Stop Assuming, Start Training: Why Employees Aren't Mind Readers

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How many times have you looked at your employee and say, come on, you know how to do this?

And they blankly look at you like, "Uh." "What are you talking about?" "We never talked about this.

I have no idea." And you think, but maybe have you assumed?

That they were a mind reader? Yeah.

We're going to talk about what happens when you assume. I think you already know, but we're going to talk about it anyways right after this. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need The Business Fix. The other day.

Yeah.

And we talked about this last episode and I did it again. I'm like, here's the thing that you should do. And it got sent back to me and I'm like, well, that's not it. This is not anything what I had in mind, nor the client. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And I'm like, oh yeah, I went back and I read the instructions. And I'm like, read the instructions from the mindset of someone that doesn't know what you know. Oh no. And suddenly I'm like, hmm, yeah, I told them how to build a boat and I put them in an airplane hangar.

Nice job. That's better than what I did this week. This week I'm sitting getting ready for a meeting, getting more and more angry because I'm like, 'Why haven't they sent me the deliverables that I asked for?' Because I didn't ask for them. I asked for them in my mind. You know, in case anybody thinks we're perfect.

We are. Wrong.

We are perfectly wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

It's funny. We talked, like, it was in episode 7. We had kind of an aha moment because we started reviewing some of the older episodes. Yeah. Some of the first ones are painful. Actually, I don't say terrible, but I'm like, you can tell we're learning the podcast, right? We were figuring this whole thing out, like how we would work together, and like, if we're like, am I gonna get along with them?

Seriously, I'm stuck in a room for an hour, right?

Right, right. It's at least it's padded, it's a padded room. But like, we started talking about systems, scale, radical directness, but we kind of skipped the starting line. We kind of skipped about like, actually, like if an employee isn't doing the job right, it's usually because the leader failed to train them properly.

We never explained it. No, we were not clear.

My favorite excuse, they should have common sense.

I hear that a lot in HR space where they're trying to—

oh, I'm sure—

coaching an employee.

It's really, it's just a terrible excuse to cover up like, hey, we've got a terrible onboarding process and zero documentation. Yeah, so we're going to say common sense. Yeah, so let's— we're going to talk about like moving from hope-based onboarding Yeah, to actually get it, actually getting an intentional training framework. Have I used intentional? Yes, quite a bit recently. It's a good word that turns green hires into self-sustaining operators. Oh, look at that. Did I, did I add enough drama and gravitas to that? Yeah, I was too— what, like, I'm excited to hear what you talk about with this because we both know so many business owners are really quick to assume that common sense And everyone says common sense isn't so common anymore. It never was. Because they've made an assumption that common sense will cover the gaps in their onboarding. Like, why do so many people hate training?

Yeah.

Like, why, why, why won't people do it?

Yeah, great question. So I mean, leaders love to say they should just know that. Yeah, no, you should just know that. And I get it, I get it. I've said it, same. I've thought it. I have absolutely had moments where I expected someone to read my mind, like last week, and then got frustrated when they didn't. I mean, it happens.

I have thought it very loudly. So I've thought it loudly enough that the other person heard it.

Yes, I have too. But I mean, most of the time what we call common sense is really just context we forgot to give.

Yes.

And that's why I think training is really— I mean, we've got think about training through 3 things, context, which we talked about last week, but this is a different context. So context, capability, and commitment.

I'm noticing a theme.

There is a C theme again. I think it's really—

I miss the letter people.

I know, I need to bring them back. They're on my fridge. I love them there.

I need, we need to have a picture of this.

You want a picture of my fridge?

For our social medias.

That's it.

We need to have the—

I'll put the letter people, I'll put Ziva and Rocco in front, and you can see, there they are.

Yeah.

You can see everything on our fridge.

Yes, we need that.

Totally fine with that. We need that. I can do that.

So let's talk about context, capability, capability and commitment.

So context is, do they understand the why, the background, the expectations, and what good actually looks like, right? Context. Capability is, have we taught them how to do the job in a way that works for how humans actually learn?

Humans.

Humans actually learn, not a robot, not something else. All right. And then commitment is, once they have the context and the capability, are they willing to own the work?

Ooh, I like that.

