Those people were just willing to move through that fear quicker. That's it. You know, so we talked about you versus yesterday, you know, we're human beings. And the very real fact of that is we get better or we get worse, but we do not stay the same. And oftentimes it starts with a choice and that intention for us at track house starts at the front door.
You know, we challenge our athletes with their rival mindset. When you show up to work and put your hand on the door, leaning into track house. How are you showing up?
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com slash the book or amazon. com and get your copy of the unstoppable team today. Welcome back to the show today. I am. So excited to be returning with guests. Okay. I took a hiatus on interviews for a while, but when I met this person, I was like, Oh no, no, no, we gotta, we gotta resume the interviews and so could not be more excited to have Shaun Pete with me today to talk about all things, building awesome teams, awesome team cultures and everything in between.
So Shaun is a NASCAR pit crew coach. And he is the chief culture officer for track house racing. Now, in addition to this day job, he travels around the country, leveraging lessons on how he's created high performing cultures in the highest of stress environments to help teams break through barriers on their team, connect on a deeper level through experiential learning of a real life pit crew simulation.
And Shaun and I met when he spoke at the elite entrepreneur mastermind that I'm a part of. And it was literally one of those situations where. While he's speaking, I'm thinking, Oh yeah, this is the best talk I've ever heard in my life. I'm like writing everything down and I was just so excited to talk to you more.
And now this includes having heard Brene Brown speak live. Okay. Having heard Adam Grant speak. So just got to say that. I mean, it was, it blew me away and everybody else in that room. And Shaun and I talked after and just found we instantly connected across. Our shared perspectives are around running great teams, empowering people through clear expectations, you know, building really strong team cultures and beyond.
And so again, Shaun, I could not be more excited to have you on the show today. Wow. Thank you. What, what an introduction. I don't, uh, man, it's only disappointment from here. So, uh, when you asked me, I'm like, I don't know how many NASCAR fans you have, uh, in your audience, but I'm, I'm thrilled to do this with you.
So thank you. Well, after today, we will have a lot more of them, I'm sure. Um, well, so, you know, again, I, I'm just so excited to be bringing back guests because, I mean, you're an example of, I think, my, my goal is to highlight folks that are doing similar kinds of work that really amplify, I think, the goal of this show, which is, Making managing easier because it is one of the hardest things about, about running a business, about being a leader, whether you're in the corporate world or you're an entrepreneur or founder.
And I think what was so inspiring to me was just how practical everything that you shared was, which again is something that's really important to me too, that, you know, we give people real tools and things they can try as opposed to kind of theoretical sort of like framework y stuff. So I'd love to dive in.
You know, you have such an interesting story and you know, how you got into the world of being a pit crew coach and how that kind of connects to the work that you're doing outside of that. Yeah. So I got into NASCAR completely by accident. Came Canadian, came to the United States, played college hockey at Dartmouth and stumbled into NASCAR and was a NASCAR pit crew person for a long time.
And, and I think like a lot of people in business, I was under really poor leadership. You know, I had, uh, NASCAR had just developed into a thing where coaches came along. So we had people that just weren't qualified coaching us. I, I literally worked for a guy who would watch Miracle on Ice and then come that week with a whistle and have us running wind sprints.
And then he'd read Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops, and we'd be doing yoga with, uh, like scented candles. And it was just, it was insane. And, uh, I just thought we, we could do it better. And I thought we could do it better because I thought we could value people more. And so I had an opportunity to coach that was 10 years ago.
And we took probably the worst picker department in NASCAR at the time. We took it from outside the top 25 and, and built it into the best program in NASCAR. And, you know, I think the thing that we're most proud of is we did it with half the budget. Wow. And we say all the time that, you know, oftentimes great design is the byproduct of restriction.
And the restriction is, is we didn't have the money. So we had to think of different ways and we, we, we call it inspiring human brilliance. If you can inspire human brilliance within your team, it doesn't matter how big your team is. You can compete. Yeah, that's incredible. And I think it's such a reminder that.
You know, it doesn't take all these external things. It doesn't take, I mean, I think you and I both do work with teams to enhance them, but we want to leave them with the tools to do this on their own. Right. And so I think it's not about having to, you know, one, one of the things I talk about around inclusive teams is inclusion.
