In Conversation - Dre Baldwin Top Five Tips For Eliminating Execution Drift in Growing Organizations

Speaker A: Welcome to the Top 5 podcast with your hosts, Rael Bricker and Lindsay Adams.

Speaker B: Welcome back. Our special guest today is Dre Baldwin from Miami, Florida. Dre is the creator of Work on youn Game, the operating system for high performance entrepreneurs. After a nine year pro basketball career, Dre has delivered four TEDx talks, authored 43 books, and built a body of work consumed over 100 million times. His framework installs discipline, structure and presence into experts and service pros ready to scale from six to seven figures with clarity, confidence, and control. And he's here to talk to us today about the top five tips for eliminating executive drift in growing organizations. Welcome, Dre. Great to have you.

Speaker C: Excited to be here. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker B: So let's get going. We've got your five tips today. Let's kick it off. Tip number one.

Speaker C: Okay. For eliminating execution drift, number one is defining behavior, not just outcomes. And the reason why this matters is because most companies, they will track results, but they don't define the daily behaviors that produce those results or the steps that go along the way. And what happens is this opens the door for introducing what we call execution drift. So if you have a team of, let's say, 10 people, you may have 10 people who all know the outcome, but they're all doing things in 10 different ways. And over time, if there is a deviation in results from all 10 different people, now we don't know where to start to figure out, well, what exactly is the problem? Well, let's say you have a system in place, but there's no one holding everybody accountable for executing the system. And then slowly, over time, people kind of do things the way they want to do it. They execute how they want to execute. So then in the end, when you see that the results are not hitting the way that they're supposed to, now you have to diagnose and figure out what the problem is. What a problem is, people aren't following the system directly. They're doing it their own way. And that leaves leadership to kind of backtrack and deconstruct. Why is everybody doing things the way they're doing? And when this problem gets solved from the beginning by making sure that everybody is actually adhering to the process, whatever that process may be, on a behavioral level, not just an outcome based level,

Speaker B: like in terms of defining behavior. So can you give us some simple examples? Is it like, you know, be here at 9:00 every day, uh, you know, create a to do list is the first thing. Is that what you're talking about or is it more complex than that?

Speaker C: It can start there and it can go further into, let's say that the goal was, say you have a sales team and they have a quota of make 20 sales a month. And everyone's just trying to make their 20 sales. But again, 10 different people may have 10 different processes for getting those 20 sales. But if you've deconstructed or you created a system that says, okay, if everybody follows the system this way, then more likely than not you're going to get 30 sales. So hitting a quota of 20 is pretty easy. But that requires you need to add this many leads every week, you need to make this many calls, you need to send this many emails, you need to make this many follow ups. And if you follow that process every single day, then over the course of a month, more likely than not you'll make 30 sales a month. So again, a quota of 20 is reasonable, but you have to make sure that everyone is actually adding those leads, making those follow up calls, scheduling the conversations, doing the visits, knocking on the doors, whatever it is they have to do along the way so that they're following the process. Because, you know, your process works. The challenge is making people follow that process. And human beings, when that process is not enforced, they tend to just keep doing it on their own, however they want to do it. And if they're hitting their numbers, nobody says anything. But then when it's not working now, people say, okay, let's take a look at what you're doing. And they got off the process six months ago, but it only became an issue now.

Speaker A: Okay, so let me ask a question then. I mean, uh, what strikes me about your idea of the, you know, specifying the behavior is they're actually driving things from the front. Because the problem is, yes, today in the current world we can measure things daily, weekly, monthly, hourly. But you know, go back a few years, measurement took a while and so therefore the reactivity to a bad month, week of work was significantly time driven after that. How has the, you know, the Google time and Siri time that we live in change this where we get much more immediate access to results, changes.