And I think for us as leaders, we get into trouble because we jump straight to commitment, right? We say they don't care, they're not trying, they don't have common sense, they're not detail-oriented, all of the things. But we skipped those first two steps. We skipped context and we skipped capability. And so we never gave them the context, we never built the capability, and then we blame them for not being committed. And that's not leadership, that's guessing with the title. So I want to go back to your question about why we hate training. All right. So why do we hate training? You're going to ask that again. I'm going to answer it. When you've been inside of a business for years, you know the client history. You know why the process changed. You know why we never do it that way anymore. Right. And you know what happened 3 years ago that made everyone allergic to a certain workflow. But the new hire They don't know any of that. No, they have no context. No, they are walking into the movie halfway through and we're annoyed that they don't know the plot. And that's unfair. And that's why I say, you know, common sense is usually shared context. If we haven't shared the context, we cannot fairly expect the common sense, right? And as a leader, we can say, you know, they should know how to answer the phone. Okay, maybe. But do they know your tone? Do they know what matters to your clients? Do they know what a great client experience sounds like in your company? That's not common sense. That's training. And I will say this with love, okay, to myself. Sometimes leaders call it common sense because it's easier than admitting I didn't slow down long enough to teach this.

Yeah, that, that, that hurt.

Yeah.

So the—

yeah, it does. Trust me, I'm here. I am hearing it for myself again as we're getting ready to train.

Do you want me to say it to you too? Seriously? Yeah.

I didn't slow down long enough to teach this.

Yes.

All right, so the first part is context. What do they need to understand before they can succeed? Then comes capability. Have we actually trained them? Not like telling them to log in and they'll figure it out. No, have we shown them, explained it, let them try, then verified they can do it? And then only after we've given them context and we've given them an assessed capability, then do we get commitment. So if they have the context and the capability and still don't follow through, then that's a different conversation. But leaders have to learn the right question, right? They have to learn the right-to-question commitment by first providing context and building capability. And that's the mirror test that you've talked about before. Are we modeling what we mandate? So before I get frustrated with an employee, I need to ask myself, did I clearly explain it? Did I train it? Did I verify it, or did I just assume it?

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It's, it's interesting, and I, I have a great analogy for the commitment piece, is if you are not shown how to, let's say, dive into a swimming pool, if you've never been shown how to dive You're just like, I'm gonna jump in the water. You're not gonna commit to it. So you end up belly flopping.

Exactly.

And this is the thing here. If you're not shown how to properly dive, you're gonna smack your stomach and face in the water. Ask me how I know. That's how it's gonna go. And once again, diving, you have to commit to it. Otherwise you end up smacking your face and stomach in the water.

Well, and as business owners, I mean, you're gonna give the diving analogy. We take people up to the high dive and we're just like, jump. Because, you know, we've done it forever. So it's not a big deal to us. No, it's a, it's a freaking high dive. They could die. Like, you've got to pay attention.

They could die. Jump, jump, dammit.

Yeah, well, it takes us back to the concept of last week when we were talking about, you know, negativity bias. So we're wired to see things when they're wrong because we don't, we want to protect ourselves. So yeah, you got to be careful.

So here's, here's a question for you. And I like, we've talked before about we're in some cases wired differently between each other and we're also wired differently than some other people on the planet.

Yeah.

How do you design a training program that accounts for the people like me? I've got like I have to be actually walked through it. If you, if you give me a video that's longer than 5 minutes to watch, I'm out.

Yeah.

I'm— and I am going to learn nothing from this. I— give me the 5-minute video and that's it. So how do you, like, how do you teach all of these without making the— like, without building a classroom and turning— like, getting your— your HR people all education certified?

Yeah, so everybody becomes a kindergarten teacher, correct?

So with the letter people, yeah, you got a deal.

Hey, there's a reason why I make it simple. So People absorb information differently. So some people need to see it, some people need to hear it, some people need to do it. So we've got those visual, auditory, kinesthetic learners. I don't think we need to overcomplicate it. Nope. I think it just means we should not assume one explanation equals training, okay? Oh, yeah. So when we think about context, capability, and commitment, this is where capability really matters.

Yep.

So a strong training process gives people a few different touchpoints, which I'm sure you're going to talk about later. But I'm going to verify. I'm just going to talk about it briefly. So first, you've got to let them see it. Second, you've got to let them hear it. And third, you've got to let them do it. Yep. 3-step process regardless of the type of learner that the person is. It just makes sense. And then you verify. And you don't do that in a micromanaging way. You do it in a supportive way.

You don't micro-gement.

Yeah. No, we don't micro-gement. Because here's the thing that I will say too, the let them do it. That third part is the part that leaders skip the most. Yes. Watching someone do something is not the same thing as being able to do it yourself.

Because I know, I know you well enough and I know me well enough that we have been training someone and you grab the mouse and you're like, well, just no, over here.

Yeah, I have had to have the point where now when I look at someone, say, can I drive? When I say, can I drive? I go, no, I cannot.

Right.

No. When they're like, here, can I, can I, can I drive? Can I drive? Give me your laptop. Let me drive. No, no, Chrissy, you're not allowed to drive anymore.

No, no, you have to be the passenger.

Yeah. So I don't always love to.

No, I'm the same way. I mean, there are times where I can— believe it or not, I get a little impatient and you can just watch me melt internally. I mean, you see, you just see fuses burning and you can smell it almost. Yeah.

