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Hosts Spencer Horn and Christian Napier discuss a better way to build and strengthen teams in any organization.
Christian Napier
(00:12) Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier, and I am joined by my co-host, who I missed so much last week, Spencer. Spencer, how you doing? I'm great, and I missed the birthday.
(00:29) You did, but we're going to do it again. We're going to celebrate a second time just so we make sure that we can celebrate with you.
Spencer Horn
(00:36) Did you get a candle on the flan?
Christian Napier
(00:39) No candle on the flan. And no extra whipped cream on the flan in your honor either.
Spencer Horn
(00:46) I've been a bad influence on you all.
Christian Napier
(00:49) No, it's just the fact that you are so busy. You're doing so much work. It's just really hard for everybody to get their schedule together. Hopefully we can get it working again soon.
(01:02) But I'm sure you were out doing great work while you were away. And I'm super excited to join you again and have a conversation with an amazing guest. So Spencer, I had introduced her.
Spencer Horn
(01:20) Today, I'm going to throw her up here on the screen. We have Shelly Warren coming all the way from Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. Beautiful place. We've got family there.
(01:30) What a beautiful part of the world. And Shelly is a team and leadership advisor, speaker, and host of the Stacking Your Team podcast, which has surpassed a half a million downloads. And she provides high-touch coaching and helps established women Women business owners build strong leadership teams that run daily operations, drive performance, and give owners more space to focus on growth. Her clients come to her when they have achieved success, but the people side of the business has become heavier and riskier and more consequential, and they need some kind of structure that matches really the level of business that they have built.
(02:17) So Shelly provides that and she does that by drawing on more than two decades of experience growing in teams Growing and leading teams inside even fortune 50 company along with years of coaching hundreds of business owners on hiring on leadership development and accountability and We're gonna learn all about that today. Welcome Shelly. We're so glad to have you and
Shelli Warren
(02:44) Thank you for inviting me. Who doesn't want to come and talk about this stuff, especially with other gentlemen like you that love it too?
Spencer Horn
(02:50) Yeah, no, I agree. And you know, the theme or our title is really when the business owner becomes the bottleneck. And my question is, why do some business owners become bottlenecks when they're already working so hard and when I'm sure that that's not their intention?
Shelli Warren
(03:11) Well, I've seen two things happen. So first of all, many of them, it's just really hard to let go of control. It's just really hard for people to let go of control of something that they built into a wonderful thing from nothing. They had nothing, and then they built this beautiful business that's really grown and taken off, and they're really having a lot of impact.
(03:34) So it's hard to let go of the control of that. The other thing that I see that's happening that's keeping them stuck in the middle is they don't realize that if they had a small but mighty leadership team, it would free them up and give them so much more space to just be who she is becoming and to think about what the next direction will be either for her personally or for her family or for her business itself. So it's really two things, hard to let go of the control and not realizing that a small but mighty leadership team is really gonna be the game changer for her.
Spencer Horn
(04:11) Well, you've spent two decades leading teams, and I really should have started with that, Christian. I mean, what got you into this? What was the inspiration where you said, I need to help these women leaders, and any really leader of small businesses? What got you, what motivated you to do that from your experience?
Shelli Warren
(04:35) I really enjoyed my role within the corporation that I worked at. And when I had an opportunity to retire I retired early when I was 52. I decided what the next thing I wanted to do was really to help those women that were in small businesses, establish small businesses, really help them learn some of the things that I learned through my corporate life. So it's I really looked at what were some of the things that I saw that could parlay nicely over into the small business world.
(05:12) And the first thing that I thought about was really how she is just doing way too much and she's stuck way too deep. So how do I help her come out of that? And it really is about having that small but mighty leadership team is really the answer.
Christian Napier
(05:31) All right. So this brings me to an interesting question. You know, a lot of times people who start small businesses, you know, they come from all different perspectives and backgrounds, but sometimes, you know, There are people who work in the corporate environment who want to escape that and they want to do their own thing, right? So it sounds a little bit antithetical on the surface to say, hey, I've left the corporate thing to go do my own thing so that I can do what I want to do and I want to be in control and have the life that I want.
(06:10) And yet what you're suggesting is there actually are some practices in that corporate environment that could be helpful. So how do you address that apparent irony? Like, oh, I'm leaving the corporate life to go have my own adventure and do my thing, but I actually need to bring some of those lessons from that corporate world. I need to bring those to bear in my own business so that I don't completely burn out and lose it.
Shelli Warren
(06:44) Yeah, it's always a fun conversation because We start with things like, what did you hate about corporate? What did you like about corporate? And for some of these business owners, they never really did work in corporate at all. They went to school to be a lawyer, they're dentists, they're chiropractors, they're therapy, they own private practices.
(07:07) So they didn't work in the corporate world, or maybe they had a short stint in it, like maybe through college or something like that. But what we really walk through are, what are the things that are still working today in corporate and let's strip those down into a version that is manageable for the type of business that you have, the size of business that you have, what your plans are, and then let's look at the team that you have right now and let's really leverage the people that you have on your team to really help you be able to take your business to the next level. So I agree with you 100%.
