What an absolute treat of an episode this is! International leadership and business coach Gregory Gray joins to discuss all the benefits of having a leadership coach, including:
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The unique advantages a coach can bring to leaders at all levels
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What it means to move from manage-leading to leadership-leading
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How to start your Vision Story
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Why you always need to be recruiting
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And so, so much more
Greg is an expert in building teams and efficient businesses. He is the author of Business Owner Freedom, host of the Everyday Business Leader Podcast, and Founder of Gray University. His work helps leaders break free of daily busy work and find the time to focus on the long-term. His detailed strategies to build self-managing and self-accountable teams are part of his framework that will take you to another level of leadership success. Listen in now!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Gregory Gray: Until you really have human to human connection, you’re not gonna have true accountability.
Voiceover: You’re listening to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me the vibrant coach and I am here today with none other than Greg Gray. He is an international leadership and business coach and he helps others and he’s been in business since 2010. His expertise is in building teams and efficient businesses. He is the author of Business owner Freedom and founder of Gray University. He is also the host of the Everyday Business Leader podcast and you can find him at www.gregorygray. And that’s G R A Y in case you’re wondering .com. Greg, I’m so glad you’re on the on the Vibrant Leadership podcast. Thank you.
Greg: Thank you for having me. I look forward to it.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, first of all, tell, tell us what your definition of leadership is. I am just really diving deep in the definition of leadership. I’m collecting them. What’s your definition?
Greg: Keep it real simple. The leadership really is about influencing others to take action. Could be different action, could be more of the same action, but it’s influencing others. And throughout my whole career, I’ve realized that the greatest influencers to me we’re really good solid leaders.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. 100%. And I believe that to be true, that influence is the name of the game. And I like to put the word positive in there to remind leaders. They have a positive or a negative effect. What are your thoughts on that?
Greg: Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you influence somebody, you’re leading them either in a good or a negative direction, but you are influencing them. And sometimes, some of the best lessons I learned were from those that did not have a positive impact on me, there was actually negative. And so I went the other direction, yeah.
Nicole: That’s right. Because you looked at them. He thought that is not what you do. Right. Duly noted. Noted. I’ve written that down. Not gonna do that. Okay. Fantastic. That’s fantastic. Okay, so you got into coaching, right about the same time that I did. And so tell me a little bit about how coaching and leadership go together. I mean, I think leaders need coaches. And this isn’t a sales pitch or anything, but like leaders need somebody to talk to, especially if there’s nobody above them to kind of check in. But then also the whole idea of being a coach to others. So will you talk about the value of coaching and why leaders need one?
Greg: Yeah, so that to me, the the greatest example for coaching is a coach that has coaches, right? And I know you do, and I do, too. I have three coaches as we speak. And people go, why would you have coaches if your coach, you know. I say well, it’s not the same as a plumber having a plumber do their home, it’s not the same. Because what coaches do is they can see things and they can guide things, and they can position you in ways that you can’t do that to yourself. And so when it comes to a leader having a coach, the reason why that’s so critical is for two reasons.
One is leaders can’t talk to their teams about what they’re struggling with, they have to go to somebody that is, has an unbiased position that can look and be very dynamic in the way that they handle that situation, or whatever it is that they’re dealing with. And they also need to be able to speak very strongly, I’ll use that word into the leaders life, without being worried about the leader having a feedback to them, that would be negative. So a coach can come in and say things and do things that nobody else can. And a really good coach really doesn’t care who’s paying them or any of that piece that that doesn’t matter. They are there to help this person move boundaries and climb mountains or, or do things they’ve never done before. See things they can’t see.
The second reason they need to have a coach is because they help with blind spots. And by definition, a blind spot is something you cannot see. And so if you really want to uncover your blind spots, which is why I have coaches, because you can’t do that yourself. You have to have somebody call you out on moments where you say or do something that they need to call you out on at that moment and say, hey, do you realize you’re doing this? I didn’t know. I don’t know because it seems natural and appropriate to me. And so in my corporate career before I left corporate and became a consultant and coach, I wish I’d had more coaching. I wasn’t privy to it like I am now. And so I go back in to help those type of people now, man, let’s open up a pathway of dialogue where you can become the best leader you can be by helping shape what you want to become. And so that’s what a coach does.
Nicole: Yeah, and I want to go back to something you said early on, because I think it’s really important, I don’t want you to miss it is that you said, a leader needs somebody to talk to. That’s not on their team. I mean, sometimes we’re talking to our employees, even though they might be you know, in our C suite with us, but I think it can be, you know, a compromising position to to share your struggles and share the things that you’re frustrated about, or share your dreams, if you haven’t fully thought them up. And I know that you’re really big on figuring out the future state, right, I looked at a look at his website, gregorygray.com. And on his website, he talks about, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna help you figure out a, I’m going to clarify the future state that you want, right. So to talk a little bit more about why that’s kind of a precarious thing to do?
Greg: Well, I think whether it’s a business owner, or a CEO, or whoever is in that leadership position, they are so focused on the here and now, so much of the time, because they come in every morning, they’re on stage, when they walk in the door, everybody’s looking at them, everybody needs something from them, everybody has them, help them make decisions, or give them direction or whatever. And so the leader, by definition, doesn’t get to do anything, but manage lead versus leadership lead. And so they tend to manage things versus lead things. And so what we’re trying to do is help them take a few steps back, and say okay, you need to have some time on your own to think and to dream, and to start putting together some strategy and look into that future and look across the horizon.