So I love asking someone to walk me back through the process. This is something that I've learned over time. I got some coaching around it too. So it's like, you know, show me how you would do this. Tell me what you would do if this part changed. Explain why this step matters. So when you walk people through that way, it sets you up for later and you can be curious when you have an event issue. So it gives you that ability. And I think that's how we move someone from trained to capable. And I would say as a CEO or as a business leader or even a manager, You should not be the bottleneck for all of that. So once you build the training once, your managers, your team leads, your strongest operators can help carry it. Yeah, but the standards have to be the same. Otherwise every new hire gets a different version of the job depending on who trained them, what mood they were in, whether they had coffee in the morning or not. And that's not onboarding, that becomes improv. So our training is not an improv program. We're not just figuring out as we go along.

No. How often Do you step into an organization, like from the HR consulting side, and there is not a structured 30-day roadmap for new employees?

That's most businesses. I was about to say. I don't—

And I mean, it's— I've worked in large, very large businesses.

Yes.

And the structured roadmap is usually it's the first 3 or 4 days.

With HR.

With HR. And there's maybe 1 or 2, like, well, go sit with Bob's. So like, to me, like, what does that do for an employee? Like their psychological safety? Like, do they, do they fail or do they just go into, I'm going to hide in the corner, lay low, rare rabbit, and protect myself?

I think it depends on the person. But I would say, you know, poor onboarding doesn't just create performance issues, it creates anxiety.

100%.

For the person that's been hired and for the people that have to try to train them, but not really train them because they don't have a training process. So most, most onboarding is literally one day or maybe a couple of days of, you know, here's how we log into the payroll system. Let's get all of your payroll stuff figured out. Let's talk about your benefits so you can pick your benefits. And let's do the 3 or 4 things that we have to do for the compliance checkboxes for every employee that comes to the organization.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Yeah. Doing the I-9, they're doing their harassment training. For us, we have to do on the insurance side, we're doing our HIPAA and privacy training like those types of things. So they've checked all those boxes and now they're released into the wild and there's no new training program after that. And so—

Just dropping them out of the airplane in the desert.

Pretty much with whether or not they have a parachute, we'll see what happens. Good luck, kids. That's it. And so psychological safety means people feel safe enough to ask questions. They're able to admit when they don't understand something, they're able to learn from mistakes. And when a new hire walks in with no structure, no roadmap, no expectations, and really no idea of what success looks like or really what they're doing. They're not thinking that, wow, this is flexible and empowering. I'm just so glad I'm here. No, they're thinking, oh my gosh, what did I do? I have no idea what's going on and I have no idea if I'm failing or doing a good job.

And then they're probably going to get to the point where they're going to be like, I have no idea if I'm coming in tomorrow.

Well, and that's— it's exhausting. They don't want to do that because, I mean, a lack of structure creates constant uncertainty and uncertainty makes people protect themselves. And then they over-ask because they're scared or they under-ask ask because they don't want to look stupid. And either way, they're not really learning, they're just surviving. And I mean, I don't— we don't want to hire survivors for our business. All right.

So that's— it's not an island.

No. So do they fail? Sometimes, yes.

Yes.

But often they leave before they ever get a real chance to succeed. And this is where committed gets misunderstood because leaders say, you know, they just weren't committed to the job. But did we ever give them enough context to feel grounded? Did we ever build their capability enough for them to feel confident? Because commitment grows when people feel like, I can win here. And that's not handholding, that's leadership. So having a structured process is really important because a confused employee does not become a committed employee. A supported employee becomes a committed employee.

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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. Oh yeah, yeah, you support them. Yes, because that support builds confidence.

Yeah, it does. So You want to talk about operations?

Yes.

Yay. Okay, so you're the architect of the machine. How do we build the onboarding process that's repeatable, scalable, and doesn't require the owner or manager to sit side by side with a new hire for 40 hours? Because just, just— I'm not doing it.

Have you ever seen that?

I have. I've— yes, it's terrible.

Yeah. No, I was hired at one place in a sales position.

I mean, I had to sit next to someone for 4 hours and try to train. I was like, I'm not doing doing this ever again.

And, uh, yeah, no, I just had to tag along with my boss in the truck.

That's awful.

Um, yeah, there was, there was a couple of times where I thought about when we were going down the freeway, I'm just gonna open the door and roll out. I thought about getting out. I really did. The, the first thing that I want to talk about this, if you didn't onboard someone correctly, you need to. I don't care if this is day 1, I don't care if this is day 1,000.

Every day is a new opportunity to start over.

