Help your team to win, empower your team

to move things forward to grow from feedback

and build healthy connections that drive ongoing results.

“It’s up to you to create a thriving

environment for your team

discover how with Jason Hedge owner of

Launchable Leadership and host Brad

Webster here to share practical tools

to help you become the Best Boss.”

Hey Jason, how’s it going this evening?

I’m doing well Brad how are you?

I’m good. So I was talking to

someone the other day

and he was a general manager at a

company and

he’s really excited about culture.

He’s relatively new to his position

and he’s really excited to really bring

some positive changes

into the environment up there and he

keeps talking about culture

and I’ve heard you share before about

culture but what’s awesome about it is

you’ve boiled it down to three

core elements that really can can come

together

to make a great culture for a boss

So yeah, talking about the the 3

Cores of Culture.  Yes let’s talk about

that.

That’s it!  I love it!

It’s a huge topic and it’s impacted me

in so many ways with several

organizations that I’ve been at that

I’ve seen a healthy culture,

I’ve seen an unhealthy culture and it

makes a huge difference with

the input the buy-in the commitment

the longevity that employees have

with it

and so when I’m thinking about it

let’s see let’s start with

we know IQ and I want you to think about

this scale that moves from

IQ, that Intelligence

Quotient that people are kind of born

with you kind of have it there

right and then on the scale move to the

left a little bit and you’ve got EQ,

the Emotional Quotient and that’s kind

of that ability to

read and understand your own emotions

others emotions and be able to

figure out how to connect with others

well

based upon what emotions are going on in

yourself and others and managing those

well

and then continue further on the left on

that scale and a new thing that’s coming

up now we’re talking about is that Love

Quotient

Wow. Love is you know one of those weird

words for for us

we’ve only got you know one term that

means a whole bunch of stuff in love but

when you look back in greek and hebrew

they’ve got actually you know 15

different words that for us is

love right there’s different categories

of it and it’s that that that connection

that

caring for others that you’re working

with and around and so on this scale

going then left from right from Love

Quotient to Emotional Quotient to

Intelligence Quotient you’ve got

trust right there in the middle of the

lQ and the EQ

and that building range of that trust

and that connection with people and how

to read and understand

others and then right under the eq

you’ve got the accountability

is that second one right there in that

of

having that a desire and ability to talk

about difficult things and having a good

outcome

and then moving over to the right in

between EQ and IQ you’ve got

freedom and that’s where you’ve got

people that know what they’re doing have

some that

the trust factor the accountability

they’ve been able to demonstrate they’re

doing things well

and so we’re allowing them more and more

freedom to be able to right

yeah freedom

cool okay

well let’s start with trust so talk to

a little bit about trust

all right so i love the the quote from

Stephen Covey and speed of trust

“trust is the confidence born of the

character

and the competence of a person or

organization”

