When Leaders Become The Bottleneck with Atiba de Souza

When Leaders Become the Bottleneck.

Why Letting Go Is the Hardest and Most Important Leadership Skill.

Most leaders I work with aren’t trying to control everything. But somewhere along the way they become the person every decision, every problem, and every stalled project flows through.

Not because their teams are incapable. Because leadership quietly turns them into the hub of everything.

In this week’s People First! podcast, I sit down with author and entrepreneur Atiba de Souza, who wrote The Delegation Trap: It’s Not Them, It’s You.

We unpack a tension many leaders recognize:

• Why leaders struggle to let go even when they know they should

• The hidden cost of the “superhero leader” mindset

• Why teams often perform at 80% when leaders don’t create ownership

• The shift from doing the work → building a team that thinks like owners

One line from our conversation stuck with me: “Good is the enemy of great— and most teams get stuck at good when leaders stay in the middle of everything.”

And a question for you: Where might you be unintentionally acting as the bottleneck for your team?

Learn more about Atiba here:
Website: thedelegationtrap.com 

LinkedIn: meetatiba.com 

Creators and Guests

Guest

Atiba de Souza

Atiba de Souza is an author, entrepreneur, and relationship mentor who helps leaders break free from burnout and build teams that take ownership. He wrote The Delegation Trap: It’s Not Them, It’s You, a story-driven guide teaching leaders how to let go of every task and get results that shine. With 25+ years running gyms, bakeries, and food service companies and coaching National Championship youth football teams, he knows firsthand what it takes to turn average performance into excellence. His mission is simple: transform overwhelmed bosses into confident leaders of teams that thrive, even when they’re not in the room.

What is People First! with Morag Barrett?

People First! with Morag Barrett explores the human side of leadership: workplace relationships, leadership trust, Meaning-FULL Connectivity™, and the Ally Mindset™ practices that drive real results in business and life.

In each episode, keynote speaker, executive coach, USA Today bestselling author, and Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches member Morag Barrett sits down with authors, business leaders, and everyday humans to uncover practical ways to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture in an increasingly disconnected world.

Because success in business is powered by relationships. And success in life is fueled by connection.

Learn more at skyeteam.com/speaking

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Shit.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Welcome to this week's episode of People First, and my amazing guest this week is Atiba D'Souza, who is an author, entrepreneur, and relationship mentor. He helps leaders break free from burnout and build teams that take ownership.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: He's the author of the best-selling book, The Delegation Trap, It's Not Them, It's You, which we will be talking about. And it's a story-driven guide that teaches leaders how to let go of every task and get the results that shine.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: He brings more than 25 years running gyms, bakeries and food service companies, and coaching national championship youth football teams. He knows firsthand what it takes to turn average performance into excellence.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: His mission is simple. Transform overwhelmed bosses into confident leaders of teams that thrive, even when they're not in the room. Atiba, welcome to People First.

Atiba de Souza: Thank you so much for having me, and looking forward to our conversation today.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Well, I saw Relationship Mentor in your bio, and I thought, there's a man I want to speak to, because workplace relationships are at the heart of the work I do.

Atiba de Souza: Yes.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So, my opening question for you, then, is what role have relationships played in your success?

Atiba de Souza: So, here's what's interesting, about that. I used to not care.

Atiba de Souza: It didn't matter, right? It was like, the work needed to get done. And if the relationship developed, fine. But the work needed to get done, and the work was paramount. It was first, second, and third position.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? And, if you caught me on a bad day, fourth position, too.

Atiba de Souza: Right, and that's how I lived as a leader for a long time. And what's interesting is now, when you look at the core values of my company and what we live by, relationships over everything else is at the center.

Atiba de Souza: as the number one core value. Because what I came to realize was, Without those relationships.

Atiba de Souza: we lose that interconnectivity that actually creates greatness. So you can create goodness.

Atiba de Souza: And that's what a lot of us do. We create good.

Atiba de Souza: Right?

Atiba de Souza: But good is the enemy of great.

Atiba de Souza: And I fully believe that if you're not striving for greatness.

Atiba de Souza: What the hell are you doing?

Atiba de Souza: Like, seriously.

Atiba de Souza: Now, I'm not saying you're gonna be great at everything, but every last one of us is designed to be great at something.

Atiba de Souza: And if we're not working towards it.