By essence of being a CEO, or a business owner, or whatever leadership position you find yourself in, somebody has to help you look across the horizon when you’re not doing it. Because if you don’t, you’re gonna miss, really the work that you should be doing. And that work is strategic in nature, it is thinking about the future, it’s wanting to craft that next, you know, level of business or team that you want to build. And so you need to you need to be able to dream again, and too many times we get so busy with the busy work, the day to day that we kind of trap ourselves into the busy mindset versus the ability to dream mindset. And so we have to undo some of those things. And so some of the work we do is, you know, how do you delegate some of what you’re doing.
So you can find that margin that extra time. But really, most of it comes back to mindset. And so by having somebody have this dialogue with you, and challenge you on it, it opens up a different pathway of thinking. And by asking the right questions, as a coach, I can just tap into some wells of deep water that they haven’t opened in quite a while. And when that starts flowing, it’s hard and they can’t put it back. They’re like, I gotta do something with this. This is exciting. I haven’t thought this way in a while. And so once that gets rolling and flowing, it’s a whole different conversation, a whole different dynamic of experience that they’re having.
Nicole: I love it. And so I want to read something that’s directly off of Greg’s website. He says, when you do this, you get a clear, crafted vision for your future. You will know where you’re going. And your purpose will be clear and documented. I think that is absolutely imperative for a leader to have that figured out. Now, I don’t know what your experience is, Greg, but I will ask people questions about their future. And like, it’s at first there’s just this real resistance, or it’s cloudy or something and I get the same answer a lot of times is, I think, well, what do you really want?
And they’ll be like, I don’t know, you know, like, like, there’s this almost puzzling, like, I can have something more? I can have something else? So how do you move people from that? You know, that place where like, to where they get it get it turned on? Because I think you’re right, once we get the faucet turned on, it’s almost like we hope that the handle falls off almost right, that they keep going. We hope we have a plumbing problem. I love your analogy. So how do you kind of move people that way?
Greg: When it comes to not giving in to their resistance? So when you first asked that question, so I was talking to a business owner a couple of weeks ago, and we’re going through we’re crafting what we call a vision story for him and said, okay, what do your wife dream about doing? Where’s like a dream vacation for you? He’s like, I don’t know, I just I just I just love to have two weeks off. Sometimes if we could have two weeks off in a row. We’ve never had two weeks off in a row. Okay, that’s good. But that’s not good enough. He goes, what are you talking about? I said, no, no. If you had two weeks off, and you had unlimited income, where would you go? And it was like he paused. You could see him just look up into the sky like, wow,
Nicole: I get to choose, what!
Greg: Yeah. And he was like, well, I want to go to Spain. And my wife loves Spain and I’d just love to take over for two weeks and then we go and then we go through Southern Italy. And then all of a sudden he’s just started describing this trip. And I knew right then that we had the flow going, we had basically broke the handle off of the faucet, as you said, and he couldn’t stop. And then I said, okay, well just get more detailed. When are you going to go? Well, I think we would go in June and he started picking, you know, so let’s pull the calendar up and we started looking at dates. He goes, well, why are we doing all this? I said, because the more specific you get, the more energy you’ll give it. And when you give it that kind of energy, it will happen. It absolutely fired him up.
He said I cannot wait to get home and talk to my wife about this you know. I said, there you go, now have this conversation and let her dream. And y’all dream about this thing together, and then go, okay, what do we gotta do to make this happen? And then that’s where I come in as a coach is okay. Is it more income they need? Is it time off they need? Is it a different team member or two they need so they can leave and you know, whatever that is, we’ll find a way to make it happen. But what do you want to happen? Because if you don’t have where you want to go, how can I get you there or help you get there. That’s how it all starts. So you just can’t get in on them though. Because the first thing they’ll say is, oh, I just like to have some time off. But what does that mean? Right?
Nicole: Yeah. And it is stoking that fire in there. And I think also, when they begin to see it more clear and more clear and more clear, it becomes more real. You know, we’ll keep using our plumbing. It’s either a pipe dream, right? Or it’s like, oh, well, yeah. I mean, we could do it in June. I mean, you know, the kids will be at camp, you know, like, they start getting into more of the detail, then they see what is possible. And then like I like to say they start to make it more probable.
And I love what you said, you’ve got to make that feature story even more specific. I love that. Okay. Now, the second phase that you talk about, is like the implementation plan. So now you’ve, you’ve got this big story of the future, and what’s going to happen. Now you got to help people get her done. So how do you work with folks? And don’t miss this everybody. Again, leaders need to be coached. But you also need to be coaching your people about these in this same way. Am I right, Greg?
Greg: Oh, absolutely.
Nicole: Yeah, like, what do you want to do with your career? Dream it up with them. And then let’s get the implement implementation plan cooking. Okay, so talk about how you help someone get an implementation plan. So vision story, then implementation plan.
Greg: So I actually had a conversation with some business owners today, they’re in a group coaching with me, and we actually went through this today. And so they’re crafting their vision stories. As we speak, for 2022 and beyond. We usually look out three years, in our vision stories. We recommend three years. We can do five, we can do two, but we recommend three. And so what they’re doing is they’re crafting their vision story right now. So when they wake up three years from today, so December 7 of three years from today, they’re going to wake up and go, okay, this is what it looks like.
Not this is what I want it to look like, this is what it does look like. So it’s happened. What has happened? What does the income look like? What does their time look like? What does their team look like? Was does the culture of their business look like? What is their home life look like? You know, what are the age of their children? So with their children, if I you know, gained age for three, they’re writing that new age down. Well, wow, one of them is a senior in high school now, or whatever, whatever it is. And so they’re looking at it from that perspective of, I’m there. And this is what it looks like, this is what it feels like, this is what it tastes like, this is what it smells like. So they they get these all their senses involved and go, okay, this is what it is.
