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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach and I am here with Karl Sakas. He is an agency advisor and his company is Sakas and Company. Karl helps independent agency owners work less and earn more (Let me repeat that. Work less and earn more. I know you all want to sign up for that program.) while rewarding their best team members. Drawing on his background in agency operations, Karl has personally advised hundreds of agencies on every inhabited continent. He is the author of four books, including _Work Less, Earn More_ and his new book, oh my gosh, _Calm The Chaos_, and hundreds of articles on agency management. When he's not helping clients, Karl volunteers as a bartender on an antique train-- okay, so let's figure out what his favorite cocktail is-- and you can get a free copy of his _50 Scripts for Handling Difficult Client Conversations_ when you sign up for his Agency Growth newsletter.
[00:01:30] Now, here's the thing, y'all, he works with agencies, but what we're gonna talk about today, _Calm The Chaos_. I bet if you have an agency, you have a retail store, you work in a hospital, there's probably chaos. So welcome to the show, Karl. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:01:45] Karl Sakas: Nicole, great to be here. Great to be back and looking forward to helping people.
[00:01:49] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. We are so excited to have you here. So let's get this bartending thing out of the way right up front. Tell us about the antique train and all the things.
[00:01:59] Karl Sakas: Yeah, well, it's an antique train car called the Dover Harbor. It's owned by a railroad preservation history nonprofit based in DC. So everyone who's working on it is a volunteer. They've been around for many, many years. And so we do trips. You can charter the whole car and go wherever you want, or you can book a ticket on an existing trip. It's kind of like a 90 foot long, 90 ton rolling bed and breakfast at the end of an Amtrak train.
[00:02:27] Wow. That is so cool. That is so cool. Okay, so what's the number one thing everybody orders when they're on the train? Is there like a most popular drink that everybody picks or...
[00:02:38] I mean, it depends on the person. I think for me it's like, what do they want rather than what do I think they should get? You know, most things are pretty simple. Wine, rum, and coke, that kind of thing. I will say though, if I make a drink involving a shaker, suddenly everyone wants whatever that is.
[00:02:55] Nicole: That's right. Everybody likes to [shake], right?
[00:02:58] Karl Sakas: Exactly. Yeah. And of course some of the [shake] is happening as the train is going along. You have to make sure that you don't trip and drop things on people as you're going.
[00:03:08] Nicole: Yeah, that's right. Well, that's a whole percussion thing going on. I can hear the train going, you know, and I can hear you shaking the shaker. That's so fun. All right. Well, enough about bartending and drinking cocktails. Do that at the end of this podcast, folks. All right, so we're gonna talk about your book which is _Calm The Chaos._ It's brand new. You're such a prolific writer, and I've got it here in my hot little hands. I love this book so much.
[00:03:31] Karl Sakas: One, one of the early preview proof copies. Now available online at calmthechaos.xyz through Amazon Worldwide. But you have one of the very first copies.
[00:03:41] Nicole: I know and I have mine autographed by the Karl Sakas. So I am all excited about that. All right, well first of all not many people read the foreword in a book, but I did. And I love this little forward, and it's by a gal named Gini Dietrich. And I love her little story and it sets the tone for the book beautifully. Will you talk a little bit about what she's written in here? I love it.
[00:04:07] Karl Sakas: Yeah. Yeah. So Gini Dietrich's background is as an agency owner and advisor. She runs a number of things. She's created the peso model for communications and improving your marketing mix. She also runs a website in community called Spin Sucks about helping the PR industry do better work. And, you know, when I asked her to do the forward she shared about her early experience leading her firm and she had worked with a coach and had an important reality check at one point noting that she was complaining about, you know, things with her team. Her team couldn't do their job. Everyone was burned out and she was frustrated and no one was happy. And she shared it with the coach. He let her vent and then he said, and whose fault do you think this is?
[00:05:00] Nicole: I love that. I love this coach.
[00:05:03] Karl Sakas: Yeah, yeah. I mean, what have you seen about things like that?
[00:05:07] Nicole: Yeah, well, I love it in here. She said three things. She said, "I was talking to him. My year in business was so bad. I'm often surprised I kept going, and three things happened. Clients were constantly upset at the lack of service, my team complained and I had a mean business coach. That's what caught me. And I kept reading and I thought, oh, I'm the mean business coach sometimes. So I absolutely adore that. And then she says, I had a mean business coach who held no punches, and then in parentheses, "(He wasn't really mean. He did a great job. I was just highly sensitive and prone to tears.)" I thought that was lovely.
[00:05:41] Karl Sakas: It can happen. I've started asking my clients during the intake process, you know, there's a 60 question intake questionnaire once they become a client, and there are other things that I ask as well, and one of the questions I ask is basically how spicy do they want my advice to be? You know, are we talking about really hot, spicy, medium, or mild So far since I've added that question, no one has chosen mild.
[00:06:06] Nicole: Oh, fantastic.
[00:06:07] Karl Sakas: Usually it's medium, or, or extra spicy. But of course the proof is in the pudding.
[00:06:12] Nicole: Yeah I might have to steal that shamelessly from you, Karl. Add it to my intake form. Because, because I mean it's like that movie. What's that movie? You can't handle the truth? What was that movie?
[00:06:23] Karl Sakas: I think, is that..., oh no. A Few Good Men.
[00:06:26] Nicole: Yes, yes,
[00:06:27] Karl Sakas: Yeah.
