Emotions vs. Data: Are Your Leadership Decisions Hurting Your Business?

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This is the episode that you have all been waiting for. This is where Chrissy and I have the grudge match. It's emotions versus data.

Oh, my feelings.

And I mean, really, you tend to lean more on data too anyways, but I felt like I definitely— no one was going to believe it if they called me the emotional one. No. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need The Business Fix. So this week's episode, we're going to talk about— we're going to have the death match about who can give a shit less about how someone feels.

I don't think I'm going to win this one. I don't. I have a tiny bit of empathy.

Yeah, no, I do too. It's just, it's hidden.

Yeah.

I guess it's funny, one of the analogies that I've sometimes made is with— and I say this cautiously— but Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. Because when he tells people, "Look, stop." "This is not going to work." Right. He says that out of a place of kindness.

He absolutely does.

He does not say that kindly.

No.

But he says it out of a place of kindness and empathy.

I think sometimes— because he's willing to look at people and say, "Your baby's ugly." I'm sorry, I have— there's a special place in my heart for Kevin O'Leary because he's honest.

Yes, that's what— that's what— that's truly— I used to think, boy, this guy is a jerk. And at like 16 years later, I'm like, I don't want to say he's my hero, but in the same sense, I truly— like, he is probably my favorite shark because he's the one that says, like, look, I'm gonna stop you right now, your business is trash, right?

You know what, be offended, he's not wrong, right?

He's, he's usually one of the first ones to say What's the numbers?

And when he's wrong, he'll say it. Yep. Like he says, I was wrong about the Ring doorbell all the time.

Yeah, no, he's—

And he was. They all were.

100%. I think this is so funny because no leader will ever admit to this, but most leaders base promotions on who do I like? We talked last episode about friends.

Who's going to be the easiest person to work with?

Right. And the firings are based on who's pushed me too far. Um, emotions-based decisions create that inconsistency. They— like, if you promote the person who's nice to you but lacks the KPIs, your high performers are going to be like, "See ya!" Yeah, I'm out. Um, to me, the emotional whiplash— like, we want to help people move from emotional whiplash to data-driven decisions.

Yes.

Um, to me, I, I'm excited for this because this is something that, believe it or not, Like talking about some of the nice leader stuff that we've talked about, talking about some of the other stuff. I had a big problem with dealing with the emotions of this. Yeah. To now, I mean, once again, you never see the pendulum at the bottom. The pendulum is swung.

It's one way or the other.

Far the other direction. No. But it is making sure that I've gone to that data-driven decisions more so than anything else. How does the emotional weight of liking someone like, hey, They're my buddy. How does that emotional weight of liking someone make the leader stay in, like, let's say in the coach phase where they're like, you can do it, buddy, keep going, right? I got you, buddy. No, like, how does that make people stay in the coach phase longer than they should?

Well, I think when you're building a company, people stop feeling like employees and they start feeling like family sometimes. People are— because you spend so much time with them. Right? And it, and it, your emotions cloud things. Like you're building something together, especially when you're in a small organization or you've been through some hard things, you kind of, it's, it's really easy to get emotional about people. So there's 3 E's we're going to talk about that kind of help us get out of that. Sure. We've got empathy, evidence, and equity. And it's not, and they're, they're going to be explained a little bit differently because I'm sure some of you are like, she said equity. Stop right now. That's not what I mean. Like, just let me get through them and you're going I'm gonna see how they work. Because when I started pulling these together, I'm like, I really think a couple people are gonna be like, I don't like— just take a minute, okay? You can have your emotions around it. Let's just sit in the car together and let's figure this out. So empathy. Leaders with high empathy often overstay in coaching because they deeply understand the human side. And then if they're in that cut phase, they're like, I can't do this. This person has a mortgage, they have kids, their pet's on life support. This is— it's stressful. Like, I can't, I can't. I can't put them under that stress. I can't hold them accountable because it'll stress them out. Their identity is tied to the role. I can't let them go. Empathy is a beautiful thing. Empathy gets us a lot of things as humans, but empathy without boundaries turns into avoidance. And empathy quickly becomes another E, an excuse for why we're not doing the hard thing, giving feedback, right? Okay, the next one is evidence. And this is where leaders have to ask, what is actually happening repeatedly? Not, do I like them and did they try hard? We're not—

it's not a participation trophy.

