379 | Leading Through Tough Conversations

Welcome to the Chris Licurto show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. We hope that you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. We are here. It's. It's actually starting to get a little bit cooler. I don't know. It actually is. It feels like it's getting cooler. I don't know if it's actually.

We need a little bit cooler. I. We actually haven't had that bad of a year anyway. It's been really good. You recognize that vote? That voice. That voice. The voice. You recognize that. I don't speak English very well. That voice is Joel Fortner, who is joining me on the show today. Hello. Glad to be back on. And we are going to be talking through what it looks like to have some tough conversations.

We just had a fantastic retreat here with our mastermind clients where we did, we walked through a bunch of, you know, kra trainings and all that kind of stuff, but we also did some great role playing through these processes and having conversations. And every time we do that, everybody just loves that. They're like, it's so good to see you do this. So we're going to do some things on the fly that you've got some ideas, you're gonna throw some stuff out, and we're gonna walk through it.

But here's the reason why we're doing this. Over the next month, we're gonna be hitting cultural stuff on how to make sure that you're setting your culture up for success. Now, we talk a lot about culture around here, and since the inception of COVID I don't know if it's the inception of COVID but since we've had the. The effects of COVID that have happened on business, it's amazing how culture has reset all over the place.

Yeah. You know, it used to be you have people for those that are brick and mortar. You have people coming into your building. So. And again, we define culture as actions and attitudes. They're there. They're a part of it. They're getting that. That culture all over them. They're experiencing that. And now we have a lot of folks that are at home. We have a lot of folks that are, you know, you don't have that touch point of being able to walk on over to somebody's desk and talk through cultural issues, the.

The ability to model that culture. When somebody's at home, you know, you're at your house and they're at their house dealing with their kids, their spouse, the delay, you know, the instacart delivery, whatever, it's removing a lot of that ability to lead culture really well. So we're hitting a lot of that over the next month, and today we're gonna walk through what does it look like to have some tough conversations kind of built around some kras or some responses and all that kind of stuff?

So, yeah, so, you know, a little more context here. It's one of the things that leaders struggle a lot with is not necessarily defining their culture. There's a lot of you all who probably haven't done that yet, which is a key step. And having a culture of champions and what, especially with what we teach. But once you define it, it's then, all right, now the rubber meets the road.

And by defining, you define the actions and attitudes that you want. Exactly what you want it to look like. Exactly. And so because it's. Everyone has a culture. It's, do you have the one that you want to have? That's the question. Or do you want, do you have the one that comes in your back door or the one that you have to suffer in all the time? Because it's constantly frustrating.

This has to be led with intentionality. So once you get past the defining step, now you have to lead it. Well, now here comes the uh oh factor. Shoot. I'm not really confident with that. How do I do that? Well, how to attacking actions and attitudes that today, which is attacking culture or attacking actions and attitudes that go against your newly defined culture. Right. Or how do you force, at times, the culture that you want?

And we're not talking about being controlling and being abusive, but you've got, say, something going on, like stealing in your culture. Well, that needs to be addressed. Right. So there are times when you're going to need to force your culture into a team member because their action or attitude is damaging the team, or. It's very egregious. Yeah, I think the thing that's tough for us to understand, you know, and you just mentioned it.

What is it like if. If culture comes in the back door? So. And what you mean by that is we've got an amazing culture here in the building. If we hire somebody in and they're coming from a really cruddy culture, and we do not make sure that they are not only aligning with the culture that we currently have, but putting the things in place to set them up for success so that they operate with the actions and attitudes, the.

The way that we do things around here. Then it doesn't take much for somebody in a, in a culture that's not being taught, led, forced. It doesn't take much for somebody to bring in a bad culture from somewhere else. Kind of like everybody, Covid, it's not. Well, well played. Of course you get healed from that. But anyways, it's not, you know, now it's affecting the whole culture now it's not enough that you have to lead the culture that you want.

