91_Checklist main video
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[00:00:00] [00:01:00] Welcome back to the show today. I want to talk about making your job easier as a manager, as a team leader, as a business owner. And one of the ways that I can help do that is through a resource I put together called the thriving team checklist or scorecard artists formerly known as the scorecard. And the reason I put this together is because it can be tough to remember all the things we got to do every single day.
Give feedback and say thank you and ask for support and all the little things. Even if we're really, really trying our best, it can be hard to remember because we have a lot of stuff on our minds and that doesn't mean that we are a bad manager. It doesn't mean that we're, you know, we don't care about our teams.
It's just easy to get busy [00:02:00] and forget about it. And so that's why I created this and, and, you know, before you dive in, if you're at the computer, head to leahgarvin. com slash checklist to grab this list of things that I'm about to talk through, because this is going to help ground you in what it is and give you that resource so you can start checking those boxes right away.
So it's just 10 things. I used to have 20 things to do over a month and I narrowed it down to 10 to do in a week because when you do these 10 things, Every single week, your team members are more engaged. They feel more supported. They feel set up for success. And in turn, they do better work making your job easier.
That really is the goal. That work becomes more, there's more ease in it. There's more flow. It becomes more effortless across the board. Now this doesn't mean we don't do hard work. We don't work hard. We don't solve hard problems. It means the little like communication breakdown y things aren't getting in the way.
So that's why I created this list. And I'm going to quickly walk through it and, and really anchor you into why each of these things are on the list [00:03:00] and how they become game changing on your team. All right. So again, head to LeoGarman. com slash checklist to grab your copy. And then you can, you can follow along with me.
So, number one is reflecting on a win you experience as a manager. Okay, this shit's hard, my friends, and a lot of times it can feel like we're doing everything wrong. And that's why the first thing on here is to anchor yourself in, what is something I've done right? What is something I'm proud of? What is something I can really hang my hat on as a manager?
Because that's going to help build resilience against the moments that aren't so easy and when things are frustrated and team member gives you feedback that makes you feel shitty. Okay. So this is going to be really helpful to really give you that solid foundation as you approach, you know, every week.
And when we do this on a weekly basis, we start to build a bigger story of that. Not everything's horrible, not everything's a mess, not everything's a disaster. Okay. On our team. So that's why this one's important to do weekly. It can be one thing like a win. [00:04:00] I, a team member. Came to me and said they really appreciated something I did or I, I, I landed a new client.
Okay. It doesn't have to be, it can be big or small. It can be, I finally got to eat lunch like outside of the office. Okay. It can be anything. Reflect on a win. Start to do that on a routine basis weekly. And you're going to see that you have more resilience for whatever's thrown your way. Number two, ask a team member for feedback.
Okay. So this is another one that gives you information on what's going on. And when we ask for feedback, we show that feedback is a two-way street. We demystify feedback. We make it less scary to talk about feedback. And in this situation, I know I've mentioned before, I love to ask for feedback by giving an example.
So saying something like, Hey, Sarah. I am really trying to be delegating more and getting a little bit more out of the weeds. And I love your feedback on how that's going. Anything, you know, anything I can do better to improve or what's something that I can do better? I'm sorry. I always stay away from yes or no questions.
[00:05:00] So what's something that I can do better with that? So when we give a little bit of. Bait as I call it, this makes it easier for a team member instead of saying, can you give me some feedback? And they're like, I don't know what I should say. And then they get uncomfortable. Okay. So we want to bring a little bit of bait with us to the conversation, anchor it.
And then you could say, Hey, anything else that would be helpful to you? Or I did it again. I said yes or no. What else could be helpful for you? Now real quick, the reason I don't say, do you have feedback or anything else where it's a yes or no is because a lot of times a team member will say no, cause they don't want to think of anything when they actually do have feedback.
And so saying, what's something I could do shows that you are expecting to get something that you know that there is something to improve, that you're not just hoping they say no and walk away. All right. Item number three on the checklist is set clearer expectations for a task responsibility where a team member is getting stuck.
Now I say clearer, not clear expectations because the assumption is that, yeah, you set expectations. And you thought it was clear, but [00:06:00] when someone's getting stuck, when someone isn't moving at the pace you think they should, or they seem frustrated, we got to go back in there and set them again. Okay. And so the way that I frame this is saying, Hey, I want to make sure we're on the same page.
I know we talked about this, but let's just make sure you know, are there, what questions do you have? How can I better support you? You know, how is this project going? Getting, getting that to the surface so that you can make sure you're framing it around how they can be successful. Cool. Number four, deliver a piece of positive feedback.
