Picture this: a workforce landscape where tenure is defined by mission-specific tours, goals are crystal clear, and turnover is not the villain but a natural progression of a dynamic and robust workplace. We'll discuss how this mindset fosters a powerful partnership between staff and company, where mutual growth is the driving force. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped to embrace the fluid nature of modern employment and lead with a purpose that transcends the confines of traditional career trajectories.
Picture this: a workforce landscape where tenure is defined by mission-specific tours, goals are crystal clear, and turnover is not the villain but a natural progression of a dynamic and robust workplace. We'll discuss how this mindset fosters a powerful partnership between staff and company, where mutual growth is the driving force. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped to embrace the fluid nature of modern employment and lead with a purpose that transcends the confines of traditional career trajectories.
📖 To access Travis' complete book list, visit his storehere
Speaker 1:
You. This is unleashing leadership, and I'm host Travis Moss, and today we're gonna talk a little bit more about and send us. We're in the postseason of the infinite game and there's a couple of points over the next five days that we wanted to emphasize, some things that we've talked about in the past. I wanted to roll them forward To give us the opportunity, whilst fresh in your mind, to reinforce some of these ideas, some of these ideas that we've talked about now through Different seasons where we've covered different books. But during this most recent season, where we covered the infinite game by Simon Sinek, we talked a lot about ethical fading and incentives, and this reminded me of an episode we did back in season one when we covered the book team of teams. That was also called Incentives. So in case you don't remember that episode, or if you are new to the show, here's a replay that helps us cover this topic More in depth.
Speaker 1:
We are talking about turnover today, not the Apple turnovers, but actual turnover of Employees. This is the end result of having to deal with our no jackass policy. We've got to figure out, you know, why don't team leaders get rid of non-team players, or why don't team leaders get rid of the jackasses, and I think it's mostly not normally because we're just trying to be nice and I've been there. I mean I have I've been there too much. This is part of the reason why I have so much to say in this space is I Tried to one.
Speaker 1:
Probably one of my biggest weaknesses is I've always tried to pull, see if I could pull out better in people. I've always wanted to try to help people achieve the things that they want to achieve. But sometimes people are Inadvertently, kind of naturally, fighting themselves right. They're just not there. They don't have enough humble there. They're not humble enough, or they're not hungry enough, or they're not smart enough and they have no desire to put the work in to get there. They just they want, but they don't want to do, and so let's talk about how that is actually really cruel.
Speaker 1:
So when I, as a leader, perpetuate this, when I let people stay in positions that they shouldn't be in, because I'm trying to be nice, because I'm trying to help them, what actually is happening is, first of all, they that person, the jackass, is getting up every day and they live in a lie. And how miserable can that be if you're getting up every day and you're having a front. You're having to pretend you're something that you're not because you're at an organization that expects more out of you. They expect you to be different from who you are and you just trying to hang on to that because you know that's what. You know that's what you're doing. You know it's a good enough place to be. I mean, that's miserable. It's miserable having to be on guard 24-7. Why would you want to be like that? And sometimes those people just need permission to move on, you know, or maybe a kick in the ass to move on. But they ought to just move on. Find something that does suit them, that allows them to be the jackass they want to be, and reward them for it. That's fine, that's hey. If your competition has more jackasses, your business is gonna be better. You know you're just gonna do better. So let them out. Let them go. Don't hold on to them. They're not precious. Let them go.
Speaker 1:
The team you know what, when they see the work after they're gone. This is one of those things where we can talk all about the benefits of the team While the jackass is there. But a lot of times the jackass is good enough that they convince the team that they're important, that they're needed and that, and that it's not their fault, it's management's fault, it's the company's fault, it's the market's fault, whatever somebody else's damn fault. And then that person is removed and the team has to pick up that person's work. And the team, your a's and b's, who are left behind or very proud of their work, start looking at the work from the jackass and they start to find the holes in it. And Now their pride ticks in and that makes them angry, that makes them frustrated. They were taking advantage of by the jackass and Now they got to clean up his mess.
Speaker 1:
That almost always happens when you have one of them leave and then they understand. Then they haven't. So you can actually use it as an aha moment, a training moment, because people don't understand at first, like I, like them, you know we work together and we were good friends and we went to the company, barbecue together and all that kind of stuff. But then they see what you know, that a or b is so committed to the organization, they are so committed, committed to the mission, they really take it serious. And then they see what that CRD was doing and all of a sudden like, oh, my god, it makes me sick to my son. He's like being cheated on. That's cruel, leaving somebody in that position. If you had a friend who was being cheated on, would you just would you not say anything Right, or would you try to help them? The sooner you help them, the better. Less pain there's gonna be. The longer goes on, the more Painter is gonna be.
Speaker 1:
You know the, the, your clients and your customers. You know we have clients. You might have customers have whatever terminology you want to use. Did they get what they were paying for? Because a lot of times with a jackass is, you're not right. They know how to package it, but they don't really care about the little details. A lot of times they don't care that people Get what they're paying for. They don't care about anybody but themselves. They don't go the extra mile. So did they get the full experience that they were supposed to be getting? They really understand what your organization is about. So here's the thing if your clients, your customers, are a and b level people, which is that's a type of people we want to work with and and and and you guys see and d level people Providing services to them. They're gonna sniff out them, they're gonna figure that out and and they're gonna be pretty dissatisfied. Or, if they can't figure it out, they're gonna be dissatisfied and not be able to finger on it, but sometimes it's gonna be wrong or be nervous. So it's like red lights flashing right and then you got the company.
