Chad Silverstein explains why leaders fail new hires: they don't write down expectations. Verbal isn't enough. You need specific, measurable goals like "10,000 a month," reviewed together, with employees playing them back to confirm they understand. Hold people accountable from day one.
Chapters
When I first started with my leadership coach, my first complaint was that people weren't performing at the level that I believe they should be performing at. And I did the job, so I knew what level they should be at. But we were going through a period of time in our company where results weren't that high. And he looked at me and he said, you're the problem. I started laughing at him because this was one of our first practices together. And I asked him, why is this my problem? He said, because people don't know, you know, know what's expected of them. I don't know how he knew that, but it's probably because most leaders fail to actually write down what they expect from their teams and then deliver that in writing so that everybody's very clear on what the expectations are. He didn't know, however, that I always stand up in front of my company, and I tell them all the time, you know, here's what I expected from you, and here's what the numbers are, and here's what they were, and here's what your goals are. And, you know, I could talk about it till I'm blue in the face, but the reality was, he was right, and he called me out on it. And I had to humble myself, because he called all the leaders, my high performers, in my office, and he asked them a simple question. Do you know what's expected of you? And as they went down the line, one by one, I heard each one of them say something different. And as my stomach was turning, knowing I was wrong, I was starting to get sick, because no one actually said what I wanted them to say, which is what I know I've said over and over and over again. So the lesson there was, no matter how many times you say things, people hear what they want to hear, and they're never going to hear what you want them to hear. And if you have a big crew, then half of them are going to hear one thing and another half are going to hear the other thing. So you have to write things down. And so I had to get busy, and I got real clear on what I expected from my team, and I made them very sticky, very specific. If it was a number, then it was a number, and it was a specific number. And there was no. There was no cushion of higher or lower. It was 10,000amonth. It was 10,000. And if it was about coming into work on time or responding to inquiries or handling complaint calls or whatever that may be, I wrote them down. And as I got clarity and I narrowed the long list down to my most important expectations. I delivered those to my team and it did something. It did something in my office. I think it made people more comfortable, it built trust. And I noticed that my team leaders, they started to do the same thing because they realized if I'm going to give my team these expectations, they realize their team doesn't know what they expect of them. So they got busy with their expectations. And all of a sudden, my company had tons of expectations and we did it the right way. We asked people for feedback. We didn't just jam these down people's throats, we asked them for suggestions. We wanted to know if they were clear, you know, play it back for me. Tell me what you see when you read these. What are you thinking? And we made sure to have discussions about those expectations so that everybody was clear on what they meant. So that you can't just kind of, you know, take it the way you heard it or the way that you take it. And that's important because to be an effective leader, you have to be able to articulate what you expect from your team, and you have to be able to deliver that in writing so that there are no surprises. One of the worst things a leader can do today is give someone a bad surprise. It's easy to talk about things when they're good. It's easy to break great news. And people don't want to hear from you when you're just going to deliver hard truth. Because if the only time you're going to approach any of your teammates is when they've done something wrong, they're not going to trust you and they're not going to listen to you. Especially when you got something that is really important to say because they're expecting you just to deliver the right hook. Having clear expectations up front, it sets the tone. And you should be able to do that from day one. So that when a new employee comes in your office, you lay out what's expected from the training process to the first 30 days. So that if you have to let the person go, because you should be hiring very slow and firing very fast, if you have to let them go, there should be no surprises. Your trainer should be told right from the get go. If you notice that the person's doing something that can get them fired, tell them you're doing people a favor by giving them the expectations and then holding them accountable. It's really important to be tough when people first come into your office. You can be kind, but being tough sets the tone and you can always loosen the reins. You can always become nicer. The problem is if you're too nice from the get go it's so hard to like start to get tough. So if it's not in your nature to be tough then just use your expectations and it's just a matter of fact. Here's what we expect of you. You have to know what the core values are. You have to know who to go to when you have this problem if you make a mistake. Here's what we expect of you. Whatever it is that you want to make sure that you're going to make a priority for the expectations. Make it clear, repeat them, put them in writing and make them play it back to you. It's really important to make sure that everybody understands what's expected of them. You would want that done for you and it's important that you do it first as the leader and then let other people in your organization, other leaders follow suit.