[00:06:28] Nicole: Yeah. And here's the thing, you know, that's what you hire a coach for, is to help you get your pushups done and get your sit-ups done and get your laps done around the track or whatever. You know, that's a metaphor, but we definitely want that. And so I think that,
[00:06:41] Karl Sakas: To clarify, for everyone who's listening, coaching isn't all exhausting and not fun stuff. I mean, sometimes that comes up, but you know, really it's for me, it's helping clients focus on what will give them the highest impact. Sometimes that's prioritizing longer term things that they might ignore otherwise. Other times it's working on quick wins that'll give them a big impact immediately and that, that feels great. Build up momentum. It's, it's not all, it's not all bad. It's not going to bootcamp.
[00:07:10] Nicole: Yeah. No, but I agree with you. It's like, you know, you've gotta hold the balance between here's what I want to happen in my future. What do I gotta do today to make that future happen? Right? So That's so good. All right, so in the book it's called _Calm The Chaos, 10 Ways to Run a Better Agency_, or, in Nicole Greer's mind, business, hospital, retail space, whatever your stuff is. And so, you give people a reassuring note on page seven. You say you don't have to start from scratch. Life is easier when you're focused on what's more important.
[00:07:40] And so you've got these 10 ways. And so the first way to run a better business or agency is to take good care of yourself. I love that. Will you talk a little bit about how leaders need to take care of themselves?
[00:07:53] Karl Sakas: Yeah. I mean, people, if you're listing, you've probably heard some version of, "put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others." And it's true. I think we all know it, but that can be hard to implement in the day to day and in the book, I share some examples. And even as a coach I can struggle with this, too. A while back I logged into what I thought was just gonna be a normal Zoom meeting with my team. You know, it was a Friday morning, it was gonna be a relatively light meeting day. Little did I know I was logging into an intervention. My team was concerned about my workload, concerned how things were going, and you know, they offered help to sort out how to make things better. And, you know, at that point I, I had a decision to make. Do I listen to them, they're sharing concerns, they're trying to support me. Do I listen or do I ignore them and continue business as usual? And I decided I needed to make a change. And I did. And with their help. And that made things a lot better. And, fast forward to today. On the other hand, you know, there are some bosses who will hear that kind of feedback from their team and they'll dismiss it.
[00:09:01] Nicole: Mm,
[00:09:02] Karl Sakas: And that's bad for the boss and it's bad for the team. They're gonna stop bringing up concerns in the future.
[00:09:08] Nicole: Yeah. And you talk about in here about the first thing you need to do is look at your calendar.
[00:09:15] Karl Sakas: Yes, yes.
[00:09:17] Nicole: Are you delusional? Are you in back, to back, to back, to back to back meetings? Answer is yes, you are.
[00:09:24] Karl Sakas: And as a manager and as a leader you're going to be in meetings. That is part of your job. I occasionally have clients say I'm in all these meetings, I can't do my work. And I'm like, well, if you're in a leadership role, meetings are part of your work. That's part of how you accomplish things. But I recommend doing what I would call a calendar review where you look through your calendar, typically a week at a time, and then each day to see where are you spending your time. Are you in meetings that maybe now you could skip going to entirely? Are there meetings maybe where you still need to attend, but maybe you no longer need to be the one who's leading the meeting. Maybe you can delegate that to a team member. So now you can show up as attendee and maybe you're gonna make some decisions, but you're not having to organize all of it. And in the middle, there could be meetings where maybe you attend once a month instead of every week or something like that.
[00:10:16] These are opportunities for you to help your team grow. And for you to focus on other things. As I talk about in my last book, _Work Less, Earn More,_ if the head of the company or someone who's in an executive or leadership role is working less and also earning more. I mean, someone else in the team is going to get elevated to do some of that work, and that's an opportunity for them to get promotions to move up in their career and make your life easier.
[00:10:43] Nicole: Yeah, a hundred percent. You gotta figure out who's gonna take over for me. Absolutely. All right. And you've got lots of tips in this chapter. Another one is "Consider energy management." So I just wanted to tap on that for a second because I think energy management's huge. You know, in my work I teach that there's actually six energies inside a human. There's intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical, social, and financial. All of those energies need to be addressed. But I love what you've got in the book. So talk a little bit about, I gotta manage my day, not so many meetings, and then how about my energy? What are your thoughts on that?
[00:11:23] Karl Sakas: Well, for people who are listening, think about when you're at your best and when you're at your worst. You know, if you're a morning person, don't try to get your hardest work done before you wrap up for the day. And likewise, I have a client who's basically, like, I don't wanna do meetings before 11:00 AM. So in that case, doing a meeting at 8:00 AM for that particular client would not go smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's harder when your team is across many time zones. Say if you have a team in the US and you're in Europe, you're working late days. If you have colleagues in India or in China, you're going to be up early or up late to meet with them. And you know what? They're doing the same to meet with you. So, you know, try to find the right balance for you and for your team. And keep in mind that as a leader, your goal is to get results through your team. Sometimes that means going outside your comfort zone to help your team get what they need so they can get what you need.
[00:12:26] But you know, it starts by talking about it. Right. Should you have the weekly team meeting at 8:00 AM on Monday morning? For some teams, yes. For others, maybe it's better to have it Tuesday morning where people have had a chance to catch up from things on Monday, or maybe have it on Friday morning where you've been through most of the week, there's still some time to wrap up and then people can hit the ground running on Monday. You need to find what's right for you and your culture.
[00:12:55] Nicole: Absolutely. So number one in Karl's book and we're talking about _Calm the Chaos_, everybody. And his first tip is take care of yourself. And I'll just say that the last tip, I mean, he's got many, many, many tips in chapter one, but the other one I think is great is, "It's okay to do nothing." Schedule yourself some nothing time.