You've got to go attack the one that's now, you know, cropping up like crazy inside of your business because somebody has brought it in, and it may not even be, you know, it may not even be that they intended anything bad. It could just be that that's exactly what they've been dealing with. It's what they've known their whole life, and now it's a part of your business. And this is the crossroads.

So this is the intersection. Now what do I do with it now what I do? So, and a big thing you taught you, you kind of hit on there, and it's something that we want everybody to understand. We know the reason why we do what we do is because people don't teach you how to have these tough conversations. So we get it a lot. I have no clue how you're talking about having this conversation with this person who's doing x over here.

I have no clue how to have that conversation. What do I do? All right, so we are going to get to that role playing when we come back right after this. I'm excited about it. Hey, folks, here's the deal. Every business has a culture, but are you leading yours intentionally or settling for whatever comes in the door? If you're finally ready to create the company culture you've always wanted, then you're going to want to sign up for my free digital video series, creating a culture of champions.

I will personally guide you for ten days to get clarity on the culture you desire and lead your team to embrace it. You can sign [email protected] culturelesson. Again, if you're ready to make a change, sign up for my free digital video series, creating a culture of [email protected]. culturelesson okay, we are back and we are going to do this role playing thing. You ready? All right. Yeah, let's do it.

I'm so excited. I'm so excited about it. I can't even speak straight. I'm super excited about this. Okay. What we wanted to do was bring this to life for you. All to be able to see Chris is going to play a leader in this scenario, and I'm going to be a team member. How do I do that? And so I'm glad you're listening to the show. Listen back to this.

I might learn something to the right podcast. So I'm going to play a team member who is struggling. So Chris doesn't know all the details. He's just going to do it. We're just going to. I'm catching him on the fly. We literally have not prepped for this, but it's basically a scenario where. And the reason we're doing that is to show you that if you're thinking correctly and following the process that we teach, it doesn't take much to figure out what direction you're going to go in.

So we're literally putting this in place to show you that you don't have to know the ins and outs of the whole situation if you go after the right stuff. So. Okay, so I'm just going to lay this out later. I've just walked into your office because you've asked me to come and see you. You caught me in the hall earlier and like, hey, could you come by my office around lunchtime?

There's something I want to talk to you about. And we didn't have time to get into it, and so here I am. And so I've now walked in your door and I've sat down and we're gonna. And we're gonna roll from there. So let's give you a little bit of detail. What you've seen from me is how I'm treating other team members at times is fairly disrespectful. What's your role?

I'm a. I'm a leader on your team. Okay. So under you. And I'm treating some team members of mine pretty harshly because I am very performance driven. I'm wanting to make sure that you're seeing that I'm driving performance that it may. I'm doing great. Look how great I'm doing. And look how I'm getting my team to bust their butts and get stuff done. But. And I have had a team member, little do I know, who doesn't feel safe with me.

And they've come to you, okay, to let you know, like, man, they're struggling with me. So you've asked me to come see you, okay? So here I am. So as you lay this out. So, folks, here's what's going through my mind. You know, I'm starting to look at. Okay. A big piece for you is you're struggling with worth right now. What is the job as a leader? We always tell, and so I'm going to just kind of give you my thoughts as I go into this.

We always teach people, it's your job as a leader to make people successful, not the other way around. And it is appearing to me that instead of you making people successful, you're using them to make you successful. Because I'm seeing your worth. Struggle is with proving to me that you're something amazing, that you're accomplishing something great. And you may be, and I'm. That may be a great thing, and I'm happy with that.

But at the end of the day, I'm not performance driven. This business is not performance driven. Right. You have to perform. We look for you to perform. So those are things that are going through my head. Obviously, I would be taking into account. Do I. You know, I would take into account your personality style. Don't get. What's your personality style? Let's just use mine. I'm. Okay, so I high see personality style.

So I'm going to take that into account. So, since you're a high, I. You're 99. I. Your tendency is going to be that as I start to go into something about something you're failing on. Well, maybe I shouldn't give all that information out. We should just play out. Let's do that, and then let's debrief it. That's better. We may only have time to get. Yeah, we may only get one.