So then we take that and we start breaking it down, say, okay, the first quarter that you’re going to start implementing, we’ll do what’s called a 90 day sprint, or a 12 week plan, or whatever you want to call it. But we take that first quarter, break it down into action items. Say what do you have to do the first quarter, so it may be three years out, which is 12 quarters. But what’s the first quarter of those 12 gonna look like? Where do you start? And what do you guys start doing? So for example, they want to write a book, how many words a day do they have to write to get that book done by the time they weren’t done?
Well, I got to write 500 words a day, okay, put that on your on your plan. And then the key here is, then you take this plan, and then you show it to either your leadership team or your group coaching team, somebody that held you accountable to that plan. So you’re going to come back periodically and say, here’s where I am on that plan. So you craft the vision, then you put the implementation together, plan together, and then you come back and you’re being held accountable to your actions. And so you’re you’re responsible to make it happen. And so that doesn’t mean you can’t delegate some of that work.
Hopefully, you’re delegating most of the work for either your team teammates, you know, whoever, but you have to lead through that. And so, you know, there’s a gentleman that I was actually on a call with earlier today, and he’s he did it we started working together a year ago. A year ago, his dream was to just to have Fridays off. He made that happen about two months ago. And his next new dream is to only work two days a month. And he’s on the path to do that. He has got his business set up to where he went from working it full time, to where by this time next year, he’ll be working two days a month, and it’s being run by other people.
Nicole: Right. And you know, Greg, when people hear that, they’re like, what? How do you do that? It’s probably because you’re coaching him to put systems in place.
Greg: Oh, yeah, we’re putting systems in place and the right people in place.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. And so and this is a common thread, just insider scoop on coaching world that Greg and I live in. People set, do indeed set goals like that. But like, again, so many people are like, that’s so mind blowing to them. How do you do that? Like you’re like cynicism or pops up. But if you if you systemize things. And you and I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dan Sullivan, do you know who Dan Sullivan is?
Greg: Oh yes. Very well.
Nicole: All right. So everybody write that down. Dan Sullivan, he’s the Strategic Coach. I mean, he talks all the time about this concept of who, not how, right. So don’t figure out how you’re going to do it. Because don’t miss Gregory said earlier, you need to be delegating most things on this in this vision, right in this vision story. So and there’s a little book called Who, Not How by Dan.
Greg: Yeah, it’s a very good book.
Nicole: All right. Now, I also want to make one little comment about something you said, because I think is so juicy, because I got this from my master coach, is when Greg you were saying how it smells, how it tastes, how it feels. You know, like really trying to have this somatic experience in your imagination. But my my master coach called this make a memory of the future.
Greg: Yes.
Nicole: Oh, and I just love that. So we think we can only have a memory of what’s happened in the past, but we can project forward and create like that day in time. I have a senior in high school, I’ve got somebody worrying about the firefighting I used to do and all that. So I love that. So write that down everybody. Memory of the future. Think, just be thinking about that. The other thing I love that you said, Greg, is you said, you know, don’t try to figure out how to do three years. Get the quarter figured out. Yeah, so talk about the the magic of like the sprint. Yeah, talk about that a little bit. What do you mean by a 12 week sprint or and you used another word?
Greg: 90 day sprint or 12 week plan. Yeah, so, so I mean they’re both a quarter. But where this comes from was, back a few years ago, I used to be really heavy into triathlons. I used to do Ironman triathlons. And so when you’re training for a triathlon and working full time, and everything, you know, I’m not, I’m not an athlete, hardly much less a pro athlete, right. But when you’re not a pro athlete, and you can’t train eight hours a day, you have to find a way to accomplish things in a certain amount of time, just kind of like a business owner does with with what we’re talking about. You got to work on your business while you’re working in your business too.
So you got to do both. So, you know, the triathlon is made up of swimming, biking, and running. So for about nine weeks, I would swim heavy, and I would maintain bike and run and then I would swap, and then I want to hammer the bike for nine weeks while I’m maintaining the swim and the run, then I would hammer the run for nine weeks, while maintaining the other two. And you just keep that rotation going. And so every nine weeks, we would, and as a triathlete, we would progress and get better and better at that one that we’re focused on.
And then we’d get by time we’re about sick and tired of that when we rotate into another one. And so each one was progressing up and up and up, and better and better. But we didn’t have time to go through all three all at once. And so that that focus, that deep dive into one particular area or two particular areas at a time is so powerful, because it allows you put all your energy and focus in one place while you’re maintaining other things. And so to apply that same methodology to a business, if you take that quarter and go, okay, this quarter, we’re gonna do these one or two, maybe three things no more.
This is all we’re working on. And we’re going to go hard and heavy on these, then all your energy and your marginal time can be put there. And and so you can move that dial, where when you try to do all 20 or 30 things that everybody wants to do, you don’t get anything done. And so what we’re trying to do is really harness energy and focus for a period of time. That’s that’s the whole game of it. Yes.
Nicole: Yeah. Because if you do the three year plan that he was talking about, you will have 30 initiatives quite possibly right and so go for it dream up all 30, that’s fantastic. But then back it up and do three. So don’t miss that and, and the other thing I didn’t ask this before, but I did make the question mark here on my notes is, you know, you said I prefer to do only three years. Now I have a I have a hunch about three years instead of like five or 10. I can remember though, bet you do too. While back, people were like, oh, your 10 year plan. But we all know, it’s crazy out there. So talk about three is good. Talk about three for just a minute, instead of this lofty 10 or whatever.