Okay. Another way to demystify feedback is to give positive feedback routinely and in the checklist I suggest using the situation behavior impact SBI framework because this makes sure we get really specific when we say good job. on, on working. Okay. Like someone's like, okay, what, what should I keep doing?
Showing up every day? No, that doesn't land well. When we say, Hey, I really, you know, great job in that client meeting. I really appreciated how [00:07:00] you walked through a wide range of services that we could pair together to better support their goals. And as a result, they ended up signing on with a new contract of a whole new area that we hadn't been supporting them in resulting in more revenue for the business.
So. Thank you for doing that. That's awesome. And please keep that up. That specific positive feedback shows your team member exactly what to do next time. Okay? And it doesn't have to be big like that. It can be, Hey, thank you so much for sending that email after hours last night. We really needed to get that to a close and I really appreciate you staying late.
Okay? So it can be a big thing, a small thing. We just want to be specific. Next one, number five, deliver a piece of constructive feedback with the SBI framework. Same framework, situation, behavior, impact. This helps us get specific and really remove any personality judgments, any biases so that we get really tight on.
We're talking about the behavior, not the person. We're talking about that. This thing happened in one instance. It's not all the time. Okay. And this is how we [00:08:00] take the punch out of constructive feedback. And I like to ground this in, you know, some of the stuff that's going well. So. You know, Hey Hey, Steve, I know you're really working on your leadership skills and, and, and your presentation skills here on this team.
And unfortunately in the client pitch you know, presentation, you missed a few important elements, which Resulted in the client being confused about the service that provide and not moving forward. And, you know, I know you've been really working hard on, on dialing in those communication skills.
And so I'd like to ask that we can go through your presentation first the next time so that you're fully ready. Okay. Again. I grounded it to, it was, you know, I know that the presentation skills are important to Steve. He, I know that he's been trying on it. There was this one moment where it didn't go well and here's how I'm going to support you to get, to get back on the horse.
Okay. And that's why I like that framework because it's not like, Hey Steve, you blew it with the client. You're out of here. You're a loser. You're dumb. Right? That's the kind of stuff that runs through our heads when we get feedback. So we want to really make it safe. Number [00:09:00] six on the checklist. And Hey, if you're listening halfway through, get that checklist.
If you want to follow along at leahgarvin. com slash checklist and you can keep following along with us or you can grab it at the end. Okay. Number six, thank a team member for something awesome they did, big or small. Now this is related to that positive feedback, but a lot of times the positive feedback is related to maybe some kind of like work related thing.
But saying to someone, Hey, you know, I really appreciate like the enthusiasm you bring to your work every day. It really creates a positive atmosphere in the office. Thank you. Or Hey, thank you for really being diligent on that copy editing on that and that document. I know we went back and forth a bunch of times and I really appreciate your patience on it and just kind of bearing with me.
This was a stressful situation and it was helpful to have your eyes on it. Okay. Thanking someone and this one, I know all these things are things to do weekly. I would suggest to find something to thank people for every single day. Try to find a team member to thank every single day [00:10:00] because the more we feel appreciated and seen and valued, the better work we do.
There is so much evidence to this. There is so much research, research around the importance of recognition and gratitude. Gallup has a ton of data on it. McKinsey and Lean In have a ton of data on it. Feeling recognized, feeling, feeling appreciated. This is what helps us show up at our best to work. So.
Again, you want to maximize the output of your employees. You gotta be saying thank you a lot more often. Number seven, show up on time to your one on ones and do not reschedule them last minute. This is one of the lessons that I have quoted many times that I learned from the amazing Carrie Jacobs who ran the Leading with Empathy program at Google and now is doing that externally.
The importance of showing up to your one on ones and being there on time, you know, a one on one meeting might be the only time that your team member gets your captive attention. They might've been waiting all week or the last two weeks, however frequently you have them to be able to talk to you.
And when we reschedule it. And we show up late. It shows them, [00:11:00] yeah, I don't really value you. It shows them, yeah, you, this was like the least important meeting in my day. And even if you don't mean that, even if you're bumping them because you have a great relationship and you know, they'll be okay with it, it still hits hard.
And Carrie shared and I'll put in the show notes, which episode it was that when she did research of several thousand Team members across Google, she found that the second biggest thing that makes someone feel undervalued by their manager is when their manager was continually showing up late for one on ones and rescheduling them.
