Latest / The Unfiltered Tea with Evie / How to Build a Team That Runs Without You with Lia Garvin
Transcript
- Evie Tavares: I'm Evie, and you're listening to The Unfiltered Tea with Evie. I'm a business owner, a copywriter, and a storyteller at heart. And over the years of building my own business and growing my own community, the thing I've loved the most is hearing people's stories, the strategies that they swear by, the mindset shifts that changed everything for them, and the honest truth about what it takes to grow a business from the ground up. Every person has something that makes them different in their industry. And finding that thing and amplifying it is basically my whole job. And this podcast is just another way I get to do that. In this podcast, I'm bringing on incredible guests from my community, experts in marketing, business growth, and mindset to share the real, unfiltered version of what building a business looks like. There's no polished highlight reel in these episodes, just the tea. So let's get into it. Today I sat down with Leah Garvin, who is known as the Team Whisperer. Leah helps business owners with teams of three to 30 get out of the day-to-day of their business so that their team can run a week without them. Isn't that kind of what we all want? She spent 10 years in team operations inside of Microsoft, Apple and Google building the team systems behind launching the HoloLens, iPhone X, and YouTube Shorts. Now she brings those same systems to owners who never got a playbook for running a team. She's a three times best-selling author and hosts the podcast Managing Made Simple, a top 2% podcast, by the way. And inside of this conversation, we covered things like what are the similarities between, say, some of these bigger companies and a smaller business when they're building their teams, when they're working with their teams? What does it look like to have those difficult conversations, even though you have different personalities inside of your business? What does it look like if you just want to be liked by your team and you want to be friends with your team? Where are those boundaries that we can keep and make sure that none of those lines are getting blurred? We also covered how compensation isn't the only thing to motivate your team and how clear communication is really the key to keeping it all together. I can't wait for you to dive into this episode with Leah. So lean in and enjoy. Welcome back to the Unfiltered Tea with Evie. I'm sitting down today with Leah, who I'm so excited to chat with. Leah, thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah, Lia Garvin: Yeah, so excited to be here with you. Evie Tavares: excited to have you here. to start, for anybody who doesn't know you or isn't in your world, tell us a little bit about you and what you do and and who you work with. Lia Garvin: So I actually come from working in corporate. I worked at Google, Apple, and Microsoft for about 10 years. And in that environment, I worked on how do we build high performing teams, even when you have great people. You know, those companies hire smart people, pay them really well. And I found there was still a lot of breakdowns of communication and things feeling harder than they needed to be. and so I left that world about four years ago. And now I help founders and business owners. replace themselves in the day-to-day their business. Like you hired a team, the the goal is to scale, the goal is to really grow and and get out of the weeds. but a lot of times business owners haven't actually set up the structures to make that possible. So that's what I build for them today. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. I love that. And I'm curious, going from working for like such big titans of industry Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: like Apple and Microsoft, are there similarities that you found between their teams and say a smaller team of like three to ten people in a smaller business? Lia Garvin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, it's it's all people, right? And so, you know, when even though you're in a big company, you're working on a sub team that's maybe, you know, five, ten, fifteen people. And that's the size that you're really working with. And so what I found is it's it's really the same strategies. It's how do you get people understanding what the goals are, what's expected of them, you know, how how to know that they've done a good job, and how to really show leaders. the exact conversations to be having, the words to say, you know, how to give someone hard feedback even when you don't want to and it's uncomfortable and you're worried about them getting defensive. It's really the same challenges. And so what I think the the lens that I bring having been in big companies is I've seen what really works and what can unlock and what really can move the needle. And like that when it's compounded across all of these teams across a big company. like allows them to grow so big. And so what I do is I take what worked in those environments and the magic of like working with a founder who can make the decision right there. Right. There's no red tape, there's no approvals and say, like, hey, what if you changed your incentives to give a bonus once a quarter, right? To keep people motivated instead of annually. Like that's an example, well, the business owner can just say, okay, and do that. Or, you know, what if we rewrote your job descriptions to really talk about one specific metric that everyone's responsible for? So, like the person at the front desk, they're responsible for making sure everyone that walks out the door signs up for the next appointment. Right. And so I think that's why I love working with business owners and and founders and entrepreneurs so much, is that the all the tools that you use to build a great team. They can say like yes, let's do it and implement that change right away. And that's why folks I'm working with are saving like 20, 30 hours a month immediately, which is translating into $10, $20,000, $30,000 of savings per month in their business, because they can just say, Yep, let's do it. And I'm like the queen of implementation. Let's set it up, tell you what to say, tell you what to do, and you're off and running. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. I love all of this. And we're gonna dive in a bit deeper. but before we do, you're also known as the Team Whisperer. So Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: I'm curious where that nickname came from and how it really stands behind the work that you do. Lia Garvin: Yeah. So it came from I think it, you know, I think it was years ago working in in tech. you know, I would see a an executive that had or be working closely with an executive that's had shared the vision and the mission and the strategy, and it seemed so clear to them, right? Hey, we're gonna, you know, change the I worked on like augmented reality, like we're gonna launch the first holographic computer and it's gonna do and it's like, okay, that's exciting. And then I would see the people doing the work. Who were like, well, on my list of tasks is this, this, and this. I'm not really excited about that faraway mission. I don't really see where I fit into it. And I started to see this huge gap between what the team people like on the ground level of a of a team and the people making all the big decisions were saying. And they felt like they were totally out of alignment, but