Greg: Yeah, three is long enough to where you can actually move the dials in the business and do some significant work, where shorter than that is very difficult. But longer than three becomes almost overwhelming is too long, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to happen. And so we have just we’ve experimented with all those different lengths of time and three years really works well, for most of the people that we work with. There’s there’s that exception every now and then. But most of the time, three years just seems to be that that really comfort zone where it’s like, yeah, we can actually make it happen in three years. Two years seems very quick. And if you have a hiccup or something in three years, you can catch yourself back up. The other thing I should mention is, when we’re talking about these action plans, the reason why putting all this in place is so important is because we’re fighting the urgent.
There’s the urgent and there’s the priority. When we’re trying to go after our vision story, that’s priority stuff. In other words, if we don’t do it, nobody will know and nobody cares. If we don’t answer the phone, people care. That’s urgent. If we don’t, you know, take care of that customer walks in the front door, if we don’t pay our bills, all those urgent items take care of themselves, because people do care about them. But they’re small, and they really don’t do anything for your business, or they’re not a dial mover. Writing a book or implementing a new system or a new process or hiring some incredible people. Those are dial movers.
But if we don’t do it, nobody cares. Nobody wakes up the day goes, well, you didn’t do that. So what we’re trying to do by doing this process, this is a process in itself, is we’re moving the priorities that are way out there and left field, we’re moving them into our urgent zone and saying they’re right in front of us every day. So now they are urgent. So our priorities are getting the attention that they deserve. And I should mention that because that is a key component of why we’re doing this.
Nicole: Right. Right. And so I’m having a little flashback to 1997 or something like that. So many of you listening may have heard of the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. But then there’s there’s also his time management book help me, Greg.
Greg: Time management. Not sure which one.
Nicole: It will come to me in a minute. But he has a time management book. Came out after the Seven Habits, but in there, he talks about his time quadrants, right? I will tell you, I’ve never showed that to a client or a training classroom, without people going, oh, that helps me see my how I run my time. And what Greg is talking about is I’m trying to move you to quadrant two. So look that up, you know that the Covey Time Matrix, just look it up, look at people. And when you go there, you’ll see what Greg is talking about. Like, now we’re getting the solid plan for quadrant two to get done, we’re still gonna have fighting fires, we’re gonna still have time wasters and all the other stuff that’s on the Time Matrix.
But if you don’t give it attention, don’t miss this, and intention, it’s not going to happen. Not gonna happen. So talking about intention. Let’s move to the third part of Greg’s little plan here. Actually, it’s a ginormous plan. So the first thing is vision story, implemented implementation plan. And then there’s self accountability. Oh, my gosh, we have a crisis of accountability out there. I talked to every leader I talked to Greg, they’re like, I need to hold my people accountable. My people need to be accountable. There’s a whole accountability thing going on out there. So how are you helping people with that? They all want to want some tips, tricks. Help us, Greg.
Greg: Well, this is this is the million dollar question all the time about how do I get my people to do what I want them to do? Right first, first, do you have the right people, and are they in the right seats? Right? That’s, you know, that’s referencing Good to Great, but, you know, so that’s the first requisite. You have to have the right people, they have to be in the right seats. They have to be functionally capable and wanting to do the work that they’re doing. They have to really enjoy it. So that’s the first requisite. And then the other thing I like to say and I probably even say it wrong from time to time is you can’t hold somebody else accountable. That’s, that’s really a misnomer. You can hold them responsible, you can give them responsibility, but you have to hold yourself accountable. I can only be accountable to what I say, I am willing to do.
So what you have to do is get give people the proper context and environment to be accountable. So yeah, KPIs and putting them on a document making them visible. They do work. KPIs key performance indicator, by the way. I use slang sometimes. Or, you know, are you measuring people’s goals? Are they green, yellow, and red, whatever, whatever system you want to use to determine if somebody is doing their work and doing it on time and doing it right with quality. That’s fine. But that’s just, that’s just a measurement tool to make you feel good about it. It’s good for them to know it and that know that they’re being measured. But really, it’s goes back to your relationship with them.
You know, if you if you have the ability to sit down with them and talk to them about their behaviors, good or bad, now, now you’ve got something to work with. And so most of the time when I’m working with a leader, and their people are not performing like they should, because they’re not having the right conversations. You know, in the buzzword then is, well, we got bad communication. Well, yeah, and I can give you communication training, and I can go through all those things. But until you really have human to human connection, you’re not going to have true accountability. If somebody is working for you, or you’re working for them.
And you know that you care about each other, your accountability is a whole different level than somebody that you have no relationship with. So if I promise you something, and I care about you at all, I’m going to hold myself accountable, make sure that happens. Now, some people will be accountable to things, even if they don’t care, because that’s just they take pride in themselves. And so if you find people have the right attitude, and they’re they’re proud of the work that they do, and everything they do comes out with quality and timing and all those things. Now you found the right person.
And if they’re in the right seat, and they can do the work, they have to be capable, they have to have the right attitude. And they have to really be enjoying what they’re doing. That’s on us as leaders to help figure out. We need to be having more conversations about that. It kind of goes back to something you said a few minutes ago, which is, you know, how do I help you, you know, fulfill your vision as an employee or somebody that works with me. There’s a good book out there, you’ve probably read it Dream Manager.