Atiba de Souza: What the hell are we doing? And you can't get there without great relationships.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So, relationships are the difference between goodness and greatness. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about everything that you've just said, and that initially you were thinking, okay, just get the work done, achieve the results, relationships, bah, if it happens, great.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So what was the tipping point between the independence, as I experienced early in my career, too, to this recognition that interdependence, that the relationships were the secret sauce?

Atiba de Souza: You know, I wish I could say there was a, a tipping point, per se. I think,

Atiba de Souza: It was one of those things where…

Atiba de Souza: pebbles kept getting thrown at me to pay attention, and I wasn't.

Atiba de Souza: And, then eventually, you know, just got bulldozed.

Atiba de Souza: Right? I can tell you one in particular. So, it's a friend of mine, ended up being the best man in my wedding.

Atiba de Souza: 19 years ago? Wow. Yeah, 19 years ago.

Atiba de Souza: And… I remember meeting him about almost a decade before that, and…

Atiba de Souza: Didn't like him, didn't care for him.

Atiba de Souza: Didn't want anything to do with him.

Atiba de Souza: and… It was interesting, because within the company where we were.

Atiba de Souza: Right? We were both consultants, consulting for the government, and we both ended up with

Atiba de Souza: Two major projects that were complementary to each other, But we didn't…

Atiba de Souza: talk or have anything in common, and it was… and it was all… it was contention. It was contention, right?

Atiba de Souza: And I remember the day, and this is a hysterical story.

Atiba de Souza: So, I was also, back in those days, into network marketing.

Atiba de Souza: Alright, it was also something I was doing.

Atiba de Souza: And I remember walking into

Atiba de Souza: the office, an office in the, where we were working, and there were two guys, and I was coming in there to talk to these two guys, and I built up the nerve to go, you know, when you network marketing, you gotta go prospect, you gotta go, right?

Atiba de Souza: And so, I worked at the nerve to go talk to the two guys who were in that office.

Atiba de Souza: about, hey, let's go to lunch, I want to tell you about this thing that I'm doing.

Atiba de Souza: Right?

Atiba de Souza: Now, he happened to be in the room as well.

Atiba de Souza: And I said, screw it, I'm still going to go ahead and do this, right? And so now the four of us go to lunch. Now, we end up going to lunch, and he invited himself to the lunch. He said, I'm coming along just to make fun of this.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Oh, ow. Okay.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? And I'm thinking, this jerk.

Atiba de Souza: Right? Because we're already contentious.

Atiba de Souza: And so, we go to lunch, the Olive Garden.

Atiba de Souza: In Tyson's Corner, Virginia.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: been there, not necessarily the Olive Garden, but definitely Tyson's Corner, Virginia, so I'm now picturing the scene. I love the color.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: ness.

Atiba de Souza: Yes, this is, like, 2000.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? We all go to lunch, and my two friends, who I thought were, you know, the ones I was approaching.

Atiba de Souza: They both sat there, like, I'm not interested. He ended up being the one who was like, this sounds great, I want to do this! And…

Atiba de Souza: We became friends.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: In that process, we became friends, but what ended up happening was…

Atiba de Souza: Both of our projects that we were leading

Atiba de Souza: Ended up just becoming so much better because of our relationship.

Atiba de Souza: And whereas before, it was just… just do the work, man.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yep.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Just do the work, and friction, which is at the heart of the work that we're doing, but now you've got an opportunity to collaborate, and to your point, not just have a good idea, but the opposites attract a great idea that resulted.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And now, best man at your wedding, you said?

Atiba de Souza: Exactly. Now, the flip side is also true. I've also been on the other side, where it's like, okay, relationship, relationship, relationship, and it was our relationship, and there was no work.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: or they'll.

Atiba de Souza: was.

Atiba de Souza: Taking advantage of.

Atiba de Souza: Because of this relationship, I can get away with from their point of view, right? And so there has to be balance.

Atiba de Souza: Obviously, I mean, we're here to produce greatness.

Atiba de Souza: Right? But… So… There has to be care.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: There has to be care, and to your point there, there still needs to be accountability.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And I think in the work that I do, in the leaders I coach, there's obviously a… there is often a baseline misunderstanding about relationships at work, that I can't possibly be friends with you, because then what if I have to hold you accountable or give you tough feedback?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: How do you respond to leaders that are still at the keep everybody at arm's length?

Atiba de Souza: It's, it's, it's time for that to die.

Atiba de Souza: And… The reality is the market will no longer bear it.

