Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / How High-Performing Creatives Get Stuck with Stacey Bailey (stage 3) - Ep. 396

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How High-Performing Creatives Get Stuck with Stacey Bailey (stage 3) - Ep. 396 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

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  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again
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  to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that
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  grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a
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  founder, I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today's episode
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  centers on all those high achieving founders out there,
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  creatives, dreamers, visionaries and the like, who are really
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  good at what they do. You know who I'm talking about? You know,
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  if this is you like you just crush it. And as the team around
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  you starts to grow, as you start bringing more people into the
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  fold, the problem starts to pop up that it just seems like no
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  one else can keep up. They don't think like you, they don't act
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  like you, they don't make decisions like you. They don't
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  work the hours that you do. And all of this starts to grow, and
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  as the organization gets bigger, so does the frustration of
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  trying to keep everyone moving in the same direction. Now
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  here's the bad news, that the very thing that made you
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  successful is also the very thing that's likely to sabotage
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  you at this level, as a leader, you can't out craft your way
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  through a people problem, and most creative founders learn
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  that the hard way. But the good news is that Stacey Bailey is
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  here with us today. Stacy is a leadership coach, strategist and
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  facilitator who helps entrepreneurs and creative
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  leaders to build businesses with heart. She's a system and soul
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  implementer and a dare to lead certified professional who
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  brings more than 15 years of experience in leadership and
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  operations within the creative services industry today, through
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  the intention collective Stacy partners with founders and
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  leadership teams of creative agencies generating one to 15
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  million in revenue to build scalable values driven
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  businesses. Her expertise includes leadership development,
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  operational alignment and strategic planning, and she has
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  successfully supported organizations through private
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  equity transitions, B Corp certification and international
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  expansion. Stacy, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.
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  Would love to just dive in right out of the gate creative agent.
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  You work a lot in the creative agency space, and I have found
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  that this level is particularly hard for folks like that.
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  They've they've hired their first handful of people, and
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  there it's something not right. What's going on here?
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  Stacey Bailey: Well, thanks for having me, Scott. You know,
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  usually these folks got into their roles because they were
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  great at their craft. And then, you know, we get more people in,
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  and they are like, Why can't these people do this the way
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  that I do this? And usually they've elevated themselves into
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  a little bit of a pickle, right? So what we tend to find is that
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  we've got founders who are makers, and they go, I can't
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  take it all. I've been doing all of it for too long, and I'm
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  exhausted. But now I don't quite know how to convey clearly what
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  good looks like, what excellent looks like, how I want these
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  people to elevate in their craft, so that I can let go of
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  the reins a little bit.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, I think one of the things that makes
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  this hard is that for high performers who have the style,
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  makeup, guts to go out and start their own thing with all the
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  risk that comes with that, they tend to also be the type of
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  folks who don't really like to be managed a whole lot and and
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  so one of the things that I think they do is impose that
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  view on others as well. Do you see that happening in the
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  creative space?
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  Stacey Bailey: Absolutely, these people started businesses
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  because they didn't want to work for someone else, right? And
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  they then they are saying, well, you need to go and be as
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  entrepreneurial as I am, but those people aren't accepting
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  the risk or the reward of being that entrepreneurial, because
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  they work for you, right? So what we find is that the biggest
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  trick is getting these leaders to be really clear about
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  expectations and about what they actually want, because they just
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  go and do and they don't know how to communicate.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think it's a
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  particularly big challenge in spaces like creative agencies,
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  because the the barriers to entry are so low that anyone who
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  is kind of even close to thinking about one day starting
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  their own like they'll just go and do it, or at least give it a
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  shot. And so what that means is you have a lot of people who who
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  have the opportunity to do it and choose to work for someone
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  else instead. That's very, very telling. And, and so you have,
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  you know, this group who can do it on their own, want to do it
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  on their own, love doing it on their own, who've brought in a
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  bunch of people who don't want to do it on their own. And, and
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  it feels like we're talking at each other, even past each
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  other. How have you found founders in that place? How can
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  they start to change the way that they communicate, to bring
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  the best out of their people?
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  Stacey Bailey: It all starts with actually having a vision,
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  right? Like a lot of these founders come in and they are
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  creating lifestyle businesses, which is great, right? Like
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  they're great at their craft. They've got enough clients to
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  support their the amount of money that they want to make,
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  and then maybe they get more. And so then they bring in team,
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  and then all of a sudden, they have a company that is bigger
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  than they ever anticipated. That happens all the time, especially
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  in this creative space. So getting founders and their teams
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  to get really clear on what is the vision about what are we
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  doing here? Why are we doing this? Are we trying to create a
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  lifestyle business? Are we trying to scale this business?
