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Transcript

Podcast #7 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - Improve Performance · CLEAR Performance Coaching

• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is where leadership performs practically.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you can step in and show up on purpose every day.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_04: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Clear Performance Coaching.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: And today we get to deep dive into improving performance.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: As a former Six Sigma and Lean Guy, this one's going to be right up my alley.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: I'm very excited.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, Sam and Kent, we all have a lot to share.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: So again, my name is Rick Timlick.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Sam Bracken.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Kent Vaughn.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: So glad to have you.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_04: Perfect.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: Good to be here.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: You know, guys, just to kick off, when you think of improving performance, what are some things that come to your mind?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have a lot to say about that.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I think about is that if we're not consciously focused on improving performance, we're going back the other way.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: There is really no such thing as standing seals in the global economy, in the world, just in our own human bodies, right?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not consciously focused on improvement, they don't be vast improvements, but if we're not pushing forward against some key goals, against some important visions or ideas that are important to us, just life is going to push us back and we're going to end up in a place we didn't want to be because we weren't really thinking about all right, what do we do next?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's this divine discontent kind of thing.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're not unhappy, we're not mad, we're but where we're thinking, okay, what am I gonna do to get better next and next and what are we gonna improve on?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And because just life is like an escalator pushing us the other direction, I think, if we're not constantly moving forward.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great perspective.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: To me, when it comes to the idea of improving performance, typically the first thing that comes to my mind is the need to change.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, really, I used to work for a company called Shaw Industries, and the founder of Shaw Industries, Bob Shaw, used to say if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: I believe actually, a sort of a slight modified version of that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: If you always do what you always done, you're gonna get less than you always got because what's going around you, what's happening around you is changing, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: And this idea of change is really, really an interesting idea.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people resist change.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: And when you look at where you're at right now in your life, typically your behavior has produced the results that you have in your life right now.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're unhappy with the results or you want to get better in your results, there's probably going to need to be some sort of change.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Now, as human beings, we have these giant brains and we're built for change.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: The great irony is after years of study and years of research, I've boiled down five main barriers that get in the way of change.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing that gets in the way of change is no desire to change, living in the comfort zone, being strangely comfortable with however good life is or however bad life is.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: But if you don't have a desire to change, to get better, to improve, to ignite some kind of improvement, you simply won't change.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: You just won't.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: So we don't coach people who don't want to get better.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's one of our big, big deals.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: And we talked about this last time and only coach the coachable.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: But like if you don't have desire to get better, and you don't have a desire to be coached, you can have all the talent in the world, but you're gonna you're only gonna reach a certain level of improvement on your own.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: We all need someone other than ourselves to help us get better.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: But it all starts with desire.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: Another thing that gets in the way of change, the second thing, and this this I see almost every day, I rarely see people not giving a crap, having no desire.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's something I don't run into a lot, right?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: What I see a lot is the second thing that gets in the way of change, and that is simply being overwhelmed.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Too many things to consider, too many important and urgent things, competing priorities, like this idea of feeling overwhelmed gets in the way of change.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: It actually shuts your brain down, it spikes cortisol, it puts you in fight or flight response.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, this idea of being overwhelmed can really be a main obstacle in getting in the way of change, and simply narrowing your focus and setting priorities on the most important things can help you dissipate this feeling of being overwhelmed.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: So, so those are two things.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: The third thing that gets in the way of change is you have no compelling motivation, no reason to change, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: You have no purpose in changing, there's no obvious benefit to you, right?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: And without a reason or motivation, you lack the emotional energy to keep at it, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: So that can get in the way of change because you expect it to be immediate and quick.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Another thing that gets in the way of change is you is you expect it to be quick, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: Change is change takes a moment, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Expecting change to happen quickly can get in the way of change because it if it's lasting meaningful change and if it's behavior-based, it's gonna take a moment to change.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the final thing is probably the most important thing that gets in the way of change, is fear of the unknown, uncertainty of the future.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: By its nature, creates anxiety.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: So those five things, right, get in the way of change.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Now, why would we want to why would we want you to understand that no desire to change gets is a barrier, feeling overwhelmed is a barrier, no reason to change is a barrier, expecting me to be fast and being afraid are the main things that get in the way of change.