It's not a participation trophy. This is— are you— listen to me, business owners. Your business is not worthy of a participation trophy. Okay? No. All right? So we're not going to ask if we like them. We're not going to ask if they tried hard. These are the things we're going to ask. What patterns are we seeing? What behaviors have changed? And what has coaching actually improved?

That last one is the big one.

That's the huge one.

That's the big one.

Because what has coaching actually improved tells you if they are learning and they are getting better. And if the answer is nothing, then we have a clear answer as to the fact that this person may not be the right person in the organization. So that's the— where's the evidence? Where's the data? So we've got empathy. So we're not going to get hijacked emotionally at the fact that this person, they could be the most wonderful person on the planet, doesn't mean that they need to fit in your business.

Yep.

Because we're going to have evidence about it, not if we like them, but are they actually doing a good job and can they be coached into doing a good job? And then there's equity. And I think this is the hardest question because it's, is my empathy for one person becoming unfair to everyone else? Because equity is not about, does this person have the right access? Did I provide the right tools? No, no, no, no, no. This is about, am I harming my business and everyone else because I am trying to take care of this person? Right? Because—

It's amazing. No, go.

Yeah. Every month a low performer stays, high performers absorb more, resentment grows, and standards drift. And eventually the team's going to realize that feelings matter more than accountability. Empathy should inform leadership. It shouldn't override reality. And equity in this equation is about how this helps the organization as a whole, not about how your feelings are going to prevent everybody from being able to move forward. I, I—

it's, it's funny because I want to go back to something here. Like, you, you're talking about the equity on that, and you say high performers absorb more. One of the things that I want to make clear is neither one of us believe that everyone on the team is going to perform at the same level.

Oh gosh, no. There's a mean and a median, correct?

And to me, it's making sure that the, the high performers realize that they're high performers, low performers realize that they're low performers, and everyone realizes where their spot is in the team, and that there's balance to things. That is the biggest piece to it. We're not encouraging you to say everyone has to be a high performer.

No.

Because we've talked about this.

No. Definition of high performers in this case are people that are meeting the standard of the job.

Yep.

Because the person that you're looking at going, "I can't lose them because they're just a person with, they've got a mortgage and they've got kids and they've got a pet and they've got, I don't wanna stress 'em out by making them do all these hard things." that person is not meeting the standard. So everybody else that is meeting the standard now has to absorb more because you're not willing to let that person go or you're not willing to coach that person.

100%. 100%. When it comes to promotions, like, how does that unconscious bias or the emotional, like, that personal affinity destroy? And I mean, I say, I say that emphasis like, yeah, the psychological safety of the rest of that was a nuclear explosion.

Yes, I know. I heard it.

How does it help it? How does it destroy that psychological safety for everyone else?

Oh, and this happens constantly, especially in founder-led businesses because leaders are gonna promote the person they relate to.

Yes.

They're gonna promote the person that makes them feel comfortable.

Yep.

And the one that gets you, that's my favorite. Why are you promoting them? Well, they just get me. This is not dating.

They get you what, McDonald's?

Exactly. Exactly. And that's what's hard because they're doing that instead of the person who actually fills the organizational gap. Yes. Heaven forbid we actually hire the person or promote the person who is qualified and actually doing the job. Because we are naturally going to connect. I know. It's so true. I just said it so fast.

I dealt with this with a client. I have too. This is a podcast client.

This is constant.

Visionary guy kept hiring other visionaries and then wondered why stuff didn't get done.

Exactly.

He's like, oh, we get along great.

They've got so many great ideas. They can't execute on crap, but they've got a ton of good ideas.

No.

And here's the thing. We naturally are going to connect with familiarity. Yes. Right. That's human. We're going to be— we're going to gravitate towards people that are similar to us. But here's the thing. I don't need a bunch of me's in my business, right?

