I think the root of all performance, Improvement lies in self-awareness and mindset.

Welcome to the super managers podcast, where we interview leaders from all walks of life to tease out the habits, thought patterns, learnings and experiences that help them be extraordinary at the fine craft of management.

Our goal is to bring you the lessons in the insights so that you don't have to learn through your own mistakes.

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But so that you can shortcut your way to being a great leader.

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Hey, fellow managers and leaders.

I'm Aiden and I'm the CEO fellow dot app.

Today's guest is Dave Bailey, he's an experienced coach and mentor to scale up CEOs over the last 12 years, Dave has co-founded multiple vc-backed Tech businesses, including easy, learn delivery hero and spot night.

Now, as a Founder coach, his goal is to provide other entrepreneurs with the practical skills that he wished he had when he was Jing teams.

For the first time in today's episode, Dave explains how managers can use questions as a powerful tool.

He also tells us why staying curious just a little bit longer can always get us to the root of the real issue and why most problems aren't what they initially.

See, last but not least, we talked about goal settings.

Okay.

Ours and how leaders can work backwards with initiative.

If you found this helpful, to your leadership Journey, send me a note on it.

ER, my handle is at Aidan at a wide Ein or tag us using the hashtag super managers.

Now, without further Ado, here's Dave Bailey on episode, 65 of the super managers podcast.

Dave, welcome to the show Aidan.

Thanks so much for having me.

So Dave, really glad to have you on the show.

You've obviously had an extensive career as a leader in a coach to Tech CEOs and you're actually sponsored medium author, you write about me.

Human communication, psychology, the works.

I have to ask you, how did medium get a hold of you?

And how did you end up becoming sponsored author there?

Oh well, you know what I after I was so I might I started my career as a venture backed founder, the three companies wide variety of exits and then found myself working in VC in London.

And as I was working with the portfolio, Founders, I wanted a channel to kind of consolidate my ideas as I was looking over multiple companies.

He's and I turn to medium to start blogging those ideas.

And that's how it started.

I think the cachet, you know, you get a little bit of a cachet when you got an investor invest the title, that helped me get my first few readers.

But interestingly one of the learnings that happens to me very quickly.

As I got into the sea was that, you know, going into companies with a sort of consultant mindset with a kind of, I'm here to help mindset, doesn't always work out.

So, one of the first lessons I learned was it's actually better to take a coaching.

A Which then a consultant Consulting approach I wrote an essay called.

Why Founders need coaches?

Not Consultants.

That sa ended up becoming the number one search result for the term found a coach globally for about three years and that's how I got into coaching because that sa generate a lot of CEOs who saw my background and we're looking for a coach and at the same time got me a lot of I guess a lot of it a new readers and then medium pick me up to, you know, and And gave me some incentives to keep riding.

Which I gladly took.

Because, you know, what writing for me is, is really a need not a strategy.

Like I I really find out.

In fact, you've caught me in a writing weeks over the last three days.

I've been literally locked away at my mom's house where I can get some some peace and order to crystallize my ideas.

But that's how I got into writing and how medium found me.

Yeah, that's amazing.

So I have to ask what is the difference between Consulting and coaching?

If you know what I heard, a great definition.

Just the other day which was that Consultants give you great answers to your questions and coaches, give you great questions to your answers.

And I like that because for me the art of coaching is really about understanding.

How questions work which correct questions provide the right space for clients to think things through and there are very empowering tool right in the kind of managers toolkit and I know you can talk a lot about management.

Later, questions are really powerful tool just because they help.

They help provide that space that we all need sometimes think things through and find our own answers.

Yeah, I really like that definition.

I haven't heard that before.

So they provide coaches, provide questions to the answers that you already have within you.

I like that.

That's right.

Yeah, you know the coaching tool kit is is very broad, right?

So it's, this is very much a simplification coaches also will provide feedback.

They can, you know, one thing I learned very quickly is that often Turn to a coach, not just for questions, but sometimes you need someone to tell you what they see and even give you some advice to.

So, I'm very kind of broad view of coaching, but I think that definition does capture the essence where questions really, really are at the core of what coaching is about.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

So you were the founder of three venture-backed companies.

I have to ask you.

So you've managed.

A lot of teams.

Were you always good at it?

Or did you make some mistakes early on?

Did I did I make some mistakes?

The answer, of course, is yes.

I don't know if anyone could ever give a different answer, you know.

I so I, you know, II actually my first job, I was a Management Consultant, so I got into on entrepreneurship back in 2007.

But before that, I was working in Consulting and in Consulting is a very specific management style.

It tends to be very deadline-driven because you got a client client, give the deadline you make a move where I live.

You move well, as not to meet the deadline tends to be top down.

So you got Partners in the project, they kind of Define the high-level, the analysis, the structure of the deck that you do, and the outputs are pretty known, right?

Like in Consulting, it's a PowerPoint deck.

It's an Excel maybe if you analyses and interviews along the way.

And so when I got into intertek, you know, when I started managing teams at my first thing that I manage was a product team, I took those same philosophies I learned in Consulting into into Tech.

And you know what?

Didn't work, right?

Because Tech is a very different environment.

