Often leaders are tempted to value smart strategy over a strong team culture, believing that if the strategy is correct success itself will become the culture. However, the most successful leaders understand that it is a strong culture that allows a strategy to succeed.
Sean Glaze is a successful leader who is helping others build better relationships and achieve more with their teams. For over 20 years, the founder of Great Results Teambuilding, has developed his GREAT team building method. The expert author and speaker shares lessons he started learning on the basketball court as a young head coach and has since transferred over into the corporate world. His practical and insightful strategies include:
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5 essential steps to go from group to team
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How to build strong relationships with team members
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Asking better questions to create stronger connections
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Learning to have more productive one-on-one meetings
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And much more
Sean wants leaders to be able to build relationships that are strong enough to withstand the weight of truth when difficult conversations become necessary. Don’t miss out on this one!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Sean Glaze: If you ask yourself better questions, you become a better leader. If you ask your people better questions, you become a better team.
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Build A Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Hey everybody. Welcome to The Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and I am here with the talented Sean Glaze. He is an expert author and speaker who helps leaders create more positive and don’t miss this profitable team cultures. As a successful coach and educator for over 20 years, Sean gained valuable insights into how to develop winning teams and founded Great Results Teambuilding to share those lessons with smart team leaders. So if you think you’re smart, stay right where you are. You’re in the right place. Sean, I’m so glad that you are with us on The Build a Vibrant Culture podcast.
Sean: I am thrilled to be here, Nicole really look forward to sharing some helpful nuggets with your audience.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Well tell us all about you. First of all, if you go to his website, and you do need to go to his website, let me repeat it for you. If you will jump over to greatresultsteambuilding.net, you’ll find Sean and don’t miss this. He’s got like all sorts of things you can download and books for sale and all sorts of goodies. So you don’t want to miss that. Alright, so tell us how did you get started in this crazy business of helping people build teams?
Sean: Well, I started off as a guy that today I would love to be able to serve because when I started as a high school basketball coach Nicole, I was 100%, full of enthusiasm and expectation and really believed that I was going to take over my very first program after having been an assistant coach for a number of years and having had some success because I had some pretty good athletes. When I took over the very first head coaching job I had, I really went in with those high expectations and thinking that I was going to be able to turn things around because I had the great X’s and O’s and I was going to help strategize everybody.
And I was young and full of all kinds of enthusiasm. And at the end of our very first season, we’d lost 21 of 26 games. And I was devastated. And we’re in the locker room. And I had done everything that I’d known to do in terms of individual skills and personal individual kind of player development and all the X’s and O’s. And it wasn’t strategy that was going to make us the successful program that I’d anticipated. It was actually in the locker room after our very last loss of that season, that my assistant coach standing beside me, said something that changed my life.
He’s like, coach, this is as the players are going out individually with their heads down after that last loss of the season. You know, if we’re going to have a better program, we got to build better relationships. And that honestly, Nicole was the beginning of my journey to go from focusing 100% on strategy and the X’s and O’s that so many leaders invest themselves in and beginning to have some appreciation and understanding and desire to learn more about what you talked about, which is culture. And I think that culture, as I’ve learned over the last 15 years, is what allows your strategy to succeed.
And without culture, any strategy is going to be sabotaged by the internal issue that you’re going to experience if you don’t address the culture. And so I’ve actually spent the last 13, 14, 15 years first doing some team building stuff with athletic groups and corporate groups and nonprofit groups and then doing some speaking with some of the books that I’ve written to share some of those lessons with leaders and help them be better than I was when I was struggling as that strategic leader only.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. All right. So don’t miss this, everybody. He said, It’s not the X’s and O’s. It is the relationships. So we’re going to talk about relationships. That’s fantastic. But I have a little habit, Sean, I like to collect definitions of leadership, would you give us your definition of leadership? We’ll just add it to our collection.
Sean: I believe for decades now that leadership is influence. And you can certainly lead negatively, just like you could lead positively. But ultimately, if we’re at the higher end of leadership, our job is to serve and develop the people around us to have a positive impact.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Because I agree you got to add the positive to that or we’re in big trouble. That’s fantastic. All right, wonderful. Well, you have written many, many books, and I was taking a look at them. And I am super curious about the Rapid Teamwork. I would love to talk a little bit about the five essential steps to transform any group into a great team. Would you be game to do that with me?
Sean: I would be very happy to and that’s something that again, as a coach, I wish somebody had shared with me earlier and probably more accurately. I wish I was more open to the information that I was then later on willing to to seek out and to apply. And I think that sometimes as leaders we get caught up in what we know. And I think that confidence is thinking you can help. And arrogance is thinking you don’t need help. And as a young leader when I was so full of energy and enthusiasm and expectations, I was also probably very ignorantly arrogant.