Oh, could you imagine?

No, I cannot. I am already annoyed with myself this week. I cannot imagine what it would be like. I can't. We got to think about it because here's the thing. Leadership requires us to ask, what does the business actually need next?

Yes.

Not another version of me. God help them all. Not another friend, not another loyal soldier. But actually, what are the things that we need? A missing skillset? Is there some— do we need emotional maturity in our organization? Do we need strategic thinking? Do we need operational discipline? And this is where—

Yes, always yes to all of those.

Yes, the answer is yes, we do. Yes. But this is also where psychological safety gets damaged because the team watches promotions very closely. And so if promotions feel political or inconsistent, Trust drops, effort drops, and eventually people are going to stop believing that performance matters, right? Because here's the thing, your strongest people are not often going to complain loudly.

Nope.

They just stop trying as hard because then they realize the game isn't actually fair. You have to promote people that are, I mean, that are qualified and are supposed to be moving forward, not just because you like them or maybe they play bocce or maybe they like, well, they ride motorcycles too. And like, you know, I just, I feel, I feel a connection No, that's not what this is about. Promotions teach the culture what leadership actually values.

It's funny, I believe we talked about this before. One of my first jobs when I saw someone who just no skills whatsoever, but was friends with someone else in the department, they got the job that I like really was, it was the perfect fit for me.

Yeah.

When I saw that, I was just like, I'm out. See ya, bye.

And that person wasn't qualified and it's definition of toxic culture.

Yep. Um, there's a—

when you—

like, let's face this, when you've got this empathy for someone— yeah, the mortgage, the things of that nature— it's gonna— like, you realize that you do have to get rid of them.

Yes.

There's still an emotional cost to that. How do you, like, hold space for that? How do you, like, how do you still execute but make sure that you I mean, feel the decision still.

Exactly. Well, good leaders should always feel the weight of these decisions.

I agree.

There should always be some— I mean, it should give you pause when you're moving someone out of your organization. Now granted, you may be giving them another opportunity. It may be the greatest opportunity that they have is to find another job because they're not fitting in yours. But here's what I'll say. If firing or demoting someone never bothers you, that's a different problem. But if it does bother you, congratulations, you're human, and that's normal. So here's what I will say. We're going to acknowledge the human impact. We are going to acknowledge that dealing with the situation, there is stress, there is fear, there is disappointment, probably on your end as well as the end of the other person. But you do not need to be robotic in this. All right? You also don't let emotion erase the reality of where things are. You cannot get hijacked. So at Clarity, this is why we lean so heavily into documentation, documented coaching, so that you cannot get emotionally hijacked because here's, again, here's the data.

Here's the paper trail.

Yes. Here are the clear expectations. Because that's the other part. Well, did I set them up for success? Maybe you didn't. But if you didn't, let's make sure that we have it documented, but then let's put some clear expectations in place either now and put them on a performance improvement plan or let's exit because we know that it's not going to work. And the next person that comes in has to have clear expectations. And the other part is consistent feedback, right? Because by the time the final decision happens, it should never feel random. I don't know how many times we've said termination should never be a surprise.

Nope, they know.

Yes, and leaders have to remember keeping someone in a role where they're failing is not compassionate because it's, I mean, a lot of times it's delaying the person from finding the environment where they can succeed. Stop being the bottleneck to them being able to be successful in their future. And I think that's really why what we talked about in the episode about Coach, Correct, or Cut, that framework matters so much because it allows that employee to see where they are, what needs to change, and then that final decision, it becomes understandable. It doesn't become— it's emotional, but it's explainable and it's fair. I mean, again, the kindest thing is not always keeping someone. Sometimes it's being honest sooner.

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It, it's funny, I like how you put that because it doesn't remove all emotion from it, it just makes sure you don't add emotion to it.

No. And when you let some— like, there are times where I've had a situation where people had to let someone go and I'm like, okay, that was hard. Maybe you need, like, let's go, why don't you go home? Why don't you go, like, you want to go, like, let's go do something else. Like, you don't probably, I'm done and you move on to the next thing. Like, you're allowed.

