Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and GOLA giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five twenty eight. Today we're talking about something
Speaker 2: every leader needs to understand long before the problems hit
Speaker 2: your desk. It's the idea of the first domino. Every
Speaker 2: issue you face has a moment that kicked it off.
Speaker 2: A decision, a message of miss detail, a lack of clarity.
Speaker 2: Atone someone misunderstood a standard that slipped once and quietly
Speaker 2: signaled that slipping was acceptable. The first domino always falls
Speaker 2: long before the last one crashes to the floor. So
Speaker 2: let me walk you through this in a way you
Speaker 2: can use every day. Picture a long line of dominoes
Speaker 2: stretched across your conference room table. The last one represents
Speaker 2: the outcome you're dealing with right now, a customer complaint,
Speaker 2: a safety violation amidst deadline, a fight between co workers,
Speaker 2: someone quitting out of the blue, or a full blown crisis.
Speaker 2: When you only look at that last domino, the one
Speaker 2: that slammed down hard and made the noise that everyone noticed.
Speaker 2: It's easy to think the problem happened today, but it
Speaker 2: never happens today. It started way earlier. It started with
Speaker 2: the first domino. Maybe the first domino was a leader
Speaker 2: who assumed their team understood an instruction instead of verifying it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was a team member who did not speak
Speaker 2: up when something felled off. Maybe it was a manager
Speaker 2: who changed a standard one time and told themselves it
Speaker 2: wouldn't matter. Or maybe the first domino was you ignoring
Speaker 2: a small feeling that something was not right, but telling
Speaker 2: yourself you would deal with it later. And here's the
Speaker 2: part most leaders miss. The first domino is usually small.
Speaker 2: It never looks dangerous, It never feels like the start
Speaker 2: of anything. It looks harmless, forgettable, and easy to skip over.
Speaker 2: The problem is that once it falls, nothing stops the line.
Speaker 2: Every domino after that is simply reacting to what hit it.
Speaker 2: So the question today is simple, are you paying attention
Speaker 2: to the first domino? Because if you want to stop
Speaker 2: problems from reaching your desk, you can't wait until the
Speaker 2: last domino hits the ground. That's where leaders get buried.
Speaker 2: You must walk the line backwards. You start with the outcome.
Speaker 2: Then trace it back to what set it in motion.
Speaker 2: Let me give you an example. You find out two
Speaker 2: crew members are arguing and it's affecting the whole shift.
Speaker 2: The argument is the last domino, But what was the first?
Speaker 2: Maybe someone rolled their eyes during a call review. Maybe
Speaker 2: someone sent a short text that came across in the
Speaker 2: wrong tone, Maybe someone joked a little too hard in
Speaker 2: front of the wrong audience. Or maybe it had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the event at all, and the real
Speaker 2: first domino happened six months ago when those two stopped
Speaker 2: trusting each other and no one noticed. This is why
Speaker 2: strong leaders are investigators, not detectives in a police sense,
Speaker 2: but investigators of cause and effect. Every problem has a fingerprint,
Speaker 2: Every issue has a trail, Every outcome has an origin.
Speaker 2: And here's the part you can use immediately when something
Speaker 2: breaks in your organization. Don't ask what went wrong? Ask
Speaker 2: what was the first domino? And how far back does
Speaker 2: this line really go? And sit with that question. It
Speaker 2: changes everything. When you start thinking this way, you begin
Speaker 2: spotting dominoes earlier. You catch the tone that doesn't feel right,
Speaker 2: You catch the one time as standard dips. You catch
Speaker 2: the team member who seems disconnected. You catch the policy
Speaker 2: that is drifting from how people actually practice it, and
Speaker 2: you stop reacting at the end of the line and
Speaker 2: start intervening at the very beginning. And leaders who catch
Speaker 2: the first domino are the ones who prevent the big collapse.
Speaker 2: They save time, energy, stress, and resources. They build a
Speaker 2: team that knows problems will be addressed early, consistently, and calmly.
Speaker 2: So here is today's action step, the thing you can
Speaker 2: use as soon as you finish this episode. Take one
Speaker 2: problem from the past month, big or small, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Now trace it backwards. Ask yourself what the first domino
Speaker 2: really was. Ask yourself who nudged it? Look at what
Speaker 2: small things started the chain. Then ask one more question,
Speaker 2: could this have been prevented? And if so, what would
Speaker 2: you change next time? So this is how leaders get better,
Speaker 2: not by reacting to the collapse, but by understanding the
Speaker 2: cause of it. Not by being the firefighter, but by
Speaker 2: being the architect of the room. The fire never starts
Speaker 2: in the first domino decides the last one. Your job
Speaker 2: as a leader is to spot it, steady it, and
Speaker 2: keep the line standing. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 2: Leadership Podcast, and as always, I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more fell of Alito podcasts, visit Paul Fellovalito dot
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