All right. Hey, Joel, thank you for coming. It's so funny. It's like, it would be so less formal than this, but here we go. Yeah. Joel, thanks for coming in. I appreciate it. I didn't have time in the hallway to kind of explain. I know it's always an awkward thing to grab somebody in the hallway and say, hey, could you come see me later? You know, but unfortunately, time has been a little crazy for me, so thank you for coming on in and talking with me.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I appreciate that. Yeah. What's up? Well, so I wanted to get with you on something that I'm starting to notice. And so first, I want to kind of ask you, how do you feel like things are going specifically with your team members, like, the way that you're leading them? Do you feel successful? What do you. What do you see? I think. I think. I mean, I don't want to be prideful, but I think we're.

I think we're killing it. Yeah. And I think the team is super productive. I think they're delivering everything that we want them to deliver. I think. I don't think they could work harder than they do. And that's why, I mean, we're making a whole bunch of money, and it's just. Yeah, I honestly think they're killing it. Have you. Have you heard something different? Well, so there's some things that I'm starting to notice now.

Your high eye. We talk about this all the time around here. We talk about personality styles and everything. As I go into this, you're gonna have two options. All right? I'm gonna hit something that's. That's probably gonna hurt a little bit. Okay. And so here's the deal. You can receive it two ways. You can receive this as a discussion on how do we grow you as a leader?

How do we make sure that we get all the right perspective and information, or you can receive this as an attack on you. So here's what I'd love for you to do. Challenge my character. You've known me for a long time. Have I ever attacked you or ripped your head off or treated you horribly? No, I. Not that I can ever think. This is not one of those times either.

This is not a 911 emergency type of meeting. You're not in trouble, any of that stuff. I just want to talk through something that is a little sensitive, and so if you're not in the right frame of mind, then you. You can receive this as an attack, and that's not where I want you to go. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so here's what I've noticed. Um, Josie on your team has been struggling a little bit lately, and she's been struggling a little bit with your leadership.

Now, before I get into the details, is there anything that you can see there that you might know where I'm going? I think I might. Okay. Look like she's probably the weakest team member. Okay. How she put. She doesn't work as hard as everybody else. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And what are you. How are you equating that? I just kind of compare my team through what. What are you using as your comparison as the.

For their productivity? I think they're. I look at her. Her day to day tasks. I look at her kra. Okay, so she's not getting as many tasks. No, she doesn't. Okay. I find I have to. I have to push her a whole lot more. Okay. Than anybody else. If we look at the Cara reviews you've had with her, and I want you to think about this. What would we see?

I love watching your face as you know where I'm going. It's so fun. So they've been. They've been good? Yeah, they've been pretty good. Okay, so still, just so how would understand. How did you even learn about this? Well, that's a great question, but before we get there, help me to understand something. If she's had great kra reviews, how is it that I'm hearing right now that she's the weakest person on your team and she doesn't work as hard as everybody else?

Is she accomplishing her kras? Is she doing the things that we expect of her? No, she's not. No. Okay, then where do you think I'm gonna go next? We gotta. We gotta figure out what's going on with her. Yeah. We also need to figure out why you're reviewing her and giving her passing grades if she's not passing. Right. So why would you be giving her passing grades on her k race if she's not passing?

I don't know. She's just. Okay, Joel, let me. Let me stop you. What I'm experiencing is I'm seeing how you're responding to her as you hold her accountable. But how are you feeling right now? I'm okay. Okay. Are you feeling you need to be self protective or defend yourself in this process? I think some. Okay. Cuz I'm honestly, I'm a little. I was. I'm assuming that she came and talked to you.

She doesn't. That she didn't. She's jumping the chain here and nothing coming and talking to me, which is honestly, like, that's just not how we. How we do it. Right. So we're gonna bring her in and we're gonna talk through this, the three of us. But from my understanding and from looking at y'all's calendar appointments, she has spent time talking with you and she's discussed some of the issues with you.

