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Welcome to the Pretty Okay Podcast, a chill (but sometimes spicy) small business podcast for people who are crazy enough to have one. Hosted by the Founder of Enji, Tayler Cusick Hollman, we cover everything from basic business practices to small business marketing. We sit down with some of our favorite small business owners and experts who share their stories, real-life experiences, and advice, all while keeping it (very) real and honest.
Tayler - 00:00:05:
Well, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to this new episode of the Pretty Okay Podcast. I am your host, Tayler Hollman. And today I have a guest that I am so excited to talk about because what we're going to nerd out on for the next little bit is the whole like... I'm a doer, but I also need to be a leader. Sometimes I have to go back and forth between the two. Sometimes I'm like trying to get fully out of the doer mode and into leader only mode. And so I have Audrey Kwan here with me today, and we are going to talk about all those things, but really honing in on the top five things that you need to unlearn as a doer in order to be a great leader. So hello, hello, Audrey. Thank you so much for joining us on the pod.
Audrey - 00:00:51:
Tayler, thanks for having me. I am so excited to get into this topic. I think it's a topic that a lot of solo service providers, when they're transitioning into growing their business, need to hear and need to know about. So I'm excited to get into it.
Tayler - 00:01:05:
Yeah, it's definitely one of those growing pains that I think people underestimate and they underestimate and they don't expect that that's one of the huge changes that needs to happen when they're going from like operating by themselves into I have an agency or I've got a team and somehow I have to scale all of the things. So for the folks listening who haven't had an opportunity to meet you before, can you introduce yourself?
Audrey - 00:01:31:
Yeah. I like to think that I was raised in what we call agency life, and I've gone through what we call the doer to leadership journey in my career and also, of course, in my business. How did I get here? I think the first thing I got to share is I never thought that owning my own business was going to be a path for me. So I started out, I started out solo. But before I even got there, I actually went to university thinking that I was going to be a lawyer. And, I'm Asian, so I had typical Asian parents. And what that meant is, I had a choice of three careers. Doctor, engineer, lawyer. And so I went to school thinking I was going to be a lawyer. And I did the thing, took political science, thought that I was going to become a lawyer, get into politics. And change the world that way. That was not the case. And I learned this through my first internship and it was for the federal government. And I realized it wasn't for me, but something really cool happened. When I was in that internship, I was tapped on the shoulder for a committee. And this is like way back when, way back when, like 2001, way back when. And so I was tapped in the shoulder to be part of this committee called e-services. And that was what we call digital marketing. And that's how I fell in love with marketing and started to get into working with marketing agencies. And so I can really say that I was raised in agencies because when I finished school, I've been an assistant, a coordinator, a manager, and a director. An agency. And then I went what we call client side, which means a client hires you from the agency to work in their business. And I thought that was it. I thought that I was going to climb that corporate ladder. And that would be my life. And my mom passed away quite suddenly. So she was diagnosed with cancer. And, passed away in three weeks. You know how they say that you could step off a curb and be hit by a bus suddenly? That was my kind of step off the curb and be hit by the bus suddenly moment. And if I were to look at the inspiration of why I do what I do now, it is definitely that moment in time. I look back at my mom's life and there were a couple of things that I had wished for her. I wish that she was less stressed. I wish that she had more ability to be present for her family. I wish that she had time to take more vacation and do the things that I think. Could have given her a lot more joy before she passed. And so I decided that I was going to quit my job, but that wasn't before I finished. I finished a master's degree in communications focused in organizational development, quit the job and started the business. And so I think full circle, that's how I got here. Like that's how I became a business owner, someone who helps people put in strategic systems and focus on leadership in their business so that they don't burn out, so that they can have a life. So I guess that's kind of the long story of how I got here. Across the last years, last couple of years, I've helped to sell and exit an agency. And I've also coached and consulted with agency owners, helping them go from solo to team, which is the journey that I think most people want to go on and need to go on if they want to scale a service-based business.
