563 | Busting The “Silent Overload Cycle”

Chris LoCurto 0:00
We all have habits and cycles we fall into. And today, we're discussing a common one leaders often struggle with the silent overload cycle, what it is, and how to kill it, that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. I want you to think this through with me, do you ever ask a team member to handle something something important, but it's kind of crunch time? And it's still not done yet? So you just do it yourself? Have you ever been there? Has it ever happened? Or do you ever delegate stuff and for whatever reason, it's taking too long for someone to do it. Or, at least in your mind, it's taking too long. And it needs to be done super quickly. So you just do it. These are examples of what we call the silent overload cycle, which probably should call it the Nike cycle, just do it. No, you shouldn't just do it. You end up suffering IE, overloaded or overwhelmed, and you suffer silently. Why? We'll get into that, but before we do, I want to kind of talk about the costs, there's three areas that we're going to discuss today. And the first one of those is the cost of the silent overload cycle. Now, it is important to recognize this as a cycle, it's not a one-time thing, this is something that happens, it can be over and over can be often it can be now and then. But this is a common cycle. And it has some negative consequences not only for you but for your team and your business as well. So I want to kind of go through some of those hidden costs that we don't think about when this cycle exists for leaders and their teams.

So I'm just going to run through this list. One of those is decreased team development. This should be obvious, you know, by not allowing team members to complete tasks and learn from their mistakes, leaders inadvertently stunt their team's professional growth and development. So if you're not allowing somebody to learn, and by the way, we're not even talking about what you hear me say all the time. And that's proper delegation, which you should be doing in the first place. We're just talking about delegating something or giving a task to somebody, and then not making sure that they have every opportunity to do it, setting them up for success. And then you end up taking it back, right you do it yourself. This is terrible for team development. Because what it does is it stunts their growth, it stops them from being able to, you know they're going to know that they made a mistake, they did something wrong because they're not the one to finish the project. But what happens is, is they don't learn from it, they don't understand why they don't understand what they could have done differently. They don't understand why it got taken back in their minds, they may be doing it on time, or they may think that they're doing everything correctly. So decreases team development. It reduces trust and morale, this is a big one, we have to understand that the cycle can lead to big breakdowns and trust. as team members, they might feel that their abilities are undervalued, like you don't believe that they have any value in their abilities, right. So over time, this can end up eroding team morale, and especially scary things, team engagement, right or individual engagement. That's important. The last thing I want to do is shut somebody down where they're not jumping in and engaging in taking risks and in accomplishing things, right? So it's important to recognize how much this reduces trust and morale. It increases leader burnout. Now, I don't think that's a surprise to you.

I think, unfortunately, so many leaders recognize that they are being burnt out, but they don't have a choice. And so they just keep on trucking. Right, they just keep doing what they're doing. And unfortunately, we don't realize how detrimental that is to you as a leader. We need you, we need you leading your team need you leading the business leads you leading. So the more that we do this type of process, the more that we live in this kind of cycle. Unfortunately, what happens is as you eventually just get tired of it, man, I just don't have anybody that I can hand stuff off to or delegate to that are gonna get it done and do it, you know, the proper way, the right way. So we end up seeing leaders get burned through this cycle. Another aspect of this and other costs is the inefficient use of time. And really, I think what, as a leader what we convince ourselves when we're in a situation like this is that We're going to speed this up, we're going to be efficient, the things not getting done. And so we've got to do it ourselves. But the problem is, is that leaders who spend time redoing or taking over tasks could have used that time for strategic planning or high-level responsibilities or crucial aspects of business growth, whatever it is, you could be focusing on those things, instead of doing these tasks that just didn't get done. Right.