And so my attempt when I wrote Rapid Teamwork was to share an entertaining parable. More importantly, in the midst of that story, to be able to share what are those five things that any leader can use to bring individuals together and create a far more positive and profitable team culture that would allow their strategy to succeed. And that’s basically the five things, and I use that kind of cheesy acronym of you a great team, so GREAT is the acronym that I use. Everything starts with goals and purpose. What is your why. Then comes relationships which I had obviously neglected as a young leader.
And I think a lot of leaders need to focus far more on that connection of relationships. And then after goals and relationships are established, then it’s really about setting expectations. What are those team standards going to be and what are your commitments going to be? Establishing accountability conversations and having that feedback conversation and keeping touch with your people. And then finally thanking them, and making sure they feel appreciated for their contributions to the team’s progress.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Alright, so he went through this pretty quickly, folks. So I want to make sure you got it. It’s a goals and purpose, relationship, expectations, making sure those are in place, accountability conversations and feedback and thanking people for the hard work that they’re doing. Yeah. So if you had all of this solidly in place, you would have big change in a quick hurry, right, it’d be rapid change for sure.
Sean: And, you know, from coaching, I know from working with leaders, whether it’s coming out of a team building event or a speaking event, when they come up and ask about coaching, when I’ve worked with leaders, you know, at the highest level, that sounds really nice and really easy. But as you get deeper into the implementation of specific things that are going to help to establish those five parts of the puzzle that things really become not necessarily difficult, but a little bit more involved in terms of making the commitment to really change some behaviors, and to change some of the awareness, first of the leader, and then those that are actually making up the team.
Nicole: That’s exactly right. Well, what’s popping in my mind, Sean, is this idea that, you know, you’ve got to have a one on ones with your people. So I coach leaders, that’s true. But what I’m telling my leaders to do is to do what we’re doing with the people that that are following you, right. So you know, when you sit down, you have that goals, conversation. You know, I’m encouraging people to meet with their folks at a minimum quarterly, if not, way more frequently. So what are your thoughts on needing to talk through goals and purpose.
People are very worried. I don’t know if you’re noticing this, Sean in your work, but like, I don’t want to micromanage people. And I’m like, well, I don’t think people feel micromanaged. If you check in on their goals, and they’re moving towards them, and you’re celebrating them. I mean, it’s all a matter of perspective, what are your thoughts on getting people focused on their goals and their purpose?
Sean: Oh, thinking with you, how long do we have together?
Nicole: I can go for hours. I’m good. Whatever you want to do here.
Sean: And I joke sometimes, you know, when I when I was talking with groups that that it was as a basketball coach that I was first told about how important one on ones are, because that’s how you develop individual skills and aggressiveness and defenses, that one on one competition. And then as a coach, our program got better not because of those one on ones on the court that our athletes had, but because of the one on ones I had with those athletes in my office throughout the week in the mornings leading up to homeroom or first period and in then one on ones that your audience and that the leaders that I work with have with their people.
And I think, you know, weekly would be ideal and wonderful, definitely bi weekly, I think that monthly is is like you say do quarterly, I think you end up losing connection. When people feel disconnected, then you get that that sense of lack of engagement that I know Gallup for the last many years has been documenting with so many of their surveys. And I think that if we want to be a really effective leader, our job is to make sure that we do help our people to clarify not just what are their KPIs or their individual goals, but how does that connect to something larger than themselves. My job, if I’m going to be a winning teammate, is to be a small contributing part to something larger and more significant than myself.
And if we can help them to see the impact of what they’re doing on a larger scale on a personal scale, and understand that it’s not just you being this small contributor, but that your efforts are ultimately having this impact in this result on people’s lives and prosperity and happiness, that that ends up being so much more meaningful to those people on our teams. And I think that sometimes it’s our job as a leader to connect those dots and to help them to see because engagement is nothing more than how much do you care about the results you’re contributing to.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. And, you know, I talk with a lot of leaders, and they’re like, what are we going to talk about? I’m like, well, you know, what are we trying to accomplish here as the big, big goal, and then, you know, make making sure there’s clarity between, you know, what, quote unquote, position that person is in, and they understand how their position leads to that thing that’s bigger than themselves. I think, I think that’s the huge thing. And, and also, you know, I had, I have a boy, he’s 27 now, but I remember I mean, he was in sports, his whole life coming up.