Correct. You did not onboard them correctly like, do it tomorrow, set it up so you can do it tomorrow. And if you go to someone and say, hey, you know, when you first started, I don't know if we had the right process for this. We'd really like you to, we'd really like to bring you through this just to make sure we're in a good spot. We'd also like your input on it. If you say those things, my word, that person is gonna be like, oh yeah, this is a great thing. The first thing that I love, the past, I believe, 2 or 3 places that I had worked at, Um, there was the day one, like, here is the list of training videos we have. We will see you a week from Thursday.

Did you show up for day two?

I did.

It is—

yeah, because I was gonna get paid to turn videos on and go to the bathroom. Is, uh, go to the vending machine, turn the, turn the video on and just walk away, play on my phone. What else was that? Yeah, I mean, and these are the— like, seriously, these are the things that I was going to do. I mean, was I gonna like sit there and intently watch these videos?

I would sit there and take notes. I would be that person. Oh no, I probably wouldn't come back the next day.

I watched the first one and I'd be like, wow, is there a quiz?

No quiz.

Some of them had quizzes, but in most cases the information— like, this is the great thing too, and this is 10 years ago— I would just Google the answers.

Oh, heck yeah.

Right. So I would just put the thing on. I'd look at my phone, I'd scroll Facebook, whatever it was 10 years ago. And then, yeah, come back to it and don't think, well, we would never hire anyone like that because like, look, people hired me.

Oh, I absolutely will hire people like that because again, we, we do hiring wrong.

Like, whoever— think about these videos and you may like the videos and you may be proud of the videos. Do you want to watch them for 50 hours? No, no. I many times with that job, I considered jumping out of the window. Unfortunately, it was on the first floor. So to me, that is the laziest leadership. It's not training. It guarantees cognitive overload, zero retention, and immediate anxiety. I'm supposed to remember all of this stuff?

No, no.

It's got to be a structured, active journey, not a digital content dump. So the other thing that I like, too, is Shadowing, I say, like, facetiously. Uh, we're gonna let the hire follow Joe around for a week, and he'll be fully trained at the end of that week. No, teach the role, show the operations, then show them in action. Yes, like, you could— like, a little bit of shadowing's fine, but don't be like, on the first day, hey, you're gonna ride with Joe. Uh, no, that, that— like, they learn nothing from that because they come in, they have zero knowledge of what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, why you do it that way. And then Joe's just going to be— Joe's going to show them all the shadow operations.

Yes. All the things that don't work like you want to do. You want to have shadow date, do that with your interns. Don't.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do that.

Them to understand what like career looks like, what it means to have this type of position or that that's what you do with people that That's why interns are there.

They are there to learn and to give you some assistance. Yes, they are there to learn. To me, one of the things that I always say is teach the role, show the operation, show why the role does what it does.

Yes.

Then show it in action. Encourage feedback, encourage questions. Because the thing that I always like to say is, is there's, there's a two-sided coin to this. I want people to ask us questions and I want people to ask hard questions. About that. I want to encourage that because if I— like, I remember I got hired at an automotive performance place after I worked at another automotive performance place. They're like, hey, tell us the stuff. And I'm like, oh, so you want to know how they work? Well, great. Someone can bring really good knowledge to you, really good experience to you that may help you in your business. So encourage them to ask those questions, not only to figure out how to do it correctly in your business, but to figure other things out and figure out how you can improve things. You need to follow up with the new person to find— this is the other thing. Don't make them shadow Bob. Make them shadow Bob, Bill, Tracy, Andy, and whoever other name is there.

Yes.

And then be like, hey, what differences did you see in the way they do things? Who did you think did this better? Because once again, they're going to give you a pretty accurate thing of how it's going. Now, if salespeople do things slightly differently, Salespeople are going to have different approaches.

Yes.

But in the same sense, the overall operations of it should be the same. If they're saying, oh, well, this guy does it this way and that guy does it that way, you're like, mm, we got a problem.

We have a problem. And when you're doing the shadowing and you're training, you're truly trying to train someone, ask them to walk through the process after you've done it. Because what I see oftentimes with shadowing is you create dependency because that person has never really been able to do the job. So they shadow. So they shadow. Well, they shadow for a week or a month and then they're like, okay, now you're ready to deal with this client on your own. And then the person that trained them in quotation marks is mad because they email them every 5 minutes with a question. It's like, well, I know that they were sitting in the office with you with the client, but did they ever do the work on their own? You can't be mad if you never trained them, if they just sat there and watched you like a TV show. Like, we don't have good recall as humans. Like, this is— they've got to be able to do the thing.

Yep. Yeah. It's funny, it reminds me of another place that I worked. And this is, this is one of the reasons why I think it's so interesting about, like, our career directions and how we've gotten here. Because, like, I remember one place I started, it was a sales position. And the first week, they were based out of Western Ohio. The first day I went out there to sign the paperwork, the rest of the first week I spent doing research. This is back in 2009.