Nicole: It’s by Matthew Kelly, you can read it in an afternoon. You got to read it. I love it. Go ahead, go ahead.
Greg: So it’s it’s a phenomenal book. But the essence is just care about your people. Just help their vision tie into your big vision. So if your vision is to take the company to the next level, and you want to have more time off, tell them that. You don’t have to tell them specific details and financials and all that, but just tell them where you’re headed and say, hey, what do you want out of this? We had a we had a business owner a few weeks ago that found that one of his employees really wanted some time off. And nobody ever asked. He said, you can have some time off. Matter of fact, he bought her a trip and sent on the time off. She’s like, I mean, she’s like, oh my gosh, I’ll never work anywhere else again. I just he just kind of heard it, you know.
So he’s this business owner is learning that, wow, this small little what seems small to me to give to her was the world to her. The absolute world. The few thousand dollars he spent and the time off he gave her was nothing compared to what she now feels about the relationship they have. She knows that this man cares about her, he’s not just an owner, that hired her, he’s a person that cares. He’s looking out for her, he has her best interest. When you take it to that level, you’ll have people that will help you get your vision, and they’ll want you to have your vision.
Nicole: Right, and almost like at some level, they start protecting you.
Greg: Oh, absolutely.
Nicole: You know, like, I think, you know, whenever you have an employee who’s trying to protect you. And what I mean by that is like they’re protecting your time, they’re protecting your energy, they’re, they’re, they start looking at the money, you know, like, they they are starting to get, and that’s when I think you know, you said you know, invest two grand, send him on the, you know, the, the carnival, whatever, you know. And because of that two thousand, now you’ve got, you know, the MasterCard thing, it’s priceless. That person is gonna save you and earn you way more than you ever invested. And that Dream Manager, it’s been out for a long time.
But like, it’s radical to find a leader who would try that. I just think is so easy as sitting right there just to help people’s dreams come true. And you know, like, people want to buy houses, they want to have children, they want to do all the things that you’re doing in your life. And, and so just talk to them about those things. You don’t have to get involved in their lives. But another thing too, is when you share a dream with somebody, um, there’s like, this might sound weird, everybody, but like intimacy, you know. And it’s that like, you know, it really does become family. A lot of companies talk about, oh, we’re family. It’s not until you really know everybody’s dreams and hopes and desires, and what they want to do are you at that level, I don’t think.
Greg: Real families, you know, they fight and hug and kiss and all those things, right? And do you, do you do that. If you don’t do that, you’re not really a family. Now, I have been in some businesses recently, that we’ve been coaching for a while that are at that level now. They’ve, and matter of fact, they are so protective now of what they have when they’re hiring new people. I mean, they’re all like, whoa, I don’t think they’re not going to come and destroy what we got. That’s what you want, because then you get the best people coming in because they fit. Not only do they have all the skills and the background, but they fit the culture. Right.
And if you have a wonderful, exciting family culture, and that culture will either make or break somebody new coming in, that’s what that’s when you know, you’ve got the right thing built. But but here’s the thing you asked about accountability, that’s how you hold the best accountability. Because now you’ve what you have is you have a self managed team. And a self managed team, will will get on each other about, hey, you said you’re gonna do this, you can get it done. And, and so they’re, they’re holding each other accountable. And they’re holding themselves accountable to the team.
And so now the leader, the manager, the owner, is like, I don’t have to be there. And it’s working. Too many times, what we’re being asked as coaches is, how can I hold my people accountable? I’m like, well, if you have the people working together as a team, you wouldn’t have to. Then they look at me, like, what are you talking about? It’s like, I’m speaking Greek because they don’t even understand what they’re trying to build yet. And so they’re a long way from building that that self managed team, that high performance team that can do it themselves. That’s the way accountability really works.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I got a little formula, and I’ve shared it before on the podcast, but I think it’s worth sharing again, because maybe you didn’t hear that episode. But I got this again, from my master coach, incredible master coach, Dave Cowen. And he said, well, you know, you, you can do a little formula, but you you’re doing coaching again, right? So people, you say I, you know, hey, Greg, I need you to do this for me. Oftentimes, people are like, okay, and you let that go. And you end up being disappointed because you didn’t set expectations, right. And so if Greg says, yeah, I’ll do that for you, then then you need to slow your jets for five seconds and say, well, just talk to me about how you’re going to go about it, I might have some ideas for you.
And so he talks about it, I give him some ideas. He gives me better ideas, probably. And so you know, he, we’ve got some expectations about what’s going to happen. And then there’s two more questions. So when are you going to do it? And I think a lot of times leaders let the employee or their or their associate, their peer say, oh, don’t worry about it. I got it. I’ll get it done. No problem. I’ll get it done real quick. And you’re like you think quick is this afternoon and quick to them is Friday at five or you know, you don’t have real clarity. So really nailing down when are you gonna have it done? And then the last thing I don’t know about you guys listening? I don’t know about you, Greg.
But sometimes I just need a little reassurance because I am in charge of the company. Like, are we getting stuff done? Could you just let me know, I’m not trying to micromanage, but it feels good. I get a little drop of dopamine every time we go, I got that done. So the third question, in Dave Cowen’s formula is, how will I know it’s done? Well, I’ll call you, I’ll email you, I’ll put it on your desk. I mean, there’s, there’s something like you got to really understand your leaders that will juice them like nothing and literally juice them, they get a little drop of dopamine out of their hypothalamus gland. And they’re like, we’re getting stuff done. So I think that’s a really good little formula to use. I want to share it with everybody.
