Building Teams That Actually Work with Daniel Doersken

Speaker A: We spend over half of our waking adult life in this workplace. You know, 94,000 hours plus do the math. It's not okay for that to suck.

Speaker B: This is Leaderful, where we give you the models and the frameworks, the strategies and the skills that you need to drive true transformation for yourself, your team, your organization and the world. Welcome to the show. Okay. Welcome to another episode of the leaderful podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Coulard. Today's guest is Daniel Dirksen. Daniel is an organization designer, a consultant, an author, and a, uh, team coach. He works for Achieve center for Leadership. And as you can tell from our very first intro clip, we're going to dig right into it about the role of managers in creating workplace culture and advancing the work and performance and team dynamics and all of the things that make work work. And we're going to talk about the book that Daniel wrote with his co author Chris Downey, uh, called you'd can Manage. So welcome to another episode and let's go. All right, Daniel, thank you so much for joining me on the leaderfro podcast. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Speaker A: I'm so glad to be here, Jeff, thanks for having me.

Speaker B: We have so much to talk about that I'm already imagining around two conversations. So let's not. We won't try and cover everything today, but we, even before jumping on and hitting record, we were already getting into it, getting into what this work looks like and why it's important for leaders and teams to really be more conscious, I think, of their leadership development and their manager development. Um, you've recently written a book and so we're going to center today's conversation a little bit around the book. Um, but I'm also interested in, in stories from work, from the things you've been doing with teams that you've noticed that listeners might be able to glean some insights from or some kind of action steps for themselves as leaders. And so maybe let's start there with the book you recently published, the book you can manage. And I've got my copy right here and it's all, uh, dog eared, uh, from Chris and it's the uh, practical guide to becoming the manager everyone wants. And I'm curious about kind of why this book and why now. What was maybe the impetus behind writing this book and yeah, fill us in kind of on the, on the book and the journey.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I mean, as you know, books are like, so many people have a book in them. Do you know What I mean. And so it's like this long percolating journey of uh, I feel like it's a collection of the last decade or two decades of leadership, management and experience. And it's just like as you're putting it together, it's like these are the things that I want to help people with and now I have a place to put them, which is, I'll be honest, it's a little bit dangerous because it's like you, you're, it's that first book pressure. So the first published author, right? Uh, and I know this, I've talked to other authors. They're like the temptation will be to cram it full of everything. And so I think our, I was, I was uh, just vigilant with myself to make sure that this has to be simple, concise and it doesn't have to say everything. So uh, so hopefully that's what we've created. But uh, I would say about eight years ago, you know, I came from a background of uh, many different things, but primarily nonprofit leadership. Uh, and so you know, I'm, I will say that kind of creates uh, social work, uh, purpose driven, values driven mentality. I just believe that uh, I, I, I don't care about what I'm doing unless I'm making the world a better place kind of mentality. And I know that makes me a bit of an idealist sometimes. Uh, but I came out of that world and I got a grad degree in organizational leadership, eventually got certified as an org designer. Uh, and so all of that came together for me that I want to help create healthier organizations because I think they create a uh, healthier society and it's good for people. Right. And so it was uh, I'd say certainly for the last eight to ten years that's, that's been my, my singular focus and passion. It's like we spend over half of our waking adult life in this workplace. You know, 94,000 hours plus. Do the math. It's not okay for that to suck. It's too much. Right? But we have this mentality I think in society that we actually expect very little from work. It's like uh, it's kind of a grind. I don't want to be here, I'm working for the weekend. And that's just normal and accepted. And I fundamentally disagree with that. Actually. I saw this post on LinkedIn the other day and uh, there's another author talking about this phrase that uh, you've heard so many times. It's like nobody on their Deathbed wishes, they spent more time at work, and everyone kind of like, claps and amens and, you know, yeah, work sucks. And that's. And the underlying assumption is that all of us want to get out of this place of employment as fast as possible. Right? And I just think that's a tragedy, right? I mean, do you hate work and your coworkers so much? Is it adding so little value to your life. Life that you wish that you wouldn't do it at all? And I actually think that's not how we as human beings thrive. Right. I think we are wired to be productive. If you take productivity out of our lives and all we have is leisure or consumption, uh, we don't thrive. Right? I mean, there's countless research studies about what happens in retirement when you don't have kind of a purpose, uh, and a productive outlet anymore. Or, uh, look at those that are kind of forced to experience unexpected unemployment for long periods of time due to disability, other, uh, shifting job markets. Uh, that's not a place of thriving, right? And so those that are not working, that's not the dream. That's not. That's not what we're. We're hoping for. And so, you know, I think there's just this. This foundational premise that I'm. That I'm out to shift a little bit, that work is a value add, should be adding value and meaning to our life, but it's not. And that's a problem, right? The fact that it can be and should be, and the current reality is so much lower than that, to me, that's the gap that needs to be solved. Right? And so I've. I feel like both through my academic pursuits and my work as a consultant and a trainer and a coach, uh, I've been trying to figure out how do we close that gap, right? This is what work could be. There's so much potential to be, uh, just an important part of our life, and it just isn't. Right? I mean, uh, the truth. The truth is most people are disengaged, right? I mean, in Canada, the stats are horrendous. We're not the worst in the world. If you look at Gallup's research and, and I don't know what you think about Gallup's research methodology, but I, uh. But I think it gives us some good insight there. You know, 79 of Canadians disengaged at work. They're kind of checked out. They're. They're not loving work. And I think we all know it. We all know what disengagement looks like when we see it, right? It's like regardless of the academic definition. I remember, uh, one of my early jobs, actually, I was still a teenager and I was working in a grocery store and we were in the back warehouse, uh, and I had a co worker that didn't enjoy work. I mean, typically he would just do as little as possible on the shift. Uh, and then I remember one day, uh, suddenly there's this flurry of activity and it was so unlike him. He's like, he's operating the forklift, he's moving around that warehouse with intention. And I was like, okay, like something lit a fire under this guy. How did he, how did you go from black and you know, black and white? Uh, and then, you know, at the end of it, he calls me over, he's like, check this out, look what I did. And he shows me what he's been working on and he like brings me behind these pallets and he's created this like hidden fort that he could escape. Escape work and nap. Yeah. So the hardest I saw this guy work in years was to create a space to stop doing work. Right. And I just think, I always think of that story when I think that's what, that's what it looks like to be disengaged at work. And like, not only is that obviously not helpful for the performance of the organization, uh, it's actually not good for your own mental health and well being. That's miserable. Right? I mean, that work shift is terrible if all we're trying to do is figure out ways to get out of here. So anyway, so there's a gap between potential and reality. There's, uh, and I. Long story short, there's so many interventions that you could pursue to make healthier organizations. But the research shows if you were to put all your eggs in one basket, like, if there's, if there's one thing you could invest in to really turn the story around in workplaces, it's the direct manager. I mean, it really is. And you could critique that all day long. And I've got people in the org design space that are pro flat hierarchies, uh, and all of that sort of thing, you know, fire all the bosses. Uh, and I can understand that mentality. Uh, but for better or for worse, most organizations are still locked into a fairly traditional hierarchy. We have managers, we have layers, we have all those things. So that debate aside, if you're in an organization like that, the quality and the work of a manager is as close to A magic bullet as you're going to get. Right? I mean, it's 70% of what it takes to, uh, engage people at work comes down to the direct manager. You've seen the stats. Uh, the one that I share often gets floated around is, uh, there was a study years ago that talked about who's they were. They were looking at who are the most influential people in your life in regards to your mental health and well being. This was UKG that did this in 2022. And, you know, they looked at doctors, therapists, friends, family, co workers, you know, everybody. Uh, and they found that nobody influences your mental health more than your direct manager. Okay? The only person that was tied is your spouse. Okay. The person you've committed yourself to for the entirety of your life. Equal influence to this manager that may or may not have gotten promoted with any sort of real intention, uh, but