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: The reason we want to share this with you is when you understand that it opens the door for change.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: It really invites change, it helps you seek it a lot clearly.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: And yet their hesitancy to the program really uncovers all of the reasons that you've identified, those five things, for not wanting to change.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: So the very thing that gets them to need to change is the things that's getting them to resist the change effort.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: It is, and the great irony is our brains and our cerebral, you know, our frontal lobe and the way our brains function, we're built for change.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're built to adapt, learn, and grow, you know, because we have large brains.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: And but yet for some reason we resist this stuff to have to have more comfort, so we can get routines, and that that creates extinction.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: It eventually creates extinction.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: What I hear often is it's almost like it's a fear of changing from what I know today, because even though today's not comfortable, even though today is causing me a lot of grief, I know it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_04: And to switch to the unknown is causing me more anxiety than to stay in the suffering that I know today.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't know.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I've heard that expressed.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh right.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no kidding.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: I wonder where this fits in for you, Sam.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: I find when people don't know the very next step, when it's not clear to them, you talked a little bit about this, right?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_04: They revert back to that behavior.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_04: So it's almost like I'm obsessing over outcomes, and I never identify the behavior that actually produces them.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: With good or bad.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, what I see a lot is I see guys that were successful in sales, right?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then they reach uh sales management level and then a general sales management level and then a general manager level, right?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: So they're higher and they're comfortable with selling.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: So what I see is when things get difficult, right, instead of managing all the responsibilities they have and finding the key behaviors that drive the the the make sure you get your KPIs accomplished, what they do is they go to what's comfortable and they sell.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not gonna, it's a one-trick pony.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't just go to what you know because you feel good about that.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: You need to stretch yourself and you need to be able to, as you raise in, as you raise in prominence and leadership, your ability needs to be continue to grow with the promotions that you have.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And but I see a lot of people that are two and three and four levels up reduce themselves to what they used to do 15 years ago because they know how to do that, and it makes them feel good because they're busy.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it doesn't solve the problem.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: It really doesn't solve that problem.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you may feel comfortable, but you're not you're working hard, you feel comfortable, but you're not going to solve the problem.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: And this is found really when you understand the formula.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: What like I guess because I went to Georgia Tech, you know, or engineering school, everything's calculus and math.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: I've studied Cotter from Harvard and others, and there's this idea of organizational change and personal change.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: It really is a formula.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: Think about a quadratic equation with on the left side of the equation, you have this idea of change or the results you want in the future.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: And on the other side of the equation, you have the first thing you need to get the change you want is a bold vision.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: You need to have some clear, bold vision, but that still just on its own won't get you the change because you need to add to that new behavior, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: So bold vision plus new behavior, and then that may not get you the change you seek because you you got to have quick wins.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, you won't have the emotional fortitude and the engagement to continue the behavior, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you need quick wins to give you some kind of to fuel the fire, and then that still doesn't guarantee the change because you need to add to that accountability, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: So only after you have a bold vision, new identified behavior, quick wins, and accountability with tracking your progress and making and keeping commitments, that's going to produce the change.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: What's not going to produce the change is just having, well, yeah, I can do it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or like, you can do it.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, go, let's go.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: You can, you have all the things you need.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, no, you need to understand the mechanics of how change happens.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: Now, why we talk about this is because this is the really the origin of where CLEAR comes from.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: CLEAR is a change process based on COTR and others.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's based on years of experience, and it's based on science and the way people change behavior and improve performance.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And CLEAR is an acronym, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's an acronym for improvement.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's an execution process, an implementation process.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: You can call it whatever you want, but it's just a process to get better.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: And C stands for clarity around some goal, what you want to accomplish, getting as clear as humanly possible.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: In Cotter's formula, it would be bold vision, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the more clear you are, the better chances you have to accomplish the goal.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: But just being clear doesn't get you there because you need to add to that some kind of new behavior, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: We call that leverage, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: Some kind of root behavior that drives the goal.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: And we like to say find the root behavior, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: Find the right root behavior and do that to accomplish the goal.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: So the goal, clarity around the goal, C is what you want to accomplish.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: Now, the lever is L, which is how you're going to accomplish the goal.