Tayler - 00:05:04:
Totally. You know, there's, there are some similarities between our stories and, you know, the big one just being. Were entrepreneurs and had no plan to be entrepreneurs, right? So I think that that's always, it's always so interesting to hear how people's lives meander. And then we end up in these spots where we actually really thrive, even though we never imagined that for ourselves. But, you know, it's funny that you, you know, as you were closing out. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I still have a hard time saying that, but I have three businesses that are active. My focus is the startup with Enji, but what my first business was a, or, and it's still around as a marketing consulting business. And I, I never wanted to scale and like start an agency because hi, my name is Tayler and I have control issues. But also that's why this conversation is like, so right up my alley, because, you know, I think for a lot of people who are listening, who are on the fence of whether or not they're ready and wanting, whether it's like the right strategic decision for them, the control issues that are often omnipresent for people who are driven enough to start their own business. I think that that's one of the big things that gets in the way. And it's also one of the big things that keeps us in the doer position versus transitioning into a leadership role. So What, just for the folks out there, because the teacher, I'm a former teacher, so I always like to, let's start at square one, kids. So for starting at square one, what is the difference between a doer and a leader?
Audrey - 00:06:50:
I love what you just mentioned there about how you had a, I think you, and you still do a marketing communications type of business. And I think most people that start a business as a strong doer. And most people that I work with do, they start a business as a strong doer. So what that means is. They have a skill set. And I think this will resonate with you. They have a skillset like you, and they're really good at that skillset, right? So they bring the skillset out into the world, right? They start selling that skillset. And before they know it, they're so good at it that they're at capacity. And the keyword is capacity. And once you get to capacity, guess what? You can't go any further until you create more time for yourself. You create more freedom for yourself to grow the business if that's what you want, right? And so that's what we call the doer profile. In a small business, it's a person who typically starts a business with a super specialized skillset, and they know how to do all the things themselves. Now it's time to scale. And the word scale has so many different meanings in our small business world. So in context to our conversation today. When I say scale, what I mean is You want to get more time in your business to make more money, right? And in order to do that, you have to step into what we call the leadership role. And the difference between this doer to leadership role is two things. Number one, it's the role itself and the skills itself, right? So as a doer, what actually keeps you stuck in the doer role is that you are a strong executionist. You are great at executing the things. And that means that you're able to leverage your attention to detail, your efficiency, and your ability to even follow processes and systems. All those things make you a wonderful doer, right? And you're proactive at managing things like your workload. And you are more than likely an excellent problem solver in your area of expertise. That's doer. Now, if we want to become a leader, what does that mean? Well, your role will have to change. You can't stay in the execution seat. You have to look at yourself or at least put yourself in the seat of a person who is able to guide others to their vision and their goals. And the skill sets change. You need to lean into the skill sets of communication, empathy, strategic thinking, and the ability to delegate effectively. We'll talk about delegation in a bit because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding around the word delegation. And there's a couple of other things I want to point out too when you become a leader, or at least I call it the doer to leader journey. So again, the doer to leader journey. And so along this journey, some other things that you have to lean into and learn are like things that you typically don't do as a solo entrepreneur, right? You have to learn how to resolve conflicts between you and the people that you work with in your team. You also have to learn how to motivate others, which is a skill set. I would say those are the core differences between what we would consider a doer to a leader.
Tayler - 00:09:59:
Yeah, you know, I was aggressively, if you're not watching this and you're just listening, I was aggressively nodding my head through all of the points you were making. Because I very much, I identify with both, you know, personas, doer and leader. But the doers, the doer characteristics, I was like, yep, yep, yep. Right? Like we take a lot of ownership. We're decisive. Right? Like we make moves. We have this ability to keep projects moving forward. And that is, it does help you. I think some of those skills do help you as leader but there's, tell me if you agree or disagree with this. Like, I think in the life of a doer, most things are pretty black and white. And then when you are in a leadership role, you really have to live in the gray and operate in the gray because it is so much about humans. And like you said, motivation and, you know, like all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, like just that's why I was, yes.
Audrey - 00:11:14:
No, it's so good. I hear what you're saying. As a doer, let's unpack black and white. So as a doer, black and white really means here is the thing you have to do and here are the steps. If you follow the steps, right, from A to B, you get to the end, right? So that's a doer, right? So execution-based, right? Whereas leader, this is less about executing the projects. If you're a leader, it means that, you know, you're wanting to go out there and bring someone into your business. Maybe it's a contractor, maybe it's full-time. It doesn't matter either or. You still have to lead this person, right? And leading someone isn't about following a SOP, a standard operating procedure, where it's like, if I go from step A to step B, this person or step C or whatever that is, this person will be A-okay, they'll be perfect. There is the nuance of that relationship. And also there is the nuance of learning how to, to work with that person where they are at, right? And those are all things to learn. And I think most of us who are stepping into leadership, And this goes into one of the core things that I like to share when we talk about things we have to unlearn when we step from doer to leader. And one of the core things that we really have to unlearn is this idea of I to we. We have to unlearn the I, right, and go to we. And much like what I just shared there, the I is if I follow this process from step A, B, C to D, I will get this result, right? But you can't do that with another human being because there is no if I follow a process with this person from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, they'll get directly to the result. We is really an understanding of how to meet someone else where they are at. And when you can meet them where they are at, then you can work together, which is the we, to get the result that you want.
