Speaker 1: Welcome to having your leadership.
Speaker 2: I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo.
Speaker 1: And Lorenzo. On this episode, I want to go over
Speaker 1: a listener question that we got on LinkedIn with a
Speaker 1: person who messaged us asking how they go about solving
Speaker 1: a problem they were having. They said that they have
Speaker 1: kind of a diverse set of goals on their team.
Speaker 1: They're different people on the team with different goals. How
Speaker 1: do they go about making sure that there's alignment and
Speaker 1: an agreement on what the desired outcomes are so that
Speaker 1: everybody's working towards the same thing. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a great question. It can it can rear its head
Speaker 1: in terms of just you know, kind of individual day
Speaker 1: to day things that can cause people going off in
Speaker 1: different directions, or this can be you know, kind of
Speaker 1: larger goals that inform a compensation or bonus strategy. So
Speaker 1: I think it's important to be on the same page
Speaker 1: with the with your teams and your peers and your coworkers.
Speaker 1: But there's no way to completely eliminate this concept of
Speaker 1: having different goals for different people, because there are different
Speaker 1: positions in organizations that you might have you know, competing,
Speaker 1: So this is it's an interesting question. I think it's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of time pack here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it immediately took me back to a
Speaker 2: long time ago when I was a pro audio manager
Speaker 2: at Guitar Center. It was one of those situations where
Speaker 2: it's a team that you know, is a commission based team,
Speaker 2: so selling things and making money on the margins of
Speaker 2: the things that you sold was a big deal and
Speaker 2: that's how people got paid. And I just remember taking
Speaker 2: on that role. It was the first time I ever
Speaker 2: kind of had a team that was in that model,
Speaker 2: and really like the first time I was kind of
Speaker 2: responsible for, like leading a team. I had worked in
Speaker 2: other retail before, like MAM and pop music stores and
Speaker 2: things like that, and I had given like keyholder duties
Speaker 2: and you know, make sure that these tasks got completed,
Speaker 2: not like responsible for a team working together. And you transfer,
Speaker 2: you transported me back there because I remember like thinking, well,
Speaker 2: how do I get them to work together? Because I've
Speaker 2: got somebody that does like high end recording equipment. I've
Speaker 2: got somebody that does like the keyboards. I've got somebody
Speaker 2: who does the DJ gear. I've got somebody who does
Speaker 2: like the microphones. I've got someone that does kind of
Speaker 2: the table top digital recorders at that time. So I've
Speaker 2: got all these specialists and people that have different things
Speaker 2: that they're good at, different things that they're responsible for
Speaker 2: growing from not just a business standpoint, but like their
Speaker 2: own personal paycheck standpoint. And the path that I took was,
Speaker 2: let me bring them all together. You know, we were
Speaker 2: doing these trainings on Sunday mornings where we would bring
Speaker 2: the team together, we talk about what was the upcoming
Speaker 2: sales goals, what were some of the things that that
Speaker 2: we wanted to make sure we were aware of, and
Speaker 2: some of the promotions and whatnot. And I decided to
Speaker 2: bring in some of the vendors and say, you know,
Speaker 2: let's do vendor trading. Let's bring in people here to
Speaker 2: talk about the equipment in the gear. Let's do it
Speaker 2: together as a team. Let's spend some time there. But
Speaker 2: more importantly, as we help customers, how can we better
Speaker 2: leverage each other. So, and I use myself as the example.
