Leadership Tips: Communication, Transforming Behavior, Bringing Solutions

This episode touches on the theme of Developing Leaders.

In this episode, we explore 3 (hopefully) helpful management tips to support new and existing leaders with:

1. Communicating Early and Often
2. Transforming Behavior 
3. Bringing Solutions and a Plan

Our prescription for this episode is to consider how we can avoid the "Perfect 10 Miscommunication Techniques" to transform our teams toward a more solution-focused culture.

Here is a link to our "Know The Difference" playlist on YouTube

If you would like to learn more about Integrity Leadership, you can check out our webinar on Confident Leadership on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@solutionsexplained or our Integrity Leadership article on our Knowledge Suite: https://www.academy.roman3.ca/knowledge-suite/integrity-leadership/

Let us know if leadership and management skills are something you want us to talk more about! Email us at info@roman3.ca.

About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention. 

Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity. 

For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.

Chapters

• 0:49 Communicating Early and Often
• 26:01 Transforming Behavior
• 38:05 Bringing Solutions

Transcript

[ANNOUNCER]: 0:00

Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness,  not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.

[COBY]: 0:10

Did we lose a patient?

[JAMES]: 0:12

No, that's just my lunch.

[COBY]: 0:14

Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James and let's talk leadership.

[JAMES]: 0:23

Yeah. What I really like about this leadership, tips format is that we get  to practice a lot of these pieces in real time. you know, when we take on fractional leadership  roles or the interim roles, you know, we get to work with leadership and management teams  through kind of the decision making process and help them kind of understand where we're going  and why. so one of the things that recently came up and one of the things I really want to talk  about from a leadership tip perspective first is the idea of communicate first and communicate.  Sorry. Communicate early and communicate often helps to actually get it right. but really one  of the things that we see really often in these types of roles is the, the challenges or the, the  communications or the almost the desire to hold back information. Right. And we all make mistakes.  There are things that are always that are going to go wrong as we go through our leadership  journeys. Whether it's you know, human error that causes issues with payroll and benefits or it's  something happens that damages the organization's reputation or potentially has the potential  to damage organizations organization's reputation or you know, you have key staff members who go off  on leave or are, you know, maybe they are leaving the organization entirely. The way in which you  talk about these things, the way in which you communicate, these issues can be a relationship  building tool. But oftentimes what I see the default being is well, we can't tell people  that we made a mistake because then they won't trust us. When oftentimes the reverse is true. I  lean very heavily on the side of it's better to communicate early and often rather than to hold  information back and because it really, it doesn't matter if we are communicating our expectations.  I m especially with communicating expectations, communicate them often. communicate them early,  set that expectation. It's a really helpful tool. We've talked about setting and managing  expectations many, many times at this point. But it's also true for if you have to break bad news  to people or whether you're celebrating successes or a myriad of other examples that we could throw  out there. Being able to communicate early helps to build trust with your team because it shows  them that you are thinking about their needs. Yes, you are going to get pushback and you're  going to get blowback from it. if you have to communicate bad m. Bad news, you know,  we made it. You know, there was an accounting error that led to a payroll mistake and it was  our fault. People are going to be legitimately ticked off at you because you messed with their  pay. The one thing you're not allowed to do is mess with their pay. Right. right. But I can  guarantee you 100% I can. There's not many things in this life that I will absolutely guarantee. But  if you are not communicating early, if you're not telling people what's going on, they are not just  sitting back with big old smiles on their faces saying, let's trust in our leadership because  they're not telling us anything. I'm sure they're going to give us the full picture. Eventually they  are going to fill in the gaps themselves. And the gaps, the blanks that they fill in are going to be  far, far less flattering than the reality of the situation. So getting ahead of these pieces, being  able to communicate with your team, understanding when and how to do that is a leadership skill that  can be a very effective relationship tool. It can build trust, it can. It's part of being  consistent, it's part of being transparent. And it really is, ah, an effective, methodology.

[COBY]: 4:53

So. Absolutely. And the idea too is like, I always kind of encourage the  teams that I work with or in the companies and leadership teams and individuals err on  the side of over communicating. Because I mean, now again, the pushback that we often get is,  well, what about confidentiality and what about that we can't tell them everything  and. Absolutely not. But it's a matter of like that silence can be deafening when it comes  to something that's going on. Or even just silence can be deafening even when there's  not big things happening. Just so staff know just even like more mundane things. Right.  It's the idea of, you know, like that, like if communicating is an afterthought,  then staff being in the know is an afterthought, then staff are seen as an afterthought. And that's  how it's perceived by the staff. If, oh, we're not important enough to know this, which means  we're not important. And that's often never the case when we're sitting around the leadership  team table. But that, that is the perception and perception is more important than reality.