Tayler - 00:13:06:
I love that. I love it. So we all, guys, we all got to play nice with one another if we want to be leaders. And we need to like really lean on all of our soft skills in order to be effective leaders, right? So I think that's a perfect transition into, okay, what do we need to unlearn as doers in order to get into that great leadership role, position, facilitator? So what's the first thing that you would like to call all of us doers out on? And I'm getting a little squirmy because I'm like, I have no idea what Audrey's going to say.
Audrey - 00:13:42:
This is great. This is the first thing that I work with my clients to do is to understand what going from I to we looks like, right? And I think if there's one sentence to capture this, it would be that we have to learn that leadership isn't a one size fits all approach. It isn't a one size fits all approach. And I think when you're a new leader, you tend to lean into one type of leadership style. And usually it's the delegating style or the directing style. Those are the two styles that most new leaders lean into. But there are four styles that I think most people don't understand exist when we lead someone. And when we are directing someone, that type of style is what we call low support, right? Low support, high direction, okay? Low support, high direction means that you're basically giving someone the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 list, right? And that type of leadership doesn't help you build the person up to be a critical thinker that you want them to be. And there is no good or bad way to lead, but that's just one style. And that style can be used in circumstances. But I think we have to understand what we're doing when we're choosing the style we want to use with someone. Delegating is actually the opposite of the spectrum. It is low support, low directive, okay? What does that mean? It means that this person most likely has a track record of doing something that's very similar than what you assign them. And because it's very similar, you actually have a track record with them and therefore can delegate something out to them fully, right? And I think when we think about a new leader stepping into this role, they're leaning into direct or delegate. But what they're missing out on are the two other styles, which is support and coaching. And oftentimes when we bring someone into the business, we have to be able to understand, first of all, their level of competence and our confidence in them. And our level of confidence in them plus their competence will determine which style we use. Of course, we're going to direct someone if they have zero experience doing the thing you need them to do. And when I say thing, what I mean is, is it a project? Is it an assignment or task? That's the thing, right? And each thing can mean a different style. So one size fits all approach is like thinking to yourselves, if this person worked well when I delegated this item to them, this project, that means everything that comes out of the pipeline, I can just delegate to them. But that's not a great way to think because most people have different experiences doing different things, right? And so we have to evaluate the thing first, right? And so when we think of using delegation, well, that means that we have seen a track record with this person. And if they have this track record, great, we can give them the thing right off the bat and they can do it, right? But what if, what if they don't have a track record? What if they come into your business and let's say that you are... I'll give you an example. I would probably give, highlight this a lot better. So I have a client who owns a vet marketing agency.
Tayler - 00:16:54:
Okay.
Audrey - 00:16:55:
And they run anti-bullying events, okay? And they're hiring a new person to come in to fill the role of a manager for their business. And if this person was coming in, and let's say that they didn't have exact experience running and facilitating or managing anti-bullying events, but they had that same experience doing nutrition events, for example, right? So this person has a foundation, meaning that they have both the systems and processes to do the things, have a track record in following system process to put out the event, but they don't have understanding of nuance, then you would use supportive leadership style. And supportive leadership style looks like this. It is exactly this, high support, low direction. So high support, low direction means we would be giving them the ownership of the responsibility to get the task across the goalpost, but we would be coming in and asking them what parts of the processes do they need consultation on and support them on those parts of the process, right? That's support. Now let's say that this agency owner is hiring someone into this role and that person maybe has coordinated an anti-bullying event before, but never managed it, okay? So they don't have any track record of managing the event at all, but they have exposure to it, right? So this is what we call a reach role, right? In our world, we call it a reach role. And if they were in this space, well, they would need coaching. And coaching in an organization looks really different than what we think about as coaching in a world of business where life coaching. So if you think of life coaching, right, it's very, the concept of life coaching is so popular. And we all know life coaching is someone who's really good at asking you questions and getting you to reflect back the answer and then sharing back what you've shared, right? In organization, coaching can look a little bit different. So coaching has a little more direction involved in it when you're in an organization. So you might come to a conversation with this person and you might ask them, look like, what are the three directions you think we should be going and come back to me and tell me which direction you think would be the best way forward, right? And they would share the three directions and the best way forward to you. And you as a leader would still input in which way would be best. You're still directing them, right? So those are kind of the four, what we call the four leadership styles. And the, the biggest leap for any person going from I to we is learning what those four are, and how to apply them in the business so that your people can be more productive, but also feel more supported. And in addition to that, what happens is when you apply those four types of styles and you can gauge when to apply them, you're going to have a business where people are, they might start at directing, but they're going to move through into coaching, supporting, and then, then you're able to delegate, right? And that's what we all want in the business. At the end of the day, we all want to delegate something, right? But in order to do that, we have to really think of the we, where are they at and how do we get them there?
