How To Turn Your Team Into Leaders (Without Losing Control)

Mitch: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make Others Successful, a podcast where we share insights, stories, and strategies to help you build a better workplace. Today, we are gonna be talking about how to build your team into leaders by being a good leader, which is all a facade to a therapy session of us realizing what we need to do to be good leaders in the context of our own work, because we had some situations that that we said, oh, shoot. This is what we're teaching people they need to do, and we need to do it ourselves. How do we do this?

And it kind of unraveled a bunch of things, because it's a lot easier to say to do things than to do them. Well, actually, yeah, I'm gonna save the nuance. But my name is Mitch, if we haven't had a chance to meet yet, and I'm joined with Mike here and Matt. Hey. Common.

They're always here. I did want to make note, Mike was very adamant of wearing this new shirt today and I think it deserves a moment on this episode.

Mike: Appreciate that.

Mitch: Because it's in beta testing, we'll call it. It has all of our values on it and Mike is yeah.

Matt: Loud and proud. Mike's the model.

Mitch: We're gonna

Matt: put that on the website, write with him as the model. It'll be great.

Mitch: Yes. So let me let me kind of talk about the premise here and then we can talk into some of the questions that it started to create. So AI has been going crazy. I don't This episode is not about AI, to be We're taking a break from it. But it just so happens to be the thing that initiated this.

And it is the fact that we had a problem where we are trying to produce content in our marketing space and kind of get back on the horse of, you know, YouTube and social media and courses and things like that. And managing all of that is a large task and keeping it all in order and making sure we're working on the right things at the right time is not quite as simple as create a planner board and create a task to make this thing and move it across the board. So there's a bunch of interdependencies that I knew enough to say, I think we need our own tool to do this thing. And once you know, AI Copilot can help me build this tool. And guys, look, we can just build this tool and then deploy it and then we can use it and it's all going to be great.

And that was my my narration of the story. Right? And there's many different variations on it. And so to kind of abstract this a little bit, we want to talk about the idea of, in this scenario, I am an employee and my bosses want to enable me to solve a problem. Right?

Like, that's an underlying desire that we all we want to be able to support each other to solve problems. And most of the time when employees are wanting to solve problems, we look at that as a plus. Like, wow, look at them go. They're not just pulling the lever at their job, and they're wanting to solve problems. So I realize I'm taking up all the airspace because I'm passionate about this one.

But what are some of your thoughts when you hear about this situation, this this reality we stepped in without going into the specifics of what questions it caused? Like, think about it from the abstract level. What are your what are your thoughts?

Matt: I mean, you're giving a specific example, but I'm not sure that we've completely mapped that back to being a good leader and what the title of this podcast is. So I'm gonna

Mitch: Yes.

Matt: Relate that back a little bit. The reality is part of being a leader is letting go and letting people make a path and trusting a team to chart a path and do good work because they are doing good work. That can manifest itself in lots of different ways. It is hard for leaders who know the details of what's going on sometimes to let go. That's one scenario.

Another scenario is it's hard to accept the consequences of somebody choosing something and maybe doing it wrong. And so this the scenario that you brought up is just one of the examples, and we're gonna use that as an example to kinda talk about this this interplay between being a good leader and teaching your team to be good leaders by being a good leader yourself. And in this particular context, I think it raises up lots of different things. All of the things that you said are true, that this is something that we have struggled with, but the struggle, the main struggle, has been on the marketing team. And so from a outside looking in

Mitch: The marketing team has experienced the struggle, not caused the struggle? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. They're back there. They're listening. They're

Matt: Yes. But, like, the planner board was good enough for me because I show up to a meeting, somebody tells me what we're doing, and we go try to execute it. Right? So there's one challenge of it, which is that as a leader, you may not feel the same pain that somebody else is feeling. But then there's all sorts of other things, which is like two conflicting pieces on this particular world, which is like we are making investments in marketing, and so I want that to be successful.

And if this needs to be this is what it needs to be successful, great. But at the same time, we're also trying to invest in other areas. And so if that's where we need to be, like, is it really the right thing to do for this purpose? So there's a lot of emotions and realities that go through your mind when these types of things are going on when somebody because they're they oftentimes don't always happen in a structured way. And in this further case, it's an interesting thing because it's it's also compounded by the concept of we try to let people learn by doing.

