The Only Asset You Shouldn't Sweat Is Your Team

Welcome to Leadership Revealed, where John Paul shares his no-nonsense approach to all things leadership and scaling businesses. John interviews some of the most successful people in their industries to see what it takes to become a great leader. Be prepared for the truth about leadership and business. Please welcome your host, serial entrepreneur and top-selling author, John Hall.

Hi guys, and welcome to another edition of Leadership Revealed. Now, the title of this is the only asset you shouldn't sweat is your team. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, I think we're all trying to get ahead of business.

We're all trying to progress in business. We're trying to be the best version that we can be. But one thing that we forget is the effect that it has on our team or our employees. So what I mean by don't sweat them is don't push them.

Don't make them so that they snap, they break. Mental health is a real big thing at the minute. It's a real, real big issue. And one thing we've got to take into consideration is the well-being of our team.

But not only that, not only from the mental perspective, it actually has a counterproductive effect, which you wouldn't think that when you push our team and your employees too far. So we've got a couple of things that we want to talk about, a couple of little tips and tricks that I think you guys can take away from this and you can implement into your business straight away because I do like trialing things before I actually talk about them. I do like putting them into my business first before I suggest that you guys go and do the same.

Now, one of the things that I've been doing literally for the last decade is I've been using this philosophy and not pushing my team to the absolute brink. Because I know, and I do believe, I think it's from my sport and background, that you can't train 100%, 100% of the time. So you have light days of training, you have heavy days. And when you have a heavy day, you have a longer recovery time.

Now, the way I think about it is that your brain is a muscle. So when we're doing sport, it's our legs, it's our back, it's our thighs, it's arms, chest, whatever it is, whether it's running, lifting weights, contact. And we can't do it 100% of the time because we just haven't recovered. So if your brain is a muscle and muscles recover pretty much the same throughout the body, then doesn't it stand to reason that by pushing the brain too much, something's going to give, something's going to snap.

And I think that's when burnout happens, mental fatigue, and you just don't get the best out of people. And, you know, well-being is a really, really hot topic at the minute. And we do have to look after our team as best we can. So the first thing I want to talk about is I think, and I do it and I have done it, is create a done day, a done time in the day.

Now what I mean by that is that if you've worked really hard, you've achieved your goals, there's nothing wrong with saying, look guys, we've done very well, let's just pack it up for the day. It could be 10 minutes early, it could be half an hour early, it could be finishing 30 minutes early on a Saturday or a Friday afternoon or just shooting off and going to the pub or doing something or just chilling out doesn't necessarily mean that you've got to let them go it could mean right shut us down let's turn the phones off at half past four or put them on divert or put them to a call answering service let's just have a bit of a chinwag let's just talk about something now good good few years ago when the world cup was on football and the euros were on we were giving our team the wednesday afternoon off and yeah we got a Very, very few, like one or two people based off the hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousand calls that we received on that afternoon that said, well, I need to get through to somebody.

But we had a call divert service on. So the calls were still getting answered. Might not have been able to get an answer to it that very second, but we were getting messages through. But the point being is the amount of thanks and gratitude we receive from our team but also the workload sorry the quality of the work and the intensity increased over the next couple of days was absolutely insane And it was all because we said to them, right, guys, we think you've worked really hard.

We're going to have the afternoon off and we're going to watch the football. And bearing in mind, I'm not exactly a massive football fan or football supporter, but it did wonders for our team. So have a done time of the day and it doesn't have to happen all the time. It could just happen after an intense workload trying to finish your project, or you've had a particularly hard couple of weeks with completions if you're in the real estate industry or you're selling widgets or whatever if you're in any other industry.

But I think that is a good sort of tool or technique to use. I think something else that we can all do is just ask for a little less maximum capacity. So I've always said use 90% or work to 90% of your capacity most of the time. Now, in the article that I'm taking a lot of this research from, they said 85%.

So in all in all, we're not actually that far apart. And as I said in the beginning of the video, I've been using this 90% RILF for around about 10 years now, maybe 11. So just a little longer than a decade. And I've always thought that by using 90% capacity, you can go for longer.