Inclusion is more than a happy hour, right? It's actually about how you get work done. It's. The, you know, making sure folks are clear on, you know, a part of decision making, have the information they need, that their work's being recognized, right. That they know what success looks like. And, and I think that I completely agree that it doesn't take all this outside stuff.
It takes kind of looking back at the internal systems, how you're communicating, how you're getting things done, how you're recognizing each other and, and beyond. You're absolutely right. It takes humility. We were built by the people in our program. I didn't come into Chip Ganassi Racing at the time and have all the answers.
Right. I just knew that, okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to make sure people feel valued here. I'm going to elevate their voices. So at the time we had 26 athletes and you were going to be one 26 of the answer that took us outside of the top 25 into the, you know, to the best team in NASCAR, and it was, it was elevating those voices because a good idea is a good idea.
Yeah, we, I think everyone's heard the story about the Challenger, right? Where that, that junior most engineer could have spoke up. And his voice was muted and we all know what happened. I didn't want that to happen to our program. So it's how do we make people feel valued and to the point where they're willing to speak up if a good idea comes along.
And, and again, we were built by that and, and us actively soliciting negative feedback. And I think those two things really moved the needle for us. Yeah, well, I love your point on like you are, you know, one 26, the answer, how we're going to get there, right? Like I think that connection to the bigger purpose, that connection to the mission is something that we sometimes forget to do.
And when you, right now, as I talk to a lot of teams, I'm talking to a lot of folks that are feeling like, you know, My team members aren't motivated. There's really low productivity engagements down. There's a lot of data within Gallup talking about engagement keeps being lower and lower and lower across teams.
And a huge piece of that is that you feel like you're just a cognitive machine. Well, you don't feel like you're a cognitive machine. If your leadership is constantly telling you like, Hey, this is why your role matters. Here's how you fit into the bigger picture. This is how, you know, you are integral to a part of this.
And it's funny you share, like I have clients that work maybe in a, have a gym or a med I'm something where they have team members that are responsible for cleaning equipment, setting up a room. And for that person, it might feel like, oh, who cares about my job? I could do this anymore. No one cares. And I've said, frame the message to that team member that if you have this premium med spa What is the one thing people are going to write about on Yelp?
That the machines are dirty, that it's not functional, that it's gross, right? Like people may not notice when it's all right, but they notice when it's wrong. And so that person that comes and sets up the rooms and gets everything prepped and keeps everything clean, they might have one of the most important jobs in that company because they prevent, they, they get people coming back through the doors and feeling like they had that premium experience.
And so I think it's important too, to Really make sure that everybody, especially in the lower visibility roles, really sees that, Hey, just because you're not, you know, the, the front person that everyone's seeing all the time, it doesn't mean that your job's any less important. You're, you're absolutely right.
You know, I think, I think of our teams and, and what we used to do is, you know, we really made a point of going out of our way to make sure they felt valued. You know, I think all of us these days work long days and and if we were stuck working a long day on my way home at eight o'clock, I would call someone and just be like, Hey, you know what?
I don't get to say it all the time, but thank you. You know what I mean? I know you don't get recognized in this may seem menial. But this is so important to the overall, you know, where we're going and that hits people different, right? Every call you've ever got from your boss at home is bad news Yeah, what if you're the first boss that changes that narrative, right?
And when you catch people unexpectedly it creates purpose and value, right? Because it you know Everyone's talking about how depressed they are these days and they don't want to go to work the opposite of depression isn't happiness The opposite of depression is purpose Right. So how do you feel like you're part of something bigger than just yourself, right?
That goes back to our tribal biology. We want to be something part of something bigger. So how do you as a leader facilitate that so that people aren't left on the periphery? Yeah, I love that. And it doesn't mean, you know, your company can be doing any kind of business. I think, you know, you really, I think bring that to life for folks because you talk about this across all types of industries.
Like you don't need to be, you know, saving the environment or ending world hunger to have a purpose driven. And, you know, team and work. And I think, like you say, when you show people that they matter, that starts planting the seeds of purpose, no matter what their job is, no matter what your company's doing, what industry you're in.
