599 | Leading a Team Member Out of Irrational Thinking

Introduction (00:00:00)

On today's episode of the Chris LoCurto show, we are getting into the challenge of leading a team member out of irrational thinking. 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. Today we are discussing what does it look like to help a team member out of irrational thinking?

Now, I know some of you out there are going, oh, yes, this is. This is exactly what I'm. I've been waiting for. I'm looking forward to this. So there's a lot to get to on this.

There's a lot of things to recognize, a lot of things to focus on. And by the way, it will also be very beneficial to each of us individually, right? As we think through, when are we being irrational and how do we solve that?

If we can figure that one out, if we can focus on solving our own irrational thought process, then it gets us a thousand miles further down the road in helping other people.

So whether it's dealing with a stubborn mindset, emotional outbursts, or simply just a refusal to see things logically, today we will guide you through how to handle these situations with grace, with clarity, turning potentially draining experiences into a growth opportunity for both you and for your team members.

Recognizing Irrational Thinking Early (00:01:42)

So the key thing here is, as we talk about with so many things, it's recognizing what the problem is early, recognizing irrational thought, irrational thinking early on in the process.

The crazy thing is it presents itself in forms like defensiveness, extreme emotional responses. I know you're probably. You have some folks that are going through your mind right now as I go through this. It could be circular arguments, right?

As a leader, it is critical to identify these patterns early before they cause further disruption. Now, we are obviously talking about this as leadership, but think about this.

Where else can you use this? Where else do you experience irrational thought? Where else do you have the opportunity to lead somebody out of irrational thoughts? Right?

Could be family, could be social, could be friendship. It could be, you know, your kids, whatever.

So as we go through this, what I want you to be thinking is not how do I muscle somebody through this process, but instead, how do I understand where they are?

How do I understand what they're going through? Even if I don't get it, how can I get to a place of helping them to see what's going on?

So, for example, a team member may be constantly rejecting constructive feedback by claiming that everybody else is against them.

You've probably experienced the victim. Everybody's against me. Everybody's out to attack me. Everybody's out to, you know, blame me for whatever, right?

The key is recognizing this irrational defense mechanism early allows you to tackle it before it undermines team morale.

Because what will happen is the more somebody continues to press that type of belief, that type of, you know, argument for what's going on is going to start to tank the way people feel if they see that this isn't squashed, done something with changed, different belief system, whatever, then what happens is, is people are going to start to hate being around that kind of, that kind of thinking, that kind of complaining, right?

It's always everybody else's fault. Oh, people are out to get me. The bad thing is you may have one or two other folks who actually hear that thought process and start to agree with it.

Oh, my gosh, maybe there are people out to get that person. Maybe they're out to get me too. For the love. And by the way, let me just say 98% of the time, maybe that's high.

Let me say 95% of the time, I'm going to consider that irrational thinking. However, I will say I have experienced it myself, that there is a tiny percentage where you have somebody who actually thinks that way now.

So that's my caveat here, right? Most of the time, the bulk of the time, I believe this is victim mentality through and through.

I believe it is somebody who's using this because they are insecure, because they are struggling and this is in their mind, this is their way out of it.

But once in a great while. So this is also important to dig into and find out if there's truth to it. Because if there is, man, it is. It can not only be devastating that person, it may be really affecting your business.

I have been there. I have worked in a place where a person continued to draw people into their way of thinking as they went through and tried to dismantle certain parts of this business to lift themselves up.

It is disgusting. It is disgusting. It affects everybody, even the bulk of the people not knowing that it's affecting them. Right?

There's a lot of folks who don't even see it going on, who don't recognize it. So this is my caveat. Don't be blind to it actually being a reality. That percentage is incredibly small. But ferret that out.

Try and find out if there's actually something going on that you need to solve or fix or understand.

I will tell you, if you do have a person like that inside of your business, they can go an incredibly long time without ever being figured out. A long time. Because they tend to be phenomenal salespeople. Right.

Of their beliefs, of their ideals, of why this person over here is so horrible and why this person over here is doing such a horrible job. It's. It's disgusting. So I do have firsthand, I have experienced that with somebody that.

So first part is recognizing irrational thinking early. Get on it as fast as you can.

Understanding the Root Cause (00:07:11)

Second thing is trying to- Now I know that as I say this, you can only do what you can do.

But if you can understand the root cause, if you can get to a place where you kind of understand where this is coming from, you know, are there deeper issues? Usually irrational thinking doesn't just pop up.

It's not something that you just experience from somebody that they think irrationally, you know, I mean, unless it's just they misconstrued something. Right.