(07:43) A lot of people that left corporate, the last thing they wanted to do is launch a business that looks and feels like corporate. But I'm there to explain to them that, no, no, we're not going to whitewash your small business into what is the grind of corporate. No, we're going to look at some of the practices that have served corporations really well, and let's mold them into something that works really good for you.
Spencer Horn
(08:11) It's interesting that you say that a lot of these business owners come from the professional fields. And I imagine that part of the dynamic that you're dealing with is that they've been used to depending on themselves a lot. Their case, their patient, and now they're leading a team and so they're becoming a bottleneck maybe without even knowing it. And so my question is, what are the early warning signs that they're becoming the bottleneck?
(08:50) I mean, what do you have these business owners look for as their team is starting to grow? What are the signs? What are maybe the cracks, if you will, in the facade that show up?
Shelli Warren
(09:04) Well, the first thing we do is we look at our calendar. And calendars don't lie. They just don't. It's very obvious how many meetings she's attending the lack of white space I call it you know where you've got time to think and plan and.
(09:22) you know, tend to your family. So when I look at the calendar, it's very telling for me to see that she's in way too many meetings. She's having way too many strategy sessions with people. She's following up with this one.
(09:39) She's the one that is providing services as well. Right. So that's the other thing we want to move her away from is being the biggest revenue generator. That is another significant sign that she needs some help with putting people in leadership roles is because too much of the revenue and the profit is is 100 percent leaning on her.
(10:03) And that, you know, it's really hard to scale your business when you're the biggest revenue generator. So the first thing we do is we look at our calendar. There's so much evidence in the calendar as to the next direction we need to go in. you
Christian Napier
(10:30) So Shelly, I want to come back to something that you said actually a couple of times here. As a small business owner, I mean, the word there is small. So I've got a handful of employees. But what I might need to do is I might need to take some of those employees and elevate them and give them more responsibility and autonomy and put them in more leadership roles.
(10:54) And we're all familiar of the trope of you know, elevating the person who is very technically proficient and the expert in their particular role, and then they completely flounder as the manager or the leader, you know. So I'm curious, in your experience, when you're working with these small business owners, You know, what's a what's a red flag, you know, that that a small business owner can look at to say, OK, this person is fantastic in the role that he or she is playing at the moment would not be a good fit for more level of responsibility, you know, because that can be a very costly mistake. You know, if you end up promoting the wrong person and giving them more responsibility and they fail, They could have all kinds of downstream consequences on the business.
(11:48) And so, you know, what is one of those like early warning signs, canary in the coal mine, whatever you want to call it, where it's like, OK, that person's great what they're doing. We're not going to we're not going to bump them up because it'll be a disaster.
Shelli Warren
(12:04) Yeah. So my clients typically have teams of five to 50, sometimes a little bit more than 50. But there's similar issue rears its ugly head. It doesn't matter how big the team is or how long she's really been in been in business.
(12:20) But what I find small business owners fall into the trap of they want to promote the person that's been with them the longest. And I understand the level of loyalty and the you know, the the benefits of being in proximity for that length of time with the business owner. There's some nice Benefits that come with that. But we often look at her team and how it's currently structured.
(12:52) And I always ask, who's been with you the longest? Who was your next star? Who was the next star? Who was the next star?
(12:56) I want to see the journey of how she built her team so that I know who those players are. But then I look to see who is still most dependent on you. The people that are the most dependent on you are not ready for a leadership role. They're just not.
(13:14) We need to move people into leadership roles that have developed a level of competency within their role and have already demonstrated to you that they can stand on their own. that they can uphold your standards of compliance and quality and just even brand recognition. They know how to problem solve themselves. They know how to connect the dots.
(13:36) And they can say within themselves, what truly can I do right now to solve this particular issue without having to run to the business owner? When you have people on the team that have built a level of competency and they are not tethered to you incredibly tight, like you're not having to hold their hand so much, Those are the people that are ready for a leadership role.
Spencer Horn
(13:59) Yeah, I think that that's great. You know, you talked about the the founder who's doing a lot of the business development, and I imagine that's partly coming also from the comfort zone, right? They're in control of the business. You talk a lot about the habits that build the business are not the ones that can actually get in the way of scaling.
(14:21) I mean, can you share more of what those habits are outside of, I imagine, what you just mentioned, you know, doing? I'm in the habit of doing the business development. What else are they doing? if you will, in the building phase that now they need to get rid of in the growth phase?
Shelli Warren
(14:39) Well, the first thing I love to do is pull her out of meetings. Like, why are you leading all these meetings? Do you really need to be in all these meetings? So I usually start with having them go to the beginning of the meeting.
(14:53) to be able to be there for the first few items on the agenda and then get out and let someone else lead the rest of the meeting and wrap it up, including the action plans and setting the agenda for the next one. So looking at simple things like, is she the one that's in all these meetings? Is she the one that is doing all the social media? Like, is it her face that's out there in all your social media campaigns?
(15:17) Is she the one that's doing all of the new client intake? So is she the one that is not only getting the new clients, but is she also the first person that is meeting with them to kind of bring them in through your workflow and the work processes that you have to onboard a new client or a new customer? So those three things. Is it her face that's all over social media?