[00:13:14] Karl Sakas: Yeah. Part of capitalism is saying, you must be productive at all times. It's okay to rest-- and if you're in a leadership role, you actually have a unique opportunity in that you've got, in theory, if you pursue it, more flexibility in your time and how you spend that time and things like that compared to frontline employees. I mean, ideally you're creating flexibility for them as well, but no one's going to tell you to stop, to rest. If you have a coach, your coach is going to recommend that at times. But we all need to recharge.
[00:13:50] Nicole: Yeah, a hundred percent. All right, let's go on to the second chapter, which is the second way to run a better agency, company, hospital, retail space, et cetera. Except that you're no longer the sole "doer" or "answer person" in your agency or organization. This is huge. Like let somebody else do the stuff. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:14:19] Karl Sakas: Yeah. I first encountered that, I was speaking at the SODA Academy, the Society of Digital Agencies, and I was leading a workshop on leadership, and one of the attendees who had been running his agency for a while said, you know, if you want to grow, you can't continue being the answer person all the time. And I would add, or as the doer, it's scary to let other people do things other than you for the first time. I shared an example about my German teacher in high school. One of her catchphrases was, "if you want it done right, do it yourself." She also was the homeowner's association president for her community. So I, I think she had experience doing thankless work. But, you know, I,
[00:15:03] Nicole: That's funny.
[00:15:06] Karl Sakas: yeah. Uh,
[00:15:08] Nicole: Those of you who have been on the homeowners association know what he's talking about.
[00:15:13] Karl Sakas: I've intentionally avoided it and will seek to that for as long as possible.
[00:15:17] Nicole: I, my husband did it for three years. Don't do it. Okay. Anyways, go ahead. Somebody's gotta do it.
[00:15:21] Karl Sakas: Uh. Growing up, my parents were both career Army officers and now retired. But in the military there's a joke about a group of early career officers that are struggling to put up a flagpole, and the instructor is looking for the right answer. The right answer is for the young lieutenants to just give the order, "Sergeant, put up this flagpole. Let me know if you need any additional resources. I'll be back later." Right? Like don't jump in and do the work that you've asked your team to do, or that your team is there to do. It undermines their morale, it reduces their confidence, and it makes your life harder. Now, that's not to say that you should expect your team to guess about where the flagpoles need to go and that they can do it without your providing access to the resources. But your job is to be thinking about where the flagpole should go, not necessarily to put them all up.
[00:16:20] There is still some leading by example. I had a client in Australia who mentioned that he made a point of emptying the dishwasher in the morning some of the time so that the team could see that, okay, if the boss is doing it, they can do it too. Uh, ideally you aren't doing all of that all of the time. But it's hard to start delegating things. One of the things I mentioned in _Calm the Chaos_ is, you know, there's often this idea of "well, just delegate more." And that sounds good. That makes for a good bumper sticker or wall sign or what have you. The thing is delegation is actually complicated. There are 15 to 20 steps depending on if you need to hire someone for the first time. You don't have to necessarily think about every step, every time, if you have a good team and you've got existing structure. But you know there's everything from, "should I even delegate this?" to "what are the parts to delegate?" to thinking ahead: "how will I integrate this person's work into my workflow later?" If you need to hire someone, that makes it even harder. So delegation is complicated, but it is definitely a learn-by-doing kind of thing. What do you see with your clients?
[00:17:27] Nicole: Yeah. Really what I'm thinking about this whole concept of " you can't be the only person," is most agency owners, I imagine. They started it, they're entrepreneurial and they're scared. They're scared to give up control because maybe people won't do it exactly how I do it.
[00:17:46] And you know, I think sometimes it's just a little bit of, maybe your ego pops up. That's what makes you scared. And it's like, well, you know what? One of your people might actually do it better than you. That's been my personal experience in my own company, like, if you would get outta the way, we'd really make this rock and roll. I was like, okay.
[00:18:04] Karl Sakas: I, I, yes. I held off for a long time on delegating sending invoices. I enlisted my colleague Kate to do it. She does it faster. It's better. I should have done it years earlier. But, you know, I think we all need to see for ourselves. Keeping in mind, of course, that if you don't have team members who could do it... I think of a Venn diagram.
[00:18:25] Nicole: Okay.
[00:18:26] Karl Sakas: Imagine three circles, intersecting desire, competence, and capacity. If your team doesn't have desire, they want to do it; competence, they know how to do it; and capacity, they have time. If you don't have all three of those, then it is hard to delegate. I can understand not delegating that situation, but if your team has all of that: desire, competence, capacity; now the blockage is probably you as the leader.
[00:18:50] Nicole: That's right. And that's on page 28 and 29 in the book. And he's got, again, so many things in here. And I love anything with a diagram or a system or a little something or other that I can memorize that helps me realize things. You've got another thing, "clarify responsibilities via an ARCI Matrix."
[00:19:10] Karl Sakas: Exactly. And RC or some people will hear of it as a raci, RACI, it's an acronym and the goal here is to clarify who's in charge of what, and also who's not in charge of what. The acronym stands for accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed. _Accountable_ is the person usually at the very top of the company or top of the project. You know, ultimately they're on the hook, whether something happens or not. However, the person who is responsible is usually the one who is doing it. In a very small organization, accountable and responsible are gonna be identical. But accountable, you could think of it as the executive sponsor for a particular project. That's _accountable_. _Responsible_ is more about the person who's leading it, doing it day to day. _Consulted_ are people who need to provide input before things are done. And _informed,_ people need to know what's happened, but not necessarily in advance. One of the biggest challenges that can waste your time as a leader is if someone is on the _informed_ list, but they think they should be _consulted_, or if they jump in and think they're _responsible_. They're frustrated. You're frustrated. Everyone else is frustrated. By clarifying the RC, ARCI or RACI Matrix at the beginning of a project, or when someone's starting a new role, there's gonna be less drama because people aren't butting heads over who's in charge of what. Should they have been consulted? Should they have been updated? You know, that, that kind of thing. They can also reduce the risk of what I would describe as a swoop and poop. That's
[00:20:48] Nicole: The Swoop and Poop!. Oh my gosh. I love this. Keep talking. I just love it.