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  Do we want to be the best at what right? Once we can get
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  really clear on that, everything else tends to start to fall into
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  place where then you start to see all of the players on the
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  board and what their unique geniuses are, and how it ladders
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  up, but that tends to be the pivot point between everyone
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  being in a raft, kind of rowing in opposite directions, and
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  creating struggle and strife to let's all be in the same boat,
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  in the same direction, paddling with each other. And it's all
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  goes down to that vision first.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Are there right and wrong visions?
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  Stacey Bailey: Oh, great question. I think that a vision
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  is only as good as everyone's commitment to it. So if you set
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  a vision that your team is not about, then it's not going to
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  work, and you're either going to need to get a new team or a new
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  vision. But as long as the vision is something that the
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  founder believes in and can buy into and can galvanize the rest
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  of the squad around. I think that anything like that is worth
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  pushing things forward, and a vision can be reset and recast.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. So one of the
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  things that's interested me, we've actually met before, which
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  is a lot of fun. I don't get to meet a lot of my guests before
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  we we chat, but dare to lead, and the certification that Brene
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  and her team have put together is fantastic. How do you bring
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  that into this entrepreneurial space?
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  Stacey Bailey: So we find that leadership teams, or newly
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  forming leadership teams, if they don't exist yet, they tend
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  to have a lot of trust issues. They wouldn't describe it that
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  way. They would say, we trust each other to get the work done,
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  or we trust each other if there was an emergency to have each
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  other's back, right? But the way that Brene Brown's dare to lead
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  breaks down the elements of trust around this braving
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  acronym, around boundaries and reliability and all these
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  things. Once we really break that down, people go, oh yeah,
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  we've got, we've got some trust issues, right? And that goes
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  back to Patrick lencionis, five dysfunctions of a team, you
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  know? And so a lot of it is around trust, communication,
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  vulnerability and leadership. And in these creative
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  businesses, you have a lot of people who are actually pretty
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  vulnerable, because creatives tend to have a lot more exposed
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  feelings,
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  Scott Ritzheimer: yeah?
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  Stacey Bailey: Then you know, more technical folks, and that's
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  great, but we have to, like, surface those, name those, work
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  through those. So we use, you know, dare to lead training to
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  help leadership teams develop the trust, the language and the
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  communication to really build on so that all of the strategic
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  planning work can actually be accomplished.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: You said that they lack trust, but wouldn't
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  call it that. What do they call it? What are some of the
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  symptoms of a team that's lacking trust?
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  Stacey Bailey: So, you know, often they will say, Well, we,
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  you know, we're, everybody's working hard, but we're not
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  getting it done. It's like, okay, well, that tends to come
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  back to like trust, but they are like, I trust that they're
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  working hard, right? So they're not labeling it that way. Or
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  it's that we disagree and we can't come up with how to agree,
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  or I don't feel comfortable saying the hard truth to the
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  founder, even though it's holding us all back, right? So
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  sometimes they actually think of it as like I'm being respectful,
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  because I'm and I'm being nice, but I'm not being kind. I'm not
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  saying what needs to be said so that we can be a team that is
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  fully functioning in our truth.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, it almost sounds like you're saying
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  that not being that being nice could actually take tear down
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  Trust, which is probably breaking a few people's minds at
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  the moment. So walk us through, how does that happen?
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  Stacey Bailey: So Brene Brown talks a lot about being kind,
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  not being nice, and so the way that I like to tell that story
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  is nice is, Scott, you have something in your teeth, and I'm
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  not going to tell you because I don't want you to feel
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  uncomfortable. But being kind is telling you you have something
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  in your teeth so that you don't look like a fool as you're
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  walking around, right? And I my interest in being nice is
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  actually for my own benefit, because I don't want to sit in
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  that discomfort versus kindness as being okay with the other
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  people having whatever feelings they're going to have, but you
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  have to say the truth so that we can all know what's going on.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah. And I think you nailed one of the key
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  tensions around why this is such a particular challenge in the
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  creative space, is that sometimes, if it's objective,
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  you have something in your teeth, but it's like that ad,
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  that art, that copy, that whatever, that's a little more
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  subjective and and what I've found is. Oftentimes when folks
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  are really good at something, they may be very good at
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  themselves, but not really able to articulate how to get there
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  or why. How do you help folks that are high performers in
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  their own right start to overcome that and actually turn
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  it into a strength?
