Your Team Is Missing This One CRITICAL Success Factor

So your team's work isn't good enough.

Right.

And have you clearly said this is a problem?

Well, sort of, but I'm talking common sense stuff.

Take this.

What the hell's an accountabelle?

While you hold that, I'm gonna call in some expert advice on how we can hold team members accountable so that way we can make sure work gets done properly. And if it doesn't, we can give feedback to get quality back up very quickly so you're not left feeling the way you are now.

All right.

Hey, Zandra. Here's Chuck.

Well, hello there. I'm a small business operator, and I'm just struggling to get my team to do work the right way and hold them accountable and communicate feedback and all that. I might be the only person who struggles with this, but I'm really looking for some tips.

People come into a situation with different life experiences, different work experiences, and different knowledge pieces, and. And as a manager, you are making some assumptions of what those things are, because we don't really, truly know what someone has been through or what they really know. Sometimes people think they know things, but they don't. Sometimes people have PTSD based on a previous job experience, so they kind of fake their way until they make it, which can cause some problems. And as humans, we aren't really trained into communicating and giving feedback in a way that is. It doesn't feel like you're sliding down a razor blade into a pool of alcohol. It feels like you're gonna hurt someone's feelings or, you know, they're gonna. They're gonna quit, or I'm gonna make them mad, or, you know, you're really putting your. Your worries onto them. When, really, when you go into these situations, we only hire healthy people. We only hire adults. You know, we've all have some experience. Even if we've been to college, we have experience of working in teams. And that's something that we need to bring to the table, of knowing that people. People want feedback and how to do it and when to do it and all of that. It's just learning how to do that in a way that's authentic and meaningful and timely and. And we tend to not do that because it's uncomfortable for us. But as the employee, they want it, right? They want to know that they're doing a good job or that they're not doing a good job. Particularly if you're bringing on someone who has, you know, I. As I call the PTSD from a previous experience. They might be overly defensive or they might have A way of making it uncomfortable for you to deliver feedback that may not be overly positive. So it's just trial and error and just working through it. But you have to, have to build a really good relationship with people. And it really comes down to relationships, communication, consistency and directness. You just have to be direct.

Well, I guess my first question would be how do I go about giving feedback so people actually change their behaviors?

So if you're the manager, and I assume that that's the position of who's overseeing this whole thing, you're not having a peer do it. It's not, you know, the person cleans the, clean the trash on Friday that notice something. It's. It's a manager. Right. They ideally at this point would have a relationship with this person that will enable them to comfortably give them feedback. Because they've been giving them feedback for nine months and it's just yet another feedback point of, hey, can I share something with you? I saw that when you do this thing over here, all these bad things happen. So in the future you need to do this. Is it clear? Yes. Okay, good.

How do you time that though? So let's say we're on a remote.

Immediately. Immediately. Okay, immediately. Like, you don't wait for that. Like. And I would not leave a comment on a task. I would pick up the phone and call them or do a video or if you're in an office, walk over to their desk.

Well, I hear where you're coming from, but at Chuck Suds, most of our team is remote. How do I go about actually talking to them about this if we're not in the same office?

Positive feedback can absolutely be over slack. It can be an email, it can be a voicemail. You don't, you know, you're telling somebody that they're great and who doesn't have a problem with that? There's a method in how you do it so that they know you're giving them feedback. It's not just thanks for showing up to work today. Like, that's not feedback. If it's feedback that needs to have some critical conversation around, then the best way to do that would be to pick up the phone and call them. If that's not possible, then I would send them a message and say, hey, do you have time for me to give you some feedback? I mean, I would really try to have a voice to voice conversation or face to face conversation. Ideally you're doing it face to face, but if you're doing it on the phone, you have to ask confirmation of Understanding. Do they understand what you're talking? You get that from facial expressions like okay or they're frustrated or, you know, you get a sense for where they are and what's going on through their physical reaction to the feedback. Or they can be like, I know, I just totally forgot that one thing. As soon as I did it, I knew it was wrong. I mean, if you do that over slack, all of that's lost. And that's when you're going to know the severity of the problem, particularly if it's reoccurring. That's when you're going to know. Like they know. I've told them five times and this is the sixth time and they feel really bad about it. You have another problem to deal with. But if it's the first time, I think it's important to see their face, to see if they're completely glossy.

Let's say I'm willing to do the work, I'm willing to shoulder this weight of accountability for my team and manage them to success. What happens if I hold the accountabelle but they're still not performing a pip? All right, well, how would I approach that kind of conversation if it happens.

The third time, the conversation is just so you know, we're now going to put you improvement plan. We have to get you better. We want you to succeed. In order to make you succeed, we've got to work together to find out what's missing. Because this is a core component of the nine months training you expensive to have new people.

Exactly.