Okay.

So the internet wasn't— there was no AI to look at, no nothing.

Yeah.

The research essentially was to go look at our competitor's website and also look at our website. And that should be everything you need to know. Right. The size—

go read an encyclopedia.

Right. The size of your eyes there said it all. The second week was my boss shadowing me, of which he was just doing boss things. He's like, well, go up to that farm and see if they want this.

What?

Like, what are some of the questions that farmers are going to ask me about this? I was selling the farmers. I'm like, what are some of the questions? Like, ah, you'll figure it out.

No, right?

So getting back to the shadow thing, so with that shadowing, it like, to me, the other thing is shadowing's— it really is, it's highly variable, it's unmeasured. And once again, you're going to get Joe's shadow workflows instead of the— and Joe's like bad habits.

Yeah, follow a documented process, right?

Don't send them out with a dude that's been there for 30 years because he's do kind of doing his own thing. Yeah, send them out with a person that's been there for 3 or 4 years so they're still doing things correctly. Training, as I have said, must be standard, repeatable, and centered around your SOP library. If you do not have an SOP library, like, close the doors, pull the shades, and build it.

Mm-hmm.

Especially before you hire someone. And I'm looking straight into the camera as I say that. Here's the other thing that I— that this is something that people need to do for their operations. You can use Google Docs, Loom, record the process before you hire the new person.

Yes.

Each step is a new part. I'm a huge fan of bulleted outline formats.

Yeah.

It takes time up front, but it saves hours of mistakes, hours of rework, and hours of confusion.

Yes.

Those are all worth money.

And when you have them documented, it makes the value of your business go up.

I know you well enough to know that you also, like me, you also like money.

I do.

And when I get money, I like to keep it.

Yes. And it saves you money when you do this the right way.

Right. I like to spend it on motorcycles. Yes. But once again, I'd like to have that money and spending it on reworking stuff because I didn't train people.

Or having to hire somebody else.

Correct. Because you hired someone, they failed, you hired someone else, and then suddenly, you know, no one wants to work anymore.

Yes.

So going, going back to this Google Docs, this is like for me, you can do it, Microsoft, whatever you want to do. We're a Google shop. That's what I'm going to refer to. This is why I love this Google Docs. Instant real-time access. The entire team has the same document.

Yes.

I also open it up so maybe the manager can— they can change the document if they like. All the employees can make comments on it.

Yes.

Let them comment on it. As processes change, you update them in one central location. It's not like the employee handbook where so many people— like the guy that, that started working here 10 years ago, his handbook is 15 pages. The new employee, their handbook is 400 pages.

No, they all have the same handbook, right? They are— there are the rules for everyone, right?

I always tell people, do not print SOPs. Uh, like, we all have access to computers. This way it can be a living document. You can update it. Everyone's looking at the same thing.

Put it on a review schedule.

Correct. Exactly. Oh, I definitely— the other thing to me is I very much learn by reading that process and doing it myself. If I do this once by reading it, I'm good. Yeah, all day long.

It takes me 3 times.

No problem. It might take me, but for the most part, I, I'm pretty good after that one time. The same, like, to me, like, and I get some people like a Loom video, and we're going to talk about those. If I like— I can watch the Loom video, then I have to do the thing. I can't do the thing while watching the Loom video. No, no, that, that is a way for me to put a jaw-shaped hole in the wall because I'm going to— especially if you have me doing this on a laptop where there's only one screen and I can't bounce back and forth. Oh no.

Oh yeah, I get it.

No, I'm going to— I am going to lose my mind. I am not coming back tomorrow. So to me, it's once again to have this. The other thing is, is Once again, when you've got an outline like this, everyone has it. It's, it's access for everyone there. The Loom, the one thing that I always say is you don't have to, like, you don't have to spend a bunch of time writing out the manual, a 20-page manual. No, record your screen while you actually run the task. Like, state the goal. You have to state the— this is the thing that so many people don't do. They don't state the goal. They're like, okay, here's how you do X. Click this, click this, click this. No, no, Click this so you can Y. Click Z so you can A. Click B so you can see. Not just do the thing.

No, you have to talk through it.

100%. Now, what I will say about the Loom video is if you're a Loom video type of person and you don't want to spend the time to type out the Google Docs document.

Yes, it's my favorite feature.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to have Loom create that for you. Or if you've got someone that like, hey, I'd like to do this, or I'd really like to learn this better, have them do it once. Yeah, very simple, very simple. But you need this. The big thing for me, a 5-step active learning loop, because you have to verify both capacity and velocity. Two different things. You first off define the end result, show them what a perfect deliverable or completed process actually looks like. If you say, if I tell you make a clay pot, you're probably going to make a clay pot that is very different than the one that I have in my head.

Most likely.