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: This is what specifically you're going to do that's going to make the goal happen, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: But then you need to add engagement to that, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: You need to reason why you're accomplishing the goal.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is found in quick wins, right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Resolve, motivation, purpose, all that kind of stuff, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're not engaged, no involvement, no commitment, right?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you're all in, we like to say everyone counts.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we like to say be all in all the time.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: We like to say be all in all the time with engagement or understand why you're accomplishing the goal.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then we add to that when you're going to accomplish the goal.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: This is accountability.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone counts and everyone's counting.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: This is tracking your progress.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: So usually when you know what to do with clarity, you know how to do it with leverage, you know why, you have a compelling motivation why you're doing it with engagement, and you have accountability, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: When you're going to accomplish it, you either accomplish it or you don't.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's our results.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: You either get the result you wanted or you don't.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: If you get the result you wanted, we celebrate.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: So oftentimes we'll work so hard to accomplish a huge objective, and then we don't celebrate.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: We just go to the next thing, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then we grind on people to produce results.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: We got to celebrate, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's a big miss.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: And the other miss is when you don't accomplish the goal, you know, the whole world ends.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, guess what?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't end.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: You don't accomplish the goal.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: The most important thing to learn is what did you, why did you fail?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Why did you, what was the failure that that happened?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: What was the error in my accountability?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: What was I not doing that I should have done to give me the results that I wanted?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: This is the idea of learning, adjusting, and improving and getting better, right?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is the application of learning why you failed and adjusting so you can win next time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you start over at the beginning with clear.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: So so R stands for where is it going to take you?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: So an easy way to remember clear is what do you want to do, how are you gonna do it, why you're doing it, when you're gonna get it done, and where it's gonna take you.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: That explains clear.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: And by the way, it matches Cotter's stuff perfectly.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Now, the equation may not be perfectly aligned to spell out clear, but we like this word clear because people who fail usually aren't clear.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: They're not clear on what to do, they're not clear on how to do it, they're not clear on when to get it done, they're not clear on what's in it for them, the motivation for them, and they're not tracking it clearly, making progress, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I know I talked for a lot there, but it's just a simple way to do an overview on what clear is, what it means, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: So can't heard from that much today.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a great framing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I agree, but Kent, you've been in performance improvement industries for decades.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: How have you seen this stuff in your career?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what's interesting?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Without a methodology or a process to follow, what we end up saying is work harder, work smarter, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that just completely alienates people, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am working harder.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't work harder.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And work smarter, I don't even know what that means, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so by really having a methodology or process, we can go back again and again.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what is what we're really trying to do?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we trying to do it?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a piece that people don't spend enough time on.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this important?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: That vision, really catching the vision, and why is it important?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then having a way where we're very consistently at a minimum on a weekly basis talking about how are we doing it, pulling those levers, how are we doing it, taking those actions.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, holding people accountable.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: When we do is something as simple as that, it's amazing how that alone dramatically improves performance and more importantly, improves how people feel about it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're making progress, we're having success, we're winning again.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So many times we've had clients that have said to us, we just need to find a way to win again.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what we say is pick the one or two things.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally on the phone yesterday with the CEO of Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing in the United States, and we were talking about this very thing, this coaching for hundreds of leaders.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, So, what you're telling us, we need to identify one or two things that we really want to go after with this.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, precisely.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not a hundred things, not a thousand things, but what are the one or two things we're really going to go after?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And why are they important?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll apply all the other part of the process and methodology.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of setting a stake in the ground.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Can't get better at everything all at once, but one or two things.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I've seen have so much impact in all the hundreds of organizations that three of us have worked with over the last 20, 25, 30 years.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's interesting you say this because when you have 10 goals, I think the data tells us that the more goals you have, the greater the probability of you not accomplishing those goals.