If you use 100% capacity, you need to stop, you need to have longer breaks. And also, that's when you're on the edge. you're redlining your body, you're redlining your brain, and that's when injuries can happen, such as mental fatigue, etc, etc. So by just saying to them, look, we don't expect you to work at 100%, just work at 85, 90% capacity, but for longer, you will get a lot more from your team.

Coupled with that is that you don't expect them to get 100% done. And what I mean by that is, is your workload is actually organized, it's designed, and it's implemented so that 85% is enough. What we don't want to do is when we're expecting that we hit 100%, but we're happy at 85%, that 15% is where our customer service levels and the customer experience drops for our clients. We don't expect that.

So instead of asking them to complete 10 reports, ask them to complete 8 reports. so that 20% is not actually having a detrimental effect on our customers or clients. So set the expectations that although 85% capacity is what we're asking you to do, it will mean that our customers don't suffer as a result. I think that's really, really important.

Ask yourselves, what am I doing to my team that is making them stressed out? Can I do anything that will make them less stressed out? So placing less demand on the results. asking them to do slightly less, but less is still good enough.

You know, your demeanour, how you're coming across, you know, not expecting everybody to work the length and the intensity that you do. The majority of business owners work longer, work more intensely and actually get paid less than the majority of the employees. I said the majority of business owners. The bigger you get as a business, the more experience you get as a business owner, that kind of flips itself on its head.

So when I had my agency, I worked incredibly hard, probably for the first 10 years, maybe 11 years. And the last three, four years, that's when I really became more CEO-like and I got down to probably five, six, seven, maybe a day a week in the business. Now, because I've started the technology business, Prospector Pro, I'm working hard to get it up and running with a view that in about a year, 18 months, two years, I'll be able to take a step back in terms of the intensity levels.

Now, why did it take me a decade or 11 years to take a step back in the agency, but I'm planning on 18 months to two years in the technology company? Well, the answer is really simple. I didn't know then what I knew now. So I can make those shortcuts.

I can recruit for the long term We can set up the systems the processes the procedures the KPIs the financial management right at a very early stage that will allow me to take that step back so I don have to work as intense for the duration that I used to Now I also think that we should encourage that to get 85 or 90% of the decisions right. So in a world where we're expecting to be right 100% of the time, that's unfair, it's unequitable, and it's not achievable. So except 85% of the time, 90%, your team are going to be right, but 10, 15% of the time that they may be wrong, they may have chosen a wrong option.

And it's not a case of, right, well, you've chosen a wrong option, you're going to get sacked, you're disciplinary and performance management. Encourage them to make those decisions. 15% is okay. Now, again, it depends on what your role is it depends on what your business is you know 20 of the time if you're a surgeon you get it wrong i think is is it's far too high it's not it's not great odds for your patients but in a property management business in when you're selling widgets you're selling a product or a service and you know health and safety is not on the line 85 80 to 90 is perfectly acceptable in my in my opinion when sort of relating back to when we said about you pushing your team we think about the language that you're using so urgently asap need it yesterday stop what you're doing and give me it now those types of words phrases language is actually not helping with your team and their anxiety levels and things that they say oh well obviously john needs it now i better drop what i'm doing and again it's just adding added pressure um onto them so that they again you know working at 90%, 95% rather than that 80%.

So when you need something, isn't it a case of, should I have planned it better? Should I have said to them, give them an extra week? Should I have just maybe every couple of days said, how are you getting on with that report, John? Is there anything I can do to help?

Are we still on target for it? If we're not, please let me know and I'll jump in and I'll help you. Those things are a lot better than giving them two or three days and then 10 seconds before you need it, saying I need it ASAP. It's high stress levels, it's high anxiety.

Now I'm not going to get into the debate about walk and we're a tougher generation 20 years ago and we're weaker now and we continue getting weaker. I'm not all about that. I'm all about we are where we are. What can we do to get the most out of the people that we've got and trying to help them and also build that really positive team culture so that it benefits our business.