Like, we need to learn new skills by giving giving the opportunity to go try something out. And so in doing so, the best way to learn many times is to do something real. Right? And so you in particular were like, I wanna try out this because more layers to the onion. You're actively working on projects that are similar in nature for customers.

Mitch: Mhmm.

Matt: And you're trying to figure out how you could leverage AI to do those things better. Right? Right. And so, okay, cool. I wanna try this, but I don't wanna try it out with a customer thing.

Let me try it out with something that I know that there's a problem. Right? Mhmm. And so it creates this scenario where it's all good stuff, but it's not happening how in lots of people's minds they feel like it should be happening. Meaning, I have this idea.

I go to the team and I say, hey, I have this idea. I think it's a good idea. I wanna go spend time on it. How do you guys feel about it? Oh, I think that's a great idea.

Here's the outcomes that we're gonna get. Let's go apply. Like, it's just like one weekend you were like, oh, I'm gonna try this thing. Mhmm. And when you got done, you had something that was sort of ready.

Right? So it's an interesting it puts interesting pressures.

Mitch: Yeah. What what other things like, I I just did this again. I had a, like, weekend project where I was trying something out and I came in and I showed Mike and I said, look at this thing. It's cool. He had some interesting react.

What are some of the things that go off in your mind that you're thinking of at a leader level that I probably don't even really think or or maybe I'm not on the surface thinking about?

Mike: Well, I like I think the first thing I wanna say is I'll reframe a little bit what Matt was pointing at at a higher level, which is I think there are some principles that leaders should follow generally across the board to provide space for this. And some of those are core for us and those are things like fail forward.

Mitch: Oh, it's on your shirt.

Mike: Look at that. Yeah. It's on my shirt. Fail forward. But then also assume positive intent.

Right? Like if you're hiring good people, like assume that they're trying to do the right thing. Don't assume that they're trying to be nefarious or do something that Like generally speaking, good people wanna do good things and you gotta trust that that's gonna happen. And all Both of those things like trusting that that will happen and giving that space will promote leadership within your organization. And that's ultimately what you wanna do in any organization is create more leaders and less bosses.

Mhmm. Right? Like even people that work for me, like I want them to be in roles of leadership in whatever projects or or engagements or roles that they're serving in because that makes the organization stronger as a whole. So that I think that's where I would start is more leaders, less bosses, and you know, have trust in your organization for sure.

Matt: So how did that play out? Yeah. Yeah. Scenario. Yes.

Mitch: That's like the the end goal. Yeah. So I don't think it went that way though. Right? Like, what are some of your

Mike: No. Like, I

Mitch: I'm not saying you're wrong for it.

Mike: The truth is no. And I don't think I am wrong for it. I think the the key is like, Mitch, we have a personal relationship in addition to our work relationship and we know each other fairly well. And the three of us also are constantly iron sharpens iron, right, as they say. And so we're constantly like bouncing things off of each other and trying to make each other better and trying to take that feedback with positive intent, right, and try to make ourselves better.

And so in that particular episode, was as you were presenting it to me, was like, oh, are you is he creating this thing for the better of the business or for his own ego? Mhmm. Right? And so it's like what like are you creating something that serves the business or are you creating something that serves you?

Matt: To be to be clear, that is not something that just applies to Mitch. It's something that applies to every one When of these one of the first things someone needs to assess is, especially in a technology in this particular scenario, in our scenarios where it's technology focused and

Mitch: Yep.

Matt: The people creating it are interested in that technology, is this just a cool way to use technology skills or is this really something that would help the business? Right. Right.

Mike: And that that particular issue, like, with Mitch is like, it's very rare that I would call that out with anyone other than you or Matt. Sure. Like, because we're we're close that way. It would like I was able to like have a pretty direct conversation with you and ask that question. Mhmm.

