Latest / Integrity at Scale™ / The Owner's Room: When Your Team's Behavior Doesn't Match Your Values
Transcript
- Hey. Hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast. Thank you for being here with me. Today is an owner's room special when your team's behavior doesn't match your values. If you're new to the owner's room. Basically, this is a non-scripted, no listicles, no bulleted items space where I just answer questions slash prompts regarding the topic at hand. So the purpose of this is to feel like you're sitting with a colleague and talking shop. That's really what this is about. And today's episode, in particular, is about that really an uncomfy moment when your team is technically doing their jobs, but maybe something doesn't feel right. It's like the behavior doesn't really match the values and you're just kind of sitting in between what the business is and what it's about compared with what's happening on the ground. Before we keep going, make sure you subscribe. The more you subscribe, especially if this resonates for you, the more it hits like-minded people. What I'll do is I'll ask a series of questions, no more than five, and then I'm gonna run through a scenario and I'm just gonna riff. What I'll say about the questions is there's no prep. I, I don't plan out answers. I don't have any idea where this is gonna go, and you're gonna see it in real time, just like me. So, alright, when your team's behavior doesn't match your values. Question number one, how do I balance clarity and grace in these moments? Hmm. I don't know. I think sometimes each of us has unfair advantages in certain ways. One of the ways in which I think I have an unfair advantage is that it takes a lot for me to be angry and to feel certain that somebody is doing something intentionally. Which also of course works against me. But when something's going wrong and I'm seeing a mismatch between, you know, behavior and values, I don't assume that this is on purpose. And I don't assume that the person who it's about doesn't want to fix it. And so I think that I end up giving a lot of grace to people and still needing clarity. And so grace for me is not like, um, it's not like letting things slide, necessarily. It's like assuming good intentions, maybe assuming honest mistakes, something like that. But it still needs to be followed up with seeking clarity. That's almost always where my brain goes is, well, hang on, hang on, hang on. What? What's, what happened though? Like what actually happened? Not just what I see behavior wise, but also for the other person. What was going on with them that this thing took place and so. I really do feel like it's kind of an unfair advantage because I'm not quick to anger. I'm not quick to jump to conclusions, and if I do jump quickly, I'm also very quick to jump back and check those conclusions and check those assumptions. That's the, you know, I tend to turn a lot of stones over. That's part of what that is. Maybe it comes from self-doubt, like. I don't wanna just believe what I believe. I wanna see a lot of different angles around this to ensure that what I believe is very thoroughly vetted, if that makes sense. So I think that's maybe a cop out answer, but really the balance of clarity and grace is just, I think, a function of how I exist in the world. I will also say that it's helpful to be able to hold the possibility of honest accidents in mind while you're seeking clarity. Because if we assume somebody did something on purpose, and let's say you're a person who does that, let's say for you, maybe your tendency is to get very defensive and feel, um, accused or attacked or like somebody's out to get you or just like somebody did something and they know better and how could they, you know, it's that thing. If you have that reaction initially, it's sort of like, okay, fine, cool. You can just have whatever reaction you have because it's a reaction that kind of, you know, just happens. But my thought is, but you don't have to do anything from that reaction. And so if you know you're a person who has that reaction. If I was in that position, I would probably work hard at not. Doing anything at that point, just waiting until like physiologically I could come down or until I could also hold the possibility that it was a mistake and an accident and somebody didn't know, period. And then I would act from there. So I don't even think that if you are a defensive type person that you need to not be defensive. I'm not sure that's possible, honestly, not like to the extent that somebody who's non-defensive is non-defensive. But I do think you could hold off on responding from that place. And to go further with like defensive people have their own issues that come up in terms of leadership. You know, an issue that comes up for me is I'm gonna move too slow. I'm gonna honestly give too much grace and I'm gonna seek clarity when I should probably just shift into disciplinary mode. I sound like I'm, I'm too nice. I'm too gracious. I don't, I don't, don't mean it like that. I sincerely mean this is problematic, like it gets in my way because I should move forward with discipline sooner than what I am prone to do. And also why I have people around me, because they're gonna be the ones who are likely to push this ball forward when it needs to be pushed versus me. I'm still gonna like hold it and bounce it up and down and say, well, what are the rules again? And are you sure you understand? And well, how should we do this moving forward? I just, yeah, so it has its downsides, I'll say that. Okay. Question number two. Do I even know what I want it to look like instead? I actually love this question. Again. We're talking about when your team's behavior doesn't match your values. One of the things that happened when we first created values, and by created, I mean we first formalized them. They of course, exist. Your, your values exist. They're being played out right now. Whether or not you have them written down or whether or not you have them clarified and like operationalized