You're absolutely right. So on this same note around recognition, one of the quotes that I circled and underlined five times when you were talking was, it costs zero to care about people. So I'd love to hear kind of practical ways that you empower leaders to recognize people and show this care that they have.
Yeah, you know, I'm a I'm a student of great leadership, especially sports leadership. And one of the things that I took away was there used to be a coach for Nebraska. His name was Tom Osborne, and this is going so far back. He had a Rolodex on his desk, and at the time he had 110 players. And in that Rolodex, it had Every player's birthday, which companies do.
But he went a step further and had their parents birthdays. It had, if they're players with kids, it had their kids birthdays. If he had players that were married, he had their anniversaries. And what he would do is when he went on to the field that day, he'd have the Rolodex card from that day in his pocket.
Now I'm the first one that will rally against phones. We call them the black mirror, right? But they can be used for good. So what we do is when we intake people, we get those dates right on the first day. So they didn't even see it coming, but we're going to have your parents birthday, all those things. I put input them into my phone and five minutes before I walk out to practice, it alerts me and I can put my hand on my Jack man, former NFL linebacker.
As he's warming up and say, Hey look, it's your mom's birthday. Don't forget to call her today. . Right. So good. Just like the afternoon phone call that's hit someone in a space that they don't expect it. Yeah. And it creates tremendous power. And we had a guy, you know, it was late in the day, he's still out back carrying tires and, and you know, banging away.
And I asked our assistant coach, I'm like, why is he still here? And he's like, Oh, I don't know. And I'm like, cause it's his anniversary. And so we go out there and like, Hey dude, you got to get out of here. It's your anniversary. He's like, no, it's not. We're like, yes, it is your anniversary. And this guy's wife is affectionately known as the warden, like not a lady.
And, uh, he goes, what day is it? We're like, well, it's May 6th. And he's like, Oh, right. We booked in a reservation for him. Get him out of the building. How do you think he shows up the next day? All in, right? He's bought all the way in because he didn't go home and get his head ripped off. And again, that costs us nothing, nothing.
It's like the phone call after work. It just, and it starts with intention. Your word, you know what I mean? And I high functioning teams are the by product of intention. They just are. And if you get intention around valuing people, you know, that's the secret. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And, you know, managers having a, you know, even a one pager for every team member and having these details like birthdays, kids, you know, events going on, what are these different things?
And, and maybe looking at it before your one on one and asking about, Oh, your kid had that softball tournament this weekend, right? Like showing people that, you know, we are thinking about them, that they're a whole person outside of, of work is incredibly important. I mean, I think a lot of us, maybe we do that for our clients, but we don't do it for our own team members.
Right? Like when you go to a hair salon or you go, you know, to see a doctor, sometimes they ask you about something and they looked at the chart probably before to kind of be able to recall that. Well, if we were doing that same thing with our team members and making sure folks felt like, you know, I am, you know, I matter to this person that, you know, when I have this thing going on in my life, that someone's curious about it, like it just creates a whole next level of connection.
And like you say, of engagement and investment in the team. And I think folks are really struggling right now with. You know, the concept of like, how much to bring into work or, you know, how, how much should we talk about or when is it too personal? And I think, you know, you find that by, by trying to build a relationship with your team members that's outside of just status reporting and where are we at with the work.
Right, like getting to know them and putting forward your own vulnerability to the extent that you're comfortable and kind of like setting the tone that we care about each other as people, that's where you're going to start to see that sort of take shape. And it doesn't mean you have to share every detail in your life.
Not at all. But you're opening the door of like, Hey, we have stuff going on. I totally respect that. And you can also hold a really high standard. I mean, I, you mentioned, you know, the examples from sports and there's, you know, the one from the book, the culture code about Greg Popovich, um, talks about, you know, having, he says to his players, like, we have really high standards and you're here because I know you can meet them.
Right? So you're, you're not lowering the bar. You're not making it easier to get the work done by showing that you care about folks. You're not, you're not, you know, Like lessening up on the slack. You have super high standards, especially in the work with a quick picker. You have these goals that you want to hit.