(15:42) Let's get that out. Let's show her the team that she has. Let's really expand the brand in terms of visuals. Let's get her out of all these meetings and help other people learn how to run a meeting, how to do that really well.
(15:54) And then let's have a look at your client intake and onboarding process. Let's get you out of those three things. Those are the first three things I like to give her some freedom back in.
Spencer Horn
(16:03) Well, also, sorry, Christian, but it also sounds like those are tied somewhat to decision authority, right? And so maybe, you know, how do you deal with the fact that there's not been a clear decision tree or process when it comes to, and those of you in Canada listen to us, sorry, process. If you are, you know, how do you decide who does what, right? And who says, okay, we're not putting you on the social media.
(16:35) I mean, who ultimately decides that? How do you? really define the decision-making process? Because I imagine that has to be part of the discussion you just had.
Shelli Warren
(16:47) Sure. So what we do is we look at your skill blocks. On all your team, you look at them almost like a roster that you would do for a sports team. You've got all these players.
(16:58) And who has the technical skills? Who has the emotional ability to connect with your clients and customers, who's a fast talker and a fast thinker, you know, they can really put out a fire really quickly and effectively. So you want to look at the team that you developed so far, how many of them are really thriving and meeting those expectations, including exceeding those expectations. Those are the people that you really want to lean on more to help develop them even further so that they're the ones that are making the decisions.
(17:31) So collectively, you would look at your strongest players on the team who you want to move into a leadership position on the team, gather those individuals together, and then roll out your idea of, hey, here's the new direction that I want to go in here at the business. I really want to start opening up avenues where people can build careers here versus simply a job. And part of building a career here is stepping into being a decision maker. And the other thing that I really try and remind my clients of over and over and over again is that the team that got you here may not be the team that's going to get you there.
(18:10) And that's a hard pill for her to swallow because she typically is so emotionally connected to the first few people that she's hired. So she's reluctant to look at them from a 10,000 foot perspective to really see, you know, are these people really in a position and are they sending me signals that they want to step further into a career or are they here simply to maintain the status quo? Those are other things that she needs to know about as she considers who are going to be her decision makers.
Christian Napier
(18:47) So let's. I got horned. I want to continue on that thought because you mentioned just a few minutes ago that often the owner of the company will promote the person who's been there the longest, who's the most loyal. And as you mentioned, maybe the owner is now faced with a difficult decision.
(19:21) That person has been put in this position of increased authority. It is not working out. what is the Shelley Warren playbook for actually having that very difficult, possibly heartbreaking conversation with this individual? Because as you mentioned, the owner may often feel quite emotionally attached to this individual, you know, and if it's not working out, they're going to have to make a change.
(19:48) So what advice do you give leaders, small business owners, for actually making that hard decision and having that very difficult conversation?
Shelli Warren
(20:01) Well, part of getting her ready for that decision is to practice with her. I literally practice with her on how she's going to approach this subject. But what we want to do is come to this conversation based with facts. So we want some evidence that clearly shows that this person has been uncomfortable in this role where she had a little bit or he had a little bit more responsibility and where he failed to follow through on the authority that was given to him.
(20:30) Or, you know, he may have made a decision, but in the end it was the wrong decision. Or he took the decision only so far and then he needed you to come in and kind of give him permission to take it a little bit further. So you want to have examples of real evidence where this person It was obvious that they were uncomfortable, lacked confidence, and were overwhelmed. And so that's where you want to help the person understand that in reality, I need a person in this role that is confident and ready to go.
(21:09) and fully aware of what this new role will entail versus taking on a leadership role reluctantly, oftentimes reluctantly, in terms of the work. Like most people want the title and they want the pay raise, but when it comes to the work and the level of responsibility, there are a lot of, I call them reluctant leaders. So they're really apprehensively moving within this role. They can often worry a lot about whether people like them anymore.
(21:37) They worry about their co-worker relations. And those are also stories of evidence that you would walk this team member through to be able to truly show them that this is not a great fit for them. The other answer to that is to have a plan as to what you are going to do with them. Are you going to keep them but move them into a different role where they have less responsibility?
(22:00) Or are you going to terminate them? So it's really about having a full game plan as to what we want to do with this person. Oftentimes, I've worked with one of my clients to give this person like a 90 day opportunity to step it up. And we'll add in specific metrics and scenarios and outcomes that are going to be that become the evidence as to whether or not this person is ready to step up or willing to step up or.
(22:33) you know, just even if they'd be happy stepping up, we look at all of that. And that then again becomes evidence as to whether or not they truly are cut out to do this role long term. And if they're not, then we always have a decision as to what's the next step going to be with them.
Spencer Horn
(22:51) You know, you talk about maybe management or the people that need to take leadership being reticent or hesitant to step up. I imagine that sometimes that could also be the owner or the CEO. I don't know for sure, but my question is, how do you get them to buy into what you're sharing? so that it's not just a performative task list, that they actually own what you're sharing with them and then cascade that ownership down throughout the organization.