Usually when you see somebody who is, you know, responding, like I said, maybe, you know, extreme defensiveness, extreme emotional responses, circular type arguments, you know, all those kinds of things, usually that comes from something much deeper.

Usually that comes from something like heavy duty stress or fear of failure is huge when it comes to irrational thinking.

Right. Lack of confidence is a big piece, but I would say stress and fear of failure tend to be two of the top ones. So take some time to try. And again, you can only do so much.

Don't get too personal if you can't. Right. Don't dive into something that is going to get you in trouble with HR. Right.

We happen to be a company who does this for a living, so that we do have a different platform or a different venue for us to be able to have these types of conversations.

Right. But even with that, if it's a team member, for us, we're very cautious.

We want to really with our team, they're super solid. But still, you know, we're always asking the question, would you like to talk about this? Is this something we can discuss?

Is this something we can do? Can I try to help you with this? Right. There's all kinds of things you need to do to make sure that you're in a good position to have this conversation.

If you are, then trying to find out what the core issue is is a really smart thing. As a leader, as a family member, as a spouse, a parent, it's a really smart thing to do.

So just think about how maybe a normally rational team member suddenly just starts acting irrational. Right. When faced with maybe new responsibilities. That's probably something everybody has seen when somebody gets new responsibilities.

And I'm not saying all people do this. I'm just saying that this is probably a common thing that you've seen before. You know, somebody gets new responsibilities and all of a sudden they're really irrational.

The way that they're responding, you're like, this is crazy. You know, I thought this person was going to be able to knock this role out of the park. I thought they were going to do a great job with this.

You know, I don't understand why they're responding this way. I don't understand why they're having this problem. I don't understand whether. Blaming this person, I don't understand. You know, fill in the blank.

Well, it could be that they are overwhelmed with fear. Ah, many of you right now are going, crud, I've been there. I know what that's like. I remember what it's like to be overwhelmed with fear of making a mistake, of screwing up, of looking stupid, of sounding stupid, right?

So if you can dig in and find out, and that one's not a difficult one, that's not going to get you in any trouble there, you know, hey, how is your confidence about this role? How are you feeling about this project?

You know, is there any fear that you have of, you know, the new responsibilities that you have of not being able to execute those properly?

There is a thousand questions you can ask in there that are completely safe, that are great questions that a leader should be asking, right?

To find out where this person is coming from, then if you understand the root cause, then you can address it directly, right?

If it's fear, address fear directly rather than just reacting to the behavior which so many people do, right? So many leaders don't know what they're doing or what they should do.

So instead what they do is they just react. Well, that's silly. Instead, help them to get there, help them to understand.

I'll give you an example of this, our daughter.

So we have an almost six year old now and there have been times, and we adopted her, we've had her for a couple of years, and there have been times that we have been somewhere in a, in her mind, a dangerous situation like being on a, and I'm not-- This is not a joke.

When we, when she was 4, we walked the back part of the ridge, the property and found this tree stump.

You know, stood up on the tree stump. She wanted to come up there. We're all standing up on this tree stump. It's maybe maybe two feet off the ground, maybe. I mean, it's probably more like a foot and a half, but I'm, I'm giving it a little extra just for drama here.

And I jumped down. Her mother jumps down and she's standing there going, daddy, daddy, take me down, take me down.

I'm like, no, baby, you can jump down. She's like, daddy, I can't do it. I'm like, you can do it. This is something you can do. And I realized that she needed to hear something from me in that moment.

What she needed to hear was me say, hey, I understand you're afraid. And it is okay to be afraid. It's just not okay to live in that fear. Babe, you can make this jump.

Look at the ground. It's covered with leaves. There's no sticks, rocks, anything. So if you jump down and you don't stay standing, then it's going to be a soft landing and daddy's going to take care of you.

It's okay to be afraid, but let's overcome that fear. And she looked at me, she looked at that ground and she jumped and she landed perfectly fine.

She may have, she may have actually, you know, landed on her hands a little bit and stood up and she yelled with excitement. She was so excited that she was able to overcome that fear.

Folks, the crazy thing is, whether we're four years old or we're 40 years old, we still have fear of failure. We still have fear of messing up. We still have fear of getting hurt, right?

So, leader, what should you do? Should you just tell that person that's stupid, just get over it and do it? Or could you recognize that you yourself have had fear before?

You have been afraid of messing up and making mistakes. And instead of just telling somebody to get over it, what if you told them, hey, I completely understand that you're afraid of making a mistake here.