You want to get faster and faster and faster. The stakes are so high. So you're not saying like, Oh, it's okay. If like we screw this thing up today. No, this is like a no fail situation and we care about you and we're going to support you in getting there and getting better at it. You're absolutely right.
You know, and I think the thing that surprised me when I did start working in corporate America was I kept coming up against this thing that, Oh, well, kindness is weakness. And I have two six foot five, 265 pound linebackers. I have, uh, two former United States Navy SEALs, one who rewrote the sniper curriculum at Indianapolis for the kindest people I know.
Yeah. So when I have this guy telling me, well, no kindness is weakness. I'm like, I can show you four guys that that's probably not. The last thing you're going to think is weakness when you meet these guys. Exactly. Vulnerability is a language that we all understand. And if you want to meet, you know, like I'm not saying go in front of the meeting and just break down, but meeting people where they're at, that's vulnerability, right?
And kind of matching their emotions. That's what great leaders do. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think this segues into, well, this vulnerability, we can feel that can as a business owner, a team leader, start to fuel imposter feelings. And I think there's some like a reckoning that, that folks are having to do with that more than ever.
And it's funny, I was leading a workshop and we were talking about before the show with a group of engineering managers earlier this week, and you know, they were talking about things like vulnerability or delegating or fears around letting go of work. Work like if it meant they weren't good managers.
And it's like, well, we're always having to wrestle with these things. The more senior you get, the more the imposter feelings kind of turn on. So it's not that you're not like you're a newbie. You're not doing something right. It's that when we're in a new situation and we're put to the test. Right. That's when the stuff comes up.
And so every time we up level, if we get a larger team, if we have a new client, if we have more scope, if we're, you know, shifting, pivoting our business, whatever it looks like, that's going to always continue to retrigger that. And one of the things I love that you shared around was this concept of it's you versus yesterday.
I'd love for you to share more about that. Yeah. I think what we need to normalize is that every single one of us Every single one of us from your CEO, all the way down to the, to the janitorial staff is somewhere between overconfidence and self crushing imposter syndrome. Every single one of us, right?
So just understand that, right? And like you said, as you move up, you're going to feel that more. And the reason you feel that more is because failure comes at the margins of our experience. Like we're going to be asked questions. We've never been asked before. We're going to be in situations we've never been in before, right?
So let's call that the door of the unknown. So when you come up to the door of the unknown, you get to do two things. You get to stop and turn around if you want. And the funny thing about limitations is if you fight for them, you get to keep them. The second thing you do is you move through it. And if you move through it, the first thing that you're going to greet you there is fear.
Yeah. Right. Recognize that fear. Understand that. Sure. There are questions you've never been asked before, but you've been successful in everything you've ever done in your life. Why would this be any different? And there are situations that you're going to never encounter before. If you don't know the answer, you're smart enough to find the person that does.
And the second that you do that, you're going to understand you belonged into that room 10 years ago. Yes. So many of us, how many of us have elevated in leadership getting in this room and you're like, this is it. Really? Are you kidding me? Yes. Right. Those people were just willing to move through that fear quicker.
That's it. You know, so when we talk about you versus yesterday, you know, we're human beings and the very real fact of that is we get better or we get worse, but we do not stay the same. And oftentimes that starts with a choice and that intention for us at track house starts at the front door. You know, we challenge our athletes with their rival mindset.
When you show up to work and put your hand on the door, leaning into track house, how are you showing up? Like what's coming through the door with you. And, and that, that matters. And that's like we say, great, great teams are built from intention for us. It starts right at the front door. Yeah, absolutely.
And you mentioned around, you know, if it's not you finding the right person, and I think this is a really, a really tough thing for leaders to do is actually recognize when they're holding themselves back from scaling and from actually having a bigger impact because There's some ego involved, there's a feeling like, you know, I am the best to do this or I want to do this, this is work I like.
And I think this is the kind of thing that, that results in, you know, your team, your company hitting its upper limit where it could have been infinite, right? Is you thinking like, I am the only one that can solve this problem or it has to be done this way. And I mean, my, the, something I just have been, it's been so top of mind lately is the concept of delegating and scaling yourself and setting expectations and handing things off.