(23:27) What's your process for how do you manage that? What happens? What shows up usually when you're coming in? Are they accepting it and it rolls easily or do you find that there's some resistance and hesitance?
Shelli Warren
(23:41) Well, I think a lot of it comes to the relationship that I build with them. So when people work with me, there is no judgment. Their psychological safety is there every single day for her to be able to admit how she's feeling, how she's thinking, what she's worried about, what she's excited about, and be able to admit out loud to someone that is her safety person for her to come out and literally just tell me, tell me all the things, tell me all the things.
(24:13) Because nothing shocks me. Nothing has shocked me from my corporate career or from working with small business owners. Once they admit that they're not sleeping, they're not eating properly, it's affecting their health, it's affecting their relationships with their family, you know, their teenagers don't talk to them anymore. Um, you know, the little one wants to spend more time with the nanny than she does with me, you know, like all of these heartfelt admissions of, Hey, you know what?
(24:41) I don't have the life that I thought I was going to have. I'm not the person that I thought I was going to be at this time. Once she can admit and tell me some stories about the uncomfortability in her life right now and in her business, that's when I can reverse engineer it back to, OK, here's how we could make some subtle changes initially. Like we're not going to come in and just, you know.
(25:06) to set the business on fire, but we're gonna come in and we're going to thoughtfully make some small changes, and you're gonna start to feel a difference, and that's gonna give you confidence to wanna go to the next level with this. And we literally start with, let's look at your calendar. Let's get you some more time. If you're telling me you would really like to be able to end your day by 3 p.m.
(25:28) so that you can at least meet your kids at the bus two to three days a week, let's make that happen. If you want to be able to be out of all all these big you really despise meetings and you realize meetings are necessary. aspect of the business, but you'd rather not be in them, then let's have a really harsh look at where are the maidens that you truly have to be in? And where are the ones that you are going to because you're afraid of what might happen if you're not in the room?
(25:57) Let's just admit all that stuff. And once she starts to open up and tell me these things, and we slowly start to take smaller actions towards giving her a different experience within her business and a different experience in her home, That's when she comes back and says, yeah, let's do more.
Spencer Horn
(26:29) So she has to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Shelli Warren
(26:34) Well, yeah.
Christian Napier
(26:39) I want to get into story time, you know, without betraying confidences or anything. I'm wondering if you can give us some concrete examples. And one thing that I'm specifically looking for is, you know, oftentimes business owners might be reticent to hand the reins over or some reins over to other people because of a fear of failure, a lack of trust. But also the leadership team, the new folks coming in and assuming new roles and responsibilities, they have to grow.
(27:17) And that means that at times they have to mess up and we have to accept that that's going to happen. And so I'm curious, in the work that you've done, if you can share an example or two of, and again, without naming names or betraying any confidences of, business owners that you worked with who had this kind of fear of failure and that's why they were holding on to everything. and how you got them to accept that, you know what, there is gonna be some failure because you're gonna be handing the reins over to people who are gonna be doing some new things for the first time and they're gonna stub their toes and it's okay.
(27:59) I'm wondering if you can just share maybe one or two examples from the experience that you've had working with your clients.
Shelli Warren
(28:09) Well, many of them are just you know, they beat themselves up about the fact that they have this bloated payroll. And even though they are the biggest revenue generator in the business, they also have this really out of control payroll. And that usually happens because she, at different times throughout the journey of her building her business, she's thrown more money at people. in hopes that they're going to stay, in hopes that they're going to step it up, and in hopes that they're going to want to evolve into being a more of a high performing person on the team.
(28:52) And so that leads to this situation where she's not happy about the salary that she's providing these individuals. And that can really eat away at you over time. It really can, especially all this waiting and hoping for things to turn around. So part of what we do is we get her ready with smaller changes that we're introducing to the team with one of the tools that I have here.
(29:23) within the stack in your team way. It's called a five-hour work plan. And what that really does is we create these work plans for everyone on her team, regardless of the role that they're in, where it is so undeniably clear about what this person is getting paid to do. And I have learned over the years in corporate and within working with small business people, that team members who know exactly what they're getting paid to do and what they're not getting paid to do, have way more success within their role.
(29:55) But in small business, what often happens is there's a role posting to hire the person, and then that's kind of it. So there's no real concrete plan. So people on the team, they may be held accountable to a minimal billable hours that they're supposed to bring in within a week or a month, or maybe a metric like that. But they don't understand all the other nuances that goes along with what they're expected to deliver within their role.
(30:24) So when we have a five-hour work plan that we're introducing to someone, also with the conversation of, here's the direction that the business is going. I'd like you over the next 90 days to really consider moving this way alongside of me. Here's what your role entail. Here's exactly what the role requires you to do.
(30:44) Are you in to trying this out for 90 days? And most people say yes. They're not unless they're looking to change their careers. Most people say yes.
(30:54) And it's very eye-opening for that team member as well, because suddenly now they're realizing, oh my gosh, I didn't even really think about it yet, but I guess we really should be doing that too. Or I didn't realize how what I do rolls up into what Jennifer does over in her role. I never really looked that far out. I just kind of kept my head down, doing my own thing.