[00:20:53] Karl Sakas: That's where... imagine a seagull, right? They fly in, leave some unwanted deposits and fly away. Now you have to clean up the mess. Same thing happens in business and elsewhere. Say there's an executive who wasn't involved in the planning process, but suddenly they realize they wanted to be involved later. They show up, leave some negative feedback without any context to everything you've gone through so far, and then they leave and you have to clean up the mess.
[00:21:19] Nicole: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:20] Karl Sakas: I, that's part of my client intake process where I'm asking about key stakeholders. You know, I'm generally working with agency owners or executives on the leadership team. Usually with my work with independent agencies, this isn't an issue. But imagine you start working with an organization, maybe it's a client organization for whatever your company is doing and they're like, oh, the CEO doesn't need to be involved in this. Or the CFO? No I'll keep them updated. Don't worry about it. They might show up later and derail the whole engagement. So make sure the right people are in the loop. Make sure that people who aren't decision makers don't think they're decision makers, and then feel frustrated when you're not listening to them. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:06] Nicole: Yeah. And so really what you're talking about is like a little model that helps you get expectations in place, right?
[00:22:13] Karl Sakas: Exactly, and I didn't invent RC or RACI. It's been around for years. I think more people would benefit from it. So if someone's hearing about it now or if they're reading the book or they're hearing about it for the first time, check it out. I share examples in the _Calm the Chaos_ book, including an agency example of how to do it, but you can apply it in any industry, any setting.
[00:22:34] Nicole: Right. And we can get this book at CalmTheChaos.xyz. Did I get that right?
[00:22:40] Karl Sakas: That is exactly right. That'll link out to all of the Amazon sites worldwide. If you like it in print, you can get it in hardcover or paperback. You can also, if you prefer digitally, you can get the Kindle version. Or, and as I, listen to more and more books there's also an audio book version that I narrate myself. It's under two and a half hours. You can listen to it quickly and then refer back to it. I've kept the book intentionally short. It's just over a hundred pages in print.
[00:23:09] Nicole: People got a lot to read and take care of, don't they?
[00:23:12] Karl Sakas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's make it a little easier. It's a quick read, about a hundred pages, or if you listen, a bit under two and a half hours.
[00:23:21] Nicole: Fantastic. All right, well let's go to the third thing, and this is the third way to run a better agency, company, organization, department, et cetera.
[00:23:28] Karl Sakas: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Nicole: This one, I love. Because, you know, I'm all about building a vibrant culture. And so it says in chapter three, "create the work environment you wish you had."
[00:23:39] Karl Sakas: Yes.
[00:23:39] Nicole: Don't you remember being the new person at the agency or the new person at the company and you thought, oh, this is-- I didn't sign up for this, or I wish this was different.
[00:23:48] Karl Sakas: Exactly. You know, I had a boss years ago who took me aside. It was my first job. I was sharing a lot of suggestions to improve the company and he said, "Karl, just 'cause you're helping row the boat doesn't mean you get to steer her." Yeah. Yeah. I mean it was disheartening to hear,
[00:24:06] Nicole: And you're like, "I'm not trying to steer, I'm just suggesting we need new paddles."
[00:24:10] Karl Sakas: I, I know. But, but that was, that was good advice for the culture. Things didn't go smoothly for him. He gave notice on a Friday morning, you gave his two weeks notice, and the president of the company said, well, actually that's good 'cause your replacement is starting on Monday. They were gonna fire him that afternoon. Yeah. Thankfully he is, years later, has moved on to better things.
[00:24:34] Nicole: Good. Good, good. All right. Well, I love all of your suggestions in here. And I, the first one I think is just the greatest about warmth and competence. So will you just talk about what you mean by warmth and competence?
[00:24:48] Karl Sakas: Yeah, so it's a concept from the book, T_he Human Brand_, by Chris Malone and Susan Fisk. And what they talk about is that humans tend toward either warmth, making people feel special; or competence, focusing on results, getting the job done, and ideally, we are high warmth and high competence.
[00:25:06] And you can use this model for thinking about how you interact with other people, how you interact with companies. If you are running a company, thinking about the employee experience and the customer or client experience. It gives a simple yet powerful framework. For instance, I had some recent discussion with my team. As we've migrated to a new marketing automation system, there was something that I wanted to do that turned out to be very complicated to implement, just based on the various nuances involved. And we were thinking about: is it worth it? And you know, I was able to raise, what is the high warmth, high competence solution? And in that case it meant doing the extra work to build out, making it happen. Something that seemed very simple to the recipient, but it turned out it was fairly complex to build. And people say if you tend toward warmth, you can look for opportunities to build on the competence side. If you lean more toward competency, you're looking for opportunities to boost warmth as well.
[00:26:08] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And I think people want to be in an environment where they're appreciated, but they're also challenged to do the things that they've never done before. You know? So those two things can exist together. There's a, I don't know if you've read the book or heard of Kim Scott who wrote _Radical Candor_?
[00:26:24] Karl Sakas: Very popular with many of my clients. I've read the summary of it. I haven't read the whole thing.