Because I think right now where everyone's having to do more with less, we're, we're kind of holding on a little bit tighter because it's scarier and it's unknown and maybe we have less budget and we have less resources. So we think. I guess I just have to do all of this myself. And that's really not the answer.
It's actually, how can I make this stuff easier to get done? How can I let go of some of this stuff and how can I empower actually the right person to do it? Right. Well, like you said, we have less. And what do we say at the start? Great design is born from restriction and you talk about intention. For us, the first calendar day of every year, we have an expectations meeting and we sit down our athletes and it doesn't matter if they've been there for a year or a decade.
Right. We are going to through go through everything that we expect of them all the way from, from their Twitter avatar to the color of their belt, to what happens if you're late, because when we do that, we can hold people to an expectation and we can allow people to exceed the expectation, but so many of us in these companies don't set the expectation.
So no one even knows. How do you hold someone to account when you never set the expectation? You know, and for us, it's, it's, it's, it's January 2nd or January 1st or what, whatever day it falls on the year, the whole team sits down and then there's, there's a, it's great. And it's, uh, you know, we spent the first two minutes, we haven't seen each other in a couple of weeks.
It's hugged as many people as you can. Seeing these big giant, uh, people is amazing. And, and, you know, you build some light into it and it's, it's, uh, You reconvene and you know, you leave that meeting. Everyone's moving forward together. So what I love about this is, you know, not only are people clear, but you've opened the door to be able to give feedback.
I mean, there's no such thing as effective feedback without expectations. So because you've outlined all of that now, like you said, people can meet or exceed it, or you know, where to course correct. And when it comes to, there's so many fears around, I don't want to set expectations. I don't want to micromanage.
And micromanaging is not setting expectations. There's nothing to do with that. It's little course corrections that you do later because you didn't set expectations up front, right? I mean, like it is not what you've described. What you described is making people feel clear. I'm set up for success. I understand what's expected of me.
I understand how to do a good job. Like now I feel dialed in. Now I'm committed to this thing and I love how you go into that detail. Well, and I love, I love these companies. I'm hired by a couple of companies now that my first week of January is almost booked because they believe in it now. And they believe in it so wholeheartedly that they want it as they want to front load the calendar year.
And just what, what I also hear is, well, we don't have time for that. You know, and I think of a quote that's attributed to Abraham Lincoln. If you give me six hours to chop a tree down, I'm going to spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. That's what these companies are doing. They're sharpening the ax so they can roll through the rest of the year.
Everyone's on the same page. And like you said, you can course correct. You can hold people to account and people can exceed your expectations. So I, you know, that's in a sense, I wish companies would operate like a sports team. Just that, Hey, let's go, you know, first, first day of the calendar year, let's reset this thing and roll together.
Yeah, and there is nothing more time consuming than restarting projects, than getting people on the same page because you don't have roles, responsibilities, duplication of efforts, people quitting because they feel like they don't know how to be successful in your team. Like all of the like fallout from not having expectations set is like, you know, a million X more time consuming than taking a day out in a few hours to do this.
Like anything, you know, it's, I think, and that's what is so, I think. surprising around this kind of misconception of what's time consuming and what's not, right? Like, and, and it's funny because I, oftentimes when I was in the corporate world, I was told like, focus on the work first and the people stuff later.
It was like, well, that's why I don't work in the corporate world anymore. Cause I was like, wait, what? Like, when the people do the work, are you, what are you talking about? You don't know what I mean? It's like, well, let's get the work done. Then we'll sex mutations. Like, are you like, what, in what universe would any of that make any sense?
And so I think, This concept of we don't have time is it's like a limiting belief and like huge, like red flag that you have no idea how to actually get worked on effectively. And so not to, you know, to throw shade on anybody, if you're thinking about things that way, but. I challenge folks listening, if you are listening to this, or really anything I talk about on this show, which is mostly like expectations, feedback, having an effective team, and you feel like, Oh God, I don't have time for that.
Think about all of the time that is being wasted on miscommunications, on people being unclear, on, you know, someone doing a project a totally wrong way that you have to like redo at night so that, you know, it gets done on time. Um, there was nothing more time consuming and costly than that. And so it just, it's.