[JAMES]: 6:06

Oh, 100%. And you're right in the, you know, they're erring on the side of over  communicating is fine. But there, that does not commune. Over communicating is  not the same as over sharing. Right. There are still elements that we are not going to  be able to share with people, but be upfront about what elements you can't. Like this is.  People understand boundaries. People have a lot of problems putting them in place themselves.

[COBY]: 6:39

Right, but they get them.

[JAMES]: 6:40

But they, but they understand that. Right. They understand that, intellectually  they'll, they may not like it, but they will probably understand that, you know, there are  certain things that leadership just cannot tell us. Right. And ah, you won't divulge. Like if you  had to terminate, a key staff member, you're not going to divulge why you commute why that  happened. right. Because there's confidentiality pieces, there's a whole, you can get yourself in a  whole bunch of hot water if you do that. Yep. But that doesn't mean, just because you can't share  absolutely every detail doesn't mean that you should not be communicating with people about the  information that you can share. And I think that's a really important distinction to make that often  gets lost because it's not about just hammering people with every bit of information possible.

[COBY]: 7:32

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 7:32

Then you're just going to overload them and it's going to be a mess.

[COBY]: 7:36

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 7:37

Collective in it and being strategic in it is how you use this skill well.

[COBY]: 7:42

And we've been in exact situations where our recommendation to a leadership team or a CEO  has been make sure you tell the staff about this. They have to know. Like, like, you know,  like you have to tell the story. Right. And it's funny because sometimes we have heard back,  people say, well I, you know, I, I can't tell them everything, so I'll tell them nothing. Well,  that is just a stupid view. Like, I mean, like, remember, I mean like it's, it's. And often what  that is, is actually, that's actually an excuse for someone that sees knowledge as power and they,  you know, don't want to give away any kind of knowledge because to them that equates  them giving away power. and that's just someone that, that really, you know, is not, you know,  able to effectively understand the complexities required for, you know, for, for effective,  kind of people, management in my opinion. This is just my opinion, but this is,  this is the thing is that, you know, it's like we say, it's about telling the story. Right.  And it's about telling the story that gives people enough that they need to know that  they feel that they're important in being kept, being kept in the loop, that you're giving the  respect to the situation and its impact on the organization, but you're also protecting all the  parties involved to make sure that people. Again, you're not reaching confidentiality,  you're not over sharing. And it is something that does allow or it does require tact. That's  required strategy. And I mean good internal comms teams make this so much easier than just people  trying to figure it out for themselves every single time something happens.

[JAMES]: 9:19

Right.

[COBY]: 9:20

Having a, having a good team to help you or have even having good protocols in place.  Right. is one of those things that makes a big difference. But I mean it is something  that people do need to understand, communicate m early, communicate often. And is a good like  mantra to just how do you treat your teams? Is you treat them by. Well, by keeping them in the know.

[JAMES]: 9:41

Yeah. And then the, the detail of that,  it becomes what do you communicate and how do you communicate? Right. Right.

[COBY]: 9:51

Yeah. And that brings me to something that like, you know, I,  I think is really important for us to reiterate. I was trying to figure it if we talked about,  about this before in past episodes or not. I can't quite remember. So. But we talked about.  So we have, we have a tool that we use when we do like education for leadership teams and  stuff like that. and we call them the perfect 10 miscommunication techniques. And what they are,  they're 10 things that we do really badly when it comes to communication. and man,  we see these all the time. And it's funny, when we were talking about prepping this episode, we  were dealing with an issue with one of our clients and we have. Oh my gosh, that just textbook this  one. You know, one of these techniques that we just. It's so, it's so perfect example of it,  which really just helps us remind m us how important knowing these things are. Now again,  I would like to cover some of the perfect 10. Obviously not all of them because there's 10 of  them and we don't have that kind of time. But there's like four I thought would be really  helpful for us to give people some insight on, to help them kind of understand that these are things  that are super common but are super terrible tech, communication practices that, that end up hurting  our efforts. Because again, like you said, if we're communicating earlier, we're communicating  often. But if we're communicating badly, then it undercuts the result or the impact of our  desire to communicate early, communicate often. If you can't do it. Well, right?

[JAMES]: 11:16

Yeah. I mean we shouldn't have to put the disclaimer in there that communicate early  and communicate often also includes good communication. But let's, let's,  let's set that bar that we're actually, when we say communicate early and communicate often,  it's implied that you're not terrible at communicating.