We can twist and moan about how we were tougher 20 years ago and no doubt our parents will twist and moan about how they were tougher 40 years ago and 50 years ago. Now, grandparents don't get me started on when I was a lad and, you know, the Second World War, and you guys don't know how easy you've got it. We had rationing and stuff like that. You know, they're a team of gladiators compared to what we are now, if you ask them.

So the previous generation always thinks it had tougher than the following generation. And no doubt our kids, you know, I've got a 7 and a 13-year-old as well as an 18-year-old, they will think when they get to my age that they had it tougher than their kids' generation. But that's not the issue here. The issue is we are where we are.

What can we do to get the best and the most and the most productive and the most intense work level or workload without hurting people, without that mental fatigue, without that mental health issues? And I think using right language and not pressuring them as much as what our generation were pressured, I think goes a long way. And I love this tip. This tip is end meetings five to 10 minutes early.

So if you've booked in an hour, try and finish it in 50 minutes. It's something that I've recently started to be doing, probably the last 18 months, especially when Zoom came on the scene and everyone's all Zoom meetings and just back-to-back Zooms. So if I've got an hour, I will try and share it very very strictly stringently and I try and get off around about five or 10 minutes early If nothing more just to nip the lid just to get a cup of tea or a coffee or a bite to eat and you always feel as though you're getting five ten minutes back of your day five ten minutes back of your time and even I don't do anything I'll just you know read a couple of pages of a book play a little game on my phone play chess on the laptop whatever it is I feel as though I'm not going from meeting to meeting to meeting blindly just into one meeting.

It might be that I need to read something five or 10 minutes before I jump onto the next Zoom. But either way, by getting that time back, I feel as though it's not an endless meeting to meeting type of scenario. And the last thing I want to talk about is that it's all well and good seeing what we want our team to perform and how intense the level we want them to adhere to. But look at your own levels of intensity as well.

Now, the older we get, the less ability we have of being as intense for longer periods of time. So, for example, when I hit the gym, when I go for playing my sport or my runs or whatever, I can't hit the same level as what I used to 20 years ago. I'm getting on a bit. I'm getting old.

So, of course, it stands to reason that I have to reduce the intensity levels. Now, in certain situations, I'm pretty much exactly the same as I was, but I couldn't do the intensity, which is keep up that same level of strength, that same level of intensity over an extended period of time so for a daft example if i was hitting the gym and i was benching you know my my maximum my pb you know now i could do it once maybe two or three sets back in the day maybe five six seven sets my body's not not as young it's not as fit injuries but because of the older we get if we try and even keep up to the way we were our body just hasn't got the muscle density the fiber and again i'm talking about arms legs chest back but your brain is a muscle don't forget that and we have to look after it as if it was an injury we pulled a quad or we pulled a hamstring or a calf how would you look after yourself well the first thing you wouldn't do is you wouldn't run back in um to on the running machine and try and run the same level of intensity you'd you'd rehab it you make sure it was fit you try and stretch it you'd mobilize it and then you just strengthen it over a period of time and you take the necessary time off to make sure that it got the help that it needed so it came back fit and stronger than what it was your brain is exactly the same thing so don't try and be intense and lead for an example and wear it as a badge of honor use it and use your body and your mind is sensibly and use it intelligently so that if you can set an example to your team so that they're not going down the same road that you may have done years previously i used to think 40 hours a week was a part-time gig.

I used to think, oh, I remember my first part-time job. And that was the rough rule of thumb in the joke I used to tell our team. But the truth of the matter is, you know, if you're working 40, 50 hours a week, that is at the highest level of what you should be earning if you're running your own business. You know, I want to be earning, I want to be working, yeah, 40 hours a week or less maximum because I've got a family, I'm getting on a bit, I've got other outside interests.

And, you know, today I'm taking half a day off this afternoon. And that is purely because one, I can, and two, I've got the ability to do so because of the way I've set the business up. So working at 85% of your capacity, mental and physical, is incredibly important because it sets the precedent for your team as well. You're leading by example, and then more importantly, you won't get the burnout or that mental fatigue.

So the only asset in your business you shouldn't sweat is your team and yourself. Hope these have been really, really useful. Take them. Hopefully you'll agree with them.

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