Latest / CLEAR Performance Coaching / Podcast #11 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - Improve Performance - ACCOUNTABIITY

Transcript

Podcast #11 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - Improve Performance - ACCOUNTABIITY · CLEAR Performance Coaching

• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is where leadership leads performance practical.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you can step in and show up on purpose every day.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, thank you again for joining us on the Clear Performance Coaching Podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Rick Timlick.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Kent Vaughn.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Sam Bracken.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast is all about taking ordinary, helping them become great coaches who create extraordinary results.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're going to kind of get into accountability.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: We have two cards, accountability trackers and accountability clear meetings.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so we want to dive into really all about accountability, where it shows up, how it shapes, etc.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if I just frame this, you know, the last time we talked about making commitments and building your huddle.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: But here's the uncomfortable truth.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Most commitments die quietly between meetings.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe anybody breaks them on purpose.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: They just kind of fade away.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: So today is about the two tools that keep them alive: the trackers and the clear meetings.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sam, when you talked about the trackers and you started to design clear accountability trackers, what was the problem trying to solve?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, people just don't keep their and we like to say everybody counts and everybody is counting.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And what are they counting?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they're counting their commitments and their promises.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: What do you what did you say you're gonna do?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, did you do it?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And but you know, it's funny because I've been studying change and uh what makes people change, organizational change, personal change, you know, for 30 years.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care what change model you look at.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care if you look at Cotter's work or whoever the profound change philosophers are in the world, every single model has accountability.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you just don't change without accountability.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that couples with reflection, reflection and accountability.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to make progress, you got to track your progress.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you don't make progress.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know a better way to do that except by keeping score and then having a meeting around this, the scoreboard.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's both the cards we're talking about, but this notion of accountability, both personal accountability and team and interpersonal accountability, your team accountability, your work team, your group, or your department.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody has something they're working on.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as you get alignment, if you have everything aligned, then then it's just accountability.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing more powerful than the check-in and the checkout, right?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you can do that daily or weekly or monthly.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Kent, you've been in manufacturing for decades, inside and helping.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I can hear our audience wonder is what's the difference between accountability and surveillance?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's such a great question.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: Surveillance is you're watching, you're looking for mistakes or if they're doing it right.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not necessarily bad, but that doesn't seem like a partner, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't seem like a partner at all.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh accountability is where we ask people, so how are you gonna handle this?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: What are you gonna do about this?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: How would you solve this?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, it's interesting how the leader just a few weeks ago say, I've completely changed, Kent, since you've been coaching me about this.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because I used to, people come to me with a problem or an issue, and I would say, I would do this, this, or this.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: And you kept saying, Stop telling them, start asking them.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so he said, I've been doing that for the last month.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's been amazing the difference.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: When someone comes to me with a problem and I say to them, Well, you're close to it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Deming's old, the person Deming's old thinking that the person that knows the most is the person standing within 12 feet of the job.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: So he said, Hey, you're the one standing with the 12 feet of the job.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, You want to know what I think?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Yeah, what do you think?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: He said, It was amazing the ideas I got from people when I said, Hey, what do you think you ought to do about it?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then I followed up with them how they did with the thing they said they would do.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: He said, It's been fundamentally different than when I told them, and then I followed them up with them with the thing I said told them to do, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: And we're completely flipping it's on a tier with this idea of co-creating, and they're making a commitment around it.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then you follow up.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: And in the manufacturing world, you're out on the plant floor, and in healthcare, you're out walking to the hospital.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: You may not be able to write everything down, right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: But at least they're making a commitment, you're following up.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's really what we're talking about, I think, where you're just following up with how they're doing with what they said they were gonna do, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that the and the value of that is incalculable.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: And in the manufacturing world, in the healthcare world, and so many, it's every single day, all day, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Some organizations they do it on a weekly basis.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: But if we can do that on a daily basis, how are you doing with this?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: What are you seeing?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: How would you solve that?