Firstly, there's a lot more uncertainty, even when you're designing interfaces, like anyone who's designed an interface and felt so confident, it's going to work out just fine or you know planned out how the code was going to go over the next two months.

And, you know, you quickly realize that you can't do that.

There's just so much uncertainty inherent to Tech as so deadlines can often break down, at least you don't Define them properly.

And so, yeah, I made a lot of mistakes thing in part in part, because I I hadn't yet learned how to translate the skills.

I learned in my in my previous jobs into the tech environment.

What was the key difference?

So it was more top-down in the Consulting world, but in Tech you, you couldn't pull it off the same way.

You know, it didn't work for me, at least and it will come up culminated.

So, you know, we were like many said, this was back in 2008 first off, so we were kind of a lot of the the, you know, the standard things that you learn in entrepreneurship, they just weren't compatible.

Common knowledge at the time.

So we were really just making it up as we went along.

And so it was a, you know, we are launch was delayed firstly.

We, you know, we had this big launch plan, that's something that, you know, you get that gets beaten out of you pretty quick, but everything was delayed, you know, team was struggling, was a lot more early debt.

That's seem to rear its head so we're just really, really struggling and then but I thought I was on it, right?

Like you know, set the deadlines, you manage, you keep forward-looking and then one day my best designer.

A guy called Danilo who I just respected so much and he was just performing extremely well, came into my office and said, Dave, I'm leaving and I was like, wait, what really we do?

We need you, man?

Why are you leaving?

And he said, well, this is other company.

We were based in Rio, de Janeiro, in Brazil at the time.

And he's like, this is another company.

And they're doing this thing called agile.

And I'm like, agile, we're super agile.

I didn't know what a job meant.

At that point.

I said we're super, he's like, no, no.

Like they doing this thing called scrum and I played rugby.

And I was like, what?

The thing rugby node bring.

So anyway, I said, look, stay and at what I'll do is I commit to getting an agile trainer in to train the whole company, how to do our job, we're about 30 people time, and that's what we did.

We found this amazing agile trainer by the name of ha drigo who came in, taught us all a girl and that from me was a massive, massive turning point.

So she one of the reasons why I'm such a big advocate for training, not just because of the skill that it provides but also that kind of the something around.

Education that helps people form bonds gives people shared language, they can communicate to each other better and that for me that was, you know, an end up becoming an agile agile.

Certified that was my my introduction into kind of managing and Tech environments, and for me, it's like a fundamental skill.

You want to be manager of a tech team product team, understanding the concepts of agile management, very, very important.

So when it comes to delegation then and you know, the this whole, you know, moving From Consulting and into Tech, you write a lot about, you know, how to delegate work.

So, it actually gets done.

What is the key to doing that?

Because I do find that a lot of managers have.

Especially, you know, when you first get into the role it does it is difficult to delegate tasks.

How would you say that?

Like you've coached CEOs and leaders to delegate more effectively?

Yeah.

Well, I'm curious like what are some of the things that you have found difficult as it relates to delegation, I think the the questions that I've heard posed to me most often or how do you, you know, how do you not over micromanage?

This has been a concept.

So for example you know basically not getting to the point where you're not trusting employees fast enough.

To allow them to do things.

Or when you see that the work is produced.

Maybe it's not to the level that you thought that it could be.

This is one the other one is like how do you know when you can keep I guess delegating more work.

There's always this like, this balance of like what should I delegate versus?

What should I keep when do you know when too much delegation?

Is too much.

These are some of the questions that I think like we get asked often.

Yeah, I do.

I've never met anyone who who finds delegation completely easy.

Like there's just something, inherently difficult around delegation in part because I think, you know, a brains are sort of pro.

You know, what?

When you start out in your first job, you are a doer, right?

You learn how to plan, you learn how to execute on tasks and then Quickly as you scale the ladder, you end up becoming you know managing people and right at the top you know when I'm dealing with CEOs.

They're full-time, people managers, you know, when they get to fundraise, that's one thing they can do.

It can also lead, strategy development.

But there are there, they spend a lot of time in one-on-ones in meetings managing other leaders, right?

And in some ways that's an easier position to be than if you're on the front line.

Because at that point, you're often, you know, when you get promoted into becoming a manager, you're also an icy as well.

You're also an individual contributor as well.

So, you have to manage work and manage other people, which becomes very very difficult.

So like management is very very challenging.

When I wrote the piece around delegating problems, not tasks.

It was really to speaking to the need that, you know, the first step is to really frame what the role what your role is as a manager in your head clearly and really allow others to To solve problems.

But you don't have to be the solver problem.

Sometimes you need to solve problems, I get it.

But but as a general rule of thumb, you want to empower your team to solve their own problems.

So you want to delegate problems back to them and rather than sort of telling them what to do.

And if you it, you know, it's messy.

It's a bit messy.

And it's I'm not saying there's only one way to do it, but if you can do that over a period of time, then you can start to empower your team and built and allow them to build the skills they need, if you don't do.

Do that.

Then?

What we know what happens, right?

They keep coming back for your decisions, you become the bottleneck more and more, and more.

And, you know, and it's exhausting right, like making decisions.

All the time is exhausting.

You know, I had this one time and as you push back to problems and not tasks, right?