[00:26:29] Nicole: Yeah. And her and her model's a little bit similar. It's like, care about people personally, but challenge them directly is what radical candor is. And I think that that just mirrors that so lovely. All right, so another thing in chapter three, which I think is so good, create the work environment you wish you had, the vibrant culture. You talk about "trust, but verify," and you said during the Cold War, US leaders adopted a Russian saying, trust, but verify. But I remember Ronnie Reagan saying that. That was the first president I ever
[00:26:58] Karl Sakas: Yes. He in particular. Though, apparently, for the Soviet Union, they were amused that it was a Russian saying that he was applying around holding them accountable. But you know, the leadership version of that, whether you're at an agency or any other kind of organization, is don't just assume everyone's doing what they need to do. Sometimes they don't know what they need to do. Other times maybe they know they need to do it, but they don't know how to do it or what a high quality result or deliverable is gonna look like. And the good news is, some of that is going to be live, synchronous in a meeting or in conversation. Other times, though, it can be asynchronous. For instance, you can go into your project management system and see are people logging notes about what's going on? If a salesperson isn't hitting their quota, are they logging activities to your CRM? You know, just because someone is doing sales activities, that doesn't guarantee they're gonna get results. But if someone isn't getting results and you see that they aren't doing any of the activities, outreach, calls, emails, sending proposals, they're definitely not going to get results. So you, you can do that background research before you have the synchronous call. And if you realize there are things you need, say there's a weekly meeting and you need certain updates in advance, part of your baseline expectation is to say, "I need this, this, and this by an hour before the meeting or by end of day before the meeting so I can review it," so you can prepare.
[00:28:30] Nicole: Yeah. That's great.
[00:28:31] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts. To increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results your organization will get lit from within. Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:28:57] Nicole: All right. I think the last thing I wanna cover on this point-- we can't go past it-- is a tolerance mistakes. I mean, we have such pressure to get things perfect. And one of the things that I teach when I teach the vibrant culture program that I do is that I talk about, all the people that come to work for you have been in the typically American school system, where we're all like so programmed to get an A, you know? And if you're a good job of hiring people, you're probably hiring people that like got A's. And so, there's this huge thing where we have to be perfect. But you're saying we need to tolerate mistakes, which that's how you learn.
[00:29:37] Karl Sakas: It's a balancing act.
[00:29:38] Nicole: Yes.
[00:29:39] Karl Sakas: But if your culture is such that mistakes are unacceptable, versus, say, being learning opportunities, people are going to be afraid to make mistakes, but then they may be more prone to make mistakes and then they're scared to disclose that they've made mistakes. One of the things that'll happen in the US Navy on aircraft carriers, you can't have foreign objects or debris on the flight deck, right? It can get sucked into the jet engine and create all kinds of problems. And it's the idea that if someone realizes they've dropped a wrench or something like that, the idea is they're going to disclose it and then everyone spreads out to find it like they stop flight operations. But part of it is that they'll actually positively recognize people who disclose it rather than hide it, because that ultimately is a matter of life or death.
[00:30:30] Nicole: I love that example too. All right, so that's number three out of his 10 ways to run a better agency, company, organization, retail store. All right, so let's go to chapter four, which is right up my alley. Train and coach your team early. They have to do their job later. Support your team proactively. Yeah, so I agree. I think people wait till there's a problem and it's like he needs coaching.
[00:30:54] Karl Sakas: Yeah, yeah. Coaching becomes sort of a penalty or a punishment.
[00:30:58] Nicole: Oh, it kills me, Karl.
[00:31:00] Karl Sakas: Yeah. But I mean, think for instance, did Michael Jordan see coaching as a punishment? No. It was part of making him an amazing player.
[00:31:11] Nicole: Yeah. So I think that's so important. And I love what you say on page 46, make a list of training and documentation topics. I mean, you know, what keeps coming around in these meetings? All those meetings we talked about back in chapter one, you know?
[00:31:27] Karl Sakas: Exactly. And something in the final book, there are actually three things you can do to prioritize around documentation, and it's kind of like risk management. You start by looking at what is most likely to happen. If it's likely to happen, you should probably document it or have a plan for risk management. What might not be as likely, but would be catastrophic if it did. You probably wanna plan for that. That's where things like disaster preparedness and business continuity plans come in where you're hoping it doesn't happen, it'd be bad if it did. Be ready for that. And the third area is around what if things go really well, right? You've planned things, things go amazingly well. Are you ready for that? Sort out what your plan is.
[00:32:13] Nicole: Right, because we gotta scale now. Right. 'cause the business is coming in. Okay. I love that. All right, so get a training plan in place. And I love the idea of the training plan and risk management going together like peanut butter and jelly. All right. Okay. Number five seems so obvious, but I think that sometimes leaders are wishing, hoping, and praying. Now, I'm a big believer in prayer, but wishing and hoping might not be the greatest strategy. So in chapter five, Karl tells us, tell your team what you need from them. This is fantastic advice!
[00:32:49] Karl Sakas: Your, your team can't read your mind. I, I, I think your note about common sense. I think as they say, common sense isn't always common practice. I think you need that reminder that, you know, team can't read your mind. That includes giving them a clear vision to follow, setting clear expectations. Thinking about frameworks, I have one that I call values, goals, and resources if you're assigning something. If they know the values to consider, how you wanna operate; the goals, what are they trying to achieve; and the resources involved, what are the time, budget, people, software, things like that to help them get things done. They're going to interrupt you less often if they know the values, goals, and resources. And if they don't, you're expecting them to read your mind and that rarely goes smoothly.
[00:33:37] Nicole: People don't have ESP. That's only like a Vegas thing, I think. All right, and so that's chapter five on page 59, what he just rattled off. And then there's three A's of communication. I wanna go over those real quick. The three A's. I think this is also very good.