Speaker 2: If somebody comes in and says, hey, I want to
Speaker 2: buy this really expensive mixing board for live music, I
Speaker 2: knew that I knew something about it, but that that Blake,
Speaker 2: he was the guy who really was the professional and
Speaker 2: understanding mixing consoles and would have had all this experience,
Speaker 2: but sometimes he didn't work every single day. So we
Speaker 2: kind of had this thing where we worked it out
Speaker 2: to say, well, hey, if Blake's not here, I'll kind
Speaker 2: of take this lead. I will get the information, I'll
Speaker 2: answer the questions that I can, and I'll have the
Speaker 2: customer come back and speak with him the next day
Speaker 2: that he's working. And so by doing that, you know,
Speaker 2: I would get a small percentage if they bought something,
Speaker 2: and then vice versa. If Blake is working the day
Speaker 2: and somebody walks in they want to buy DJ gear,
Speaker 2: and I'm not working or available at that moment, Blake
Speaker 2: would answer questions, Blake would get them going, and then
Speaker 2: I would be able to come in and have the
Speaker 2: vast majority of the conversation and be able to sell
Speaker 2: them the thing. And then Blake, we get a small
Speaker 2: percentage of that. And we talk through this. And I
Speaker 2: know that it's like it's a monetary way of building
Speaker 2: a team and having teamwork, but I think it makes
Speaker 2: sense even in spaces where maybe you're not working on commission,
Speaker 2: where you really have to take the time to bring
Speaker 2: the team together talk about how we're going to support
Speaker 2: one another, talk about the fact that it's okay that
Speaker 2: we all have individual goals, that we have things that
Speaker 2: we're trying to do, that we may even have them
Speaker 2: very personal because it might be our paychecks, but like
Speaker 2: talk about the things that we're looking to accomplish and
Speaker 2: then talk about how collectively we can make sure that
Speaker 2: we get these things done because we all want to succeed,
Speaker 2: and we all may have to step into different spaces
Speaker 2: to help each other be successful. And it might not
Speaker 2: be our main job that we have, but there may
Speaker 2: be some time we can dedicate to help that person
Speaker 2: accomplish that thing. And if we do this collectively, we
Speaker 2: have a much better chance of moving things together and
Speaker 2: having success as a team. And I think that's that
Speaker 2: would be the first thing that kind of came across
Speaker 2: my mind in the space, is like really taking the
Speaker 2: time to bring people together and share what those goals are,
Speaker 2: share what those objectives are, and share the fact that
Speaker 2: we all want to be successful and by doing that
Speaker 2: we have to work together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's spot on the I think the
Speaker 1: there's a misconception amongst leaders in a lot of places
Speaker 1: and that misconception is that goals that are different must
Speaker 1: be opposed to each other. Meaning if one leader is
Speaker 1: bonused based on the amount of labor spent and one
Speaker 1: leader is based on the amount of revenue brought in,
Speaker 1: it could seem that the right thing to do for
Speaker 1: one leader would be to have as few employees as possible,
Speaker 1: and for the other leader it would be to have
Speaker 1: as many employees as possible. But if at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the goal is the overall profitability, then
Speaker 1: both of those leaders need to be cognizant of what
Speaker 1: things impact the other leaders, so they're all working towards
Speaker 1: the same goal. It doesn't mean that you can say, oh,
Speaker 1: my goal is more important than your goal, because then
Speaker 1: what you'll have is just leaders who feel like they're
Speaker 1: always in competition with each other and not working together
Speaker 1: as a team. It is more likely that both leaders
Speaker 1: will fail to meet their goals if that's the mindset
Speaker 1: they're taking towards it. But even if the goals from
Speaker 1: a monetary or bonus standpoint are different from role to role,
Speaker 1: because let's let's be real here, in an organization, you
Speaker 1: might not have any control over what the bonus structure
Speaker 1: is or or or you know or compensation structure is
Speaker 1: or or the you know what ins whether or not
Speaker 1: your review is written well or not, you might not
Speaker 1: have any control over that, but you do have control
Speaker 1: over the communication you have with your peers. You do
Speaker 1: have control over the relationships that you have with your
Speaker 1: peers and how you can work together to ensure that
Speaker 1: nobody is thinking only for themselves and that everybody is
Speaker 1: thinking about the business as a whole, because it is
Speaker 1: very likely that you will win together or lose together.
Speaker 1: And the more that you focus on just your one
Speaker 1: particular goal, because that's the one you think matters the
Speaker 1: most for your review or your bonus or whatever that is.