I had this, this one person that, you know, was asking me about, I have this employee and, you know, I'm trying Get them to do all this work.

And so what I've done is I've made it as simple as possible.

I've taken, you know, the thing that we're trying to do and I've broken it up literally into 25 different steps like micro steps.

Like there's no way that you can you can get this you know you can get this wrong and I find that the the productivity level is not as high as I would expect it to be and and this was I guess perplexing but this is like a classic Classical example of you know you're delegating a whole bunch of little tasks as opposed to you know here's the you know, the outcome that we want.

Yeah, we'll look, let me make it even more nuanced and complex, right?

Because as a business scales roles tend to become more specialized, right?

So at the beginning, when you kind of a handful of people, everyone's wearing multiple hats, everyone, you know, you need to be super empowered because there are no, not even that much Clarity over what your job actually is.

And then, as you grow things, More specialized.

Now there's a some really interesting research in terms of which when does empowered management work best because it doesn't work all the time.

And it turns out that when you have a task that's fundamentally process-driven actually empowered management is not the right form of management.

So if you have someone whose job is just to follow, you know, maybe go to finance administrator who's going through making sure the tax is paid.

Invoices are filed and so forth you know.

Really wide, you know, empowered approach probably isn't isn't necessarily the best at least not in every situation.

And then you have other you have other roles that are fundamentally creative.

So, you know, talk going back to product management and and Engineering, these are fundamentally creative activities in those in power management is a lot more effective.

If you're working with people who seek empowerment and want to solve problems and move forward.

Interesting.

So, In some cases, it actually does make sense to break it down into a bunch of different tasks and delegate tasks and all problems.

And you know what it is?

I think we all want that one bit of advice that if we just follow it it's going to work every time and you know every essay I learn I'd that I've written, you know, I'm promoting some idea.

Some framework, some concept and it works some of the time, but it doesn't work all the time.

And so, the way I think about the growth of Manager is you know, you're acquiring these new tactic, these new tactics, these new techniques Frameworks and your job is to know which framework to use at the given moment in time.

But I, you know, I haven't found that one-size-fits-all just yet still waiting.

So let's talk about, you know, something more tactical on this front of like deciding when to delegate and when to take something on and this isn't necessarily just like a Frontline manager problem.

I think it extends to, you know, Senior leaders even the the CEO of a company like when you're coaching CEOs, and how do you, how do you get them to sort of like, differentiate what it is that they can delegate and when they should like really get involved and roll up their sleeves, you know.

Like even if even if you are at the point of delegating a problem say for example you have you know basically like a customer renewal problem.

Oh, and a certain number doesn't look the way that it should.

Is that like how would you like, how do you decide if that's something that you delegate or something that you want to dig in on yourself?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know why?

I again, I don't have a standard approach.

It really is going to depend, you know, when we're working on problems like that, when I'm working on problems, like that, with clients, you know, what I can do is start to ask questions that will give Clarity over what?

Is going to be right at that particular point in time.

So it's obviously going to depend on, you know who you're delegating to on your own bandwidth.

But you know what?

Like one of the big challenges, so I've specialized in just working with city of scale up CEOs.

So I don't work with any other leaders at this at this point just CEOs.

And one of the big challenges is, you know, almost characterizes the journey from founder to CEO is going from being that sort of Hustler individual contributor to a people manager.

So Right around, you know, when you hit around 100 people, that's really the point where you realize the problems in the company, even if you wanted to tackle them, you couldn't because either you don't know how or you're just, you're a bit too far away from the actual details, the problem you have to rely on your leaders.

And that's a really weird experience for someone who I mean, you know, I can speak personally, I love doing stuff, you know, like II get a lot of satisfy, my start a finisher through and through, So I love that feeling that you get when you when you solve a problem or you complete something.

And so, so the other, you know, part of this of this context, I'm like, when to delegate or not is you also have this bias to probably wanna step in and solve the problem.

So, you know, we need to take this bias, make it visible interrogator and then figure out what the right thing is for you, for the business, and for your team.

So, at some point, it does seem like you do You get forced into operating in this in this other way of not trying to solve everything yourself because like you said, so once you're over 100 employees, like even if you wanted to, you couldn't get there.

So I think like the the interesting question is is it that you get there first and you're forced into operating that way or do you start operating that way?

And that helps you scale.

So that you get there.

So that's I guess like a Nuance there.

One question that I will ask is like and this is something so you know, person comes up to you, you know, on your team, you're in a one-on-one.

And you know, they basically come in with with a problem for you to address.

How do you, how do you approach that?

What is your advice on approaching that oh is this specifically in the context of one-on-ones?

No, it's not necessarily in this context of one-on-ones but it but it's more.

I'm trying to get at the You know, how do you have restraint and not trying to like dive in and solve problems yourself.

Yeah, look.

I can't let me, let me share a couple things that have helped me a lot with that because, of course, you're right.

The Temptation, is someone comes the problem, we got, you know, you're a quick mind.

Pretty sure.

You, you have a, you have a point of view, very, very quickly, right?

And just be so easy to give it away.

So, you know, piece of advice that, you know, fellow coach passed on to me, is just his name.

Michael and he said, just stay curious a little bit longer because when someone comes to you with a problem, particularly problem that is very well.