Greg: That’s a very powerful formula, I mean that everybody should write that down. Because that is that is a perfect way to to handle and ask those things when you’re delegating.
Nicole: Yeah. And I like what you said though, too. You said it’s more about like, I can’t hold you accountable, but I can make you responsible. Yeah, that is swimming around in my brain. So I’m going to borrow that. May I borrow that?
Greg: Absolutely. It’s all yours.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. Okay. Okay. So as my week goes on, I have these podcasts every two weeks, and I’m starting to gather like little things that like I find, or I read, and I’m like, you know what, I have so many stinking smart people on my podcast, I’m gonna start asking them hard questions. So Greg, you’re the first, you ready?
Greg: Alright. Let’s do it.
Nicole: So my my thing I heard this week, that I thought this was such a great question. How do you find employees with batteries included? That was, isn’t that great? I was like oh my gosh, write that down. So how do you find employees with batteries included?
Greg: Well, here’s the here’s the smart alec cancer. The smart alec answer is, if you’re coming to me, today because you need employees, you’re already behind. You should always be recruiting. And so, I don’t care what level. If you’re CEO of a company or you’re a small business owner, or anything in between. You should always be recruiting. You should always be looking for the best people. Doesn’t mean you always have positions open or you just bring people on and say well, we’ll bring you on and see where we can fit you. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is get a bank of people. And so when we coach people up on that and they start doing that, it has saved some people at times when they get in a precarious situation, they lose somebody.
And they’re like, wow, all I had to do was pick up my rolodex of these people that we had been working with and reach out. And you know, several of them already had jobs, and they were already somewhere else they weren’t. But there was a few that said, yeah, I’d still be interested in talking to you. What a great place to start. So, so always be recruiting, first off. Don’t don’t wait till you need somebody. Always be recruiting. Secondly, is, the hiring process should be one of the most difficult processes you have in your company. You should have a myriad of locks and dams that they have to crawl and go through to get into your company. And so I’ll run through that very briefly. We believe in multiple phone calls. We believe in multiple interviews, we believe in a spousal interview, or partner interview at some point. And we also believe in a really strong background check.
And we also believe in the DISC profile. Those are the those are the things that we package in, we could, you know, put that hiring process, each company’s a little bit different, but pretty much you have to go through all those things, including if they’re, you know, an executive level, even some more detailed information. But it’s to me, it’s, once they get through that, if they’re still going, they’ve got energy. And so you test them literally through the interview process. And if they can’t see if they if they start short circuiting the answers there, or they don’t answer the phone, right or whatever, then you’ve probably got somebody that’s got low energy. And so you really want to set up the interview process to where they have to, they have to do some work to get there.
So the very first part is you attracting them to you. The middle part of the interview process is trying to figure out do they fit or not? The last part is, you’re trying to determine why I wouldn’t hire them. Which is different than most. Other people say, why should I hire them? No, it’s why wouldn’t you hire them. And you’re looking for reasons not to hire them. And that’s where their energy wanes. And if it wanes, we had one the other day, literally, owner, call me and started give me a few red flags. I said, I don’t think they’re gonna make it. He goes, yeah, you’re right. As we walked through it, he just it was clear to him. He’s like, yeah, they don’t fit do they. I said, no, they don’t. And it was literally energy. They just gave up, they just quit on the process. They didn’t, they didn’t really want it bad enough, is what he said. But really what it was, is their energy just fell off, yeah.
Nicole: That’s right. And if you’re a high energy leader, and you know, and that’s the thing, you know, people have different levels of energy. And that’s just human nature, right? And so if you’re a high, I’ll have a leader say, I don’t know why they can’t do it. You know, or I don’t know why they can’t keep up, or I don’t know why, why they don’t understand. I mean, and there’s really six energies, you know. So talking about batteries, let me let me throw this in there real quick. You might want to write this down everybody. But like, there’s intellectual energy, sometimes people can’t keep up with you, in your thought process, your problem solving. So you got to test for that in the interview, right? And then there’s like emotional energy, which you mentioned earlier, like, do you care? Do they care? There’s caring energy, right. And then there’s spiritual energy that’s not religious, it’s, it’s more like, the enthusiasm piece that you that your guy’s talking about, like, they just dropped off. They’re were all excited.
And then where’d they go? So they lost their their spiritedness for this. And I mean, if that’s a big part of your business, that people have to be like, rah, rah, then that he’s out, right? And then there’s physical energy. And we know that that’s, you know, you got to make sure you’ve got good fit there, you know, can you be on your feet all day, run around doing whatever, and switch gears? And then there’s social energy. And I think that’s why you’re having them interview several times, interview with different people. I don’t know if you said that. But I assumed that. Talk a little bit about all those different little interviews at the beginning, because you got to find out if they, you know, mix well with others, play well with others, right?
Greg: You know, you have to understand, well, it depends what the role they are in. I mean, if they’re customer facing, then oh, my goodness, you better be very careful about that. And so we do things like, you know, plan phone calls, and then and then if they’re working with a team of people, different team members will call them at different times. Or they may have a group interview on Zoom, or, you know, whatever it is. You’re trying to put them through the paces. So you can see them in different ways and different functions and all the different ways they may be communicating. We even do and this is kind of odd, we do an email interview where we ask them questions on email, and they write back and we’ll see their writing format.
