A manager asked a high-performing employee named Greg to evaluate him during a review. Greg called him an "effing tyrant." Instead of dismissing it, the manager reflected on the feedback and checked back in with Greg, who later said he was a great boss. The shift shows how owning your impact with words can transform a relationship.
I had a star employee. I finished his review and I very dramatically pushed it to the side. And then I said to him, okay, his name was Greg. Come on, Greg, review me. And he's like, are you sure, Brad? And like, oh yeah, yeah, for sure. And he asked me again, are you sure? I said, Greg, just let me have it. And he goes, okay, you're an effing tyrant.
Ooh, yeah.
Oh, wow. But I, rather than a lot of people would decide that he was wrong, I took it in. And I checked with him a year later and I was no longer a tyrant. Now, this was life-changing for me. This was a life-changing moment. I'll never forget it. And yet, he doesn't even remember it. So that taught me. Now, I only learned it a couple of years ago. But that taught me how you really do have to watch your words in the sense that they can, if you're not careful, man, you can do a lot of damage. But the other thing I asked him is, when you look back on me as a boss, like what do you think? And he goes, oh, you were a great boss. So, I obviously turned it around.
It's interesting you say about that intentionality about the words we use because typically as owner operators, as managers, we tend to be in a lot of crisis. And sometimes the things we say, we have to kick ourselves in the head. I remember I was in Cabela's or Bass Pro, one of the two. And I remember I was with my wife and we're walking and we saw obviously somebody who's a supervisor talking to a clerk. And he said, if you don't like it, clerks like you are a dime a dozen. Right? And I thought, and it's like, I so badly wanted to go up to him and say, hey, do you know you really suck as a leader? Would you like some help? Right. But we know that that's not going to resonate. But again, so he's going to walk off. Crisis averted or whatever. Later on, months and months and months and years and years later, won't have thought about it at all. But that poor clerk is never, ever going to forget that they were pegged as one in a million.