[COBY]: 11:35

Right. So if we avoid these four techniques we're going to get into just really  quickly. I think that that'll help you be able to make sure that you're not communicating terribly.

[JAMES]: 11:44

Yeah.

[COBY]: 11:45

So the first one I want to talk about is probably the one that  we see the most. And it's so funny because I had, I had a conversation  with someone very recently about this exact thing. There's a manager that has,  has an issue with effective communication and it's called the kitchen sink technique. And this is sometimes intentional,  sometimes it's unintentional. Usually we see it as unintentional.

[JAMES]: 12:04

Yeah.

[COBY]: 12:05

Where people provide too much information and overdo their communication efforts to the  point that it overwhelms audiences. It's like, it's, it's like information is this massive block  that they just drop on people's heads. And it's, it's, it's in there. I've told you everything that  you could ever need to and want to know. And it's in this eight page explanation of something that  I really probably could have made a paragraph. and again they give you everything. And partially  because it's a common practice for people that are technical experts, they're just like,  I understand this in the depth. And so I'm going to give you everything when all the context is and  all the examples of it. And because, because their depth of knowledge is so deep that they  provide that depth of explanation when their audience probably does not need to know even a…

[JAMES]: 13:00

Fifth of what if I'm asking you between this choice and this choice and you give me an  eight page explanation on why. Which one? The one that you're recommending. Recommending.  That's kitchen sink. You're just throwing too much technical information at people. You're sharing,  you're over sharing. And what we need to know is here's the recommendation and why,  not. Here's the full accounting and detailed m analysis of this option versus  this option. And then a whole like we're not writing reports every time. We're no.

[COBY]: 13:41

And so it's one thing that we use as kind of a reflection point for folks as we say,  how Long are your general emails? Yeah, it's kind of a, is a reasonable litmus test if you're,  when you're responding to somebody giving m them information, like you're initiating an  email conversation. If your first email is like just like scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll,  scroll, scroll, you may be falling into this habit or if people, or if you have a really hard time  having a five minute conversation, conversation with people. That's, that's another sign too.  But, but again, one of the things that we often see is a common use of this  too is we see this sometimes when like organizations try to communicate with  like their customers or their stakeholders or whatever and something's going on that they're  trying to keep people updated on and they just give you this, this massive kind of like wall of,  of text that everything that you could possibly need to know is in there. And the problem is  that is not something that's accessible to everybody. And, but you're just so you're  not choosing what's important or you're not providing summaries and providing highlighted  of stuff. You're just saying here's everything. Here's the entire kitchen sink, which is why we  call the kitchen technique and the answer's in there somewhere. Go figure it out. Right.

[JAMES]: 15:00

Or you're. Every time there's a minor update  you're sending more information. Right. It's basically unfiltered information.

[COBY]: 15:08

Yeah. That's good.

[JAMES]: 15:09

If you are not capable, might be strong. Whatever. I'll say it anyways. If  you are not capable of filtering the information that you're providing, you're probably falling  into this trap and it's hurting your ability to communicate with your team.

[COBY]: 15:25

Yeah. So the one advice I, I use the most often when I'm talking to teams about,  about how they communicate with organization or with, or, or with or with their own teams  or like that is a, is a phrase that we use a lot at Roman 3. We say error. It's about being  compelling and concise over being complete. Yeah. And that's really kind of the, the way that we  try and say that's how you should be viewing all your communications. Make it compelling,  make it concise and that prior you prioritize those two things over being complete and fully  every detail. Because again a convert have more conversations than broadcasts.

[JAMES]: 16:08

Yeah.

[COBY]: 16:09

So give them compelling, incomplete or compelling and concise information and then they  can follow up and ask more questions and you can give them more information and make most  communication things a conversation rather than just saying here's a broadcast of all  that you could ever impossibly need to know. Go in there and find it yourself.

[JAMES]: 16:26

And I think one of the one sometimes this kitchen sink approach happens because it's  also tied to the next yeah, next communication error which is the one hit wonder. Right. We  want to give people ever all of the information all at once so that we only have to do it once.  Yeah but communication is a two way street. Right. Communication. And this runs counter to the whole  communicate early, communicate often. The one hit wonder is really that idea that telling somebody  something once is enough to, to take care of communication. And rarely is that the case.

[COBY]: 17:10

Yeah. I mean like there are people who are like well I sent the person a single email with  all the information they could ever need to know. I've done, I've communicated effectively. Right.