is a different story. But when we first came up with our values, we detailed what they were. We came up with little definitions of them, shared that with the team. They've evolved, of course, over the years. They've been pretty set for the past, I don't know, year and a half or two years or something. but at some point it dawned on me that we needed examples of these values, and I think he even writes that in Traction and we just didn't do that part, which is fucking dumb in retrospect. But it was hard to say what specifically we wanted when we didn't have examples of what these values look like in action. At this point we have, these are the core values. Here's how we operationalize them. This is what they mean, and here are examples of this value being lived out. So we've got not only a broad definition, but then also at least three examples for each value for how that value gets lived out, how you see it in action. I think this is relevant because when it comes to accountability or when it comes to, you know, holding somebody's feet to the fire if they're messing up, we should be able to say, this is what we are seeing, but this is what we want to see. Yeah, I think it's it for that. I think I'm done with that question. I'm not sure I have much more to add. Uh, third question. What's the story I'm telling myself about why this is happening? Yeah. This to me is where like the grace piece comes into play. I don't really tell myself any story about why it's happening. If something continues happening, i'm real curious. Why does this keep coming up? Like, what's actually going on? Even if it happens the first time? I don't, I really don't think I tell myself stories about it. I think I just see it happening, and I wanna understand why, and if it needs to be corrected, it is, and then we just move on. If it were to happen, whatever it is, let's say five times in a row, I would start to question either the capacity of the person who is in that role or the potential malicious behavior. Where it's like, okay, you either can't learn this or you don't give a fuck. It's probably one or the other. Because if we've been very clear about what's expected and very clear about what the next outcome is gonna be, and very clear about when this change needs to take place by, and none of it matters. None of it is, none of it changes. They either don't care or they can't learn. And one is a capacity issue and one is a cultural fit issue. But initially though, if there's a mismatch between behavior and values, like, ugh, I don't know. I don't really tell myself any story. I just seek to understand why the mismatch took place and then offer clarity. And then that's it. So If that's a lie, that's not it. I might also use that as an opportunity to potentially send a global message. So I'm gonna address it immediately with a person or you know, individually with a person, or have my leadership team, whoever's responsible for that. But I might also go bigger and say, Hey, I just wanna make sure some of these things are clear. And then I send a global message just to ensure that everybody understands this thing, whatever that thing might be. So if it's a people specific issue, it's gonna be addressed one-to-one with the potential for it to go broader. And if I suspect that this person is the first one we've seen with the mismatch, but the reality is like what they're saying would indicate that there is some broad confusion. Then I'm gonna address it globally. I'm gonna just send out a, a larger message, not like a chastising type message, but a larger clarification, you know, for the entire team. Okay, let's keep going. Question number four, is this a communication issue, a training issue or a values mismatch? I just kind of spoke to this actually. It could be any of those things. So if there's a be mismatch between behavior and values, I am seeking to solve that question. I'm seeking to figure out what's the problem. Is it a values mismatch, which is absolutely a possibility. We have a pretty thorough, like onboarding, you know, hiring to onboarding process. So. It's kind of less of a possibility for us at this point, but people still slip through. So it's a possibility. Is it a training issue? That's what I wanna know. Have we not talked about this thoroughly enough? Have we not trained effectively? Did we introduce this training at the wrong time? Was it too much? Like the person is sort of waterboarded when they come on? You know, with, I'm thinking of onboarding for example. Or is this a communication issue? Meaning we just haven't clarified that this specific thing needs to take place? I don't know. I don't know at the beginning of a mismatch. We, we have to seek to solve that, you know, is this one of these three things? But that is the question every time. My first sort of line of questioning is whether or not it's global or specific. And so if it's a global issue that we're seeing, we're gonna address it globally. It's probably either a training issue, meaning like if we did a team wide training, for example, or communication issue, meaning we did not communicate effectively about whatever the thing is. Or if it's a people issue, which is the other thing that's gonna be divided into two things. People issue meaning is this a training issue specific to this person? Did we not train them effectively in whatever the thing is that we're expecting of them? Or is it a values mismatch? And people issues can be either values mismatches or training related. If training related, cool, you fix the training, the problem should be solved. You know, if values mismatch, I mean, it's a little bit harder, but you would do a values analysis with the person. You would let them know, here's some examples of behaviors that we don't want. Kind of going back to one of the or earlier questions, and you would give them examples of what behavior should look like. And then you go from there. And if it continues to happen, now we move into a disciplinary process. In terms of the mismatch between a behavior and a