Let's look at the numbers.

Look at the numbers. Let's go do something. Let's just hire another person. Like, give yourself a little bit of moment to, like, gather yourself. It's okay if you're like, you know, this was hard. I think I'm going to go home. I think I'm going to go take a nap. I think I'm going to—

like, that's—

I mean, the concept of— I know people are like, oh, self-care. Like, there's— like, taking care of your own emotional well-being when you're dealing with some of these things is really important because you're, you're handling— as a business owner, you're handling a lot of stress. As a manager, you're handling a lot of stress. And this is— for this not to be a stressful situation to let someone go, again, that's a different problem.

100%. I, I've always said I've never been upset by— I, I've never been I've never felt bad about letting someone go. That doesn't mean it wasn't emotional. Yeah, um, it still sucks and you still feel bad for the person, but I've— I have always been able to do it in a way where I'm like, we've documented things, so when I've had to let them go, I could kind of say, look, this was their decision. Um, we, we've written this out, they've been given choices, they've been given options. I'm not letting them go. They've kind of made that decision on their own. And it sucks.

It does. And we'll just— and the best thing to do is to, I mean, let's move through this quickly, efficiently. Yeah. It's not going to be a debate.

Get through it quickly so that way I can get back to accounting.

Okay, sure. No, that's a different episode. So let's talk about operations, Josh.

Sure.

I know you can be creepy calm. No. You do have emotions. I have seen them occasionally.

Yeah.

But I would say, you know, what steps can someone take to make sure that the data makes the decision? Because not everybody can be creepy calm.

No, no. And to me, it's taking that step back. Like, it's tough when you're standing with someone who's going to be emotional to not be emotional yourself, especially when you don't—

yeah, you have to pass the Kleenex, right?

Right. Here, here's the Kleenex. Um, right, right. Well, and keep one for me. Um, the other thing that I look at with it too is what's tough is making sure that, like, people have a tendency to escalate each other. Oh yeah, I talk about, like, if I—

like, yeah, they do.

When I walk with my dog, if all of a sudden I get nervous about something, he's like, dude, what's, what's up? He's nervous too now. It's that escalation people play. If I'm super happy about something, he's like, hey, this is cool, we're going for a walk. You know what I mean? The same thing. So to me, one of the things that I say is you have to have this dashboard for this, and it's looking at patterns over promises. Look at 90-day trends. Once we've You've heard me say this ad nauseam. Once is not a pattern. Before you promote someone because they did one great thing or fire someone because they did one bad thing, unless it was really, really, really bad, like if they copied their naked butt on the copier or something like that.

Yeah, we just let them go.

Talk about that. Right, right. Verify the frequency. One data point is an outlier. Three is a trend. Ten is a change. That's an— ten's an issue. Three is something that you can like look at really hard and say, okay, yes, but like one data point that's outside is not is not it. You need an established pattern over time to make a binary decision. Um, when you look at that 90-day trend, don't look at the 10-minute apology or the one-time heroic save. Well, they did bail us out this one time. No, that's— no, not it. The other thing that I see is that so many owners do incorrectly is they do the carrot trap, is what I like to call it. Um, I dangled a carrot in front of their face and they moved in response. If an employee only responds when there's a specific reward or threat, that's not a promotion, that's not a keep pattern. It's they're making temporary efforts just for the status quo or for the carrot.

Yeah.

They're not— you want a shift in baseline behavior, not I gave them the stick and they did the thing.

No, and you're hiring for the baseline.

Right. You're trying to do that.

Yeah.

If you're relying on the carrots or the sticks, it's manipulative. That's all there is to it. It's a toxic environment. Effort's rented instead of owned. I really feel like you're just renting effort by that point.

It's exhausting. Oh, the carrot trap is absolutely exhausting because you get on the hamster wheel of performance for your people.

Yeah.

No.

And then the problem is, is you give them a carrot and then the next time, like, well, hey, I'm not going to do anything until I get 2 carrots.

