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Admitting It Isn't Agreeing With It · The Lagging Team

0:00
Nicole Morris: Actually, got some feedback
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from a leader recently that they weren't feeling comfortable with
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where things were. Yeah, they were absolutely right to feel
0:10
that way
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because I hadn't given them the tools that they needed
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to have the visibility into progress,
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Nicole Morris: and
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and you know, in the back of your mind, like I kind of knew,
0:24
right?
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Devon Morris: This is The Lagging Team.
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Devon Morris: Falling behind is a position, not a verdict. Every
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week, we work to change that outcome.
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Listen to what she didn't do.
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She did not defend it. She didn't explain why the leader
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had it wrong, and she also didn't decide she was actually
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failing. She said they're right.
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She then got off that call and called her own leadership and
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told them what she needed to actually fix
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it. This right here, that particular move,
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most of us don't even think about making. We're too busy
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passing the actual blame, and it's because we think that it's
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a different move than what it really truly
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is. See, somebody somewhere is on a team that's behind right
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now.
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The room is split where that team is at.
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Everybody's standing in their own corners, one camp is
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thinking it's not fair. The label doesn't actually fit. You
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don't know what this team is really dealing with. They push
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back. They protect the team. The other camp, stop being
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defensive. Own it. Call it what it actually is.
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But hey, be fair to both of them because
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both their probably instincts are decent at best.
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One loyalty, one is
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honesty, right? Most of us have been in one
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of those camps, but I'm gonna assume that most of us have been
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in both of those camps sometimes in the same week, but notice
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what both of them are arguing about the actual label, whether
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it fits, whether it's fair.
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Nobody in either camp has gone and really checked everything
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out.
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See, this is The Lagging Team, falling behind is a position,
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not a verdict. I'm Dr. Devon Morris, and this right here is a
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Sidebar. See, on Tuesdays I sit down with somebody.
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On Thursdays, I take
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one thing that they said and go
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all the way in on it. Today,
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it's two words we treat like they're the same:
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acknowledge and agree.
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See, here's the deal:
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on Tuesday, my guest Nicole Lynn Morris, who full disclosure
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that's my wife, I told you all at that particular time,
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has spent what 17 years running implementations, and is the
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founder of Labels Be Gone. She has a book. She's done a bunch
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of amazing things. See, I opened that conversation with the
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premise: a team gets called behind long before anybody
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proves it, and I still believe that actually happens. But her
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first
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right pushback
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happened during that conversation, and you know what?
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I can say this: she was right. If deliverables are actually not
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being met on time,
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then from my perspective as a as a client facing PM, the team is
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is behind. There there's no way to shape. And I should have said
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it first, right? Because sometimes a team that's behind
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is behind.
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The deliverable is actually late, and no amount of
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messaging, no amount of anything is going to change that from
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being late. See, my premise was about the label arriving just
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too early, right?
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I let it sound like the label was usually wrong.
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Is
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it? It's usually unchecked. Is the problem unchecked? You kept
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hearing in that conversation why, why, why? Let's go check
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why. Let's go figure out some.
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Let's go check why. See, that's a different problem, and it's
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what the episode really hinged on.
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See,
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so here's the problem with a label that is fair.
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It's really the wrong argument if you're arguing if that label
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is fair, not because fairness doesn't matter, it truly does
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matter. A lot of people will feel some kind of way if they
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don't feel like they're being treated fairly, and I am
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absolutely one of those people, no doubt.
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The thing is, is that while in the room, you can argue about
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it, about whether that label is fair or not.
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Nobody's finding out whether it is true is the problem, right?
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Think about each camp
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and what they're supposed to do next. See that not fair camp
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spends the week proving that they're they're not behind.
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Sometimes the right thing, man, is just to own it. Just to own
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it. Spend a week proving that
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you can take that hit, right, and have the transparency to
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deal with
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it. Not a bunch of people performing in either one of
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those rooms. See,
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neither one of those camps actually opens the plan and
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takes a look.
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Was the expectation actually set right? Is the deliverable
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actually late?
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And against what?
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And here's the part that should land for most of you.
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The team that's busy proving it isn't behind has stopped
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checking whether it is truly behind. See, that's the real
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cost. And guess what? All that checking does absolutely nothing
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to help you deliver. It's time and attention going to an
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argument instead of the actual work itself.