Firstly, let's distinguish between a couple different types of problems.

There's there's one problem, which is I'm looking for the bathroom.

Can you let me know where it is?

Now the answer to that isn't well what are you trying to achieve?

Like how do you feel about going to the bathroom?

What would you do when you get there right?

Know the answer that question is the bathroom is just over there.

So you know some informational.

Questions should be met very quickly or if this is something they could just Google, you know, you might direct them to Google and say look, you know, Etc.

So but some of that sometimes coaching can be the right approach and so I would just advise you to have the mindset.

I do this all the time with my clients, that the problem that they come and they come to you with isn't the real problem.

So a question, you could ask at that point is you could say what's the real challenge here for you.

And that's a question that will force some level of introspection and, you know, they may be they came about some, you know, they got a problem with problem with the spread to your something like this, or problem with the code and they might come.

And who knows what they're doing?

How they're going to answer that question, right?

But flipping it back to really December great.

What the real problem is because often the problem people come to you with is not the problem.

That is the real problem.

Yeah, sure.

I think that makes a lot of sense and it's almost all.

So, I know you said you came from product management.

It also comes From a, you know, sometimes a customer comes to you with a problem and they suggest a solution but, you know, you should probably figure out what the problem is in a bit more detail and say, curious for a bit longer.

I love that piece of advice of just stay curious for a little bit longer to make it.

Yes.

To get to the root of the issue and sometimes.

Yeah.

What you first here is not actually the problem that you're looking to solve.

Yeah.

Well, you know, if it was it'd be too easy, wouldn't it?

So I mean you know I got an interesting story in that I was working with a company.

This is, we're talking, we're going back quite a long way now because I was actually doing some was helping on in the in a product capacity and we got the whole leadership team to Elite.

See you included and there was a real crisis between sales and between doing product.

What was happening is customers were saying to sales like one of the key issues we have with this dashboard is that we can't move the It's around.

Like we really need the ability to move atoms around so we can customize it and the sales team were like saying look we can't sell this.

We you know, we're going to lose customers because this because this problem.

So I organized a customer interview where the customer agreed to be interviewed in the presence of all of these, all these senior leaders.

And so one of the questions I asked is I said, well, if you had the ability and and sure enough, that same problem came up customer said, we really need to me up to move stuff around.

So I said, oh well, imagine you had that feature right now, Now, what would you do with it and they said, well, what we need at the top is the banner so that we can promote that, you know, the most important thing to the people who are using the system I said, oh great, what else, what else would you do with it?

The like, no, no, but that's why we need it.

We just need this Banner at the top and there's this big moment that happened in the product team where they're like, oh okay, so they say they want to move stuff around but what they really need is a banner at the top and that's much easier to implement than like having these movable segments and stuff.

So it seemed Get it like see they need to move stuff around and so you know there is this moment when you realize a lot of times will come with a particular strategy to help us meet a particular at, you know, particular need but just that little bit of curiosity in those as few extra questions can help you arrive at something that's often far.

Easier to help someone with than what they originally wanted.

Yeah, I think I think that's, that's really good advice.

Always stay curious for just a little bit longer.

Let's talk about goal setting.

So goal-setting, you know, obviously core part of leading teams, one of the questions that that I want to ask you about is, you know, setting ambitious goals.

So you said an ambitious goal and you're now a few months into that and it doesn't look like you're progressing, you know, towards that goal.

It doesn't look like you're going to hit it and you have a You have an opportunity where where the team comes to you and says, you know, like I think we should revise the goal and revise it down.

How do you react to that?

Yeah.

Has it.

Have you been in a situation where that's happened?

Actually, yes.

Quite recently.

Yeah.

What tell me?

Tell us what happened, so without going into too much detail.

Yeah, we basically had this have this ambitious Target on on something, we're working on.

And we are, we are not necessarily tracking, well, according to it.

And I think like, the, you know, the first approach was that.

The first suggestion from the team was let's let's change the let's change the Target and make it something more realistic.

And my view on it was no.

I think like the target is a good Target and I think we can do it.

We just haven't figured out the right approach to get us there.

And so the question is, I think, like what we realized is maybe the approach that we're taking isn't going to get us to that Target, but maybe we need to revise approach or Maybe we need to think about the problem differently.

So that's that's basically how we approached this particular situation.

But it, but I do think it is a, it is a fine balance right when it comes to.

Okay.

Ours in general.

I know that at least have these used to be run at Google.

It's about, you know, set, ambitious goals, and only meet 70% of the target.

So, I'm just curious, like, how you think about, you know, making Ultra achievable goals, or Setting more ambitious targets.

And yeah, how you think about that in general?

Yeah, we'll look first.

I relate to, I mean, I remember my first company.

We had incredibly had an amazing spreadsheet that told you exactly how much revenue we going to be making in year 5.

That was back in the time when you need it.

Like a five-year model and boy, if I have, if we'd hit those targets I would be I wouldn't be here.

Now I'd be on an island so in the Caribbean.

So let's talk to, you know, targets and targets a tricky.

But let me answer this in, you know, maybe take a stab at it, but from a different angle which is I think the root of all performance, Improvement lies in self-awareness and mindset.

Okay?