Speaker 1: If you focus solely on that, you're not gonna be
Speaker 1: there all the rest of the time, and you have
Speaker 1: to rely on the other peers of yours that you
Speaker 1: have to help you get to your goals, which means
Speaker 1: you have helped them get to theirs too. And so
Speaker 1: having that open dialogue in that communication that says we're
Speaker 1: all going to work together and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: prioritize my one personal goal over what it looks like
Speaker 1: to have us all succeed together, it's very very important
Speaker 1: to do, not just from a succeed succeeding standpoint, but
Speaker 1: from a relationship standpoint. You don't want to have animosity
Speaker 1: or or you know, negative energy between you and your
Speaker 1: your peers. You want to make sure that it's all
Speaker 1: positive and that you, uh, you feel like you have
Speaker 1: each other's backs when in the absence of whoever is
Speaker 1: not there that day.
Speaker 2: It's such a big deal when it comes to to
Speaker 2: really building the teamwork aspect of it. And again, I
Speaker 2: think that there's always gonna be elements where it's not easy.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be you know, like, there's gonna be days
Speaker 2: when we're short tempered. There's gonna be days when you're
Speaker 2: ahead of your objective and I'm behind on mine. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be like, there's gonna be a lot of things
Speaker 2: that in the people business are are gonna you know,
Speaker 2: uh cause some tension in elements of that. But I
Speaker 2: think a lot of it can be solved when you're
Speaker 2: when you're willing to have that open dialogue, when you're
Speaker 2: when you're you have some healthy debates, when when you're saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we if we are at team, we have to move
Speaker 2: as a team, and we have to talk about things
Speaker 2: as a team, and that means that you know, objective
Speaker 2: number one is making sure that we can all accomplish
Speaker 2: the things that we're focused on. And then the next
Speaker 2: meeting might not be so easy after you start that,
Speaker 2: because you might find out that like, well, in fact,
Speaker 2: maybe somebody wasn't helping their peer when they could have.
Speaker 2: Maybe somebody still doing the habits of prioritizing their work.
Speaker 2: And you have to work through those types of things.
Speaker 2: And then you run at those situations where well, you know,
Speaker 2: some of this work or this time of the year
Speaker 2: or this project, you know, these things require less of
Speaker 2: somebody's time and effort right now and more of somebody else's.
Speaker 2: And then how much do you help that person? How
Speaker 2: much can you afford to step out of your main
Speaker 2: responsibility to help support somebody else on their main responsibility. Like,
Speaker 2: these are real things that will happen in those conversations
Speaker 2: and in those meetings. But I think that I think
Speaker 2: that you have to do that. You have to create
Speaker 2: the space to have those things. You have to be
Speaker 2: able to be willing to address those issues as they
Speaker 2: come up, and you have to really commit and pour
Speaker 2: in your time as the leader to believe that that
Speaker 2: working through those situations, working through those you know, those
Speaker 2: debates slash arguments, and helping have a team learn how
Speaker 2: to lift each other up in the in the shorter
Speaker 2: term will have a long term payoff and it will
Speaker 2: create a great cohesive team that is really focused on
Speaker 2: understanding that like we we we are the collective of
Speaker 2: our individual efforts, but when we win together, nothing feels
Speaker 2: better than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, I think I think there are two
Speaker 1: different kind of scenarios here. I think if you're a
Speaker 1: leader of leaders, then part of your job is to
Speaker 1: make sure that these conversations are happening, that you are
Speaker 1: that you are kind of enforcing the requirement of the
Speaker 1: people who report up to you to have these conversations
Speaker 1: and to work out how this will look so that
Speaker 1: they all feel supported by each other and that none
Speaker 1: of them feel like they are competing with each other.
Speaker 1: If you are one of those people themselves who are
Speaker 1: in a situation where you feel like a coworker or
Speaker 1: a peer has a competing agenda and you want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you are aligned, then talk to them.
Speaker 1: Then it's on you, in the absence of your leader,
Speaker 1: that you share with this other person facilitating the conversation.