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  Stacey Bailey: Man, feedback is something that we do not
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  practice right. Feedback is something it's a skill. It's its
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  own sort of art form. And you know, creatives who went to art
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  school got a lot of practice and feedback, giving critiques and
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  that, and they they, some of them have deep scars from it,
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  yeah, but when we get into the professional workplace, we just
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  don't get feedback in the same way. So that's something that we
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  work with folks a lot is thinking about feedback as a
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  gift, truly about how we think about giving people, you know,
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  in the moment, bad news best served, hot kind of feedback so
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  that we're not letting things linger and fester and we can
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  actually grow and develop it. So one of the things I love to
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  coach people, to do is to actually build it into their one
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  on ones. If they're a manager, it's like, I'm going to give you
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  feedback every one on one, and I want you to come and give me
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  feedback as your manager every one on one, because then we're
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  building a muscle of feedback. But that tends to be the weakest
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  part. People just don't give feedback because they want to be
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  nice. They don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but then no
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  one's elevating.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, one of the things that starts to take
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  shape at this level is that the There are formal team settings,
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  and then there are individual settings, and those start to
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  become increasingly separate when it comes to something like
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  feedback, or some of the trust conversations we talked about
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  earlier, how can a leader navigate which which forum to do
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  it in? How do you know if it's a one on one conversation or a
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  team conversation?
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  Stacey Bailey: I think anything that is going to elevate the
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  group should be given in the group setting, especially if
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  it's positive feedback that you're reinforcing, positive
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  behavior, positive outcomes that you want to keep seeing that
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  should always be in the group. If it's constructive or
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  sensitive or based on what you know about the person you're
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  giving feedback to, you think that they will receive it better
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  in that one on one setting, then you should always do do that. We
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  never want anyone to feel attacked, nor do we want to
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  build shame. Brene Brown talks a lot about shame as she is this
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  shame researcher, right? So a lot of that dare to lead is
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  around lowering our shame shields and our armor that build
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  up at work. And so when we get feedback, we have to be
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  conscientious of that, because we don't want people to armor up
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  and then they don't receive it. So anything that's going to feel
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  sensitive should be one on one. Anything that is elevating the
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  group should be in the group setting.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, that's really good. That's really good.
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  Stacy. There's a question that I have for you, and I want to make
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  sure after this week, we let folks know how they can get in
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  touch with you for more help. But before we get there, the
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  question is this, ask all my guests what, what is the biggest
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  secret you wish wasn't a secret at all. What's that one thing
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  you wish everybody watching or listening today knew
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  Stacey Bailey: as a leader, you do not need to have all the
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  answers. You don't even need to have half of the answers. You
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  need to provide clarity and kindness and help them. Them
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  being your team, or the people you're working with, come to
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  those conclusions themselves. I work with a lot of leaders who
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  are like, but I don't know the answers, and it makes me feel
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  less than like, I'm not equipped. It's like, but as
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  leaders, the best leaders don't know all of the answers they
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  have the team. Help them reveal the answers.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's interesting the
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  whole arc of that, because you go from doing everything
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  yourself, being everything yourself, having a couple of
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  helpers around you, to not even knowing everything yourself,
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  there's a lot of vulnerability in that, in and of itself. And
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  this isn't something that comes naturally. This I found for most
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  founders that, you know, most of us don't just kind of come out
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  of the gate, you know, ready to lead in this way. And you know,
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  vast majority of founders would benefit from someone walking
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  alongside them. Tell us, how can folks find more out about the
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  work that you do? Where can they connect with you?
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  Stacey Bailey: Absolutely. You can find us online at
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  intentioncollective.co, or you can email me at Stacey, S, T, A,
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  C, E, y, at intention collective.co, we work alongside
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  founders and leadership teams to go from being founder led to
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  leadership team led, and to scale from that. You know, what
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  got us here isn't going to get us there in that next pivot
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  point, especially in the creative space. And, you know, I
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  don't want to hit the AI, you know, buzzword of the day. But
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  with AI, I feel like this work is becoming even more critical,
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  because leadership and clarity is going to become sort of the
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  essence of what gets you to move forward.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: So good, so good. Stacey, it was just
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  fantastic having you on. Great to see you again as well. Thanks
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  so much for coming and sharing. In with us some fantastic
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  thoughts. I absolutely love this conversation, and for those of
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  you watching and listening, you know your time and attention
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  mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this
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  conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you
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  next time. Take care.