Culture Focused Practice

 Hey, hey, Dr. Tara, Vossenkemper here, and you are listening to the Culture Focused Practice podcast. Thank you for being here.

Today marks the owners' room special when you're leading and no one is listening. I know if you are listening to this, I absolutely, unequivocally know that you've had at least moments where this has happened in your life. So we're gonna get straight into it.

This is for all the times you've said something clearly and kindly and consistently, and it still isn't landing. So this isn't about poor communication, although I will see what comes of this episode. This is really about sort of a slow erosion of belief, whether it's in your team or maybe in your systems, or even in yourself, like sort of questioning, am I doing something or am I functioning in a flawed way? But maybe this is more about like you've done your part and the needle still isn't moving.

I think you might know this, but I'll say it anyway. The owner's room is not, I'm not teaching you anything. There's no list of items that I wanna make sure that I cover the, I don't have an agenda in the traditional sense.

I have a series of questions that I have not thought about. So this is in real time. I'm just gonna answer some questions live and at the end I'm gonna run through a scenario with you and I am going to tell you how I might handle it and sort of my thought process behind it. So it's all about just showing up.

Let's go, shall we? First prompt slash question. What do you make it mean when people don't change after you've been clear? Is it about them? Is it about you? Is it about your system? Or are you spiraling into I must not be a good leader territory?

I don't know if I make it mean anything at that point. I don't typically take it personal. A long time ago. I read the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and one of the agreements is not to take it personal, not in that language exactly, but I think that probably was already something that happened for me, or I think I already trended that way.

And when I read that. It sort of crystallized for me that the way people show up is almost always going to be reflective of them. And so when they show up with me, whether or not it triggers something in me is different from the way they show up being reflective of who they are, their belief system, their values, their anxieties and fears, their needs, you know, et cetera.

And so when people don't change, after I've been clear. I don't spiral. I don't question. Is it me? Like is it something about me? Although I will question how clear have I been? Okay, did I give a deadline? Okay, did I do this thing? I'm gonna question those things, but I'm not gonna make it personal, if that makes sense.

I think that makes sense. I'm not going to make it personal in terms of, well, they must not respect me as a leader. They must not feel this way about me. They must blah, blah, blah. Like it has something to do with me. I will question the logistics of how I did it. I'll question if I followed up in writing.

I will question any number of logistical related things, but it doesn't mean anything beyond that about myself, broadly speaking. Of course, I love to self-reflect for the record, but like in this instance, I'm not taking it personal and then I'm gonna start to wonder what's happening with them. Is there something happening in their, in their life, I don't know about?

Is this their baseline or not? If it's not baseline, it would indicate to me that something is happening for them in life or something else is going on. And I would want to lean into that. I'd wanna know more like what's happening? Do you need support? This is the expectation. And if you're not following through, if I can be candid, like what's going on, you know, level with me, tell me what's up.

So it's hard to say, I would make it mean this thing. 'cause I don't really know. I think it would be dependent on the person.

If it happens constantly, I would question my own accountability. Like, am I holding people accountable in enough ways and slash or I would question their almost like disability needs. So is it somebody who is high functioning with A DHD? But there are some very specific things that they are not gonna be able to do unless they have accommodations or have a workaround in their own way. I'm just, I'm curious, I think, I think I'm more curious when people don't change after I've been clear rather than taking it personal or assuming foul things about the other person. It's just, I think I'm just interested. I wanna know more.

And then from there, of course, if the behavior's clear and you've made accommodations, like at some point it might be disciplinary. But initially I'm just gonna be interested in the understanding. I wanna know why. So I think that answers the question.

Prompt number two. How do you know when to say it again versus when to let them fall on their face? I don't like that language for the record. So basically, what's the difference between supportive leadership and enabling? This is such an interesting question.

Firstly, I think it depends on the role. So if the role has a direct connection with inquiries or with clients. I'm not going to let somebody fall on their face if it negatively impacts people around them, like clients or people coming in for us, or honestly, even the team. If somebody is wanting to do something and I know like it's not gonna work out well, like that's not actually gonna work out and there's not this crazy high financial costs and it doesn't have a negative impact, then I'm just gonna let them do it.

Like, fuck it, fine, have fun. You know, like do it this way. And then. When, likely when in some instances I just know that's not going to work. Sometimes it's if where I'm like, yeah, you know, try it out. I don't think that's gonna work, but who cares? Give it a go and see, and then we can process after.

But in the circumstances where I know it's not going to work out because I've done something similar already and it hasn't worked, you know, and I've tried it maybe a multitude of ways, then I am going to just request that they follow up with me and touch base on what happened, why didn't it work? Maybe what went wrong.