Atiba de Souza: The reality is…

Atiba de Souza: You know, we watched over the last 15 years or so what social media did to society.

Atiba de Souza: We've watched how technology has changed things.

Atiba de Souza: And what's happening right now with AI is not going to be anything like what we've seen before, in that it's going to force human

Atiba de Souza: Psyche to change and evolve even faster.

Atiba de Souza: than anything else has before. And in that moment, what's going to actually happen, my prediction.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: is…

Atiba de Souza: Humans are going to revert to baseline. And baseline, for all humans, is community.

Atiba de Souza: And we're going to crave true and authentic community. And we're going to repel

Atiba de Souza: Every environment where we don't have it.

Atiba de Souza: And so, whereas you might be able to get away with that right now.

Atiba de Souza: You won't in 5 years. And if you look… if you look at the arc and the trajectory of where things have been going, you'll see that.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: You know, I had a conversation the other day with a gentleman, and we were talking about the younger generation, and how hard it is, you know, this younger generation, they just don't get it, and I'm like, yes, but it's incumbent upon us to create a community where they can get it.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? Because that's what they're itching for.

Atiba de Souza: They're yearning for community.

Atiba de Souza: And we're gonna…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Think about…

Atiba de Souza: that. Yeah, go ahead.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And we're going to see that, and if you think about a lot of the, well, it's going to continue to impact us for decades, but certainly as I think about my own sons, who finished their high school and university during the pandemic, but even all of the youth, the emerging leaders.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Younger than that still had that huge chunk of a key formative part of their schooling and life impacted by lockdown.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And that is truly… I mean, it atrified our ability as mature adults for small talk and connection. It heightened the gap and the realization that as humans, we're hardwired for community. But if we haven't equipped

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: the next generations with the fundamental skills that you learn at school, in your social clubs, wherever you're gathering, is it any wonder that we're seeing that disconnect and mislabeling it right now? But we need to step up and actually help

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: coach, guide, and mentor, especially when we throw on that AI curveball that's happening

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: to everything, how work gets done, how life gets done.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So that we can all navigate it successfully.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: One of the themes I know you talk about in the book is how storytelling can help connect us. So, tell us more about the power of storytelling, both to connect, but also with teams to drive results.

Atiba de Souza: Well, let's think about it for a moment, what's the activity?

Atiba de Souza: that… could cause A human to not look at their cell phone For over an hour.

Atiba de Souza: Only one out.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: question.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay, well.

Atiba de Souza: A movie.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Found. Yes!

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yep.

Atiba de Souza: A movie, right?

Atiba de Souza: But why is that?

Atiba de Souza: Because movie is story.

Atiba de Souza: Because there's nothing that captivates the human mind and the human attention life story. We're wired.

Atiba de Souza: to ingest a story. We run two story.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? Because intrinsically, in story, you have what?

Atiba de Souza: You have a hero.

Atiba de Souza: You have a villain.

Atiba de Souza: You have a quest.

Atiba de Souza: You have a guide.

Atiba de Souza: Right? And we love…

Atiba de Souza: how that whole interplay happens, and I forget the exact number, but you know, there are only, like, 8 stories or something like that in the world?

Atiba de Souza: Every story fits into, like, 8 or 10 different types.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Don't that?

Atiba de Souza: Many types of stories.

Atiba de Souza: And we just retell them with different characters, different scenes.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: But it's.

Atiba de Souza: Oh, it's the same baseline.

Atiba de Souza: we… Love them.

Atiba de Souza: We love them. They're sticky.

Atiba de Souza: They're sticky.

Atiba de Souza: And that stickiness causes us to learn, because we learn through stickiness.

Atiba de Souza: Thank you for that word. We learn through connecting things. Association. This associates to this, which associates to that, and when something is sticky, it's able to associate, and oh, oh, I get it, oh, oh, I get it.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: And so, using story, And…

Atiba de Souza: let me bring this into business now, because I'm not saying necessarily, although I am a storyteller in my company, I tell a lot of stories, right?

Atiba de Souza: But I use story?

Atiba de Souza: to impart vision.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay, say more.

Atiba de Souza: Because the thing that we, as leaders, don't realize.

Atiba de Souza: Is that the most important thing that we can do

Atiba de Souza: In order to create the company, the community, the environment It all starts with vision.