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't mean we don't offer insight and advice, but we do that after we've, you know, pushed on them to give us their ideas and their insight and gotten some other people involved, then we give our advice if needed.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: I love what Sam says.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: If we talk about something and Sam will say, Well, that's a prototype.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that he says that all the time.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: If you give an ID said, that's a good prototype.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it means there are other prototypes.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: So let's talk about it, a lot of prototypes, and see what makes the most sense.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if this is answering what you're thinking, but that's kind of what comes to my mind.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh absolutely.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you as you talk, Kent, I really think contextually we need to understand that we need to be clear on the goal, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: We need to have a real clear goal.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we need to be clear on the lever or the root behavior that produces the goal.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be all in with engagement in our huddles, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then we need to track it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you need a personal scoreboard and a team scoreboard with the goal in clear view.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: With the goal in clear view.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: If it's a team board, you need the team's goal at the top and how you're pacing on that goal, whether you're behind or ahead.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then each individual on the team, what's their goal for the week?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's broken down by the day.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what commitments are they making?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: What's the root behavior that they're that they're gonna commit to every day to accomplish the goal?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that board needs to be out and analog where everybody can see it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be simple, it needs to be accurate and up to date, and people need to buy into it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: We say let the team create the board, and then it's their board and they're they're connected to it.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't track the progress, you lose the power of what a board can do or what accountability can do.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because a board is just a mechanism for accountability.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the key here is not to just look at the numbers, is to look beyond the numbers to see where people are succeeding and failing.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you look beyond the numbers and you see someone doing the activity and still not getting the results, then you in real time can focus on that person and give them the support that they need, right?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you take advantage of what we talked about last week and last week's podcast of the complimentary nature of helping one another and trusting one another to accomplish your objectives, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there's nothing quite like it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you make the board digital, it lives in the electronic, it lives in the ethos.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, it's not out there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we just have found that a simple analog board tracking your progress makes all the difference.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a weekly meeting around the board to see how you're doing with the goal chunked down and everybody clear on what they need to accomplish really helps morale.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: It really helps people get excited and engaged.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do that, it really, really helps.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, people are are just forget about it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: They forget about the goal.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can use the daily check-ins and checkouts to make sure people are on progress, make sure people are making progress.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that weekly meeting where you say, Here's what I did last week, here's the result, and that result was either good or bad.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: If it was bad, here's what I learned about it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And here are the changes I'm making because of it, and here's my commitment for next week.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you do it in front of your peers, the power of that is remarkable.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: When you say board, Sam, I just want to be clear that everyone knows we're talking about scoreboards, right?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: And there's no organization I know of that doesn't have scoreboards.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: The problem is the scoreboards always measure the result, the output.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: And what we're talking is we need to be looking at what are the inputs, what are the actions people are taking, what are the behaviors they are exhibiting that's getting that output.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, it's just like, well, I don't know.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's like we got lucky.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if you're running on luck, that ain't a strategy, baby.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Luck is not a strategy.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: And if all you get outputs and results, you're you're relying on luck.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: We need to back up, which is what you're talking about, to look at what are the inputs, what are the things people are doing or not doing, they're getting those inputs.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Those you're right on target here.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's the root behavior, it's predictive.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: The root behavior is predictive of the results.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking at lag measures, you're driving, looking, you're driving forward looking at the rearview mirror.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not, it's it's too late.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's too late to win.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Lag measures are always after-the-fact measures.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So your scoreboards need to have a predictive element, yeah, and that's where the root behavior comes in.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: A real-time root behavior that's going to be used in the future.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's what makes it, that's one of the key components of a successful board.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It has the goal and it has the root behavior, and it's it's every single day, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's collectively measured on the week-to-week basis, and it's a value by the month, and then you're you're recalibrating every month to move forward the next month.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's one thing you said that I really loved.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: First off, you said simply measuring a behavior changes it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we put a spotlight on, we see behavior improve it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I really like that you said, though, is that the tracker isn't the record keeper, it's really the intervention around that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like we expected this to happen and it didn't.