Correct. I mean, I say this because our studio is in an art gallery. If they don't have a clear target of finished and correct, it ain't happening. They, they're not gonna, they're not gonna come up with it. The other thing is show the pathway. Map out the high-level workflow. Show them how their output affects the next station or department, ensuring that they see their role's impact on the broader machine. If you show people how, hey, look, you're part of the team here and you're a key part, people will be part of the team. Uh, watch and read. The employee watches the documented Loom and reviews the certain, uh, processes. Like, make sure they are given time to do that, not just, hey, I know it's 4:50, you're starting on this tomorrow, go ahead and read this thing.

Yeah.

The other thing is do it together. I, I know you said to get out of the driver's seat, and I agree with this, is have them do it with you there.

Yes.

So that way when they have a question, they can ask it.

Give them guardrails, right?

I, you know, the thing that I think is funny that I have done in a couple of cases, I will try and sit on people's left-hand side if I can. You know why?

Why?

Because the mouse is typically on the right.

That's a really good point. If I sit on the left, likely to drive, right?

I am less likely to shove my armpit in their face as I reach towards the microphone or reach to reach towards the mouse and be like, hey, no, I'll just do it for you. Here, click, click, click.

Yes.

I'm going to do my—

Let me show that. Oh, you know what? Let me do it.

Right.

Just faster if I do it.

Right, right. I am going to not put my armpit in their face and I'm going to— Yeah. The other thing is too, is like, if when you finally step away, their work has to be verified. Don't just assume it's right those first couple of times. I have seen that. I've been in businesses where they're like, okay, you're good. Go ahead and do the thing. And I'm like, this went into the abyss and they never checked this.

There has to be a validation process. You have to let them validate on the work that they're doing.

Yes. Yeah, I've— they like— they have been like, okay, you're good. They've walked away for me to never, ever, ever— I have a great example of this. You're going to love this. When I got my CDL, they said, okay, here's the controls for the truck. You've got your temporary permit. You've practiced in the parking lot. My first time driving a semi-truck on the road was with the examiner in the passenger seat.

Uh-huh.

They didn't give me like, here's our truck, go take the test.

It's okay. I have a husband that can drive doubles and triples just because he took a written test, not because he's ever driven them.

Right.

No, it's like, are you kidding me?

Same.

Yeah. Ohio trusts you this much. Okay.

Yep.

I don't. Don't ever do it.

Yeah. No, I. Yeah, I get it.

It's amazing.

Yeah. The next piece with that is that this is the thing that we harp on so much, and this is why we have The Business Fix. Training does not end after the first 90 days. It doesn't end after the first 5 days. I have reached— I've worked at so many companies where the training cliff was 4 days and fly, little birdie, fly. Yeah. You're like, you can do it. No, right? And I always thought when I heard that you can do it, I thought, I can. You probably don't want me to at this point.

I am a liability.

100%.

Don't do that to people because you're setting them up for failure. And then you're like, I don't know why they didn't stay. I'm like, really? Because you shoved them off a cliff.

Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I, I always like to incentivize that growth too. I mean, tie continuing education directly to their personal goals. Like, ask them occasionally, what, what a concept. What, like, what would you like to do? What would you, where would you like to expand? And then give them the training to do that. Imagine that. The other thing is, this is funny, like everyone's like, we've got to do a 3-day seminar.

No, no, no, you do not.

One of my favorite things to do is to send my editor or our social media team or anyone like that to be like, hey, here's a new tool. Here's a 15-minute video.

Go take—

go watch that. Like there's every couple of weeks I'm sending something like that along. I'm sending along industry news.

Yeah.

You're on the clock. You're doing this stuff. Go, go learn.

Let's do microlearning.

Yes.

Yes.

This does not need to be a 3-day seminar.

You're not getting a master's degree right now.

Correct. We're giving you constant improvement, like all the time. Those are some of the big things. The other last thing that I want to talk about real quick is operator-led tool adoption. Like when you've got— right. We've seen this handled so poorly in so many times.

Oh, absolutely.

CEO finds a tool. It's like, hey, I like this.

Go do it.

I— this, like, the salesman was amazing. They made me write a really big check and I haven't the foggiest clue what the hell this software does. But they showed me dollar signs. Like they said, if I wrote them a big check, other people were going to write me big checks. So that's why we're doing this.

No, no. This is why articles are coming out now about adoption and CFOs being so angry.

Yeah.

That they've spent all of this money and they have no ROI because nobody— they didn't follow your process, Josh.

No, they didn't. So this is— this is short. Assign an operator. The tool must be adopted and tested first by the people who are going to use it. Imagine that. Give them clear objectives of what it's supposed to help them achieve, that there is a person that is ahead of that. The operator. The operator. Not you as the CEO. Not you as the operations manager. The person actually operating the machine. Yeah, those are the ones that are going to build the Google Doc or the Loom. Step 3, the downstream impact review. Have you ever put like a software tool in and then it made the people that use the software extremely happy and someone downstream like was like, you just lit my world on fire?