Exactly. That is not helpful. No, it's definitely not.

Probably not, but I've seen it and I've been a part of it too. It's just like, hey, let's— we'll just—

I'll keep motivating them, right?

Right. And it works for 2 days. Um, it's, it's like when we— one of the first things that we talked about was like yearly reviews and how they're terrible because they motivate someone. I got my raise, I'm gonna work for 3 days. Um, the other 362 days of the year, they're just gonna— they're gonna suck again. Yeah, because it's the carrot trap.

Well, you want to grow a brilliant jerk? Yeah, live the carrot trap.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, something else we look at with promotions, this is where you have to pull emotions out of it and look at the data. Once again, you talk to this, it's called filling the gap instead of marrying the boss. Um, too many people to promote the person that is exactly like them because, hey, that's comfortable. Um, I don't need another me. Um, we would have fistfights in the office if I had another me in the office, probably.

I would love to see that. I don't ever want to see another Chrissy Myers.

Well, then the funny thing is, is that remember the episode of The Office where Dwight is talking about how he would defend and then he ends up beating himself up basically under Jim's direct— yeah, that's what that would be. Um, to me, when you're looking at promotion, you have to look at like, what is the machine missing? What is going to make this better? Um, I, I'm going to make an automotive example here. Like, if you're building a race car, you don't say, hey, our car's got a really great motor and it's really fast, so we're going to make it really faster. No, you say, I— we've got a great race car and it's really fast. We should probably put better tires on it so that way it goes around corners better. What, like, if it handles like a shopping cart but has an awesome motor, don't think I need more motor. Think I need to fix how it handles like a shopping cart. Um, to me, if it's strategy, do we need someone to build a roadmap, the direction? Do we need someone to keep the train on the tracks? Um, sometimes, I mean, I know both of us were like, oh hey, look over here.

Yeah.

Um, our businesses need the tracks. We're like, oh, over here, look at the thing that we can do.

Shiny weeds.

Um, you're right. Do we need the doer? Do we just need the person that's just going to be high velocity output?

Yeah.

Um, the other thing that I want to look at too is when you're looking at Emotions versus data. There is a difference between capacity and velocity when it comes to this. There is a rate at which people ingest logic and turn it into a repeatable result. High velocity means they get it quickly so they can reach 100% mastery. The speed is what they— is how they do it over time. You may be able to get to a level quickly, but the speed is how you're gonna do it over time for that. Um, with that, the other thing that I want to go to too is the— like, we have to go back to that coach, correct, and cut piece. Um, they may have a high velocity, they're learning and grasping the logic, but they've got a low capacity. Well, we've talked about that. That's the coach piece of that, where once again you're looking at these two things.

Yeah.

And you're pulling— you're looking at the the data behind them, not the emotions behind it. And the reason why I bring up the coach correct and cut piece is because they— those are two things where once again there's data that can quantify that. If you, you can look at the other things, well, like other people really like them, um, that, that's an emotional thing. That's not a, that's not a reason to keep people around. That's not a people to keep, not a reason to keep people hanging on.

No, that's what mascots are for. Sorry, was that too direct?

Do you guys have a mascot?

We do. They're furry. Yeah, we have Siva and Rocco.

Oh, it's the dogs and the mascots.

Yeah, AUI mascot is Siva and Rocco is the Clary mascot.

I absolutely love this.

Yes, but that's what mascots are for.

I absolutely love this. Yeah, we do not have a mascot. No, I believe that's too emotional for my business. The other thing that I want to go to, though, too, is when, when you're looking at the correct thing, if the— once again, when an employee has high capacity, so they do the volume, but they're lower stalling velocity, meaning they are ignoring the new logic or SOPs, then they are choosing speed over the system. So we've got to, we've got to once again, we've got to look at that to see what we're going to do with them. Um, the, the cut thing that we've got to come to with this is it's always tough to figure out, like, how do we pull the emotions out of the cut? Now, you spoke to very well, like, hey, look, this is still an emotional thing, always. But to me, the, the documentation, the data has to come back to show that, look, this person does not have a fit in our organization. It may not— like maybe the org chart changed. Maybe the mission and vision has changed. Maybe it's just this is the wrong person for the culture.