And what I think a lot of times leaders don’t realize is like, the follower, the player, the student, is looks so up to this coach person, like, there’s like, they’re in awe of them. And it’s hard for people to understand that, like, it feels very, very special to sit down with the leader, and get his undivided attention or her undivided attention for a little while. I mean, I can just imagine when you would have these one on ones with like, the seniors or the juniors that are on your varsity team, there’s like, wow, the coach took time out of his schedule to sit with me.
Sean: You would think. And early on, I would like to tell you that everything was roses and unicorns and rainbows. But it honestly was not because I was learning to be good in the one on ones while I was trying to have them. And I think that’s sometimes the issue for leaders who are beginning to have those one on one conversations is, like you mentioned, those questions come in, as you get, you know, from far away, everything looks easy.
But as you get closer to the actual experience of having that one on one, it gets a little bit messier. And you need to have some of that preparation, and I’ll talk to leaders about you know, everything is always going to be if you want to be effective, it needs to be connection before whatever content you need to share. And that was where even as a a older coach, I felt like I wasn’t the person I needed to be because I was probably far more focused upon clarity of role and what we need to do and how you can help the team and what you need to improve on.
And I didn’t do the job of connecting to ensure that they felt seen and appreciated and valued as a person beyond just what their role was. And I think that especially today in remote circumstances, with virtual teams, and all this going on with some of the disconnection, the importance of connecting and letter letting people feel seen and valued and appreciated, and a part of something larger than themselves instead of just this disconnected piece that’s turning in, you know, something that’s part of a project is incredibly important.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So don’t miss what he said, everybody, he said, the first thing we need to do is do connection before content. I really love that. So finding some rapport, asking a personal question that seems appropriate, and and then getting into, you know, clarity about their position, improvement and where they can improve. Alright, so I love that. Okay, so sitting down with them, finding out their goals and their purpose, and then building relationships. So how does a great leader, get the team members to have great relationships? What are some strategies or some tactics for us to build the team and get them get them in relationships?
Sean: Well, I think the first is connecting and knowing who it is, is on your team, and what are their strengths and personalities and backgrounds and challenges and goals and desires. And that’s a huge part of not just you as a leader, but the people on the team having an understanding of, you know, what are John’s strengths or what are Suzy’s strengths? And your what are they bringing in? What is that diverse, unique talent and contribution that makes us stronger because they’re here? Because if we all have the same backgrounds and perspectives, then we’re not necessarily going to be as strong a group. I think that absolutely, the idea of connection is important.
But this is something that’s true, not just in terms of teams and team building, but in terms of helping your team to adapt to change, which is where I really focus more recently with you. I know you looked at the books, and Staying Coachable is the one that’s just come out. But for us to be great leaders, I think that we need to help people to see not just their connection, but to give them that clarity and to get rid of the fog around what is it that we need? And what is it that we can actually do to help to serve them so that we’re accomplishing not just their goals, but also contributing to the team.
Nicole: Yeah, fantastic. All right. So you talked about strengths and personalities and the first place my mind went was to the various and sundry assessments that are in my toolbox. I’m wondering if you have a strengths or personality assessment that you’re a fan of that you’ve used and you think works really, really well?
Sean: Yeah. And I think that whether it’s you know, the there are so many that are out there. I’ve used DISC in the past and even in teambuilding situations for a half day or a full day working with a group, sometimes they use something even shorter we Gary Smalley’s animal personality styles.
Nicole: Yeah, I love those.
Sean: But but to have some appreciation and awareness of not just who I am and what my tendencies are. So you have that individual personal awareness of your what are my tendencies, and what do I need and what do often you kind of act on. But also, what do my teammates need? Because our job as more aware leaders and teammates is to make sure we’re always wrapping our message in the right envelopes based upon who the recipient is.
Nicole: Absolutely. Okay, so don’t miss that. He said, Gary Smalley’s animal personality styles. Did I get that right?
Sean: You did, yeah.
Nicole: I’m having a little flashback. There’s like a lion. There’s an otter, right?
Sean: A golden retriever.
Nicole: A golden retriever. And what?
Sean: And beaver.
Nicole: And beaver. Okay, yeah. So check that out. And then of course, DISC is absolutely fantastic. We’re both certified in DISC. And that can help. So I totally agree, that’s very, very helpful. Now, one of the other things that I saw was so cool, on your website, is that you have this little deck of cards. And is that something that you also use to connect your group together and help them build relationships? Talk a little bit about your card deck. I love that.