So if you think about any performance management system, which is what which is kind of maybe going to set some goals review them at the end of the, at the end of the quarter, or the end of the month and, and then set new goals, right?

The the reason Why that system would lead to improve performance?

Oversee, not measuring.

The goals.

Is it provides a moment in time to reflect to Look Backwards?

Say, okay.

This is what we thought would happen, this is what actually happened.

And then to look for words and say well actually next time, here's what we've learned his, what we can do differently again.

What's really going on is that that self-reflection is increasing your your your self-awareness.

And if you if you you know one of my I mentioned this to a client may rightly push back.

The said well it's also mine set to You can have a lot of people who have the awareness, but they just don't want to improve your just don't want to change so, but when you get that magic, that magic power, we have the mindset and the self-awareness, that's when performance can really happen.

So, the target is just a tool for, in my point of view, this is I know getting a bit matter but it's just a tool to drive accountability, by which, I mean, you know, Real review of what how things are going.

What decisions were made, while they were taking the way they were taken, what can we learn from the past?

And to, you know, if we're, if we're, you know, no point in learning this stuff with we don't put into practice, so to figuring out what to do in the next cycle.

So if you don't miss your targets.

And when one cycle what I think needs to happen is a reflection like this, getting on the cycle.

Reflect, and we push the red button and stop a cycle.

Midway, if you really want to, but it gets me in the cycle.

So we didn't meet the target.

Why what, what was what?

What was our role in this was?

It was it, the wrong target?

Was it the right target?

Did, we could be a He behaved differently is this, and then really agree on a new Target, which can still be ambitious, but it needs to be achievable because you know that mindset these if people don't believe they can achieve it then well you know, they're not going to try right.

Let's we need.

We need to have some belief that it's tangible that it's achievable and so that's I don't, it's not, it's a direct answer may be a bit indirect.

I think, you know, the point of the target is to inspire, you know, bold action and provide a Point in time where you can review and then get better.

Yeah, I think the I think when it comes to a lot of these sorts of things the timeline is also important, right?

So is this a, you know, is this a goal that we are maybe three days away from and you know, now we're not there and you know at that point in time or you know we're a month away from its it becomes harder to do things when you're very very close to that.

Timeline.

But if the timeline is a little bit further out, like you said, if you have cycles of reflection and there's multiple Cycles leading up to to that end State, then you actually have the opportunity to reflect and change course.

So that, you know, there is still the opportunity to be able to hit the target.

So I think what you said about reflection is very good and goal should probably be reviewed, right?

And so that you actually have the opportunity to reflect Act course, correct.

And then, like, strategize and then hit the target.

Yeah.

And, you know, I have a, I have a very what I think is a pretty differentiated way of thinking about objectives and key results as well, which, which may be useful.

So, one thing that I learned, you can't avoid it when you're a coach because we quickly learn is that the root of pretty much all meaning comes from helping others, right?

So, you know, ultimately we get A lot of meaning in our work from helping others.

And so one of the one of the, you know, I guess tips if you like a framing objectives is really clarifying who you're serving and what you're helping your how you know, how you're helping this person.

And in a start-up there's really only two people that you're serving your either start serving customers directly or you're serving teammates, who are serving customers, right?

Maybe there's a third one, which is salts, you know, she may be serving the community or serving other stakeholders But really comes down to, you know, you serving customers here or you serving teammates and that level of clarity over objectives can be very, very helpful, right?

So maybe let's call that part 1.

Part 2 is what happens is, remember I told you you know we're all kind of from a very early on were designed to think in terms of outcomes and tasks and and initiatives.

So what happens typically with okay ours, you know, probably implemented or coached seos Implement occurs We 40 different companies and it takes multiple iterations, but one of the learnings really seems to be.

It's so tempting to try and jam initiatives into yokas framework because that's just how our mind works, rice example.

Like I might use is like we need to get their website done.

Right.

So is that an objective?

Is that a key result?

I'd argue.

That's an initiative, right?

Maybe the objective.

The objective is to help prospects to understand the product and sign up.

Maybe it's something else but I think it's a great conversation.

What is the Objective here and the key result, maybe, maybe a conversion rate, or some kind of quantitative or qualitative, maybe ask your ask 10 customers what they think of the website afterwards and you want to get a good score, maybe do an MPS or operate the product Market fit properly Market survey as examples of qualitative metrics, but having Clarity over the, how you will measure success, that's the key results and who you're serving?

That's the objective.

That can tear up a conversation around initiatives.

What initiatives do we think are going to help Prospects, you know, understand the product and sign up and it also really helps when you're making decisions to be on that website, it's going to get very detailed understanding why you were doing that website.

That's the power of what ochio's can offer.

You don't get that if the website becomes your your your Okie are.

Now the reason I bring that up is because you said you know, it depends on the time line these objectives are sure to be around helping people.

They typically live in a space where Where there is kind of no absolute done, there's only degrees of done and then what you're really looking at is what initiatives are possible and desirable, and valuable in the time period and then you're managing in a different way, right?

You're managing initiatives and ideally, they're managing their own initiatives with the flexibility of swapping them out if they aren't meeting the objective, right?

So, I anyway, I would just kind of just volunteer that as an as a way to think about.