So that's why I have this on the checklist. This is like such an important piece. Just show up. And if you're going to have a tough week or have to reschedule, tell people at the start of the week, I've done that before when I was managing a big team, I said, Hey, you know, this week we have all these, you know, we have an offsite, we have all these different things.
I'm going to, I want to keep our one on ones, but just bear with me. If I have to change them, it's, it's not on purpose. It's just going to be this one week. Okay. You can tee that up, or you can say, Hey, got to cancel one on ones this week because of XYZ. It's just the [00:12:00] last minute thing or the showing up late.
That's what really rubs people the wrong way. Number eight, have a load balancing conversation with a team member who's feeling overwhelmed. And what I like to do in this situation, and and you may think that, oh, I don't know if weekly someone's feeling overwhelmed, but just checking in with your team members is the first way to go.
And you can do this in like a morning on a Monday morning, like stand up in person or virtually like, Hey everyone, how are we feeling on a scale of one to five? One being, Oh, I'm pretty scared for the week or five being like ready to go. If you're in a, a virtual meeting or in person, you can do you know, hold up a finger of what, you know, one to five of how you're feeling.
And for the folks that are around a one or a two checking in saying, Hey, what's going on? What do you need support with? And, and, and hearing them explain what's going on is going to be really important when someone says they are overwhelmed or their feel underwater or they're feeling burnt out.
That's a very personal feeling and we don't want to project our assumptions onto them. So I, the, the episode I linked to [00:13:00] in this item on the checklist kind of talks about how to unpack what, what's going on and then have a load balancing conversation there. Number nine, remove a step from a process that is feeling overly complicated.
Oh, well, this is my favorite. You know that because this is what the Ops Playbook is all about, simplifying the way things work, simplifying the how. And so yeah, on a weekly basis, it's, it is worthwhile thinking about what, what are things that slow down my team from getting things done? Do I have a budget approval process that doesn't really need to be there?
Like, I have a client who found that she was approving every dollar amount for everything. Stuff was getting stuck in her inbox. People weren't able to move forward things. She said, okay, let's remove that step. Anything under 500, you don't have to ask me. I trust you with that. Okay. That's an example of removing a step simply.
Or, you know, saying, Hey, you know, our timesheets are feeling overly complicated. Everyone's putting different levels of information. Let's agree. We're going to [00:14:00] bill in, you know, we're going to track time and I don't know, 30 minute increments. And we're going to add just like one sentence on what the works about, not a whole paragraph, not one word.
Okay. So simplifying complicated is something that we always can be thinking about. And this is really what I can support you through the playbook is, well, what are the things across your whole team that are feeling harder than they need to be where people are getting stuck and how can we remove steps and make things more clear?
Okay. And last but not least on our checklist is to connect the dots between a team member's work and the priorities of the company. This is the bread and butter. Of the priorities work that we do in the ops playbook, and this is the secret to getting your team members to see their role in building your business.
This is how you have people boots on the ground, growing your business, amplifying your message, being brand ambassadors. By showing them how their work fits into the bigger priority. [00:15:00] And this looks like talking about, Hey, their job, their individual responsibilities, their task list, their to do list and framing it in terms of how this drives forward the agenda of the business, how the supports revenue growth or expanding your footprint or serving more clients.
And this is something that we can do with any kind of task. Any kind of responsibility because all of it, if it's happening, our team, it should ladder up to the bigger priorities and goals, right? So it's all there. We just have to connect the dots for our team members. And again, if you're having, if you're stuck on that one, check out the episode I linked to in the checklist there or reach out because this is really the foundation of the ops playbook is really making sure everyone's aligned around priorities, that priorities match expectations, that expectations and priorities match performance.
And we have that whole kind of flywheel humming along. People are doing their best work. And then again, your job is easier. So as I talk through all these 10 things, I hope you're seeing that it's not a huge lift. It's not a huge lift to do these things every week. And on the other side of it [00:16:00] is a team that feels supported by their manager.
They're getting recognized. They're getting that feedback they need in the moment. It's specific, it's actionable that they are not stuck when they feel overwhelmed, that you are meeting with them on time, that you're asking for feedback, that you're making things smoother and more seamless in the team.
Boom. Like this is how we scale. This is how we grow. And when we have all this in place, you have higher retention. Okay. Cause people are happier. They see that you are trying hard to show up as for them. So it doesn't mean you're perfect. It doesn't mean that you don't make mistakes, but it means you're here in it doing the work.
All right. And that's all you can do. So again, to grab that scorecard or checklist, head to leahgarver. com slash checklist. Try to get through each of these every single week and see how your team starts to transform. See you next time. [00:17:00]