they actually were had completely had the same goals. So I started translating that. And for executives and leaders, I would say, okay. you're feeling like people don't understand the the strategy, that they're not bought in. here is exactly how to frame that so that they care and they understand it. And then on the other side, I would say to the team, you know, I know it feels abstract, but look, here's how your fit work fits into the bigger picture. Take a project manager. They might feel like, well, I'm just chasing down open action items. Like I'm just, you know, following up and I'd say, hey, you know, as a project manager, how I see your role is making sure that every single like dot I's dotted and T's crossed, making sure things are getting handed off in the right way in the right time, making sure there none of the deadlines are slipping. And when none of the deadlines are slipping and everyone has all the information, then everyone is working more seamlessly together, then products are shipped on time, and that is like directly responsible for the bigger mission the company had. So I started connecting the dots on both sides and And it just kinda came out as like, Hey, you you're this team whisperer where you can see exactly where there's a breakdown in communication and say the thing that shows people that they actually had a lot more in common than they realized. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that it's important to get the team to buy into the vision Lia Garvin: Yes, yeah. Evie Tavares: that the executive or leader of the company has. Have you ever found a situation where they're not bought in or they're disengaged? And like how did you approach Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: that? Lia Garvin: It's it's showing up a lot right now because there is so much change. Like a lot of companies are integrating AI and automation because they're supposed to and because they don't want to get behind. And they actually don't really have a clear strategy around it. I know a lot of us feel like I feel like I should be using AI more. Like I think all of us are like, Evie Tavares: Yeah. Lia Garvin: right. And so I think that's a big one that I've seen a feeling like we're not aligned. A lot of folks that work in Maybe it's copywriting or creative or marketing and th even engineering where those roles are s kind of talked about as the most threatened right now. you know, but really every role theoretically has an impact on it. So I would say like it's not even but I think where I've seen it a lot on agencies and a lot in creative teams where there's a big resistance on even learning about AI because it brings up all these fears of like, well, if I learn about it in a user, am I gonna replace myself in my role? Am I like opting in to just like you losing my job? And so I'm seeing that a lot. And then for the business owner or the team leader, they're getting a lot of pressure from either whether from the outside or investors or stakeholders or just competitive pressure to up level and be using this technology. So that's something I'm seeing a lot And the way that I'm bridging that gap is really encouraging leaders to not just tell people go learn AI. It's like, well, I would already do that if I understood even where to start. It's to, and I sit down with leaders, I map out what is your AI strategy? How do you want to use it? How do you not want to use it? Let's look at what tools are available, what kinds of things are your biggest bottlenecks. and I mostly encourage folks to use it for work that's not already getting done. Right. So I think about an example that came up for me recently was like years ago I heard Scott Galloway, like he's a I don't know, thought leader, I guess you could say kind of he was saying he had 11 people doing research for his podcast. This was years ago, so it's before AI arose. And I was like, gosh, if I had 11 people researching for managing my suple for my podcast, what would it be? That'd be so amazing. But I don't have budget for 11 people. And so I do research and you know it's like it's it's less than I wish it would be, right? That's an example of a place to utilize AI. It's work that wasn't getting done somewhere else. Right. I would say that's the most those are the examples of where I really encourage people starting with AI is what's something you've been wanting to do, you don't have a human doing, or you wouldn't have hired someone to do that anyway. Like when I have hired folks. It's not for the research. I want that work to be done. I'd love that to be done. But when I've hired folks, it is to do things like brand coordination, content, supporting me on the operational stuff. So it wasn't a role that I was trying to replace with a human, you know, or replace a human for anyway. And so Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: that's I think something that all of us can do is think about what are some things that nobody's doing that are great use cases for AI that we can supplement the team and show them. It's a yes and sort of thing. And so I would say, like literally think about, is it research? Is it you know, AI SEO optimization, right? Something like that, something that you know you should do, but you don't really know how to figure it out, and none of your team members really understand how to do that. maybe it's researching trends in, you know, the competitive landscape. I recently built a tool for agencies that collapse all of the upfront discovery. so like a client you start with a client and they give you like an annual report and a bunch of decks and some blogs and and things like well that takes people hours and hours to parse through. It it eats up a lot of budget that we actually probably want to be spending on creative. And so I built a Claude skill that synthesizes all of that and just gets the creative started from a better place. Right. So like those are examples of the tools I'm giving to leaders so that teams feel like, AI isn't replacing me. It's gonna help me do my job better. It's gonna help free me up to do the things that, you know, I actually am well suited to do. so that's that's an example of how I've been working to bridge that gap. Evie Tavares: Mm. And I feel like AI, like when I think of AI, especially with the copywriting marketing world, like you said, it's always like viewed as a tool, not a takeover. So how can we implement Lia Garvin: Yeah, exactly. Evie Tavares: it as a tool, like you said, to lay that groundwork so that we have more time for the creative, more time for imagining up these big ideas without it replacing Lia Garvin: Yeah, exactly. Evie Tavares: us? Lia Garvin: Yeah. And I think people are getting really they're getting turned off by AI generated content. Right now, LinkedIn has a thing like you can put a like thumbs down if it sounds like AI, right? Evie Tavares: Yeah. Lia Garvin: In Instagram is starting to do that. So I think there's a in a positive way, there's a backlash around like just like spitting out things in mass without any human review. And so anyone that's felt threatened by that, I hope Is feeling a little bit okay, there's a course correction. Now, how do I use this to get me a little bit further, but to still play an active role? Because another thing I was seeing last year when it was early stage, and I think a lot of us fell into this drop, so it's no no shade, but was like, my God, this this sounds great, it feels done. I'm just gonna use this at face value. I think a lot of us Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: did that, and I was like, okay. Like I really should have read this or edited this or slowed down a little bit. And so I think all of us are like. sort of finding that new equilibrium with how do I use it as a tool? And then where do I really actually know the limitations of it? So even on that app, like I said, the or the Claude Skills around discovery, a creative should read through that bec and and think, okay, well I sat down with the client. This piece really resonates. This actually doesn't. So this doesn't belong in my in my campaign. You know, and it's it's to help them, but not to ignore the fact that they sat in the room with a person or they did their own research and they studied it. It's like it's to expand, not to, you know, erase. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. And using that critical thinking to differentiate, right? Lia Garvin: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Evie Tavares: almost every business owner, you've mentioned this that almost every business owner you meet says that they want to replace themselves in their business, not with AI, but take some stuff off their plate, right? Lia Garvin: Right. Yeah. Take yourself out of the weeds. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Evie Tavares: But why do you think that so few people actually build the team that allows them to do that? What's holding them back from doing that? Lia Garvin: Yeah. You know, simple answer is I think it's something that we all want to do and we just don't know how. Like you feel like it would be amazing if I, you know, had this team of people that all n could read my mind or do things better than I could even do it. And it's like this feels like this impossible theoretical state of being. and the reality is is how to do that. takes like specific actions and specific steps and and quite a bit of like implementation and not to kind of harp on the AI thing, but I think a lot of I'm seeing a lot of leaders build out this beautiful strategy, beautiful plan in using AI, Gemini or ChatGBT or or Claude. And then it has like, it it sounds really good on paper. And maybe it is the perfect plan. But you just email that to your team or you tell people that one time and and you assume they're gonna follow it. And like that, if I've learned one thing in my life, it is like in my whole career, nobody ever follows a plan because you email to them one time, no matter what. Even if it is the best plan, even if it benefits them completely, there's gonna be questions, they're gonna get started and then get confused. Like that is like what I spend 99% of my time doing is what happens after you've s announced the plan. That is what I have done in every single job. So take for example, when I worked at Apple, I joined to oversee the production design team and and all the work that flowed through the design studio when they were launching the iPhone X. So getting rid of the home button was a k massive transformation where they would they had to redesign every screen on every single app. Like it was ridiculous the amount of work that had to get done. Everybody Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: on the team knew they needed to do that work. Okay, like we all know we need to knew the strategy. The strategy was simple, it was like We need this new phone launched, right? There was no questions on what we're supposed to do. That's not the problem, right? The problem was, okay, well, there's differences of opinions in how that, you know, how this thing should look, where things should go. couple people were working on this thing, and then someone else joined in and their idea was really good. Should we change to that? Right. Then another right, okay, well now wait a second. We're also load balancing that with designing the watch screens. And now, how do we prioritize between the two things? we have this executive review on Tuesday, this one on Thursday, that one feels more important. What should I do first? Every single one of those questions is the how, is the implementation. And it is not enough just to tell people what they should be doing, even if it's simple, even if it's exciting, even if they're totally on board with it, because stuff naturally comes up. And so That's what I'm saying of like when you start a business and you wanna have your team just running and firing all cylinders and you not to be in the day-to-day, if you haven't laid the foundation of how that's going to happen. Right. And and the way I do it is I set up a team, like a customized team operations playbook. Like I make the playbook for how, then I implement it and I dri I like make close every loop. Like, hey, team member, you're going to do this, and here's what's gonna happen when you get stuck. That level of implementation, if you don't have that, it's like you're never going to get out of the weeds because something's gonna come up every two hours that's gonna pull Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: you back in. take for example, delegating. Like saying, I I need to delegate. Of course you need like everybody needs to delegate. If you knew how to do that, you would already do it. So just thinking I need to delegate or saying, you know, you should delegate, that's not the answer. It's saying, Okay, how do you delegate? Well. You start by opening up your calendar and you take a look at every single meeting that you have for the next week. And look at first start with like what are other ones that my team members are in? Okay, so maybe you have 10 meetings and now have five that you have other team members in. And you look at those and you say, okay, where are ones of those five where I'm kind of just sitting in the background listening in? Okay, so maybe you have three of those. So now you have three meetings. Okay, well Who's actually the person that's speaking up the most in that meeting? And you're like, okay, well, Sarah, she's she's really actually kind of driving that meeting the most. Now that's two of those meetings. Okay. Now you have two meetings that you could sit down with Sarah and say, hey, I'm gonna step out of these two meetings. I want you to run with it. I trust you to run with it. here is some context things that I want to make sure get covered, even on when I'm not there. And let's talk about how you would keep me in the loop of what happened in that meeting. So I don't feel like I have to be there. So you set her up for success. You talk about how you need to be informed. Now you have done like step by step going from a full week to now taking two meetings away every single week that you don't have to be in. And it's it's like those are the micro steps that you've got to do to start to let things go. It's not like be in less meetings, right? Because you would if you could. It's saying, okay, now okay, let's say you look at that four, there's five meetings and there's nothing that you could hand off. There's nobody that could do it. So now you say to yourself, okay, meetings team members are in. I'm really deriving most of those conversations. Who are the people that I can start to coach and talk to and say, okay, you know, Joey, you're going to take over this meeting in one month. Okay, over the next four weeks, listen to the things that I ask about. Like, let's follow up after these meetings and debrief it and talk about it. And you're going to train that person. Maybe you have Joey