[JAMES]: 17:20

Well I mean I've legitimately had conversations with managers where they  have been upset with their staff because they set a meeting like two months ago,  sent one email about it, no follow ups, no reminders, no communication,  nothing. Like see this person on a almost daily basis, nothing. In the lead up to  the meeting, the because there was no community, no further communication,  the staff thought that the whole thing was off so they didn't show up to the meeting. Now the  manager's m mad and they're looking to, they want to discipline this person. It's like man,  just take a step back, take a breath. We need to one telling somebody something once a couple  months ago and then never even referencing it again is not effective communication.

[COBY]: 18:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one hit wonder technique is definitely  something we see pretty common as far as these, you know, these, these perfect 10  miscommunication strategies. Because I mean, yeah, it's the idea of like, it's like you know, like  a single request or a brief explanation or just, or just that, that, that that the assumption that  saying it one time keeps it in the top of their priority order in their mind. Because you know,  but, but, but, but the idea is our work is busy, lives are busy stuff and stuff kind of  recalculates the priority list on a moment to moment basis, let alone a day to day.

[JAMES]: 18:51

Well, and especially in a situation where you thought this was a very important thing to do.

[COBY]: 18:56

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 18:56

And you're talking to this person like even in the week,  weeks or week or days leading up to it and there's no,  it's not on your radar in your community, in your regular communications with them.

[COBY]: 19:08

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 19:09

How are they supposed to think that it's still a priority  for you if you never mention it again anyway. A personal irritant.

[COBY]: 19:17

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 19:17

But it is, it is emblematic of that one hit wonder,  style of. I've told you, I told. I may have told you a month ago,  but I told you. So now you're. The ball's firmly in your court and you are responsible.

[COBY]: 19:32

Yeah. Right. So the third technique, of the perfect 10 miscommunication techniques  is the different page technique. This is often an unintentional technique where people relay  information or set expectations and make an assumption that everyone comprehends as clearly  as they do without checking for understanding. We see this a lot and there's just a psychology  behind this one I've seen. This can be really difficult when this happens,  in some really serious techniques or serious situations. Because sometimes our confirmation  bias kicks in and when someone says something to us and we kind of already have an idea in our  mind of an expected outcome, then what they're saying, we're not actually hearing it kind of  objectively. We're almost subconsciously looking for confirmation of, of our own,  of our current opinion. And so we just, you know, accept what we hear, we hear what they say with  them. We walk away with completely different takes on it. And the assumption is that we're  not looking, we're not validating clarity. We're just going, yep, I think I understand,  I think you understand and we move forward. But sometimes again this idea but over communicating  can be effectively say just to make sure we're on the same page, here are the cold hard facts.

[JAMES]: 20:50

So that I understand is a great way to start those conversations. Because it's  not about the, the other person, it's about my under. Here's what I took from it. Here's  how I understand the situation. Yeah, it can be opens you up to being wrong. Right. Which  is fine because it's not about right or wrong. It's about understanding. Right. And perspective.

[COBY]: 21:17

Yeah. And, and it's, it's the idea too that like you know, we, we need to really kind of  make sure that we're like that we are on, that we are not on different pages. Because like, I mean,  and again sometimes it's a matter of like the. We talked about the repeat back method in some  of our other conversations we've had. We do this a lot when we're talking like you know,  individual, like like middle manager training. The idea of repeating back your comprehension  at the end of the conversation just to make sure that there's clarity. Again,  like we often normalize an hour when we take over teams or we're revising teams to do  same page summaries. So we say just to make sure, say just make sure we're on the same  page. Here's my understanding. And again, it's an over communication practice, but it resolves  this different page technique that we often see that is so problematic in so many organizations.

[JAMES]: 22:11

Well, it, it avoids, it avoids problems cropping up down the road. Right?

[COBY]: 22:16

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 22:17

Like if we. Yeah, yeah. And I think people understand this one pretty well. I mean I,  I can think of so many examples in my personal and professional life where,  you know. Because we all fall into these traps at different points.

[COBY]: 22:33

Yeah, absolutely.