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can we pause and look at why?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a really powerful principle.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead, Sam.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: It makes all the difference because the real power of a board is in the peer-to-peer pressure with your teammates to say better than that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know you because Boston's subordinate pressure is not as good or as effective.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: We in manufacturing, we used to call these run charts.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: You could see how the process was running effectively.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And when it got you know below the goals or the threshold, then there would be that intervention.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of the same thing around our own human behavior, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like I want to do these things.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: How am I doing?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we call them minimum standards, like root behavior.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: If let's say, let's say you're trying to get you're trying to get a sales quote, you're trying to get a sales revenue number, right?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know that the number of calls you make create a sales create a create a call, I mean a sales pitch and the pitch close, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the root behavior are the calls, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you set minimum standards, the team sets a minimum standard.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do 40 calls a day to get 10 appointments a week so that we can sell five deals a week, so we can make X amount of money.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the focus is not on the goal, that's in the back of the mind, but it what's in the front of the mind is the root behavior, the minimum standard.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Saban talks about this a lot, the Alabama's legendary football coach.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about creating a minimum standard, minimum expectation for everyone.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs a minimum expectation, minimum standard.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when you fall below the standard, there's pressure to change to get above the standard.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: There was uh there was somebody that did a study of thousands of work days, just thousands, and the single biggest driver of motivation and positive inner work, and you say this a lot, Sam, was visible progress on meaningful work.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, trackers manufacture that visibility.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just share a couple of other things that I find fascinating.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like I love this topic of tracking and not as policing, but actually as a helpful thing.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you we think of dopamine and prediction, like what wires us to want to do this?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And our reward system fires on anticipated progress, not just completion.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like as I get nearer to the goal, dopamine starts to fire.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not when I've crossed the finish line.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, checking a box that's a genuine micro reward.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's why people love those, like to check through.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: I did, I did, I did, I did, and they can check it off and feel good about what they checked off.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Rick, I was thinking about one of your clients, one of the largest railroad maintenance companies in the world, and that you've been working with them for a couple, and and that they're using one of our sub tools, which I didn't want to bring up for.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's about how they're they are doing this on these nine competencies they have leaders working on.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: What are they actually doing so they can actually see the activity?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we first instituted what are the what's kind of the minimum standard of behaviors we want to see from our frontline leaders in this organization.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so we came up with these generally nine competencies, and and we actually linked the right behavior associated with each competency so they knew how to operationalize that competency.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: But we all know once we teach them in that and we send them out there, the forgetting curve happens immediately and they just get about the work that they normally do.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, what was fascinating about the tool that we implemented was it gave them an opportunity to actually, you know, if I say the Babe Ruth analogy, they pointed the bat towards a behavior they're gonna intentionally do.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Then they did that behavior and checked off that they did that behavior, and then they journaled what the result was from applying that behavior.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we've we've now collected thousands and thousands of stories.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: So you can imagine an organization that is safety critical.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: And when you first see the scorecard of safety, it might not be stellar, but you start to see hundreds of stories of frontline leaders intentionally applying safety, that narrative starts to take over.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the tool allowed them to see that narrative in a positive light and get re-engaged into the score.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I call that people seeing the impact of their effort and having enlightenment.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's like if I do this, if I do this, I get that outcome, and that outcome is desirable.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So a light bulb goes off, I'll do that all the time.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's like day in, day out, all the time, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's the impact of the effort.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they can't see the impact of the effort, there'll be no motivation or energy to continue the effort.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this is really works too.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and also a lot of the work that we we do with people is you did this, uh did it get you the impact you wanted, did it did it get you the goal?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: You did you did that, did it get you this?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they if they can't link the two, they can't keep going on and on and on with the difficult behavior to get the better outcome.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And but once they can link the two on their own, once they can do it on their own, they get the enlightenment, they get the realization that if I go to the gym three times in my life in one week, I'm just gonna be sore.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if I go to the gym three times a week for 30 years, I'm gonna be more fit and it's a chance to transform my life.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: That they then then they'll keep the motivation, the motivation will continue.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: It will stagger.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so good boards, good trackers show the impact of the effort.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, I I'll just restate that because I love it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was brilliant.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: The brain can't change what it can't perceive, and the tracker shortens that feedback loop.