Speaker B: still has or may not themselves be engaged.

Speaker A: But yeah, engagement rates for managers are, are hardly higher. Which is, which is, which is such a problem. I think there's a, there's another conversation there of why are organizations set up so poorly, uh, that managers are having a difficult time succeeding. Right. Managers aren't bad people, um, but they're often stuck in environments that aren't allowing them to show up the way they want to show up. So, so anyway, I think work isn't working. It's time to rethink it. And I believe managers hold the keys right now to that. Uh, and so we wrote a book, we wrote a book to say, managers, this is your, this is your job. This is what it means to be one of the good ones. Okay? We, we did our own study work. We've looked at the research. We've got, you know, years of experience working with different organizations. Here are the, here's the roadmap, and here's some practical things that you can do. Right? So that, that was our goal, Right. Uh, most managers, anywhere from 56 to 85% never get any training. They just. Which is, which is so wild, Jeff. I mean, we look at somebody at work who's doing a great job, right? Technically, they're great. They're an engineer, they're a concrete, uh, worker, whatever they are. And it's like, hey, you're really great at your job. How about you come and do this other job that's totally different than what you're currently doing? And, and we're not going to tell you how to do it.

Speaker B: You're going to have to learn as you go.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll just, we'll just throw you in. Right. So it's, uh. So hopefully this book is filling a gap or a need that we want managers to be clear, what is this job? Even before you get hired into it, what is it that you're getting into and what does it mean to be good? Have a scorecard, have a North Star, have some type of guidance of the types of skills and competencies that you're going to need to develop. And if you haven't been a manager, there's a ton of them, there's a ton of new stuff that you have to learn how to do that is not just going to happen intuitively for you. Uh, and so we're trying to create a resource guide. And, you know, it's supposed to be simple, easy to read. I mean, honestly, there's lots of white space and margin. You could flip through this book if you're not a reader. Uh, you're going to feel really good at how quickly you get through this thing. So, anyway, so hopefully it's a book that managers actually pick up and use and I truly believe it'll be helpful.

Speaker B: I'm sure they will. And as someone who has been in that management role kind of moved up from that individual contributor into management, you're right, there's very little training, if any, and it's a lot of figuring it out as you go. And one of the things I appreciated about the book was how practically oriented it is. Um, and I'm someone who can get into the theory of leadership and theory of management and power dynamics and all the things that can be a little bit philosophical until we can land it in practice. And I love the practical tools and insights and frameworks and things that you have included in the book. Um, so maybe we can jump there, because if we don't kind of stay on track with the book, I'm going to go down a trail of talking about employee engagement and,

Speaker A: yeah, let's talk managers and what they can do.

Speaker B: Let's talk about managers, let's talk about what we can do about some of that. And then maybe we'll circle back to some of these, these, uh, bigger system challenges. But I, um, actually took the liberty of grabbing a copy of the, um, Five Essentials. So I'm just going to throw them up here on the screen for us to talk about. For those of you who are listening to this conversation, you'll have to go and find this image somewhere, either at, uh, at the book's website or find, uh, this clip on YouTube or something. But I, um, Thought maybe we could do it.

Speaker A: That's great. I was actually curious. I was like, where did you get. Have we shared that image? I'm glad you haven't sent me.

Speaker B: You sent it to me the other day and I was like, I'm going to throw that up on the screen.

Speaker A: Oh, that's perfect.