Right? But whereas, I I think with anyone else, like I would think twice before I, For sure. Were to say something like that. But but, yeah. So we so that I don't know how that helps people in this conversation because it's like, oh, well, if you have special knowledge about somebody, you can ask these extra Yeah.

Deep questions.

Matt: Yeah. No. But how how did it actually go? You just asked that question and then after

Mike: that I asked that question and I saw him reflect and I was like, okay, he understands what I'm saying and like that's that's where it ended, honestly.

Mitch: Yeah. I I I think there like I said, there were a couple episodes. There are a couple questions that we wrote down that like that came up were like, oh, is this something we're married to now? Like, are we gonna have to be responsible for this thing? Is this something that, yeah, we're going to have to babysit and spend money on?

Is there going to be value to us actually doing this thing? Like, is this just going be a distraction?

Matt: To be really clear, that particular one isn't over. Like, Mike is acting like Yeah. I already know the thing is there. We've talked three other times since then about something very similar and problems that we're having. So it's not done.

No. It's just that particular thing, it wasn't a priority because of the things you just talked Right? Like, the other thing that's interesting about, and it's it's hard to use us as the examples, like Mitch, you're talking about it as if you're the a good example, you're not a great example because you have stake in the game. Right? Like, the reality is there's an expectation that you are self reflecting on that and saying whether Right.

Like, if you really think it's super valuable, you need to just drive it and say that's what

Mike: we should do.

Matt: Right? And tell us what's not gonna happen to get the thing done, which is largely what happened with the marketing thing. Right. Because on the marketing side, for the first one you talked about about our content calendar and how to better manage that, like, I did all the same things. I was like, hey, like, it's gonna cost money because not everybody has the licenses they need to do to use this thing.

Mhmm. I recognize that you built it, which means you're the only one that can maintain it right now. Mhmm. And your time spending your your time being spent on maintaining an internal app does not sound like a great use of your time. And then how much is this really gonna help us?

Right? Which we got other feedback, like I like, Will was like, this is amazing. This is would be so valuable to me, which was a huge input to it. But all I

Mitch: needed I believe the quote was something like, it's something that I didn't know that I wanted. But

Matt: I need

Mitch: But I Yeah.

Matt: Something like that. And so we I took all of those inputs and I was like, okay. Like because what I needed, especially given your level, but I think it is with every if if I was talking to another person that is owns a part of responsibility within the business is this is what I need and here's why. Because I and it's also a very interesting thing, and I'll try to talk about it. It's one of the reasons I think we can execute it pretty fast, but why these things die in big organizations.

Mike: Mhmm.

Matt: I'm playing business owner, IT IT admin, like, five different roles, and I can segment them all, decide which one I don't. I'm like, oh, it's a problem. Right? Which mine was IT. I'm like, hey, this is gonna cost some money.

Are you really sure? And it's gonna be some IT maintenance. What do you think? Mhmm. And all I needed from you was to, yep.

Cool. And I'm like, okay. Cool. We can do it. That would my subsequent problem because it took me too long because I was busy to do anything about it.

And then these two had a side conversation. We're ready

Mike: to get into the details of that. And Mike, the first thing I wanna say is we are ordering some hats that have those different roles on them so that he can wear the different hats. Yeah. We're not challenges. Yep.

And then we'll know

Mitch: It can be concretely clear

Matt: To you guys who I am

Mike: at the moment. Yeah. Who's actually responding. Right.

Matt: So ridiculous. But, like, it it is all about that. Like, the reality is when you so first of all, as an employee, if I was an employee bringing this up, you need to recognize that there is that difference, that you're you're sparking a lot of emotions of other people that don't really have anything to do with the validity of the ask that you're making. Yeah. They just need time to understand what that is.

And even better, if you come with a understanding of what that is and address that, for example, going, hey, I tried this out this weekend. I think there's a lot of value in that. I think we should talk about this more. Can I put something on your calendar in two weeks to talk about it?

Mike: Mhmm.

Matt: Like, you're clearly articulating a point in time, how valuable it is to you. Like, you're you're setting it up for another conversation rather than being, like, hey, this is really cool.

Mitch: Start a What

Matt: what do wanna do?

Mitch: Figure it out.