I completely understand the fear of failure that you have right now. I get it. It makes sense. You're not sure how this is going to go, but here's what I'm telling you as a leader. It's okay to fail. It's okay to fail.

Just don't create any fatal failures and don't continue to fail at the same thing more than once. So take the chance, do what you've got to do. Get in there, bust it, make it happen.

And if you fail, then instead of beating yourself up and hiding from it, let's solve it. Let's solve the failure. You know, around here we have a five step process.

What happened how did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we fix it? How do we make sure it never happens again?

So if you allow your team member to hear you say that it is okay to fail, then they just might be able to get over their irrational thinking.

Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life.

It all starts with having great communication.

The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home.

The best way to do that is to go to chrislocurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today.

Get it for your family members today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate.

Go to chrislocurto.com/store today.

Communicating Effectively with Empathy (00:16:11)

Third thing, we've got to communicate effectively with empathy.

So instead of dismissing irrational behavior, instead of, you know, approaching the conversation, you know, with you know, disdain, frustration, fear that you made a bad choice, what if we approach the conversation with empathy and understanding?

What if we asked open ended questions like, you know, that, that lead the person to self reflection?

Like instead of saying, listen, you're not thinking straight, which a lot of people believe it or not, that's the only response that they can think of, you're not thinking straight, right?

Instead of doing that, what if we tried something like hey, I've noticed you're upset. Can you help me to understand what's going on from your perspective?

Think about that. I'm not telling the person that they're wrong, that they're stupid, that they're irrational. What I'm saying is, can you help me to understand what you're thinking, you know, what's going on from your perspective.

Now what I've done is I've allowed a person who's being irrational to stop and go, huh? What is my perspective? What is happening? What is going through my mind?

And as they talk it out, for all of you folks that have been through like Next-Level Life or you know, good coaching call with us, you've probably had a moment where you're like, huh, now that I say this out loud or you know, sometimes we'll say it, hey, is this what you're experiencing.

Is this what you're feeling? Is this what you're thinking? And when somebody hears it out loud, they're like, geez, now that I hear it out loud, that seems kind of silly.

So when you allow somebody, you know, because you've opened the door to not only them sharing, but also the potential for, you know, constructive dialogue, you know, instead of just shutting it down with criticism, when you allow them the ability to be treated with dignity, hey, help me to understand what's going on from your perspective, then this changes the whole entire conversation.

Now, once again, it's very possible somebody's going to stay really stuck to being a victim or somebody is really going to stay stuck to the thing that they've said, the viewpoint that they've put out there.

Because that could also be another big fear piece. You know, I can't let go, I've said this, I've got to stick to it. That's definitely a possibility. So continue to ask open ended questions.

Help me to understand what, what you're thinking right there. Help me to understand what that means. Help me to understand why you think that. Help me to understand where you're seeing that.

Help me to understand, keep going, go until the person has talked through it plenty and they're starting to recognize, oh my gosh, this may be irrational thinking.

I promise, if you will lovingly, empathetically ask those questions, understand the person is struggling.

Understand the person has some deep rooted issue as to why they're struggling with this at the time.

If you will do that, then you will most likely be able to have a phenomenal, constructive discussion about where they're, how they're seeing this, and be able to speak into ways that they could see it differently.

So empathetically communicating is vital to overcoming irrational thoughts and it is a phenomenal tool.

This is a great tool for you to help somebody walk through their own irrational thinking. By the way.

This is a great tool for you to think, to walk through your own irrational thought process. Why am I thinking this? Why am I saying that? I can't tell you how many times you know, in my life that I'm just like, why am I thinking that? Why did I just say that?

What am I processing right now? And I will walk myself through any irrational thought and just go, that's stupid, that's silly. That's not going to happen like that.

That's probably, you know, just these, these, these thoughts that flood in if I can shed light on it in my own brain, in my own mind and Say, that is silly.

That's not truth. You know, even the fact by asking that question, what you may discover is the basis of what's been said or the.

The viewpoint doesn't align with the actual viewpoint. Or maybe there isn't a basis for the viewpoint. It is just fear. It's just assumption. We're making assumptions.

That is creating a thought process. That is creating more fear. That is going to create a tank in morale. Bam, bam, bam. You can. You can kind of see how this goes, right? So the more we actually work through that and we ask ourselves, why am I thinking this?

Why did I just say that? Where did I get that from? Why do I believe that? Help me to understand. Fill in the blank.

The more we do that, the better we can actually process through our own struggles and get to rational thought.

Helping Them Reframe Their Thoughts (00:21:34)

Number four, help them reframe their thoughts.