Speaker B: Well, maybe let's do a high level walkthrough of the different these five essentials. And why, maybe why they made it in the book may be the framing here is like, why, why start with you? Number one and why is build the team? Number three, and how did you think about kind of these making the cut when it comes to the things that are most important or the essential things. And then we talked a little bit about maybe zooming in on items three and four, which is build the team and advance the work. I think those are, um, areas that I think our listeners would love to explore. And I personally have a strong bent towards leadership being a team sport. And I think this is totally a side that you can have a reaction to or not, and we can jump into things. But too much leadership development in the space has been very individualistic, very individualized. If you go to that workshop and then you come back to your organization, try and figure out how to implement it. And I know I've been guilty of running into that, where I spent a couple days doing leadership development and then I'm back in my, with my team or Monday morning hits and it's like, how do I actually move this forward? Um, and it's because we usually don't talk about building the team and advancing the work in meaningful ways. Um, so anyway, M m, those thoughts aside, let's jump into kind of these five essentials, why they made the cut, and then we'll zoom in a little bit.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll try not to go through the whole story. So there's been multiple iterations of this framework. I mean, you know, you start with lots of big bucket items. Like, you know, you look at research and the survey we did, uh, with employees across Canada, it's like, what are the things themes coming up? What are the things? And so you could have dozens of essentials. We're like, no, it can't be that complicated. Right. There has to be some. And so these are meant to be big buckets that really capture the core work. And you can, you could go so deep in each of them. Right. So the goal is that the, the framework is, is high level, but it gives you a bit of a roadmap of which of these are the areas that uh, I actually need to grow in? Which are the areas of my strengths, right? And, and kind of, you know, you can do a bit of a self in the book just to get a sense of like uh, which of these am I focusing on and which one is just really not even on my radar. Right. Like I didn't even know stuff like that was supposed to be in my role. Right. And so anyway, so that's our, we've gotten it down to five. We think they really are applicable across sectors and industries, which is a challenge. So number one is, is start with you, right? So we just thought in order to be a good manager, uh, and you don't have to be great, you don't have to be this heroic leader, but to be a good manager, a, ah, lot of that comes down to how you show up and how you are experienced by people, right. And so that this comes down to emotional intelligence, our ability to regulate ourselves, our, you know, our character, our values, integrity. All of those things are so key because over and over again we hear, you know, what are the managers that are really uh, uh, doing well in workspaces? It's something, there's something about them, right? They are committed to personal growth and development and they care how they're being experienced and show up in the space. So we just thought, number one has to be like, regardless of anything else you could do, let's just talk about who you are, your ways of being, rather than your ways of doing, right? So that's number one. We've got lots of kind of practical tips as to how you kind of clarify that for yourself. Uh, number two expands beyond you. And this is invest in people. So now we're not just talking about you, we're talking about the quality of one on one connections that you have with other people. Right? So this is relationships management. Uh, at the core really is relational. I mean uh, I always say if I were to define being a manager, there's really two big buckets and that's people and work. And of those two, which is the half that stresses most managers out? It's the people stuff. And uh, so we made this one second because we wanted to very firmly and upfront say the people stuff is hard. It's also your job and if you learn to do it well, it's going to become one of the most rewarding parts of your job. Right? If we can learn how to build relationships built on trust, how we can help others grow by coaching them, giving them feedback, investing them I mean that is just such a, a deeply rewarding experience as a manager to know that you've uh, you have contributed positively to somebody else's life and career path. Right. And so learning to invest in people and so that, that gets super practical even on how to give feedback. Right. Some of the do's and don'ts, uh, how do you run a one on one? We talk, you know, everybody hears about these one on ones that you need to be doing with your team. And it's like, I don't have time for this and I don't even know what we should be talking about. Uh, we just give some really practical advice or these are the types of one on ones to have. Here's what you should be talking about, right? And here's the purpose of it. Uh, and so lots of stuff there. So three goes into, again, kind of expanding beyond you to relationships. And three is about the team that you lead. Management, as you said. I love it. Leadership is a team sport. Okay. You're uh, I mean that's one of the defining uh, attributes of being a manager is you are no longer an individual contributor. You have, you are responsible for the performance and output of a group of people. You have to align a group of people around a shared purpose. Even if your team is just you and one other person. Uh, right. It's, it's, it's still a group. Right? There's this group dynamic of doing work together which is, I mean that's where the wheels come off for a lot of people. Again, that's a unique, this is a unique set of uh, skills that as an individual contributor you just don't build and unless you've seen it modeled for you, uh, you just won't do it well. Right? So how do I facilitate a really good meeting? Right. How do you actually align people and uh, create clarity so that everyone's on the same page? Because teams have uh, as so much potential. I had this leader and I remember this because it was my first management role. And his mantra was dream a dream, form a team. Okay? So that was this. Teams were the solution to every problem, right? It's like you've got an idea, form a team. You see a problem, form a team. Uh, we need a new coffee maker. Form a team. Like it just, it didn't, didn't matter what you were talking about. The solution, the first step was always get a group of people around this because the assumption was that you move faster, you solve problems better, you handle information differently. And actually he was right. Teams do and research shows this. They have so much potential to outperform just a collection of individual high performers. An aligned and coordinated team is a powerhouse. It's a superpower. But you know this, Jeff. Most teams actually are kind of. They kind of suck. Uh, it's a really. They're really miserable. It's like, you get into this team, it's like, like, oh, mercy, we're having another meeting. And what was the point of that? And did we have an agenda? And who makes that decision? And did we make a decision on that already? And it's like, why am I doing this work? What are you doing over there? What's my role? And you. And it's just like, you finally throw up your hands and you're like, I'm just gonna do this myself because I'll do this better on my own than being on a team. And so there, again, there's this gap between potential to the teams have and the reality. And so we wanted to create some practical tools here of. This is how you build a team. This is how you help a team mature and grow up. Okay, so that's three. And then we go into this. I, uh, love it. So four, we, you know, we waited all the way to four to talk about. What I think people want to talk about right away when it comes to management four is advance the work. Which is just really another way of saying performance. You have a purpose and a mission. There's something you need to do as a team, uh, and it's your job as a manager to create the conditions where that performance can happen. Right. Uh, I think all the other essentials that have led to this place really create the foundation for that. But this is where we get practical. Right. So what does it mean to create an environment in which the behaviors we need to see for performance are more likely and are sustainable and don't just burn people out. Right. And so this is, uh, we can deep dive on this one. Lots, uh, of really practical stuff around. How do you build processes and systems and make decisions and all those sorts of things? Uh, and then five, uh, is the one that I actually like talking about because I feel like it doesn't get talked about very often. It's strengthen the organization. Right? So it's this idea that when you become a manager, your world suddenly expands significantly as an individual contributor. Right? You're maybe you're an it. You get the luxury of really just focusing on it, right. I mean, you have to collaborate with other departments, obviously, because of your shared service. But let's Say you're in operations, you're on the manufacturing floor, you just focus on your job. As soon as you get to be a manager, suddenly you have to be thinking about all the other functions and departments in the, in the organization because your job is to, is to make sure information is flowing, collaboration is happening. It's your job to make sure a silo doesn't get built around your team and function. Uh, and so there's new relationships to build, there's new people to get to know and to understand and there's new systems to uh, kind of work with and help improve. And so there's this whole organizational leadership element that opens up for managers that again is just brand new territory that without any training could be over. It could be and is overwhelming. Which is I think why people just retreat back to. I'm just going to focus on what I know and that work and that's this team. I don't know how to contribute to the rest of this and so I'm just going to leave it alone. Which, uh, to me is one of the reasons silos are just so common. Organizations, managers don't know how to not work in silos. It's uh, a, it's a, it's a learned ability and skill. Anyway, so those are five. We go so deep in all of them, but we think growing in all five of those, like you're going to be better than 90% of the managers out there. Trust me, it really is. I think it really has potential, uh, to move people in the right direction.

Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah, I love it. I think it's a great roadmap. Um, and you're right, the, there's so much in each of these that they're probably their own book. You know, I don't know if you, you and Chris are planning more books down, down the line, but I'm sure,

Speaker A: well, they will each be their own full day workshop, I'll say that. So we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna create a lot more content around each of them.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I love the, you know, the build the team one resonates with, with me. Something that stood out for me in my career was uh, a line that I heard from uh, Paul Bourne. I think he was at the time he was at Tamarack Institute and he was speaking at a conference and he said it doesn't matter what the problem is, community is the answer. And I think of that, you know, broadly in society, community is the answer to all our problems. Build communities to tackle big issues. But within an organization that team based, it's kind of the same thing. You're building a team around, around a problem. And we, I think the, you know, I'm a bit critical often of the leadership development industry because of the ways it goes about some of this stuff. And so I'm just going to say the thing, you know, I already said, you know, individualistic. But we also have that hero leader complex which I really appreciate you and Chris naming right up front in this book is that good is good enough. Get to good and it'll be great for your people because this hero leader who has to take all of this burden on and do all the work, like it's just, it's a myth in our society. It's a narrative we kind of uphold in lots of problematic ways. So this focus on building the team I really appreciated. Um, because it does end leader as facilitator. Like that's a big shift that I've been helping our clients in lately is like you have to move to a facilitator role if you're going to actually unlock the potential of a team. You can be the bottleneck. And we so often are become the bottleneck for decisions and progress and all the things, and perpetuating silos and all the things we say we don't want, we often do the things that maintain them or perpetuate them in organizations. So, um, with that, uh, again, lots of places we could go in this conversation, but I'd love to zoom in a little bit for a length of time on build the team and advance the work in either order. Doesn't matter to me if you want to start with number three and we move into number four. But what are some of the, I guess maybe low hanging fruit. Quick, quicker wins for a manager. If they're listening to this conversation or they pick up the book and they're like, okay, I have to build a team. What are some of the most commonly missed things that when done, like make the biggest difference maybe. And I know that, you know, not asking for silver bullets because it's a collective effort, but what do you see is most often an area, a gap that um, a manager or a leader can really close quickly with a team.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great, Jeff. I mean there's so many things there that we could jump off of. Uh, I like your use of the word community. Uh, I think that's, that's valid. Uh, I think as teams actually we need to, we need to see ourselves as a community with a shared purpose. We're a productive community. As opposed to a family. And we don't have to get into all the ways that's problematic.