Tayler - 00:20:15:
That's fantastic. Yeah, you know, humans, there's that spectrum that you just talked about where on one end of the spectrum is I am going to hold your hand. And then the other end of the spectrum is I want you to run with this. And as a leader, you have to realize. That every person is going to be on a different part of that spectrum, but then also that any one of those people has the ability to grow and move in and out of different positions there. So that's a fantastic thing that we all need to recognize in order to go from doer to leader. So what is your second thing that we all need to unlearn and add to our list?
Audrey - 00:20:57:
The second thing is going from time management to priority setting. Okay, a doer knows how to manage their time to complete a checklist really well, right? And when you complete that checklist, guess what? You get this like huge dopamine hit, right? It feels like, woohoo, I've accomplished something for the day. We all love that, right? But as a leader, you can get stuff done in a day and it might not actually matter to the priorities in a leadership role. And I think when you step into leading, the first thing you need to do is have clarity on what the priorities are. And if you're a solo entrepreneur, that means priorities on your business goals, right? And most of my clients say that they want to get out of the day-to-day so that they can focus on things like growing their business. And typically growth means marketing. It means sales. And yes, it means systems so that they can actually have a truly automated place. But to get there. We have to prioritize putting in the right structures to make that happen. There are things that are just outside of a, I think, a solopreneur transitioning into that from doer to leader. They have to get outside their comfort zone. And so I see a lot of my clients sabotage their journey to leadership by getting back into things that are more time management based than priority setting. Elizabeth, who I work with and owns a communications and consulting agency and focused on sustainability. When they came to me, they were stuck at a revenue level. And in order to get out of that, that stuckness, in order to get to the next level, they needed time to do marketing and to do sales. So in our assessment of their challenge, one of the barriers of growth was not having this internal structure. So they needed a better internal structure, which for them, her and her business partner, they actually needed a hire in both their sustainability strategy and creative directing. And so a priority that we set for that quarter was, okay, let's get this person hired. Let's get one person hired this quarter. And what I found working with them is that they had a really hard time prioritizing this item in their business, even though it would grow their business and give them back time to do marketing and sales. They found themselves going back to doing things like checking off their team's to-do list because they thought it was urgent or sometimes even fixing things that didn't need to be fixed. And when we saw this start to happen, number one, we had to first call it out because it is self-sabotage. And then second, we had to come in and help carve out the boundaries around their time. And that's a huge thing. When you're going from doer to leader, you can't just wake up in the morning and follow your inbox. It's not going to work. You have to have a well-structured calendar. Where in this case, is it a full Monday? Is it a full Friday? What is it? What boundaries are you going to put around your time where you only focus on your priority projects? And I think more importantly, in the beginning, it helps to give them a checklist of things related to priorities. So in other words, we're leaning into this comfort with checking things off in a list and giving them the resource of a checklist related to their priorities in order to help change that habit for them. And that's worked well for them, right? It just meant building a new habit of focusing on priorities. And once they were able to do that, they were really able to step into doing the things in their business that could really grow their business.
Tayler - 00:24:36:
Yeah. You know, this is my life's mission is to understand why. Marketing. Everyone knows that marketing is important. But no one makes it a priority. And so the whole time you were talking, I was like, keep going, keep going. This is so good. And. Marketing, I know. Because I've seen it with my clients. I even see it with the community around Enji that we're building is that the checklist of things, the time management driven items, if something, even if the smallest little thing comes up. Someone's attention shifts from the priority that they know is important. And that, like you said, will help them grow their business and move the needle. They just, they default to, oh, I should get that done. And so, like I said, this is my life's mission to understand. Why this is emotionally, psychologically. I mean, I have my thoughts about it, but that is for another, I'm going to have to do a whole soapbox episode of me talking about that. But yes, priorities and time management are super different. It's something that I'm feeling. As the founder of a startup right now, I feel that a lot. I'm constantly being asked by my partners to, we always talk about what's the priority? What is the thing that's going to move the needle for this business versus what's Tayler's task list for today, tomorrow, and the day after? I love that one. These are so juicy. What's the third thing we need to unlearn?