certain key value, it might literally be that they don't hold this value, they don't know how to live it out, it's not gonna work. And then you have to reflect on your own baseline of values. Are there any values that you're willing to not have present most of the time. If your answer is no, then that's not the right person for your team. That's not a values fit. It's not a, it's not someone you should keep on your team. If your answer is yes, then I would say you are not living out the values that you purport to have, because it should be across the board. Most of the time, most of the values are met and maybe one value is met, like, some of the time it's there and sometimes it's not. But there should be no value that is not present most of the time. That would indicate, again, a values mismatch for the person. So again, is it a communication issue, a training issue, or values mismatch? Absolutely the question to answer and how we go about that is that decision tree, whether it's global or specific, and then if it's specific to one person, whether it's a values thing or if it's a training thing, Okay. Last question. Question number five. Am I scared of being seen as controlling if I course correct? No, I'm not scared of being seen as controlling. What am I scared of being seen as? Hmm. I don't actually know if I'm scared of being seen as anything. I am more concerned with stepping into people's autonomy. I really want my team to have a sense of autonomy. So I am constantly thinking about the balance between the structure of the business, employee autonomy, but a lot of it is clinical autonomy, I. and culture. And it's almost like this three, you know, this three point structure that is rounded on the bottom and there's constantly, weights are changing and it's growing and evolving and we're trying to seek to balance it at all times. That's what I'm worried of, that there's gonna be too much structure at the cost of culture and clinician autonomy, or there's gonna be too much autonomy at the cost of structure, and then also culture, or there's gonna be too much culture at the cost of structure and clinician autonomy. So for me, these three things are the, almost like the scales of justice, but you know, the scales of group practice health, trying to figure out how do I keep these things intact? So I, I don't think that it's about being seen as controlling. It really, for me feels like I'm not trying to take away your autonomy. What am I scared of though? I think if I was scared of anything, it would be that people would see me as not taking them into consideration or not thinking about their perspective, that I'm seen as almost like, let's say narrow-minded, but that's not actually the word or the language I would ever use. Like I'm, I forget them. Like they're not important enough to me or something. I think that I'm scared of not being seen accurately. That's actually what it is. I'm scared that people aren't going to see what I say and what I'm doing and how we're creating things, they're not gonna see it in a way that feels accurate for me. Like if they were to parrot it back, I might say like, oh God, that's not it at all. That is what I'm scared of. And even to say scared is funny 'cause I don't even think that scared is the word. It's more like a gut level mismatch. Like, fuck me, they don't get it. Uh. Like I immediately am filled with almost like dread and a little bit of despair. There's no way I can clarify and be seen accurately. That's what it is for me, which I could, geez totally get into and it's not even worth it here, but that's such like family of origin stuff. It's such like screaming into a void. Like I have a part that screams into the void. I literally imagine this part, like yelling into a chasm and it just, there's no sound. Once it, once it hits the void, it's just gone. It doesn't exist, you know? That's where it comes from. That's the thing that I'm afraid of, that I'm gonna be saying something and no matter what I say, it's not gonna be received in the way that I intend it to. Or potentially I'm gonna be seen as having ulterior motives. But again, that feels more like even that I sort of feel like is reflective of the people than it is of me. So if somebody sees me as, let's say, being sneaky or something, bitch, that's about you. Like, I'm not sneaky at all. It's sort of like everything's right there in front of you, you know? So I'll tell you why I make decisions and I'll clarify things and I will, you know, be as honest as possible. If a person responds and accuses me of something that feels like I can say, oh no, that's way more reflective of you, but there's also that compared with this fine balance of, no matter what I say, I'm misunderstood. And so that starts to get into me feeling like I'm screaming into the void, which is again, sort of this core, core thing for me. So these things feel slightly different even though they might seem the same on the outside. They, they live differently inside of me. So, yeah, not controlling about, I don't, I'm not afraid of being seen as controlling. I am neurotic in practice, especially sometimes, and so I just own that. I, I mean, it just is what it is, but I'm not controlling of people. Like, I'm not interested in that. I can't sustain that. Okay. I think that's it for questions. I'm gonna move on to the scenario. Alright, here we go. I'm gonna read the scenario and then I'm just gonna talk through whatever comes to mind. Hopefully it's helpful. Let's say you value transparency. This is the scenario. You value transparency. You've built that into your onboarding, it's in your hiring language and you talk about it often. But lately, your team has stopped bringing up concerns. They nod along in meetings. They keep things surface level and they avoid tension. On paper, they're showing up, but it feels like you're the only one being honest. You're stuck between frustration and self-doubt. Are you too intense? Are you too avoidant? Is there a cultural drift happening that no one's naming? What the fuck is