Speaker B: Problematic, yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, but you, you are a community, right? And, uh, as, as a manager, how do you build a healthy community of people that are moving in the same direction? Right? Well, I have to think about the quality of relationships that exist between those people, right? So I actually have to create space for these people to get to know each other beyond simply co workers, right? So just like we want to build trust between us and our team members, we actually have to create the conditions and the space for them to build trust with each other, right? And so that can be as simple as, you, uh, know, one of my first exercises that I often do with teams, uh, some call it a team charter, some call it shared agreements. Uh, in our book, we call it the team agreement canvas. And this is just a way. I mean, this is just like, put this on the agenda. Take an hour, take 90 minutes, uh, with your team and just ask yourself the question, how do we want to behave on this team? What do we need individually to be successful? Right? And so I kind of have these quadrants of, you know, this is what we should engage in and this is what we should avoid. Uh, and then I also think of two categories of, let's talk about our ways of being. So, like, these are the attitudes we want to bring, right? So that could be, hey, we're open to new ideas. Uh, these are the attitudes we want to avoid, right? And that's, you know, constantly being negative and overly critical and, uh, and some of those things. And then there's the, you know, ways of being. But then there's also ways of working, right? So that can be, uh, hey, I would like it if I really need people to respond to my emails within 24 or 48 hours. Or we, uh, want to avoid meetings on Fridays because I have to wrap up all this stuff with clients, right? So there's some really practical things that sometimes we just need to say or, you know, sometimes it's super nitty gritty. I love this, uh, example. It's just like when I send you a calendar invite, I need you to respond to the invite so that I know who's coming, right? If you can't make it say decline, but then tell me why. So, ah, and I, this sounds like such a simple exercise to do. Uh, because people end up naming a lot of almost obvious things. It's like, well, we should avoid gossiping, uh, and criticizing each other outside of the space, right? We're not Going to keep throwing each other under the bus to other people in the organization. That sounds obvious, but there's power in saying it out loud, right? Because what happens in that room is it's like, oh, that's right. We just elevated the importance of this and we've put it up on a whiteboard and at the end of it, I get people to like, like we put a bunch of sticky notes and stuff up there and it's like, okay, what do we need to clarify or change so that you feel like you really could commit to this, right. That you want to get on board on? Um, this is the type of team we want to be and this is what we need to do. And it's, you know, it's not one time exercise. You add it and change it as you go. Uh, but anyway, we get to the point where people can like physically go up and sign their name on the whiteboard and say, I am on board with this. Uh, and while we know behaviors like gossip are destructive, uh, it just something happens differently in our brains when we name it and agree to it and in front of our peers, uh, publicly commit to it. Right. And so there's a level of commitment, but also accountability. Right. Because one of the things that, that you know, we talk about is we are now giving each other permission to hold each other accountable when any of us steps outside of these boundaries. Right. So if I am not behaving in ways that I just committed to, I actually want you to say something in a non judgmental way, but just say, hey, I noticed the other day you, you didn't respond to my invite. We, we talked about that. And I'm curious of, you know, how can, how can I help with that? Right? I mean, you just have a conversation about it and so that accountability piece becomes so big, which is, I would say, one of the difficult pieces in building a team. I mean that word accountability comes up in, in every semi dysfunctional or misaligned team that I work with. Uh, the word accountability comes up somewhere. We get thrown around, struggle with, with. How do we actually do accountability? Well, uh, and, and creating this kind of visibility and transparency and public commitment is part of the foundation of that. We can only hold people accountable to what they've agreed to do emphasize that

Speaker B: because it's something that I run into often with teams is that. And the. We call it a design team alliance. It's the same thing. It's that ways of working kind of team charter agreements surfacing, those, like you said, they're kind of common Sense more often than not they're like, think they're ways that like no one's really going to disagree with, we shouldn't gossip or we should respond to emails. But what happens on teams is that each of us bring our assumptions about the work to the table and we never really name them. They don't go from assumption to expectation. And for me the difference between an assumption and expectation is an assumption is like, Jeff has assumptions, teams have expectations, relationships have expectations. But we've surfaced our assumptions and clarified them and validated them and signed off on them. In that case of asking them to go to the whiteboard. So we can move teams and individuals from assuming that people are going to respond to their email to making an expectation out of it.

Speaker A: And then I like that differentiation. That's helpful.

Speaker B: I have a rule on, on accountability. It's like I, I'm not allowed to hold anyone accountable to my assumptions, but I can hold them accountable for our shared expectations. And so as a manager, it's like we do a lot of self checking. It's like, is that just an assumption you have or have you clarified that? Has that been validated at the team? Yeah, because if it has, then it's like green light on feedback, green light on accountability. If you have not had that conversation, you actually aren't allowed to hold them accountable to that thing because that's just a story in your head about how the work should happen. Yeah.

Speaker A: And let's get, and I mean that's, that's so common, Jeff. And it's, it's not just, and sometimes really becomes dangerous in my mind that it's not just I'm going to hold them accountable, uh, you know, by criticizing them or giving them feedback on something that, you know, blindsides them. Sometimes it can be quite a bit more intense than that. I remember, uh, when it was a founder, business owner came to me one day and we had been in a relationship for a while, uh, and it was early in the day and he tells me, he's like, I gotta fire five of my staff today. And I was like, oh, wow. And this was a 15 person. Like you're talking about 30% of your entire team is gone at the end of today. I was like, like tell me more like what's going on? He's like, wow, you know, I really need people that are to do this, this and this and they should be taking initiative on this and I expect these results and things like that. And you know, he listed, he had this whole laundry list of, of what they need to do better. And I can resonate with that. I mean, it's normal to be disappointed in people, uh, and. And to have our expectations missed. And I just asked him a simple question, and I said, do they know that you're expecting them to do all those things? And his response was, well, they should just know.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're all adults.

Speaker A: I was like, okay. Yeah. I was like, okay. So actually, these were. And I love your language. These were all assumptions. You made a bunch of assumptions that your team would know that this is what they need to be doing. And they're not meeting those assumptions, but you've never clarified them, agreed on them together. And, uh, I said, maybe your first step is actually just to have that conversation and say, this is what I'd like to see, and I'm not seeing it. Does that seem fair and realistic? And how do we get there? Uh, anyway, so he kind of paused. I'd obviously caught him in his tracks. And, uh, I love it because at the end of the day, he sends me a text. He's like, I didn't find it. Hire anyone today. I was like, that's. That's good. I just felt good about myself. It's like, okay, I might have just saved five people's jobs. I don't know how much longer they lasted, but they at least got the day.