Or the jobs have changed.

100%.

I mean, you can't— I'm sorry, I don't know anybody that still has a file clerk unless you're in government. Like they're just, they don't, that job doesn't exist anymore.

You don't have those?

No. To you.

Really? I know.

It's amazing. But I think it's the other part of it is you have to— I mean, your business is going to evolve. The seats are going to evolve.

Yeah, 100%. The one thing that I want to address is sometimes there are low data environments. There are those things that aren't quantifiable. In some cases, they do not necessarily have a direct KPI with them. One of the things that I'm going to equate that to is marketing. You can't always say we did X and it gave us exactly Y.

Fair.

So how do you, how do you look at those types of things? So to me, one of the things that I look at when it comes to stuff like this is when it comes to like the employee, can they explain why they do what they do and how they do it? And to me, like, you know how you remove the emotions from that? Does this fit the core values? Does this fit our mission? Does this fit with what we do? That's the way that once again, we're removing the— we're trying to remove the emotions from like, what do we do with this person? Or what do we— where do we put this person? And making this data because— and it sucks to feel like you're making someone quantify their existence, you don't be like, hey, tell me— and I'm going to, I'm going to be one of the Bobs here. So tell me what it is you do here at Initech. Uh-huh.

Can I— I have, I have a thought too.

Yes.

Do you want to know when you know someone has no idea how they fit in their organization or how their manager has no idea how that person fits in the organization?

I'd love to hear this.

When their response is immediately, they're good from around.

Oh, 100%.

If the first thing you say is they're good for morale, I challenge you to figure out what they're doing. Because yeah, there's some people that are great for the energy in your office. But if that's the only thing they're great for, why are they there?

I go to Tom Simkowski. I'm good with people. Can't you tell? I'm good with people.

No, you're not. Yes.

Here's the one that's tough to do. Um, I want you— if you're driving, don't do this, but maybe if you're just driving, pull the sun visor down. Um, look in the mirror.

Yeah.

Uh, you gotta look at yourself. Can you explain why you feel a certain way about this person and then quant— like, find ways to quantify that? Yeah. With— now here's the catch. Consistent examples. The good for morale, like, you got to look at that and be like, no, this is one— you have to be able to tie it back to something that's more quantifiable than morale.

Yeah, it goes back to your empathy piece. That's the empathy. Oh, they're good.

Correct.

We get along.

If you can't protect the why using specific data points or some recurring behaviors, you're making an emotional decision, not an operational one.

Yeah.

The easiest things that I always say too is operational reliability and repeatability. If, if they have those things, there's probably a space for them in your organization. It— they may not be in the right space.

Yeah.

But there's probably a space. And that's once again, it's removing that emotion of like, hey, I've— we've really got to find a place to keep this person because they're nice.

Yeah. No, no, no, no.

Are they like— do they— even if it's not the right spot for them, are they reliably doing the thing on time? Like, are they delivering things consistently?

Yeah.

Um, the boss's mood, we've talked about that. Once again, take that 15-second pause, look at performance versus personality, directness is the only kindness. Now, once again, there are varying levels of directness, and I have occasionally been accused of a lack of tact. Um, I'll own that.

Yeah, Chrissy's just nodding over here like, tact and truth need to be programming partners.

Correct, 100%. Um, but to me, it's once again, it's making sure that you are looking things directly. You are just looking at things with KPIs. And if you don't have a justifiable KPI, you're going back to that low data environment items and putting those, plugging those in and doing those in a vacuum as best as you can. Yeah. Like what happens when once again, we're going to do that, but I thought we were close. I thought we were friends. What happens when you get that pushback? Like, have you ever gotten that? Let's be honest, you did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

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I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show.

No, I don't think so.

How would you handle that?