That belief is if there's something else there, when you feel like you don't have time, it may be, I don't know how to do this. Right. And that's why people are bringing you in Shaun specifically, like, okay, I like this. I don't know how to do this. Right. So let me hire someone that's the expert at it. That has so dialed in to facilitate it for me.
Right. So if that's your fear of like, I don't know how to do it, bring somebody in. If your fear is like, Right? Like, I don't know if my team's going to be on board, then, you know, that's another thing. Have a conversation around norms and how you support them. Right? Like, whatever the reason you are like, is under the, I don't have time.
That's the thing to really explore and then work through that. And then you find you do have time to fix these things. You're right. Cause I don't have time just means it doesn't matter enough to me. Yes, exactly. And like, one of the coolest stories that I think is when, when Theo Epstein took over as the GM of the Chicago Cubs.
You know, he was a, he was a student of baseball, so he, he read the 1954, the Dodgers way and wanted to create his own version, the Cubs way. And he went through the organization and talked to everybody. How do we win? How do we elevate? How do we, how do we, how do we, how do we, because he didn't have all the answers himself.
So they come up with, you know, 3, 000 things that the Cubs are going to do, right? Everything from how you dress all the way down to what foot you're going to hit second base with if you hit a triple. Okay. Cubs going to win the World Series. Everyone hails Epstein as a genius and they're like, how'd you get all this right?
And he's like I didn't I don't even think I got half of it, right? But he said what happened was that it created intention within our organization And you have a high functioning culture not when you as the leader have to hold people to account You have a high functioning culture when people on your own team Hold your teammates to account.
That's what high functioning team looks like. And it's born again from intention. Absolutely. And treating them like owners, right? I mean, I think this, there's this feeling I hear every day from business owners that I feel like I'm the only one that's growing the business. I feel like I'm the only one that cares about keeping the lights on.
I'm the only one that's. doing anything to, to, you know, to, to bring in any new revenue. And that's because you haven't planted the seed that it's actually everyone's responsibility and show them how to do it. Right. And, and that's what I do with the teams understand, Oh, here are goals. Here's expectations in here in a part of how I'm evaluating is actually growing the business.
And when you connect the dots across those three. People rise to the occasion. Like you're saying, all you have to do is like set the conditions. People want to be successful. They want to, you know, keep their job or support the business that they're a part of, or that they, you know, they, they want to help hit the goals.
I think when we, when we empower people to do that, we see literally overnight, they're like, okay, well. Here's an idea. How, you know, here's how I would solve this. We both have to set the stage and then invite their ideas, right? We talked about, you know, getting away from micromanaging while we set expectations and then we say, well, how else might you try this?
What do you think now that you kind of have the constraints here, you know, what are some of the ways that you want to try to tackle this? And that's another place where, you know, you, you show someone that you trust them, that you're interested in their ideas, that you value their skillset, you know, asking someone how they'd solve a problem is a form of recognition.
Right? Because you're showing I value your perspective. You're absolutely right. You know, I think what we built our program, you know, when we took it over, we were, it's not because we weren't talented, we were talented, but we were lazy, we were entitled and we were selfish. And I had guys at the time that were renters and I'm like, we're only winning if we can go find some owners.
And then we literally curated our, our first day experience to try to find. Put things, hide things in the hiring process that would tell us if this person's an owner or renter, right? Like we, you know, you would watch pit practice. And if you, you know, there's lots of greasy work at a NASCAR pit crew practice, as you can imagine, if that person jumped into that work and grabbed a rag and helped out without being asked.
It was a huge check mark for us. When we were interviewing him, we would do one of two things. We would crumple up a ball of paper, right. And put it right in the door jam. When they came into interview, did they step over it or they pick it up and throw it in the garbage? Or we'd have a stack of boxes behind the desk more than I could carry.
And I'll be like, I know our meeting is at one. Let me just run these up to HR and I'll be right back. Well, they're like, Hey, let me grab the other boxes for you. Like it, it speaks volumes, right? But it's not even just enough to hire owners. We is a lot of us are type a, right? So we like the things the way they are.