This is a silly example, but I do surveys, you know, with my team. we do bi-annual reviews. And so in that review, I have questions about our core values. In those questions, I have screenshots of our core values, including the description and some examples of each of the values.

This is on purpose because what I found happened after doing these multiple times is that people would give me different answers based on their understanding of what the core value was, and not based on my sort of working definition of what it was.

So when my, I think director of ops at the time, now she's my integrator, but at the time she was my director of ops, she was doing her first round of biannual reviews with her, you know, ops team. And she sent me the survey and she was like, Hey, can you review this? Just put eyes on it, make sure I'm not missing anything.

'Cause I had shared mine with her to duplicate and make her own. I saw that she had the values listed, but without the screenshots, and I was like, Hey, just a word to the wise. You might wanna add in those screenshots because this is why I added them in the first place. And so my guess is like you might get a little bit of confusion or pushback about some of the values if you don't have these clarified in front of them while they're doing the self-assessment.

She didn't, and I don't care. I didn't tell her, you need to do this thing. I said, you might wanna do this. And then she came back to me later and she's like, yeah, I should have listened to you.

Because a lot of my conversation with the ops team was clarifying this value because the ops team had marked themselves as lower than what she had assessed them at. And she, you know, upon conversation, realized their working definition of this value was different than hers.

I don't, that's an example of like she quote, fell on her face end quote and it ha did no harm. It's like, yeah, okay, that's totally fine. That's when I would let it happen.

If there was something that we spent, you know, 10 grand on this company wide, 360 degree feedback, there's no way I'm not going to have the last say on those images being included in that survey. 10 grand we're spending like, there's no way.

But something like this, it's sort of, um, it's not inconsequential in terms of the feedback because that feedback and the er, the reviews, excuse me, are very important, but that specific part is kind of inconsequential 'cause they're gonna talk about it anyway. And it's like a small example.

So I think I've answered that question, too.

I would let somebody fall in their face if it didn't have negative impacts on the people around them and it didn't have a crazy financial high cost and I would not let them do it if it did, it did have negative impact on people around you or a high financial cost. There might be other instances that I would say it again, but I think those are the ones that come up first for me, the ones that feel most important.

Question number three, how do you emotionally recover from a team wide spiral that you low-key saw coming and tried to prevent? Honestly, I think that the role of leadership is to be the porous membrane of the organism. It's to be the container.

And so even if I know something is going to come down the pike, or I have the sense like, I don't know if this is gonna go well and it doesn't go well. I'm just gonna hold space. Like the emotional recovering is me holding space and also maybe externally processing with the team. Like, you know, I thought this might happen and I, I didn't do much to prevent it and I didn't realize the impact.

And I think in doing that and, and being honest with them, it can come across well it is, and also it is received as authentic and transparent and vulnerable and real. Like, it's okay. Sort of saying like, it's okay, we make mistakes and fuck shit up. And I, I did that. I didn't speak up about something I was suspicious of happening and now it's impacted people around me.

It's my least favorite thing ever when I negatively impact the people around me. And I probably could have done something different to not have that negative impact. I hate that. I hate that so much. And so I would own that with them, but then also I'm going to hold space for how they feel about it. And they might have feelings, and it's cool that they do.

I won't accept contempt. I won't accept, um, hardcore like personality attacks or character attacking, and I'm, I'm gonna hold space for grief and anger and frustration, and that's part of the emotional recovery in my opinion, that that's part of repair is me hearing and seeing the feelings that somebody has from a thing that may have happened at the practice.

And in doing that, I think I've said this before, you're enhancing trust and intimacy. That's what conflict does. That's what hard conversations do. That's what hard feedback, even bottom up feedback. When people give me hard feedback and I can hold space for that, what I'm doing is enhancing safety, enhancing connection with that person, enhancing our relationship, ensuring that trust is there, that I see them. I want to see them clearly. I want them to feel seen by me.

And so if, again, if something happened, I saw coming, maybe I like tried to prevent, but not really, and it happened and it's fucking sucked. I'm just gonna hold that space for them and I'm gonna own my part in it out loud so that they know that I see what I did not do, or I see what I did and didn't do and what I'll do differently next time. And then, yeah, that I, I see them in all of this.

Okay, question four. Where have you been over-functioning just to avoid conflict? I fucking love this question so much. I would say that it's not to avoid conflict.

My over-functioning comes as a result of conceptual perfectionism, not actual, like, I don't care if a, you know, I could have a typo and I send an email out and it's annoying, but I, it's not the end of the world. It's like, yeah, well, you know, shit happens. And even like a process, like, I wanna get things going.

I wanna get them going quickly. They might not be perfected, but I trust that they're going to evolve because we have great systems in place for the evolution of things as we go, and for feedback and reviewing and processing and fixing issues. You know, all of that is in place.