Not know that you absolutely know nothing about a computer when it's 80% of our jobs these days, you know, it depends on how long you want the PIP to last. Like maybe you're giving him a year to learn some sort of programming language, I don't know. Or maybe you're giving him three months to learn Excel basics. You have to be really specific. In this period of time, you're going to know how to do these five things. You will that you know these five things and it's an agreement. You have to kind of agree upon it, but you should know what you need. I need them to really know how to do pivot tables and be that level of intermediate Excel user in three months because if not, it's ever going to work. So that's what you say. You need to be an intermediate Excel level. In three months we're going to find you a class and do it. Here's your pip. And every week you sit down and say, what'd you do? How'd you do, and you monitor every week and I assume you guys are doing one on ones with your people. So if you're meeting everybody, your person for 30 minutes every week, or whatever your one on one is, it's an agenda item on that meeting. So you're talking about it every week. Like how are you doing with that? Do you have any questions? So that's. It kind of gets all wrapped up into the trust and to the relationship that you're building with person so that they feel comfortable coming to you or you know, maybe you've given them, maybe you're not the resource because you don't know anything about this thing that went wrong. As a boss, you need to know exactly what they need to do, but you find them a resource. And have you been talking with sue to make sure that you know you're doing this right? What are your problems? Just to kind of keep it as an ongoing conversation. To keep it up there.

Oh, I gotta interrupt here to give you a quick reminder. If you're enjoying this video series where Chuck is getting expert advice to work through these common business challenges, write the word Chuck line in the comments. That comment will act as a vote to let me know you'd like to see more videos in this format in this series. While you're down there, be sure to like and subscribe. And if you'd like to see the full 45 minute interview I've done with Zandra, which this is just a quick highlight for Chuck's benefit, you can find that by joining the Indie Ops community that is our membership and mastermind for small business operators. You can find the link for that in the description below. But with that, let's get back to Chuck.

Well, that's quite different than what I'm doing. I'm just saying things in passing. If I even say anything at all, sometimes I'm just keeping it to myself. It's almost like I have everybody else carrying their own accountabelles, but I'm not really carrying anybody's.

Exactly, Chuck.

And that's why I'm such a stickler for the phrase common sense. Because what's common to you may not be common to other people. That's why it's important that you as the manager, carry that weight and communicate those expectations. And because common sense is not common, it's just normal to you based on your life experiences and understanding. And just like weightlifting, lifting this weight of actually managing and providing accountability and feedback for your team, it gets lighter with practice. As you get stronger and you build that Management muscle.

You're so right. This is so easy now.

And actually before we go, Zandra, do you have any tips on making this a regular practice?

No, I think that it's really. Everybody wants their employees or their team members or even their bosses to take ownership of work. And that's something you should talk about often. And having I've given you a task, you need to really take ownership of it. And it needs to be your baby. It may just be hitting a 5 on Thursday at 3 o'. Clock, but you need to treat hitting F5 at 3 o' clock on Thursday as if you're paying your mortgage. You don't say, well, I'm just not going to pay my mortgage today. You're going to hit that button because paying your mortgage. So if you say you're going to do something, you need to take ownership of getting done. If you go on to pay your mortgage and the bank website doesn't work, do you just not pay your mortgage or do you get a check and actually put it in the mail? I mean you come up with a problem solution. So it's really making sure that people understand that they have the ownership to finish this. And if you're managing them properly, you're giving them enough good reasons to do that. Because you're giving them so much positive feedback along the way of what you do want to see. And I hate to say this, but if you've ever trained a dog, it's very similar. When my dog sits, I'm amazed and. And I instantly give her a treat. And now if I tell her, she will do it. And I still continue to give her good girls. And she's six, right? She doesn't anymore. But. So if you're building that relationship and you're working on the. The trust factor and really making them understand that the ownership piece is what you're affecting. Setting that expectation of do what you say you're going to do. Because this is what we need you and I'm depending on you to do it. I think that it will come natural and early on if you start off this way, it will feel natural to people that they're hearing bad feedback or missed something like. And it won't be so awkward. The big trick that I people with is to start doing back thing. It's really, really like you said, it's, it's. It doesn't natural or timing of it. I would put hair bands around my wrist and every time I would give somebody I would put five wristbands on my wrist and I would make sure I gave five pieces of feedback every day and I would move the wristband to my other wrist and before I left. By the end of the day, those wristbands need to be here. And if there was any here, then I'm like, okay, let me think. Someone did something good today. I can just shoot off a quick email.

You know, that's a good tip. I can do that with some beard ties too.

So I did it over and over and over. So then it just got to the point where I would just instantly just recognize things in the moment that I normally wouldn't have recognized.

By the way, before I go Ms. Zandra, make sure you introduce yourself.

I am a consultant that helps companies, mostly in the financial services industry, specifically registered investment advisors with anything from starting an investment advisory company, setting up the compliance programs, but really what I love to do is help small to medium advisor firms build management processes and build a culture around effective management.

If you are someone who's responsible for a small team of three to 30 people to organize how they operate, make sure they get tasks done and keep the overall machine flowing, consider joining us inside IndieOps Network. That's where you can find this full length 45 minute interview with Sandra, as well as the whole series of video podcasts like this that we release every single month. Previous topics include things like capacity management, onboarding and offboarding, annual planning, and of course this one here on Team member Accountability.

I'll be sure to be at that next Indie Ops co working session because I got some accountability billing to do.

But wait. Ah shoot, I missed him. Well, something you should know as he walks out there is now that you mastered team member accountability, there's one outcome you need to be prepared for, which is what Sandra talked about earlier. What happens if somebody isn't coachable? Maybe there's an attitude problem. Maybe they just fundamentally aren't the right fit for the role. And no matter how often you hold them accountable and it's just mutually understood that this is not a good fit, how do you actually handle firing an employee when you reach that worst case outcome? Be prepared for that worst case. Don't let it catch you by surprise by watching this video next where we talk about how to empathetically, respectfully and kindly offwart employees.