Speaker C: It makes, it should make it easier for organizations because now we can track what everybody is doing. Now an artificial intelligence, even more can make it easier to track what everybody is doing at the same time. For members of a team now they know that what they're doing can be tracked. So that can add a little bit of extra pressure, if you will, or stress to them knowing that their activities are being tracked, but I consider it to be enforcement. It's calibration, making sure that the process is being followed. Because again, team leaders should let team members know that, listen, we know this process works. So you follow the process, then you're going to hit your numbers. You hit your numbers, you make your money as a sales team to get their commission. So this is actually a good thing when everybody's following the process as long as people stick to it and somebody's actually enforcing it.

Speaker A: Okay, well that actually works really well. To segue into your second of your five tips for eliminating execution drift in growing organizations, hit us up.

Speaker C: Yeah. Second one is building a measurable execution scorecard. So this goes directly into the example that I gave earlier. Make sure you are adding this many leads, you're scheduling this many appointments, making this many calls, this many follow ups. Because again, we reasonably expect that this level of activity is going to lead to this type of outcome. And I've worked with teams, sales teams who have this exact issue and their leaders say, well, we have about 10% of our team is doing it or going a little bit above what the process standards are of execution. But the rest of the team is lagging behind them. So we're trying to get the rest of the team caught up to what this top performing 10% is doing. The challenge with them is that they didn't have measurable KPIs. They just gave people the process and said do it and people weren't doing it. So what they need is the KPI. So what is getting measured? Because we all know that people don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect. So they have to know that their activities are being measured. So it needs to be again, KPI level, that's key. Performance indicators, processes, I mean, excuse me, prospects, leads, follow ups, phone calls, appointments, scorecards have to track the inputs, not just the outputs. So the inputs are the actions. If you're hitting every action, then we know we're going to get to that output. And if you're not, then that means we need to look at the system, not look at the individual person. Because the system is already proven by the time you're building a sales team. Because you don't start building a sales team until you're sure you have a system that works. Otherwise your sales team's not going to make any money and they're not going to make any sales. So that's how you build that measurable execution scorecard that leadership can look at and see. Okay, we're doing well, with the prospects, but nobody's following up. Okay, so let's make sure that everybody understands how to follow up. What are the tools for following up? What do you need to understand about following up? Because it looks like team wide, that's the place where we're lagging. And that's probably the thing that's causing the issue here because we have the prospects, we have the sales conversations, we have the appointments, we're not getting the closes because the follow ups aren't happening. So we're leaving opportunities out there on the vine. And now leadership knows where to step in.

Speaker A: Okay, so the, the, the logical question from listening to you for the first two tips is your focus, and this is probably slightly off track, but your focus is on building the sales team. Because ultimately if a company's not selling goods and services, they're not going to survive. Is that where your personal focus would be with all these teams or how do you. We've spoken a lot about sales and KPIs. How do you translate that into software development or other aspects of the business? Good question.

Speaker C: So I'm um, using sales as an example because it's probably the simplest one that people can get. But this can work with any organization as long as they have a process and a system where the activities can be measured in a 0 or 1. Yes, it's done. No, it's not done, or how much was done. Something is measurable because again, you can't manage what you can't measure. So any aspect of a company or any type of company, even if it's not a sales organization, you can measure as long as you can break down the steps of your process in such a way that, you know, following these steps leads to this outcome. Does that answer your question?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I think measurement, you know, what's that old saying? What, what's get. What get measured gets done? Uh, I think it's so, so true across the whole organization. Okay, let's move on now to tip number three.