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, like if you have one goal, if you focus on one thing, if you're, you know, what's it with within your control, the likelihood of you achieving that one thing is pretty high, nearly 100%.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: As soon as you go to two goals at the same time, by the way, it's a different landing one plane at a time is different than having 10 goals you're trying to do at once.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: But like if you're trying to do it all at once, as soon as you go to two goals, the likelihood of you achieving that with excellence drops to 50%.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: If you go to three goals or more, or three goals, it goes to under 30%.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: And if you go to four goals and you're trying to do four things at the same time, the likelihood of you achieving those goals with excellence goes to zero.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: It like it completely diminishes.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like when I explain this to people, it's like trying to text and drive with excellence together.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't do it.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Your brain, you're gonna do one well and do the other.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you text well, you're gonna kill somebody, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't do it, you can't do both.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: The way our brains are wired, we can't do two things simultaneously at the same time with absolute devotion and excellence and focus.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Our minds are only able to focus on one single thing at a time.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: But then you say, What about multitasking?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody's a good multitasker.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, there's no such thing as quality multitasking.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, it is dynamic, it's rapid single tasking that appears to be multitasking, right?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: So what's happening is people that are multitasking are really just rapidly single tasking, and they do it with such efficiency, they perceive people perceive them to be great multitaskers.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think of this, Rick?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I mean, first off, vague goals create vague outcomes, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_04: And this is what we really talk about is getting that clarity on there.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: And the deck says, and Kent, you're always very good at bringing the deck, so I'm gonna take a page out of your notebook.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_04: So for those that see it on video, I'm just holding up the card on taking clear action.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_04: The deck says clarity is what you're gonna accomplish, and if people can see it, they can do it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: So goal setting research has consistently shown us if you've got a specific challenging goal that's gonna outperform a vague one, including at a group level, not just individual level.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so this is what I see all the time is the first real effort is to get clarity.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: When we used to do lots of deep Six Sigma work, one of the expressions we would say is a problem well defined is half solved.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_04: And when the definition is really clear, we find that execution throughout that problem happens very fast.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: So here's kind of like a key line that I always think of.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: My brain does not move well towards fog and moves well towards that target.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: And so I always want to keep that target front and center in my mind, because then that allows my brain's natural energy to move towards that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's great you say that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think what I tell people all the time is what makes people weary isn't hard work.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Hard work doesn't make you weary.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: What makes you weary is the fog, not seeing, not seeing how to accomplish the outcome.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: But if you're just working your butt off and you don't know the impact of that effort, you don't know what it's gonna have, that's where people get demoralized, unmotivated, and they give up, they quiet quit, like Kent would say.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: But like fog really lack of clarity in the fog really messes with people's productivity and improving performance over time.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, give even a high performer a task that the next step isn't clear, watch how long they procrastinate.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's just natural to us because we're not wired that way.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: That's so true.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this reminds me of so many examples, so many stories, but James Kern's book, The Atomic Habits, talked about Olympic athletes, and that always interests the Olympics just happened a few weeks ago in Paris, and he said that what differentiates Olympic athletes from every other kind of athlete is that Olympic athletes are able to do the same task over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, with better consistency, with more effort, energy.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get full, you know.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Me, I've done it ten times.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's enough.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they do it 10,000 times, a million times, literally, you know, to get really great at this.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's kind of what we're talking about is identifying what are those few key things we're gonna work on and get really great at those.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really the way the brain was meant to operate.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the brain really wants to do all things, all the fun, you know, all things all at one time.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: At least that's what we let it do.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It does room credibly well when we train it to say, okay, yeah, that's interesting, but have I done this well, or am I doing this with excellence today, right?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever this is.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you think about the great Chuck Chick was founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not far from where I live.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of miles, but not far.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really close to where Sam went to college.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's as simple as when you ask them to refill your drink, they say, it's my Pleasure.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they just beat that simple drum of they're glad to serve you.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're glad to make a difference.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a huge difference.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, frankly, I don't like their chicken sandwiches better than anybody else's.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I like Popeyes better personally.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the customer service experience at Chick-fil-A is absolutely phenomenal.