Answering Your Questions – May 2023 | Episode 259

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:

I how to thank remote workers, how to get people to care about their job and show up on time. And then, finally, does discipline even work? These are questions that I go ahead and tackle this week in this month’s monthly Q and A episode. Each month, I ask you for your questions s, and you never fail to give me some good ones. And this month, those three are the ones that I’m going deep and tackling and answering them for you. So if you ever wondered what my thoughts are on those topics, well, wonder no more. All right, that’s enough for me. Are you ready for this? All right. Let’s do it. Welcome one.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:01]:

Welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:09]:

Three domains of leadership.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:11]:

Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests to bring you the most complete podcast on leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website@movingforwardleadership.com.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:34]:

And with that, let’s get to the show leaders everywhere. Welcome. Good evening. Hope you are doing well. It is July. Sorry. Not June. It’s Mays. I don’t know why the hell I mark down June’s, Q and A. I’ll fix that once this live video is done for those who are listening in via the podcast. Later, I’m actually live streaming in our free Facebook group, leadership skills for managers who want to be leaders, not bosses, and answering their questions today, their questions. So every month I throw it out there looking for their questions. And here I’m grabbing a handful of them and answering them live in the group. So let’s dive in. And the first question I’m going to dive into today is Amanda’s. And Amanda is asking about how we might show appreciation to royal workers who aren’t able to attend the office functions. And what a great question, Amanda. Awesome question. And first off, the thing is that remote work is not going to go away. And actually, next week’s podcast episode, we’re going to even talk about that in the future of the office itself. So you’re definitely going to want to tune into that one because it is awesome. And just to give you a heads up, the book that we discuss is probably one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. It was just fantastic. So anyway, let’s dive into your question. So I did respond with a podcast episode for you check out, and that is called The Dream Machine with Dane Estergard. And that’s episode 239. So for you listening in, you want to check that out, go to lead, dopeboss.com two, three nine. And listen, Dane has a great few pieces of advice in there that you can use in these times, right? Because what I’m gathering out of your post there is that you want to find a special way to appreciate them and thank them for the work they’re doing, dedication, the long hours, being disjointed from the rest of the team, so on and so forth. So one of the things Dane talks about in there, and he’s got a great story, is talking to your people and getting understanding of what their dreams are, what are the big ambitions, what are their big goals in life, what they truly love. And he talks about the story where he ended up getting football tickets for an employee for him and his brother and take him to a football game, I believe it was the Buffalo Bills. And that was this person’s dream to go and see a live football game that normally he wouldn’t be able to see. Now does that mean you have to go and get football tickets? No. But what’s the moral of the story here? The moral of the story is this is that you can show appreciation by having understanding of what they value, things they care about and the things that they love. So if they’re big into drawing, maybe painting, you can show appreciation by sending them a gift of maybe a new paint set, maybe a new drawing set, something along those lines. If they’re into sports you can go ahead. Maybe it’s not the NFL team but maybe it’s a set of tickets for their local team. Then comes into the other aspect here which I haven’t talked about yet and that is actually understanding how people like to be appreciated. You know, there’s the whole five love languages out there right now that can also be used in the workplace. Some people love just words of affirmation. They just love being told thanks for a great job and maybe that will be good enough for them. Other people prefer gifts, other people prefer time. So how might you, knowing these five different Love languages and trying to understand what each individual person’s love language is, apply that in the workplace? Maybe you send them a gift card, maybe you spend some quality time with them one on one and talking to them, getting them to know better. Maybe you publicly thank them and maybe that’s good enough. I had an employee once that hated public recognition and I realized how wrong this was now and he got an award and he literally hid from getting the award to the point where we had to trick him in receiving the award and him not knowing that that was actually happening. He didn’t want the public recognition as much as he deserved it in our eyes. He didn’t want it. That’s not how we want it to be thanked. And if I was to do it all over again, I would recognize that and just have him in my office and thank him