Culture Focused Practice

 Hey, hey, Dr. Tara Vossenkemper here. You're listening to the Culture Focused Practice Podcast, and today's episode is Stop Playing Cleanup, How to Build a Team that Actually Takes Ownership. You know, it's exhausting. I know that I'm not talking to myself here. In leadership, there are absolutely moments where you will feel like you are constantly cleaning up after your team, that you're constantly putting out fires, that you're constantly babysitting, micromanaging, having to follow up and track every little thing that somebody is doing.

This is not leadership the way that it's intended. That is taking way too much ownership of something where your team should likely be stepping in to take ownership. And I shouldn't say where your team should be stepping in. I think that's probably part of it, but we're gonna focus on us. We're gonna focus on what leadership can do to allow the team to step in to take full ownership.

So one is that this is not, realistically, this isn't gonna be a new topic to you. I know that I fallen prey to this. I absolutely have I've done the most, I've been, I'm just, I have been extra in a lot of moments in my life, and especially when it comes to team related things, where I will step in and do something that, hmm, I probably shouldn't have.

This is an ongoing point of assess and amend for myself, so I'm gonna lead with that. What happens if we are constantly stepping in? So this why this matters, I guess, is ultimately what I'm trying to point out right here, is that if you are taking ownership of something, if you are not allowing your team to take ownership and you're stepping in constantly, that's not leading, that's babysitting.

And if you are doing that, you are removing yourself from where you need to be. So it means that you are not in the role that you should be in. You are now in, you're, you know, flirting with or stepping into all these other roles and doing things that don't actually live within the responsibilities of your own role.

So one, it takes you away from what you should be doing. Two, I would say it feels disempowering for your team. That's just an additional thing here, but you end up fucking your team over because you're kind of taking, um, taking their ability to fix something, you're removing it from them, taking it back, which sends a signal of distrust, mistrust, distrust says, I don't trust you to them. How about that? And it just ends up feeling like babysitting. You can't grow things or focus on growing things or focus on your vision or ensure that you're charting the right course. If you're constantly in cleanup mode, babysitting mode, task mode.

So welcome. If this is your first time, we're gonna get straight into it. There's just a few things. There's three sort of broad themes we're gonna cover here.

One is how we end up falling into cleanup mode, how leadership ends up falling into cleanup mode. Two is mindset shift. So what are the things we need to do that, that we need to start internalizing or embracing or just keeping in mind as we shift into, out of babysitting, into leadership, and you know, empowering our team to do more. And then three is how do we build a culture of ownership at our, by our practice, I don't necessarily mean you own it, maybe you're in leadership, but at the practice that we're at, at our group practice.

So practice owners tend to fall in the cleanup mode for. I'm, I'm gonna just talk about four things. I'm sure there are a variety of other reasons why people fall into this mode, but I'm gonna talk about four.

One is just default helper mode. Just by nature, you might be somebody prone to helping. You might wanna fix it, you might wanna solve the problem. You might be somebody comes to you with something and you're like, well, just let's do this. And you just. You might just immediately sort of shift into fixing or logistics or, well, this is how we deal with it right away. And you pass that over to them and then you feel good and they feel good, everyone's relieved and it's done. So you might be a default helper. Totally fine. I get that. I get it.

Honest, totally fine. Two, you might lack clear expectations. So if things are not clear, and by things I mean systems, processes, roles, responsibilities, expectations around outcomes- if those things are not clarified and communicated, then they can't be lived up to. They can't be, uh, there's no attempt to attain them, if that makes sense.

So it could be that there is a lack of clear expectations. This can be internal, like you don't know what you expect. If that's the case, that obviously can't be communicated, but I would say sometimes it is clear internally what you expect and it's not communicated. So it could be that you don't know and therefore it's not communicated. Or it could be that you do know, but it's not communicated.

So default help remote is one way that we fall into cleanup. Um, lacking clear expectations is another.

A third is having a fuzzy or not very clear accountability structure. I. I'd love a good accountability chart. I love a good accountability chart. If you don't have accountability, and so this could be accountability chart, but it can also be structure in terms of like processes, systems, et cetera.