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See, Nicole's had a phrase for this on Tuesday:
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proving through overvalidation, showing more, saying more,
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defending more. It feels like effort.
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It's effort pointed
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at the wrong thing is the problem.
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See, I asked Nicole what a team should do the moment that label
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lands.
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She runs a lot of large implementations, and you know,
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across a lot of departments that have a lot of different skills,
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and her answer wasn't what I expected.
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She said the first move is to take the risk and acknowledge
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what is actually happening. Embrace
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it. Embrace the perspective,
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it reduces
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the the automatic defensiveness.
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That's honest, man. That is honest, right? It's just kind of
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like whoa, that's refreshing. So what she really said to me was
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embrace
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it, not believe it. Embrace it, so you can actually stop
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defending it and start checking to see what is the reality.
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All right, so
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here's the part that I want to actually give you in that
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acknowledgement and agreement. We use them like one word. If I
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say that could be true, and you hear I agree,
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and if I agree, I'm admitting something
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about who we are.
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Acknowledging is about the situation itself.
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That could be true. Let's check. It's actually provisional. It's
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about the deliverable. This date, this plan. It ends when
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you've actually checked.
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Agree is about identity. Yeah,
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we're the behind team,
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Man,
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no matter how you put that, that feels final.
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It's about who you are, and it doesn't end when the work
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actually gets fixed. Is the problem? They're really two
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different statements, and because we hear the first one as
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the second, we refuse to make either one of them actually
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true.
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See,
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might just step back for a moment, right,
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and think about the work that I've been close to.
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Defensiveness is what happens when acknowledging and agreeing.
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Lapse into one word.
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If saying that could be true means accepting a verdict on who
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I am, then of course I will not say it to you. I'm not going to.
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Nobody would in their own right mind. Refusing is an absolute
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rational move, especially for a lot of you all that ain't about
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to get fired, right? And that's why teams and leaders fight
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labels they could have checked in a few minutes in an
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afternoon. It's not stubbornness, y'all. It really
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isn't. It's the only door into checking,
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Into looking like you just made a confession.
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See, if you separate the two or the the two of them, the actual
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door opens up, and you can say out loud in front of them that
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could be true without saying that's what we are.
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Two different things. See Nicole's sequence on Tuesday is
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exactly this: in order, acknowledge first, bam, get it
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out the way, y'all. Then fairly assess: is this actually
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accurate? If it is, it is
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what it is. So why,
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and what do we need to do to fix
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it? And if not, what's the message, and who needs to
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actually hear it? See, the type of efforts that Nicole deal with
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could have a huge impact on people and their health if they
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don't actually deliver, see that's not a world that I play
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in. It's not,
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but late delivery for them could end up being somebody dying.
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So I want you to notice the sequence,
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and what that sequence never asks. It never asks, "Is this
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fair?" It only asks if this is true.
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Does that make sense?
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You got to make sure that you make those things clear. Okay.
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Now here's the deal.
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On Tuesday, right, Nicole walked through four leaders, right,
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that come into a room, the expert, the strong one, the
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peacemaker, the overachiever. We looked at it from her own
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personal perspective. I asked her which one is the most
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expensive for a team to work under, and she said
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the strong one.
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Because when you're projecting strength, you're afraid to
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acknowledge the actual risk that actually exists.
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See, put that next to today's pair. See, to the strong one,
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acknowledging feels like agreeing. That could be true
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sounds like I'm not strong, so the strong one can't say that.
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And she told us what the team does instead. They
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push through, right? They they deliver, right? And then her
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words. That's when turnover spikes, burnout spikes, right?
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I would say a bunch of defects may show up. A lot of things may
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probably go wrong as well. See, the person with the most power
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to separate those two words is often the one least able to,
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because their whole role is built on never saying
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that could be
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true.
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That's why nobody sees it. The leader isn't hiding anything.
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They just can't make the one move that would let anybody
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actually check.
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Anybody check.
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Then here's the deal.
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I asked her about the difference between a team that's behind and
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a team that's always behind, I want you to hear that wording,
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right? A team that's behind and a team that's always behind.
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Nicole Morris: So, in the instance where there's a perception that a team
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is always behind,
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it's probably true.
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But then the question becomes that from from my perspective,
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then that's not about the team. That's about the leader.