So it's not perfectionism from a, like I'm presenting something to other sort of way. It's conceptual perfectionism in that if something isn't clear in my brain, I really, really struggle with delegating it. Because I know how intentional and nuanced things have to live inside of me in order to do them.

So when I delegate something that isn't, I can't like fully form the picture of it. I'm never happy with the outcome, and so it's hard to, and I don't like that back and forth with people because I, I'm always wary that that back and forth then with the person who's trying to own a project, for example, comes across as micromanaging and like, I'm sort of crapping on what they've created when the reality is that it just is more nuanced for me than I think it might be for them.

Mm-hmm. I feel like that's also the plight of ownership in particular, that your view and your vision is sort of, it's sort of yours to really hold, and that's no shade at anybody around you or anybody on leadership that we can collectively share a vision. But there are some things that just live differently inside of me.

So the hangup for me, the over-functioning really is about conceptual perfectionism that I uh, I can't let things go unless I can really have a sense for like where they live or who's doing them, who's responsible for which part. And I'm not talking about like the very fine, granular details of each part.

I'm talking to like more broad, you know, if there's a collaborative process, I just need to know like, okay, when does one person end and the other begins? So that's, that's what is, that's what hangs me up, so to speak. It's. Ugh. It's frustrating. It's like I frustrate myself with it, but also once it's in place, I'm fucking off, man.

I'm ready to go. Like, I'm, let's, let's go. Like I have this clarified. I'm, I'm good to sprint now. So on the outside, I think it looks like I am quick to decide on things. That's not true. It has to live a certain way inside of me, and then when I finally can talk about it clearly, and again conceptually I have this like very clear sense for what it is and how it lives, then it's off to the races.

So it's funny too, like the perception of what is happening versus what actually is happening. It's just a interesting juxtaposition.

Okay. Fifth question. Fifth and final question, and then we're gonna move on to the scenario. What part of you is convinced that being clear means you're also responsible for the outcome? Hmm. That's such an interesting question. It's the conceptual perfectionism. Again, for me it's, it's less about being responsible for the outcome and more about, I can't even delegate the thing unless I understand it fully.

I legitimately feel internally paralyzed, almost talking about things that I haven't grappled with enough internally. There's sort of an active grappling process that I do that I might like. I'm gonna honestly chat with chat GPT, or I'll take it to leadership and say, I just need to talk out loud about this.

Like you need to talk out loud. And then from there I might sit on it and when I'm sitting on it, there's something happening in the back of my mind, it's sort of like it's percolating. Something that's brewing in the back of my mind that I'm not actively thinking about, but it's, it continues to sort of cycle and percolate.

And then finally at some point I have it, like, I'm like, oh, got it. Cool. This is it. Like this is what we do, and then I'm gonna take it back and then I'm gonna like delegate to wherever it is.

So once I'm clear, I don't feel responsible for the outcome. When I'm not clear, I can't delegate effectively, and I feel responsible for an outcome as part of a process that I can't even actively participate in because it's not fucking clear to me.

It's, it's a little bit of a conundrum. It's a little bit of a mind fuck, you know, you can judge me. It's fine. It's, it's really frustrating. And also I can't operate differently. This is like intrinsic in me. There's like this inner strategist combined with this wild visionary, and they're constantly at odds, but when they finally get on the same page, they're both, you know, sprinting off into the sunset, holding hands, and like, ha ha ha, laughing, kind of maniacally.

But that's not always. Constantly they're at odds, you know? For a lot of the time they're at odds. Then they have the moments of glory, the moments of sunshine sprinting. I much prefer the sunshine sprinting, but you know, they have their process. I can't control this. It's just part of who I am and how I exist.

Okay, here we go. Scenario, time folks. Here it is the team that nods and then does nothing, nothing. Here is the scenario you hold a team meeting. You outline what's expected, why it matters, and how to follow through. Everybody nods. People smile. There's even a little moment of this is helpful.

Thanks for the clarity. And then crickets. Nothing changes. You see the same issues pop up. You see deadlines missed and you see follow through skipped. The same questions you answered in the meeting. They're following up with you about. Constantly. So now you're in this head space. Do you bring it up again? Do you assume they're checked out, or do you wonder if you're the one who's starting to sound like a broken record?

For me, what this brings up is your meetings suck. And I mean that with love and kindness and so much empathy, your meetings are not doing what you think that they're doing.

If this happened to me, that is not a good meeting, that's not a well run meeting, and there's nothing that is holding those people in place. This sounds like clarity without accountability or follow up.