You might really want something to get done, but there's nothing in place to ensure that it will, and so that's where that accountability structure, if that's lacking, if it's not clear, if it's not, I can communicate it. I would say. Then things are gonna fall through the cracks and slash or something won't get done and you'll end up doing it. Or you being leadership will end up doing it. That is something I, and, and I think to make, what is the, to make matters worse. When to add salt to the wound, whatever, whatever, you know, little phrase you wanna use there. If there is an accountability structure, excuse me. I know for myself, sometimes what will happen is that I will notice something- I'll note, oh shit, this doesn't fuck, this person should be doing this thing and I'm in the middle of doing other things and I might just do it and then think to myself, I gotta tell them that. And then I don't ever tell them because then it's just done. That's so ridiculous. I know. It's ridiculous. It happens way, you know, very rarely at this point does that happen, but it will still come up and it will still happen.

And you just fall into the getting it done. Like, I'm just gonna get this done really quick. But that points to a lack of accountability. That points to not having clear expectations around certain things or not having, uh, keyed in systems or processes. Okay, so that's the third thing. Lack of accountability or not a, not lack of maybe unclear accountability structure. Again, systems, processes, accountability chart, et cetera.

The fourth thing, why if we can fall into this trap of being in cleanup mode, is that we're afraid of being too harsh. We might really think that we're gonna hurt somebody's feelings. Oh, I'm gonna hurt their feelings. I don't wanna tell them what to do. Oh, I get it. I mean, I really do get it. I don't like telling people what to do, even though I own my practice. I don't like telling people what to do. I don't like it. I don't wanna be told what to do. I don't like telling people what to do, which is ridiculous, but it's true. So there's something around, I don't wanna be too harsh.

There's like a fear of being too harsh whenever you're interacting with people around, uh, ownership or, so, instead, you might just clean up, clean up whatever needs to be cleaned up instead of saying like, Hey, you, I need you to do this thing. This, this thing is actually your responsibility. So it needs to happen.

So those are four sort of common reasons why people fall into cleanup mode. I'm curious, you know, if you think about those, again, I'll re-list them, but think about which ones you recognize in yourself. Like what are the things that I tend to do? Are you the default helper? Do you lack clear expectations? Are you unclear about your accountability structure and thus maybe uncommunicative, uncommunicative about it? Is that the right word, not communicative about it, or is there a fear of being too harsh? Or all of 'em say, well actually three of the four sound like they fit with me. It's cool man. It's cool.

Just bear with me. Let's keep getting through this and we'll figure out how we can work through this whole thing- getting out of cleanup mode and into, you know, building that culture of ownership.

So those are the things that we do that land, land us in cleanup mode. Then these are the things we need to mentally shift whenever we're thinking about helping people take ownership.

One is that we need to start thinking of ourselves as facilitators of problem solving, not problem solvers or fixers, but facilitators of. I might not be the one who solves the problem. I will help you. I will facilitate the maybe process for you to solve. I will remove some of the barriers for you to solve. I will help guide you to come to an outcome that solves the problem, but I won't be the one to fix it.

Second thing, this is a an EOS concept, a Gino Wickman, a traction concept. We have to let go of the vine, so we will not, we basically have to trust that other people are gonna take ownership.

With that said, so let me back up. If we are taking ownership of something, that means somebody else is not. So we have to let go of ownership at some point in order for another person to step in and effectively take ownership. That's what I mean when I say let go of the vine. Again, not my language. EOS concept.

With that said, you cannot let go of the vine until you have the other things in place, like the expectations, like the accountability, et cetera. So we will talk about that in a second. If you brought somebody on to your team and you said, Hey, welcome. It's your second day, you're responsible for this, fucking figure it out.

You're letting go of the vine way too soon. We have to set people up in order to take ownership of something effectively. We can't just give it to them and, and expect them to figure it out. So there is a transition process. There is ensuring that they're able to take ownership, but at some point when all the cards are set up, you gotta step back and let them play the hand, like you have to step back.

So we have to be willing to let go of the vine at some point. Third thing. So again, we've got becoming a facilitator of problem solving, letting go of the vine when appropriate. And this is my favorite. I love letting people grapple with things. That is the third thing, let people grapple.

You know, you could say, let people struggle. I don't, grappling is struggling, but grappling feels like it's as intentional, purposeful. You have this. Thing you're trying to do and you're struggling to get it done, but you know what you're after. A struggle just seems like you're struggling and you don't know what the fuck you're doing. You know you're just on a struggle bus or you're just struggling with something and you can't make sense of it.