and hand off the award to him. So remote workers a little bit different. So a few things to consider of how you might thank them, right? Think about their love, language, how they want to be actually thanked, what are their dreams, what are their goals? How might you tap in and use that? If you’re going to do something or provide, give them something. And the final thing is, if possible, why not bring them in for one of the office functions, pay for them to come on in, bring them in, and from time to time there, the benefits are outstanding. Not only do you get them there where you thank them, but you bring them into the team. The rest of the team, they get to interact, you get to do some FaceTime so on. So there are some ideas for you to chew on. If you have more questions, I’m always here, feel free to ask in the group and hopefully this works out for you. All right? Crystal asks. The next question is from Crystal and she’s asking about getting people to show up on time and caring about their job. Common issue. It’s a common issue for sure. Getting people to show up on time is one issue and then caring about their job is a second issue. Now what I would say is the latter is going to be more important than the former, which in turn will help drive fixing the former’s problem. People care about their job. They’re going to show up on time most of the time. Sometimes there might be exception, sometimes something just might happen. But if someone cares about their job to their core, believes in it, they will show up on time. So let’s look at how you get people to care about their job and how get them invested. Right? There are so many different ways. So right now the book says for me to talk about the mission and getting them to believe in the mission of the organization. That’s okay. Reality is most people don’t, especially if you’re in a corporate type job. Not a whole lot of people believe in the mission of their organizations. Let’s be honest here. Let’s be truthful, right? Most people believe that most companies or mission is simple, make money. And for most of it that’s true, okay? Businesses are out there to make money. I won’t deny that, right? But let’s look at it a little bit differently. How do their specific mission tie in to the rest of the team? What effects does them being late or them not caring about their job have on the rest of the team? So, once upon a time, I was a commander of a military unit of 200 members. Now it would take time. Every Friday, me and my right hand man, it was a man, we would go out every Friday and what we’re referred to as walking the lines. So our 200 person organization was spread across nine buildings. So really disperse people everywhere, all kinds of different jobs, everything you can imagine just all kinds of different things. And what I would do on those walkabouts and walking the lines per se was obviously one just connect with the people and get an understanding on what was going on and what their pain points were and trying to help them. But there was another goal and the other goal was making sure one day knew what was going on, but more importantly, how they fit it in. People don’t care when they don’t know where they fit into the grander scheme of things. They believe that it doesn’t matter, they’re not going to care. To them it’s wasting their time. They’re just collecting their paycheck and going home. But how they fit into the bigger picture is super important. So give you example. That organization was divided into three sub organizations. One was responsible for maintenance of vehicles and equipment. The other one was responsible for warehousing supplies and doing contracts. And the final one was a transport organization for moving stuff. And we had a lady who worked in her spare parts procurement office. She was just in her mind buying parts, brake pads, oil, nuts, bolts, you name it, those types of things. Requests come in, she’d fulfill it with our contractors, parts would show up, no big deal. I was talking to her and she’s like, yeah, job’s not that big important. Why are you wasting your time here with me? It’s like you’re joking me, right? She’s like, no. And she didn’t really see where she fit in. I would say it wasn’t that she didn’t care about her job per se because she was a very proud individual, but she didn’t believe it mattered. So I explained to him, like the spare parts you procure keep our trucks moving. Which means the supplies that the contracting folks buy for the other organizations that we support get to them. Which in turn means you are supporting the rest of the base here. And our base is about 8000 folks. It is crucially important you matter, your job matters. And when she was told that and once it sunk into her exactly how important her role was and how it fit it into the bigger scheme and the bigger picture of the entire organization and how it impacted tens, hundreds, thousands of other people, she really begin to care. She really begin to care about her job. So there’s that aspect about carrying their job, having them understand how they fit in to the larger picture and the effects that they have on the rest of the greater team. Now, showing up on time is another thing. So when they start caring, in theory they should show up on time. But a few pieces of advice for you about having people show up on time. First off question do they know when to show up or is it show up on ballpark time? It’s important that they show