so it it starts in the inside and that’s

where a lot of people

i think miss the mark on trust they just

expect it to be there because you’re an

authoritarian you’re a leader but it

really starts from what’s resonating

inside as to

who you are are you doing the things

that you’re telling yourself to do do

you have

that high level of integrity to be able

to

move through things and demonstrate

things time and time again

and so when you’re building it from the

inside out and people get to see

examples of that character building that

builds the trust that they can rely upon

you

that they’re going to see the same

person day in and day out they don’t

have to be surprised about it

and moves things forward with it so it’s

about character

and for a lot of people it’s about uh

the mindsets of yourself and others and

how you are viewing

yourself and others and for a lot of us

when we hire people on board we expect

them to do things so that

that trust is earned over time that we

gradually see

them building up towards it and i’m

guilty of that

i don’t trust easily with a lot of

people right

i want to see them prove it and then

i’ll give them a little and then see if

they handle it well and give them a

little

but for managers best bosses to be truly

effective i think we need to lean more

on that other side

and grant that trust up first front and

then

if they abuse it we begin taking it away

and

moving them out of the organization

depending upon how they handle that

and so the opposite side of things is

that doubt, that lack of

lack of confidence and

if you really want to foster trust to

have a

healthy culture which is the foundation

of everything else that we’re going to

be talking

about you have to build it you have to

demonstrate first you have to be willing

to

give it to others and help that to

grow in the process so that’s some

basics about trust

so it sounds to me like it’s better to

start in the interview and hiring

process and make sure that person’s who

you want to hire

versus just sticking a warm body in

there19

and then they’ve got to kind of earn the

trust through that training process

absolutely

when you are building and have a healthy

culture

the quality of the hire which is

the most probably the most important

thing that a best boss ever does

is being selective to bring the right

people and put them in the right spots

on the bus

right the good to great and so you’ve

got to do that and so finding out as

best you can in the interview process

are they going to be a big fit do they

have alignment with

where you want this culture to go as

you’re building it up or once you have

it established

can they fit in there can they identify

with that and once you’ve got that it

makes it that much easier to

have that trust going on and extend it

early you’re absolutely right

and you know on that no not to go too

far down that road but

you know you have a whole segment that

you do on on that onboarding process

don’t you

we do have a podcast that’s coming up

about exactly that

and that’s building trust in the process

right managing those expectations

throughout the entire onboarding process

which starts

way earlier right than the day they say

yes

or their first day at work yeah that was

really insightful for me i like that one

so

okay let’s move to the second one

accountability talk to us about the

accountability

all right so accountability i want to

start with a quote and this is from the

book the

oz principles which is uh

well i’ll get back into it but okay a

personal choice to rise above one’s

circumstances

and demonstrate the ownership necessary

for achieving

desired results and the word

accountability

when most of us hear it it has negative

connotations

it’s i’m holding you accountable for

your mistakes and so here comes the

punishment

and we need to redeem that word we need

to bring it back

because it and shift those mindsets

because accountability is

a healthy thing in a healthy

organization

it’s helping everyone keep

the goal in mind and help encourage

everyone so it raises up the tide so that all the boats

are moving upward and so

the oz principles if you haven’t gone

through a great book

of bringing through um the

oz story into these characters which i

never

realized watching through the movie and

it really helps you walk through each

one of steps of

understanding what healthy

accountability looks like

and how it helps an entire organization

and every individual and so it’s a

it’s a great thing there so shifting

that mindset the opposite side of it

is you’ve got lazy co-workers and

nothing demotivates high performers than

seeing a whole bunch of lazy people that

are doing just enough to get by

when they’re busting their butt going

above and beyond

and nothing is different between the two

of those and so that accountability

helps to

reach in to be able to say okay here’s

what we’re going for i’ve

seen better in you how can we help in

this process remove some of the

obstacles to help you succeed

and achieve those end results in there

so is that accountability coming from

the outside or is it coming from inside

the employee

well first it’s demonstrated on the

outside it’s

talked it’s discussed and when you’ve

got trust in the environment you can

have those deeper conversations

about what expectations look like

without that fear of punishment being

the driving factor

it’s more of a drive for the expectation

and achieving

the results and then the employee begins

to develop it in the inside and that’s

where it really takes root that’s true

accountability when they’re

driven on the inside they’re asking for

feedback they’re asking for help

and they’re willing to give some

feedback to other people about

how things are going in the process and

that means giving truth to power and

sharing it upward because the boss has

created a high level of trust to do that

and sharing it with their peers of hey

you know i

noticed that your performance on the you

know the smith account has dropped

significantly

is there something i can help with and

adding in i see yeah i see

see now i’ve heard that called

i mean in my in my experience i’ve done

retail store

management for a little while too but i

would probably lean more and call that

like ownership

like i’m looking for ownership yep

that’s

also a key part of the

accountability happening is that

personal ownership that personal drive

that commitment absolutely ownership is

another

great word that fits in there for the

getting things done what i love about

the accountability

is it has a component of how does that

work for moving up to the boss

and down because part of it is creating

an environment where

the supervisor the boss the best boss is

actively asking for feedback

right and the employees aren’t afraid to

be able to give it right

there’s so many bosses that ask for

feedback and their employees

know that the boss doesn’t really want

feedback they just want praise and

that’s another podcast we’ll get to

yeah okay so and just remembering

that it’s a process too you know

obviously it’s easy

for the business owner the boss to

assume that

the employees have the same level of

competence or

yep oh awareness especially the first

time so

when i first got my first employee under

me to be able to help do things right

it’s this this fear rotten process

of what in the world i i can do it so

much faster than them right and you know

trying to

help them grow and then build the

accountability where they have that

sense of

ownership in the middle of it right and