[JAMES]: 22:33

They are mistake. They. The reason why they're common m. Mistakes is because everybody  does them. They're common. but they're things that we need to keep front of mind if we want  to be effective in the way that we communicate as a leader. Because like let's, let's tie this back  to our leadership journey. If you can avoid the perfect 10 miscommunication techniques, if you  can start to communicate early, communicate often without dumping every single detail on people,  you know, and not relying on a single, instance of communication to be enough and making sure  that when you need people to be on the same page that you're taking that route, it can be extremely  effective. But there's also one other piece that I think we need to talk about and that's  that all communication needs to be tailored to the audience that you're communicating with. Whether  we're talking about marketing communication in our business, right. We we go detailed into target  demographics and understanding client profiles and purchasing decisions. And then we take  great pains to craft a message that we know will resonate with a particular group. Marketing is a  form of communication. we can take that same type of, maybe not the same level of detail,  but that same principle of crafting our narrative in a way that reaches everybody and recognizing  that one size fits all communication doesn't work when, if you are only communicating in one way,  chances are that you are missing a large portion of the demographic that  you are trying to communicate with. Because people understand, commute and understand,  they process information in different ways, whether it's auditory or visual or you know,  whether we're reading, whether like the ability to really understand and take the time to look at  different ways of communicating the same message is And it, yes, it's going to be more work.

[COBY]: 24:53

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 24:54

But it's also going to be more effective.

[COBY]: 24:56

Absolutely. Yes. And you're right. And the last one is this one size fits all technique  that is so problematic because it's, because it assumes all communication and strategies  are equal and all, audience members, ah, are like unified. That there's one perfect way to  do all this. But the reality is usually it's. It's not even that thoughtful. It's more of like this  method is easiest for me, M. To communicate to others. So I'm just going to do this.

[JAMES]: 25:28

One thing because m. I'm busy and it's convenient for me to  write an email. So I'm going to write an email and that's going to be enough.

[COBY]: 25:33

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, and there's.

[JAMES]: 25:36

Yeah.

[COBY]: 25:37

It is something that's just a matter of. Yeah, we don't, we don't take into consideration  the needs of our audience when we communicate and that's why we fall into one size fits all. No,  you're right. Okay. So we took a little bit longer talking about these than I, than I,  than I thought we would. But, but I think we got into good detail and these are so important. so  I just, but I do think that we should move on to, to the other two tips just because I think that we  have some good callback options with, with these. two, the tip that we want to talk about, and I'll,  I'll let you jump into it first was talking about transforming behavior.

[JAMES]: 26:08

yeah. Okay. I have yet to meet a manager or a leader who has not wanted to  modify the behaviors of their staff. Right. it's a big issue. It's a big topic, I'll say,  because we use a lot of different tools. you know, we try to use performance systems to as  behavioral correction pieces. There's different ways that we try to approach it. But I think if  I can boil it down to a sound bite, you have to change the way you think before you can  change the way you act. And so, I mean it ties in pretty nicely with the whole communication piece.  M. If you want to start to transform behaviors in your workplace, you're going to have to  transform the way people think, think about the work. If you want to change the actions,  then you need to change the thought processes that goes into those actions. Many actions over time as  we get into like our behaviors become routine and we stop necessarily putting as much thought into  the why we're doing these things. So it becomes, just becomes kind of a natural outpouring and we,  we respond instinctively or we respond quite naturally. So the way in which we approach,  transforming behaviors. One really, what I really want to emphasize in this is how  we need to approach the way in which people think about the outcome. So if you want your  staff to approach work in a different way, you're going to have to get them  thinking about the outcome in a different manner. You have to communicate and you,  you have to communicate to the audience in a way that they will understand. And most importantly,  if you want to change behaviors, you need to tell them how this is actually going to be better for  them afterwards. Because if they're going to go through the effort of actually modifying  their own behaviors with your support, it better be because it's is easier, better,  safer. There has to be some sort of benefit to them other than just this makes my life  easier. So I want you to change because you will definitely meet some resistance on that messaging.

[COBY]: 28:42

Absolutely. So one thing that I think is so important for people to just  know and this is really the psychology behind transforming behavior. And this is, this is,  this is critical. You have to understand that to receive transformative change, which is what  we're looking for. You know, when we, when we want transform behavior. The key to that is invoking  critical reflection. We have to ref. We have to be critical about our critical reflective moments  like reflect on our assumptions, our current thinking, our what, what we consider normal,  the shortcuts that we make, all the stuff that we have to challenge the assumptions or the  norms in how we think if we want to actually be effective in transforming our thinking,  which will be essential to transforming our actions. And that's really the psychology  behind piece. I think you and I have a lot of success with transforming behaviors of teams and  transforming norms in organizations because we do understand so well that critical reflection is key  to transformative change. And one of the things that we do is one of our most powerful tools in  doing that is we challenge common understood like expressions in words. But we, but by defining the  differences between them. Like distinctions are our like hack on how we can really invoke critical  reflection in the teams that we work with. And I think a perfect example of that is the one  size fits all technique. Going back to that, that is something people think should be good enough  because we're. Because. Because it, because we're making information accessible to people. But the  truth is the one size fits all technique is not about making accessibility. It's about making  things available to people. So the distinction is understanding the difference between available  and accessible. Right. So available means that you were just providing it to people for consumption.  Accessible means that you're customizing it so all people have equal access to it.