And when someone comes in with an idea, it's, it's sometimes really hard one to get it to land. We have to listen. We have to value and again, elevate those voices. So I think that's a huge part of it. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that example. I think encourage folks listening, you know, think of what are those things that you can do to really assess is, is someone approaching this like an owner or someone really, you know, what are the criteria that I want to see?
In, in my team, what does that look like? And knowing that up front, that's how you make an equitable hiring process. And that's also how you make sure that you're not thinking you want one thing and you actually need something else, which is very common when we hire. Right. And saying, you know, what, what you talked about is, is a mindset.
Some of the other skills and, you know, like you said, like learning, you know, the whole other process that that can be taught. But if you don't come in and say like, Hey, I want to make this place better. And that's not what you're approaching it with. Then, then you're probably not in the right team. It's probably not the place for you.
You're right. But one of the first things that we ask, you know, some of these businesses we work with is, have you ever changed the oil in a rental car? No, of course not. Why not? Because it's not my problem. It's not your problem, right? We had, that's what we had in our building. Yes. We had all these people, right?
When, uh, when your first apartment in college, when the, when the AC breaks, do you fix it? No. You call your landlord. Call your landlord. Why? Because it's not your problem. Exactly. And what we, but the thing is, is, is so we wanted to find owners, but once we found owners. Right. We had to allow these people to change the paint on the house and change the lights, right.
And you know, we had a kid coming from hockey. I wanted us to have an unmistakable degree of humility. I know showboating, no nothing. And I had a young kid would come upstairs one day and he's like, coach, I need to talk to you. And I was like, yeah, what do you got? And he's like, as hard as we work here, how, why is it we're not allowed to celebrate when things go great?
And I said, well, because this is a sport that can humble you in an instant. And he said, yeah, but I think there's, there's some value in self expression. And I said, give me, give me tonight to think about it. And as much as it's still like, it's super cringey for me. I gave him the green light and I was like, you know what, your, your point's valid, but I had to let some of my stuff go the way I wanted this program run.
Because I was like, no, if, if, if they want to lean into this and I'm going to get more out of them, then as uncomfortable that is, I'm going to give it to them. Yeah. Yeah. And in the end, then they were bought in, right? Because they contributed to the ideas, to creating the process, to, you know, to building the team culture.
And I think, you know, a question probably both of us get a lot is like, how do I get my team to respect me? How do I get people to, you know, like, and it's like, we don't get people, we can't make them, right? You earn it by getting in there and rolling up your sleeves and listening and, and like having humility and, you know, changing a process that's not working and not just holding on because of like a sunk cost.
All of those things are what earns respect. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think what we see a lot is just making sure that your words parallel your actions. Yeah. There's so much do this, this, and this, and the person leading isn't doing this, this, and this. Right. Exactly. If you're in any position of leadership, people are watching, I promise you.
Yeah. All the time. No, exactly. And you know, I think even naming, you know, people. Like when something's hard, when it's going to be, you know, like I've mentioned delegating a few times and if you are handing off a project or you know, a big piece of work, you've pivoted in your business and saying, Hey, I recognize the leader, this is going to be hard for me.
So, you know, I'm, I'm going to be adjusting. If I'm still in the weeds, call me on it. You know, like naming some of these things also builds trust. And it also shows people that one, you're open to feedback too. You don't think you're perfect. And three, like, Hey, they're a part of figuring this out with you.
And that doesn't, like you said, that doesn't make you weak. That doesn't make you less, you know, committed. I think you still show up and you're still like leading the charge, but you're not, you're not, you know, assuming that they're not watching or they're like, you know, that, that if anything goes wrong, like you can just kind of cover it up.
Of course not. Everybody sees what's going on. So you might as well name it up front when you know it's going to be new for you or challenging. Um, and yeah, human beings were built, we're built for challenge. Yeah. What we're not built for is, is the unknown that comes with some of that challenge, right?
Right. Where, where a leader will be, doesn't have the answer. So they just don't speak it. Yeah. And there's all this ambiguity in a project or a business or a team. Yeah. You know, leaders got to understand, I don't know, is it, is a valid answer. And again, it shows the humility that, Hey, I don't know, but I'm going to find the answer for you.