i wasn’t willing to give up ownership

that was a mindset that i had to be able

to shift to be able to see

okay this investment of time me slowing

down to show them

how they’re going to do it to do it they

start doing it it’s going to be

slower than i’m doing it but they’re

going to build in time

and the shift of those things that i’m

giving them means that i can

focus more on higher level projects

which is a whole economics for best

bosses that they need to understand to

truly be effective

and it takes it takes that that growth

process and that grace for people to

learn those new systems and if we forget

because we either built those systems or

we’ve been in them so long we don’t even

think about them right they’re coming in

a whole new environment a whole new

culture a whole new way of doing things

we’ve got to give them some grace let

them grow into it

absolutely okay cool so let’s go to

number three

freedom okay

okay there we go so um Jose Marti has a

quote and i love

man loves liberty you can say their

freedom

even if he does not know that he loves

it he is driven by it

and flees from where it does not exist

that’s good

and we get to see that happen in

countries we get to see that

in organizations where people are

naturally just

driven there and that’s that flexibility

to try things that flexibility to

succeed and that flexibility to fail

some of the best companies actually have

little

celebrations around some failures amazon

right now has

there’s been several projects that have

tanked miserably with millions and

millions of dollars gone

but they look at it as these learning

opportunities and they glean all the

information they can to say okay

that’s not the direction that we’re

going right now but these are the things

that we learned and we’re going to apply

that information

elsewhere and without that sense of

freedom

creativity drops significantly right and

people aren’t able to

really live up to that maximum but some

failure is a part of business

and yes you want to you want to minimize

it you want to put some caps around it

but giving people freedom allows them to

thrive allows them to step into

their call for things so some of the

issues are

you know that extra flexibility that

overshadowing

you know when you’re building in in that

accountability stage you’ve got someone

that that’s growing there

yes you’re helping watch and oversee

some of the things that are happening

but you’re stepping out more and more

and more

the more that you’re hovering over your

team to find out exactly what’s going on

the more that they are moving in more of

that fear mode and

just doing what they need to do to have

you look pleased and move on to someone

else so that they’re not going to get in

trouble

yeah and i can attest to that like

anxiety kills creativity

like nothing else absolutely yeah and we

don’t want that and so

that opposite is that micromanaging like

we talked about and so

part of how to do freedom well is to set

clear goals so people know exactly what

that expectation is towards the end

set some wide parameters so they’ve got

freedom so like this

creating this wide freeway there’s a

destination that we’re going for

everyone understands

what it is and where it is but within

this freeway they can drive in any of

the lanes

all of lanes zigzag lanes however they

want to as long as we’re getting towards

that end destination

that’s what we want and those lane lines

or on the side those borders help them

miss some of the

land mines that they might not know are

going to be there somewhere in the

process and then

give them the freedom let them go and

then check in on them and

when we get to talk later on about

delegation

there’ll be some key things in there

that’ll help in that process and reduce

some

of your anxiety okay i want to i want to

poke at this just

really quick so you said something about

how amazon is having these big

celebrations

for these these efforts that just tanked

that mind shift yes of looking at those

failures differently than on the outside

we can go oh wow

they failed miserably on that but

they’re actually

hey this is great we learned a lot so

what would you say to

a boss out there who says something like

oh yeah well they could afford to make

those mistakes

because they’re amazon well you know i’m

smaller i can’t afford these mistakes

how would you

address something like that i i

would say they’re they’re within their

realm

yes they’re they’re allotting a certain

amount but for you

the failures are you aren’t going to

allow failures that are that big that

tank the company

right but within the realm of there

if you take down the size and you looked

at it then

something in that smaller range is

exactly well and then

you know based upon how big the

organization is yes you can have extra

levels of that freedom and flexibility

because you

yes you can afford it but at the same

time there are things that you can

afford and right now most of us are

saying

we’re not allowing any errors at all if

there’s any error you’re being written

up

and that is stifling sense of freedom

and that uh

healthy culture

man that’s so fascinating because i i

can see how awesome it would be but how

do you handle the

the renegade employees that were like

whoa that was fun we just messed up and

they celebrated us so well let’s just go

because you’re starting with the trust

okay and you’ve got the accountability

so and it’s that building process of

starting with that trust

building that into the accountability

and then into the freedom

where yes there is a chance you can have

a rogue employee but there’s a much

greater chance that you’re going to have

great employees that love what they’re

doing love where they’re at

and are fully engaged in the process and

that’s what we want to go for

so i see you tying all three of these

back together not just taking the one

yep they’re not isolated and it’s a

0:17:44.000,0:17:46.720

building process

yeah if you just started with freedom

0:17:46.720,0:17:48.640

and you don’t have trust and

accountability

0:17:48.640,0:17:55.200

you’ve got some major issues there

yeah okay that’s really good so

so right now if someone’s really seeking

to to move the needle

in the culture and their business the

boss what’s the best step?

what can they do right now the best step

right now i would say

download our employee questionnaire on

trust accountability and freedom

and you can get that at bestboss.org

forward slash one and that’s the number

one

and download it share it with your team

keep it anonymous

and go through that information and

start to sort out to see

how well am i as a boss actually doing

on trust accountability and freedom and

then start making some shifts

and build whatever that lowest

denominator is of that that score

and if it’s on freedom if it’s

accountability or if it’s a trust start

on that lower one

and begin building upward and taking

steps and we’ll have future podcasts

that’ll help building that there’s lots

of great resources out there

but that’s the best step let’s take some

action let’s put things

in process and so for that um manager

that you were talking with

for them to be able to start building

that subculture within

the realm that they have influence they

can help create that subculture that’s

healthy even if the company

as a whole doesn’t have a great culture

they can do what they can within their

realm

start building it up and build in these

three cores

okay that’s good all right

thanks brad yeah thanks jason!

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