run one of them before you leave. You can watch, make sure he's ready to take that over. And then you're ready to let that one go. But that's that's the piece I think a lot of us skip is like, I should be delegating, I should be giving feedback, I should this. And we don't really know the granular steps. So then we don't do it, and then we just stay stuck and then we start to resent our team because we're like, I'm paying all these people, but I'm also doing their job. Like that's d not cost effective. I'm burning through you know, through money because I'm actually not able to grow my business and be and be scaling because I'm doing all the doing. Evie Tavares: And is that what you find a lot that there's actually a gap between what an owner thinks is happening versus what the team thinks is happening? Like there's kind of like two different wavelengths going on. Lia Garvin: I think I would say yes and no. I think I fortunately most of the people I have worked with, they they're pretty in touch with their team. And like I haven't met with their team and they're like team like, my god, they're horrible. Like, save me. I've been I've been blessed with working with cli like business owners that reach out that want support are self-aware, right? They they actually want to be a better leader, they want to build a better team, they care about their team, they're eager to invest in the growth of their team. So that's been nice to see, I would say, working in the corporate world where you're kind of like just thrown into it, whatever their leader is, well very different, where like the team has a very different view than the leader. Evie Tavares: I imagine. Yeah. Lia Garvin: So I would say anyone that's wanting to that that f wants to invest in their team, not to be scared that your team's gonna be like you're gonna find out that your team hates you secretly. I think if you want to be a better leader, just because you wanna be a better lead, like By virtue of you wanting that, you probably are good at it to some extent and your team Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: feels appreciated. So I just wanna say that. If you don't want to invest in building better team, then it you're really like then you've chosen to kind of stay where you're at, right? So then it's like I can't really help you. but the biggest disconnect I think is I I think is more that the leader, the business owner, the founder, the manager thought they were more clear than they were. And the team has no idea that there's a problem. Like that is the primary issue. Is like, you know, I asked you a few times to update this client presentation by Thursday. We have a meeting with them on Friday each week. And I asked you to update it by Wednesday so that I can review it. You review it on Thursday. You're busy, so you review it on you finish it on Thursday. And you're like, well, it's still before the meeting. What's the big deal? I look at it each week and I'm like, Here we go again. It's Thursday, and she didn't finish it. I asked her to do it Wednesday. I what is so hard about doing it Wednesday? I want to look at it Thursday, but I've never told you that. I'm frustrated. And I'm like, hey, I said, I said I wanted it Wednesday. I I can't be more clear what I, you know, it was like, but you're thinking, well, Leah never said anything. I had no idea she was frustrated about that. I Evie Tavares: Hm. Lia Garvin: figured she knew that I was busy and it's okay. That is the biggest problem, is this. Feedback, this frustration that's gone unsaid. And you just gotta know that even if it seems obvious to you, even if your team member should know, even if it's in their job description, if you never tell them, you really can't blame them for missing something. And so it's like the simplest way to fix that: roll back the tape, say, hey, I wanted to reset expectations on this. Like literally, you can say this verbatim. I'm like. I wanted to reset expectations on the weekly client presentation. I know you're super busy, and it seems it's been seeming like you know, it's it's working to get it done Thursday. Actually, for me, I've got a review, like as we talked about, it's gotta be done Wednesday so that I can add all my inputs on Thursday. and when it's done Thursday, there's no time, and then I'm having to scramble before the meeting. So can we realign on getting this done on Wednesday? And then I ask you that, and you say, or what would, you know, what would get in the way from that? I think it it's actually shouldn't be a yes or no question. I should ask an open-ended question. So what would get in the way of you getting that done by Wednesday? And you might say, well, the reason I was getting it done Thursday is because I have this other thing on Wednesday. And I'm like, I didn't even realize that. Okay. So let's move project A to like you work on that Thursday afternoon so that you can get this done. And then we're having a dialogue, we're talking about it, and you have You have re-understood why it needs to be done Wednesday. Now, a couple weeks later, if you still send it to me Thursday, I can say, Hey, you know, we talked, we talked two weeks ago about the importance of getting it done Wednesday. Again, just want to understand what's getting in the way because that deadline can't move. Right? So now you've given feedback on the excitation. And those conversations, we are so scared of them, we think. You know, are team members gonna get defensive and it's gonna like they're gonna say, like, how why are you asking me this? Why are you micromanaging? When you're super clear, they don't get defensive. When you ask them these open-end questions, and that's why I corrected myself from can you do it? If your team member says no, like you're kinda stuck, so you don't want to do that. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: What's getting in the way? How can I help make that happen? What can I take off your plate so that that can get done? When you ask these open-end questions. that you're showing them you're working with them to figure it out, then they have no, like there's no option but to work with you to figure it out. So those are the conversations that we're avoiding. And then we're assuming our team isn't motivated or is disrespecting us or isn't listening or whatever. And it was like actually a very simple thing to fix by setting the expectations, hey, this needs to be done by this day and why? Giving feedback if you haven't seen it, hey, we talked about this. I you know, this is still happening, what's getting in the way? How can I support you? And then those that really gives you a signal of like, is this person doing this intentionally or not? And like nine times out of ten, no, they're not doing it intentionally. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. And I have two follow-up questions to this. So Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: the first one is around like the different personality types that you come across for both leaders and team members. So that conversation that you talked about, giving that feedback, there's gonna be people who are like introverted or like softer, and then there's gonna be people be people who are more direct and like people who Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: like maybe don't take feedback super well if it's given in a direct way. So how do you kind of navigate the different personalities that Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: You find in companies. Lia Garvin: Yeah. Well, I actually have a free resource for this. So I'll say at LeahGarvin.com slash convo, Evie Tavares: amazing. Yeah. Lia Garvin: C-O-N-V-O. I made a resource on what are some of the steps to having these hard conversations because it it that is exactly what comes up. We have these different personality types and we don't really know what to say. And it can feel like there's not a one-size-fits-all. And there's not a one-size-fits-all with communication, but I wanted to put together, well, what gives you the best kind of sense of like what can I use again and again that's gonna cover most situations? And this resource walks through five kinds of sticky conversations. Someone's attitude shifted, someone's not getting stuff done, someone's offensive, someone is a high performer and you're worried to recognize them because they're gonna ask for a raise. Like that's the one that comes out too. and I walk through how to approach that conversation. And to give you a sneak peek, it's it's it's three steps. You start by, you know, owning your role in it. So you say, hey, you know, there's some feedback that, you know, I I need to give to you and I recognize I've let it go a few weeks and I just want to take responsibility for that. That's not fair to you. Like when you say that, my gosh, does the wall come down for that person? When you start to say, I was wrong, I'm sorry, I messed something up, no matter what. Or if you're telling someone that's doing a great job, like you're wanting to make sure that they know they're appreciated, saying, gosh, you've really been crushing it and I haven't stopped to thank you. Like I'm like kicking myself for not slowing down and saying what a great job you're doing. Like, wow, nobody ever says that. You know what I mean? And so that is step one, literally saying, you know, I recognize I was wrong or missed something or owed you a conversation or something, and I want to own up to that. That I think can help you in any situation. The exact words are gonna, you know, vary for person by person. But that's step one. Step two is giving the direct feedback. Because even if someone is less comfortable with directness, everybody benefits from directness. Evie Tavares: Hm. Lia Garvin: And you know, there's the Brene Brown famous quote: Clear is kind. We can think being clear is harsh. We can think being clear is mean. If you say it in a mean way, yeah, right. Like, okay. But like if you say Hey, you have I I know that you're really working hard to get better at managing meetings and presenting in front of clients. And you've done you have worked like made some really great strides. And unfortunately in that last meeting, like the the you know, competence that I competency like I know you have, it just didn't come through and the meeting didn't land and the client was confused. Like there you can land that really hard message in a compassionate way if you're clear. So you give the clear feedback. And then step three is you end with an action plan. So let me support you before the next client meeting. Let's do a quick role play. That was a really hard client and they had tough questions, and anybody might have gotten rattled by that. So I'll be your sounding board. Let's work through it because I know this is important to you. It's important to me that you get, you know, that you reach your goals with public speaking and presentations, and I'm gonna support you. Right? Like, wow. So that's what I share in this guide, LeahGarvan.com slash convo. It walks through these different situations and how to use this powerful conversation style. I call it the sit-down, so that you can take responsibility and like empower someone to implement the feedback. But again, if I just said take responsibility, give feedback, give next steps, you're like, yeah, but how? Like, what do I say? So I wanted to tell you like exactly what you say. Evie Tavares: Okay, amazing. And I'm gonna link that in the show notes as well. Lia Garvin: sabes. Evie Tavares: So if people wanna check that out, it'll be in there. The other follow up I had was you meant you mentioned the word micromanaging. Lia Garvin: Yeah, yeah. Evie Tavares: And I feel like that's something that maybe people feel like maybe they are doing and they don't wanna do that, or maybe they're doing too much of it and it actually turns them into the bottleneck, which is something that you also talk about. So how Lia Garvin: Yeah, yeah. Evie Tavares: do you approach micromanaging? Lia Garvin: Yeah. You know, it's it relates to the clear as kind statement. I think it can be it can feel like, well, if I'm too clear, am I a micromanager? If I'm too explicit, are are they gonna think I'm, you know, trying to have everything done my way? And micromanaging is not about the what, it's about the when. So I really want that to sink in. Micromanaging is not about being clear, it's not about setting stations, it's about not doing those things. And then someone gets started on something, and then you're like, well, I wanted it done this way, or why did you do this? And why did this happen? So it's about the timing. And when you realize that and you and you internalize, okay, then you set all the clarity up front. And then you don't even need to check back in. Because in the expectations, you have done three things. You said exactly what needs to happen. So, you know, you are going to take over managing our CRM system. Okay, that means you're going to review all of the leads every day. You're going to send follow-ups by the end of the day each day. here's a couple of template examples of what the follow-ups look like. As you're hearing responses from folks, of course, you feel you can feel free to tweak that. you know, you are very, very clear on what you want to see. Step two is you say, okay, because you're just getting started at this, let's check in. Wednesday afternoon for the first few weeks on how that's going. So I can give you any feedback and you know answer any questions. Of course, if you have questions before then, feel free to ping me, but let's have a review meeting every Wednesday. Okay, that's step two. And then step three, like what does it what does success look like? So I say, okay, well, a a success looks like that you're actually, you know, moving leads to sales, or you're having five conversations a week, or you're sending out You know, 10 fall, you're, you know, closing out all of the open things by the end of each day. You know, now you are crystal clear on what you need to do. I've given you space to make it your own, right? As you start to get a rhythm down. I said that you can change things up. you know when you can ask me questions, and you know what I'm going to say, yes, you did a good job when XYZ happened. So there's no confusion. That is the way that we prevent ourselves from micromanaging. If I said, okay, go run the CRM system, you've got this, you're fine. And then I'm like, is she like even following up with anybody at the NMVS day? Like, why is she not checked in with me? What's going on? And like, I'm like, and you're thinking, I built this intricate system, I have this whole thing in my mind, I've got this dialed in. And you're like, I'm I'm crushing it. And I'm over here resenting, like, cause I don't know what you're doing, and I never asked you. Like, that's where you start micromanaging. And I'm like, Hey, make sure to close out the, you know, re respond to everyone by the end of day. Make