[00:33:52] Karl Sakas: So, consider this, as a manager or leader, a team member comes to you and they've got some sort of a problem. And you're like, oh, why aren't they bringing me a solution? Like, you know, so now I gotta deal with this. Right? And you're solving the problem and you're telling them what to do and all. And they seem to be getting a little fidgety and then they go off and they're supposed to implement what you said.
[00:34:09] Here's the thing, maybe they weren't expecting you to solve their problem. And a lot of the things as leaders we take on, we don't need to take on. There's plenty that you do, but here's the idea here, what I call the three A's of communications, the three A's are aware, advise and actively involved. The idea is that when someone comes to you, you ask them, --or ideally, over time they volunteer it-- are they sharing this to make you aware? They've got it, they just want you to be aware of what's going on. Are they sharing 'cause they need advice about what to do? Like they can solve it, but they need to get your advice about potential options or they're thinking of this or that. What do you recommend? And the third area is for you to become actively involved. That's where they need you to step in and they need you to actively help. Rather than jumping in where maybe they just wanted you to be aware and instead you're insisting on actively involved, you just wasted your time, you hurt their morale, and they're not gonna learn as well about how to do it themselves in the future.
[00:35:15] Nicole: Yeah, I love it. The three A's. All right, that's chapter five.
[00:35:19] Chapter six is Delegate Intentionally, Not Recklessly. So, practice delegation, not abdication. Woo. That's so good. All right. Talk a little bit about what you've got in here. You've actually got 15 steps. It's on page 67, everybody. So we probably don't have time to get through all 15 steps, but Yeah. But you, but if you thought to yourself, what are the steps of delegation? Karl's got it in his book _Calm The Chaos_, so learn to delegate.
[00:35:49] Karl Sakas: The full breakdown, I think, if we were to tie all of that together. As a leader, you want to avoid creating leadership vacuums. Those are situations where everyone is waiting to hear what you want them to do or what you expect from them. And you're just not telling them. And usually leadership vacuums are inadvertent. You didn't mean to create the leadership vacuum, but as a leader, you're responsible if it happens. Um, this can be especially challenging if people are going through personal crises. For instance, if a leader is getting divorced, right, they're not going to be fully present at work. Things still need to get done, though. And if the leader hasn't enlisted others, hasn't delegated things to others, stuff either isn't happening and that's not good; or people are jumping in and trying to help, but they may not be following the values, goals, and resources, 'cause the leader hasn't shared those with them.
[00:36:46] So leadership vacuums are really insidious. One shortcut-- and this could apply to a lot of situations-- decide what type of delegation you want to do. And I think of it as two options. There's inclusive delegation and exclusive delegation. Inclusive is if you say, here's a list of things that you can do. If it's on the list, do it. If it's not on the list, don't do it. And that can be especially helpful if someone is new to your team, right? And you're getting to know them and they're getting to know you. Inclusive is, if it's on this list, you can do it. Exclusive delegation is you give them a list of what not to do, and as long as it's not on the list, they can do it.
[00:37:29] There's a government example I learned. I've done some Government 101 programs here in North Carolina. In North Carolina, local government cannot do anything unless the state has approved or authorized it to do it. In contrast, in Colorado, it's the opposite. Unless the state government has forbidden it or federal forbidden it, the city or the town could do whatever they want. So very different models.
[00:37:54] Nicole: The Wild West, we like to call it.
[00:37:57] Karl Sakas: Yes. Yes. Um, I, I would say if you've got a team member that you know and trust and they have good judgment, I would lean toward more of an exclusive delegation approach. They can't sell the company they can't sign a contract over a certain dollar amount, but other than that, ideally they're empowered to do what they can.
[00:38:16] Nicole: Let's make it happen.
[00:38:17] Karl Sakas: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:18] So good. I love it. Okay, chapter seven. "Give team members a chance, but not forever." Okay. And then your little tagline here is, your agency isn't a charity. Your company is not a charity. You don't have to keep folks who aren't contributing. Oh my God, I love this. Talk, talk, talk.
[00:38:39] I think sometimes there's this idea of give people a chance. Yes, you should give people a chance, but not forever. That includes, as a leader, coaching your team on coaching their team. That also means taking action. Maybe someone is good at their job, but they are a poor culture fit. You know, or worse don't tolerate bad actors in your business. Maybe they're great at sales, but they're toxic in other ways. What message are you sending to the rest of your team? If you encourage them, you keep them, you promote them.
[00:39:13] Nicole: Yeah. Well, you know, Karl, I'll ask like I'll have a whole room full of leaders and we're about to talk about leadership. We're doing a retreat or something, and I will ask them this question. I will say I have an individual, they're on your team. They're excellent at the tasks, the things on their job description. But they are not user friendly. Are they a good employee? And I say, you only get to pick yes or no. And I'm so shocked how oftentimes people say yes. And I'm like, no, no, no. You gotta have both. Because the person who is good at their job, but toxic as you're saying, is going to upset everybody. And then you're not gonna have what I call a vibrant culture.
[00:39:57] Karl Sakas: And we all want that. I sometimes shorthand people like that, where maybe they're good at their work but no one likes working with them, as a misanthropic loner. Right? I've had a number of clients with people who fit that description. I've worked with some over the years, and they would probably succeed as an individual freelancer or some sort of a role where they're not part of a team. But, in my work with agencies, they are all team-based environments. I mean, most companies are, right? You need people to work together. If you've got a misanthropic loner, set some boundaries, set some standards. If they aren't willing to change, they're gonna need to find a new job.
[00:40:37] Nicole: That's exactly right. And it's just that simple. And what I say everybody who's listening that, that has worked with me, my thing is coach 'em in or coach 'em out. And what's our heart,
[00:40:46] Karl Sakas: Yes.