Speaker B: Put it in the wind. Goal. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, so there's. There's so much to do with, uh, building a team. And, you know, we. We say words like clarity and alignment, uh, but in real life, that's. That's very challenging. Right? So to create alignment among a group of people, I mean, the high level. Yes. We align around things like purpose, values. So make space for that conversation. If that's never on an agenda anywhere in any meeting or part of your onboarding plan, to talk about purpose and values, do not assume that your team is on the same page about that. Right? They. They really might not be, but that's not where it ends. Okay. So I've worked with plenty of teams where their purpose and values aligned. Right? They really are. They. They. They want the same thing, but they're deeply misaligned on the strategy they need to accomplish that purpose. Right? And so it's just like one layer below, and it's, like, fractured. Right? And it's just like, we have to create space and clarity for, like, what is. Like, what are the strategies we're going to use to overcome the challenges and accomplish our goals. Uh, because if you think, you know, we need to Be expanding to a different region and you think we need to focus on a different market base and you think actually there's a sub part of your audience here that needs more attention. It's like you could have just endless conflict and misalignment and division. Uh, and so you know, learning to not only talk about purpose and values, but really you have to clarify strategy and create space for kind of the practical, even, even down from strategy, the operational implications of that strategy and what's the goals are. Right. So alignment is, is top to bottom. It's high level. It's, it's in the weeds. I mean it's uh, it's not something that just happens. It's. It's a thing that you work at quite consistently.

Speaker B: I think too often organizations will do that kind of one and done vision, mission, values, work and then the like once a year strategy or the every like on nonprofit space in general right now. Somebody asked us the other day to come into a five year strap plan and I was like, if you're not doing strategy like monthly quarterly, like in a rhythm of doing that, this like once a five year alignment process, like how is that working for us? Of course it's usually not, but um, I had a, a thought there around yes, alignment on strategy. I think a lot of US leaders and I'm sure I'm guilty of this at some level in my past leadership roles, we assume that values alignment is there because everyone kind of nods their head and says yes, collaboration is important, but we don't usually go to that. Like what are the do's and don'ts of these values? What do they actually look like in practice? And so I'll agree with you that you know strategy for sure we see lots of misalignment, but I also see lots of misalignment on what do these words actually mean and look like in practice?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And I have an example of like a uh, manager and their director. So this like pair of folks that were really struggling to get aligned with each other just in the kind of philosophically about what this work actually looks like and collaboration and was actually the piece that was the sticking point. Point is that one, one wanted more collaboration, one wanted more autonomy is kind of what it came down to.

Speaker A: Sure, yeah. It's a, it's a polarity actually. Yeah.

Speaker B: And. But it actually came down to the meaning of the word because for this one, for the manager, she was from Eastern Europe and so she had come from Eastern Europe. And to be a collaborator meant that you were going along with authority. So the actual definition.

Speaker A: So there was like actual definitional implication

Speaker B: of that word had never surfaced. So she had an allergic reaction. Every time the director used the word collaborate, I want you to collaborate more. She took that as, I want you to go along with my direction or the direction. It's like, oh man. It was such a moment of like, we don't even. We're not even using the same language at this point. We don't have that word to mean the same thing. Wow. So what word do we want? We ended up with like co, create or like something that they could align on that actually had the shared definition. But, um, it's just a really interesting moment of. I think we often assume that respect, collaboration, trust, like the things that make their way onto values boards, which.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure. Respect could have wildly different definitions. If you cross culture, my grandfather to

Speaker B: me to my son, like, I'm sure have very different understandings of what respect means and looks like. And so, um. Yeah, just a note there. I think that sometimes when those underlying. When there's maybe tensions in the work or stuckness in the work, that it's an opportunity to go back up a level either to strategy, from operational friction to strategy, or from strategy to values and say we're actually saying the same thing. Do we understand what this looks like in practice?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And maybe you just said something there that is important. I think for managers to think is. Is learning to navigate and jump between those levels.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's like when, like how do we die? How do we diagnose complex problems? Right. Are we at this level? Is there a piece of that. There's probably a piece of every layer that's a little bit out here and we need to learn to address those. Right. So, uh, that's fantastic. Yeah. And I think some of that is, is. Is about your communication and your meeting. And some of that is like really structural and systemic. Right. We create clarity and alignment through, uh, processes that work, uh, systems that uh, don't create hurt unnecessary hurdles for people. And so it's often say management and this is maybe getting to essential for advance the work. But, uh, the work of a manager is a is. And I'm biased because I do this work. I feel like managers are partly org designers. Right. You have to know how to design and redesign and fix system structures and processes because that really is what influences people's behavior and is ultimately what creates performance and all of those things that we're looking for. Right. So, uh, it's. And again, that's A different skill set for managers to be thinking about.

Speaker B: Let's talk about that. Let's move from um, essential three to essential four, which is advance the work. What are some of those kind uh, of common sticking points that maybe you see? I know in the book there's things around decision making processes. That's one that's top of mind for me. Helping teams navigate how do we actually create processes and systems to make better, faster decisions or whatever the criteria is. So that's, I'll put that one on the board as a candidate for us to talk about today.

Speaker A: That's great.