If we are setting people up for success and to take ownership so we can shift out of cleanup mode, then we might set clear expectations. We'll, again, we'll talk about building that culture of ownership and a person might grapple with a lot of concepts or grapple with figuring out how do I get there that's theirs to own. If we can facilitate problem solving, if we are letting go of the vine at the right time, we have to also be okay with letting people grapple with a problem or a concept or a system or a responsibility, knowing that, of course, we're gonna be there to help give the right amount of support in order for them to make that leap up or make that step up or, you know, make that next move. But we can't take over the problem that they're trying to solve.

Again, that goes back to being disempowering and also, when you're grappling with something that is building muscle, you are building your ability to solve problems in the future.

So when we step into soon, we disempower people. We take away their agency, their sense of authority, we take away their ability to build the problem solving muscles that they're going to need to support the practice. So disempowering. So letting people grapple as painful as it might feel for you is very intentional and purposeful, and it is very beneficial when done well.

Okay, I'm gonna keep going. So those are mindset shifts, like I said, facilitating, problem solving, letting go of the vine, not my concept. Again, EOS concept and letting people grapple. Now let's shift on to shift on, shift over. What can we shift on. We can shift over. We can shift at, we can shift to, we can shift up towards. Now let's shift to how to build a culture of ownership. So four key things. They're all gonna feel familiar now because we've talked about each of them sort of indirectly throughout this whole episode.

So first and foremost, and we're gonna go over, there's four things here and they're all gonna sound familiar at this point. So. Good. They should sound familiar because we've sort of been talking about them throughout this episode. Number one is setting clear expectations.

If you can clearly define a role and you know the responsibilities that are part of that role, if you can clearly define a system or a process or an outcome or someone's, your expectations about somebody's role in a system or whatever that might be. We have to communicate that to the person. So not only does do we need to set clear expectations, I mean, again, that's internal, but also we need to communicate that with the person, the other party or the other parties.

If there are multiple people, excuse me. A really good way of doing this, or I don't think it's a cheat or a hack necessarily, but something that can be effective is having measurable outcomes. So basically you saying this is what, this is what this looks like if it's successful. Setting that and then letting people do that on their own.

So here's your starting point. Here's where we wanna be. People can navigate that on their own, and if they can't, we can step in and support them. Again, facilitating problem solving, letting people grapple, being supportive when we need to be, though, of course. So number one is setting those clear expectations.

Again, whether it's through clear definitions about roles and responsibilities, or whether it's through having very measurable outcomes about what the success of a thing looks like, and you know, being communicative about all of those things.

Number two, we need to be able to hold people accountable, and ideally we're doing this without being or feeling like an asshole.

Accountability is not micromanagement, so this doesn't mean you're on top of, you know, you don't need to be on them. You know? What is the, what's the phrase? Like white on rice. You don't need to do anything like that. We're not here to breathe down somebody's neck or not anything like that, but we do wanna have regular check-ins about what somebody might be doing, um, what plans they have in terms of getting to that outcome. What they, we don't wanna say, here's what you need to do, but we wanna know what they have planned and in mind. So we're there again, sort of staying in tune with what's going on and how they're moving towards the outcome. But we are not telling them what to do, what to do, excuse me. And we are not following every single tiny, minuscule step of the way. That's exhausting first of all. Second of all, that's gonna feel really micromanaging for the people who are on the other side of it. I think if somebody, as a caveat, if somebody is continuing not to take ownership of a role, when you start to do this accountability piece, I.

You don't have, and you've set clear expectations and you are, you know, you're doing the right things with the mindset and holding people accountable and you're trying to like empower them. You might have a people issue and so that actually points to a different type of conversation about hiring or people or values or whatever.

That's an entirely different conversation. But assuming, let's assume you don't have a people issue than holding people accountable. You can do it without being micromanaging. So again, if somebody's not taking ownership consistently and you're, you're checking all of your boxes, probably points to a people issue, that's a a different conversation.

Number three, empower decision making. Don't be a bottleneck. I am so fucking notorious for being a bottleneck that I have learned over time and with the right people around me. I slow things down. When all the decisions have to be made through you.

Guess what? All the decisions have to be made through you, which means it all goes through this very narrow funnel. And if you're busy doing shit that you should be doing like visionary things or leadership things, you shouldn't be spending your time making decisions for people in other roles. We should ideally be empowering them to make decisions in their roles.