Audrey - 00:26:21:
Before we hop into the third, I just got to say, I think one of the reasons why people avoid things like marketing and sales is because it's outside their comfort zone. We're talking about doer to leader journey, right? And so what's a doer most comfortable doing? Executing. And again, we talked about that dopamine hit, right? So when you execute something and you check off that thing on that list, you get that hit of joy and it feels like you've accomplished something because you can see the direct result right away from checking off the item. But when we think of marketing and sales, oftentimes those things take time. That you have to build upon them, right? You're not going to, for example, write a blog post and have it go viral right away. That takes time, right? So I think that's what it comes down to. Marketing and sales really is about the commitment to consistency and consistency isn't easy. Whereas checking off a list, for example, if you're in a service-based business and a client says, I need your help over here, and you help them, the client says to you, it's a wonderful job for me. Guess what? It feels good, right? I think that's one of the core reasons why I see business owners not attending to the sales and marketing just because it isn't that immediate gratification that they're getting versus helping the client do something.
Tayler - 00:27:34:
Yeah, you guys, if you're the longtime listeners of this podcast, Davey Jones and I literally just talked about this a few episodes ago. Audrey is here bringing it back up. So this is the truth, right? There is, there is marketing is like farming. And if you don't do the work now, if you don't prioritize the work, then you're never going to have anything to harvest. And then you're going to be like. In a really bad spot with your pants cut down. So, yes. Thank you for standing. I'm like, going to just collect all of my small business owning friends who are like, marketing is like farming. Marketing is like farming. Be a broken record about it.
Audrey - 00:28:12:
Love it. Love it. Yeah. Okay. So moving on to the third item here, what do you need to unlearn as a doer to step into leadership? Well, you need to unlearn solving problems for yourself to empowering your team to actually solve the problem. Business owners out there. I know it. You are a great problem solver. I am raising my hand because I'm a great problem solver and Tayler, I see, you know, you're probably raising your hand over there too saying, yes, we're great problem solvers, right? And we're proud of that. I'm proud of it. It's our ability to resolve the issues quickly that make us great business owners, small business owners, right? But that's also what shoots us in the foot when we're trying to grow a team. And the hardest part here is practicing restraint in problem solving. And it isn't easy. Like it just isn't easy to step back from that. What I call the front line of directing people, right? And then moving into the space of orchestrating teams performance. And I'll give you an example here of like how that actually can look like. And it's a lot easier than people think. And I think when I put into context, the example of what does it mean to solve problem for yourself versus empowering a team look like, I think people might be able to even apply this for themselves in their business. I have a client. His name is James. And he has a small full-time team of four people, including himself. He has a hard time getting his designers to own client presentations. He has a hard time getting them to own it in a way that he feels builds up trust with the clients, right? And so his approach to solving the problem, and I call this solving a problem for yourself. He attended. All the concept presentations. And yeah, that was a solution. I'm going to attend all the concept presentations. And you know what? I'm not going to say anything. I'm still going to let my team do the presentations, right? But if they falter, if there's something they miss, I'm just going to step in and save them, right? What does that do? Well, that doesn't help your team at all because, number one, it makes them feel like, look, someone's going to come in and save them. And also, it could also make them more nervous because, you know, you're in there and you're acting as this person who's overseeing their presentation. And the other challenge with this is that he was feeling stuck and drained. Well, of course, if you're showing up to your team's presentations and you have a whole bunch of stuff to do, of course, you're feeling stuck, stuck and drained. He also tried telling his team how to do it. He gave them SOPs. He gave them processes. All those things that you think and most people think can solve a challenge of empowering a team. Systems and processes, hello, strategic systems go over here all for it, but systems and processes only go so far to solve certain types of challenges, right? And empowering your team is not one of those things it actually solves, right? So with this team, what we really notice is that they're missing