So I think we convince ourselves that it's more efficient if we just do it ourselves. And unfortunately, what it is, is it's an absolutely inefficient use of time, especially yours. But guess what, not only is it an inefficient use of your time, but you just had a team member working on or team members, or a whole team working on something that they didn't get to complete, they didn't get to finish it, they didn't get to learn from it, they didn't get to grow from it, they got to take it from them, and it got completed by you. And now, they've wasted that time. Why? Because they don't actually have the true experience of running through that project, that task, that problem solution, whatever it is. So not only is it an inefficient use of your time, but it's an inefficient use of their time as well. Another aspect or another cost is poor organizational culture, in which culture is so vitally important to our business, right the cycle, it can contribute to a culture where accountability is absolute, stinking, lonely, and lacking. Think about it, what accountability is there in you giving somebody something to do and then taking it back? Right? It could also lead to dependencies on the leader, right, where team members now become dependent on the leader, which leads to incredible inefficiencies and a great lack of initiative among team members. Right? Because if I have to come to you, and you know, I have to depend on you to get something done, because I know if I take it on myself, then it's probably going to just get taken back, well, then I'm just going to wait for you to do it, I'm gonna hope that you accomplish it, I'm gonna hope that you get it done.

For me, another huge cost is team members not taking risks. When I have a team member that is constantly looking to a leader, for, you know, depending on them to get something done, get something accomplished, then I know that that team member is not going to take risks, I want my team members to take risks, I want them to be able to stick their neck out. Right? I know that they're probably going to fail This is something we discuss, you're going to fail at something. But if you're not failing at all, you're sure as heck not doing enough, and you're not taking enough risks. If I keep taking things away from my team members, then they're not going to take risks because they believe that I don't trust them. They believe that I don't value them. They've lost their trust and loyalty to me. So why in the world are they going to take risks? Another cost is missed opportunities for innovation. Now, when leaders don't delegate effectively, they miss out on diverse perspectives, they miss out on ideas from their team, you know, we call it taxing the collective intelligence, those things can stifle innovation, right? If you're trying to be innovative in your team, and you're not being able to get quality perspective from team members. Imagine how innovation is just going to tank. Imagine how creative problem-solving is going to tank within your organization. Right? Because if people don't know how to solve stuff, they're not allowed to solve problems, finish tasks, and finish through critical situations. And you might be going well, Chris, we're not talking about everyday things. That's fine. I understand. But if you're saying, well, it's only on the really important things, okay. Well, if you are the one that we're depending on for all of the important things to get done, when are we going to get critical problem solving, taught and worked through and experienced in the team? We're not because we don't trust the team, we don't believe they can accomplish it. And it's not necessarily it's most likely not the team's fault. It's that we haven't trained the team to work through this or we haven't had great accountability in the process to make sure that they're doing it correctly, so we don't have to take it back. Another cost and effective communication, oh, for the love. Let me just say, this is another one of those big ones. The cycle often stems from poor communication, about expectations about feedback, which those leads to more issues, ongoing issues in the team, and the team dynamics and the team performance.

So when we don't have quality communication, we would have just communicated incredibly well on the front side, set quality expectations, set quality goals, put great timelines, and put measurables in there. If we had done these things on the front side, we would have grown everybody, the whole process would have been fantastic and everybody would have grown somehow, someway some form. When we continue to not allow that process to happen, what we discover is the team dynamic starts to fail miserably. The team performance starts to fail miserably. How in the world is that? Well, because what do you have now, you don't have team members who are taking risks, you don't have team members who are growing and experiencing what you have is team members who are not being as productive, not sticking their necks out not having buy-in not having ownership. Instead, you now have created a culture where team members are doing the least amount that they can to get their paycheck. What's going to happen to your team's performance, I say all the time, that the number of people that we have on our team for the amount of things that we accomplish is phenomenal. We have a highly effective team, highly confident, and great communication, we get a lot of stuff done. If it took twice the amount of people, which in another company probably would take twice the amount of people to accomplish what we do, because of lack of experience, lack of communication, lack of accountability, all these things that we've talked about, then the payroll would be so much more. So here's what I want you to think about is it possible, that you're spending way too much money on payroll, for people to do stuff that, you know, two people to do something that one person can do because we're not training them up too well. And another cost that people don't think about is resource Miss allocation. I don't know if I just made that up. But that's what we're going with right? Where leaders are taking on too much, right? That it can lead to a misallocation of resources, where talent skills within the team are just underutilized. We've got the money going out paying for this talent. You know, we've got things in place tools, software, you know, whatever it is brick and mortar, whatever, you know, whatever the resources are, that we have to accomplish the business that we're trying to accomplish. And now we are relying on a leader or leaders to get the heavy lifting done.