Sean: So yeah, I appreciate you, you mentioning. But connection, obviously is such a huge important part of not just my growth as a leader of recognizing the need, but not just understanding it, but taking action to give people an opportunity to connect and build some of those bonds, that allow us to care more about not just the goal that we’re seeking to achieve together. But to care more about the people we’re actually working toward that goal with I think that there’s a huge difference between working beside somebody and working with somebody. And so yeah, that idea of giving people opportunities to share information.
And this is something that I share, you mentioned you that there is a team toolbox on my website that leaders can you know, kind of you enter an email in and get access to, you know, 50 or 60 different downloadable tools. And one of those is a list of questions they can ask in those one on one meetings that they’re having. That give them a set of questions they can ask and even something that they can keep in an employee file, so they can go back and look at and stay familiar with some of those personality traits and in the family in the background and the desires. And I think that that’s something that’s important for teammates as well. And can you give teammates an opportunity to build enough of a connection, so that they can appreciate their similarities?
Because I think that our similarities, inoculate us against our differences. And if you only focus upon what’s different, then you have that opportunity where sometimes we don’t appreciate the strengths and the other character traits that make people really valuable on the team. But if you can appreciate some of those things you have in common, that ends up building a bond. And I think ultimately, our job as a leader with our people. And then our job for them as well, is to build relationships that are strong enough to be able to withstand the weight of truth, when we need to have those difficult conversations.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So tweetable moment, everybody. You have to appreciate the similarities, so that you can inoculate against differences. I love that. That’s fantastic. All right. So so that’s how we can build relationships. So you you have expectations as the E in your GREAT. And so I want to just, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this one before, Sean. And those of you who listen, you’ve heard it before. I’m gonna tell it to you again, this is my favorite quote of all times. Uncommunicated expectations are a premeditated opportunity to be disappointed.
And I talk to a lot of leaders who are disappointed and I’m like, well, I have I have some good news. And I have some bad news. We can fix it. And and and the bad news is is like it’s totally up to you to make sure expectations are clear. So I’m curious, how do you Sean, when you’re working with leaders in teams, how do you help them put expectations in place? What’s, how do you do that?
Sean: Well, I think that’s one of the you because I think ultimately, most leaders recognize the importance of clarifying a goal and clarifying roles and they see the value in that. I think that there’s a smaller percentage of leaders that really do appreciate the incredible impact that relationships can have and building those connections can have in terms of the outcomes that those results are eventually going to bear fruit with. But expectations I think is where so many teams end up dropping the ball, because they’ll spend time on a mission statement or spend time on here are our company values but then they don’t really define what that looks like for us.
Where are those behaviors that we should see in our hallways in our conversation, in our actions, they’re going to be evidence of those values. And ultimately, expectations are those team standards or those commitments we make because that’s what creates culture. Culture, and I share this with every group that I’ve ever worked with. Culture is nothing more than the behaviors that you allow to be repeated in your organization. And whether that’s a family or a business or nonprofit or athletic group. That’s what builds culture is the behaviors that your people bring and are allowed to repeat.
And so by setting expectations, we want to get as many people together so that they’re invested in, what are our standards going to be? What are we going to commit to as a team in terms of being on time? And how are we going to meet? And what are we going to do in terms of communication and how we’re going to handle our remote communications? And to take the time to clarify that because as you said, in a different way, but I’ve shared you know, as well, it is absolutely unkind for me as a leader to be unclear because people don’t want to live in fog.
Nicole: Alright, y’all. Tweetable moment, again. It is unkind to be unclear. Alright, I want to deep dive into that just a second. I mean, dare I even say this, but some leaders I work with are like, why don’t people just do what I tell them to do? That’s one of number one lines out there, Sean.
Sean: Oh, well, and I have had this exact conversation with a leader, right. And I will always share the story of myself and my wife, because my wife expects me sometimes to just know what I’m supposed to be doing. To just know what she’s expecting me to do. And leaders sometimes have those same expectations of their people. And I think that the number one thing that you listen, even if I don’t agree with you, as a teammate, if you give me a very clear playing field and understand the rules, I’m going to be able to work around that playing board and be successful.