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Devon Morris: Hmm. Listen to that. It's probably true,
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and not about the team.
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Hold both of those at once. That's acknowledging without
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actually agreeing.
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So here's the deal.
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Once again,
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you got to go back to the work. The
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deliverable actually slipped. Check it, fix it, done.
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What else needs to be said?
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Always, it's about leadership, y'all.
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If the same team is behind on the same kind of deliverable
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quarter after quarter after quarter after quarter, she's
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saying the label is probably accurate, and the question
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moves upstairs.
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What does this team not have?
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What are they not being told?
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Is it even the right team, though? See, her detail that
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matters asks the people doing the work, not the people leading
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it. That's a different vantage point. Do you understand?
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Different answers will come from those places, and so always
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behind is the
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one label you should acknowledge the fastest, because it's the
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one most likely to be telling you something about yourself,
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especially if you're the dang on leader.
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Now, here's the thing:
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a few things before you get back to work.
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None of these cost you any money. None of these you should
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need any permission for, right? So,
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one. Here's the deal. Next time somebody says your team is
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behind, before you defend, before you agree, say that could
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be true.
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Let me check. That's it, out loud in the room.
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Watch what it does to the temperature. See, nobody can
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agree, can can nobody can argue, right? With let me check, they
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just can't argue it, right? I'm gonna get back to you. Let me go
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check that out.
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Now here's the deal.
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Number two.
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What are we checking here? Because you got to check
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something.
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First, is it accurate?
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Second, if it is, why and what do we need to do? What do you
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need to do to fix it? Be ready to say what you need at that
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point.
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If it isn't, then what's the message, and who needs to
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actually hear that message? Usually, it's somebody that's a
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couple levels up
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beyond this team. Now, do yourself a favor. Write down
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those answers.
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That's the whole difference between checking and arguing.
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You ain't got to argue. Just go check. Number three, turn one
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declaration into a question. See, Nicole's line on Tuesday
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was walk into the meeting and make the statements that are
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less declarative and more curious.
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Pick one status statement that you normally make flat. Where
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we're on track,
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that one's not on us, and ask instead
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what would tell
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us we're not on track.
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See, a declarative invites a challenge.
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A curious question invites a check.
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That's the third pair,
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and it's the one
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that makes the other two
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easy.
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See, here's the deal, right?
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You are in a situation
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where
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I could actually be wrong.
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It could be me.
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I'm not in every environment,
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and and here's the deal: if I am wrong,
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the only way I would know if I'm wrong is that you check it and
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you let me know that I'm wrong.
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Don't you know? Don't just think yourself. Don't
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do one of those moves. Any one of them, right? Say
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that could be true. Let me check,
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and then three things that come back from that:
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the room cools down,
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you get time to actually check. Good.
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That move is actually working at that point.
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The check says you're really behind. Fine.
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You found out in a day instead of in a quarter, and now you can
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say what you need, and that
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that's still
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a good working move.
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See, the acknowledgement gets used against you at times. You
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say that could be true, and it shows up in a review as an
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admission, that's the one that would make me wrong.
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And Nicole named it herself. Some environments aren't safe to
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be behind in. I've been in those kind of environments. In that
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room, acknowledging is agreeing, because the system
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treats it that way. The fix isn't team's honesty at that
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point.
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It's the room,
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and that's a leadership conversation,
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not a move on Monday or Tuesday. Okay.
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What you have to understand here is that falling behind is a
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position, not a verdict, and a lot of teams are stuck in that
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position right now. Not because they're behind, but because
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nobody in a room can say that could be true without it
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sounding like a confession. See, acknowledging is about a
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situation; agreeing is about who you are. And as long as we hear
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them as the same exact word, we'll spend our time defending a
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label instead of checking to see what's truly going on. So next
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time the word lands, man, don't fight it. Don't even take it on.
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Admitting it isn't agreeing with it. Say it could be true, and
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then go find out. Remember the words. Let me check.
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See if you want to talk about this
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on one of your teams and how your team looks in regards to
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this. I want you to go to thelaggingteam.com/start. That's
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thelaggingteam
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.com/start. This right here is a Sidebar. Now you know where
21:31
to look.
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Thank you for joining us. Where every Tuesday and Thursday
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we work toward bridging the gap for teams that are behind.