So think about it this way. Think of how much you're paying yourself, right, as a leader, or as a business owner, and how much you're paying the person to do the job. And now the job that is being paid X amount of dollars to get it done, is being paid your salary to get it done. I'm assuming you're making more than the person that you're paying to do that job, that task, whatever it is. So here's the problem, your salary shouldn't be going to you to get higher, more important things done higher level, more important things done. And now you're doing something that you're paying somebody else to do at a lower level. That should not happen.

You should be accomplishing bigger things. One of those bigger things is training those folks how to do the job, the task that whatever correctly. So now we are losing money. Because we are having to spend time on something that we should be doing something that's higher level, right, my team does not want me they don't want our leaders, anybody down in the administrative stuff, focusing on those things. They want us to focus on the higher level stuff, so that we can continue to put food on the table, right, so we can continue to pay them. So second thing we're going to talk about is why leaders fall into this trap in the first place. Now, again, I you know, I think most if not all of you who are listening to this have experienced this. And so I think you can think about you can probably come up with some of the reasons on your own. And I don't want to go too deep into this. I want to just kind of run through a few of these, but I'm pretty darn sure one or many of these, I'll go ahead and check these boxes off of how many things are reasons why you fell into this trap. The first one is perfectionism. I get here the deep groans, the size as that comes out, all across the country. All the folks that are listening to this going oh, man, yeah, that's me. Okay, I've done that.

So here's the deal Leaders should have high standards. And I want you to have high standards. Please don't hear me say that you shouldn't have high standards, because that's not what I'm saying. However, leaders who do have high standards may feel that the tasks will only be done correctly if they do it themselves. I'm the only person who can do it right. I'm the only person who can do it the best you know that kind of mindset absolutely leads people to take over tasks that they've delegated. If I'm the only one who can do it correctly, then what in the world am I doing giving it to somebody else, I better pull it back and do it myself. Perfectionism kills. That's that's something that's absolutely going to keep you from delegating properly. And it's going to absolutely keep you stuck in this silent overload cycle, right? Fear of confrontation, yeah, there's an even bigger syarat, there is this fear of confrontation, many leaders, many leaders avoid addressing issues or providing, you know, constructive feedback to avoid potential conflict or discomfort, you know, that if you get in there and have to tell this person that they're not doing it correctly, they're not doing it fast enough. They're not whatever that is. And by the way, I'm not saying that's the way you should lead it. But what happens in the mind of the person who's afraid of that confrontation is that they're gonna have to get in there and say, some things like, you're not doing this correctly, you're not doing it right. You know, you're not doing it fast enough. That's not the way to lead it. So what happens is, is this fear of confrontation just builds up inside of you. And instead of going and having that discussion with somebody that you've already made up, and by the way, there's a better way to do it.

So I mean, just keep throwing that in there, instead of having the conversation that you believe you're supposed to have, what you do is you just take it back and get it done. That way you save yourself from that confrontation, folks. If you're delegating properly in the first place, then you're doing check-ins, you're asking questions. What help do you need? What questions do you have? What's confusing to you? What doesn't make sense, you're getting in there and you're properly delegating the process. As you do that, then the person can, if they're, you know, worth what you're paying them, they're able to bring back to you all the things that they're struggling with. Here's what I don't understand, here's what doesn't seem to be working. How do you think I'm doing on this over here that you know, looking for feedback.

So the fear of confrontation, is another one that will get you stuck in this trap, lack of trust in the team's abilities. Folks, this just goes straight back to your hiring process, your onboarding process, and your training process. If leaders doubt their team's skills or commitment, they may feel compelled to step in and complete tasks themselves.