Matt: Yeah. It's like because then the onus is all on the other person to go, I don't even understand really all of what it is and what the value is. Right? The more that they can come with that, the better off things are gonna be. That's And when we talk about leadership, that's what I expect the leader in my organization to do.

I expect them to come with, oh, I had this good idea. This is what I wanna do. And either, a, I need your help to figure out whether or not it's really valuable or it is really valuable. I need you to help me figure out when and how we can make this happen. Right?

Then I'm like, okay. Let's figure that out. Right?

Mitch: Which all of that can go really south south really quickly if you're asking a question like, is this for their ego or is this for the business. Right? That can like shoot all of that down.

Matt: Which goes back to the not everybody's gonna do what I just said. Yeah. And especially if you're in a small organization like we are, where you have a high degree of personal relationship with people, people are gonna bring things with not fully baked, not with a full conscious of of all those things. And then we as leaders need to figure out how to effectively respond, and that response needs to help people through that process. Right?

Mike: Mhmm.

Matt: The response needs to be not the the way that he phrased it was also a way to trigger you, quite frankly.

Mitch: Yeah. Get

Mike: it. I've never tried to trigger people.

Matt: That is not true at all. But the the intent is still valid, which is to say, hey, how much is this really gonna help the business? Can you articulate to me? Like, ask questions. So when we think about how you can be a better be help people be better leaders, it's to help ask those questions and not immediately go to, what the heck?

You were supposed to be working on x, y, or z. Right? Did you do this? You don't know anything about what what how it happened, why it happened. You need to focus on are how serious are they?

Hey, is this something you wanna actually, like, investigate now? Like, that's a really cool idea. I think my response to you was, like, that's neat. Yes. The because the technology he was using was Vibe coding.

Vibe apps. Sorry.

Mitch: No. It was PowerApps. CodeApps.

Matt: Was it the the marketing one was CodeApps? I thought it was Yeah. I thought it was okay. I thought one of them

Mike: was Vibe apps is the latest iteration.

Matt: But anyways, I was like, oh

Mitch: To be clear, there's three different ways to build apps with CodePilot right now that yes.

Matt: That's a whole separate conversation which we're not going to talk about

Mitch: because it's

Matt: AI. Yes. But my response was very

Mitch: much No. Actually We can't say AI the rest of this time. We have to use different terms

Mike: Yeah.

Mitch: To describe.

Mike: Every time I'll say so this

Mitch: is not about Every time you

Mike: say AI, I'll take a drink.

Matt: The reality is, like, my response was very much like, that's really cool. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's just your pet project where you try it over the weekend. I have no there's no expectation for me that you actually wanna go do that. Right? Mhmm.

Because you know what that means and you know how that works. Right? So for me, I'm like, okay. When it's when it rises to the level that Mitch is like, this is something we need to do and he needs IT support or he needs

Mike: Which by the way happened Figured out. The following Monday when he showed up and said, I need this thing and I like, I'm I'm a run the experiment kind of guy. So I'll like ask for forgiveness before I'll ask for permission. So he's like, hey, Matt's busy. Do you think you can stand something up so that I can actually put this in into real life?

And I was like, yeah, sure. Because I'm global admin and I can do whatever I want, which I did, and then I got in trouble for it.

Matt: Well, it didn't work. He couldn't get it to work. And so then they were like, okay. I I guess I need to ask Matt for help getting it working. And I was like, oh, this is not how

Mike: we want to set it up. And then it hit the fan.

Mitch: Absolutely.

Matt: It did not. I just was like, I need to set it up.

Mike: No. I I think the the key thing there is, like, the the question is when you find yourself in that type of situation or if you're setting up an organization and you want to promote leadership from within, how do you create the space so that things can happen without being a burden and dragging people down so that they won't even try things?

Matt: So we should have had someone other than the three of us on this because I would love to know other people's perspectives of how this all went down and how

Mitch: Oh, have some we have another we come on in. She's shaking her head now.

Matt: Yeah. But like, because we're, honestly, a bad example of it, for me, a lot of it has to do with how you react as a leader to these things, and we've just given you lots of examples of reacting poorly to it and reacting poorly to the poor reaction to it. Like, it's not, do not do not follow what we what we just experienced.