Speaker C: Sure. Tip number three is removing ambiguity from roles and standards. So in a lot of organizations, people have roles or they have titles, but it's not quite clear what exactly this role means or is not quite clear what the standards are. And more importantly, when it comes to standards, a standard is not really a standard unless it's being enforced. I'll give you an example. So, and uh, some of the buildings I've lived in down here in Miami, there will be, there's always a pool because Miami has pretty nice weather. And there'll be rules that say what you can and cannot do at the pool, for example, what time it opens, what time it closes. Don't play music out loud at the pool. Don't bring glass bottles to the pool. You can't bring your dog to the pool. These are rules. At every pool in Miami, they'll have these rules posted up on the wall. Thing is, those rules only matter if they're enforced. And I see people violating the rules. They bring their dogs, they bring glass bottles, they bring music, and they play it out loud. And I'll see members of management looking through the glass window, seeing people violating. But they don't want to deal with the confrontation, so they say nothing. And when I notice that, it tells me, okay, these rules are not actually rules. We should call them what they actually are. Which, uh, see, a rule is a suggestion when it's not enforced. It's only a rule when you enforce it and you do something about it. I remember there's a different building, I'll give that, where they had similar rules, but they actually enforced it. So I'm a person. I'm an early bird. I wake up early in the morning. I usually will go work out. And, uh, some. Some days I go run. So I would go and warm up for my run out on the pool deck of the building. And most of the time, nobody would say anything. I think because it was dark, the lights were off, they couldn't see me. But one day, I guess they saw me, and security came out there and they said to me, hey, you can't be out here because the pool's not open yet. And I said to him, obviously, I'm dressed. So I'm, uh. I'm like, I'm not even using the pool. I'm just warming up before I go run. He said, still, the rule is you can't be out here. And it was fine. I didn't get annoyed with it. I respected it. Because I saw them enforce the rules on everybody. Anytime there was a violation, they weren't just doing it to me. They weren't isolating, singling me out. They enforced the rules all the time. You turned on music, they said something. You got in the pool with a glass bottle, they said something. You were out there after the pool closed at 12 midnight. You were out there at 12:01 two security guards came and told you, hey, the pool's closed. That's enforcement. That's enforcement of standards. When people know that the standards will be enforced. Here's the interesting thing. You don't have to enforce the standards that much because everybody knows that they're going to be checked if they violate. But if people are not sure or it looks like the standards are not going to be enforced, then you have headaches on your hands all the time because people are not respecting your stated rules. So that constant enforcement done enough, the message goes through to the entirety of the organization that this is a real standard, because if you violate it, something's going to happen, somebody's going to say something, there'll be correction, there'll be enforcement. That's how you uphold a standard. And by definition, a standard does not tolerate deviation. The standard does not tolerate exceptions if it's an actual standard. And a lot of organizations and even individual people talk about standards, but they don't actually enforce them, which means they're not living them. Those are wishes, hopes, suggestions, but they're not standards.

Speaker B: So, Dre, uh, I love this concept. And in some ways you can relate it to parenting. You know, in terms of children, you create a rule or a guideline or a boundary. I'm wondering, I'm wondering now about a petulant child. And we can take this into the corporate world. There are petulant children all around us at times. When you enforce a standard or a rule and they don't react well, how do you deal with that?

Speaker C: Great question.

Speaker B: Throw a tantrum, they go, but, Dre, I'm more special than that other person over there. I've been here 20 years. I don't have to blah, blah, blah.

Speaker C: Well, it's a perfect question because I don't think you two know this, but I have a three year old child. So this is actually. Life reflects this right now. So, uh, what you need to do is make sure that the child understands. Different parents, of course, have different ways of doing it, but you have to make sure the child understands that. Yes, you may be upset. Yes, you may not want to follow the process. Yes, you may not like the rule, but I must inform you, Mr. Employee or Child, that this is the rule. This is the standard, and it is my role to enforce it. You are in violation. It is my job to step in and let you know you're in violation. And this is what we have to do. This is our process. This is how things work around here. And, uh, the reality is, even though that may be a bit of an uncomfortable conversation for a leader and I talk to, I work with a lot of leaders and operators on this very thing. This is more a mental, emotional thing than it is a process. Thing is, your willingness to have those uncomfortable conversations means you will need to have fewer of them. Once people know that you will enforce the standard, they tend to conform on their own, and they police themselves when they know you're going to enforce it if they violate, but if they're not sure that you will, then they'll keep violating and you'll have more problems because of your hesitancy to confront. And that confrontation is necessary. When there's a violation of a standard, there must be a confrontation.