[00:40:47] Nicole: our heart is to coach 'em in. I mean, maybe they'll change, you know, but if they won't. Bye bye. All right, so I love that. Okay, chapter eight, build a team of strong leaders to support you. So like you don't have to go it alone, right?
[00:41:03] Karl Sakas: No, no. And certainly if people really dislike managing and leading people, then there are other alternatives to consider. My work is a lot with business owners. You could work as an employee for someone else in a subject matter expert role. You could work as what I would call the super consultant role where you're doing high-end advice, but you're not managing a full team kind of thing.
[00:41:25] But for everyone else, we benefit from having a team to support us, and that includes identifying people who have potential, creating a leadership pipeline to help them move up, helping people identify career paths, whether you're doing that with your direct reports and then making sure they do it with their direct reports. Looking for opportunities to promote from within when you can and to hire externally when that's the best option. Recognizing that external hires are gonna need more support in acclimating to their role, 'cause it's not just the role, but it's to your business as well. Having more check-ins with people. Also check their references.
[00:42:07] Nicole: Yes, that that is not a dead concept, is it? I
[00:42:12] Karl Sakas: No. Yeah. Yeah. So it,
[00:42:14] Nicole: We can check 'em out.
[00:42:15] Karl Sakas: And within that, and this is true for anyone in any role, I, I think of it as there are three things that they need: training, coaching, and escalated responsibility. Training is kind of a baseline of how things work, what you expect, things like that. Coaching, is that one-on-one custom support, whether it's accountability, maybe a Socratic method? What do you think you should do, or my approach to coaching is technically coaching style consulting, where I'm still making recommendations based on their situation rather than, what do you think endlessly. And then escalated responsibility is letting them take on some responsibility, see how they do, help them improve, then take on more. Then take on more. I often help my clients create and implement succession plans where the owner wants to step back to become, say, the chair of the business and more of an investor role.
[00:43:07] Or sometimes they wanna sell entirely, and that usually requires a multi-year succession plan. For instance, I had a team member who started as an account manager, was doing sales and account management, then director of client services, vice president, president and just became CEO of the agency. That was, yeah, but that was like a five-year process. It wasn't an overnight kind of thing. You wanna make sure that people are competent, you know, talk about desire, competence, capacity. You also wanna make sure that you can trust their character 'cause you're putting people into high responsibility roles. You wanna make sure you're choosing the right people. And some of that just takes time.
[00:43:49] Nicole: A hundred percent. A hundred percent, yeah. And I just love what you just said. One of the key tools a lot of my listeners have heard me talk about is I use a thing called the Tilt. And it is an assessment that goes beyond personality, which, everybody needs to understand personality. But the way that you manage your personality is typically the quality of your character and putting character traits around you. So I couldn't agree more. I think that's important. And I do wanna highlight on page 87 of Karl's book, _Calm The Chaos,_ he's got this idea of an extended team. And I think this is a wonderful little list. He says, make sure you know a good therapist, a coach, a lawyer, an HR consultant, an accountant, an insurance agent, a financial planner, a personal trainer, a spiritual advisor. I mean, it's just so many things that people need to have. I just had a call the other day that said, I've got this guy. I want you to coach him.
[00:44:40] I'm like, he doesn't need coaching, he needs a counselor. You know, and you gotta have one in your back pocket so that this person can get the help they need. So I think that that is a wonderful list that you've got in the book. It's fantastic. All right, number nine, we got two to go. Number nine is "hire a great number two and a reliable assistant."
[00:45:01] So one of the things that I've been doing is talking to people about another book called Traction. I bet you you've heard of Traction. But in there it talks about how you have a visionary, and then you have somebody who's called an integrator. And I think that language is really cool, but I love what you say, "Want it or not, we all need help. Getting help makes you a better leader." So get yourself some help. Talk about how people can do that.
[00:45:26] Karl Sakas: Yeah. Whether you're using the EOS model of visionary and integrator, or, and I have a lot of clients who use EOS. I also think there'd be starter versus finisher. I had a new client who was like, I had all these goals last year and I barely accomplished any of them. And I dug in and there were two partners. They had 12 really big goals. I was like, what if you each chose one big goal for the coming year? And he's like, well, I wanna do 12. And I'm like, well, you identified 12 and didn't do them. What if you picked two and maybe a third for their head of operations and you accomplished all three of them? What would that be like? And he'd be like, oh, that would be great, but it might be hard to choose which ones. And I'm like, I can help you choose. So, having a number two, if you're the starter, you're initiating things, you're selling, you're recruiting, you're getting people excited. We all benefit from having a finisher to help us finish the details, and sometimes we may do a bit of both, right? You know, my clients are the starters in their business. They'll often have a finisher on their team, and I'm helping as their coach around sorting that out. On the other hand, I'm the starter within my own business. So, you need to find what's right for you, and that includes finding this great number two, who can support you in getting things done. You have the idea, they make it happen. Sometimes they point out the problems with it, so you can sort that out rather than just charge ahead. And then also having an assistant to help on the administrative details. Both roles help save you from yourself.
[00:46:58] Nicole: That's right. And having an executive assistant is so easy these days. You can have one, one hour a week that you pay as a contractor and you can hire somebody full-time, give 'em benefits and all the stuff. There's just so many things that you can do. I talk to salespeople sometimes, Karl, and they're like, my company doesn't give me any support. I'm like. Buy yourself some support outta your own pocket. And they're like, how do I do that? It's like let me give you a couple phone numbers and websites to visit, you know, and find yourself somebody who will do your proposals, put your stuff in the CRM Salesforce so you don't have to, and I mean, these salespeople can go do what they love to do, which is go talk to people and, show the product and do whatever.