Okay, ours that helps you preserve.

Those autonomy to swap out their plans and tasks when they realize they're not working out.

Yeah, so this is very interesting like because you know no company today doesn't have a website website should be refreshed every so often and you know how do you know that you've done a successful refresh you know?

And like you said there's no done there's just different stages of done so this is a very important point and and yeah.

How do you basically like turn initiatives into a Objectives.

So I think like the the concept of like tying it to a specific end result to a specific number conversion rate, you know, communication bounce rate, you know, something numeric or something.

That is actually measurable in some way even if it's a qualitative way but as long as it's measurable, it'll it'll form a lot more clarity around what you're actually doing.

So that when you have achieved it you know, that you are done for the purpose of You know, the work that you're doing and like you said, that gives you the ability to swap out different initiatives so that just in case one isn't working, you can bring in another one that maybe gets you to the same place.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean I'll tell you a secret, right?

Like how the secret is when I'm working with clients.

We you know, when you look at someone's okrs you can very quickly, see the tasks right that either the reader posing as an objective or the posing as a key result.

And, and the way that one way, at the way I do it, is I work backwards because the, I mean, if the brain is going to, you know, force is going to think, in terms of initiatives, let it, and then work backwards.

Who am I really trying to serve?

This initiative and how would I know if the initiative is successful or not other than it just being done, right?

Because I know we all love Don, we want to get to done and working backwards.

There is something quite magical particular, so if you do this in your planning period, you know, you're planning cycle.

Maybe do some sort of strategy review and Yuri plan for the next cycle.

When you do this, what you find is by clarifying who you're serving and what you're trying to help them to do.

You often find new initiatives that are The same thing that take half the time they let you know.

I kind of think of this as like a metrics driven approach to planning because once you identify the, how you're going to measure success, all of a sudden, this bout of creativity, comes and can be very, can be very cool like to see to see that creativity emerge.

And to realize, wow, we didn't need to do that website.

After all, we just needed to do this other thing, which is much quicker, but it's going to have the same result or maybe all we needed is we needed to put a banner at the top.

The top.

I'll just put a banner at the top he liked by here.

Exactly.

I mean I like that because it does look back to what we were talking about earlier, right?

Just this concept of, you know, stay curious for a little bit longer even on the initiatives, we need to do this.

Okay, why do we need to do this?

What is the objective?

Are there other ways to do it?

So I think that that makes a lot of sense.

K there.

Just a quick note before we move on to the next part.

If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already doing one-on-one.

Meetings.

But here's the thing, we all know that one-on-one meetings are the most powerful, but at the same time the most misunderstood concept and practice and management.

That's why we've spent over a year compiling the best information.

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Building it and the great news is that it's completely free.

So head on over to fellow dot app, slash blog, to download the definitive guide on one-on-ones, it's there for you.

We hope you enjoy it and let us know what you think.

And with that said, let's go back to the interview.

Dave, one thing that we should definitely talk about is is meetings since since the pandemic people have been meeting more, not less and the world has really changed.

I think it's a topic that, you know, we think a lot about you've written about, you have this methodology that you call designing the alliance, it has a really cool title.

What does that mean?

It sounds.

It sounds a lot more fun.

And then just having a meeting designing an alliance.

So what is that?

Yeah, okay so this is, you know, when you become a coach and you take a coach training, this is one of the, this is one of the techniques that I teach you early on which is that when you're in a coaching relationship, taking a few minutes at the beginning of any session just to make sure that, you know, people are going to get what they need out of the out of the, the session is really worth.

It's really worth taking the time so you can apply this.

The same approach in any meeting, really where you're asking.

Essentially three questions, one is, what do we need to commit to, to get the most out of this meeting?

Open question.

There's group around the table, you know, that we need to stay present.

Okay, great.

We need to put our mobile phones away.

We need to listen, whatever it might be.

Next question is, are we going to give each other permit permission to hold those commitments?

Now, when you ask for permission 9 times out of 10, you get yes.

Yes, of course.

How would and then third question is, how would you like to us to do that?

And people are like, oh, just just call me out, just put your hand up.

Maybe you could inject some humor in and, you know, find a find a different way to, to set that up.

But those three questions, what are we going to commit to do information to hold those commitments?

And how would we like to, you know, uphold those commitments, they can, they can provide What are you with the tools needed to uphold this commitments, right?

So if you see someone in the meeting and there may be taking the steering away from the agenda by, and maybe want to commit to it, to stain to the agenda and parking things in the parking lot for later.

Then it gives everyone not just the the permission to uphold them but also how right?

Oh, we're going to do that by raising her hand.

Or we're going to do that by calling it out or remaining people.

So that that's really what designing the lines can do and particularly useful in meetings that, you know, Where you you can predict it will be difficult to manage later on and you can use that tactically in order to you know, to set up the right rules of the game, the ground rules.

Yeah, so I guess a lot about a lot of it is the ground rules but I guess the other thing that you're doing maybe subtly is your also defining a purpose for everybody getting together.

And so if you start it by reiterating, what the purpose is, I mean that just the just the Like the workflow of defining a purpose, stating the purpose, probably just builds a lot more Alliance, everybody's on the same page and a world where you're going from, you know, meeting to meeting to meeting.