Speaker A: Okay, so let me ask you a question. Lindsey and I, in our professional lives, both often run strategic planning sessions for companies. And at that point, sometimes you want to. You want to put, you know, everything at the door because you want people to have their creative hats on. You want to go, what, what can we change? What can we do? You know, do you have to actually define the actions and standards for those conversations, too, where you're putting everything on hold and saying, what can we do to improve and let people throw, uh, out the wildest of wild ideas? And, boy, do I see them all the time. And, you know, you don't want to kill creativity at that point, but you don't want to bring that creativity through to mess up the process. So where do you balance that out?

Speaker C: Well, it depends. Are we talking about a brainstorming session?

Speaker A: Well, it's a brainstorming session where we, we, you know, I do it with my own team. I've got 12 in my finance business. And we'll sit down and go, okay, what. I'm, uh, not asking you what's broken in our system. I'm asking you what can be improved in the system, and then we'll talk about it. And then some of them will go, no, it's working without that. And others will go, that's a great idea. Let's implement that. And, and there's no friction the way we run it here, which is, you know, let's talk about it, let's get to an agreement. But. But it's also interesting because you'll always get that one business. Well, I want to try it this way and see if it works. How do you manage that without stifling it?

Speaker C: Well, uh, everything can come back to first principles. So we can look at in the business and say, okay, what is the main function, the primary function of what we're doing here in this business? We get an answer, whatever that is. Let's say as a sports team, the main primary function is to win games, and 10 different people have 10 different ideas. So I Said we got a hundred ideas on the board. Okay, let's see how these ideas we can talk about it or some of them we may even implement just to give them a test and see how are any of these helping us achieve the main primary function of the business? Because if we're not achieving the main primary function or your idea does not help us do it better, more or more efficiently, then it is not serving. What we do here therefore is going to be thrown out. And everybody can respect that because we're not making it about, I'm rejecting the idea because you had the idea or I'm rejecting the idea because I think it's a bad idea. No, we're, we're rejecting the idea because it does not serve the main primary function of what we are supposed to be doing here as a team or as an organization. So this becomes a referendum on the idea, not a referendum on the person who brought the idea. Does that answer your question?

Speaker A: That's perfect. And that's a great, that's a great answer. And I will, I will borrow that and use it when I talk to people because I like the idea of separating the person from the idea. I think that's a great idea. Okay, let's move on. Hit us up. Tip number four for eliminating execution drift in growing organizations.

Speaker C: Number four, systematize what we call the same things the same way every time. This is a simple consistency habit, consistency process. And this is something that often stressing to entrepreneurs, especially when they're starting their businesses or solopreneurs that need to have a clean set of processes that you're running the same way over and over and over again. For repeatable the repeatable parts of your business. Onboarding a prospect, bringing on a new customer, shipping an order, however you handle certain communication issues, customer service problems, the same things every same things the same way every time is consistency, which is not a talent, that is a system. And all a system is. Sometimes people hear the word system and they think that it needs to be some super complex thing, which it can be. But a system also can be something very simple, such as every time a customer service complaint comes in, somebody respond within 30 minutes. Number two, somebody say we're going to get back to you within 24 hours with the issue of number three. Internally, if we can solve the problem for a hundred doll hours or less, just solve the problem and make the customer happy. All right, that can be a system, that's a three step system. And if everybody understands that system and we follow that system consistently, then again the reasonable expectation is we're going to make customers happy. Even an angry customer will become a lifetime customer. Given what we know, what we've seen from following this process. As long as everybody follows it, customers know what to expect. You look at a company like Amazon, how easy do they make it to return things? That's why they are able to keep people as customers. Not because they have all the perfect products, but because when someone is unhappy, they make it very easy for you to undo that transaction and do another transaction. And they keep you inside of their system. So when your execution relies on memory or the talent of individuals or the personality of an individual, it ends up breaking once you begin to scale. Because one person can be talented and be a superstar. When you're dealing with a handful of customers, but now 10x that, that one person can't do it, that one person gets overwhelmed, or those two people or those 30 people. Whatever number it is, it needs to be something that is system based. Because a system can scale, but talent cannot scale. Individual brilliance does not scale. So this is the reason why, as entrepreneurs build their businesses and expand their businesses and it gets bigger than anything any one person can handle. It must be system driven, not talent or brilliance driven.