Mitch: As we say, not as we do.

Matt: Yes. And also, would fall back to Mike's comment before, which is the three of us probably behave differently between the three of us than we would behave with an employee that had a similar reaction or feedback right, wrong, or indifferent.

Mike: We have the space to behave badly and still survive.

Matt: Yes. But not for good like, I don't know that it's good that that's the case.

Mike: No. It's a it's what happens. Any any small organization, particularly where you have the personal relationships like we have, like you and I have had for twenty years now, like, what are you gonna do? You can't erase that. You can't forget that.

Matt: But you can try to be better. You can always try to be better.

Mike: I like, I love it because it gives us like a little like, it's we're the three of us is like a petri dish where we can see what sucks.

Matt: Well, we've recognized that it's a problem, and so we're gonna fix it and make sure it's better for everybody else.

Mike: For every for the rest of the organization.

Matt: That is what's really happening. Yep. Because it's Now we could I don't know to be really clear, I don't know that they we're I'm painting it really bad. It's not like it was a terrible reaction, but it definitely challenged our needs for growth of, like, hey. We need to fix these systems.

Mitch's strategy of, I'm just gonna go do it. Mike and I's frustration that Mitch is the only one that has time to just go do it, and seemingly the desire to just go, I don't really care what everybody else wants. I'm just gonna make something. And the infrastructure I'm gonna step out really quick. Pricing and and, like, setup for what that those things cost.

Right? Like, as we continue to build these systems, there is a cost to those things. And so we are a exact petri dish of, like, that whole situation in what's going on in our business.

Mitch: The the thing that I thought of pretty quickly in this scenario was like, this is me playing devil's advocate. What do you mean, guys? We tell people to build systems and PowerApps, PowerPlatform is worth it, and you should buy licenses for your people, and you should just suck it up and do the thing. Right? Like, I realized, oh, by us telling people that in a more structured way, we are sort of, in some ways, saying, yeah, when people come and say these things, like, you should have systems, you should have a bent towards enabling this sort of thing in your business.

And it's not it if you have ever felt like, I'm going to take the advice of these people and go buy licenses, go build these things, and it starts to spiral and cause a bunch of downstream conversations, the same exact thing happened with us.

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Mitch: And I thought it was very interesting that we were we were sort of eating our own dog food in some ways because I was pulling this pin on something that was causing us to, like, go over this threshold. Yep. It's always it was an interesting I don't want to paint it as an experiment, but it was like, oh, in a in a little microcosm, that's exactly what what was happening.

Mike: Yep. Yep. And like, I did quick calculation on like license cost. I'm like, oh, Dataverse, five people x amount per month. Yeah.

Sure. We'll do that for six months. That's minimal cost. Right? Like, pull the trigger, fire up that environment, let Mitch Cook, right, do his thing.

But then that came it comes with all sorts of other like, considerations when we get to the IT admin and governance and stuff like that, and how things are done. Right? Like, I was a little bit, you know, wild wild west in my trigger pull, for sure.

Matt: I mean, it's you can talk about shadow IT. You can talk about like all sorts of different levels to this. And it all of those things, I think the thing that your comment about, we tell people to do this. Yes, we do. A 100%.

And we do it to ourselves already. Like before this, we have whole environments with business data that we do exports from our time tracking system into another Like, it's not like we it's not like this is the first time we're trying to set up a like, when we first started doing, we had an Excel spreadsheet that did all of almost everything of the business. Right? We've continued to do it. The big thing that as we grow and as we move forward, there's two things pushing at it.

One is technology, as AI and all of the you gotta drink? All of the the the technology booms and advances such that it becomes easier and easier to accomplish these things so that it's not a barrier. So we're not because the biggest problem from shifting from Excel into our current systems was the momentum, the effort it takes to make that happen. That is coming down dramatically, which is part of what you were testing and working through. Right?

But that just means lower. It doesn't mean there's no momentum. It doesn't mean because that's that's the other thing we get from some people is they're like, that just means we should let people change stuff all the time, whenever they want. It's like, no. There still should be a system.