Atiba de Souza: Now, what do I mean by that? And, and, and…

Atiba de Souza: People hear the word vision, and you think about this, oh, it was so big and wonderful, and there's going to be this day, and it's…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And you think vision…

Atiba de Souza: And you think this big ol' thing. But here's the deal.

Atiba de Souza: If I've got this pen.

Atiba de Souza: And I need to move this pen from here to here, and I need somebody else to do it, I have to cast vision.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yes, you do. Okay.

Atiba de Souza: And most of us don't realize that we're casting vision. We just say, move the pen from A to B.

Atiba de Souza: But if you cast vision in this moment, you cast vision in every moment, and you're using story to cast vision, it makes it sticky, and now people understand what's going on. Now they're more invested in actually getting it done. Now they're feeling…

Atiba de Souza: About actually doing it. I'm not just moving pen from A to B, oh my gosh.

Atiba de Souza: I, I am affecting Whatever it is.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: See, I love that.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: In of itself, because it takes me back to some of the mistakes I made early in my career, I make different mistakes now, but I think back to the early mistakes I made earlier in my career, especially around the delegation trap, where, in my head, it was, well, it's just quicker and easier to do it myself. And by the time I communicate the how and wherefores and the whyfores of moving the pen from A to B, might as well have just done it myself.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: But that's what keeps leaders stuck in busyness and in the weeds.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: and also can then translate into the, well, I can't ask them to move the pen, because that's just boring.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: But there's a different way of coming at it. So, let's pivot and talk about the delegation trap, why you wrote it, and what you're hoping that leaders will, other than escaping from the trap, what a leader's going to get from it. So, why now? Why did you write the delegation trap?

Atiba de Souza: So, number one, I never wanted to be an author. Let's just put that on the table.

Atiba de Souza: Was not…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Well, congratulations.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yeah.

Atiba de Souza: Never desire.

Atiba de Souza: And I was in a mastermind room.

Atiba de Souza: And…

Atiba de Souza: I'm attending this mastermind, and it is one of those places where I attend because

Atiba de Souza: I feel like the little guy in the room.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Because everyone else.

Atiba de Souza: are the big boys and big girls, with big companies doing big things, and I feel like the little…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Right?

Atiba de Souza: And so I get to learn a lot, and I enjoy that.

Atiba de Souza: And one of the things we do with this mastermind is we go around and we share something that you've done in the last 90 days that other people can learn from.

Atiba de Souza: Right?

Atiba de Souza: Okay, fine, no problem.

Atiba de Souza: And so, I didn't have much to share, because we were in a really bad period at that point in the company, just like, you know, you go through downtimes. We were in the down times. I don't have anything really great. And so, I shared, I stood up and I shared, I said,

Atiba de Souza: I don't answer.

Atiba de Souza: Questions that my employees ask.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: And… Like, that's it.

Atiba de Souza: And the uproar from the room, like, what the hell are you talking about? Because I spend most of my day answering questions that my employees ask. What do you mean you don't answer questions? I said, yeah, because…

Atiba de Souza: what I know is, if I cast the vision correctly, they don't have any questions.

Atiba de Souza: And if they come to me with a question.

Atiba de Souza: that's covered in a vision, I don't need to answer it.

Atiba de Souza: If they come to me with a question that's not covered in the vision, because I didn't do it, cast the vision correctly, okay, I'll answer that.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? And so, what happened was, in that weekend, there were about 60 people in the room, about 50 of them came up to have a conversation with me about this.

Atiba de Souza: And I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking to myself, like, hold on, let me understand something here. I'm the little guy in this room. Y'all are all the big people. When I say the big people, like.

Atiba de Souza: One guy did a presentation of how I should have made an extra $80 million. I'm the little guy in the room.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? And… what do you mean, y'all don't know this?

Atiba de Souza: How do I know this, and you don't know this? And that was the moment in time for me, because I had been teaching delegation, but I'd been teaching delegation to startups, and to people who were solopreneurs, and so on and so forth.

Atiba de Souza: Sitting in that room and hearing

Atiba de Souza: People that I look up to say, I'm struggling with that.

Atiba de Souza: I was like, holy crap, we got some, we got… we need to share this!

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So, for a leader that is trying to carry it all, and we've all been there at different times. Absolutely. So, like those in the mastermind room that suddenly, oh, the light's on, and they realize they're trying to carry it all.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: What's one of the first things that they should do?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: In order to start to let go.

Atiba de Souza: Well, it's not them, it's you.