Because if you’re going to be writing to customers, you need to know can they carry, you know, can they write a sentence and complete a sentence. There’s all kinds of things. And we even do one that’s what we call the surprise phone interview. In other words, we don’t even tell them we’re calling. We call them in the middle of day, and we want to see how they answer and how they respond to something that that’s just fresh to them. Right. And you’ll be shocked how many times that when they’re not prepared for it. They’re a whole different person. And so you know, you can pretend to be anybody for a while. But in an interview, you know, in an interview, but when you’re when you keep going through and going through it, your guard goes down, you start becoming the real you.
So that’s what we’re trying to do is see the real them. And then when we take them to dinner or lunch with their spouse, it’s all about, you know, how are they going to be acting in front of their spouse? And how are they going to be talking in our gauge? Are they a different person with their spouse? If they are, then that’s the person you’re hiring, you better be careful because that they’re going to bring that to work. And so there’s a whole lot of things there that we go through in the paces, that we’re very intentional about, because we want to make sure we get the right people. So much, so much better to get the right person in than it is to get the wrong person and have to make a change, so.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s right. And so something just popped in my mind when you said that. So I don’t know if y’all have heard this before. This is a good one. Hire slow, fire fast.
Greg: Absolutely.
Nicole: I mean, like, if it happened today, for sure, it’s gonna happen next week. So just move on, right? Okay. So I love what you said about the interviewing, and I’ll just I’ll share a little tip about hiring and interviewing. When I was with, in my property management career, the first thing I ever did, Greg, I was in property management. And we did this process called success by selection. And we did the spousal interview, the whole shot, all that. And one of the other things that they taught us to do was ask the high school question. But they said to us, when you’re interviewing somebody, at some point, you will see them break. And that sounds a little rough or something. But what you said about you can be something you’re not for a while. And so that’s where you’re like, okay, when I go in there, this is how I’m going to act. And this is how I’m going to talk.
And this is what I’m going to say. And when they run out of all of that energy, or that dialogue they’ve prepared, you kind of see them go, oh. Or you’ll see like a physical lowering of the shoulders or something, right. And you’re like, ah, they just, quote unquote, broke. And, and then the, what we were coached to say was, so tell me, starting with high school, all the way to the present, about the different successes and failures you’ve had. And I’ve got a lot of time to listen. So I’d like to be very explicit. And people are like, what? Those that have a lot of successes and the energy, they’re like, okay, I can tell you that all day long. I’ve just been one, doing one great thing after another. And then you’re like, oh, I got a great one on my hands. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on the high school question?
Greg: Oh, I like that. That’s, I think that’s very appropriate, especially for the you know, the higher level positions for sure. I mean, you, you definitely want to, you definitely want to see themselves being real, being their real self. And that’s why I like, you know, when you do an internal interview, you’re having to go from office to office to person to person, it wears them down, and I know it sounds awful. But you really are trying to get them to break into their normal self and they just go okay, I can’t have my shoulders unnaturally lifted high, I’m just going to be me now. And when you get the real person, now you can make a proper selection or de-selection. And it’s really better for them and for you, because
Nicole: 100 percent.
Greg: You know, they don’t want to become a place that’s, not for them either. They really don’t. They may think they do for a moment, but they really don’t because it doesn’t turn out well. So it’s right, the to do those things. And to get the proper selection. One other thing I will add to that we think we do on our desk is we also do an EQ assessment. So so we know if there’s, you know, any lingering potential emotional issues that may be lingering, and so we can ask about that in the interview process as well. And it’s amazing what that uncovers. So EQ is very powerful as well.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Do you use Everything DISC? Is that the DISC that you use?
Greg: I use TTI Success Insights DISC.
Nicole: Okay. Okay, I use Everything DISC, but anybody that’s using DISC can can get you, that what he’s talking about. You have the DISC and then layer that the EQ the emotional intelligence quotient piece over it. And so that is excellent, excellent advice. Okay. I got one more tidbit. If you’ve got time, you got time to play with me a little bit more?
Greg: Absolutely.
Nicole: Okay. All right
Greg: I have energy.
Nicole: Yes. I haven’t broken him yet.
Greg: I could do this all day.
Nicole: I’m getting good. I could too, because I mean, we’re just weird. We love leadership and culture. We’re such nerds. Okay, so Greg, this is an oldie but a goodie. But I I just saw it this week. And I was like, yeah, and this really dovetails with what we talked about at the beginning of the show. It’s a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower. And, and so for all of you young people, he was a president. And so.
Greg: And a general.
Nicole: And a general. That’s right. And so he said the benefit is in the planning, not the plan. Let me repeat. The benefit is in the planning, not the plan. So like here, Greg just told you said, you gotta have a vision story. Okay. But Dwight, the general who goes to battle says it’s just about the planning. What’s he talking about Greg? I know, you know.
Greg: Well, it’s funny because I’ve used that quote at least seven times this week already. It actually is. Actually, the quote I use is plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. He said that too. But it’s the same thing. It’s same thing. And I use that all the time. Because this time of year, we’re doing a lot of vision stories, and I keep telling people, okay, It’s what you put on paper, is, by the time you put it on paper, it’s outdated anyway. But what’s indispensable is the ability to go through and think through all this. And it’s it’s the mind gymnastics that you do to get to that plan. That’s where the gold is. The gold is not at the end of it looking in the pan going, oh, yeah, we got some rocks in the pan.
No, it’s it’s, it’s the mining of it. It’s the going through and turning your mind over and over looking at it from different perspectives. And so you know then what he was saying was, you know, when you go to battle, we had a plan. But man, as soon as the battle starts, we throw that out. But all that planning we did is where our mind is. It’s prepared our minds for the next step and making that next strategic move. And that’s exactly what it is for, for a business leader too. It’s, it’s all the pre work, we’ve done and the constant learning, and the revisiting and knowing ourselves and knowing our team and caring about all those conversations we had. So when that moment happens, you can make the right decision.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. So you’ve made all those little memories of the future so that when it presents itself, you’re like, oh, I know what I’m gonna do.