(31:16) So people start to realize that she's not fooling around. She has a plan. We're learning these new tools that are going to help us be more successful here. And the mature individuals will course correct themselves.
(31:32) I've seen it happen so many times, where they have a work plan. They know what they're getting paid to do. They understand where their own gaps are. They're being held accountable to it in one-to-one meetings.
(31:42) And so they'll course correct themselves. Other individuals will look at this and say, yeah, I'm out. And that is just as helpful. It's just as helpful to that small business owner to be able to hear it right from the team member's mouth.
(31:56) If this is the direction we're going to, if this is what I'm going to have to be, you know, if I'm going to be held accountable to deliver this all the time now, every week, every month moving forward, I don't think this is the place for me. And then we just put a plan together to be able to exit them out on a high note.
Spencer Horn
(32:16) You just—my question as you were talking was, you know, this about accountability, which is often a loaded word. You know, you mentioned that once they know what's expected of them, the mature person will hold themselves accountable. That's not always the case and there still needs to be a level of return and report. And so I'm just wondering how you teach that leader to do their one-to-ones, to handle and to manage accountability in a way that's sustainable, if that's part of what you do.
Shelli Warren
(32:58) Well, it is because I call those drumbeats. So we set drum beats up and I'm talking drum beats from everything from is our snow removal contract renewed for next year to when do we host one-to-ones, when are our performance reviews done, when do we talk about raises, when do we, you know, shift gears and move into more business development. Like every single thing that happens in that small business needs to be on a drumbeat.
(33:29) And each drumbeat needs to have an owner. So as part of those five-hour work plans, we're also sharing ownership. You're now going to be the owner of this. You're now going to be the owner of this.
(33:38) So they're not just coming in and doing their one core deliverable. They're here to add more value and add more value to how the whole business is run. It's not just I'm here and I'm a dental hygienist and I only have to worry about servicing each new client that comes into my chair every day. No, there's a lot more involved to being a great dental hygienist and being able to get those referrals and get those repeat appointments and just be able to be a great extension of the brand, all those things.
(34:13) So when we start to divide up ownership, that also frees up the business owner. Now she's not owning everything. She has people and it's well documented and everybody knows who owns what. When is that due?
(34:26) How do I check in on that? How big is my decision space on this? How much money can I spend? Right down to who is our preferred vendors?
(34:34) You have to set the people up for success. But most people who have all this laid out for them, they can look at it and go, wow, she's not fooling around. I guess I am a big part of the business here. and I want to play a bigger part of the business.
(34:49) For people who don't look at it that way, who look at it more like, oh, geez, this feels like a lot of work. Then those individuals also have drumbeats where they're coming to their direct leader. So their team, their team leader on a set drumbeat as to, hey, I'm here. Let's talk about your work plan.
(35:06) Where are we at? Where are we at for this month? Are we going to finish the month on a high? Are we going to be behind the eight ball at the end of this month?
(35:13) Let's let's try and do some course correction here. So you can't just rule out these new expectations of people once and then think, OK, we're golden. We're good. We're good till the end of the quarter.
(35:25) No, these are all rinse and repeat. hit the reset button on this, repeat that same conversation over again, revisit in the team meeting, have a conversation with your leadership team. How's it going with this individual? Does this one need any extra training?
(35:39) Does this one need any extra help? It's an ongoing shift that not only does she have to be heavily involved with, especially in the early stages, but her new leadership team. So whether you now have a lead trainer, Or now you have someone that is managing the hiring for you. Or now you have someone who is looking after the onboarding.
(36:02) This is my week one onboarding trainer. So I want consistency for every new person that comes in here. I want some consistency. So let's have one, the same week one onboarding individual that's going to make sure that we've got that consistent experience every new hire.
(36:17) Once they start to see, oh, wow, I'm playing a different role in the business other than just providing services to clients and customers, that's when people start to feel like they're earning their paychecks, that they have a bigger commitment towards the business, or not. And if it's or not, then that's very OK. It brings me right back to my mantra. The team that got you here may not be the team that gets you there.
(36:45) And it's OK. to be able to understand that the people that help grow your business to this level, many of them are not ready to take it to the next level. So I need to offboard them. It's hard.
(37:10) You guys have been there where you know that you have someone on your payroll. that you continue to pay, maybe even continue to give raises to.
Spencer Horn
(37:22) And what's that Disney song? We don't talk about payroll.
Shelli Warren
(37:25) I mean, you've been there where someone paid really well and you're still disappointed in them.
Spencer Horn
(37:35) Yeah.
Shelli Warren
(37:36) And that is not a good place to be because it impacts how you interact with them. And if you think you're hiding it, you're crazy. People people pick up on that.
Christian Napier
(37:45) Shelley, I want to come back to something that you were talking about right before Spencer played the sounder, and that was consistency. I want to come back to that point. You talked about establishing these drum beats, regular cadence of one-on-one meetings with team members, performance reviews, et cetera, et cetera. And that takes discipline.
(38:09) And it can be hard, especially if you're accustomed to being the firefighter person and you're always going from one emergency to the next. And so, you know, having consistency is hard there. And so I'm wondering, you know, what you do to help small business owners kind of break that habit of firefighting and becoming more, you know, focused on, the regular consistent drum beats as opposed to just being so scatterbrained with every emergency taking your full attention?