sure to, you know, tweak the message as things go on. Make sure this. And you're just like, of course I know to do that. Like, why would you ask me to do this job? If you thought I was so bad at it, were you gonna give me 18 million instructions once I got started? So it's the timing. And you can give literally the same information. It's when it's happening. That is the difference for your team member. And like. It is as simple as that. You can and should be super clear up front because, you know, even the best expert in the world, if you need it done in a certain way or you want it done a certain way, like say it. You're, you know, you're the boss, fine. If you're feeling like, well, I don't even know how I want it done, that's a different question. Then you're having a conversation and you're saying, Hey, I want you to s take over the CRM system. Talk me through how you would approach it. Boom. Right. Now you don't have give any instructions. And now you're listening. You're saying, okay, that sounds good. Well, what about if this many leads comes in? Now you're just asking questions. Now you're hearing them thinking. And now you're like, yeah, I like how they're approaching it. Same thing. You've gotten aligned on the process, on the expectations, and you're like, now you can do step two and three when you're checking in what a good job looks like. And it's you don't always have to spell everything out up front. but you together have spelled everything out up front. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. And something else that I've seen in your content, I think on Instagram, is around like leaders wanting to be liked, wanting to be Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: friends with their employees. Like everybody wants to be liked, right? It reminds me Lia Garvin: Yes, yes. Evie Tavares: of I don't know if you've watched The Office, but the episode, the Lia Garvin: yeah. Evie Tavares: episode where Michael Scott is talking to Holly and HR and and says, Well, we're friends, we're family. She's like, It's not family, it's a workplace. And he's just devastated. But I think a lot of business Lia Garvin: Yeah, yeah. Evie Tavares: owners can relate to that where you want to be close with your team, you want to be liked, you want to be friends with them. how does that impact that team culture when somebody is Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: feeling that way? Lia Garvin: It is so hard. And it's funny because yeah, I've been I posted about that a few times on Instagram and folks were like, my God, this is me. Because it's when you run a small business, maybe you have five employees, you're you're seeing those people all the time. You feel very close, right? If you're if you're together in an office or I you know I work with salon owners or med spas or retail stores where folks are physically together. a lot, like it does feel like this, you know, it's it's closer than just work colleagues. So it can get very blurry. but the problem is is when it gets blurry for you as the business owner or you allow it to be blurry, your it becomes really, really hard to give feedback. It becomes really hard to hold people accountable, which is like basically just when something does not happen following up and then giving feedback or you know, having some steps to ensure that it it does happen. It might mean changing compensation, not giving a bonus, right? These things are very hard to do when everyone thinks like, what? How could you do that? We're we're friends. So my advice is to be friendly, but to have a firm boundary on like, maybe you don't like go on, you know, trips together or like have people over for dinners at your house. Or you kind of like Figure out what is your boundary that and sometimes I I have clients that work on like their wedding wedding photography, production, you know, event production. So there's like traveling, right? I'm talking about like vacationing, right? Things like that, where it's like definitely blurring into a friend thing that's exists like in a big way, like outside of the day-to-day to work. whatever that looks like for you, because y there's going to be a moment. When you feel when when you have to say something that's hard and your team member feels blindsided. And I'll give you an example from when I was at Google. I was really close with my boss. We got dinners like outside of work, like we talked about everything. I it was just like she was really supportive of my work. Like I thought we were like just great friends. And one day, There was a big company re-org and or a reorg that affected our direct team and my work day to day. Like a team that I was helping oversee all their operations around was moved into another division. And when I saw that email, it just was a punch in the stomach. I said, How could she not tell me that? This affected all of my work. And we just had coffee this morning and we're like just having small talk. I felt like so betrayed. I was I mean, I literally almost quit the team. And as I reflected on it later, I thought she was not allowed to able to tell me that. Like she probably didn't even know because a lot of times you actually big shifts like that, maybe you don't even know. But like let's say she did know. She was probably very conflicted too, because she knew that affected me. But she was not allowed to tell anyone. In in big moments like that, if you have layoffs or if you have reorgs or things like that, like you cannot just tell everyone like there's a reason, right? Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: It it affects things that are outside of your control. She was not able to tell me that. And it wasn't because she didn't think of me as friend. Like that was the boundary where that boundary ended. And I think I remember how upset I felt about it. And in and now working on the other side of it, supporting business owners and founders and and leaders. I think like that that's the risk that you have that when that line is blurred. That maybe your best team member, because I was like the strongest person on the team, is gonna think about leaving because this line was blurred that like you never could have, you know, told them anyway. And right Evie Tavares: Sure. Lia Garvin: now, where there's a lot of teams have to cut back, maybe reduce staff, maybe you are moving things in automation, maybe you're you know, scaling up and down, especially with personnel changes, those get you in a sticky place. Like you really can't tell people that's coming. and and so it can it's gonna make it really hard make decisions. I know a lot of business owners that have a large team because they have gotten too close to them and they feel like, well, if I I can't downsize, so I stop paying myself because I have to pay my staff, I have to go chase more, find more customers because I have this staff that I'm just trying to sustain. And It's fantastic that they they care about people's livelihoods. I think that there's a yes and there. Like if you truly cannot afford to keep your staff, it's like a there's different conversation. It's not just because that you're friends with them. You know what I mean? Like that's just like a different thing to think through is what makes sense for this business from a staffing side? Do I need to secure outside funding? Do I need to get investment? Like if you wanna keep the team size, but not just because you like feel like they're gonna be mad at you. You know what I