Atiba de Souza: And so it does start in the mirror.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: It starts in the mirror.

Atiba de Souza: And, you know, we talk about this in the book. It starts in the mirror with looking at where you are and some of the lies that you're living in.

Atiba de Souza: Right? One of the lies that a lot of us live in is a lot of us think we're superheroes.

Atiba de Souza: And we won't call it that, I will. You won't call it that, and I've seen business owners, when I say, oh, you're a superhero, and they cringe, no, I'm not. Yeah, you want to go fix the problem.

Atiba de Souza: You actually get the dopamine hit from fixing the problem.

Atiba de Souza: Yeah, that's superhero complex.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: The other side of Superhero Complex that people also fall into is…

Atiba de Souza: I've been doing this for 30 years. There's no way in hell they can do it as well as me.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yeah.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Right?

Atiba de Souza: Which is why I've gotta keep doing it.

Atiba de Souza: And you gotta look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you're saying these things.

Atiba de Souza: Okay?

Atiba de Souza: Then, and we talk about this in the book, is there's also a little bit of forgiveness, because

Atiba de Souza: We've all been taught how to delegate incorrectly.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Have we?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yes, 100%. So what's the wrong way, and…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Give us a snippet of the correct or better way.

Atiba de Souza: So, here's one that everyone seems to love, because it's in a book that became really famous. I'm not gonna call it the book, or the author's name.

Atiba de Souza: But… If they can do it 80% as well as you, delegate.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: Seems reasonable enough.

Atiba de Souza: It seems reasonable until you do it.

Atiba de Souza: Because, let's think about this for a moment.

Atiba de Souza: How many of us started our business so that it could run at 80%?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Hmm, none.

Atiba de Souza: And if our business is running at 80%, when our head hits the pillow, what are we thinking about?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: The 20% were missing.

Atiba de Souza: And so, therefore, Fundamentally, it's flawed.

Atiba de Souza: The premise is… like, it will get you to delegate, but then it will also get you into frustration.

Atiba de Souza: Because the thing here is, we want our business to run at 110%.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So, don't just delegate the task, you also have to articulate the gap, which is, you've got the fundamentals, 80% tells me I can trust you, I'm handing you this work, but here's what you need, or here's my vision.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: For what 100% is, or 110%, whatever that might be, and now either they're going to self-develop, or you're going to provide the tools, the resources, so that they can close that gap.

Atiba de Souza: Even easier than that.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: I love easier. Do it!

Atiba de Souza: and this is the thing, like, I've read every book

Atiba de Souza: almost every book that Amazon's published on delegation. I mean, I used to love that, and I've made every mistake

Atiba de Souza: that any business owner can make in delegation? Probably twice.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? I've seen it all. I've been there.

Atiba de Souza: Right? I've hired 200 people to fill 6 slots.

Atiba de Souza: in a year. Like…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: No.

Atiba de Souza: Not good.

Atiba de Souza: I've made all of the mistakes.

Atiba de Souza: I've tried all of the ways they've taught us to delegate.

Atiba de Souza: They fail us.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So go on and give us a little secret.

Atiba de Souza: Until…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: better.

Atiba de Souza: And I'm not sitting here telling you that I'm the smartest person in the world. This, what I'm about to share with you, came out of pain. We talk about it in the book, out of a very, very broken place. This is where this came out of, okay? And it's called a case method, and it's four…

Atiba de Souza: Questions.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: That's all you need.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: What's standing between you and freedom is four questions.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? Four.

Atiba de Souza: So…

Atiba de Souza: Let me run this with you for a moment. Let's say you have a project, and you need to give it to someone, and it's their first time doing it.

Atiba de Souza: Okay?

Atiba de Souza: You would run the case method, and you'll have a case method meeting.

Atiba de Souza: Now, here's how this will work.

Atiba de Souza: You go to the person, you say, hey.

Atiba de Souza: I've got this project, here's how I think it should be done, and…

Atiba de Souza: I fully expect that you're not gonna get this right, because I'm not doing a good job of actually giving you everything that you need. I'm giving you what I got, but I don't think this is everything that you need. I expect that you're going to fail.

Atiba de Souza: And it's okay. And when you fail, it's not your fault, it's mine.

Atiba de Souza: And I'm telling you that up front, this is mine. But here's everything.

Atiba de Souza: And here's what I want to do.

Atiba de Souza: Today is Tuesday.