Shelli Warren
(38:50) Well, a lot of times I have to remind myself that she did not learn this way of operating. That's why she's here with me. She wants that coaching. She wants to be that type of leader.
(39:02) So we do a lot of looking at, realistically, what are her biggest hangups right now and her biggest headaches right now. And I let her tell me those stories, and we walk through them as to, OK, so in that particular situation, what would you have liked to have happened? Or where could it have gotten really off the rails if you hadn't stepped in? So she starts to learn that part of her role as the business owner and the CEO and the biggest revenue generator business, once she starts to realize that the other part of her role is to teach people.
(39:40) how to behave at work. And this is this is how our business is going to run. And I'm here to help you learn how to step into these leadership roles, learn how to be able to be more of a decision maker instead of bringing all the decisions to me, because I know what that's like to feel like a firefighter. And I don't want you to feel like that throughout your day, too.
(39:59) So what we do is we start to teach the whole team on how to problem solve. So, yes, there's one main decision maker. you know, throughout the day or within that particular department, or I like to call them profit centers. But we want the whole team to start collectively thinking about how do we simplify things here?
(40:21) What is really an emergency and what is not? And how do I use my drum beats to really let go of all this, what seemingly firefighting is? So one of the things that with team members is, they often don't understand or truly know, like, when is the next time I'm gonna see my leader? Because typically in small businesses, there may be that daily huddle that happens, but oftentimes those gatherings and chances to collaborate, chances to teach, chances to reinforce, even just chances to connect with your team are really irregular.
(40:57) So that's why we have the drumbeats, because then you're teaching your team, trust me, I've got the situation I want to talk to my team leader about, but I know when my next one is going to be, so I'm going to bring it up then. I have the situation that happened with Mrs. Smith the other day. I learned a lot from it. I think it'd be a great conversation to have at our next team meeting, and I know when our next team meeting is going to be, so I'm going to make sure I bring it up then.
(41:19) So what we're doing is, if a team doesn't know when they're going to see their leader, That's when they start grabbing you. Like the minute you pull in, you pull your car into the parking lot and people are like waiting to pounce on you as soon as you come in. Or you leave a treatment room to go to the kitchenette to grab a cup of tea before your next session and people are pouncing on you in the kitchenette waiting to see you. Like no one wants their day to look like that.
(41:45) But those are all symptoms of not having any structure built into the business that is helpful. to either you or your team. So people are just reacting all day.
Spencer Horn
(41:58) Well, and then in the absence of information, a lot of them are catastrophizing and awfulizing. A hundred percent. So that's why they're pouncing, because they're like, well, you know, they're thinking a lot of times the worst in the absence of any information follow up. So, you know, we've been talking a lot about small organizations, five to 50.
(42:22) And one of the challenges that any organization has is keeping people motivated and engaged and feeling like they're growing. How do you do that in a smaller organization where there may not be a ladder to climb or somebody's hit the ceiling in terms of just the position authority? How do you keep people excited so that they stay? Because that's a challenge that a small business has.
(42:48) Yes, we've talked about the evils of big corporate. You want to go small, but then it's like, okay, at some point, well, maybe I need to go back to the big organization if I really want to grow.
Christian Napier
(42:58) How do you manage that?
Shelli Warren
(43:01) I like to get people involved in meaningful activities with the small business. So one thing is I love to have people become trainers. I think people really are smart. And, you know, we like to say the people closest to the work know the most about the work.
(43:19) So those people should be the ones that are training your new people that are coming in. I'd love to get people involved in training. The other thing I love to get people involved in is any kind of visibility activity. So whether you are going to host a job fair, or you're going to be a sponsor at a local charity event, or you have a school nearby where you want to start developing relationships with that school, Leverage the people on your team that have already shown evidence that
(43:51) they can be a great extension of the brand and they already have a high level of mastery within their realm of impact that they have in the business and get them out there. Get them out there. And the other thing I like to do is I like to offer or, you know, have conversations with my clients to help them to offer opportunities for their team members to go outside of their community to go learn something. So whether they go to a conference far and wide that normally the business owner would go to, send some of your team members instead.
(44:25) Or is there a way for you and some of your team members to attend and then kind of like divide and conquer and then come back and then share what did everybody learn? So looking for ways to shine the spotlight on your team members in small, medium, high level ways really can boost people's confidence and commitment about wanting to stay with you because they see, oh, hey, she gets it. She knows it's not all about her. She knows that it takes all of us to be able to keep our doors open and to be able to serve our clients and customers.
(45:00) And I love it that she's recognizing that in me. So yeah, just different ways to shine the light on the team.
Christian Napier
(45:09) Another question I've got for you, Shelly, is as a consultant, as a coach, you work with a lot of different business owners, a lot of different clients, and I'm sure There are some who just take off and become wildly successful, and there are others who struggle. Anybody who's been doing that kind of work knows that, oh, the clients can kind of run the spectrum. Some really, really take off, and others may not. And they may struggle, and they may ultimately even fail.