And what she's experiencing is. Is you being very controlling and demeaning. That's. That's ridiculous. So here's what I'm experiencing. No perspective gathering. You. You immediately responded to that. It's ridiculous that you could possibly respond that way. Do we. Is that the way we treat people around here? No. Well, no, but it's just ridiculous that she would not. That she would even feel that way. Why is that ridiculous?

Because I don't. Because for one, I don't think I act that way. I can. I can see that sometimes we have a hard time seeing ourselves, right? I don't think. But here's what I want to point out. You marked her as passing on all Kras, and you're in here telling me that she's been failing at her caras. Do you see the contradiction? Do you see the struggle? No, I I don't.

I don't tie all that. Okay. What are you seeing? So then that makes me. I have to go a little bit deeper in this process. If. How when you look at passing somebody and saying that they're doing a great job on something or even a satisfactory job through accountability, the process of accountability, you're a leader inside of this business. You understand accountability. It's the very thing that allows you to hold somebody accountable to the thing that we're paying them to do.

You have that in the cara reviews. That's one of the tools that we use here. And if she's doing things badly and doing things wrong, I need to understand why you're not going through and marking her as failing at her Kras. That's your accountability tool. So I'm listening to your responses, and they contradict your actions. The very thing that she's pointing out is your actions, that how you're responding is in a controlling way.

So here's the deal. If now that I see that you're telling me in a meeting that you're marking her as doing a great job, but you're telling me that she's failing. Now I have a struggle with one of my leaders. Why would you do that? Help me to understand why you would do that as a leader in this business, knowing the importance of holding people accountable. That's a good point.

It is a good point, isn't it? Yeah. What's the answer? I honestly don't know. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you another personal question. Are you struggling right now? Yes, a little bit. And what are you struggling with? Um, are you worried about telling me? Uh, maybe some of it. I'm feeling a little bit. A little bit attacked. A little bit. Okay. Um, so let me ask you. What part of this is attacking you?

Where have you been attacked? Well, a little bit feels like maybe more from her than you. Now, this is a discussion you and I are having. We're gonna bring her in, and we're gonna talk through this process. But in the discussion you and I are having, have you been attacked? No. Because your answers are contradicting your actions. So you have a. I can see that you have a choice here.

You can choose to continue, or I need you to prove that she's not marking somebody. Okay. When they're not okay. Or I need you to prove that she's not done a great job. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Okay. All right. Okay. For the sake of time, let's come out. You know, obviously, you don't have a tough conversation in ten minutes. So speaking from the team member, your leader side.

So what I'm hoping you guys are seeing is my deflection to keep it off of me. I'm trying to be like, buddy, but like, hey, man, this is us, and I'm your leader, and we have this team member problem. Give me more information about self protection. But I want you guys to see that defensiveness, I go to that misdirection that I don't want to be a failure. In my leaders eyes, I'm becoming a big time victim because you can hear it in my words of, I'm feeling a little bit attacked, but there is no attack.

This is all what we talk about in terms of my surface level responses, because I need my leaders approval and worth so much. Yeah, so much to the point. Now, again, we threw this out on the fly. I would have more information coming from the person that I would be able to lay out here, obviously. And obviously, we should fire Josie. Right, Devin? She's gone. She's out. That woman can't do anything right.

But the thing that I'm, as a leader, it's not just my job to make sure that I get you to a place of seeing your actions. It is my job to understand how you're going to act, how you're going to respond. It's my job to look at your personality style and see that you are going to feel attacked. That victim mentality is most likely going to happen here very soon because I'm going to hit you with something hard.

Obviously, I take in our history. How long have I known you? What have I seen you do when these situations come up? So one of the first things I do, and this is what I was going to kind of explain on the front side, is try and diffuse and remove things from the table. So I already know that you're going to feel attacked. You're a 99. I now, I mean, unless you're just, you know, if it's.

If it's you, Joel Fortner, then I'm not really worried about that. But I'm looking at your personality style on somebody else. If I understand personality styles enough, then I know that you're actually going to respond immediately with. You're attacking me and something that you didn't do that a lot of folks would do is throw it back on the leader. Well, it's your fault. I needed more time. You needed more time.