But if I don’t know what the rules are, if the rules are changing from day to day or week to week, or if there’s some lack of understanding then I’m going to a not feel safe, and I’m not going to take the same risk. I’m not going to be as invested if I don’t understand what those rules are, and how we are supposed to interact and what is safe for us as a team. And that idea of psychological safety is something you know, that is so unbelievably important for teams and if they’re not asking questions, if they’re not admitting that, hey, I need some help, or hey, I made a mistake, or hey, I disagree. Then I think that you as a leader need to look at how clear you are about those commitments and protecting people in the midst of those standards to make sure there’s opportunities for people to share those thoughts.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. So I love that. Okay. So it’s unkind to be unclear. You got to create a feeling of safety, psychological safety, so people can do well. And I think the unkind piece is, too, is like, you know, I think oftentimes, Sean, people don’t, leaders don’t understand. Listen, people are following you. And you have such a huge responsibility to grow them to develop them to take care of them. And you got put in this position, it’s quite an honor, you know, so to set them up for failure or to have like that, there’s almost like disdain in why don’t they? Why don’t they just figure it out? Why don’t they just do it? You know, you know, like that, like, good some judgment there is like you hired them. They’re your folks. Let’s, let’s be kind. And let’s be clear, I absolutely adore that. That’s fantastic. All right.
So the next thing that you talk about is accountability and feedback. Now, my listeners have heard me talk about accountability and feedback till the cows come home, but the cows have not come home. We got to talk about it more. Because this accountability thing is huge. Like, we’ve got a couple, you know, handfuls of leaders that, that just I’ll just do it myself, you know, and then we’ve got the leaders that we think everybody should be mind readers like you just talked about, so they don’t do it for that reason. They have disgust and disdain. But really holding people accountable is is really, I think the number one leadership skill of all time. And that’s where I’m at as of today.
Sean: I’ve shared in the past, I think that awareness is one of the main leadership traits. And I’ve added to that in recent years. It’s not just awareness as the most important thing you can have as a leader, but there’s also a need for empathy and optimism. And I think if you have those three things, awareness and empathy and optimism, you have the chance to be an incredibly inspiring and effective leader. There’s a few reasons for that. I think first, obviously, awareness, not just self awareness, but also awareness of what are the circumstances, where are people at, and seeing beyond sometimes where we may be put on blinders as a leader. And we’re not aware of we’re not curious enough to ask questions to give ourselves the information that will give us more awareness and appreciation of people in some of their circumstances that help to inform their behaviors.
So I think that curiosity leads to an awareness. But even more so as you mentioned you know, accountability. Accountability is the next the last part of that recipe. Because I do think you need to identify a goal, you got to have a reason why, to begin with, you need to build the relationships with the people that are seeking that why. And you need to set those clear expectations. Because accountability, without clarity of expectations is cruel. If I’m going to punish you for something that you didn’t understand you were expected to do. That’s on me as a leader. That’s not your responsibility if I didn’t clarify those expectations.
And I think that oftentimes, accountability for leaders and even for teams, ends up you know, the default synonym for accountability is punishment. And I don’t think accountability is punishment, hopefully, it’s consequences. Because you can absolutely have positive accountability and positive consequences, and celebrate people for some of those behaviors and results that their efforts are driving. But I think that ultimately, any accountability conversation begins with empathy. And if we can build those connections among the people on our team, then I’m far more willing and concerned about doing a good job, because I don’t want to let my teammate down.
Because I don’t want to have a negative impact upon their productivity. I don’t want to hold up what they’re doing, because I’m not doing my job. And so I think a lot of those accountability conversations come back to connecting to a goal and connecting with each other. And making sure that there is that sense of empathy that’s built throughout the team so that people don’t want to let down the teammate beside them, and ultimately don’t want to let down the clients they’re serving.
Nicole: Hmm, that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Yeah, and I couldn’t agree more about there are two types of feedback. And that accountability is after setting the goals, getting the relationship right and setting expectations. So don’t miss that everybody. There’s a flow to this, this acronym he’s working GREAT. So I’m going to give everybody my accountability formula. Those of you who listen, you need it again. Here you go. You’re welcome. So here it is, you got to ask three questions in accountability, which is, what are you going to do? And make sure you talk that through a little bit. Because I will tell you, I don’t know about you, Sean.
But I have said to people, I need you to do X, and then they go, okay. Now, I really have no idea what they’re about to go do. I mean, it’s gonna be something related to what I stated, but like, maybe I have certain again, expectations of what it’ll look like, what it’ll smell like, taste like, be like. So I gotta, I gotta ask what you know, what are you going to do? And that’s not micromanaging. That is being kind and not cruel, as Sean would say.
So I ask, what are you going to do? We have a little conversation, I say, that sounds perfect. Thank you so much. I knew you were so intuitive, right? Like, you can give some love in there, right? And the next thing you say is, when are you going to do it? Because back in the day, Sean, I don’t know if you were this far back in the day as me, but we used to have these little things we would give out and trainings called a round to it. And it was just a little circle thing. And it said r o u n d t u i t. Round to it. And so I don’t know, maybe it’s time to bring the round to it back. What do you think, Sean, we can bring it back.