Greg: Absolutely. And when something tries to knock you off path to that, you go back to that. Say no, no, no, this is where I’m going. Let me get back on and keep going. Because things are gonna happen that are not going to be pretty, it’s just a fact.
Nicole: Yeah. And so I’ve got a resource for everybody. So Dr. Joe Dispenza, he did a TED talk in like, Arizona. And he is like a medical doctor. But he doesn’t, he doesn’t practice medicine, he talks more about how the brain works and everything. And so I loved what you said, you moved your hands up around your head, you know, all these things are bubbling up. And, and he said, he says that the way the brain works is that like, if you think a certain way, a long time, you get these connections in your brain, and it’s literal cells that connect. And so you start thinking a certain way.
And so when you go to planning about the future, you’re breaking apart those connections and like reconnecting them in different ways. And so now there’s an he says, a neural passageway to get you where you want to go. So it’s not just us two coaches on here shooting the breeze about you should have a vision, you know, which all you listeners hear all the time. It’s like, no, this is this is science. This is how your brain works. So you got to get those things unlocked and re rearranged.
So when you get into battle, boom, you can do it. Yeah, fantastic. Okay. So we’re at the top of our time together, darn it. Let’s do this again. Okay, so, you know, if there’s one special listener out there, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I need to do this vision story thing. I need an implementation plan. I need self accountability. And I got to do that hiring thing. I need at least three people. Okay, so they’re sitting there all in a swirl. Okay. What little like piece of advice, would you whisper in their ear, just to kind of get them refocused on where they need to go? What would be that indispensable little piece of advice you would leave us with?
Greg: This is gonna sound very odd, because it seems like we haven’t been talking about this all day. But I’m gonna I’m gonna have them think differently for a minute. And there’s there’s two pieces that kind of go together here. One is self care. And the other is creativity. And I’m speaking from experience here, because I’m a business guy, I’ve thought business my whole life. I’ve run big business. I’ve been in corporate, I’ve got my own businesses and all those things. And somebody about four years ago that has known me for 40 years, she reached out.
Again, she wasn’t a coach, but she acted like one that day, she reached out and told me, she goes, I need you to read a book for me. I was like, what do you mean? She’s like, I want she says, you’re not in your creative zone ike you should be. I’m like, I’m doing pretty good. She goes, yeah, I know, but I can see that you’re, you need to be balanced a little bit. And she didn’t mean time balance and all that stuff. She just meant mentally balanced. I went okay? And so she put me on to some creativity exercises. And so I went through these exercises, and it completely changed my kind of like, what you’re talking about.
It opened up my pathways in my brain, and I started getting very creative and it’s opened me up to writing a lot more and so now I’m writing anywhere between 1400 to 1500 words every morning, without any plan, I just write. And it has just been incredible. But to dovetail with that is self care. So also, at the same time went into a much more deeper path on self care, exercise and all those things not that I never did. But I got more intentional about it. And so exercise, eating right, sleeping, all that. Those two things put together. And I believe that we are meant to be creative because our Creator is created.
So they’re supposed to be made his image. So we’re supposed to create. And so you put that together with self care, you start there. And that will help open your neuron pathways to think about your vision and get much more creative and more open. And when you do that, don’t put limits just, it may sound crazy. I’ll give you an example. So back in 2014, you know, I had been consulting for four years and I thought, okay, I wanna, I want to have Fridays off. Well, by 2017 I’ve had Fridays, I haven’t worked Friday since 2017. And my income has actually doubled since I did that.
Nicole: Because you’re rested and you have better ideas and you’re smarter.
Greg: Bingo. Right there, right there. Another thing I did put on a vision story a year and a half ago, was my wife and I want a beach house but we’re working on getting one as we speak. That would not happen if, I thought it was a shot in the dark. We live in Tennessee, we got a forum and all that stuff. And we’re I wrote it down. I said well, that’s, that’s a big one. Here we go. Write it down. Just believe it and write it down. It may seem so far fetched. Matter of fact, this this farm we’re in right now, I didn’t own it when I when I actually put it on my vision board one day that I would actually buy this farm and now we own it. So just get you gotta you gotta think much bigger. I don’t think most of us think big enough.
Nicole: Oh, I agree.
Greg: So think big enough. Get into some self care habits and marry those two together and you will accomplish more than you can ever imagine.
Nicole: Yeah. Okay, y’all, that was really good advice. So it’s free. Take it, put it in your pocket, put it to use. That was fantastic. All right. So everybody, this is Gregory Gray. I get to call them Greg because we’re really good friends. And I’d love to come to the beach house. Just FYI. So Greg, tell them how they can find you. Where you’re at on social and your and your website and spell it for them. So they get the gray right, please.
Greg: So I’m at gregorygray.com. So greg is G R E G O R Y G R A Y.com. And I’m on Facebook under Gregory Gray. And you’ll find me there as well. I think if you want to reach out to me in any way, I’ll be glad to help anybody anytime. You know, it’s it’s my pleasure just to help people go to the next level.
Nicole: Alright fantastic. I’m grateful for Gregory Gray. I’m grateful for everybody who has been listening in. This is Nicole Greer, thank you so much. And we’ll see you next time on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. Have a great night.
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.