up at a specific time. Some jobs it is. If you’re in customer service and your doors open at eight and they need to be there for eight, that’s important. Other jobs, not so much. For example, my job that I do on day to day basis, I don’t have to show up at a specific time unless I have something that’s happening. If I have a meeting, then obviously I have to show up on time. But other days, like, I generally roll in usually around 828, 25, maybe sometimes 840. Just really depends because it doesn’t overly matter. So that’s the first thing. Second thing, whether or not they know they have to show up on time or it matters. Second thing, a lot of people will basically enable people from showing to not show up on time, especially in meetings. We find this in meetings the most part. Enable it by stopping and recapping for the person who was late everything that was discussed. So if you’re not showing up on time in meetings, reiterate the expectation, okay? They’re expected to be there on time. So if the meeting starts at ten, tell them you be there, ready at ten. It no objections, just be ready at ten and they show up at ten. Five or 1010, do not recap what was discussed during that time. Tell them instead that they can come see you or call you to get the points that were covered. And let me tell you, that is actually very awkward for them. It’s kind of like getting called to the principal’s office when you’re in high school. Everyone knows you’re in trouble, everyone knows you did wrong and now you have to go and pay rents. And I’m not saying berate them or discipline them or anything, but the simple fact is that once you start holding standards, holding accountability for actions, people will not conform, but adjust their attitudes and their actions align with the standards which were enforced. So if it’s about meetings, force the time. It does matter if there’s only one person there, go ahead, start and then show them that you actually mean what you say. Don’t enable not showing up on time. So if it’s start time like they’re a customer service rep, again, reiterate expectations. If you’ve never said that they are expected to be there for 745 to open at eight, you have to, okay, reiterate the expectations, make sure they understand what the expectation is, and again, then hold to account you are late today. I want to make sure you understand what the expectation is. 745, that’s your start time to open, to be ready to open for eight. Do it again, then you escalate. Do it again, then you escalate. It is a matter of making sure you hold true to the standards. Okay? So I hope this helps. If you got more again, let me know. And then the final question of the show is not actually going to be from this group, it’s going to be from our leader growth Mastermind. We had this question popped up last week during our group coaching call, and quickly. Our leader, Growth Mastermind, is our elite tribe, I’ll call it, because that’s what the group is calling it. We’re a tribe of leaders who are just trying to make it. We’re getting after it and getting better and really trying to elevate our leadership skills. And that’s what we do. So people show up, they feel lonely. They don’t have anyone to talk to. They feel burnt out, they feel isolated. They have impostor syndrome. They come into this community, and we take them from feeling that and making them feel empowered and feeling like they can achieve anything. And there are so many quotes out there that I can’t even go into them, of the members and the feelings that they have and how empowered and how confident they feel about their leadership skills just by being a part of our group. So if that interests you, if you’re looking for something of that nature, check out Leadboss.com Mastermind. And all the information is there. You can sign up there and get going right now because I’m here to help you be the best leader that you want to be, and you can’t do it alone. Let me tell you, I’ve tried it. It fails. Don’t go alone. Anyway, the question that arose in our conversation during our weekly group coaching call was this how effective is discipline? And the member, Sean, went on to explain that he was wondering because some members of his organization recently he believes were disciplined for some things, and he’s wondering how effective it is. And secondly, he’s wondering if it actually transpired in the first place. So here’s a few thoughts on how effective discipline is. First off, let’s talk about whether or not it transpired. So discipline, let’s back it up. Praise publicly kind of goes with what I was talking earlier. Praise publicly, discipline privately. That is the golden rule. There is no venturing away from that. And that’s why I basically told Sean it’s effectively none of his business if he knows, one, if they were disciplined, or two, what the actual discipline was. None of his business. It’s not for him to know. That’s between the supervisor and the employees. So there’s that. Now let’s talk about whether or not it’s effective. It’s effective. So let’s back up. What is the point of discipline? Discipline is not about reprimanding people. It’s not about firing people. It’s not about, I got you in discipline when it’s done properly, professionally. It’s about getting the people back in line with the values and expectations that you have of them. It’s about getting people back in line with the values and expectations you have of them. Okay? That’s what it’s