Speaker 1: For you to do that, and how that looks best
Speaker 1: is to you for you to go to them and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I can see based on where the numbers are that
Speaker 1: you're falling short of your bonus or whatever it is
Speaker 1: because of this number. What can I do to support you?
Speaker 1: What can I do to help you? It starts out
Speaker 1: by reaching out to that person to make sure that
Speaker 1: they know that when you come in to do your job,
Speaker 1: you're not just looking at what your job is. You're
Speaker 1: looking at the collective jobs of all the people that
Speaker 1: have to work together for the success of the big business.
Speaker 1: And if you happen to, unfortunately be in a situation
Speaker 1: where your organization has it set up to where you
Speaker 1: have competing agendas that could lead to this kind of
Speaker 1: butting of heads or animosity, that you have all the
Speaker 1: control in the world to compete against that, you have
Speaker 1: all the control in the world to not let that
Speaker 1: be the situation, even if on paper it looks like
Speaker 1: that's what it is. And that is done by having
Speaker 1: those conversations. It's done by proactively talking to your peers
Speaker 1: or your coworkers to make sure that they know that
Speaker 1: you have their back, and that will be met almost
Speaker 1: universally with the exact same reciprocation from them when it
Speaker 1: comes time to they have the opportunity to do it
Speaker 1: for you they need to, but if they see it
Speaker 1: coming from you first, they will feel almost if they're
Speaker 1: a good person, almost obligated to do the exact same
Speaker 1: thing for you. And you'll be surprised how quickly both
Speaker 1: of your results rise when you're both working together as
Speaker 1: opposed to thinking about, you know, how can I just
Speaker 1: help myself?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And with that it brings us to this episode's
Speaker 2: women a hack. But first, if you've worse from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: All right for this episode, what manhakers or want you
Speaker 1: to do. If you're a leader of leaders, it is
Speaker 1: your job to make sure that the people reporting up
Speaker 1: through you on your team, who may have individualized goals,
Speaker 1: that they are well versed in knowing what the individualized
Speaker 1: goals are of their coworkers and their peers, so that
Speaker 1: they can pick up the slack for each other when needed,
Speaker 1: and so that they are informed intimately on how each
Speaker 1: of those individualized goals impact the overall team goal as
Speaker 1: a whole, Because even though each of them might have
Speaker 1: different disciplines or different rules or responsibilities as far as
Speaker 1: insurance success on one item or one measure or metric
Speaker 1: or scorecard. If they all have individualized ones, what your
Speaker 1: organization is saying is that all of these things matter,
Speaker 1: and it's really difficult to you know the old adage,
Speaker 1: when it's everybody's job, it's nobody's job. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a real thing. And so organizations can have a tendency
Speaker 1: to assign individualized jobs to individualized people. But that's from
Speaker 1: an accountability standpoint and a responsibility standpoint to make sure
Speaker 1: that you can go to a person the other where
Speaker 1: does the buck stop? Who do I talk to about
Speaker 1: making sure that this thing is done? That's why those
Speaker 1: goals might be individualized, but that doesn't mean that the
Speaker 1: other things are not the responsibility of each other. It
Speaker 1: just means that at some point there is a person
Speaker 1: who it's their responsibility to ensure this thing gets done.
Speaker 1: And as a leader of leaders, you need to make
Speaker 1: sure that all of your people know how to speak
Speaker 1: to all of those things, because all of those goals
Speaker 1: are important and they all inform the overall success of
Speaker 1: the team. If each of your people can't speak intimately
Speaker 1: to that or how they can do things to positively
Speaker 1: impact not just their own goals, but the goals of
Speaker 1: their team members. Then you need to spend some work
Speaker 1: there because they need to be able to speak to it.
Speaker 1: Almost like if a person was watching from the outside,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to tell which of your people
Speaker 1: was responsible for which thing, because they all talk about
Speaker 1: all of those things in a way that implies they
Speaker 1: all feel personal ownership towards them and they're all working
Speaker 1: towards the same goal.