Atiba de Souza: Let's meet on Friday, and on Friday, you're gonna get a chance to tell me all the places that I failed you.

Atiba de Souza: And all the places it went wrong, okay?

Atiba de Souza: You set that up.

Atiba de Souza: Friday comes around, now we have what we call the case method meeting for questions.

Atiba de Souza: Four questions.

Atiba de Souza: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: When a meeting starts, You ask.

Atiba de Souza: What?

Atiba de Souza: challenges… did you have in this task or project?

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay…

Atiba de Souza: Now, as a business owner, this is going to be tough.

Atiba de Souza: Shut your trap.

Atiba de Souza: Do not say a word.

Atiba de Souza: Let them talk.

Atiba de Souza: poker face!

Atiba de Souza: Do not let them know, good, bad, or indifferent.

Atiba de Souza: What I do is I take out my remarkable, and I put my head down, and I write, so I don't have to look up at you.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Lovely remarkable, by the way.

Atiba de Souza: That's a plug for Remarkable. Hey, Remarkable, if you're listening, we'd like to be sponsors.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yeah, we would love to be sponsors. Anyway, so challenge. What challenge have you experienced with this

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Poker face, zip it.

Atiba de Souza: Say nothing, just take notes.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? Once they've listed out all of their challenges, Then.

Atiba de Souza: The next question is, okay, now I'd like you to articulate a…

Atiba de Souza: The steps that you went through. Start at the beginning.

Atiba de Souza: And then what? And then what? And then what? Articulate all of the steps. Again, Zip it. Poker face.

Atiba de Souza: Write the notes. Give them the space to talk, and have them feel that you're listening.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So that's…

Atiba de Souza: Resilience.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: G'day.

Atiba de Souza: Yes, resist the urge to fix, okay? That's C-A.

Atiba de Souza: But here's what's going to happen in that moment, though.

Atiba de Souza: In that moment, when you have that backdrop of the challenges they had, and the process that they went through, you're going to start to see clearly

Atiba de Souza: Where they went left, and they should have went up.

Atiba de Souza: It's gonna be clear, but you say nothing. You say nothing.

Atiba de Souza: You just write notes.

Atiba de Souza: Okay. Then yes.

Atiba de Souza: You're gonna choose 4.

Atiba de Souza: of the steps. 4. Two, they did right, two they did wrong.

Atiba de Souza: 4.

Atiba de Souza: And you're going to study and dive deep.

Atiba de Souza: That's the S.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay.

Atiba de Souza: Right? So, tell me, what were your assumptions?

Atiba de Souza: Coming into this step. What did you think was going to happen? What actually did happen?

Atiba de Souza: How did that… how did that make you feel? How did you react to that?

Atiba de Souza: what would have made this easier? What would have made this better?

Atiba de Souza: How could it have worked?

Atiba de Souza: Okay?

Atiba de Souza: And now, in that moment of studying there, here's what's happening.

Atiba de Souza: You're getting to see clearly that they think this way, And you think this way.

Atiba de Souza: And you're seeing the differences.

Atiba de Souza: And when you see those differences, you realize there's a chasm in between their thought and your thought.

Atiba de Souza: And your job as a leader is to help them bridge that chasm.

Atiba de Souza: Now.

Atiba de Souza: You asked me earlier, and we talked about the most important thing for you to do is set vision. Here's the second most important thing, and it comes in this S stage, is you must become a master of asking questions in order to survive in business in the next 10 years to 20 years.

Atiba de Souza: Your question game has to go on supersonic level.

Atiba de Souza: Because now, in this moment, you have to ask questions. You see, we resist the urge in this moment.

Atiba de Souza: To say, this is how I think, this is how you think, let me just tell you how to think. That doesn't do it.

Atiba de Souza: What you want to do is, you want to ask questions and say, okay, I know the answer!

Atiba de Souza: Over here.

Atiba de Souza: And I know you're over here. So how do I ask you a question? And what's a series of questions I need to ask you to help you start taking the steps across the bridge to cross that chasm?

Atiba de Souza: So, let me ask you this, so when you started this process, you, you thought that you had 7 widgets.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Right? And because you had 7 widgets, you did X, Y, and Z. That's what you said, right? Yes, yes, that's what I said. So…

Atiba de Souza: whatever would have happened if you had 5 widgets?

Atiba de Souza: Well, if I had 5 widgets, then I would have done…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Not really.

Atiba de Souza: Really?