going on and what do you do about it? This is a great scenario. So what would I do about this? I don't mean to sound like a dick, but this wouldn't happen. Like there's no way that the entire team is gonna shift into nodding in meetings, keeping things surface level and avoiding tension. There's for sure going to be at least a handful of people who are gonna be honest with me. The caveat is, i'm gonna seek them out. So if this were happening, let's just say this is happening at the group. What I'm going to do is schedule one-on-ones with key people, and I'm gonna say, look, here's what I've been noticing globally at the practice. What I can't figure out is what the fuck is happening. I cannot fix it if I don't know what's going on. Please level with me. What are you noticing? How have you been feeling? Have you heard any grumblings? You don't need to name names, but have you heard any grumblings lately of people being upset about something? Is there something we've changed lately that you feel frustrated with and you don't know how to voice? Is there a person on leadership that is blocking you from being able to express freely? Is there something I'm doing? Is there something I'm not doing? Tell me what is going on. Let's just start to process through. And I would be sure to say, I am asking you because I know how candid and transparent you have been with me in the past X amount of time i've known you. I really need that here right now. And then I'm gonna give them the floor. I might of course, follow up with questions. I'm gonna maybe pick their brain a little bit more. I'm gonna do that, like I said, with a few key people. And what I would hope would happen is that there would be something that each person is naming i that's the exact same. And there might be a couple of same things that people are naming. From there, I'm gonna take those few things. I'm gonna go to leadership and I'm gonna process, and I'm gonna say, we need to fix this. And then I'm gonna go to the entire team and I'm gonna say, hey, this is what I am getting the sense of, I've solicited feedback from a few folks. I've talked with leadership. I think these things are problems. Here's what I'm thinking about solving it. I really need your input. I do not want this to continue. I do not like the way you all seem to feel. I do not like the tension this has created. Please help me fix this. I don't want to seek to solve it in the wrong way, and nobody's on board with the outcome that we've come up with or the, the solution that we've come up with. This is why I'm seeking your input. And then I'm gonna go from there. I think I've said before on this podcast, I'm, I'm pretty overly communicative, so even if something is. In process and it's not done. I want my team to know it's in process. So I might say, this is what we're doing, this is what we want the outcome to be, but this is where we are in it, and also I want feedback, you know, if I, if I do want feedback, some things are just in process and it's like leadership and ops are working out all the kinks, you know? But if I do want feedback, then of course I'm gonna solicit it from any relevant party. And my point is I'm going to share when we're in process, even if there is no outcome yet. ' Cause we're working on it. And it's important to me that they know whoever they is, my entire team, if they're feeling this, I need them to know that it really matters to me that this is an issue, whatever this is. Again, maybe it's a few small things or maybe it's a couple big things. If I know it's an issue and it's bothering this many people, that's not a team problem. That's a Tara problem. That's a leadership problem. That's us. That's something we need to seek to solve. So I'm gonna let them know we have recognized this. I've gotten some feedback already. I would love more. Here's what we're thinking. Fill me in. You know, anybody that wants to schedule one-to-one, please let me know directly. Or you might see a one-to-one pop up on your calendar. That's what this is about. I wanna get feedback from you. And I might seek to schedule some one-to-ones with a few more people just to get more input. If I was in that scenario. I would reference our value of transparency, but I would be very, very careful not to weaponize it. I'm not gonna throw this at people and say, we're supposed to value transparency and none of you are being transparent. That's fucked up. Don't do that. I would not do that. I might say, i'm really hoping that we all can strive to live this value out of transparency, of course, naming it. And I might even follow up by saying, I'm not coming at you with this. I know that these things have happened. I understand why we're in this place to the extent that I can, and I 100% need transparent feedback from you all in order to rectify it. And that's, that's the way I might approach it, something like that. So, boom. I think that's it. Maybe there's more, but I think that that's the like down a dirty, quick and dirty way. I would respond to something like that. Here's what I will tell you. Two more things. Number one, I said it before, I'll say it again. Please subscribe to the podcast. Again, the more you do, the more you help people who also need this, find it. That's really what that's about. Number two, hit me up. Go to my website, go to contact, let me know what you want me to talk about. I love episodes that are relevant for people. That's my favorite thing to do. So if you have a topic or a thing or something where you're like, damn, I really wanna talk about this. I really want Tara to talk about this thing. Or even a situation, like if you have a specific scenario, send it to me and I'll do an owner's room with it with that scenario. And you can find me by going to www.taravossenkemper.com, so there's a contact form on there. You can just find that and reach out to me. Otherwise, thanks for being here. This has been great. I hope this has been helpful. I super appreciate your time as always, and I will plan on seeing you next time. Okay. See you.