a certain flair. The flair is called confidence, okay? Confidence. So identifying the problem is so important when you're trying to empower your team because you cannot empower your team unless you identify the core issue. The core issue is not you not being in the meeting. So, you know, we need to not solve for that problem because that's not the right problem to solve for, right? And empowering a team looks really different. When we looked at the makeup of the team, again, empowering the team means understanding your team, right? So when we looked at the makeup of the team, we could tell that his designers were highly introverted, right? So knowing that they lack confidence, knowing that they were highly introverted, what do we actually build to support the people in his business to do this thing better? Well, first step, as the leader, you need to identify for yourself the KPI you want to meet. In this case, our KPI to empower the team was to increase their confidence levels by 50%, right? So we identified the challenge. Now we have a KPI. Now the question is, how do we actually increase the team's confidence by 50%? Well, we did not have to put James in the teaching seat because that would be a whole lot of work. Imagine, okay, if we asked James to be the teacher, i.e. Let's create workshops, let's build training, we don't need to do that. And in fact, that doesn't solve confidence issues, right? Remember, we're solving confidence issues. So instead, we suggest building a space for his team to practice across the quarter, three months. So every week we had his team meet and James was only facilitating the meeting. So that means his team would come in, a person would be responsible for presenting a current piece of business. So it's in context to what's happening in the business. We're not wasting time. The person comes in, they present the client's work, and then the entire team provides feedback while James facilitates. It took us two months before James said, I feel confident myself that the team can do this. And the team is now confident. And so two things happened when we did this. Number one, we built the confidence of the team. They got to practice. And when they were not presenting and listening, they were able to see for themselves what worked and didn't work. And then we solved another problem because part of this problem is also that James himself did not have confidence in his team. And by going through this process, he gained that confidence and could let go. So that is what we call the difference between solving a problem for yourself versus solving a problem that actually empowers your team.
Tayler - 00:33:40:
Yeah. This is one of the, remember, hi, my name is Tayler and I have control issues. This is also one of the things that I personally needed to work through. And years ago, shout out to Ivan Brown for this one, my friend, because I was having a conversation with him about it. And he gave me this analogy and it has stuck with me and it's worked. He said, Taylor, in business, there are rubber balls and there are glass balls. And when you are giving something to a team member or someone you're managing, working with whomever. If they're going to drop a rubber ball, you let them drop it. Hands up. It can hit the ground because it's going to bounce back. The only time that you need to go in and try to save it is if it's a glass ball, right? And those are reserved for like things that are so core and fundamental to your business that if it doesn't work, if it doesn't work well, then like your business could implode, right? There's not very many things like that. Most of the things that were, most of the balls that we're juggling are rubber balls. And so James is probably like me, like, hi, James, rubber ball, let it hit the ground. Let them have the space to practice this. They will get better. Sometimes you just need to let people do the thing in order to increase their confidence. So Audrey, seriously, it's like you're in my head. It's like you've been following me forever because all of your things have been very much a part of my own personal journey of going from only a doer into a leadership role.
Audrey - 00:35:21:
And it's common. Yeah, it's common. I think that all these things we're talking about are common to people who have been in that solopreneur space and transitioning into leadership. And I got to say, I love this analogy about the rubber ball and the glass ball. And I think the challenge is when a business owner sees everything as a rubber ball. And it's because you're so close to the actual work. You're so close to the day-to-day that it feels like everything is a rubber ball. And part of the work we do is dissecting that for our clients and sharing with them what truly is a rubber ball and what truly is a glass ball. And once you can see that clearly, it is much easier to grow your business.
Tayler - 00:36:00:
Totally, totally. Okay, so what's number four? What's the number four thing we've got to learn?
Audrey - 00:36:05:
Yes, okay, from risk aversion to risk management.
Tayler - 00:36:09:
Yes.
