document. It will become something that's actually working its way into the trenches of your business, not just intellectual exercise we did once a year. I love that. So it really becomes like a scorecard for accountability that you can use. Instead of these unspoken expectations you have, you can point at this document that you created together and say, hey, here's what we said was the expected outcome.

Where are you at with that? and I love using that in your one-on-ones to make it real and come alive on a regular basis. That's so good. So as we wrap here, for the small business owner who's going, hey, this is all new to me, Herb, I don't know much about KRAs, what are those small steps they can take this week

to get started and create that clarity for their team? It can seem like a big, intimidating practice, and you may feel like you've got to get it perfectly right. I would rather it be 80% right, and you try, right? just draft one, do one. You can scrap it and do it again if you don't like it. The biggest thing I would say is most people talk about doing one a lot more than they actually do one. So just do it.

And a lot of times, I'm not quite sure on a few bullet points with a team member, but in the conversation where we're actually putting into action, that's where we actually clean up the KRA and get it right. So take a pass at it. Don't worry about it if it's ugly. Don't worry about it if not everything is right. if you make it a discussion, you guys can work through it together. And with the buy-in that it creates making it a discussion, they will actually live it out. Well, Herb, I love your passion for KRAs. We need that in the business world.

And I hope a lot of business owners take this to heart because the way it's impacted you and the teams that you lead, I've seen it. It's absolutely incredible. So thanks for unpacking this for us. I know it's going to help a lot of our listeners. Thanks, George. As Herb mentioned, we have a simple template for key result areas that we use at Ramsey. and if you want to use that same template, you can download it by clicking the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show.

If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And we want to hear what you think of this show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Orquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team,

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