So if I'm having a meeting like this, I'm having this team meeting every, uh, outlining what's expected, why it matters, how to follow through, et cetera.

Everybody's nodding. People are excited. They're like, yay, this is super clear. When do I follow up next? Do I have a scorecard. Do we have a quarterly rock sheet that we're looking at or a rock sheet that we're looking at weekly? Do I have a specific to-do list from this week to next? Do I have a space where if to-do items aren't getting done, I am looking at them and saying, this hasn't been done in two weeks. This is now an issue. What's happening? What's going on for me?

This is not a scenario that happens anymore because. I do L 10 style meetings. I do level 10 meetings from EOS. The actual structure of the meeting is a quick five minute segue.

We're looking at scorecard, we're looking at rocks, we're doing team headlines, and we're doing a to-do list from the previous week, and then we spend 60 of that 90 minute meeting talking through issues.

So if there was a two week period where to-do list items weren't getting done, or if somebody's rock was off track, or if scorecard numbers were off, that shit's gonna go on the issues list.

And when we pick our top three issues for this week's meeting, I'm gonna highlight those issues. And the goal as we're talking about these issues, you seek to solve them for good. So if somebody's to-do list item is not getting done and it hasn't been done for two weeks and it's on the issues list, the issue might not be.

Sure we can start with the issue is that the to-do list item hasn't been done for two weeks. Got it. But as we start to discuss this, it might be that this person is way past capacity, and so maybe we actually need to rethink their role or responsibilities. Maybe they have added on a major project, but they were already full to begin with, and so we need to look at what else is on their plate that we need to delegate because this project is more important.

That's actually the problem. Maybe they just don't schedule in an hour a week to work on the project. It could be that they just don't know how to schedule their time. They're not effectively scheduling in a sacred hour to work on project-based things, for an example.

There's any number of things that could be going on, but the reality is that if you don't have a way of tracking and following through and solving the problems that come up in relation to this project or whatever the thing is that you're trying to implement, everything's gonna fall through the cracks.

Nothing's gonna get done, not unless it's by you and not unless you're micromanaging people. Which, A, I don't wanna do all the projects, and B, I don't wanna fucking micromanage people. I can hardly manage myself. There's no way I'm gonna manage other people. Not like that. No way. But on a weekly basis at a standing meeting, hell yes.

I can look at a scorecard. Absolutely, I can track to dos for sure. Let's look at if your rocks are on track, I'm gonna do the same thing. So for me, this is not a common scenario. This is a people who don't have effective meetings or ways of tracking or following through from those meetings, that's what it is.

Let's just say hypothetically, you have all of that stuff in place and people still aren't getting things done. If you have all of that stuff in place and your entire team isn't getting things done, that I would, I would need to talk to you honestly. 'cause that really signals something is happening, but I don't necessarily know what. Your full team acting that way is a major problem.

Realistically, it's gonna be one person who is not getting their shit done. If you're doing well run meetings and you have tracking and follow through, it's likely going to be one person who's not getting shit done, that's a people issue.

So what I'm gonna do from an EOS perspective is I'm gonna do a values analysis and I'm gonna do a GWC assessment. Is this actually the right person for the seat? Let's assess the seat. Is this the seat that we need? And is this the right person for the group?

And is this the right person for that seat? These are very distinct questions. They're all distinct from one another, but there is important overlap between them.

My gut would be it's gonna be a people issue and they're not gonna be the right person for the seat that you have created or that you need for whatever. If it's leadership, then for leadership, if it's just the full team, for the full team.

That sucks. It also happens pretty consistently. And honestly, the more clear you are on the seat that you need, the, your accountability chart and the seats that are in place in terms of the role, and then the five-ish, major responsibilities for each role, the more clear it's gonna be when you have people issues.

So when your seats are clear and your meetings are run like a well-oiled machine. Your people issues are like fucking lighthouses on the horizon at two in the morning. Like they are glaring. They are super bright. You can't ignore them. You can't avoid them.

Which is both a blessing and a curse. A curse, in that fuck, you might have a lot of people issues. You need to deal with a blessing in that. Sweet. You're gonna deal with these people issues and your team's gonna be higher functioning when that's all said and done. So.

There you have it, my friends. That's it.

If this is your current season, beating your head against a wall, feeling like you keep talking and nobody's listening, and why aren't people getting things done and all of that, just join the Mastermind already. That's it. Sign up for the wait list. You'll get details about launch. It's happening very soon, so if you haven't signed up for the wait list, do it now. Go to www.taravossenkemper.com/eos-mastermind and once you join, you'll get information about the launch and you will solve a bunch of problems you didn't know you had.

I'll just say that much. It has been great. Thank you so much for being here with me. I love having you. I will see you next time. Peace out. Bye.