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I love how you frame it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: It could be daily, weekly, monthly, but whatever that right frequency is, we can we can improve that feedback loop.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's the right thing.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Failure, only feedback, and you can't do feedback without a tracker, and there is no failure, so it's the frame of mind you look at the tracker.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's no failure, only feedback.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you you fail to reach the objective.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: What's the feedback to make the adjustment so you can win?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's important.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's interesting because there are really there are at least two parts of every new action or behavior activity, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: You're trying something new.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: There is the the quantitative, did I do it?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you get in the habit of doing it, whatever it is.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a huge piece.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Get in the habit of doing it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like I think about swimming.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: I swim during the spring and summer and fall where I live, is a swim an outside pool.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: And when the weather gets good enough, I start swimming outside.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And every time when I, you know, it takes a while to me get back in the routine of swimming again, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: I much prefer to run.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: But swimming is great.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: But at first, you just get into the habit of swimming.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's so quantitatively, am I doing it two or three times a week, every week?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then it becomes how do I improve qualitatively?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Am I doing the strokes right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Am I breathing right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: Am I doing whatever?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's amazing how I can increase my speed in the pool by 20% over a few weeks because I've gotten in the habit again.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm focused on, am I doing it right?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Am I doing how can I get better at it?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a quantitative piece, how do we get people to do this?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then we look at the quality, how do we improve the way we do it, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: But you're never going to get quality without quantity.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: I I love in James Clear book Atomic Habits when he talks about what is the difference between Olympic athletes and everybody else.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Olympic athletes, the single biggest difference is that they can do a small thing over and over and over and over again until they perfect it.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: And they do it again and again.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And most of us just can't do that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: We just can't do it over and over again.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that's really what we're talking about is these small things, making those 40 calls every day, no matter what.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever it is, making that check on that machine, that piece of equipment, that what that part, every single time, every single time.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: Checking that patient and doing the five things you need to do every time with a new patient.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's quantitative first, getting that, make sure we're doing the pieces, then how do we get better at those pieces?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and as people see what everyone else is doing, they're going, oh my gosh, if Sam's doing that, if Rick doing that, I can do the same thing, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the power of this huddle, this agenda in the huddle where everybody reports every week about what they what they say they were going to do, how did they do, where do they need help, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: We're reviewing the goal.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: That the power of that where people can learn from each other is frankly incalculable.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's not just not just me relying on who how am I doing, but how's Rick doing, how's Sam doing it, how's Danae, how's Han, how anybody on our team, right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Kent, a great transition.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, what what we're saying is the tracker makes progress visible, but visible to who?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like a tracker in a drawer is just a diary.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: When we talk about card 36, that's kind of where the tracker meets the huddle, the clear meeting.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sam, if you walk me through a clear meeting, if I'm a fly on the wall, what do I see in those meetings?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first thing you see is the board.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you see some kind of scoreboard with the team's goal at the top and how they're doing, how they're pacing down, right?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's one, it's one big goal that everybody has.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then each individual and their goals are broken down.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and then you have the days in the week, what their goal is, to daily and weekly, and then what the root behavior is to accomplish that goal.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then so typically a meeting might start off where here's how we're doing as a team.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had a hundred thousand dollars in revenue that we wanted to accomplish last week, because our monthly goal is 400,000.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Last week we want to do a hundred thousand, then eighty or twenty under, and we're paying so we have to pick up some ground, guys.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then each individual stands up and says, here's my commitment last week, here's how it impacted my goal, and here's how here's how it impacted the team goal, and this is what I'm gonna do next week.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody goes down and everybody reports on the progress they made, good or bad.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the leaders of the board clearly are leaders, and the people who are last are clearly last.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to say anything.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: The people that are last are not needed to be last, but they're they know clearly that they're performing below and be they're gonna want to improve or step up their game.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the interesting thing about this is as people reporting collectively on the team's results and individually, what happens is that you need to do it like Ken was talking about, qualitative and quantitative.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: You need to do it with excellence, we need to do it consistently, and then do it with excellence.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as you do this, everybody will be really the really it's gonna normalize accountability.