Speaker B: Yeah. What else do you see?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's so many ways that performance gets stuck. Right. And I think for managers the mindset shift for me is uh, and this is the thing we say over and over again, your job isn't to manage performance, your job is to enable performance. So that's the mindset. Right. We're not here to think about what we might put on this annual review form that HR gives us and how to rate our team. That's ah, actually not helping anyone. What's helping is what does performance look like. So a, clarify that with your team, have a scorecard, get on the same page as to what success looks like, what does performance look like, and then let's monitor it and diagnose together whether it's happening or not happening and why. And then we can begin to say, okay, so there's a barrier here that keeps tripping us up or there's a system here that keeps incentivizing the wrong behavior. Right. And we need to address that and learn to change that. And decision making is one of those. Right. I mean I, uh, I think it's actually one of the reasons people say meetings suck is we can just talk in circles and it's like, like what's the outcome here? Uh, what are we supposed to do with this? You know, and I've, I've been in so many, I've even been in like lots of different teams, board level and otherwise, uh, where it's like we need to make big decisions like who to hire or you know, strategic plan. And it's just all open, unstructured dialogue. You know, the loudest voice dominates. Uh, and, and one of two things typically happens. We, we made a decision in, you know, quotes because at the end, you know, we heard from some people and the leader says, well, you know, it sounds like we're all kind of agreeing on this. And so it's like this very loose pseudo consensus type of Decision or uh, you know, the leader says, you know, thanks for your input and then goes away and makes the decision on their own.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that that can be the right approach sometimes. Uh, but I just find that most managers don't realize there are so many ways you could make decisions. And if you don't learn to make them, make them and make them well and quickly, you can really slow down the work. Right. Because your team might be waiting for a decision before they can keep running. Right. They're like waiting for that approval. They're waiting for whatever is needed to unlock resources or information. Uh, I was in a meeting just the other day where you know, it's kind of going in circles and they were going to be like, okay, so it sounds like we should maybe just table this and come back to this at our next meeting, which was a month away. I was like, uh, no, like absolutely not. Like we can't. Like this is what, this is why things take six months and organizations to do anything. It's like if we knew how to actually do a collaborative decision making process as a group, how we knew how to create proposals ahead of time and process that together and surface objections and you uh, know there read the book. There's a whole host of decision making methods that are really effective in the right scenario. And as managers we need to be aware of these and kind of pull the right tool out at the right moment so that we can unblock the work for people so they can keep going. Because I mean there, trust me, there are just so many employees and teams that are, are waiting to move but can't because it's stuck up in bureaucracy world somewhere. And management teams and executive teams were supposed to talk about this thing but their agenda got full so they never got to it. And it'll have to wait a month now and it's dealing with a dumpster fire somewhere. Yeah. We actually don't realize how our decisions or inability to make decisions really, really impacts and slow. Slows people down. Right. So if we want to advance the work, I, I love it that you, you focused on that. I think that's a piece that we need to get really good at.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree. I think and kind of at the manager level or those if the manager puts on their org designer hat. I think the question we don't often ask ourselves or ask ourselves enough is uh, like who decides? Who decides?

Speaker A: That's exactly the question.

Speaker B: Right. Like because it's role clarity pieces in there, decision making authority, there's all of those things it's like sometimes these decisions haven't been allocated an owner and so they end up in that consensus crappy space where we just have open dialogue and either something kind of pseudo gets decided or a leader gets frustrated and just makes the decision anyway, um, whether it was their story. Right. From a functional perspective. And so I love that kind of nod towards managers. And maybe that ties into kind of essential. Number five, which is kind of at the organizational level is putting on your org designer hat and looking at what, where are the bottlenecks? Where are the friction points? Where are the things that are slowing the work down or making it less meaningful or impactful or, you know, whatever those criteria are. One of the things I'd love to get your, maybe your perspective on or stories of seeing this kind of mindset shift in action is I know something that happened for me when I moved into senior leadership was seeing my role now as an organizational role, as the team that I'm a part of, cross functionally being the more important team, not more like importance being relative, deserving my attention, uh, as opposed to this program that I grew up in, you know, spent. I was a youth worker in addictions treatment. And then all of a sudden I'm managing the place and my heart is there and I'd rather be out there with the team doing that work. And I'm going to protect that team at all costs. And I can point to lots of examples of Jeff showing up to meetings and protecting his program at this expense of.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Uh, maybe forward organizational movement or supporting something else in the organization. It's a tendency, I think, that we all are probably guilty of falling into this. I'm an IT person, so the IT department is going to be the thing that I focus on. Actually, that cross functional layer of managers that you're a part of is the more important to move all of the work forward and not just your little piece of that work. And so maybe thoughts on ways managers can make that mindset shift or practices that they can embrace that's going to help them become more of a kind of organizational leader.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it really is a. I mean, it has to be intentional. It's not going to happen naturally. Right. So I often say you will naturally drift towards silos. Okay. So it's, it's not that, you know, people aren't naturally. They're not trying to build silos. It's just the drift. That's where it's going to go on unless you intentionally name it and stop it. Right. And so one of those is uh, you know, and I, and I've realized this too when I've get into management positions. One of the things I, I do is I make sure to kind uh, of m plot out on a piece of paper of like who are all the other managers and departments and where are all the other teams now that, that I'm going to interface with in some way, shape or form. Right. There's some level of collaboration necessary or some level of understanding of their work.

Speaker B: Work.

Speaker A: Uh, and most organizations don't, you know, in their, if they have any sort of onboarding program for a manager, which most don't most forget this element. There has to be a social relational element to that manager onboarding. And so anyway, so if your organization doesn't have that, uh, what I've often done is I just take it upon myself to reach out to each and every one of them, introduce myself and say, hey, can we set up just like even a 15 or 30 minute connect? I'd love to go for a walk. I'd love to you know, down, sit, sit in your office. Uh, and I just get an understanding of who they are, what's their background, how do they get here, what do they do in their role, why do they like doing it and crucially, what do you need from me in this department in order to uh, you know, do your work well? Right. Like what do you, you know, as a new manager, what do you wish from my department? What would you wish to see from my department that would make less life easier for you? And you just kind of send that signal early on that I care about knowing you and I'm for you and we're together in this. Right. And so it's uh, I've just been so amazed at how those like quick little conversations within your first month or two can uh, really just start that off on the right path. Right. And so it's, you know, and in the book I say, ah, silos aren't just structural issues, they're relational issues. We collaborate with known entities, right. Uh, we collaborate with people that we know. And uh, so you have to learn to build that network. And so internal networking I uh, would say is a key skill to get good at and prioritize. But again you have to put it on the calendar. It has to be intentional.