Why are we in a place? Now you could say, Well, Chris, I'm stretching my team, or I'm giving them stuff now. That's beyond their capacity. Okay. All right, then, are you training them to be able to get up to that capacity? Are you spending time helping them to get to that capacity, because here's what you're saying, you've got a team that can only do a certain level of things. And you have to carry the ball across the finish line, right, you're the one we have to stop and focus on you, as a leader or leadership team to solve things, when really the leader should be spending the time raising the talent, the skill levels, the competency of the team, and helping them to get there, right.

So if you have a lack of trust in your team's abilities, the first thing I would do is ask the question, Why? Why am I here? Why do I not believe my team can do this? And then I'm really going to take a hard look at how we hired onboard and train these folks, if I don't think they can accomplish this stuff, then man, we're doing something wrong, I need a better process. Another way of falling into that trap is time management challenges. Now, this is probably one of the most common things, you know, some leaders believe it's quicker to just do it themselves than to explain the task to someone else or to deal with potential mistakes afterward, listen, I get it, I understand it. There are very few times, you know, there's probably a couple of times a year, that I might look at something and go, Gosh, this isn't something that's going to be ongoing, I don't need to train somebody. This is something that just needs to happen right now. And to train somebody, I can really just knock this thing out, and then maybe train them on the backside. That might happen once or twice a year. The rest of the time, I'm looking to train, I want to teach I want to to our company has a teaching environment. Why? Because I want you to be better. I don't want to do the thing and rob you of the opportunity of learning it. Having learned it, right? I want you to learn how to do things I want to teach you I want to grow you and for me what it's my focus is teaching my leaders leading my leaders on how to do things or how to teach other people how to do things, right.

So that's my goal I have a phenomenal leadership team. And my goal is to constantly help them to help their teams be better and stronger. Right. So I'm always looking for that opportunity. I'm not saying that 100% of the time. Like I say once or twice a year. I'm like I just need to knock this out, this isn't something that it's usually I would say I would bet money that every single time it's on something that somebody doesn't, you know, it's not going to be a repeatable thing. This just thing needs to happen, and I just need to knock it out. But keep in mind, even if it's not repeatable, hear me, even if it's not repeatable, the teaching process is highly valuable. Because what I'm teaching is decision making, if I can help a team member, learn how to make decisions by teaching them this project, this thing, this task, this solution to a problem, whatever it is, even though that thing's not gonna come up again, then I took the opportunity to grow the team member. So don't get stuck, because you know, you're not managing your time really well. And so your thought is, I just got to do it myself. Another way we get stuck in this trap is insufficient training. And I just kind of hit this a lot. But I want to hit it again, processes and training tend to be two really big things that come out of every single first-time strapline, every single one. I don't know of a Strat Plan. And I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, but I can't think of one off the top of my head, where processes in training weren't lacking weren't two big important things that we had to solve.

So leaders might not have trained their team well, or, or adequately, which is leading to a lack of confidence in both the leader but also in the team's ability to handle the tasks independently, right? If I don't feel like I know what I'm doing, if I don't feel like I have the right training, then I don't feel like I can accomplish things on my own. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, I know, you just gave me this task. But I guess I'm gonna go to Google to see if I can YouTube this thing because I don't believe at least I don't have the confidence that I can accomplish this task on my own. Right. So let's make sure that we're training them really well don't allow that to be a reason you get stuck in the trap. Another aspect is poor communication skills. If you're not, you know, if you're struggling to, to clearly and effectively communicate, then you're gonna find that it's just easier for you to do it on your own. If you're not doing a great job, leading people on their tasks, helping them to understand what proper execution looks like, you know, then you're just going to struggle, I can't seem to communicate. And one of the things I've heard from time to time from people who get stuck in this is, I can't communicate well with that person, I have a hard time communicating with that person. And really, what you're saying is, you are the problem. But really what you're trying to imply as well, that person is just not getting it. Well. You're the one who's supposed to be teaching that person. So what can we do to make that happen? How can we really take a hard look at your communication? And ask ourselves the question, have you done a great job, usually what you will find is poor communication is another reason or poor communication skills is another reason that we get stuck in that trap. Another reason we get stuck in this trap is habitual behavior. You know, over time, when we consistently take back tasks, that can be a habit, you know, that can be a hard habit to break, right? It can be habit forming force a habit thing of, well, I've done it, I've given this task, I know it's not gonna work out,