[JAMES]: 30:56

Yeah. Writing an email and sending it to the entire organization. Yeah,  it's available. People can go back through their emails, they can refer back to it. It is written  and available. But I mean as we talked about with tailoring your message to your audience,  that's how you make it accessible. That's how you make it impactful for somebody else.

[COBY]: 31:19

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 31:19

I can think of an example with a, you know, challenging one of our,  managers to look at how they are measuring success in their within their portfolio and because they  wanted to do things differently, but they didn't really know how. And one of the things that  I found really helpful was being able to point them to our Know the Difference,  video about the difference between contribute and attribute. Right. Understanding that especially  as we are looking at evaluation metrics, especially as we are looking at, you know, how do  we define and evaluate success, it is critical to understand those things that we can contribute to  versus those outcomes that can be attributed to the work that we've done. Right. Because  those are two very different things. And what we as, once we under, you know, as we dug into the  distinction between those two concepts, we were able to actually start labeling the different  outcomes that were already in place to see, you know, what there's actually most of the things  that we are evaluating we don't have full control over. There are things that we can contribute to,  but we don't necessarily have full control over the outcome. There are other factors involved.  So is it fair for us to hold people accountable for an outcome that they contribute to? Possibly  depending on what we're talking about, like as a evaluative metric. Sure. As part of a  larger strategy though, we need to look at. Okay, what can be attributed to that person,  to that role, to that whatever new metric we are trying to create, success measures around that  distinction has been so helpful in making sure that when we are defining what success looks like,  we are defining it in a way that actually connects to the work and makes it really easy for people,  to People to understand how they are going to be measured and evaluated.

[COBY]: 33:32

Yeah, absolutely. And ah, yes. So for you listening, we actually have a Ser.  A YouTube series called Know the Difference where we actually dig into things like contribute versus  attribute, available versus accessible and a whole bunch more. So I'll, I'll mention one of my.

[JAMES]: 33:49

Personal favorites, the difference between a reason and an excuse.

[COBY]: 33:52

Yeah, So I was gonna say that's probably the one that I use the most often  when I'm dealing with difficult interpersonal things or difficult or behavioral things with,  managers and staff is, I say now a reason is context behind why something happened. So  lateness is because of difficulties with people having multiple, responsibilities at home and  everything else like that too. I understand there's a reason behind this. The problem is  a reason is not an excuse. An excuse is something that completely absolves you of responsibility.

[JAMES]: 34:34

Yeah. So your car breaks down on the way to work. Yes, that's an excuse. That's an  excuse. that's outside of your control. If your alarm didn't go off and you overslept,  well, yeah, you have a reason for being late, but that doesn't excuse the behavior.

[COBY]: 34:51

Exactly. So, so that, so understanding the distinction between those two things puts  things into greater context. Right. Another one that we use a lot actually we talked,  we talked about in our last issue of episode was the difference between reacting and  responding. Right. The idea of reacting is your something comes up and you kind of have like an  immediate needing to figure it out in the moment. Whereas responding is about, you predict or you,  you, you have a plan in place for, for a future eventualities. So the idea of like, you know, when  you, when something happens, you just implement the existing plan to respond to the situation as  opposed to reacting is just you're figuring out as you go and you weren't prepared for it. Right.  So the other one too that we use a lot is difference between nice and kind.

[JAMES]: 35:38

We use a lot of them a lot.

[COBY]: 35:40

We do, because I say these are the hacks that really help us kind of like really create  critical reflection in the people that we're working with. Because it's about challenging  assumptions. You think of like, like, you think of like nice and kind. Nice is a, is pleasantries,  is doing things that are, that are pleasing. Whereas kind is doing things that are supportive,  whether or not they're pleasing. So the example, that we always give is being nice is smiling at  someone who smiles at you or being kind is telling that person they have spinach in their teeth.

[JAMES]: 36:12

Right.