Well, I mean, I think, well, part of that is you have not clearly defined the separation between leadership and team members. So that's probably the biggest one. I would say you've gotta be able to separate identity from position. And people often hear this role isn't working as I'm failing as a person, and that's not, You're not fit. You're not fit. This is not an assault on your character or humanity. You are not right for the role. So I feel like you can value someone deeply and still know the role isn't right. And role-ending is not a human worth judgment. Right. What about you?

I, to me, I, it becomes very simple for me. I'm like, look, that like, I understand that. I appreciate that. We're talking about the job here.

Yeah.

This is not a role that is currently fitting what you're doing. And as long as you can say it— once again, we talked before about blame— it putting the— I don't want to say putting the blame on the machine instead of the person, but look, you're not the right part to fix this machine. No, you do not take an oil filter off of a Honda and try and stick it on a Chevy. It doesn't work. Yeah, that's—

yeah. And I think in, especially in family businesses, this is probably why when you ask me that question, I'm like, no, I haven't had that problem because I've fired family members. But the other part is you've got to be— you got to separate too. If you're family business, you separate family from role too. Yes. And it's like, but I thought we were— I thought you're my mom. It's like, I am your mom, but you're still fired.

So, and you probably have not experienced this. What I have— I mean, anytime I have switched jobs through my employment career, um, that usually followed 2-3 weeks in by a litany of Facebook friend requests. And I'm like, I'm not your— I'm not your friend.

Yeah, I haven't had that because I'm right.

I'm not— I do. I don't want— I don't care what you did on Saturday night. You do karaoke? Oh my God. Now I have even less respect for you.

Well, I'm going to tell you, and people that are not business owners, okay, I want you to hear me right now. Do not friend your HR people. Do not.

Oh God.

Do not. They do it with us all the— here's the— or your fractional HR people. Like that's the other part. Like there are times like, really people?

Right.

You do not want— no.

You just opened the door.

You did. Now business owners, please friend me because we need to watch you. And occasionally I need to give you feedback on things that you're doing that may or may not be appropriate. That I have done. I did have a conversation with a business owner. I was like, look, do you realize how many people can actually see every time you get tagged doing certain things? And he's like, what do you mean?

Right? No, right, right.

Guess who doesn't do those things anymore? Or does, but doesn't let any— I'm like, stop letting people tag you.

Correct. Not only that, but then the other thing is too, is when they see, hey, you're at the baseball baseball game on a Thursday afternoon that they requested off for, and you're like, "Sorry, we can't because you're at the baseball game," and they see that on your Facebook page.

Because somebody tagged you. "I'm sorry, I'm working really hard." No, you are not. So yes. I know we just did a tangent there, but that's it.

I love it.

You're welcome.

I love it. Here's one that I always find interesting because we want to talk about the good side of this too. So the post-promotion audit. How do you track if that data was right? What's that 90-day success metric for new leaders?

Yeah, so first, let's have this conversation and say that promotions are beginnings, not finish lines. I think a lot of—

Ah, thank you.

Most people think like, oh, okay, we promoted them, now everything's fine. No, promotions should have, they have to have measurable success markers. It can't just be, oh, I promoted them and now everything's going to be wonderful. So if you do not give them what success looks like, you're setting them up for failure. You don't just promote people and disappear. Leadership transitions have to have follow-up. They can't just be assumptions.

Yeah, no, I— it's funny. I agree. Any time I promote someone, any time I hire someone, hiring or promoting has the same thing to it.

Yes.

Here's where I want you in 30 days. Here's where I want you in 60 days. 90. Here's 6 months. Here's a year.

Yes.

This is your timeline, whether it's a promotion, whether it's a new hire, doesn't matter. You've got a timeline.

Yes. And we do not promote or reward people for behavior that we claim to dislike. We do not promote our brilliant jerks or the bad cop or the bad cop, because the team watches who gets elevated and then promotion and culture are broadcast into what that elevation is. And you are creating a toxic environment.

100%. 100%. Some key takeaways out of this. Yeah. To me, your gut. The next time you feel like you want to fire or promote someone, write down 3 pieces of hard data to support it.

Yeah.

Wait 30 days, get documentation.