I'm just gonna take it back because it's a habit. Now I just know that I can do it faster and better. Right? It seems to have worked before I know it works. And so what we convince ourselves is, you know, in the short term, it's working, I just need to take this thing back right or not, not even give it to him at all. Right? Another way we get stuck in this is a lack of delegation skills. I know, I've been covering this a lot lately because it's important. It's something that we see all the time. You know, proper delegation is rare. We teach it a lot in killing the leadership Crazy Cycle, is a rare thing. That's something that really needs to be taught and trained. What most people are taught and trained when it comes to delegation is to hand something over to somebody, then ask him 1000 times that they've done it yet, and then take it back. That is just the crappiest way to lead. You need to learn the skills of delegating properly. When you do, oh my gosh, it frees you up as a leader to accomplish so much more stuff. You just heard me say just a little bit ago. I don't lead our entire team. I lead the leaders that lead the entire team doesn't mean that I don't get in there from time to time, and lead on a situation or discuss something or help out or any of that. My goal is to get out of my leader's way so that they can lead the team properly. Right. That's my goal. And so the more I learn in under Stan, how to delegate properly and I trained my leaders how to delegate properly, then an incredible thing happens, I get to focus on something way more important than doing the task that I delegated. And that is to lead the leader. I'm expected to lead people and to lead them really well. So if I am bogged down in a bunch of tasks not going to happen, it's just not going to happen. So the better I do with my delegation skills, the better I can do at getting to higher level things. Another way of getting caught in this trap is the fear of being less important. This, this is a big one.

There are many cases where leaders unconsciously, you know, sometimes it's consciously sometimes they actually recognize it. But most of the time, they unconsciously avoid transferring responsibility to a team member or to a team because it kind of can make them feel like they're less essential to the business, to the company to the team to if they're a business owner, as as a business owner, what am I saying, You're worse is not in the tasks that you do as a leader. But our worth, our identity, so many times is in all the tasks that we get done in a day, we truly believe that's our identity, that's our worth. And if I start delegating things are going to be less valuable to the company. Folks, that is a colossal lie. That is a terrible lie. The truth is, your value as a leader is on leading people to success. I don't ever want my leaders bogged down in the leadership Crazy Cycle.

I don't ever want my leaders stuck in the silent overload cycle, period. Why? Because I have high expectations of them to lead people. I pay them to lead people into leading them incredibly well. That's their job. So if they are finding their identity and the tasks that they do, if they are finding their identity, and their worth in the number of things that they get done in a day, then we have a problem not to fix that problem. Right. I remember years ago, as I was sitting there working on a strategy for the business, I was sitting down in our event space, and I was looking up at Joel Fortner is office. And I'm planning out, you know, a year, couple years in advance, I look up and I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, at the rate that we are growing a year from now, not right now, not even a few months from now, but a year from now. If I don't do something, Joel is going to get stuck in the leadership Crazy Cycle. And I started having conversations with him of saying, Hey, man, look at the rate that we're growing. And he's like, Yep, I've already seen it. I'm like, Okay, well, what's gonna happen to you look at the things that we have on your plate, we're gonna have to get things off of you. And we have a year to do it, which is great. But we're gonna have to do it. And we focused on some areas where like, well, this can't leave this can't leave those of those who have to stay with you right now. It's just too important for you to be on those. And we focused on one area, we said, Yep, if we can find the right person, we can move in this direction. And we did we brought somebody on for about a year or so probably about a year, maybe a little more than that, and helped to move the ball forward like crazy. And kept Joel out of the leadership Crazy Cycle moved our business along in that area. And it was fantastic. But I had to stop and think about it. I did processes. I was working through strategy. We do our strap plans. I'm looking, I'm just going, we're gonna have to solve this. And then I don't just solve it. I talked to the person, my leader, and said, Hey, bro, what do you think? What can we do? And as we talked through it, we came up with a phenomenal idea. And it worked. It was a great idea for that time.