Audrey - 00:36:10:
So risk aversion means that you are largely reactive to risk and you deal with them when stuff hits the fan, right? So a good example is in a business where you are given systems and processes. So in a larger business, most people who are being lifted from, let's say, a coordinator role into a manager role, at the coordinator level, they're given systems and processes, right? And so when they're given those processes, they are reactive to risk, meaning that something comes on a pipeline, oops, I need to deal with it. I need to avert that risk in that moment, right? That's what we call risk aversion, right? Risk management is different, right? So if you are actually in a management seat or a leader seat, your job is to recognize that every decision actually has risk. It's not to avoid risk, it's to recognize that every single decision has risk. And then you need to identify, assess, and prioritize that risk to make informed decisions, right? So it's less about avoiding risk and more about accepting risk with what we call mitigation strategies. I think the best way to put this is that it's less fly by the seat of your pants and more thought out planning to grow your business and to lead your people. I'm going to go back to the example of the events management agency that I have. She's lifting a coordinator up into a manager position, and that coordinator is a key doer of all things, right? They're given the processes, they're given the SOP, and they follow that roadmap. And as they are lifted into the event manager position, she then has to look at the full planning cycle of events, right? So that event manager now has to figure out what are the risks of each decision and identify any nuances for the processes and SOPs according to the event and hand that over to the coordinator. Those are two different positions, right? And it's interesting because I often hear my clients share this concept in a very different way. They'll say things like, and they'll frame it like, I can't get the person I hired to be a proactive thinker. And I want them to get in front of things without me telling them. That's usually how it plays out when I'm working with someone. And I will tell you, that's a function of this challenge right here, is this person in risk aversion mode or are they in risk management mode? And if you can identify this challenge, you can help someone clarify how to go from risk aversion to risk management, which really helps you solve this idea of like, all the people in my business can't think for themselves, right? This is how we solve that challenge by understanding the doer-leader journey and risk aversion to risk management.
Tayler - 00:38:47:
I love that. It's right. It's, it's part of this is being able to like step outside of the business and look at it more holistically, because when you do that, not everything is happening right in front of you right then. And you can see where the entity is heading and where the potential opportunities for it to hit the fan. You know, where they are, and then you can help to move the entity around those where you can, you can't, you, there's no way you can avoid all risk, but yeah, mitigating it is super important. So-
Audrey - 00:39:28:
Yeah. I think when you're a doer, like when you're a doer, what you're, what you're, what you're focused on is the action that's really right in front of you and how to make sure that piece, that action doesn't fall apart. Right. So it's just what's right in front of you. And when you step into that, like that leader role, it's about that bigger picture thinking. Again, your job is not to look at the thing that is right in front of you. Your job is to actually look at the decisions that you're about to make and the impact of those decisions overall. And I think when you can see that, when you can step into the space where your decision-making is based on identifying risks and assessing risks, not only do you make better decisions, but you lead people better, right? Because if you can share with someone what they potentially might bump up against, you can better prepare them for what's coming down the pipeline. But if you cannot do that, then that person who's a junior to you, or in my case where, I serve niche agency owners or agency owners have a niche, when they hire people, niche knowledge is something that someone has to learn, right? And so as the leader, you have an understanding of the risks better than the person you hired. Cause you've been in your niche for five, 10, whatever, how many amount of years. Right. And if you're don't know how to look at the risk, analyze the risk and share it down the pipeline, then your people who you are leading cannot help support you to better avert that risk either. Right. So any case that that's kind of what is, what I see as, um, what I see as kind of mission critical is just the skill of training someone from going from being a person who is averting risk to being a person who is managing risk.
Tayler - 00:41:07:
Okay. So what's the fifth thing? I mean, we've got such a fantastic lineup of things that we need to unlearn, like habits we need to break, new routines we need to build. So what's the last one that you want to share with us to help us go from doers to leaders?
Audrey - 00:41:22:
Yes. I think this is the one that most people think about. It is going from a person who receives feedback to giving constructive feedback. When you are receiving feedback, guess what? You grow when you receive feedback. But when you give constructive feedback, you are helping someone else grow. You're helping someone else grow. And I think as the recipient, as a person who may have received feedback, it's hard for you to see the thought that goes into good feedback. It's hard for you to break that down. And what is it not? It's not telling people what you like or don't like nicely. That is not constructive feedback. Most of us want to be liked. And so we think that constructive feedback is doing exactly that. Let me tell you what I like or don't like about this, but do it in a nice way. That's not what it is. Constructive feedback is... First and foremost, about asking good questions. So the quality of your question actually determines the quality of your feedback. I'll say that again. This is really important. The quality of your question determines the quality of your feedback. And how you ask a question can really give you insight into how somebody else is thinking. It can either create good conversation or it can limit that conversation. The super skill in constructive feedback is simply asking good questions. And if you think about good questions as not one size fits all, meaning one of the things that I see people do is they bring into a conversation this one question. The one question could be, I had this conversation with my husband like five years ago. And at that time, he was leading a, he's a chef and he works for a corporate restaurant. And one of the questions that he would always bring to his team was this question, right? How would you solve that problem? That was the question he brought, right? How would you solve that problem? So someone would come up to him and they would give him an answer or ask him a question. And his way of giving a constructive feedback was to ask them, hey, so how would you solve that problem? And I think a lot of us are taught that, oh, if someone comes to you and asks you for constructive feedback, you shouldn't give them all the directions because then you're training them to be instruction followers. So the best thing for you to do is ask them how they would respond to that. And I will share with you that that question has a time and a place, and it's not for every time in every place, right? It really depends on exactly what the situation is. And this really goes back to the concept of like what style of leadership you're tapping into, whether it's delegating, directing, supporting, or coaching. And each one of it's, um, each one of those has its own type of communication style. I'm not going to go into like the full details of each of those communication styles here. I have a workshop on that, but nonetheless, I just want to make the point here that it really is dependent on the type of leadership style that you need to use in the situation. And then determining from that point, what type of feedback you need to actually give the questions you need to ask.