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's as simple as in every customer interaction are we letting them know, hey, we're delighted to be here.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're grateful to serve you.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's my pleasure to do this.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make it too hard.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: All of these different things that end up being too much for the brain to really function on well consistently.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: I was just going to add to that.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I agree, you know, we know the goal is the outcome.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: We know what we want to achieve.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: The lever is the root behavior that produces the outcome.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: So this is where I think you know coaching comes on strong because it kind of moves people away from wishes and towards what's the controllable action?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like, what is it that you can do that actually is going to have an impact on the goal?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's that root behavior.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: So the way I articulate this is hope is not a strategy.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like you need to have you need to have a strategic focus around behavior is going to drive the outcome.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's harsh and cold and direct.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm sorry, leaders are paid and promoted for performance.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: And we always need to understand that the human resource is the most valuable of all resources.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's wonderful because it can creatively think and actively meet new situations and do what computers can't do, and it can lead other people and do wonderful things, but hope is not a strategy.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be able to produce results.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And if you don't, your job is at risk.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: Period.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm it doesn't matter what you do.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, Sam, you gave an interesting example of landing an airplane.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: And it's funny when I talk to many organizations about what role do you think you have?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_04: And overwhelmingly, people say they're firefighters, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: And that firefighting energy gets them intensely focused on the one thing.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: But I would argue both firefighters and air traffic controllers have a single point of goal orientation, and yet the air traffic controllers realize I've got to do that one plane at a time excellently, and then I can clear the field, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: Where firefighters go in and they just kind of spray everywhere, hoping that they can manage the situation.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's fascinating about that too is if you talk to people that are actual firefighters for a living, you know, that drive around the red trucks with the hoses, et cetera, they don't think that way at all.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: They don't think they're prepared, they have their equipment in order, and after every event, what could we have done differently?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's fascinating.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: The real firefighters don't think of themselves just as firefighters.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're really they're really the job of prevention.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they do all of this training and talking to people in meetings groups about preventing it and keeping it from happening.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's once the thing's on fire, you got a real problem.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting that the actual group that does firefighting for a living doesn't think of themselves in that way and don't think, oh, that's all we do, right?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a piece of what they do.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: And that's a good clarification.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_04: We don't mean to disparage that it's just those people in an organization that have that mindset.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, no, absolutely.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: To your point, actually don't behave like how firefighters behave.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, back in the days when I did lots of lean training, I'd actually bring corporate executives to a fire hall so they could see it in action.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like, here's how you operationalize continuous improvement.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we started this kind of podcast with this idea that if you want to improve performance, you know, you have to overcome some barriers to get in the way of change.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then we did a quick review of CLEAR, which is our version of a process to improve performance based on science and psychology and other things that improves performance.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: But but in the end, we know that it's a process and it takes a moment, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't just magically appear because of wonderful manifestations, right?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: There needs to be a process to improve.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it all begins, and we'll talk about this in our next podcast, it really begins with clarity around a goal.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't have a goal, you're not gonna make progress.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, and a lot of people like to hide behind 20 goals or no goals, because then they don't have to be accountable for those results.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: And but if you have a clear objective, it makes all the difference.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: And understanding that it's gonna take a moment to really shift your behavior and your routines and find the right lever and find the right reason to do it and track it in a way that's inspiring, that doesn't leave scars, that gives you the results you want.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's really in understanding this process and using that process as a diagnostic tool to say, okay, where are we falling short?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Are we not clear on the goal?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do we don't have the right lever?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Are people not engaged?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: Are we not tracking the progress we want to make?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: What kind of KPIs do we have?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: And what what results are we getting that we want to improve upon?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like you look at it like a mechanic would look at an OBD, what do they call it?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: OBD device that they put in your car, and it gives you a diagnostic readout of your car to tell you whether your engine's running smoothly or whether you're whether the electronics in your car are working or whatever.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: Clear can be a great diagnostic tool and a coaching tool to help people improve performance if we understand where the breakdown is.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: It can make all the difference.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: Ken, tell me about you know some of your experience when we've applied this framework to organizations.