Joel Fortner 29:16
Hey, leaders, this is Joel Fortner VP of leadership development at Crystal Kardos. Company. I have some questions for you. Do you as a leader feel like you are caught up in a Crazy Cycle of stress and tasks that never ends week to week? Do you ever have to deal with tough conversations with team members? And you sit at home the next day the night before worried about how's it going to go? What am I going to say? What are they going to say? Can I think fast enough on my feet? Is it going to be a total failure? Are you experiencing culture problems or that stuff that just breaks down trust and unity on your team? Well, if you're if you can relate to any of this, this is a pretty typical leadership story and situation. Here's the thing though it doesn't have to be that way, and we can help you solve these things, we can help you become the leader that solves these problems and leads 13th to greater success. I want to introduce you to the key leaders program. This is an ongoing leadership development program that gives you the lesson track coaching and accountability. You need to become the leader you can become to implement what you're learning in this program. Things Fall Apart without great leadership and intentionality. If you want to solve the problems that are holding you back from being a great leader, we can help you with this program get in touch with Joe at Chris LoCurto.com.

Chris LoCurto 30:42
All right, what is the third thing we want to talk about? Well, tips that we can do to break this cycle because it is just super important. And a lot of this stuff is going to be the opposite of what you just heard me say the first thing, the first thing, the first thing. The first thing is you have to have open communication, right? You have to understand the power of honest conversations. What does it look like to be able to sit down and talk with somebody and say, Hey, I'm struggling? I want to give you this task. But here's what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned that it's not gonna get done on time, or I'm not gonna I'm concerned, it's not gonna get done, right? And here's the reasons behind it. Right? Don't just make an assumption. If you've experienced something from somebody, then get in there and hold them accountable. Hey, help me to understand why this only got this far. Why was it only 75%? At this point, or 50%? At this point, have honest communication with the person or the team and start to discover why they're not getting the things done, that they should get done. Here's the crazy thing, you're probably going to hear some answers that point back to you. I'm not saying they're gonna blame you. I'm saying they're gonna probably say some things like, Well, I didn't know how to do that part. Will nobody ever trained me on that part? Well, I didn't have any tools to solve that part. You're gonna hear some things that are the leader's responsibility.

So feel free to have that don't just feel free, get your butt in there, and have honest, open communication. So that you can start discovering where the holes are, and what are the problems are. Why are we not getting these things done? Number two, set clear, clear expectations. Clear clarity can change the game when it comes to expectations, right? We tend to tell people, Hey, can you get this done by the end of the month? Or can you have this? Can you get this to me as soon as possible? Or, Hey, can you have this done in two weeks? And what we don't do is we don't set Hey, this is when I need it done by? Is that doable? Is it possible? What's on your plate? Do you have room to get this done? Do you have the capacity to get this done? Do you have the resources to get this done? Do you feel like you're strong enough to get the study of the abilities, the skills, the talents, when you set an expectation, don't just put a date out there? That's a waste of time. You have to dig in and gain quality perspective, is it going to be hit? Can somebody hit that expectation, right.