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then what will happen is you'll get the people help will help some of the best people on your team, will help some of the people that are struggling, and you'll get peer peer-to-peer and help.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be all transparent, it's all gonna, it's all gonna be out in the open.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and in these meetings, the rules you follow are you don't demean people in public, you praise in public, you reprimand or correct, and these the the and then you use positive reinforcement to reward people who keep their commitments.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is the culture starts to shift, the psychology of this meeting shifts.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what tells you you have a really good meeting and a really good team dynamic is when the leader no longer runs the meeting.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Meeting, individual players on the team run the meeting because inevitably you're gonna have the leader go out, they're gonna take time off, and someone needs to because these meetings need to happen come hell or high water, same day, same time, same day of the week, every single and when and when the leader's on vacation that week, someone has to and and you you practice everybody running the meeting, and that builds leaders, so it's a nice little dynamic that really makes the difference.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Can't you have any addition like you know you're very familiar with the other thing?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what I've done is what I love about your and it's very very implicit.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to make sure it's explicit.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: When we're talking about people missing the goal, if they didn't do it, it's not, for example, in your sales example, hey, my sales were off 10,000 last week, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's how many calls do I need to make that I didn't make, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or what are the actions or behaviors that get me that outcome that I'm going to focus on?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I want to know.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: Don't tell me about the outcome, the result you're gonna get differently.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me what you're going to do differently, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: So if I'm in manufacturing, what are you gonna do differently on the machine?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm gonna make this check and this process every single time.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or if I'm in healthcare, I'm gonna do this with every single patient I talk to.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm in banking, what I'm gonna do this with every single customer.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: So, in other words, they focus on the behaviors or the actions that are gonna get them the outcomes.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: And we we mentioned the outcome.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, the outcome's important, but let's back up a few steps.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: What are the things that get you that?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what I want to hear about.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what we want to focus on is if someone's not getting the outcome or the result they're wanting, what are they doing or not doing?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where you learn from each other in this huddle.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because I hear, oh, Sam's doing this, this, and this.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I could do that.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: Or it's like, I can't do that, but here's what I could do.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: So, what are the actions and behaviors?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, people just get freaked out about the goal all the time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you what happens is you beat a drum, what you want to avoid is beating a drum that says, sell more, sell more, like you're working on a slave ship.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and it talks about this detail that I missed, is really important, and that is needs to be around the root behavior that produces the goal that with that is within your control individually, your control.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it's not, it's just creating stress response that's not needed.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's creating pressure that will destroy and demoralize teams' culture and their emotions, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is like, what do you have control over and what are you gonna do about it, and how's it gonna impact the goal, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It it's a focus is on the behavior that produces the goal, not the goal.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's on the behavior.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're right onto it right there.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I said, Sam is is psychological safety is there, it's inherent.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Accountability and safety are not possesses, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I think the highest performers are high on both.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: So if I say high accountability plus low safety, that's what you talk about.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: That produces anxiety, hiding.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: But the opposite is high safety plus low accountability is comfortable, but there's no results.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we need both to be there, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like PYU American cross-country coach.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: She has this trick she uses, she calls it high love, high expectation.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the optimum performance is.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: High love by high expectation.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where great accountability lives, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's where people working hard.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: That would be perfect, perfectly said.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: What I find interesting again, you know, we talk about ordinary leaders.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing here requires charisma.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like it could be a piece of paper with check boxes, a 20-minute weekly meeting, but there's consistency.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: We have ordinary leaders, extraordinary results, and the entire mechanism can fit on one page here.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's amazing the value of that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: If you know every week, you're gonna have to return a report, and we've all experienced this.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I there, you know what, there's been many a Friday night where I thought I was done for the week.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: I thought, you know, Monday morning, 8:30, I've got that meeting with my team, and now I've got to return a report on how I did with those actions and behaviors.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: I I have stayed late on more than one Friday night trying to finish that up because I knew I was gonna have to report first thing on Monday morning to the team, and I did not want to be embarrassed.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: So it wasn't just on the output, the result, but that I do those actions, that I did I exhibit those behaviors, whatever it is, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: And the power of that is so it's so amazing, the simple idea of just returning and reporting.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: How'd you do?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: What'd you say you were gonna do?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the goal?