(45:48) And I'm curious. from your perspective as you've worked over the years with so many business owners, what is it that separates those who really make this thing work and those who really struggle to make it work or at the end of the day, just give up and say, no, I can't do it. It's not worth the effort.
(46:12) I'm gonna go back to the old way of doing things.
Shelli Warren
(46:16) Well, you're right. Kristin, I've definitely experienced different levels of success over the years. And I have to say that the people that have the most success in working with me are people that come in with a student mindset. So they are continual learners.
(46:35) anyways. It's just part of their personality. They're here to learn something new and they're done with the podcasts, they're done with the books, they're done with the chat GPT stuff. They want a real person who's going to get to know them and the members of their team because I have a team leader program here at Stacking Your Team as well.
(46:56) So I coach team the team members as well. And they love that idea because now everyone's talking the same language. Everyone understands the tools that she's leveraging and concepts that she's rolling out. But the most successful clients that I have, they have had a hardship.
(47:13) They have had a blow, like a blow to their ego, a blow to their payroll, a blow to their client list. So they've had some of them have had mass exodus where One person decides they're going to go open up their own and they bring a bunch of their friends from your place over with them. So there's just this wildly gaping hole of people on the team that left all at once. Others have been around, you know, just around and around the Rosie with people on their team who are off more than they're on.
(47:51) And so it's just a laundry list of situations that are happening within their personal lives that makes them unavailable for work. And yet they're still being paid, and there's still being a position being held for them. So there's been other instances where the level of trust has been lost, where people are stealing from them, committing other crimes. just lost their integrity.
(48:21) So they're no longer a fit for the for the small business. So she's had some really hard knocks or she's dodged a bullet somehow. And usually it's those two instances that happen where she thinks, oh, my goodness, like I need a leadership coach now. I need a team and leadership coach now because this is way too scary for me.
(48:45) This is not what I expected. This is way too overwhelming for me. And I want someone to be able to guide me through that. But how she becomes so successful is that she's open to listening.
(48:57) She's opening to trying new things because we start small. And then we listen for her to say, OK, I want more than that. Let's do let's go deeper on that. Let's take that to the next level.
(49:07) And that's a trigger for me to go, OK, she's ready. So she has to have that idea in her head that. I don't know a lot about this, but that's why I'm here. Teach me.
(49:19) Teach me what I should be doing here.
Spencer Horn
(49:22) So for the business owner that's listening, and they know they're a bottleneck, what's the first thing they need to do this week to start turning that around?
Shelli Warren
(49:34) I would say open up your calendar, whether it's a paper calendar or whether it's a digital calendar, open up your calendar and have a realistic look at where are you spending your time in this last month and jot down just what's that really look like. And if your friend came to you and said, hey, If you were comparing calendars, what would you say to your friend? Because it's the same situation, right? We all need someone with a different set of eyes that's not married to your business to be able to look at this and say, wow.
(50:18) How do you get anything done? You're literally hand-holding your whole team, or you're locked and loaded in treatments. You're in a treatment room all day long. Where do you ever find the time to even meet with your accountant?
(50:32) It's just become so obvious. So that's what I would say is the first thing I would tell her to do is have an honest look at her calendar. And when was the last time, the last time that she had a full day out of the business with no distractions in a different place where she had time to think and plan and dream about her business. And if that's not been on that calendar, she can't find that day on her calendar.
(51:09) It's time, it's time for a leadership coach.
Christian Napier
(51:22) Well, we're going to get to the lightning round here real quick, Shelly, but just a quick comment for me and then my last question. And the comment is if I were to kind of summarize what you were saying in response to my earlier question, the thing that a leader, a business owner needs the most in order to succeed is humility. And some of that humility may come from circumstance. I've gotten beaten down because of the various reasons that you mentioned, and now I'm coming to you.
(52:02) But oftentimes what happens is even when you are beaten down, there's still some pride there, and it's like, well, you know. We do the things the way we do them because I know that they work and blah, blah, blah. And you don't really understand my business, blah, blah, blah. But I think you're right.
(52:24) I've seen that in my own. career as well. Leaders who have a sense of humility, who are open to learning, open to hearing new ideas, open to trying new things, more often than not will be the most successful ones. My final question for you is a little bit of a left turn here because, you know, we've had a fair number of people on the podcast who are authors.
(52:51) Spencer is in the finishing stages of of writing his own book. Super excited for that one to come out. You're an author as well, but not like a lot of these other authors who are writing, you know, business books and things like that. You actually, if I understand correctly, wrote a children's book.
(53:07) And so I'm curious to know a little bit more about that, give you an opportunity to talk about that book and why you wrote it.
Shelli Warren
(53:16) Well, thank you. My book is called Mom's Going on a Business Trip. Love doesn't fit in a suitcase. It stays in our hearts.
(53:26) And the reason I wrote the book is throughout my corporate career, I traveled a lot and I loved it. I love my career. I love traveling. I also love my family.
(53:38) I love my daughter. So there was always this push, pull, push, pull. And I tell the story. It's in the book, too, that I missed my daughter's first day of kindergarten.