Speaker B: I love that focus on the intentionality there because it is easy as a manager to see your direct reports as the people you need to build relationship with. And on that relationship task I think you use people and performance or there's you know, the Variety of hats for juggling, um, we use kind of relationship task. And that relationship, that connection before direction is so important and so easy to miss. Because when you're in that tough meeting where you have to make some decisions about budget, if you don't have some trust and relationship built, it's really easy to get competitive and protective of your people and miss the greater good of the, of the mission that we're on collectively. So I really appreciate that kind of it does have to be intentional. Um, because you're right, it is so easy to just slide into the. I understand this work and I know these people. So I'm going to spend more time and energy here than over there.

Speaker A: Totally. Yeah, well. And we forget how, uh, you know, not only are we impacted by other teams, but other teams are impacted by us. And so when we are about to change something on our team, as a manager you want to be thinking through like, who are the affected parties and how do I get their input early, right? So if I'm like, I'll just use this again if I'm in it or hr, like a central surface like that, the things you do really are going to impact a wide swath of people. And so get really good at kind of seeding that information early. Talking to people, hey, what's your input? What are you noticing? What's going wrong? How could this be better from your perspective? Right? I mean that takes time, but it's time well spent because then when you actually launch this change, you've got supporters, you've got advocates, and you've got people willing to go with it. So which is again, that's like a level of organizational change management that um, if you're, if you're new to management is just a totally new role that's

Speaker B: its own book is the, the Manager's role in Change and uh, and how to support that. Um, having watched, I'll tell you what,

Speaker A: I tell you what the role isn't is to criticize everyone else's change. So there's like one key takeaway.

Speaker B: Throw everybody else under the bus.

Speaker A: Don't criticize it to your team, right? If you don't agree with it, you need to go have a direct conversation with someone and figure out what's going on and how to align and get on board or how to make changes or anyways that whole like, uh, cross functional criticism, I mean that just, I

Speaker B: mean I shouldn't just throw my hands up in the air and blame it and say nothing I could do.

Speaker A: Guys like, oh yeah, it Happens all the time. Right. I mean we're throwing, we're throwing senior leaders and executive under the, the bus. We're throwing HR under the bus. It, I mean we're just uh, you know, and it's, and it's, you know, it's, it's actually well intentioned because we're, we're trying to maintain a good relationship with our team and so if something's going wrong we want to like blame shift, you know, it's not me. Don't worry about it. I got your back.

Speaker B: I got your back here. I did the best I could.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I tried to.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I said something, don't worry about it and. But you know, they're idiots over there so I mean that's not helping. You're actually damaging your team, uh, their performance, their well being, all that stuff. Actually you're doing a lot of damage in an unintentional way.

Speaker B: Awesome. Um, I'm just tracking the time here and we're coming up.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Pretty close to the end of what we had kind of budgeted and probably our listeners ability to retain this conversation or to move this forward. So I'll be conscious of that too. If you've stuck around and you've listened to us chat about really, I think really fundamentally important topics and concepts and practices of management and leadership. And again I love the book for its practicality and so um, definitely a shout out to both you and Chris for putting the work in to building that book. I know it's a labor of love. I'm sure there's lots of long nights of. Is this how I want to say this thing and re editing, reimagining. Um, I get that. So a lot of love and care uh, went into the book and so I appreciate you for that and definitely have a link too for people to go find it and get themselves and their managers a copy of. Um. Aside from buying the book, what's a good call to action for the listener? Ways that they can either kind of an individual call to action from yourself or you know, you'd love to see all managers start doing X, Y or Z, um, or places they can find more information about your work and the work of achieve. Um, yeah. Kind of open call to action for the listener.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. I mean as you're working with a manager, just embrace uh, embrace the influence and opportunity of your role. Right. As an individual. And I, you know, my first point always is if you're a manager and you feel disengaged or you're burning out in your role, you really have to pay attention to that because it's actually not just hard on you, it really is having the impact on all the people around you. And so self care as a leader isn't optional. Right. And so we need, we actually have to get good at ah, learning to analyze. Like what do I need, what am I missing? How do I advocate for myself, myself and give feedback and how you know, what is within my influence that I can create the conditions that I can show up to work engaged because my team needs me to show up that way. Right. And so I would say that's just to me a really easy call to action is just analyze where you're at.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: How are you doing in your work, uh, how are you doing, uh, in your mental health and well, being at work, uh, and then uh, you know, get support if you need it. Right. And so that's step one. And maybe let's just start with you lots uh, of practical things I could say as a call to action. Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. That's great. I'm putting out content on this all the time. Connect with me, send me a message. Uh, our website, you can manage CA or achievecenter.com there's lots of resources from the book. There's even a self assessment, uh, that for free that you can just kind of look at and say, you know, which of these essential areas is a strength of mine and which of these needs some shoring up. And uh, of course we're again we're just creating so much more content around this. You're going to be able to do uh, workshops, certificate programs, everything around there. So keep growing, be intentional. Uh, your role matters.

Speaker B: I appreciate that and I will echo the self care not being optional. And I'll add that it's actually ethical, that it's part of our ethical practice as leaders to be well because I know for myself that I've been my worst leader and my worst father when I'm burnt out and when I'm not doing well. And like you said, it has an impact on people. So to see it as part of our ethical practice, it's ah, an obligation to be well um, as a leader and I think that goes a long way. Um, so Dan, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, writing the book, jumping on the podcast, really appreciate you and the work that you're doing and the rest of the team over at Achieve. So uh, thank you and I'm sure our listeners will be reaching out and buying books and jumping on board.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Thank you Jeff. Appreciate you. Thanks for the Space Leaderful is brought

Speaker B: to you by the Ally co, a team of human centered systems consciousness consultants, coaches and facilitators dedicated to helping you and your team tackle the core problems of burnout and stuckness and misalignment and misuses of power and all of the things that get in the way of creating truly human centered workplaces where everyone thrives and does their best work. Head over to www.theallico.world to learn more.