So make sure that you're setting clear expectations. Number three is you got to empower and train, I cannot say it enough, you can't expect somebody to be phenomenal at something if you've not helped them or made sure that they already are. Right, maybe they already have the skill set. Great. Fantastic. That's wonderful. But what if they don't, right, then you can't expect them to get something done. Without getting in there and getting them the training they need. Without getting the resources, they need everything they need to solve the problem. So empower and train your people. Number four, is feedback and support. I will say that constructive feedback is an art. Being able to get in and get quality feedback to you. Or being able to get in and give quality feedback to somebody else quality, constructive feedback, not the well you didn't do it in time. So I took it back. That doesn't do me any good. That just tells me that you think I suck, right? But if you can get into hey, let's talk through this helped me understand the situation, what we what was going on in this area. Instead of making assumptions. Instead of setting people's reality, you dig in and find out quality perspective. What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen? All this information, gain perspective by asking a ton of questions. And then not only can you give quality, feedback and support, but if you also ask questions on how you led them through the process. You can get quality, hopefully quality feedback and support for your leadership. Hey helped me to understand as I delegated this to you, did I give you enough information? Did I give you enough instruction? Did I help you to see what success looks like? I helped you to understand time That's all that kind of stuff, feedback, and support is necessary. Number five, reflect on your leadership style.

So, self-awareness and self-reflection is an absolute keys to improvement if you are not spending time asking yourself, How did I do? How am I doing? Did I do that? Well, you know, am I being a victim? Always ask that question. That's like, a Fantastic question to start with, am I being a victim in this situation? I took this back because I'm saying that they couldn't do a good enough job, you know, my victim, and this? Or could I have done a better job? leading training, teaching? You know, what, does my leadership look like? How am I doing in this process. So make sure that you're reflecting on your leadership style. And number six, celebrate successes, and learn from failures. Folks, you've got to create a culture of both growth and recognition. And I will tell you, this celebration sounds easy. Hey, we did this we accomplish the task, we accomplish the goal, we got to the destination, you know, we accomplish the vision that we set, let's celebrate, let's you know, tell people how well they did let's you know, bring on the cake and and whatever else, right? But at the same time, so we know that we should celebrate. We know that we should celebrate put off and we don't get you put in there and celebrate with your team. Not only do we celebrate, but also failure is one of the greatest teachers for the person who's willing to listen and implement. Teach people from the failures, learn from the failures help people to learn from the failures help people to recognize that the failure was okay. For us, we have a five-step process when things fail it, it works on 98% of things. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we fix it? How do we make sure it never happens? Again, if you can walk through a process where somebody doesn't feel like they got their head ripped off, or they don't feel like a colossal failure, where they feel like failing was okay, because it wasn't fatal. And it wasn't repeated, right? My goal is don't keep failing at the same thing over and over again, right? Solve the problem so that we don't have to keep doing it. If you do that, then people will find that it's okay. To fail at things people realize that it's okay not to have a fear of failure, that failure is inevitable, it's gonna happen. But we have a process of solving things and moving forward, right, just don't keep failing at the same thing. So if you celebrate the wins, and you teach on the failures, then you are going to create one amazing, amazing culture. So remember, think of the three major areas that's affecting you on this silent overload cycle, you know, obviously, the cost, the decreased team development, the lack of trust, the burnout, the poor culture, all of those aspects, the poor communication, remember the things that keep you you know, stuck in this trap or falling into this trap perfectionism or fear of confrontation or bad time management or not trusting your team, right or poor communication skills again, right. And then also remember the things that you can do to break the cycle, open communication, set clear expectations, empower, train, feedback, and support, reflect on your leadership style, and celebrate and learn from failures.

Folks, for more help more information on how to lead better, make sure that you go to Chris LoCurto.com We have hundreds of free blog posts, podcasts, and other resources to help you now if you're ready to get serious about busting the silent overload cycle and taking bigger steps to change how you lead, then you need to check out the next level leadership live event that is happening April 17. Through the 19th. In Franklin, Tennessee, the truth is running a small business doesn't have to be so stressful. It's survival. And success doesn't have to depend so much on you. Let me say that again. your business's survival and success should not have to depend so much on you. Right. And you don't have to be the busiest bee in the hive every single week. So join us and other small business owners and leaders for three days of game-changing leadership content in a community of heart-centered leaders. Sign up now at Chris LoCurto com/events. Early prices end February 29. So act fast. Visit Chris LoCurto.com/events To take advantage of early bird pricing today. Well folks, that's all the time that we have today. Again, I hope this has helped you immensely as well. Please take this information change your leadership change your business change your life and join us on the next episode