Speaker 1:
Every employee Costs the company. Employees don't understand this. You know, we went to Starbucks the other day and the employees were deciding to strike at a local Starbucks and they blame diamond and it's able. Management doesn't properly staff us. Yet they had eight people in the store and they closed the store and they refused to fulfill our order that we had placed online. And what they don't understand is that every single one of them cost the company money.
Speaker 1:
The company has cash flow, that's, people buying their product or service. The cash comes into the company. The company turns around and gives a cash to employees so that the employee you know that so that there's employees to do the jobs, to make the product or services, to keep the whole wheel spinning, and for this the company expects the employee to help the company become more valuable. See, the employees don't own the company, right. We're not the whole company. The employees are a part of the company. They are one of the interested parties. The community is interested, the business owners are interested, right, shareholders are interested, all the employees are interested, the Landlords interested, the you know, the customers are interested in it. So if we're gonna spend our money, we expect, whatever we spend our money on, to make the company more valuable. So when an employee is using up some of that cash flow that could otherwise be spent on other things and they're not trying to improve the company and they're not trying to make the company better, then someone is literally stealing from everyone else here.
Speaker 1:
Here's the. The kicker to this, though. It's not actually the employees fault. They are who they are. Somebody's been an enabler. That's the leaders fault. They're the one who perpetuates it. They enable it. The leaders stealing from everybody else, not the employee. The employees just do what employees do. Right, they're allowed to do it, so they do it.
Speaker 1:
The leaders, the strong one. The leaders, the one who knows better. Leaders, the one who can identify things and put the proper Protocols in place. The leaders, the one we can say oh, we got a jackass, we got to deal with the jackass. Nobody else on the team can really do that to the same degree. They can certainly do it. There's things that they can do, but they cannot do it the same degree as the leader can.
Speaker 1:
So leaders, responsible for the employees lost dignity, the lack of pride that they have in their work? Now, right, they are responsible for the teams and efficiencies. They are responsible for the client's poor experience. They are responsible for the company's growth not happening because they're wasting cash flow on a jackass. So businesses and this is just a dumb thing that we do and I don't know why we do it. I don't know where it comes from, but businesses are celebrated for low turnover, low customer turnover, low employee turnover right, somehow, if Everybody loves you, you must be great, and the way that we measure if everybody loves you is if nobody leaves you. But too much of a good thing is a bad thing. This is one of those wrong incentives. We talked about being careful with incentives, right, this is one of those wrong incentives If there is no turnover or if turnover is very, very low, and I would say that this is the same on that on the customer side as it is on the employee side.
Speaker 1:
Are we really pushing people to grow? Are we really developing? Are we really improving our people really being challenged Is the business growing and adapting at all? Because if it were, there being more skills needed to maintain it, right, people would have to be getting better, you'd be pushing the boundaries and you would need people more capable or capable of different things than what it used to do. Right, you would be refining your client base, be looking at the clients and saying who do we really help the most and who appreciates it the most, and how do we get more of that type of person?
Speaker 1:
Yet we celebrate the fact that companies don't lose anybody. You probably should be losing people, actually, and you shouldn't be looking at that as a bad thing, because it means you're changing. It means you're growing. You're developing because people will leave when that's happening, because, listen, I don't want to be forced to change. Some people are just gonna decide they've had enough.
Speaker 1:
Right, like, yeah, you know, it sounds like too much work, I'm no, I'm not interested anymore. Let him go, that's fine. Why are you fighting for somebody who doesn't want to be there anymore? Right, we're so competitive. I myself am like this I'm so competitive, I'll try to convince somebody that they want to do something because they're already there. It's like let him go. Let him go be happy someplace else. That's not a mark on you. That's not saying that you're inefficient or or you know, inadequate in any way. It's just saying that you know what you need, something out of them. They're not willing to give, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:
So here's a way to kind of think about this, and, I think, in a better way, that we call this the tour duty framework, and we've been trying to implement this, and this is from let me check my notes. This is from the book powerful a culture, freedom and responsibility for Patty McCord. I'm pretty sure that's what, where that's from, and it's about Netflix's Rise and how they structured their business, and I'm really really good buck, but from there we got. I believe that this came from that book, and that's out of reading this, by the way, but we got the tour of duty framework, and basically, this is an idea. Listen, I'd like you to come work for me Over the next two years, though we're gonna put you in a position.
Speaker 1:
Here's what you're gonna be doing. This is a great opportunity to see what you can do, see if you like our company, see what you want to be doing. We can figure out how to best utilize you At the end of that two years, we're going to discuss your performance, your goals, your interests and if everything lines up, let's re-up. We'll have a discussion about what the next tour looks like. What do you want to do next? Maybe you want to move vertically through the company or horizontally. Maybe you want to do something different. You really love the company but you want to do something a little different. And if that's available and if you fit, we can discuss it. But we'll know and so we can have a really good, open conversation. So, over the next two years, this is what we're measuring and this is what you get over the next two years, and this is what we expect.
Speaker 1:
It's a very finite, defined outlook. You know, everybody talks about loyalty. Oh, there's no company loyalty. Well, there's no employee loyalty either. There's just we need to make it a place where you want to be and you need to be at somebody that we want to have here and that never stops. And that's a partnership, right, that's a commitment from each side. Oh, that's what you need out of this Great, this is what I need out of this Great. And as soon as we're no longer able to do that, no hard feelings, move on, we'll help you go someplace too. We'll help you find something that better fits for you then, because we don't want you to turn into a jackass right, and you don't want to work at a company that doesn't fit you. So there's no over commitments, no broken promises, no forced marriages, no traps. So I think this framework really helps. It changes that turnover problem from bad or good, you know, from that, is it bad or is it good to just it's necessary part of the gig.