mean? Like it's just a different situation. Yeah. Evie Tavares: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And what about the other side of the coin where maybe people are hiring people who are already their friends? What's your take on that? Lia Garvin: Yeah, that's really hard. And I been been there, done that, and both Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: in in big teams and and and small. business owners, maybe you hire a family member, maybe you hire a team member, maybe you hire a sister in law. It's a big one, like I see. And the strategy there is you've got to reset that relationship. You you know that person really well, maybe your whole life, you do not know how that person is at work. Maybe you hired them because you've seen them in their own work or in other things, you've seen them be successful. You don't know how you and them interact at work. That Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: you have no idea, right? Most likely, right? You maybe worked them before. Whatever. Let's say you have no idea. So what you do is before you start working together, as you're exploring it, saying, Hey, you know, you're awesome. I, you know, I think you're gonna be great at this. Let's talk about a couple of things, like what is this new dynamic look like? Let's talk about how we have hard conversations, how I give you hard feedback, how we talk about money. What if there's things that I cannot tell you that, yeah, if we were just friends, of course I would tell you. Right. Like let's talk about this new dynamic. And you get all of this aired out in the beginning. And I remember hearing this on a podcast with Lisa Billieu, the Lisa and Tom made like Quest bars, I think. And like, Evie Tavares: Mm. Lia Garvin: and they so it's a husband and wife couple and they made these protein bars and they sold it for or run it's like five billion dollar company, whether they sold it or own. It's crushing it. And she said that. She said when we were going to work together, we had to define what exactly are our roles, who makes decisions in what areas, if he's gonna be the CEO and she's gonna head up operations, you know, he'll make certain calls over here and he she will make other calls over here. And she said in itemizing that and spelling it out and really working every day to respect that. They were able to be successful and it not s ruin their relationship. because I think that's the problem most most of the times is you think you know the person, you think it's gonna be fine, you think it's clear, you think, whatever. And then the first thing that's awkward comes up, the first tough conversation, and you're like, you're both feeling like, why is that how they're acting? Or how was the why is this so hard or they don't respect me? And like it all could have been solved by having that upfront conversation. Evie Tavares: Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I didn't even think of like husband and wife duos like what that looks like. I think the respect piece is such a huge part of that. Respecting who Lia Garvin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Evie Tavares: does what and just like running with it. Yeah, love that. Lia Garvin: Yeah, exactly. And I do work with a quite a few husband and wife, you know, business owner couples, and there is a clear role and that that is what works, you know, is like, hey, you are running this, I'm running this. They may have differences of opinions on certain things, but they respect each other on that and they talk about those things. And it's just like if you're, you know. Both parenting, right? You need to be on the same page around around how things work. Yeah. Evie Tavares: Right. And something else that you've touched on briefly is around like money, bonuses, compensation, Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: that kind of thing. And you have said before that where was it here? You said before that it's not necessarily paying people more that's gonna give them the motivation to do their job. Wha what what makes you say Lia Garvin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Evie Tavares: that? Lia Garvin: So I you know, I mentioned sometimes there's a high performer, someone that's great, and you want to keep them and you wanna keep them happy, but you don't have an ability to pay them more right now. And so you're thinking, gosh, like it's just a matter of time before they're gonna leave, they're gonna go find a better job, and you're starting to feel like the other shoe's about to drop. And yeah, I think paying people more is one of many incentives and is a very powerful one. And we want to always pay people well because people, that's why people go to work, you know, for the most part. It's not the only lever you have. And recognizing someone like, hey, I see that you're doing a great job. I know that you know you're working towards getting to this salary or getting to this bonus. here is how I am working to do that. In the meantime, here is some work or projects you can take on that's going to help get you there faster. Right. Showing someone that you have a plan for them and that you're aware of their goals and that you're bought into them and you're invested in them, that goes so far to keep their commitment. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: And it's not just about showing up with the check the next day, and showing them that you have a plan to making it happen or saying, Hey, I know that, you are, you know, wanting to have this, you know, raise at the end of the year, to get that like to really justify that raise and be able to like support that on an ongoing basis. This is the things that we need to add to your job description. Like let's talk about how to build that in and make space for that. Like you can say things like that. You don't have to just feel like I had to give them a raid then do anything else. Like you can totally have them do more things, right? To get paid more. And so We don't have to feel afraid of having conversations with people because they're just gonna want more money. I have a client that runs a in a an event production company and employees were asking about their titles. Everyone was like, I I don't like my title is I, you know, I'm you know, producer, I wanna be senior producer. Another person was like, I'm senior designer, I want to be art director. And like four five or six people came to him and were saying, I you know, I don't like my title. And he said to me, He's like, Gosh, like everyone keeps coming to me for titles. Like everyone just wants to get paid more. Like I can't just give out more raises. And I said, wait a second, let's think about this. The people asking about their title, sure, it might be because they want to raise, but more likely it's because they're feeling like they're not being seen and recognized for the expertise that they brought from their previous role, or they feel like the work they're doing now does not really support what they feel like they're capable of. So if someone wants to go from senior designer to art director, well, theoretically that could be a promotion, like the title actually says, okay, art director means I'm I'm like overseeing a wider set of things. I'm not just working on one project. So if that's actually what the person is already doing, they just want that to match, right? If someone is feeling like, how am I called marketing coordinator? I have eight years of experience. Coordinator, it