There still you still have to get agreement. Because even in a small team like us, us the first change only impacted the marketing team, which you you had pretty much with Sarah and Will. You have the ability to kind of do whatever you guys wanna do. But some of the other ones, they're gonna impact operations, and they're gonna impact finance, and they're gonna impact like, it's a bigger impact.

Mitch: Should I get should I get political for a second and say it reminds me of our three branches of government keeping each other

Matt: I mean, there is there is a lot to do with a business or corporate entity or a or a business entity having that same kind of thing and needing, in many cases, one person at the top to just make a decision and move forward. Yeah.

Mitch: But the concept of it's designed to slow things down. Like, you can't just

Mike: But the key

Matt: is but the key is to not be like the government and have it so slow that it never happens, which is what happens when you get bigger and bigger, which comes back to what we talked about originally, which is building leaders and having leaders Yep. Beneath you and being able to let go and trust them. Right? Yep. And a perfect example of that is the marketing thing.

It you it was it took three weeks. And the fact that you could get a brand new app built and deployed and people using it in three weeks should, to most people, look like, wow, that's really fast.

Mitch: Mhmm.

Matt: You felt like it wasn't fast enough, but it was in the grand scheme of things Yeah. That's pretty fast.

Mike: Yeah. Right?

Mitch: I mean, I was operating in the context of trying to onboard these new people. Yeah. Need give them a clear picture of everything so that they feel really good about

Matt: Yeah. It's really it's really unfortunate unfortunate you you didn't come three weeks before that so that when you actually said that you wanted it

Mitch: I was busy hiring people. I'm sorry.

Matt: I know. But, like, that is really, really fast. The other change, the the other, which is more project operations, just we haven't really talked about it very much, but it's really marrying a bunch of different things because we have a spreadsheet again that's doing some stuff, and we got a sales or CRM tool that's doing some like, we just got a bunch of stuff doing, like, little things here and here here and there that each of us have kind of started building to fill gaps and going, oh, no. We're gonna we're gonna build something that is handles all of that. That's still gonna be, I would say, the next six months, we're gonna have something.

Yeah. Because we just can't otherwise. Like, so it's not that it's not gonna happen. And I think that that's a good I think that your test is a good example of, oh, that is maybe how we're gonna solve the problem. Right?

Mitch: Yeah. It was just to give people a picture of what happened, I did this marketing app as and I caused pain and I recognized that. The second time I had an idea of saying the the problem that Matt's talking about, which is relating delivery and operations and billing and all these things into something that is structured and helpful, I said, oh, I can build an app for that. And so I did not say we needed to do this tomorrow. I sent them a message over the weekend that said, here's some screenshots, an idea.

I'm not building I'm in all caps, I am not building this thing. This is not real. Just take a look. I'm seeding some ideas fully well knowing. We do really need to solve that problem.

And so I was attempting to like take one little step towards solving that problem. And I think that'll help us at some point, but I am not like pushing pushing on

Mike: It's a very interesting thing. Like, I was just gonna say that like what you're describing, Mitch, is like ERP. Right? Yeah. So it's like, oh, well, we could stand up Dynamics.

Mitch: Right.

Mike: We could use Salesforce. There's a billion tools we could probably use and we could pay a lot of money for.

Mitch: That doesn't like that idea.

Mike: He's this guy shaking his head. And I don't I don't think Dynamics is the right answer for us. But the fact that you can like vibe code something or code app something up over a weekend or stand something up in three to six weeks is like, ought to be assigned to the rest of the world that there is a lot of opportunity right now to solve

Matt: solve those problems. At the other end,

Mike: just because Are you wearing the compliance hat?

Matt: No. I'm not. I'm playing I'm wearing the consultant hat.

Mike: Consultant hat.

Matt: Just because you have an employee that comes to you and says, hey, I just vibe coded this thing. Don't think that that means that you are out of the you are you get out of the licensing, data management support, like Right. Like, that's the thing is But in today's world, your

Mike: you, your organization needs to understand what's possible so that you can make the right strategic decisions about

Matt: You need to figure out how you can leverage that to to to make Yep. Get the biz because it's huge business value. Huge business value. Yep. In allowing people to use we're talking most tech.