[00:47:42] So there's so many cool things you can do. Plus you can buy Karl's book. All right. All right, let's bring it home. Number 10, create better meetings. Oh, let's hear all about this. 'cause everybody is like, oh, she saved the best for last. Karl saved the best for last. They're in terrible meetings, Karl. Everybody complains about the meetings. Help us to have a better meeting, Karl.
[00:48:01] Karl Sakas: Yeah, yeah. You know, I have the the ribbon that people may have seen. I survived another meeting that should have been an email.
[00:48:09] Nicole: Oh my gosh. Where'd you get that?
[00:48:11] Karl Sakas: It's available online. You can go to Buy Olympia, BUYolympia.com. That's the person behind it. They also have a, a red ribbon, which I survived an email that should been a meeting. Uh, you know, there's a little bit of something for everyone. I mean, the thing is, we've known for a long time that meetings are a problem. I have a copy of a book from the early 1970s on running better business meetings published by 3M, which made like overhead projector transparencies,
[00:48:43] Nicole: Oh my goodness.
[00:48:44] Karl Sakas: like that, right? All meeting related products. And in the opening of the book, they ask, should you even have a meeting? We've known for over 50 years that we're a little over meetinged and things like that, but what do you do about it? Right. If you are a manager, if you are a leader, you can fix things, you can make things better, for your team at You still may be at the mercy of meetings that you're pulled into. But I would say meetings aren't the enemy. Bad meetings are the enemy.
[00:49:15] Nicole: Yes, yes.
[00:49:17] Karl Sakas: So that includes things like I mentioned, doing the calendar review earlier in our conversation. You can also do a meeting audit, specifically, like a lot of the things on your calendar likely are meeting related. You can also look at which requires a live meeting versus a synchronous. You can do an approach that information designer Edward Tufty introduced me to through one of his trainings, what he calls study hall. So if you've got a meeting where people need to review things and they're not reviewing it in advance, have a packet that people can read at the beginning of the meeting, during the meeting in the first 10 or 15 minutes, and get up to speed on what's going on, and then only discuss out loud what needs to be discussed. Problem solving, brainstorming, maybe highlighting certain key things. But the idea is don't use the live synchronous meeting on things that could have been an email.
[00:50:15] Nicole: Yeah. And you know, I notice when I go in and work with teams-- and you know, I've actually gone to the leadership teams meeting to see like what the dynamics are-- and it's like, "This week in marketing, we're marketing," and "This week in sales we've been selling." And it goes around the table like that and it's like, can't we just send out the company scorecard or the KPIs, I mean, won't that take care of that? You know, it should be that we have a dilemma, all hands on deck, all the brains in the room, let's make this thing happen.
[00:50:47] Karl Sakas: I did that while running the American Marketing Association, AMA triangle chapter, where I used study hall people made updates in advance, and we focused on working together to solve biggest problems. That can be a challenge, right? If people just want others to hear their voice kind of thing, but everyone likely is going to agree that you want the meetings to be effective and as short as necessary. I will say, although the goal generally is to reduce the meetings, not all of 'em. It is popular to make fun of the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting and things like that.
[00:51:25] However, if you are about to have an externally facing meeting that is particularly fraught, tense, difficult, high profile, high pressure, you should probably have an internal meeting to plan before that external meeting. And say it's a client meeting where you're presenting something that's going to include not just your day-to-day client, but their boss or the boss's boss, their board or something. You might wanna do a pre-meeting with your day-to-day contact to walk through what's going on. They might be like, Ooh, don't mention that to so and so. They're not gonna like that, or. Oh definitely talk more about that because I know the CEO is really excited about that. Things like that. Do the meeting before the meeting, if it's gonna help make the meeting more successful. And then ideally debrief afterwards, whether synchronously or otherwise, on what worked, what didn't, what to do differently next time.
[00:52:20] Nicole: Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. Do you all feel calmer out there? Do you feel like you have some strategies to move forward so you can calm the chaos? Well, here's the thing. Go get Karl's book, all right? And you can go to calmthechaos.xyz. And so Karl, I'll let you take it away. How else? Like maybe people want you to come talk to their company, speak at their conference. Karl and I hang out at this thing called the National Speakers Association, and so that's how we know each other, and I've just been delighted to have you on the show. Thank you so much. Tell 'em how they can find you.
[00:52:55] Karl Sakas: Well, if you go to CalmTheChaos.Xyz, that can get you over to my main website, Sakas and Company dot com, sakasandcompany.com. I have over 400 articles about Agency Growth and management, and as you said, they apply to non-agency as well. I also do a monthly live q and a agency office hours, and in addition to my one-on-one client coaching and consulting, I am available for speaking, whether that's at events or doing private workshops, to make things better, whether that's a team retreat or something else. As I mentioned early in the book, running an agency or any business, it's never going to be easy, right? It's not like the Staples easy button. You press it easy and then, and then that's done.
[00:53:45] It'll never be easy, but it doesn't have to be so hard. There are all kinds of best practices you can apply to your business to make things easier for you as a leader, and importantly, also make things easier for your team. It's a win, win, win.
[00:54:00] Nicole: Yes, absolutely. All right, everybody. That's been another episode of the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast. And here's what you need to do, please, right now go down to the bottom and click the like button, and then if you would leave a little love note for Karl, he's worked so hard to give you the 10 things you need to do to Calm The Chaos.
[00:54:18] So give the guy a little love. We appreciate you listening to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. Karl, I'll see you at the next NSA meeting.
[00:54:27] Karl Sakas: Looking forward to it. Thanks, Nicole.
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