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_04: What are some of the shifts you start to see them go through?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the shifts that's a really important shift, and we'll talk a lot more about this in the future, is that we are going to identify the goal and what we are going to do about it.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we are going to figure out the levers and we are going to take ownership of this.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a we thing, not a Moses coming down from the mountains with the 10 commands, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're going to work on this together, we're going to figure this out together, and we're going to identify, all right, here's the goal we're going after, here's why it's important.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this we thing, and then on a weekly basis, what we want to hear from people is what did you do about what you said you would do, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not me, you know, it's not me having to grind on you.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just simply what'd you say you were going to do?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did you do it?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: How did it go?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you need help?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing next?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as that.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so many times leaders, I remember as a young leader decades ago thinking, I need to know the answer to everything.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was very scary because everyone that worked for me was older than I was, had been with the organization longer than I had been there.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, how am I going to have all the answers?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I studied and prepared, and I finally realized they have the answers.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be asking them.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they would go, What, you want to know what I think?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I remember telling a guy on a machine one time at Kimberly Clark who had been there 25 years.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been there two and a half months.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, college boy, what do you think?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, how long have you worked on this machine?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, 25 years.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, So you have a PhD in this equipment.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: How could I possibly ever tell you?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'll forget more about this machine than I'll ever know.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: So how about if you tell me?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was blown away.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, What?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Of course I want to know because I don't know.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't do it because I was so smart.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I I knew I didn't know.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was the guy that knew.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if I tried to make up the answer, we'd all be in trouble.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what I love about this, Ken, is the principle of no involvement, no commitment, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: And we like to, clear performance coaching, we like to help people co-create the goals, involve the people in goal creation because there's this weird dynamic.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: When you assign someone their goal and you tell them how to do their goal, they're accomplished their goal, they go off and do it.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: And when they fail, they blame you.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: But when you when you co-create it with them and you involve them and you use best ideas, right, their buy-in goes through the roof, and your ability to achieve your goal is huge.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: And this idea of co-creating the goal with them, learning from them as much as you're teaching them.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: This is these are coaching ideas, coaching concepts, coaching methodology that can be very, very helpful.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things I say to senior leaders a lot, and some of them get pretty perturbed when I say this, is there's no my team, my goal, my this.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's our, our, our.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our team, our goal, our activity.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you say it's my, my, my, my, then they're like, hey, good luck with that, right?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're implicitly saying it's all about you instead of our team, our goal, our behaviors, our whatever.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've seen so many times the best leaders will say when we failed it was my fault and we did well, we did it, right?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's so much to be said for that.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: If we fail, what how did I fail the team?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: What could I have done differently?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when we win, hey, look at the team, look at what the team did, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we see again and again.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: The teams, teams that were kind of bent over with failure and despair, and we haven't, we can't get anything right around here, too.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But they're kind of standing a little more erect, they're walking with a little kind of energy in their step, and they're just excited to share, here's what we've been doing, here's how we're winning, and here's how we're when it becomes us and we, etc.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I remember years ago, years ago, at the end of the NBA season in the United States, the announcer says, It's kind of funny because we had a team, and I won't say the team, that at the beginning of the season everyone thought would take it away.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: They had the five best starting guys on the floor, period, bar none, and they had a horrible season.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and one of the announcers said, it's because you had five millionaires playing, not a team.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it was every man for himself, every man doing his part.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can't play the game of basketball or soccer or anything else well as a team if it's just one person.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: One person can't play all the positions and do all the things, right?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: One may be a little more out front for that reason, but we've got to have everybody doing their part.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_04: I used to say you can either have a team of champions or a championship team, right?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: And that's what you're talking about.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_04: If we think about landing this plane as that analogy, you know, the only thing I'd add is, and you said it in the beginning, I think it's important to circle back.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: Performance isn't about pushing harder.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we've got a framework about five things that working together, the clarity, the leverage, the engagement, accountability, and results, when that's together, you truly see this human performance system that that you know we've mapped out actually in action.