You've set clear bound or outcomes, excuse me. You've set what measurable outcomes look like. You've stated clearly what success looks like. You've set clear roles and responsibilities. Let them do their job step out of the way. That's what empowering looks like. So instead of telling them, this is what you should do, instead of saying, come to me with all of your options, I'll make the decision for you. Give them guidance. Let them solve the problems.

This is where the grappling piece comes in. People will make decisions that you do not agree with. Assuming it's not gonna cost you a fuck ton of money or cost the practice a bunch of money, or that it's not totally disrupting a well run system for no reason, let it happen. Let people make mistakes, let them learn.

That's also how learning takes place. And then be there to process, okay, cool, what went wrong? What do we need to do a little bit differently next time? So we wanna help teach problem solving. That's part of empowering decision making is helping them problem solve without telling them directly what to do.

So when someone comes to you and says, and again, this is something I've, I've also, I have had had to learn, I have had to learn about myself, and in working with leadership, of course, when somebody comes to you and says, this is what's up, then I might say, this is a problem I'm having. My first inclination is gonna be to talk, shop and troubleshoot and be like, Ooh, that's interesting.

I'm wondering about blah, blah, blah. Like I might be starting to think out loud about what I would do, and I have to stop myself and say, hang on a second. What do you think? One, what do you need from me? That's a question I ask a lot. What do you need from me in this? Are you, are you needing some like ideas?

Are you needing like just some emotional space? What do you need from me? Two, if they say, I need, I really want some ideas, I might say, okay, cool. Tell me what you're thinking first though. What are ideas you've come up with? What have you thought about trying? Where's your mind? Where's your brain at?

Where's your mind? At what direction are you thinking about going? I wanna hear from them first one with regard to what they need from me 'cause sometimes people just come because they, they need to tell you what they're thinking and they want to know if they're on the right track. Cool. If I didn't know that in advance, I might, I, I don't know what I might do. I might not pick up on the cue and then go in a totally different direction. So one, it's asking, what do you, what do you need from me? Two, if they know, they might not say, I don't actually know yet. And it's like, okay, cool. Well let's work through this then. And you might ask about, well, logistical or emotional or barrier based, you know, is there anything in the way?

What's, what's happening? Two, ask them first how they might seek to solve this or. How they might re um, remove the barrier or what they, what they see as the problem, how they might fix the problem, what they're thinking about doing. And then you might chime in and say, yeah, we're on the same page. This is my little, I might, you know, I was thinking this, which seems right in, in alignment with what you're doing.

So go with your route and see what happens. So that's what empowering decision making can look like, where instead of answering first and, you know, responding to the call, so to speak, you are getting it from them. Tell me first what you think and you could take it a step further and say, you know what, that sounds great. Just go with it.

And not even share anything that you're thinking in response. Say, you know, no, no, I trust you. I trust you in this role. You know what's expected. You know what the outcomes should be. Do it. Do what you think is best, and a worst case scenario, it doesn't work. And then we figure out what you could have done differently.

Who knows, maybe it does work. And newsflash to you. People are gonna have better ideas than you. You might be really fucking smart. I'm saying this to you. I'm not saying that you should say this to your, don't say this to your team. I'm saying this to you right now. People are better at things than you are.

Not everybody is better at everything. Obviously, you know you're gonna be better at some things than others. You're gonna know more about some things than somebody else. But your leadership team, your team, they will be better at key things. So if I know that I don't always know best. I'm gonna trust people to do things, even if I'm like, Ooh, I don't know if that's gonna work.

Try it out though. If it does work and it works better, fucking awesome. If it doesn't work, and again, it doesn't cost a crap ton of money or disrupt the entire practice or tank morale, then who cares? Then it's a learning experience and that's where the, you know, again, we're getting back to empowering decision making and agency and all of those things.

So I'm gonna keep going now. So again. Four ways to build a culture of ownership. Setting clear expectations, holding people accountable, empowering decision making.

Fourth thing is creating a feedback loop. You don't know me or you do know me. I don't actually know. I don't know who you are, who's listening, but if you do know me, you know that I like feedback. If you don't know me now, you know, I like feedback. I like feedback loops. I like to know what's going on. I want there to be a constant input of, of feedback coming in because it's an input, you know. Because that that input of feedback is going to adjust whatever is happening in the system. So it should be this kind of constant feedback loop where you're sending a message out or you're sending something out, you're getting a response back.