Um, maybe I have.

100%. I'm like, hey, I got this great new tool. And as soon as we put it in, there's a bunch of people like, man, this is great. And then I had a bunch of like, my phone started ringing and I'm like, what do you think? And they're like, shut it off. Oh, yeah, that's good, right?

Right. It's working.

The other thing to me is you, and this is the verification that it works, I always call this, the conceptual mastery verification. The operators have to explain both why and the how of the new tool to their managers. If they can't, yeah, it's not ready for production. I like— it has to be, I know what it does, I know how it does it, I know what the controls do.

Yeah.

Um, you do not— but for me as the operations guy, you don't want me being the one to operate it. Like, and the example that I could give is like, I, like, I know how all the controls work in a bulldozer. You don't want me operating that.

Fair.

It's just a bad idea. I know how— I know what it does. I know intimately how they work. I have a friend that owns a bulldozer.

I was gonna say, I have questions.

I have a friend that owns a bulldozer junkyard, so I've been— I've seen like all the bulldozer pieces apart. I know intimately how they work. I also know that numerous houses would be wiped from the face of the earth if I got behind the controls of one. Yeah. So make sure you know how it works.

Okay.

You need to know the end result of it, but let the people that operate it operate it.

Yeah, I like that.

Make sure they're trained to do it. What happens, like, when you rely on, you know, Bob's been here 30 years. That's why he trains all of our new hires. And we expect them to get the knowledge by osmosis because—

And we don't know why they don't ever stay.

Correct, because Bob's old and grumpy and hates people, but he's good. So that's why we have him train people. What?

Yeah, he's our Bob, so we have to keep him.

Oh, what? How does that make you feel? I know.

We said it before, I mean, shadowing has its place, but it can't be your whole training plan.

Nope.

No. So I mean, and it also completely depends on who the person's following. So I mean, If Joe's amazing, 'cause I'm gonna pick on Joe, not Bob, but impatient, that new hire learns anxiety, right?

He learns how to be angry.

Yeah, if Sarah's great, but she takes a million shortcuts, the new hire's gonna learn all the shortcuts and the shadow workflows. I mean, and if someone's been doing the job for 10 years, but can't explain why, that new hire's gonna learn all those steps without understanding. And oh, by the way, if your shadow person is the brilliant jerk, oh, congratulations, now you have two for the price of one. So, you know, really shadowing should support the process. Shouldn't replace it. Otherwise you're not training people in your company, you're training them into someone else's habits. And you don't want to train someone into someone else's habits. You want to train them into the process.

Yeah, train them into the process. Yeah, totally. With— to me, it's the operational noise. Uh, he might be a level— and this is the other thing, I see it all the time. I know some people that are a level 10 producer and they are a level -2 trainer.

Uh, oh gosh, I have a couple of those on my team. Yeah. And I'm like— and they're like, I don't understand why you don't let me train people. I'm like, cuz you're bad at it, right?

I, I know, like I know a couple of teachers that are terrible teachers. Yes. And you're like, oh, yeah. So when Joe teaches his shortcuts, the bypassing the SOPs, you're just asking for all sorts of issue here. This is the one that I like. Do you train for autonomy versus compliance? How— like, do you train in the why?

Okay.

Or do you train in the what?

So people take ownership of what they understand.

Yes.

So when we train them on why the process exists, who it impacts, and what success looks like, they can make better decisions without us standing over them. And that's autonomy. You cannot train compliance and expect ownership. You have to train for autonomy.

Yeah. If you only teach the clicks, the first time a minor variable shifts—

I don't know what to do. Right. Right. I only know how to click right.

I don't know how to click left, right, right, right.

Yeah, they're stuck. What do I, what do I do?

What do I do?

Paralysis, paralysis.

Yeah. Uh, Wendy, like, I— this, this is— if, if you have listened to 4 minutes of any episode of the podcast, you're going to know the answer to this, but that's exactly why I put the question in here. Chrissy Myers, when do you stop training?

Never. We never stop training, ever. Never. And promoting people without leadership training is irresponsible. So, you know, we don't ever, we don't promote without training. We don't stop training. We are always learning. We are a constant learning environment. You disagree?

No, God, no. I was going to say. No, I still remember, and I mean, I know this has been said over and over and over again, but I worked for someone that made the comment like, what happens if we train people and they leave? And I'm like, I don't want them to stay.

Yeah, what happens if they stay? You know how expensive it is to have people in your organization that are terrible at something and they're staying? I mean, here's what I'll say too, training doesn't go on forever. I think that's where they're like, are you always sitting there with your like assignment notebook and they're taking?