Yeah. My simplification to that would be separate emotion from evidence. You're going to feel the emotion, but you are going to verify the pattern.

Yeah. Something that we've both kind of said is taking the time to pull yourself out, like to do other things that pull you out of the emotional state. So to me, it's like if I was a third-party consultant looking at this spreadsheet or whatever, what would I tell the owner to do? If I was looking at these KPIs, what would I tell the owner to do?

Yeah, remove the emotion from yourself. Yep.

Yep.

And then promotion signal value. So the team learns what matters by watching who advances. So it's not just about who you keep or who you let go. It's about who you elevate.

Yeah, 100%. Directness, I found, also prevents drama. We're pretty low drama here at Pedalstompers.

Yes, you are.

Tell the team exactly why someone was promoted. They hit X metrics. Filled Y skill gap. We really, we're looking forward to this. Yeah. If you just leave it open, people are going to fill in the blanks on their own.

I would say compassion requires clarity. Being empathetic does not mean avoiding those hard decisions.

100%.

Yeah. Be equitable for the whole team. Yep.

Yep. Here's a— I was looking forward to this question just to see your eyes roll all the way across the floor. Is it ever okay to hire or promote a friend over a more qualified stranger?

Only if the evidence supports it. Friendship is not a qualification.

No, I like them.

We're friends. Do you know what a recipe for disaster is? Is when you're just— when you promote or you hire based on, "I just like them." I just like them.

I've seen it.

I have too. And it never ends well because those are also the ones that you never get the performance agreements in place. You never do the employment agreement. You never do the separation agreement right. You never do a non-disclosure, non-solicitation.

Because you're friends.

We're friends. Well, my dad used to say we're all friends till we're not. I feel like he was being Yogi Berra, but that's just— it's a very—

it's not until it's over.

It's not. But we're all friends until we're not. And that is very— in the insurance industry, that is so true. And it has bitten me, and I'm just not going to do it anymore.

How do you, like, work with a team to get past the survivor guilt if someone's let go after, like, the rest of the team's like Mm, that sucks. Bob's gone.

So you normalize the emotion, you reinforce the direction. Yeah, this is hard, but this is the direction that we're going. The team needs stability after change. They don't need you to be like, put on your superhero cape and tell them everything's going to be fine. They don't need you to trash the person and say that like, we're better off. Don't do that either.

God, I've had that happen.

I have too. Like, you just give them stability. Hey, this is who we are. This is where we're aligning and this is where we're going.

To me, what's funny about it is, is like I, in most cases it's brutally obvious, but I explain why.

Exactly.

Look, they didn't meet X, Y, and Z. We worked with them over 6 months. Yeah, this is it.

And chances are your employees, your team members are way less surprised than you are about the termination coming.

Oh yeah.

They've watched it way longer than you have.

Yeah. And I mean, they know it was coming. Yeah. And when you acknowledge that and say, hey, it was X, Y, and Z, they're like, oh yeah, so we were right. Yep, sure. That validation, they're like, oh, this is great.

Yeah. What's the one metric that never lies?

When someone walks into a room.

Oh, I like that. I agree.

It truly is.

Like all the oxygen gets sucked out.

And what's funny is, is this is where this is, this is a great— I think this is a great way to end this because to me, this is where emotions are hard data.

Yeah, they are. Absolutely.

You see everyone like, oh damn, that guy's in the meeting.

Yeah. If they— if like everybody smiles, everybody sits up.

Yeah.

As opposed to they slouch and they're like, oh, that— they reach for their phones. It was funny.

Why all of a sudden is everyone texting? I was at a conference the other day and I saw that as soon as someone got up on the stage, everyone's like, oh, this guy. Then everyone grabs their phone. And I'm like, "Oh, OK. I'm not expecting a barn burner of a speech here." Speaking of barn burner speeches, you guys need to make sure that you tune in again next week. We haven't even picked the topic yet for that one.

No, we haven't.

We're winging it. Uh-huh.

Oh, boy.

We will not be winging it. Make sure you show up for that one. That being said, do us a favor. Go to businessfixpodcast.com. As always, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.

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