So guiding somebody through reframing their thought process is a powerful tool. Instead of letting them just spiral into negative or illogical thinking, help them to see things from a different, more positive angle.

So, for example, a team member feels like they absolutely failed a project, right? They feel like they messed something up.

And instead of allowing them to walk through this crazy thought process of, oh my gosh, I'm going to fail at everything in the future, I'm going to mess everything up instead.

What if you reframe this for them? What if you help them to see it in a different way?

You take the opportunity of discussing this in a way of saying, okay, we've had. We have a failure. We see that you messed up, we see that something went wrong, but what does that mean towards the future?

We can look at it two ways. You can look at it as, hey, you're going to mess up every single time you do a project. Or we could actually walk through what happened.

How do we fix this? So the five steps of fixing a problem.

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 will, help them to understand exactly what happened and then reframe the situation. Okay, now we've used this failure as a learning opportunity. Now we've been able to take this failure and turn it into something powerful.

We now know how to fix these things. We now know how to walk through a process and keep ourselves from getting to the failure. We now know how to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

Or at least we've got a really good idea of what we can do by reframing it, by helping them to see it that way. What happens is, is that they start thinking rationally.

Right? Instead of thinking everything is going to be a failure, I'm going to mess up at everything.

And listen, you're probably thinking as, as I'm saying this, you're probably recognizing that there have been times you felt exactly the same way.

Instead of allowing them to think, they're going to screw up every project, which, by the way, if they do think that they are not going to put 110% of themselves into those projects.

Instead, they're going to do the very least that they can to make sure that the project actually gets done right, that they can get a paycheck instead of allowing that to happen.

If we help them to think, I know how to solve problems. I know how to critically think. And if I fail, the way that I was treated was that I'm not a failure. I failed at something.

We walked through a process to fix it. That's what we do going forward. So if you do this, then you can possibly avoid irrational thinking in the future. Possibly. Right.

You definitely have a considerably better chance of them not having irrational thinking or being super defensive or blaming everybody else or all that kind of stuff if you help them reframe the situation.

Setting Boundaries and Accountability (00:24:40)

Number five. Okay, We've talked through a lot of great information on how to help somebody who's thinking irrationally.

We've talked through things you can do. But there's one thing that I can't let you leave without knowing it, and that is that setting healthy boundaries is a must.

So healthy boundaries and accountability, those are two things you must have. It is okay for somebody to have responded irrationally. It is okay for us to walk through this process.

What is not okay is for this to continue. If we're going to have bad behavior, if we're going to have irrational thinking, then what's going to happen is that it's going to take everything that this person is working on.

It's going to obviously bring, you know, bad relationships with other people that they're working with. You're going to have to be fixing this person on a consistent basis.

So what happens when you've done what you can and yet we're still struggling with this? Well, what we have to do is we need to set healthy boundaries. We need to have healthy accountability. What does that kind of look like?

Well, one of those things would be making sure that they understand that this type of thinking or this type of response is not okay in the future.

Now make sure that you're clarifying if you have a super victim, then what you're probably going to get is, oh, I can't feel bad about something that went wrong.

That is not what I'm saying at all. So make sure that you clearly communicate exactly what you're talking about.

Hey, this type of thought process, this heavy defensiveness or this feeling like people are going to attack you, this kind of behavior can't happen in the future, okay?

We can't be saying, oh my gosh, everybody's against me. We can't be doing the, you know, I'm just a colossal failure and, you know, apparently I'm not good enough. We can't have the irrational thinking happening every time something goes wrong.

We have to do something about this. So if all I'm seeing is this type of negative response, negative behavior, then we're going to have to have some deeper, tougher conversations.

So, you know, putting in a healthy boundary of like, hey, that's not okay. If there is a problem, use truth, use fact. Let's not go at it with, you know, over dramatizing things. If there is fact to information, bring the fact.

Help us to understand where you're coming from. But if we see the same process over and over and over again, then we're going to have to have some tougher conversations, right?

So putting in healthy boundaries, putting in accountability, if it continues, I'm going to have to write you up, I'm going to have to do whatever your work process is, right? I'm going to have to do this thing, I'm going to have to do this over here.

If eventually we can't get this straight, I'm going to have to pull you off of these projects. I'm going to have to, you know, whatever, even all the way up to the point of, hey, we've now experienced this, this many times.

We've had this many conversations. If this continues to happen, I'm going to have to let you go, whatever it is, make sure that you do not continue to enable irrational thinking.

Put the healthy boundaries in place, put the accountability in place. And by the way, as you have the discovery discussions, help me to understand this, help me to understand this and you reframe it.