You could have got there. You could have got there. Well, it's your fault. You know, you have me so busy with all of these team members. That would have ramped it up a little bit, right? That really would have kicked it up, but that would have been fun. But for me, I'm trying to think of areas of where you're gonna go now. It is virtually impossible to do this when you are emotionally handcuffed to the conversation, when all you can do is think through your defensive.

You know how you need to respond, and you know how you need to argue through something, or you need to. Whatever it is, if you are emotionally handcuffed by having to have the next response, then you can't possibly think about what the other person is going through, how they're receiving this, the things that they're saying. So if I'm emotionally handcuffed, when you start to go, well, how did you find out about this?

It's none of your business how I found out. Now I have to respond emotionally of like I'm out of control. You're asking me. Which is. The funny thing is I still avoided your question for a while because it's your. Your attempt. Attempt to gain control by learning information that gives you ammunition. Yeah. So instead, I just. I'm avoiding this. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not avoiding it by not answering.

You're not letting me know. I'm letting you know that you're not going to control this conversation. So I'm watching these pieces and then removing anything that becomes that excuse or that victim mentality. Had we had more time, really, where we would have gone to is me giving you things that you need to work on in your leadership. Obviously, we would have. We would have never had this conversation without a.

Without bringing Josie in and allowing your accuser to actually give information right now. It's not. It would. It. The reason why we're doing it this way is I'm prepping you to be able to sit in that meeting and not attack her, because there's no way she's going to open up if I've got a leader who's just going to rip her head off and. And, you know, she's going to feel like you and I are buddy buddy.

And she can't be honest. So all of those things come into play as I'm asking the questions, how are you going to receive this? Where are you going to go? Then I just start watching you do it. I see you struggle. I see you. That's like. It's so funny when. When I ask certain questions and you know exactly where I'm going, because we do this for a living, then you have to try and make up.

Well, where do. Where would I go in this process? Right. Crud. I did mark her off as doing really good. How can I say she's not doing good? Right? All of those pieces. I'm listening to you. People struggle with this all the time because they don't listen. They don't separate themselves from the conversation, and then they get stuck in defensiveness and having to respond. So, let me ask this.

So, we're teaching about today. We're teaching about forcing culture or attacking culture. One thing I would like to make sure that people see is, never once did you become controlling of me. Never once did you treat me in a toxic way. Yet you were attacking crap that I was giving you. I was stern, and I was. And you were forcing culture onto me. Because you can see my actions and my attitudes are just don't align with the culture that you, in this role play scenario, are after.

Exactly. And I'm a highest. I have a lot of. I. I have about 40 d. I think is that. I think that was my. Something like that. Something like that, yeah. And it's only that I'm removing myself from the conflict of having the tough conversation and caring more about getting to that information. If. If I. And the whole time, I'm waiting to give you your choices. So, I was actually about to go into.

Since you keep choosing to respond this way, here's the consequence. I was about to go into that. I'm looking at the clock going, oh, my gosh. We don't have time to do that. But I'm waiting to start hitting you on your choices, Joel. You keep choosing to respond this way. You keep choosing to keep responding with this over here. You keep choosing. So, here's the concept. Consequence, man.

If this is the way you're leading, then I've got to hold you accountable and give you consequences for doing something you shouldn't have been doing. Right? So, again, it's a much longer. This would have been a probably an hour long, tough conversation. Maybe 45 minutes. Tough, long, tough conversation. But the goal is, I don't have to be the bad guy. I don't have. What's wrong with you, Joel?

Yeah. How come you have to, you know, why'd you do that, then? I don't have to be that way with you, because I already know the outcome of where I'm going with this thing, and it is to find out how to pull out of you information. And then here's the funny thing. I just use the things you say against you. Right. I don't have to be a bad guy when you say, well, she.