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: What'd you say we're gonna do?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: How did you do on it?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: And and where do you need help?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: This idea of if we make it safe to ask for help, hey, where do you need help?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, I need help with X, Y, and Z.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm doing this, but apparently I'm not doing it well.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm getting the number, but apparently I'm not doing them as well as I should be, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I think the value of learning from each other and just being able to say, hey, it didn't work, and I need y'all's help.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: And and when people step up and know, hey, we're a team, we're in a huddle together, we're gonna help each other get better, is not a competition, not with each other.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing how that makes a difference.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I love Kent, you talked about the cadence, the consistently having that cadence in your guys' experience.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: How long before the cadence starts running itself?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Six weeks.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I see it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I see it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I see things changing after six weeks.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be long enough, actually, really changing after 90 days.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you start seeing the benefits of it after six weeks.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of why we do that 12-week programming, right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: 12 weeks.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and the and one of the things you said, Sam, that I like is this idea of once you get in the habit of doing this every week, no matter what, and what we say is if you're on vacation, fine, but borrowing that, you can't, you don't miss, but you you make it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: And everybody, and sometimes, and if you're traveling for work, you send up here to report for you, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: But when people know that I'm gonna have to return and report every week about what are the things I said I was gonna do, what did I do?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: How did I get?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Did it get me the outcome?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: And if it didn't, what am I missing?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hey guys, I need help.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: What could I do better?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: And we're all doing that together.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's so valuable.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: But the other thing you said, Sam, which I like is that you take turns leading that, not just the leader leading it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: And leader, you go last.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: You don't go first, leader, you go last, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and let everyone else tell theirs, and then you tell yours.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: You can go first if you want to, but the sooner you can get to where someone else is running that meeting, the better off you are.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: And and we just we, you know, just rotate.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: Let everybody take a turn, be in charge.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, what'd you say we're gonna do?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: How'd you do?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: How are we doing on the goal?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then go through and everybody reports.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: It it becomes a it's a it becomes a we thing, not a me thing.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, you have dynamic leaders and they're working their butts off and they're inspiring everybody every day, and then they take two weeks off, which is needed for their balance and family vacation, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it goes to hell in a handbasket.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: People aren't there doing the routines.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things we need to understand as a leader is that I need to build my bench strength so so that when I take time off, we don't lose a beat.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, that things get better when I'm gone because everybody's a little more at their edge, you know, they're on they're a little more on their toes because the boss is gone.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, but that doesn't happen if you don't train your people.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't train and coach them to be able to run a meeting quickly with a nice solid agenda and reporting and and with commitments, and and it's really healthy and transparent for a group.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: When I I hear this, I think of a lot of the leaders I've coached, and I wonder one question that they might ask us is what if what if we show up to that meeting and somebody's got the tracker empty?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do I do in that moment?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great thing.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: That needs to be that needs to be sort of uncomfortable for somebody.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't do it in a way that's demeaning to them.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: What you do is you focus on the people that fill the tracker out, you praise and reward them, and you ignore the people who don't fill it out.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you do first.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't fill it out over and over and over again, then you have a then you have a coaching, a clearing conversation with them individually.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you say, why aren't you keeping your commitment to fill the board out?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it reminds me of a story.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: Years ago, we have a friend who was doing, it wasn't the three of us, but we a friend who used to work with us was doing some of this work with a a large organization that it was in the South Florida, and they actually had multiple locations, and they just started this process.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: We were doing this process with them.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: And the first week, the executives from each location were together.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: There'd be there were like six or seven of these guys around the table, and uh the CEO said, Okay, how'd you do with what you said you're gonna do this last week?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: And and every leader said, Man, it was a crazy week last week.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, I didn't do any of the things I said I was gonna do.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: I apologize.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, Okay, at the end, and the leader was really kind of demoralized that they'd had this huge meeting and offsite, and I thought it was gonna be great.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: No one had done anything.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: And these were all executives running multimillion dollar businesses.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: And they'd failed.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: And they hadn't done it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then he said at the end, okay, are you clear on what I'm expecting from you?