Atiba de Souza: Huh. And how would that have affected the next step, and the next thing that you did?

Atiba de Souza: And you're asking them the questions for them to figure out the answer

Atiba de Souza: themselves. To walk all the way across the bridge, and when they get across the bridge, what they do invariably is they throw their hands up in the air and they say, I'm a genius! I figured it out!

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: It's creating the space and container for… to slow down.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And to think, and that's, I think, one of the challenges for all of us, is that we're moving at such a rapid pace. Yes, we're relying on AI, which is, in some ways, removing the critical thinking, the critical questioning of the why, where, how, who, what.

Atiba de Souza: And so those first 3 steps are already bridging that gap, in my mind.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: So…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: What about the E, then? What's E?

Atiba de Souza: Before we get to the E, there's one more

Atiba de Souza: thing in the ass that's happening. Okay?

Atiba de Souza: And here's the thing, this is a… A process that you repeat.

Atiba de Souza: You repeat, you repeat, you repeat, you repeat, in the same project, in the same task, as you go through all of the steps, right? Here's the thing, because when they cross that bridge, and they keep crossing that bridge, see, here's what happens in their mind and in their hearts. As humans, let's get back to the story, as humans.

Atiba de Souza: We will… we will support anything that we co-create.

Atiba de Souza: Any story that we're a part of, we want to be supportive of.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And preferably as the hero, not the villain.

Atiba de Souza: Well, definitely not… Definitely not the villain.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Okay?

Atiba de Souza: But the key there is… Once they start to co-create, They start to take ownership.

Atiba de Souza: And how many of us don't sit around and say, if only my people would take more ownership?

Atiba de Souza: That's…

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: the key.

Atiba de Souza: To them taking ownership.

Atiba de Souza: Okay? And then the E.

Atiba de Souza: The E is very simply, so…

Atiba de Souza: What was easier than expected? Now, you don't always ask the E the first time around. Usually, we may run the case method meeting 4, 5, 6 times in a row, and just do CAS, CAS, CAS, until the process starts to actually start to flow well, before we ask the E.

Atiba de Souza: Because in that moment of asking, so what was easier than expected?

Atiba de Souza: The answer, invariably, Highlights a hidden talent

Atiba de Souza: That your staff member has that you may not have noticed.

Atiba de Souza: You may not have paid attention.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: too.

Atiba de Souza: And so imagine for a moment, you've helped them cross the chasm and taught them how to think.

Atiba de Souza: And now, they're able to layer on their uniqueness on top of how you think.

Atiba de Souza: All of a sudden, 110% becomes, oh, we can do that.

Atiba de Souza: Screw 80%.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Win-win for all, and that's, to your earlier conversation, the difference between good, or good enough, and greatness.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Yeah. Atiba, thank you for that rapid introduction to CASE. Challenge, articulate, study, Easy.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: But of course, there's more richness behind it. And I would encourage all listeners, and those who are watching the video version of this, to get your hands on the delegation trap. It's not them, it's you. Whether that's the physical book, Kindle book, or audiobook.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: But as we come to the end of our time together, Atiba, what's one message you hope that leaders are leaving with from this conversation? And of course, how can people learn more about the work you do and get in touch?

Atiba de Souza: Thank you for that, and… The message would be.

Atiba de Souza: You have to ask better questions.

Atiba de Souza: Stop telling people stuff.

Atiba de Souza: Ask.

Atiba de Souza: ask.

Atiba de Souza: Ask.

Atiba de Souza: Let them articulate.

Atiba de Souza: And become a better questioner.

Atiba de Souza: Okay?

Atiba de Souza: And we talk a lot about it in the book. Matter of fact, I dedicate several chapters to asking questions, and the art of asking questions, and the art of learning how to reframe your thinking on how to ask questions in the delegation trap. And to get the book.

Atiba de Souza: And to get… be in touch with me, the easiest way? Go to thedelegationtrap.com.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: Wow, that is so easy. I will make sure that that is in the show notes below. And if you enjoyed this conversation, I invite you all, please, to hit the little bell, hit subscribe, do whatever you need to do so you don't miss out on the next conversation.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: And make sure to check out Atiba's website and LinkedIn, et cetera, et cetera, but stay in touch. Atiba, it's been so much fun to have this conversation with you. Thank you.

Morag Barrett, SkyeTeam.com: for joining me.

Atiba de Souza: The flesh has been all mine.

Atiba de Souza: Thank you.