Sean: I’ll do that when I get around to it. Right?
Nicole: That’s right. And so if people say, oh, don’t worry Nicole, I’ll take care of it. And oftentimes, as a leader, you’re like, okay, you know, like, I’ll trust you, you know, but here’s the thing, you might need it by Friday. And this person’s walking away thinking it could be two weeks from now or something. So you have to have clarity around time. And then the final thing is, is how will I know it’s done. And, and so that’s just like, you know, let the leader know, so she can relax, so her brain can rest. We’ve got that done. That feels so good, right? And then the reason why you also want to know that it’s done is so that you can give them feedback. You can look at the thing, you can say it’s fantastic. Or let’s tweak it, you know, what ever the case may be. What do you think of my little formula? I picked that up along the way. And I just think it’s fantastic.
Sean: It does open the door to some of those conversations that sometimes leaders neglect to have and then you leave people walking out of your office or getting off the phone, standing again in fog. And so if you can clarify who’s going to do what by when, and how do we know that it’s been done? Who is that going to be delivered to, then that ends up giving the clarity that they need, and also giving you an opportunity to schedule a celebration where they can feel appreciated for having completed that and taking ownership of it.
Nicole: Yeah, and you know, if we want to use our basketball analogy, because Sean is the basketball guy is is that you just think about well, like every time that you know the guy takes a shot, and it goes through the hoop. That’s when we’re you know, we still celebrating all those little shots along the way so that we can get the score at the end that helps us win the game. And so you know, just like you would be on the sidelines jumping up and down. If somebody had a three point shot, I barely know what I’m talking about Sean.
Sean: Fantastic job. And you know what, in this, I know takes us to the kind of the end of the recipe. But that last part is. And I really wish that I have been better with that when I was a young coach, honestly, Nicole, because I think that I’m like a whole lot of young leaders. And my belief when I was a first year, second year coach was, we’re going to celebrate over there when we get to the banquet. And how difficult must that have been to play for me, as a, as an athlete, when I was pushing and pushing and driving and driving and practicing and correcting and we weren’t taking time to appreciate the progress we had made. I think that you have people today, you know, they get burned out.
And I don’t think people get burned out because they are tired of the job, I think they get burned out because they don’t have an opportunity to take a moment to appreciate the progress they’ve made, and to feel appreciated and valued and seen for those efforts that created the progress. If we can help people to see the progress they’re making and to feel appreciated for what they’re doing. And I think that continues to fill their bucket, and give them an opportunity to continue to feel that much more engaged than they would have been otherwise.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Well, you know, you this last letter in GREAT is thanking them. So I I want to know what you think the strategies are for thanking people. I mean, we all know how to say thank you. First of all, that’s simple. That’s easy. You should use it your grandmother, your mother, your mamaw, whoever will be very pleased with you if you say thank you. But what what are some ways that leaders can be creative or you’ve encourage people and then I got a story to tell. So I want to hear your side first.
Sean: Looking forward to your story now that you mentioned it. But one of the things that a lot of my talks is the importance of specific things in impact. And, you know, as a as a coach, I would oftentimes catch myself saying good job. Somebody come off the court, I’d say good job. And then I realized how vague that was. And I think the vague, invites vague effort. And if I’m not doing a good job of specifying what was done well, and how it impacted us as a team and why it was such a positive thing. I think that’s our job is when we’re celebrating, can we be specific with the celebrations and let people see, not just that they were seen, but that there was a specific impact that their behavior that their choice had that moved us forward.
And I think that you know, in every meeting that you have with your group, whether it’s in person or remote, what are you doing to connect just for five or 10 minutes? What are you doing to celebrate somebody just for four or five minutes to point out those things that you want to see repeated. And I think that’s one of the most important things a leader can do is to not just establish the goal, but to make sure that you’re thinking people along the way, and don’t wait until the banquet.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I’ll tell you my story, and I love what you’ve shared, you know, just getting get up with people. That’s how we talked in Concord, North Carolina. So I was recently working with two senior leaders, and I was talking about how they really needed to touch the frontline. And they needed to let people know, but it needs to be something that is again, don’t miss this everybody exactly what Sean is talking about in his book about setting goals. When somebody you know, makes a next right step and has a small win towards the goal that we’re after, pointing it out, we’ll build this thing called ,omentum. Everybody write this down. John Maxwell momentum, YouTube, go watch it. Go watch the video about momentum with John Maxwell.