• 33:12
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, the thing that I would I and I think we ought to say this again and again to people is we've seen this work hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times in hundreds of different kinds of organizations, large and small.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't something we made up, it's something we've learned by hard, you know, trial and error about what really works.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's fascinating uh with Loram yesterday.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Loram is this huge railroad maintenance company that's Rick's client, and I was the VP of operations was on a coaching call we did, and I at the end, you know, we're nine weeks into this process exactly with the first set of teams, and you know, we're not at 100%, we're probably more like 70%, right?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and so there was a little down-in-the-mouth stuff about that.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have a call later about today, and I said, But here's what I want you to think about nine or ten weeks into any other thing you've ever done in the past, would be people even be able to remember what it was, much less report on a consistent basis about what they're doing.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, exactly.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and and immediately VP of Operations said, Hey, I just want to chime in on that.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing what you guys have done, amazing what's happening.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not 100%, but we're seeing so much progress and so much action out on the machines with what people are doing nine or ten weeks in.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing we've ever done before that people can even remember nine or ten weeks in that we were doing it at any grand scale.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Little pockets of excellence.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Pockets of excellence don't win for an organization, it's everybody doing it together.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, but man, think about when you get 50, 60, 70% involvement, it's incredible what happens.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible what happens.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Final thoughts, Sam?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: No, I just again, this whole thing's a process, it doesn't happen overnight, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I will tell you this there's a reason we call this clear, clear performance coaching, right?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because the fog is the enemy.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because when people aren't clear, they hesitate, they don't take action, they do nothing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: And when they are clear, they're a lot more likely to achieve the outcome.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: But it begins with clarity around the goal.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we'll talk about that next time.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: But again, things don't just magically appear.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you might be good at sketching things and drawing.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: And occasionally in your spare time, you draw.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: You sketch.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: Let me tell you what doesn't happen.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: 30 years later, you don't become Leonardo da Vinci, you don't become one of the great artists of all time because you didn't wake up early and you didn't go to bed late and you didn't draw and paint.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't do the things that made you what the masters do.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't pay the price because you didn't pay the price around the right levers to become a master artist.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so often we're taught that if we just go with the flow and accept goodness and that we're gonna achieve some great level of performance.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: You got to make that happen with your actions.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: You got to control your thinking, narrow your focus, behave in such a way to accomplish your objectives.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you do that over your lifetime, making incremental improvements.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: It has an exponential impact in your life.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_03: So we are very passionate about this process and what the benefits it brings to all human beings.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not just whether you work in the private sector or for-profit or nonprofit organizations or in healthcare, like it doesn't, none of it matters whether you work in government, it doesn't, none of that matters because it's all principle-based.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: So we're excited to continue to share with you these concepts that can make a gigantic difference in your life.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: So a good way to finish it because we're gonna dive deeper into improving performance on the next episode.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you for sticking with us.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: We look forward to chatting with you soon.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: Bye bye now.