Sometimes being reminded of the, the purpose of, you know, I'm eating that you're having is probably not a bad thing.

Yeah, well I'll let me speak to coaching sessions which probably most analogous to one-on-ones and a company, then because you designed, An alliance which is very quick setups.

Making sure ground rules are in place.

Then you go into kind of setting up the agenda.

So in a one-on-one people run in many different ways.

Sometimes people send topics before the one-on-one, some people arrive and just get into it.

But what will happen is you might ask her.

And so let's actually expand it.

Maybe this is a group session, right?

You could ask the question, what would each of you like to get out of this meeting?

So that's a little bit like going back to purpose and of course people are going to bring different objectives different that everyone has their own.

Because right for the meeting.

So clarifying that the beginning beginning can be helpful, but one of the interesting features of particular one-on-ones coaching is that people will say, well, at the end of this session, I want to, this is what I want to get out of it and you might take them at face value like oh, okay, cool.

Well, let's move towards that but often just providing a again.

It's that staying curious a little bit longer but just providing a little bit more space.

How do we create space?

You ask a few more questions can often.

Allow help us refine the agenda and often what people think they want coming into the meeting isn't actually what they really want.

And so, so agendas, you know, I'm sort of learn to be a little bit fluid with agendas.

Of course, it's nice to, you know, have a firm starting point but actually sometimes what people take from the meeting isn't even what they came to the meeting for.

And so, is it being a bit open to that and allowing people to get what they need from the from the meeting, which may they may or may not know, Again, I'm talking in the coaching space, right?

Not necessarily if this was a Salesman, lots of nature that reviewers something like this.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So some meetings I mean, that's it.

I mean, the other the other essay that I wrote on meetings is called the five meetings of a CEO which actually I wrote that maybe a couple years ago.

I now I think I want to say this six meetings now.

Oh what's the sixth meeting?

Well okay so the five meetings are you got the status update?

Okay, you say this update is for accountability.

T right?

You got them one-on-one 101 is you know for coaching and empowerment.

You've got the getting I'm gonna get them completely out of order.

So you've got the Retro right?

That's for allowing people to kind of give their feedback and be heard, you got Friday wins.

It's for, that's to block in time to celebrate because, as we know, right?

Like the job is never done.

If you don't block in time to celebrate, you probably won't.

Then what am I missing?

Now got the, let's say 10 once.

Yes.

One-on-ones retro Friday wins that is update.

Status update, this one more that I'm missing cranky.

What does that then?

Well anyway I'll tell you the sixth one at the sixth one is.

And by the way, like I'm either obviously putting you on this fight and getting you to recite something like this, which is always like a challenge when you're on this fight.

But what's the sixth one?

Because this is the new one.

Now, I've removed the other one, the other ones, your hands right?

Right, your hands.

Okay.

So that's different than In the the Friday wins.

Yeah, I would I think you can separate them out like, it's Ben's what you want from your hands, but all hands from me, is, is a point in time where the CEO can communicate to the entire company.

And Leadership can communicate to the entire company, maybe even, you know, the different ways to run what or hand.

Some people have more of a town hall approach whereas Friday winds and again you can combine these meetings that there's more about the concepts by doings is really about ending the week on a high looking at what we've achieved.

Um, and having a mandate to, look at the positives, look at what we've done celebrate the wins and to end on a high.

Now, the sixth meeting.

So, I, you know, one of the things that comes up a lot in when I'm working with CEOs, is the leadership team meeting, it's a difficult meeting for a number of different reasons and there's lots of things written about it already.

One of things I realized is happening in a leadership team meeting is that the agenda is typically pretty packed and it's pretty diverse.

So, on the one hand, you have, Like a status element of this agenda like, like what's going on?

Like, tell us what's happening.

But on the other, you have this sort of tipping a space, Maybe in the any other business or in topics to discuss.

We're in particular, you want to create a space for discussion without necessarily getting to a resolution.

And I say that because, of course, we want to get to resolution.

But is it, is it realistic to get to resolution on each one of the topics on every single meeting?

Probably not?

And what happens is you leave the meeting.

Looking a little bit like half done or you know, this kind of open space, right?

Anyway, I was researching offset off sites as a matter of fact and and in the research, I realized that there are two processes that happen in a creative problem solving process.

One is a Divergent process.

This is where ideas are formed, polit, possibilities, or explored, a very open-ended and then the other is a convergent process.

This is where you make analyses.

You make decisions and you know, you plan the path forward.

And the big Insight is that these two processes do not work well in the same part of the meeting, right?

So if you've got someone who's trying to be like thinking of new ideas, new possibilities may be discussing controversial topics and you got someone else who's like analyzing them straight away.

Now we tried that didn't work well that just shuts it down and similarly if you're if you're trying to get convergence over something trying to you know, finalize the plan.

Someone's coming up with new ideas.

Maybe you're in a stand-up meeting, right?

It's very convergent meeting someone like oh Aidan have you done this, this thing the other have you thought about that and everyone's listening and like ah let's look at the let's get the stand of done first and then we can open this up, right?

So, so I now think it's worth separating out.