sounds entry level, and they resent that, and you They took on that title like to get a foot in the door and now they're feeling like, well, I've really been doing I haven't been doing coordination stuff saying like, okay, well, like what feels like it represents your work better. Like, and then having that conversation, just showing them, okay, I hear you, let's figure this out, that may not need to have any shift in pay. Right. Sh the the way we get around the pay thing, I think having clarity on what you pay each of the roles, w how to get a raise. This is one of things I map out with clients in in my ops playbook program where we map out their you know how everything works in their business is like what are each of the roles that you have? How do you go from entry to mid to senior to you know, what does that look like? Even if you don't have those career paths now, showing someone there's a line of sight, like you might have two employees and you might have a org chart that has all the roles that you want to have and all the steps in the letter because you have a vision to getting there. And when you show your team members that, they feel like, wow, there's a lot of space for me to grow. They don't just think, well, it's me as a marketing coordinator and you as a CEO, like, I'm not gonna be you. There's no path here. Right. That's what people see without information. And a lot of what we've talked about today is like just making things clear, removing the assumptions, because that's where people start thinking there's no future for me, my boss doesn't care about me. I'm not valued. And it's like you can get ahead of every single one of those concerns by just spelling it out and and being more clear and saying the things that I've said today, right? It like literally repeating the things that we've talked about. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. I love that. yeah, I feel like there's so much gold in here. Like I can already think of so many people I'm gonna send this episode. Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: so yeah, thank you so much for coming on, Leah, and for answering all my questions. I do want to give you an opportunity Lia Garvin: Yeah. Evie Tavares: to share where people can find you, how they can work with you. And again, I am gonna put that the convo link in the show notes as well. Lia Garvin: Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the best way to get started is listening to my podcast, Managing Made Simple. I it's short episodes every week. just giving strategies of like, okay, let's talk about how to delegate, right? Like, let's dive into these things. So it gives you those bite-sized tools and strategies and things to say in the moment to tackle a lot of these issues that we talked about today. So that's called Managing Made Simple. Subscribe comes out every, every Tuesday, and you've got a lot of what you need. To, you know, you mentioned my Instagram, follow me on Instagram, Leah.garvin. there I do bite-sized videos of tips, tools, and tricks talking about a lot of these issues. And yeah, if you like want support for yourself or your team, whether it's one-on-one advisory around some of these challenges we talked about, or setting up and implementing that team operation structure so that you really can replace yourself in the business, reach out at hello at leaharvin.com. Like I mentioned, work with teams from you know maybe three to thirty employees where you are you have all the pieces together and you're feeling like I have the people, I don't want to be doing all the day-to-day. That is the perfect moment to get that foundation and that implementation support. So LeahGarvin.com or hello at Leagarvin.com. Evie Tavares: Perfect. I'll put all of that in the show notes as well. Lia Garvin: Awesome. Evie Tavares: Before I let you go, Leah, I have this little custom of doing rapid fire at the end. So if you're open to that. Okay, Lia Garvin: sure. Yeah. Evie Tavares: first question's an easy one. Coffee or tea? Lia Garvin: Coffee. Evie Tavares: Coffee. How do you how do you usually take it? Lia Garvin: I do just coffee with a little bit of half and half and actually usually collagen powder in it. So yeah. Yeah. Evie Tavares: Ooh, nice. If your business had a theme song, what would it be? Lia Garvin: Ooh. That is that's fun. I don't know if it's a theme song, but like Blinding Lights by the Weekend is like my one of my favorite songs ever, and I can blast it like full volume and it gets Evie Tavares: Yeah. Lia Garvin: me like I would say that's like my walkout song, like when I'm like coming on the field. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Evie Tavares: I love it. Yeah. When you're driving to your to your meeting. Yeah. Love it. what's one word that your team would use to describe working with you? Lia Garvin: I think fun. I really, really try to keep things fun and light. So yeah. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. what's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten and actually used? Lia Garvin: So this is a interesting one, and I should pass this along to business owners. you can't care more than they care. If you have an employee and you are busting your butt to give them feedback and help them get better and they just aren't doing it, they have told you they don't care. And it's like you can't will them into caring, you can't will them into wanting to improve. So when you reach that point, that is a conversation around like, is this a fit or not? Not What can I say to get them to care about what I want? It's a hard moment. But f but realizing that it changed the way that I approached like, hey, I invest and I help someone and I give the feedback and I make it super clear, I give them every opportunity. And if they don't take it, that that is that that is their choice. So that's a big one. Evie Tavares: Mm-hmm. Lia Garvin: But it's it's important. Evie Tavares: Yeah, that's a good one. last one, what is your dream collaboration or partnership or client that you're calling in for twenty twenty six or what's left of it? Lia Garvin: Ooh. huh. I think. I mean collaboration, I'd say like, you know, Mel Robbins is like my you know, like the person I look up to so much and how she, you know, puts her work out there, her books, her podcast, the the relatability, the accessibility, everything. So, would say like, you know, going on the Mel Robbins podcast would be the the vision I'm calling in. Yeah. Evie Tavares: Yeah, I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much again, Leah, and looking forward to people listening in and getting all the info that you gave us. If you have any comments or questions or anything, please reach out to myself or Leah. We would love to chat and we will chat soon. Lia Garvin: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me on. This is such a fun conversation. Evie Tavares: That's the tea for today. If something in this episode landed for you, I would love to hear about it. And if you're curious about working together, whether that's finding your own unfiltered tea and bringing it to the front of your marketing, or writing copy that really sounds like you, reach out. I'm always open for a conversation. And before you go, hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're feeling extra generous today, leave a review. It really helps this show to reach more people who need to hear it. Thank you so much for listening, honestly. And I will see you next time.