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: But you're all gonna do these things you said you were gonna do, and next week you're gonna come back and say you did it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: He said, I'm not here to demoralize anybody, to mean anybody, but but hey, you're executives, you're running huge pieces of our business.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: The next week, second week of doing this, same tune.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, boss, I was out of Cattown a couple days, I didn't get it done.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: And someone else said, hey, my kid out of a ball game, whatever else.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: They had all these excuses why they didn't do it.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: And these are people that are really CEOs, they're not called CEOs, but they're all running multi-million dollar divisions of this company, right?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the CEO thought, I don't know what to do here.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: This is crazy.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: He finally, our friend said he actually took off his glasses, set them on the table, and he said, Hey, y'all know that I love you, right?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: All six of you.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you're essential to our success in the business.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: But what I'm seeing now, week two, with none of you having done what you said you would do, is we have an integrity issue.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, I can put up with a lot of things, but I can't put up with an integrity issue.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: If you say you're gonna do it and you don't do it, and all of you were like, uh-huh that like that's okay, he said, I'm gonna miss you.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm gonna find people who can do what they say they'll do.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: And now, now that was an executive level, and I'm not advocating that you do that because you were not doing what they said they would do.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I would never do that with your team at a frontline or a middle level.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: You pull those people off and talk them individually.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: But when everyone had failed and they somehow thought that was okay, he said, that is not okay.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: That this is not this is an integrity issue now.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: You don't you're not doing what you said you would do.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: And you and he's and it was fascinating to see that never happened again, right?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because the but he hadn't really called them on the carpet.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: And there are levels of uh people and times when maybe that's what you have to do, when everyone's blowing it off, right?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not advocating that you do that, but it worked.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_03: And and ultimately they were senior leaders who knew better.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: They just didn't, they didn't really think it was that important, apparently.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and held accountable.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way you described that because he was honest.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: He said, like, you know, this is an integrity thing, and he didn't demean anybody.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, you know, but but it was very uncomfortable.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when people don't do what they say they're gonna do, they lose power and they need to know there's a consequence for their action or inaction.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I thought it was a brilliant example.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, if we think of kind of one thing to close to land this episode, Sam Kent, what would you share?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Track your progress and hold yourself accountable.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: That would be achieve your goal, track your progress and hold yourself accountable.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's okay to hold other people accountable, but it's better when your peers hold you, when peers hold them their peers accountable.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would agree.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the word that comes to my mind over and over again here is consistency.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Consistency.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Are we just meeting weekly on a manufacturing floor?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually maybe meeting daily, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Daily at the beginning or the end of the shift.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: How did we do?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: What do we need to do better?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so this idea of consistency, because we did this really, really well a few times, but it's amazing how quickly it gets off track.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you miss once.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in fact, uh, how long does it take to break a good habit?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: It takes about twice.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, James Clear talked about this years ago.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said, people often ask me, how long does it take to create a good habit?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: And most people say, you know, 21 to 30 days or whatever.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, you never miss twice.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, if you miss once doing something you said you were going to do, you whatever that commitment is, right?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: And let's say that you commit to do this thing every single day.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: He said, you can miss once missing it on a day.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: But if you miss twice, there's over a 90% probability you'll never do it again.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that's really what we're talking about here.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: That don't never miss twice.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: You might miss once because you know the thing blew up, you know, the plant blew, the hospital, whatever else, but you never miss twice.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you miss twice, you won't go back.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: You'll be starting over again.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I would just say consistency, even if it ends up being very, very short, just some consistent thing that consistency is the key, absolutely the key.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, today we talked about two tools, neither requires you to be a different person.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're an ordinary leader listening, build one tracker this week, maybe three behaviors max, and put one recurring 20-minute meeting on your calendar before Friday.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Try it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: The tracker makes progress visible, and the meeting makes it matter.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, on behalf of us at Clear Performance Coaching, we hope you have a good week and we invite you to check out again our website at www.clear performance coaching.com.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: And also we'd love to invite you to ask us about our Clear Performance Academy.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: With that, take care.