You know, she's passed with flying colors. Okay. Help me to understand. So all I do is put that right back on you. Yeah. Now you're saying that she sucks, but I. You're passing her as doing a great job, which is exactly our accountability tool to make sure that somebody's doing a great job. Help me to understand that. And that's what causes the person to really stumble and potentially, believe it or not, you did it.

You did a great job with this. But somebody more toxic would have really come around and, you know, you. You were going there, but a toxic person would have been. Well, I felt pressured to do so. I felt that you wanted me to. You know what? I've thrown at a different. Well, I felt like that that's what I needed to do. But she's really been bad and really try and get out from underneath that pressure of the accountability.

If you're a small business owner listening to this, or you're just an owner, a president, a leader, that's got a lot of pressure. They're trying to run a successful business and grow it and make money and be profitable and, you know, balance their work and their life better. How does this right here. Why does this right here, what we just did, and us, all the training and how much focus we put on culture, why does it matter within that larger context?

Because if you don't. So if we were working in a perfect world, everybody's got the right actions and the right attitudes. Everybody treats everybody well. My leader here, whatever. We didn't give you a name. Oh, I just called you Joel. That's right. So my leader, Joel here, in that situation, would have actually been leading Josie to success, so I wouldn't have to worry about it. We don't live in a perfect world, so because of that, there's going to be situations that if we don't jump on it, we may lose Josie.

Here's what we don't know, and here's what we didn't discuss. Josie may have been a champion. Josie may have been somebody who could have stepped in a leadership role down the road. There's all kinds of information we don't know. And if all I do is avoid it and don't do anything about it, I start losing potentially great people. Worse than that, I have a leader who's going slightly rogue, right?

Because those are definitely not the actions and attitudes that we espouse in our business. We talk through this stuff. We have leadership now for us. We have leadership team meetings every single week. We talk through how to handle things. We role play through stuff. We do all kinds of things to make sure that the leaders inside of this business are doing things the way that we want. So if we're seeing this, we have one of two things.

We either have a team member who's off the rails, which doesn't make sense, since she got such high marks, or we have a leader who's going a little rogue. And I better rein that in, because everybody's looking to me to see if I'm going to protect the culture or if I'm going to protect the individual leader, because they're a buddy, a friend, or whatever. So I have to protect the culture, even by yanking in one of my leaders and then show everybody else I don't have to go and, you know, you know, put the leader out and say, look at how stupid Joel's been, and look what I smacked him around, and everything's in alignment now, but they need to see that Joel's no longer acting that way.

I would have pushed into this and said, joel, you're going to need to go back and apologize now. If we'd have gotten to, you know, we'd have brought her in and all this, and then I would have say, hey, Joel, you need to go apologize to your team and let them know that you've been having. You know, I'd have gotten to all of it. This may have taken hours, but I would have gotten to all the information.

Are you struggling? Is there something that's happening at home that I'm missing out on? And I. Is there something personally that's going on? Is there. You know, who knows? Maybe you lost a family member, maybe, you know, maybe your roof got a leak, and it's been you. I don't know what the heck it is. Right? But after finding out all of those information, all that information, then my job is to make you successful.

So that may be consequences, accountability, and lots of love in the process. If I will work my b*** off for all of that, you guys, the you, the team, everybody else will self police the culture from there so I don't have to worry about coming back and fixing 17 issues like this down the road because I didn't do something about it the first time. That's excellent. Well, this was fun.

It was a blast. Hopefully this was helpful. Yeah. Guys, if you, if you enjoy this and if there's things or even scenarios and stuff that you would love to learn about, send us the information. Shoot us an [email protected]. let us know if you like this. Let us know, you know, what you would like more of because it is, it's one of those things where again, we have so many leaders in our programs that are, like I say, leaders.

Crud. I have friends, I have family members that are like, how would you handle this conversation? What would you do with this? And I just do the same thing. I did that earlier today with somebody of just going, let's role play that. You be this person. I'll be this person. We do it all the time, so. Well, thank you for joining me, brother. Absolutely. Glad to be on.

And folks, hopefully this has helped you today. Once again, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.