[COBY]: 36:12

And the idea of these are two things that most people think are synonyms, but they're not.  And clarifying their distinction is a powerful way to invoke critical reflection, which is  often the catalyst needed for transformative change. So that's something that we talk about,  transforming behavior. You're right, you have to change how you think to change how you act.  But these types of identifying these distinctions and can be a powerful way to start that journey of  critical reflection by challenging something that people think are synonyms. When really,  they're not identifying those distinctions and then classifying the situations amongst  those distinctions is so effective. I really cannot overstress how helpful this is in all  the work that we do, how much our partners love using our content around these things.  It's so, it's so meaningful, it's so impactful, but it's also so simple.

[JAMES]: 37:09

It is simple because what we're doing is we're creating common language.  When we have common language with common definitions, we are on the same page.  Right. Like with all of these things where I mean, we started talking about communication,  we're still talking about communication. If we wanted, if we want to modify behaviors,  it all. So we need to communicate that. We need to also communicate our expectations around what  is acceptable behavior. We also need to put strategies in place to help people,  develop that critical reflection and guide them on that journey so that they can. With  common language, we can actually start to talk about these, situations not from an emotional  response of piece, but from a structured intellectual or at least same page mentality.

[COBY]: 38:05

Absolutely. So I think so moving on to the third tip,  is the idea of bringing forward solutions.

[JAMES]: 38:13

Yeah.

[COBY]: 38:16

So.

[JAMES]: 38:17

This is one that, this is one that I think gets mistaken quite  frequently because there's a lot of language, and maybe it's in, you know,  some of the organizations that we've supported recently. But solution focused is a, is a term  that gets tossed around a lot. And it's not a bad term. Right. We want people to be solution  focused. We want them to be looking for how to resolve situations. So the idea of, you know,  don't just bring me a problem, bring me a solution that is helpful, but it's not necessarily enough.

[COBY]: 39:01

Yeah.

[JAMES]: 39:01

So I want to, let's create some common language. Right? So let's talk about  the difference between an issue, a solution, and what I want to propose as the solution is a plan.

[COBY]: 39:15

Right.

[JAMES]: 39:16

So issues, we know what issues are when somebody raises a problem to us. They're,  you know, if they have an issue with,  staffing, they have an issue with their manager, they have an issue, whatever that issue may be,  they're bringing that forward. And issues tend to be framed around the complaint mentality of,  I have a problem, I want you to fix it. This is my problem, go do it.

[COBY]: 39:37

Right.

[JAMES]: 39:38

Solution is I have a problem. Here's what I think is a solution to it. Much, much,  much better approach than just bringing a problem  to me. Where solution tends to fall down is that a solution will resolve,  should resolve that issue. But does it resolve it in the best way possible. Is it?

[COBY]: 40:05

Or the most realistic way or the.

[JAMES]: 40:07

Most realistic way possible. Just because you can resolve a situation doesn't  mean that you should resolve it in that particular way. And we've talked many times about plan beats  no plan. If you want, we, you should have some sort of guiding plan or strategy that you can  filter your actions through that you are working towards. Whether that's an operational strategy,  human capital strategy, a marketing strategy, a whatever. You're within  the domain of your responsibilities and your authority level. There should be some,  something that you are working towards more than just getting through the day. And so issue versus  solution versus plan. If we have a plan, then we can look at multiple solutions to an issue and  choose the one that is actually going to resolve the situation in a way that advances our plan.

[COBY]: 41:13

Yeah, absolutely. Because like, one of the things that we,  we often see as kind of the natural and unwanted outcome when organizations shift towards this idea  of don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution is they often bring forward a overly simplistic  divorced of reality and context solution. That's just an easy answer. And sometimes it's just ah,  another way to present the problem. A common example that we see is, you know, we  organizations are struggling with staff retention. So, and we've seen other consultants say, well,  the problem, you know, here's the solution to that problem. Just pay them more.

[JAMES]: 42:00

Which again, it is a solution.

