“I can’t hire, because no one else thinks the way I do”
In my last post, I shared that the hardest part of shutting down Podcast Ally was letting go of the team. Reading it, you might have wondered how I built such an incredible team in the first place.
It didn't happen by accident!
Today I wanted to talk about one of the most important steps to take if you’d also like to create a high-functioning, drama-free team, so you can get out of the technician role in your company.
If you think this is a post about setting up systems, writing a job description or even learning how to delegate tasks, think again.
The idea that step-by-step instructions is all it takes to create good outcomes is how we end up with disasters on our hands.
This kind of backwards approach to team building, where tactics come before the foundation, is why all your team brings to you are problems to be cleaned up, and you lose more time than you get back.
It’s why you might feel like all you do is babysit your team and give up on hiring entirely.
You’re not wrong in thinking that no one else will come to your company with the same life experience and work history that you have. It’s impossible to download all of your experience into another person’s brain.
That’s why you create a framework for decision-making that teaches your team how you want them to engage in their work.
Even if you never fully want to offload the daily work of your business, you can use this process to free up your time for more of the stuff you’d love to be doing, if only some of the client delivery, marketing tasks or product creation could be shifted off your plate.
Here’s how you do it.
Let go of the idea that your team will come on board knowing the right thing to do – and that there’s an objective “right way to act” to begin with.
When you start to manage other people, you quickly experience the problem with over-prioritizing systems and processes. Your biggest headaches will come when the team assumes they know what’s expected of them in seemingly straightforward situations – and then proceed to do the exact opposite of what you’d like them to do!
This is inevitable, because you can’t anticipate every little scenario, nor should you!
If this isn’t immediately ringing an alarm bell in your head, I’ll give you an example.
On my team, we occasionally bumped into culture clashes when I hired folks with backgrounds at other PR agencies.
Podcast Ally was explicitly positioned as the antithesis to other agencies. Where most PR and podcast outreach shops would reach out to as many podcasts as possible to increase interview numbers, we promised to protect our clients’ time and maximize their results by only reaching out to perfect-fit podcasts.
This might seem like common sense, but it’s not the norm in the industry (and that’s okay!). Usually, your podcast outreach specialist will play the numbers game, pitching you to as many shows as possible.
So, when I hired folks from other agencies, I often ran into an issue where they’d want to pitch any podcast that could book a client, whether it was a great fit or not. This resulted in unhappy clients who felt their time was being wasted and uncomfortable phone calls smoothing things over.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, this was upsetting. Any time your team takes an action that goes against your explicit value proposition, you’re going to worry!
But here’s the thing – my team members were taking the steps required of them and they weren’t trying to make things more difficult for me. It just-so-happened that the culture of other workplaces was in direct conflict with mine, and it never would have occurred to them to check in around that.
In this example, it was easy to anticipate potential issues, because I was intentionally going against the current in my industry, but I have a million more examples around conflicts I never would have predicted. How many times have you found yourself facing similar challenges?
That’s why your first step is simply to let go of the self-defeating belief that everyone you hire will just know the right thing to do, and that you can perfectly anticipate every scenario.
Get clear on how you want your team to act, and write it down.
Systems and procedures are incredibly useful, especially when it comes to tasks people don’t do every day and need help remembering the steps. However, task lists and instructions can’t teach your team how to act in those one-off situations you can’t possibly anticipate or coach them on ahead of time.
The crux of this framework is making sure everyone understands and is held accountable for the values driving decision-making in your organization.
If you’ve never interrogated yourself on WHY you do things a certain way, this is going to be a challenging step, but it’s the only way you’re going to get what you really want – a team that largely approaches situations the way you want them to, especially when you’re not there to guide them.
I find it less daunting to start this exercise by making a list of the different groups your team will interact with.
Put yourself on it, other team members, clients and customers, vendors – anyone they will regularly come into contact with.
Then, for each of these groups, think about how you want your company to show up. You could reflect on:
What do your happiest customers or clients say about the experience of working with you?
What is your reputation in the industry?
What are some industry standards that annoy you, and that you’re intentionally not embracing in your own work?
If a client gave an exit interview after interacting with a member of your company, what would you want them to say?
If you were to write a referral letter for your team member, what would you love to be able to say?
The answers to these questions will start to uncover the deeper reasons underlying your work processes. They’ll help you understand better why you do things the way you do.
Use your reflections to draw up 5-7 expectations for the team that makes it clear how you want them to engage internally and with your clients or customers.
You can see our internal values document here, as an example.
Use the behavior guide as a coaching tool.
When you start coaching your team around your expectations and company values, it’s important not to use it as a bludgeon with folks they make mistakes, but rather as a proactive teaching tool. The first thing you’ll want to do is simply to share it with the team, so they know that you’ll be working with them on using it as a framework for decision making.
As folks come to you with questions, make a habit of pulling up the behavior guide. The trick to making this process work is not letting yourself just give the answer to questions
Instead, take the opportunity to help them understand how you want them to think about the question.
For instance, when a member of our podcast outreach team came to me with a question about a client request, I’d pause for each of us to pull our internal values document up, and then I’d start a coaching conversation around which of our values applied to their question.
As we talked, I’d invite the team member to let me know what they think the best course of action would be. If needed, I’d clarify once I had their answer.
Now, don’t get me wrong – this takes time and patience! Instead of just telling your team what to do, you’re devoting more time up front to helping them come to the answer you’d like to see.
But after a few months of doing this, you’ll find that the questions get sharper.
Instead of hearing things like, “The client emailed me xx, what do I do?”, you get, “The client asked me to do xx, but I know it’s going to hurt them in the long run. Can you give my reply a quick review?”
And if you happen to want to build a larger team, you might also learn that folks are going to each other with these questions!
Everyone needs a sounding board, but if you give your team the right tools and training, it doesn’t always have to be you.
Reinforce the behaviors you want to see with proactive praise.
A real problem with managers is that we often only give specific feedback when things go wrong, yet miss the opportunity to positively reinforce the behaviours we want to see!
For example, if you’re frustrated, you might say, “I saw the client missed their interview, because you didn’t get the Zoom link this morning. When we say, ‘Our clients feel cared for, because ‘Podcast Ally is on it,’ it means taking care of these small details. What needs to change so that happens next time? “
But when you’re happy, you email, “Great job!” and leave it at that.
This is such a missed opportunity. Instead, clarify what exactly was so great.
Try something like, “Thank you so much for taking an extra hour to help the client with their interview today. When we talk about making a client feel cared for, the way you identified they were nervous and took extra steps to prepare them, is exactly what we mean!”
If you hold regular staff meetings, you can further drive the lesson home by sharing the act of service as a case study. In this way, your team member gets recognition for their work, and the entire team has yet another example of how you want them to engage with clients. Everyone benefits.
As you start this process, please remember that people want to do a good job. They’re not trying to get on your nerves or create more work for you. They just don’t always know what “a good job” means in your specific workplace.
It’s up to you to show them.