(53:50) I was in Louisiana. And someone wasn't even in the country. And I was gone for the whole week. Was she fine?
(53:59) Absolutely. Did I take her the week before so that she had her play date, met the teachers and met some other kids? Absolutely. But as a mom, when you tell another mom that you missed your child's first day of kindergarten, The judgment is pretty wicked.
(54:17) So I wrote the children's book as a way for moms who need to travel for business or for work. for them to be able to help their child be more independent. So the story is really about the child. The child is the hero in the story, where the child learns that, hey, everything's going to be okay.
(54:40) Like, even though my routine is a little bit out of whack, there's other adults in my life that are going to step up and maybe Maybe Aunt Joan drives me to school every morning instead of mom for this week, but I get to spend some time with Aunt Joan. There's different storylines within it. And then, of course, at the end of the book, the book is designed for the child to be able to write and draw and color and work their way through the book.
(55:03) But there's also a ton of resources that are there. for the adults in this child's life, whomever they are, to be able to help the child feel more confident and assured that even though mom's not here right now, we're all going to be just fine. And there's different ways that I can stay connected to mom while she is away. And I'm getting bigger and stronger and smarter.
(55:30) And it also, there's a part of the book where the child admits that they're so proud of their mom as to what the mom does. But it's really a story to be able to help the child understand that you're going to be just fine. Mom's not here right now, but you are going to be just fine. which I think moms need to hear that too.
(55:51) Your kid is going to be just fine, whether you're gone for three days or whether you're gone for three weeks. And then I have some tools in there to help them plan so that the child is part of the planning process as well. It's not like you would might think where the mom's just going to orchestrate everything and you know, make it all happen, orchestrate it all, even from afar. The child is part of the planning.
(56:13) And there's different ways where the child gets rewarded as they move through it all. But it's been really fun to do. And I have a whole story, a little backstory in there about myself and my daughter, who is an only child. And then, of course, my granddaughter is an only child, too.
(56:30) And so how this all got triggered for me was my granddaughter started asking questions. She calls me, Mamie. Mamie, why do you have to fly away again? Mimi, where are you going now?
(56:41) Are you on a plane or are you on a train? So when she started asking me all these questions, it just, it came back at me like a tsunami. And all the guilt came back and then I also know a lot of my clients struggle with this a lot. So yeah, that's why I wrote the book.
Spencer Horn
(56:56) We've got a hard stop, Christian, so I need to get you to the lightning round. Okay, you ready? One word or just really short answers. Hire for skill or hire for attitude?
Shelli Warren
(57:07) Attitude.
Spencer Horn
(57:08) One word that describes a great leader?
Shelli Warren
(57:14) Self-awareness.
Spencer Horn
(57:15) Delegation is hard because?
Shelli Warren
(57:19) It's hard to let go of control.
Spencer Horn
(57:21) The first leadership role every scaling owner should fill?
Shelli Warren
(57:27) Trainer.
Spencer Horn
(57:29) Meetings, fewer or better?
Shelli Warren
(57:33) Fewer.
Spencer Horn
(57:35) A book every business owner should read?
Shelli Warren
(57:40) Something that's been published locally, like not a big name academic leader. Find someone in your industry who has wrote a book. There'll be way more gems and it'll be so much more impactful for you than some big time author that has a big PR machine behind them.
Spencer Horn
(58:01) The biggest myth about small business teams.
Shelli Warren
(58:08) That hiring your friends and family and people off the soccer field and people that you meet at the grocery store is the way to go. It's not.
Spencer Horn
(58:15) Corporate life or entrepreneur life, which taught you more?
Shelli Warren
(58:25) I'm going to say entrepreneur.
Spencer Horn
(58:30) The best leadership advice you've ever received?
Shelli Warren
(58:35) Not everyone's going to like you, and that's OK.
Spencer Horn
(58:40) For a lot of women leaders, that's good to hear, huh? Yeah, the finish this sentence, great teamwork happens when?
Shelli Warren
(58:49) People know what they're getting paid to do.
Christian Napier
(58:53) Love it. Well, this has been a fantastic hour, Shelly. The time has flown by for me really, really quickly. If people want to connect with you to understand how you can help them, to transition from a firefighter to a leader and just find more balance and satisfaction from their work.
(59:19) What's the best way for folks to connect with you?
Shelli Warren
(59:23) I would say the best way to connect with me is to go to Instagram, stackingyourteam.com. And if you're a podcast fan, definitely tune into the Stacking Your Team podcast.
Christian Napier
(59:35) Stack your team. Stack your team. Check that out. Spencer, how should folks connect with you?
Spencer Horn
(59:41) LinkedIn. Just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I do every day and my inbox is full. How about you, Christian?
Christian Napier
(59:48) LinkedIn as well. LinkedIn as well. Yep, that works for me. And I know we've got a hard stop, so we're at the top of the hour.
(59:57) Thank you, Shelley, for joining us today and sharing all your insights. And thank you listeners and viewers as well. We appreciate you. Please like and subscribe to our podcast.
(1:00:05) We'll catch you again soon.
Shelli Warren
(1:00:07) Thank you so much, gentlemen.