So in doing this, I'm sorry, how this looks, it might be where you have just regular check-ins, and you say, okay, cool. And by regular, I mean like on a weekly basis, depending on if this is project based. It could be a 15 minute standing check-in. It might be embedded in a larger meeting that you have, but you might say, okay, tell me what's working. Tell me what's not working. Tell me what you think we can do better. Tell me one thing that I'm not doing that you want me to do that would be helpful. Tell me what I'm doing that you want me to continue. You're asking questions where you're fostering feedback, you're getting information from them about.

Anything really related to maybe the project they're working on or the thing that they're responsible for. And in doing this, an indirect benefit, assuming that you're handling that feedback well. So if you are getting feedback from somebody and you respond with defensiveness after you've invited it, you are killing that relationship- you are killing that safety, that emotional, psychological safety. If somebody's giving you feedback and they're not doing it in a. Contemptuous way. They're not doing it via name calling or scorn or you know, contempt, dismissiveness, condescension, et cetera. You should hug them and if you're feeling all prickly on the inside, take a fucking minute and then come back and hug them and say, I really, really appreciate you giving me that feedback it's hard to hear. It's hard to hear, but I need it and I really value that you can be honest with me. Boom. Psychological safety. And, you know, I, I mean ideally you actually do believe that. And if you don't, I would say, Hey, work on that. 'cause you do need feedback to, you know, get better. So we have to ensure with the feedback loop that we are also, um, doing it in a safe way.

And again, I I said that that's an indirect benefit when done well. It is indirect benefit, like the feedback is sort of the main piece to this for building ownership or building a culture of ownership, but the indirect benefit is that psychological safety when the feedback is received well, so hug your messenger is my point.

Alright, let's recap then. We covered what do we cover, how we fall into cleanup mode, which is by being default helpers, by lacking clear expectations, by having an unclear accountability structure, and by being afraid of being too harsh, guilty as charged.

Number two. Our mindset shift, how do we shift our mindset around, you know, solving problems versus allowing people to take ownership?

One, we need to start thinking of ourselves as facilitators of problem solvers and not as problem solvers. I'm facilitating problem solving. I am not solving problems. Number two, we have to let go of the vine. So this is that ownership piece where if we own something so nobody else can, you can't have two owners at the same time.

So if I own something, I have to be willing to let it go. At the point at which I have all of the other stuff clarified, and I trust this person in that role, I'm letting go of this ownership and they're picking it up. Number three, the mindset is that we have to let people grapple again. My favorite thing ever, I don't know, I think I've said before, my background is clinical, you know, clinical therapist and in training supervisees, it's such a constant conversation where they say, well, I don't, I don't wanna share what I think 'cause I'm afraid they're gonna do, they're just gonna listen to me. Or I, I don't want them to feel a certain way or I blah, blah, blah. Or I, this one, you don't have that much power over somebody else. Two, your role as a clinician, your role as a therapist, and I would say your role as a leader- we, of course, we want people to feel good, but it's not to have people feel good all the time. Life is hard, period. There is hard shit in life. There are horrible things that happen. There are excruciating feelings and experiences and traumatic moments that will forever be seared inside people's heads and brains and hearts and bodies.

None of that will get massaged out or healed if you don't grapple with the difficulty of something, if you don't grapple with the difficulty of life. I. The grappling piece for me is just, it is absolutely worldwide. It is. It is life wide. It's like it has to happen across the board. In my life, I expect that it happens everywhere.

So I'm saying that we need to be okay with letting people grapple, knowing that in grappling they are building strength. This does not mean putting 300 pounds of weight on somebody's bar the first time they go to squat or bench. This means pushing them a little bit beyond what they're comfortable with, knowing it's the bar and they, they can lift this. It's building strength. So let me shift into the four points to recapping, recapping the four points about how to build that culture of ownership.

So number one, setting clear expectations. Two, holding people accountable. Three, empowering decision making, and four, creating a feedback loop. I hope this is helpful if you are in a position where you are needing more support. Support.

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If you have something that you especially want me to speak to, or if you are feeling stuck with something and you really want an episode about it, shoot me an email, Tara at, Nope, that's a lie- hello@taravossenkemper.com.

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Thank you for making this awesome. I will see you next time. Bye.