Tayler - 00:44:24:
Yep. You guys, we got to be so adaptable to the people that we're trying to lead, right? Like we have to adapt to what's the most effective way for us to like facilitate them doing and growing. We have to adapt to what's the most effective way for us to like help them do their own like reviews of what worked and what didn't so that they can continue growing. Like it's, this is a very, that's why leadership is hard is it's so nuanced, but you really have given us all like, okay, here's clear things. And I think that, to me, all five of the things we need to unlearn, they are very true. They all hit very close to home. I think for, I'm going to go so far as to say for everyone who's listening, who is not already like a great leader, all of us probably had similar reactions to all of the things that you shared. So I know that you have a fantastic resource to share with everyone. Can you tell everyone what that is and how they can get it? Because I also think that I can speak for everyone and they're all saying, help me, Audrey.
Audrey - 00:45:46:
We have two resources. I'll show the first one first. If you feel like you're like flying by the seat of your pants, trying to build your service-based business and you kind of want more order to that chaos, we start with looking at an org chart that makes sense for your business. And so it's what we call our Mighty Pod Model Cheat Sheet. Our Mighty Pod Model Cheat Sheet is meant to help you see what a scalable team structure looks like for a service-based business. And you can get that in the, I believe it's going to be in the show notes, but the URL is audreyjoykwan.com/cheat sheet. If it's for anyone who really does have a service-based business and is at capacity, this is the foundation for really scaling with that lean team. And the other resource that we have, it is a workshop. And it's around some of the concepts we talked about today. Because the core of how we go from do to leader is based on this concept of understanding those four leadership styles. And our workshop is called How to Rewire Leadership for Growth. And we have that available at audreyjoykwan.com/leadership style. And it's for anyone who's kind of stuck thinking they're not either cut out to lead or cut out to manage people.
Tayler - 00:47:07:
Those are both really amazing resources because I think that a lot of us, especially if you have been operating as a solopreneur, solo business owner for so long, you don't even have an idea of what an org chart would look like and like what's possible, what's most efficient there. And then also for the workshop, like, hi, imposter syndrome. We tell ourselves we're not capable of doing things all the time when we really are. And so I love that those two things together can really help facilitate someone getting like to take the next step and move past just being stuck at capacity. And if that's not something that they want, that they can actually start to make moves to to grow their their agency in their business, to have a team so they can get their time back. Audrey, where can people because people are going to want to follow you because of all the amazing nuggets that you shared with us today. Where are the corners of the internet that they can find you?
Audrey - 00:48:03:
Yeah, my website's a great place. It's audreyjoykwan.com. You can go there. And check out our services. On Instagram, we are Audrey Joy Kwan. And on LinkedIn, I am Audrey Joy Kwan. And those are the places where we are most active, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Tayler - 00:48:24:
And you have a podcast as well, right?
Audrey - 00:48:26:
Oh my gosh, I do. I have a podcast. It's called Small But Mighty Agency. And so on the podcast, we talk about all things related to strategic systems in a service-based business, as well as leadership.
Tayler - 00:48:41:
Awesome. Well, everyone should go follow Audrey, listen to her podcast, grab her resources. She is hooking you up with all of the knowledge in this leadership arena that everyone can do a better job at it. It is a skill that we have to learn and a muscle that we have to exercise. But thank you so much for joining me on the Pretty Okay Podcast. The show notes will be up on prettyokaypodcast.com. And you know that your girl is doing a better job of being more consistent with the Instagram content for the podcast, because it is a priority now. And so you will find some fun stuff there. But we'll be back next month with another episode. And until next time, we'll see you somewhere on the internet.