I’m sure Sean is John fan just like me. And so anyway, so I said, you know, you need to get some little notes. And when you sit down and look at the reports on Monday, or Friday, or whatever day is your report day, I want you to find somebody who’s moving the needle, and I want you to point it out. And I want you to point it back to business acumen. And I want you to be very specific about how it’s helping the organization. I want you to teach people this is a business, instead of wishing that people understood it was a business. So they’re like, okay, Nicole, we’ll do it. I’m like, okay, well, do you have any notes? And you know, like, you know, do you have any little notes with the logo on the company logo? And they’re like, I don’t think so. And I’m like, okay, we’re gonna get some. I’ll take care of it. Right.
So I marched down to the marketing director’s office. He’s like, yeah, we’ve got those. I’m like, can I have those please? So we get on it. We got we got on the ladder in the supply room in the back corner, and there’s boxes of these notes, thank you notes. I started distributing them all over the organization. I’m like, everybody’s gonna write notes. Everybody ready? Okay. So I think that, you know, a handwritten note and taking the time to do that. You know, I don’t know about you, but when I was coming up, if anybody gave me anything that was physical like I would take it and save it.
Sean: You hold on to it. You want to feel seen. And for that that sense of feeling valued and feeling seen and feeling appreciated, is so powerful for people who sometimes work in the shadows and don’t feel like what they’re doing is being noticed. And to be able to take that moment to give them something tangible and specific. So they really feel like somebody had an eye on them and somebody has appreciated, those efforts make such a huge difference. I love the idea of you sharing with the leader to make sure that you give that specific handwritten note, not a text, not just saying something in the hallway, but take a little bit of extra time, make that little bit of special effort, because it really does have an impact.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Yep. So you and I are on the same page. Alright, so let’s see, we’ve got through all the five parts of your great acronym in rapid teamwork, but I just want to make sure everybody understands that Sean also has a book called Staying Coachable. He also has a book called The 10 Commandments of Winning Teams, and the Unexpected Leader. And then in addition to that, he’s got a toolbox with all sorts of goodies that you can take a look at.
So Sean, it we’re at the top of the hour, and I just wanted to check in with you and say, you know, what are the things that you are seeing, that leaders are really struggling with? And what advice would you have for them? It’s, it’s kind of challenging times, we’ve got one foot in COVID, I hope we have one foot one giant step out of COVID. You know, we’re going into the winter months. So what are you seeing that leaders are struggling with? And what what’s your suggestions moving forward?
Sean: Such an important question for us to recognize that there’s always going to be a challenge, and it may shift and there may be different challenges. And I love being able to share you that idea of how do you build culture through the rapid teamwork framework. But the reason I came out and wrote Staying Coachable, just over the last six months, was because there’s been such unbelievable change. And people struggle with change, not because change is bad, because if I were to give you a raise, you’d love change, right? We don’t necessarily dislike change, but we dislike being pushed, because oftentimes that leads to resistance and pushback for things that we’re not necessarily comfortable doing.
And so I was trying to think back to when I was a coach, and then recently, obviously, more working with leaders. What is it that cause that pushback and that resistance, and I think that as a coach for way too many years, I would give commands. You need to, you need to, you should etc. And whether it was a player changing his shot, or a player doing something differently in terms of you know, how they’re handling the ball, or what they’re doing with passing one hand, instead of using a, there’s all kinds of things you can work on in terms of individual improvement.
And that’s what you’re doing in your one on ones. You’re having conversations to help somebody to improve. But what so many leaders have shared with me is that sometimes those conversations end up being not just uncomfortable, but it almost where somebody feels annoyed by getting advice instead of appreciative and applying that because they feel it’s a push and a command instead of asking questions. And I think that if there was one tool that I could give leaders, it’s that encouragement for them to stay coachable. And there’s four questions in the book that lead you to be not just coachable yourself, but help you to coach your team with those four questions.
But the idea is, can you move as a leader away from commands, and begin to use better questions to engage your people and allow them to be the ones that recognize the gap between where they are and where they want to be? And to be that much more humble and modest, and desirous and hungry for the information that’s going to make them more productive and make your team more successful because they decide to stay coachable, based upon their desires.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Well, could you just give us a little peek give us one of the questions that’s in the book that we should be asking?