Yeah. Absolutely. Instead of just pretending and, and uh, it's just not a good way to go. Yeah. And folks listening, you know, if your company is dealing with things like layoffs or potentially reorgs, that is a huge, huge point I want to reinforce Shaun just made, like saying something is better than nothing.
No, you should not promise there's no layoffs, don't, but you could say, here's what I know. Here's what I don't know. Hey, right now, you know, we don't know if there's going to be layoffs. We don't know where the economy is going, but I'm going to support you the best I can while you're in this job. That's something you can say, but when you go for days, weeks, months without telling someone anything and they're reading the news and hearing and gossiping with colleagues, that is the worst possible outcome.
And I see that so much when we don't have the answer, we feel like, well, I better just not say anything. Your team members are waiting every single day, hoping you're going to say something that time is passing very slowly for them. Right. And they are feeling less and less confident. So saying something saying, I don't know, is so critical.
You're absolutely right. Cause that story machine between our ears gets rolling and it's amazing how I don't know, can assuage. So much of the fear that comes with that, you know, but again, it's, some leaders just think that's a failure by saying, I don't know, leadership is not knowing every single answer that's going to be asked, it's finding the answer of every single thing that's going to be asked.
It's very different. Yeah. So that segues me to the last thing I want to ask. I mean, you know, when, when you're running offsites with teams using the full pit crew setup, which first I want you to describe how this works, cause it's the coolest thing ever. Like, where do you find leaders struggle with the most, right?
Maybe we've just talked about it, but, and, and what are some of the big aha moments, especially by using the format that you create for them? Yeah. So, you know, we think we have one of the best team building of, Experiences in the country. So basically what we'll do is we will bring a real NASCAR cup car to the parking lot of your business or an event venue in your town We'll wrap it in your company colors.
We'll bring you down We'll warm you up like a NASCAR pit crew And then we're going to put the tires and the gas cans and the wheel guns in your hands And you guys are going to go at it in a tournament style We kind of just let you start we train you by the positions and then we let you start And what happens is you're going to be terrible at it Because you know, people aren't, we're going to do a lot of things we do in corporate America, right?
We're not going to communicate with each other. Okay. We're just going to try to make sure that our part is great, not the rest of the team. And there's all these things that you, we're going to focus on ourselves. And the best thing about a NASCAR pit cruise is you can't win alone, right? If I have, you know, our job is to change four tires and put two cans of fuel in a race car and eight and a half seconds.
Right. Right. If I have four, eight and a half second athletes and one 12 second athlete, we're 12 second pit crew. So no one gets left behind. You have to go together. And, and so as we build these lessons in, you see the time continue to drop. And you see these people actually collaborating, talking about, well, how can we get faster and we can do, and, and so the lessons are built into the program.
And I, I think it's very powerful and we've, we've done it for some massive companies in this country. And. The feedback is always, this is the best thing that we've ever done. And, and, you know, you want to talk about imposter syndrome? Like when you have these massive companies saying this is the best thing you ever done.
And it's taken us to some really crazy places, right? Like downtown Manhattan, downtown San Francisco. Like it's interesting. And what do I think leaders struggle with the most? I think what we talked about at the top of the hour is imposter syndrome. And they feel they have to be this thing that they don't, right.
Leadership boils down to its very essence is selflessness. Yeah. Serve people, create the environment and inspire human brilliance. If you can do that, you're going to be a great leader. Ah, perfect place to wrap. Thank you so much. That is, I mean, come on, is that not the coolest kind of team office I've ever heard of?
I'm like, I will go anywhere. And in your next one, I literally, I just want to come and watch and try, maybe try to change a tire. Okay. Fine. But like, I want to come see you. See, it sounds so much fun. And like you said, the lessons that are surfaced through that, because you have no choice but to figure this stuff out real time.
So, so awesome. And thank you so much for such a fun conversation. I am so excited to have met you, to be collaborating with you, to be, you know, just learning from actually the folks want to get in touch with you. How do they find you? Just LinkedIn, I guess. Perfect. All right. LinkedIn, Shaun Pete. Okay, perfect.
And I will include that in the show notes. Thank you so, so much for being on the show. Likewise. Enjoyed it, Lia. Thank you. That's all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.
With that said, let's spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.