Speaker B: I love it. I love it. Okay, we are, uh, almost at the end of our time. Hit us up. Round it off to the end. Tip number five.

Speaker C: Number five, enforce accountability through structure, not emotion. So this touches on what we were talking about earlier. When it comes to the ideas, that the idea is judged on the merit of the idea's performance, not the person who supplied the idea. The idea is completely removed from the person. So accountability inside of an organization doesn't depend on the mood of the leader who is supposed to be delivering the accountability. It doesn't depend on the relationship you have with that person or the personality of the person either giving it or receiving it. It's like I said at, uh, the building that I lived at, when the security came out there and told me, you can't be out here at the pool deck, they didn't do it because it was me. They didn't do it because the security guard on duty was having a bad day. They did it because this is the process. If anybody comes out here before 6 o', clock, security comes and gets you. If you come out here, you're out here after 12 o', clock, security comes and gets you. That was the rule. It had nothing to do with me or them or anything like that. It was just, this is the process. And once I saw them do it not only to me, but to everybody else. I said, okay, they're doing it the right way. And interesting thing is, I've lived in about 10 different buildings here. They're the only ones who did it that way. Everybody else, it was a lot of randomness. So structured accountability, that removes friction, and it increases compliance automatically because it's structured. When everybody knows that it's going to happen this way every time, then people tend to, again, conform on their own. But when there is randomness and accountability, you get randomness and compliance. That is the way it works. When people know that every now and then, I may get away with this, or most of the time, nobody's going to say anything. Well, eventually people stop treating it as a rule. And then if you do step up and try to enforce the rule randomly, then you're going to get a ton of pushback. Not because the rule is unfair, not because you're dealing with belligerent people or because you're a weak leader, but because your system has not been ingrained consistently, it hasn't been enforced consistently. People don't expect it. And human beings are pretty adaptable. We adapt to pretty much anything when we know it's going to be that way all the time. And people only push back when we get randomness. When you deal with people in inconsistent ways, they get belligerent. When you deal with people inconsistent ways, they tend to conform with whatever it is that you have, even if it seems harsh from the outside looking at.

Speaker B: So, Dre, do you have a rule book? Do you have a website where you have all the structure and the process? What do you recommend to your clients? You know, if you're an entrepreneur starting out, or if you've already been down the, you know, in the business 10 years, what's. What's the best way to make this happen?

Speaker C: Well, I have an internal handbook. I don't have an external book. I don't know if I'm going to make one on this, but maybe I will. But as far as what we have is, we have something that we call the. We call this the Execution Reliability Index. It's a way that a team leader or an individual can measure where they are right now when it comes to the reliability and consistency of their execution. And we have a free assessment you can take@workonyourgame.com Eri oh, cool.

Speaker B: Okay. Well, I love that. Now, should our listeners want to get in touch with you and find out more, or maybe purchase one of your 43 books, what's the best way for them to do that.

Speaker C: Best way you can do that is you can find me on any of the social media platforms. You can just look up my name, Dre Baldwin. Pretty easy to find. Or you can just go to workonyourgame.com. that's where you can learn more about what we're doing, a little bit more about what we talked about here.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Dre, thank you very much for joining us on the Top Five Podcast from Miami, Florida. Uh, thank you to my co host, Lindsay Adams from Brisbane, Australia. This is Rail Bricker from Perth, Western Australia, signing off for another edition of the Top Five Podcast.