about. It’s not a negative thing. It should be a positive thing. Now, is the experience always positive? Did they come out like, wow, I got disciplined today? Amazing. No, but you have to reaffirm what the end goal is. The end goal is not to fire them. The end goal is to point out to them the actions that they’ve done recently are not conducive to the workplace or the environment or what’s expected of them. You’re looking to get them back in line because you’ve already invested so much in them, so much time, so much resources in training them, bringing them up to speed, bringing them in, hiring them, getting them part of the team. You would rather not have them not be part of the team. You want them a part of the team, but they’re doing something that is not conducive to the team. So after you go through all the normal things, right, make sure expectations are clear, make sure they understood the expectations, make sure that whatever they did wrong was crystal clear to them and that they known that that was wrong. See, you have to look at yourself first before you look at, punishing or disciplining them. So you go through those checks and balances. You think in your head, you check it all out and the end result, you go, yes, they knew they did something wrong. They knew that it was against our values. They knew it was against our policies, yet they did it anyway. Okay? So you can go about and as I said, discipline is all about the other and about the individual, not about you. It’s about getting them back in line. But this is where knowing your people really come to play. Now, I’ll tell you a story. When I was supervising a small team, small team of six, and in the military, you can understand that we have a pretty hefty physical fitness requirement, maybe physically fit. And we test every year our fitness. So one year I had one of my guys unfortunately fail his annual fitness test. And the rules are very clear. Fail equals what you would call discipline. So we found out that he had failed. And I was talking to my boss, and she’s like, he’s supposed to get written up. I’m like, yes, ma’am. I look at her, I could tell she wasn’t too sure about this. I’m like, I go to her, say, Ma’am, you mind if I handle this? And she was like, yes, go handle it, Scott. So I knew my person. I knew them well. I knew this was not going to go over well with them. So I wrote them up, brought them to my office, explained to them what they did wrong, explained to them why it was wrong, how they breached policy, et cetera, et cetera. Broke them up, removed a bunch of liberties that he had, and I sent them on his way. Now, that write up normally goes on our personnel files. Our files. Never made it. Stayed my desk for a few weeks, actually, for about a month or so. He slave like a dog working on this fitness, and he went and started working out, checked his eating habits, ensure heck, month or so later, about six weeks later, he redid his fitness test. He passed. So once I got word of that, we went ahead, we took him back in. I pulled out the write up, I looked down and said, remember this? And confused look on his face, he’s like, yes sir. I tore it up in front of him, threw it in the garbage and said, what were we talking about? Again, to a smile, he said, no idea. Yeah, me neither. Have a good day. And he walked out. You see, you need to know your people and what actually motivates them. Vice simply always following the rules of the law. And sometimes discipline can be such as giving someone a wake up call. But other times, if I knew he didn’t care, he didn’t have any self pride and that he would just not try that file, that piece of paper would end up on his file. But by knowing my person, I could adjust my angle and adjust how I went about disciplining them. So when it comes to discipline and whether or not it works, it does work when one, you apply it properly, but most importantly, two, individual cares. So when the individual doesn’t care, that’s when you know you have someone who it’s probably time for them to move on. So that’s it for this month’s, Q and A, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your questions. Keep them rolling. I will do a June 1, of course, absolutely we’ll do a June 1, but thank you, thank you for your questions. I appreciate it. I appreciate you all. Again, show Notes links for the Show Notes is leaddumpast.com 259259. For this episode, you can check all the links, things mentioned there, check out the Show notes. And again, if you’re ready to stop leading alone and being isolated, feeling burnt out and feeling an imposter syndrome, come join us at the Leader Growth Mastermind. And that link again is lead Dumpboss.com Mastermind. As always, take care. Member lead Dump Boss. Take care now.

Scott McCarthy [00:30:22]:

And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the peak Performance Leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast? And no, that’s not leaving a rating and review, it’s simply helping a friend. And that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them. If you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me help a friend win win all around. And hey, you look like a great friend at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more there’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe subscribe to the show via moving forwardleadership.com. Subscribe until next time. Lead don’t boss. And thanks for coming out. Take care now.