Sean: Well, there are four and again, it’s more of like you will have with rapid team work. It is a parable, you’ve got a father and son, the son dealing with frustration as an athlete, the father dealing with frustration as a salesperson with a new online kind of system platform that he’s not comfortable with. And I think that you see that in so many different industries with people being pushed into this new application, or this new type of thing that we’ve adopted, that we’re going to need to learn and we’re gonna actually and there’s always a little bit of friction. And so how do you help your people to instead of being complacent, how do you help your people to really be inspired to commit to that relentless improvement.
To continue to climb Instead of you getting to some level of success, and then camping. Because the reason that you are where you are the reason that the leaders that we talked to are where they are, is because only they had been coachable to a point. That’s why they’ve achieved their level of success. And so to stay coachable, I think that the one question is, what is it specifically that you want? And I think to take the time to do that, that establishes, what is that mountain that we need to climb? And then the second question in the series, and there’s a little bit more that’s supported, obviously.
But the second question, has everything to do with honesty. Where are you now? And when you’d have those one on one conversations with your people, that seems like a really simple question. But when you start to talk about numbers, and you start to talk about, where are you now in terms of your productivity in terms of your impact, in terms of your measurables? What are those things that no, there’s not a space for the the excuses or the explanations or see what had happened was. Numbers don’t give it to you.
So how can you use those numbers, to help to define where we are, where you might be, where I might be. And then if we’ve identified there’s the mountain, we’re trying to climb and have identified, well, here’s where we are presently. As soon as you recognize there’s a gap. That’s what opens the door to the humility that’s necessary for mentorship to occur.
Nicole: Oh, that’s fantastic. All right. So the first question is, what do you want? And hey, don’t miss this, everybody. Go over to YouTube and watch Nicole Greer’s TED talk. What do you really want? That’s her TED talk. Alright. And then the second question is, where are you and then finally, you get to the point where you figure out what the gap is. And then we get real about how we’re going to fill the gap. Get where we want to go. I love it. All right. So everybody take a peek over at Sean’s website. Well, I’ve got one last question for you. Let’s imagine, I know there’s one out there, a listener that would love you know, like one more nugget of genius from Sean Glaze, what nugget would you give them? And look, he has a puppy in the background everybody.
Sean: Franklin has woken up from his nap, so he’s, uh, he’s ready for his walk again.
Nicole: All right, that’s fantastic. He said, You while we were asking where are you? And he’s like, I’m right here. I’m ready to go for my walk. Alright, so what little nugget would you give to a special listener who’s listening in right now? And they’re like, give me one more. Give me one more, Sean. What would you give them?
Sean: Yeah, well, I just think that the importance of one on one conversations and building connections with your people, is the key to any impact you’re going to have as a leader. And a lot of that impact in those one on ones is going to be based upon the quality of the questions that you ask. And if you ask yourself better questions, you become a better leader. If you ask your people better questions, you become a better team.
And I think those are things that we can all benefit from is being a little bit more introspective about how can I use questions to move myself forward? And be honest about answering those but even more importantly, to serve and develop the people around me. How can I ask them questions? They’re gonna impact them as well.
Nicole: Absolutely. And that got a ring of the bell. I love it. Okay, that’s fantastic. So hey, listen, everybody, Sean, don’t miss this. The questions he’s really trying to emphasize he has that deck that’s on his website. So you could use that deck of cards. You know, buy three, four decks, put it leave it on the conference table, everybody uses it. Okay. So then the other thing is that I want to tell you is that he said he had a list in his downloadable toolbox that you can get off his website. So free freebies, there, go get that. And then I want to mention somebody that’s been on the podcast before. Really amazing guy. I don’t know if you know him, Sean, but you should know him. His name is Bob Tiede. T i e d e.
Sean: Absolutely.
Nicole: Do you know Bob?
Sean: Good questions.
Nicole: Okay. All right. He is all about the questions. And so if you didn’t, haven’t listened to that episode, go back. Find Bob. Listen to that episode all about questions, go check him out. He’s got tons of freebies, too, on his website. So do all that. Okay, so here’s what we want to do and make sure he knows how to get a hold of you. So please go visit Sean at greatresultsteambuilding.net. He’s also on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/seanglaze. And I will spell Sean, there are two spellings y’all. S e a n g l a z e. Alright, so that is where he’s at. I am so grateful that you have spent a good portion of your day with me here Sean, downloading all these goodies for our listeners. I’m very grateful.
Sean: No really enjoyed the conversation with you, Nicole. I appreciate you putting all the links and stuff for your audience in the in the show notes if you can. If I can be a resource I would be thrilled to and again, thank you so much for allowing me to share I really enjoyed the time with you today.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. All right, it’s time for us to go walk the dogs we gotta go.
Sean: Bye bye.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