[COBY]: 42:02

It is, it qualifies as a solution. But the problem is it's divorced of,  of the realities of most workplaces or most organizations. Right. It's divorced of the  economic indicators. It's divorced of the, all the different elements that we've talked  about in past episodes about how some m, how money is sometimes a more complex,  situation when it comes to employee retention. It's divorced of the, you know, the kind of,  the cascading sustainable effects of, you know, of an organization's, you know, again,  financial situation. It's just, it's an easy answer. And this is what we try to avoid when  we try and shift from don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution to don't bring me a problem,  bring me a plan. Yeah, because the idea of a plan is about here's a situation, here's the context,  here's how to address it. Acknowledging realities and then presenting a possible outcome with some  thought and some tact. And the thing is that yes, it's a lot more work to bring forward a plan than  to bring forward an Easy answer. But that's a good thing. You're supposed to, you know,  again, if something's really important to you. So as an employee, if you identify a problem,  then, then saying the problem to your manager often gets ignored because well, what am I,  what am I going to do about this? I don't have time to come up with this. But also I as a manager  don't understand the situation to the degree that you do. So I'm probably not fully qualified to  solve this without additional, additional context or additional information. Bringing forward an  easy answer as an employee is not any, any, any better really than bringing forward a problem just  because again, if it's divorced of the reality, it's, it's just kind of a complaint in a sense.  It's, it's like a bail complaint. But bring forward a plan is key. As an employee, I see the  context. I understand, I understand the situation. I'm acknowledging the realities of it. Here's what  will actually work at the ground level. That's powerful. That's, that's something. If you can  normalize that being how stuff is brought forward, that is very much the real solution focus that you  know that the term actually defines. Right. It's about actionable strategies, not just, you know,  easy answers or, or, or vague questions and wants. It really is about. That's how,  that, that's how change, that's how stuff happens and that's how change happens. Right?

[JAMES]: 44:31

Yeah. And kind of pulling this back to leadership tip, the what's happened,  what actually happens when you start using that language just around bring me,  don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution is that you're setting an expectation that if  people bring you a solution, you are going to implement it and that can quickly,  deteriorate trust and your own credibility with your team. If people, if you are communicating  with them that, you know, don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution. They bring  you a solution that fixes a problem and you don't implement it and, and you don't  communicate why you haven't implemented it. That is just setting people up for,  you're creating, you're actively creating dissatisfaction. right. You are creating a,  an environment where people feel like your word can't be trusted because they did exactly what  you told them to. You from their perspective, you have failed to live up to your obligation.

[COBY]: 45:36

Right. Whereas if you shift towards don't bring me a problem, bring me a plan for  us to discuss that manages expectations, that puts some onus back on them. It also recognizes  your confidence that they are smart enough and they're knowledgeable enough and they're diligent  enough to actually be able to be part, to be part of the fix. Right. And it's one of those things  too where it does not create that same level of just give me an easy answer and then hold me  accountable for not implementing your easy answer. Right. Again, there's always lot of subtext that,  that it avoids. But the question we often get is, well, how is it that we can make this shift from.  Not have, from going from a problem, from pushing a problem culture to pushing a plan culture.  A lot of it is defining it with the, this common language, identifying this is what an issue is,  this is what a solution is and this is what a plan is. And, and so, the shorthand will be  don't bring me a problem, bring me a plan. So but this is what we mean by that. But  that's transforming the behavior using effective communication. And if you're communicating early,  communicating often, that normalizes it and it allows you to have this transformational  piece where you move towards an actual solution focus, not just a complaint or problem focus.

[JAMES]: 46:56

Yeah, way to tie it all together.

[COBY]: 47:00

That's what I do. All right. Yeah, no, I think, I think this was a really good  conversation. I think that there's a lot in here for people to kind of digest. I  do think that. I think it's really a really helpful thing for people will be to. If again,  I'll put a link to our Know the Difference video, our playlist on our YouTube channel in the,  in the show notes because again, these are like three to four minute videos that really  kind of dig into kind of some of the stuff we have some new ones coming that are in,  are in the hopper that we haven't, we haven't, we haven't really released yet around reacting,  responding and excuse and reason and those kind of things too. So on the date that we  publish this episode. But there's a lot in there already and those can be very,  very powerful because like what's great with videos, you can share the videos with your  team to say review this and then this can be part of our conversations going forward. So you don't  have to explain the context of what we mean by accessible and available. We've done all the hard  work for you. You can just share it and then lead a discussion around how we're going to normalize  these two distinctions. And that's just embedding this transformative behavior into your everyday.

[JAMES]: 48:02

One of the easiest places to start is with nice versus kind.

[COBY]: 48:06

Absolutely.

[JAMES]: 48:06

Because it's, it's simple concepts that people understand. the distinction is clear once  you talk about it. And that can start to become in the common language that you use in your workplace  of are we actually being kind here or are we being nice? you can use it with your entire staff. It is  extremely effective in just, just if you want to use it with your management or leadership teams  to start looking at that distinction between nice versus kind, it's an easy entry point in. Yeah.

[COBY]: 48:39

All right, so I think that but does it for us. So for a full archive  of the podcast and access to video version hosted on our YouTube channel,  visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.

[ANNOUNCER]: 48:53

For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit  us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention,  high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance,  dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James’ voice, desire to find a better podcast…