The kind of convergence side of leadership it stayed at the updates and so forth into one meeting and have a separate meeting, which I'm calling Forum leadership Forum.

Just to talk about topics where there's no need necessarily to.

Come out with a very specific outcome, so that's the sixth meeting.

Yeah.

You know II hundred percent agree.

It's so interesting.

So my my co-founders and I have we meet twice twice a week you know once on a ones and then once on a day in the weekend it switches from Saturday to Sunday depending on, you know, life and other things.

But we have specifically we found that we can't we call like Wednesday Whirlwind, Wednesday because it's just the all the things that we just need to discuss that are More operational.

What's going on?

It's much more.

Like the, you know, immediate problem solving to mode and then the weekend session is much more about.

Let's like, take a topic and actually spend the time and like really think about it and problem solve, and it's more like a mini off-site.

And so, what we found, is that, before we used to do these things, you know, whenever they came up, but then, there is this class, right?

Which is like all like, are we brainstorm?

Being too much.

This is taking too long.

We've got this other stuff to get to like you said the list is too long and so by separating it it does give us the freedom on on on the day where we're like you know very purposely doing Blue Sky type stuff.

It does it does help them run a lot better and I wish we had started that a long time ago.

This is a more recent discovery.

Oh and it's very subtle I mean it took me a long time my finger on what Hang on.

Because, you know, it's funny, if you ask, if you ask, you know, any number of CEOs, how what they think about the leadership team meeting and you ask it in private, okay?

You ask it in private, most of the time, they're going to say a 3 to a 5 out of 10.

Like, there's this level of dissatisfaction that happens with the leadership.

You know, the first, you know, where your mind goes is all.

Well, maybe there's like, clashes in the leadership, maybe it's a people thing, but I actually started raising to realize it's partly an agenda thing to.

And so you know just following on From that kind of convergence and Divergence because they don't work well together.

It's really good to deliberately and distinctly separate them.

So, do the Kant, you know, the Divergent thing, let and then take a break, a long break, maybe you want to sleep on it, maybe want to take a week to think about it and then come back once the dust is Bruno metaphorically settled and then look to converge, you know, analyze plan, decide whatever it might be, but to submit spitting them out.

Has a lot of a lot of If it's yeah so glad.

So glad to hear you doing it.

Yeah.

No this is a super helpful that the six types of meetings really like this.

Dave, this has been super insightful.

I know where we're getting close to time.

We've talked about, you know, so many different things we talked about.

Okay, are is staying curious for a longer.

You know, we talked about all the different types of meetings.

So one question that we like to always end with is for all the managers and leaders looking To constantly get better at their craft of leading teams.

What tips, tricks, resources, or parting words of wisdom?

Would you leave them with?

Obviously, we're going to link to all of your articles and, and the many many, many things that you have written.

So that aside, what else?

What else would you leave them?

Yeah.

Okay well look so I was a was a venture back founder for about 10 years before you know, getting into investing in into Ching.

And when I learnt coaching, I was like, I wish I'd learned this sooner because as the DP going to every field, whether you work in sales with you working marketing products, like it doesn't matter the deeper you go into every field.

You realize the power of questions and I think there's something that like everything seems to converge at some level to the same basic insight.

And for me coaching was a very quick way to get it because coaching is by its nature, a little A bit agnostic and it kind of helps you jump straight to that.

Sort of know why is question asked Cora, right?

And if you want to sell, if you want to sell, you got to know the right questions to ask.

You want to build great products, you don't know the right questions to ask if you want to make a meaningful message land with the prospects.

You got to know the right questions to our.

So I would say my parting words of advice would be to just learn a few basic coaching techniques.

There's some great books out there, I'm a big fan of Michael honey, a Stanley who wrote the coaching habit and he's got a new book called.

Taming the coaching monster, I believe what other good books are that are out there and then there's a bunch of courses to, you know, I'm in the process of building a business that's designed specifically to help Founders and their teams learn and apply coaching skills and their businesses.

But I really do believe that.

I know it's kind of a skill that as a leader as a manager.

I wish wish I'd learned a little bit sooner.

So if you're curious about that and I've also written a bunch of out different coaching models that you can apply as a manager.

Just give it, give it a go, right?

It's it's definitely experiential.

You learn by practicing it.

But what I have noticed is, you know, I did, I did Chris foss's Mastermind on negotiation of you.

Oh yeah.

I guess the, the master class, right?

The master class from last semester called.

Yeah, he's talking about, it's amazing right?

Applied.

In sort of the of question, the question asking, you know, when to use why?

We're not usually.

So he, but you, but honestly from the lens of a coach, I'm like, oh my God, this is, this is what coaches do like, oh, you know, and similarly, like when you take Advance sales training, right?

You realize it's not just about, you know, framing the benefits and so forth.

It's about building relationships about building trust, that's what coaches do, right?

And then I you know talked about products like what would you do if If you got there, right, what would you just classic coaching question, right there?

One that identified the banner as the answer.

So there's a lot of insight that coaching brings to each of the disciplines and it's not that it's not that complicated.

So, if your, if your crew you're curious, go and find some resources and try and just try it, see what you get and a great place and it Dave, thanks so much for doing this.

All right, and thanks for having me.

And that's it for today.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the super managers podcast.

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