Speaker 2: Some things are easier than other things. I think that
Speaker 2: when you have businesses that run day to day where
Speaker 2: there are tasks that need to kind of be completed
Speaker 2: each day, and you can people have different responsibilities, you
Speaker 2: can kind of you know, delegate them out, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna have some overlap so that the collective can like
Speaker 2: measure the accomplishment day by day. Then that makes it
Speaker 2: a little bit easier to kind of bring that team
Speaker 2: together and have the common goal of well, before today
Speaker 2: wraps up, all these things have to be done regardless
Speaker 2: of who's here or what's going on, So like we're
Speaker 2: gonna work together to accomplish this. It becomes much more
Speaker 2: difficult when you have longer term deadlines, bigger, larger projects,
Speaker 2: things that will take time and follow up and checks
Speaker 2: where people are very much immersed in their responsibilities for weeks,
Speaker 2: if not months, Like, there's definitely more difficulty there because
Speaker 2: you can't find those shorter term kind of celebration points
Speaker 2: of like, look, see we did it together as a team,
Speaker 2: didn net feel great, Let's do it again tomorrow. Look
Speaker 2: at that way we did it as a team, like
Speaker 2: you kind of like you really have to make sure
Speaker 2: that as a leader that you are make sure you're
Speaker 2: checking in on those milestones and then celebrating those milestones
Speaker 2: that are happening, especially when you see their right behavior,
Speaker 2: when you see the team starting to work together, when
Speaker 2: you see somebody flexing into another space to help them
Speaker 2: with that thing, you have to be able to call
Speaker 2: that out and keep that top of mind to make
Speaker 2: sure that you're adding fuel to that strategy around feeling
Speaker 2: really great about you know, when the collective team has
Speaker 2: a big win, right.
Speaker 1: And especially when it's individualized, so it's not hey, if
Speaker 1: Chris does something to help out Lorenzo, but the leader
Speaker 1: that we share calls out Lorenzo for the job that
Speaker 1: they did to get this thing done. Then that isn't
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. The right thing to do
Speaker 1: is to call out Lorenzo for getting that thing done,
Speaker 1: but also to call out Chris for helping to make
Speaker 1: sure that thing got done. So it's a it's an
Speaker 1: individualized recognition combined with a team recognition because at some
Speaker 1: point Lorenzo's responsible for this goal, and so the recognition
Speaker 1: that it got done is there. But maybe the work
Speaker 1: that Lorenzo did on that goal wasn't direct work on it.
Speaker 1: Maybe the work that Lorenzo did on the goal was
Speaker 1: relationship work amongst his peers to ensure that they were
Speaker 1: all aligned and on the same page. So he had
Speaker 1: people kind of working on his behalf all the time,
Speaker 1: even when he wasn't there. That work is could arguably
Speaker 1: be more important than the direct work Lorenzo could have
Speaker 1: done on that goal, you know, himself. And so recognition
Speaker 1: for the job being done can't just stop at what
Speaker 1: the metric was and that it was accomplished. It needs
Speaker 1: to go deeper into the how it was done. You know,
Speaker 1: congratulations to Lorenzo for getting this done. I know that
Speaker 1: you've worked really hard over the last three or four
Speaker 1: months to make sure that you have that your peers
Speaker 1: are informed on what it takes to hit these goals.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the efforts out of them working on
Speaker 1: your behalf to get this done, and I've seen you
Speaker 1: do it for them too. That kind of process is
Speaker 1: just as important as the fact that you got the
Speaker 1: goal to begin with. So as a leader, it's your
Speaker 1: job to make sure that you're recognizing not just the
Speaker 1: right things, but recognizing them publicly in a way that
Speaker 1: clarifies this is what is important to you. And what's
Speaker 1: important to you is not just that you get the
Speaker 1: goal accomplished, but how you got it done, because the
Speaker 1: behaviors that got you there are going to be the
Speaker 1: ones that are replicable even in times when the numbers
Speaker 1: might be harder to meet.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end
Speaker 2: of this episode is a Hackey leadership. I'm Lorenzo and
Speaker 2: I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.