No, no.

No, I mean, at some point in time, if context has been given, capability's been built, expectations are clear, and then there's still mistakes that keep happening, then we kind of have to talk about skill gap versus will gap. And that's a different conversation. That's where we go to coach, correct, or cut. But I mean, everyone should always be learning.

And that's the piece that I want to go to with that. There should always, and you should always be encouraging and doing things to help that. Because once again, like for you in insurance, that never changes. That never changes at all. I feel like that's been consistent for hundreds of years.

Always. Never. We never have rule changes and we never revert, and in HR, we never revert back back to rules that happened in 2019. In 2026, all of a sudden we just go back in time 6 years, 7 years.

Yeah, right. So to me, there's always these updates. Same thing for us with podcasting, with social media. I mean, though, like, the difference— like, the course that I teach, that I started teaching on podcasting 3 years ago, yeah, how much has it changed? It's very different than what I teach now. And we've had to, had to do that. A couple of quick takeaways. Yeah, start with 5. If you have no processes that you can train off of. Identify the top 10 recurring tasks, pick 4 or 5 of those, that— start doing a Loom or Google Doc.

Yeah, see, stop calling it common sense, right? If it matters to the business, train it. Do not assume a new hire has the context you have spent years building.

Run the mirror test. For the— your very first litmus test for anything is the mirror test. If you initiate a sweaty 10-minute conversation about an employee's mistake, check your SOP library. If the process isn't written down, you are not allowed to be angry at anyone but yourself.

Exactly. And I would say you build capability in layers. We show it, we explain it, we practice it, and then we verify it. And that is how we move from confused to capable.

Let's talk about reverse operations. Something else. Never assume someone understands stands. Like, if we're largely remote, have them record a quick 2-minute video showing you how they execute the task. The video will not lie.

Exactly. And then I would finally say, you earn the right to hold the standard. Once you have provided context and built capability with someone, accountability becomes fair. Before that, it's not fair.

We don't do Oh, I like that.

Yeah. Earn the right to hold the standard.

Day 1. Should a new hire execute a real, like, actual stuff, even low stakes on their very first day?

I would say, yeah, you give them something real that's low stakes because people want to feel useful. Yep. You just don't confuse participation with pressure. You know, let them touch the work in a way that builds confidence, not panic. Yeah.

As I— and I say this figuratively, but let them take out the garbage.

Yes, absolutely.

Let them write a new marketing plan for your biggest client. No, probably not.

Probably not.

This is one where I know we've looked at it differently because we learn very differently. External certification courses, are they worth it or should all training be kept in-house?

I like both.

I do too.

I do. Yeah.

To me, especially as we've started to do more and more of this, I see how the effect that it can have And in-house is, you know, your business better than anyone.

Exactly.

That's the in-house piece. But for the same reason, there's, there's a reason why LeBron James has a coach. There's a reason why Phil Jackson worked with Michael Jordan. There's a reason why.

Yeah. I mean, external training, it brings perspective. It gives you credibility. I mean, sometimes that wake-up call when people are like, well, we've always done it this way. Having that external certification gives you the ability to think that maybe we might want to do it differently.

100%.

Yeah.

Can you train common sense?

Pause.

I keep— Chris, I'm waiting for you to be like, Serenity Now.

No. So I think, again, most people use common sense as a cover for unclear expectations.

Yeah.

So I mean, yeah, can you develop some judgment? Absolutely. But you've got to give people context. You can't expect good judgment from someone if you keep them in the dark. That's unfair.

To me, once again, I always feel like it's just the cover-up. And I've got— I've got two different ways that I look at this. It is the projection of I didn't tell you how to do this, so I'm going to blame you. Or it is the projection of I hired the wrong person.

Yeah. I just don't understand why you don't have common sense. Well, maybe you didn't explain it right.

Or maybe you didn't hire the right person for the job. Guess what? Both of those started with, I didn't do the right thing.

Yes, they started with you.

Yeah, I'm the problem. We're going to talk about that next week.

Okay.

Thank you to everyone out there. You're, you're always like, yeah, let's talk about your problems next week. That'll be a 2.5-hour long— it now is.

It's a 4-part series.

I don't know if we gain or lose listeners on that. That'd be— that'd be— I don't know if we should do that. That being said, you need to go see some of the stuff at businessfixpodcast.com. Go there, like, at— submit questions, ask us stuff. We'd love to hear from you. Also, leave us a review. We've loved loved some of the comments through social media and that, but the podcast, give us a review there. Love to see that. We've got a lot to talk about next time. I'm not even going to tell them what it is.

Okay.

It's not about me.

No, it's not.

It's not just about me.

It's not. It's more about people.

Correct. Besides me. Do us a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very, very soon.

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