That gives you pieces of accountability. So just like we talked about over here, I asked you to help me to understand this piece you gave me.

You know, you explained this, then I showed you, hey, that's not even that big of a deal, or hey, that shouldn't go that way, or hey, how do we fix that?

Whatever the answer is that you're coming up with that becomes a piece of accountability. So we're going to do it this way again in the future, correct? You just drop it right back in? Yes. Okay.

Now you have even more accountability. So yes, I want you to make sure that you are being empathetic, but I also want to make sure that at the end of the day you have things in place for healthy boundaries and for accountability.

Action Items (00:28:56)

So what are some action items?

Monitor Your Communication (00:28:57)

Well, first thing is monitor your communication. Make sure that you're paying attention to how your team members are responding to feedback. Not just one person, but everybody.

Are they responding to your feedback? Well, are they responding to other people's feedback?

Well, if you notice patterns of defensiveness or overly emotional reactions, then this really could be a sign of irrational thinking and it may be something that you have to address super fast.

You know, get to that early. Just make sure you know you're not just overly responding yourself to somebody having one struggle in a conversation somewhere. Look for the signs.

If you see the signs, then jump on it early.

Empathy First (00:29:39)

Number two, empathy first. So in your next difficult conversation, whatever that's going to be, lead with empathy. Try to understand, try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Ask open ended questions.

Try to understand the emotions that's behind their behavior instead of just immediately correcting it. Oh, you shouldn't do it that way. Oh, that's silly. Oh, that's ridiculous. Try to figure out what they're struggling with.

Encourage Self-Reflection (00:30:05)

Number three, encourage the person or people to self reflect. Self reflection is huge. It helps team members see the bigger picture. Now for a lot of you High Ss, that's a no brainer. I mean that's not something you struggle with.

You are very introspective. Right? You don't have a problem looking at that stuff. But there's a lot of folks that do and maybe some High Ss might be having a hard time with that. Usually not, but they could be.

Help them to see themselves. Help them to see what they're experiencing. Encourage them to reflect on their own behavior.

You know, say it in a nice way, but encourage them to kind of look at how they're responding and ask them what's the impact that this is having on other people?

How do you think this is impacting other people? Try to do this without making them feel super judged. Right. Listen, this isn't about, I'm not trying to guilt and shame you. This isn't about shaming you in this moment.

I want you to think through, hey, how do you think this is affecting other people, as somebody can logically process that as opposed to emotionally process, then they could get to a place of realizing how they're affecting other people.

Set Clear Expectations (00:31:20)

Number four, make sure that you set clear expectations. Ensure that after every single conversation, the team member knows exactly what's expected of them. Do not let them move forward without knowing exactly.

Ask the question, what did you hear me say? So what is expected of you? So what are we going to see? What are we not going to see?

Whatever it is, make sure that you outline what the expectations are and make sure that you also outline the consequences for irrational behavior.

Conclusion (00:31:53)

So here's the deal. Leading a team member out of irrational thinking, it's going to require patience. It's going to require empathy. It's going to require clear and strong communication.

But by recognizing the signs early, by addressing the root causes, if you can get to them, and helping people reframe their perspective, you absolutely have the opportunity to turn irrational moments into leading opportunities, which is what you need, which should be what you want.

So remember, as a leader, your role is not to just manage tasks, but to help your team grow both professionally and personally. Yes, I know a lot of you out there are going, that's not what I'm paying them for.

But the more you help them grow personally, I promise you, the more that they will grow professionally. So if you have found value in today's episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with other leaders who might be facing similar challenges.

Additional Resources (00:32:59)

Also, additional resources. We have two episodes that I really think you should go and listen to, number 463, which is Rational VS Irrational Thinking.

This is where we discuss the differences between rational and irrational thinking, where reason and logic intersect with fear, emotion and imagination.

Second episode is 379 Leading Through Tough Conversations. So before you do something you might regret later, Joel and I get together to give you some guidance on just exactly how to lead during a specific situation.

So Joel and I acted out this scene during this podcast so you can listen to this. You can understand how to navigate tough conversations, which can be beneficial for both sides of the folks that are in a tough conversation.

So make sure that you're listening to both of those episodes. Those will benefit you immensely. Well, folks, hopefully this has helped you today. I promise the more you focus on these skills, the more you help team members overcome.

And I do truly believe, I do truly believe we are seeing more and more situations like this on a regular basis. So it's not like it's going away.

So the more that you hone in these skills. The more that you focus on this, the greater your team will be for it, the greater your business will be for it as well. So hopefully, this has helped you out today.

As always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.