But, like, allowing employees to innovate, that's the whole Kaizen approach. That's the whole like, all of that that that innovation and allowing someone who is actually doing the work to come up with an idea to fix the problem is 100% what people want to be doing. And in today's world, there's even more ways to make that happen.

Mitch: I think it's at a point where it is capable, but it's still not like I don't know. I'm I'm guessing what AI can or can't do. Most of the time it I said

Matt: said He doesn't know anything more to drink.

Mitch: He needs a refill.

Mike: Yeah. I got one more sip.

Mitch: I found myself in a spot where I know enough to be dangerous and I'm looking at it as a consultant, thinking about data structure and like some of the underlying things that is more than just a website looking at me.

Matt: Yeah.

Mitch: And I think it doesn't quite today grasp that. It can, like, do stuff,

Matt: but It can make something that looks really cool. Yeah. So But when it doesn't necessarily mean that it actually does what you want. Yeah. So when Especially with some of the things like we're like, one of the reasons why I am not pushing at all on the other thing is I know, right or wrong, we have some pretty bad band aids on how we're solving some things.

Yeah. And putting that into code is gonna be fun.

Mitch: Yeah.

Matt: And not fun, really. And their thought that AI can just miraculously fix that, it can't. What it can do would maybe help us, like, reimagine what that would be into a way that's not so convoluted and stupid. We were talking about that just this week, in fact. So it's interesting.

The whole thing is an interesting

Mike: When you hit those walls, I feel like that's the point at which you evaluate whether or not you chose the right path for your process or your workflow, whatever it is that

Matt: you're doing. Whether or you need to

Mike: work it. And then maybe look outside to other organizations or other tools for

Matt: it, like how it's being Right?

Mike: A lot of people are like, well, my way is the best way. Right? But if there's something that has been implemented and used commonly, like, should ask the question about whether or not there maybe is a better way.

Matt: So let's talk about that a minute in the context of what the title says of this. A lot of this has been us talking about our our bad behavior. When someone does come, because this is this has happened to us too, where someone says, hey, I have this idea to do this this way. And either we already know, I already know that there's a better way that we just haven't talked about because I know it's a lot of work and I just don't wanna I don't wanna bring it up.

Mitch: Or We've been down that road before.

Matt: We've done it before or we like, whatever that is, how do you interact with someone that's to not squash their idea but really talk to them about these things? I have some thoughts. Do you guys have any thoughts about that?

Mike: Yeah. So my first thing would be ask them questions, ask why, so you can really understand what they're trying to accomplish. Because it may not be exactly like on the surface, and so you wanna get to the bottom of it. And then I think if you if there is merit there, like I as I said it earlier, I say run the experiment. Right?

Like there is nothing wrong with allowing some level of like exercise of the idea, try it out, come back and let's see how that worked. See if it was valid, see if it has merit before you plunge the whole company or organization into it. Like but if you say no, if you if you squash it, like sometimes there are, like, no, we can't do that, and you can provide examples why. But that can be very demoralizing to somebody who's like really thinks they have a great idea, they wanna champion it, they wanna move something forward. They have like, if we're assuming positive intent, they want what's best for the organization, and they're trying to like pour into something that's greater than themselves.

And so you have to allow some room for that.

Matt: But let's assume that you know already a different way that you want to solve that problem that you just have not let anybody know about? Or that you've already tried it before and it is not gonna work and you do not want to try it? How do you respond

Mike: to that? Well, so those are those are probably two different scenarios. For the first one, if there's something else that I think is a better approach, like I would feel honestly a little bit bad that I sat on it and we haven't tried to move some because I should have got the idea out there sooner and I should have found people who are willing to help me move that forward and lead. Because I don't have enough time to lead everything. So I think that's a failure.

Right? If you have something that you're sitting on that you don't need to be sitting on. In the other scenario, that's a tough one. Like if some it depends on how truly married they are to it, but I think you would need to be prepared to like share your experience and why that didn't work. Generally speaking, most people like if it's logical and valid, particularly in our world where everything is logic based.

Right? Like, we're dealing with people who are tend to be very logical. That shouldn't be a difficult conversation.

Matt: How about you?

Mitch: Yeah. I mean, I definitely hit this all the time. I'm attempting to release ownership of certain things around here in in that process. It's like it's a personal growth area for me for sure. But in general, I have been doing a couple of couple of things.

One is I want to give people a leash to experiment, like Mike's saying, run the experiment. Like I want the worst thing that I could do is shut down any questions of, could we do this differently? And so there's plenty of things that I just say, like, go try it or like, see how it works, let me know how it goes, or good luck with a smirk or something like that.

Matt: But You would never do that.

Mitch: Yeah. What I'm what I want to do more is something that I was reading in a book recently. Shout out to Patrick who who recommended Buy Back Your Time, where we know how things go around here. We know what works and what doesn't. Like, we have some sense of that.

And so but we don't necessarily need to be the one to do it every time. And so the concept that they articulated in the book was the ten, eighty, ten rule, which is spend the first 10% of the time helping the person get on the right foot, set them in a direction, let them implement 80% of it and go do that thing, and then come in for the last 10% to help polish and get things in order. So I haven't quite enacted that as like a system of mine, but I'm eager to. I want to try to use that system. And then one of the other tools that they recommend is when someone brings you a problem and expects you to solve it, which is a little bit different than I have a solution.

Instead of just taking that one, ask them to articulate what a few different solutions could be, and then articulate what the chosen solution they chose and why it's better than the other solutions. So it requires them to think a little bit more outside of the box. So I'm sure we could reverse engineer some of that into exactly what we're talking about, but those are the sorts of things that I'm wanting to help with.

Matt: I think the thing that I would say about it is that I would, as a leader, I would check my assumptions. There's a reason why somebody is coming up with this idea and this plan. Even if you did it before, maybe it'll be different this time, and start to have that conversation. I am one of the people that tried to get to an end really quick and move on to the next thing, and I have to try to remember that just because it didn't work for me doesn't mean it won't work for someone else. And so that that doesn't mean that I would never ever ever, because I'll do the same thing that I did to Mike, which is, but you actually do know.

You really don't want to do this thing. And there are scenarios where that is the case. And I think a lot of it goes back to, I think, a little bit of what you guys were talking about, which is having that open conversation about, okay, what what are you trying to get out of this? And then talking about what that impact really will be. Is there any other way that we can accomplish what you're really trying to get to?

And does this have to be done now? Right? Just because somebody has the idea today doesn't mean that it has to be done today. Just because you don't think it'll work today doesn't mean it won't work tomorrow. You you we all need to, as leaders, give people space and give people the ability to move things forward, while at the same time making sure we're still focused on our goals.

Because that's the other piece of this, which is like, how does this fit with what we're trying to do? And if there's a strong fit, you shouldn't be arguing about it. It should be, yes, we should be doing it. If there's not a strong fit, then the other person should naturally go, okay, yep, I get it. But I'd like this to be focused for next quarter or next whatever period of time where you're setting your goals.

That's great. Let's do it then.

Mitch: Yeah. Alright. I think those are good parting words for us. I I hope this was if it some of it is just us commiserating and, you know, talking about behind the scenes, so to speak, but hopefully it put to words maybe some feelings you've been having or gave you some ideas. We're interested to hear what you think of it.

We always have bulb.digital/ feedback for any thoughts, comments, suggestions. We'd appreciate you dropping us a note there. Also, if you want one of Mike's shirts, drop us a note there. Maybe we'll we'll pick a couple lucky folks. So anyway, that's all we got for today.

Thanks for joining and we'll see you next time.

Matt: Bye, everybody. Hey.

Mitch: Thanks for tuning in to Make Others Successful. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear from you. Is a couple ways you can do that. One, we'd love for you to rate our show on your favorite podcasting app. And then if you have feedback or topic ideas or suggestions for future episodes, head over to bulb.digital/feedback and let us know.

Your input is super valuable and we'd love to hear from you. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with others who care about building a better workplace. Until next time, keep making others successful. I'll see you.

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