Navigating the choppy waters of workplace disputes can be as delicate as performing a ballet on a tightrope. That's why I've rolled up my sleeves and ventured into the thick of it, sharing the triumphs and trials from a recent employee clash that put my conflict resolution tactics to the test. Without spilling confidential details, I'll unpack the power of constructive criticism and the art of owning your part in a confrontation. Discover why tough love in leadership can sometimes mean making the difficult decision to let someone go, all in the pursuit of a harmonious and productive team environment.
On the flip side, let's talk about forging a dream team for your business. I'll take you through my own journey of hiring and nurturing employee engagement, pinpointing the game-changing qualities that separate the wheat from the chaff. We'll explore how a proactive and accountable mindset is key to team success, and why the departure of less engaged individuals can surprisingly uplift the entire group. Get ready to gain insights on keeping your workforce vibrant and committed, because when the right people click, the magic happens. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of building a solid team that's ready to take on the world.
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Learn DIY Due Diligence Get training from an Acquisitions Attorney to become a DIY Due Diligence buyer!
Navigating the choppy waters of workplace disputes can be as delicate as performing a ballet on a tightrope. That's why I've rolled up my sleeves and ventured into the thick of it, sharing the triumphs and trials from a recent employee clash that put my conflict resolution tactics to the test. Without spilling confidential details, I'll unpack the power of constructive criticism and the art of owning your part in a confrontation. Discover why tough love in leadership can sometimes mean making the difficult decision to let someone go, all in the pursuit of a harmonious and productive team environment.
On the flip side, let's talk about forging a dream team for your business. I'll take you through my own journey of hiring and nurturing employee engagement, pinpointing the game-changing qualities that separate the wheat from the chaff. We'll explore how a proactive and accountable mindset is key to team success, and why the departure of less engaged individuals can surprisingly uplift the entire group. Get ready to gain insights on keeping your workforce vibrant and committed, because when the right people click, the magic happens. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of building a solid team that's ready to take on the world.
Business Buyers Club Enter 070499 at checkout.
Network and connect with other Acquisition Experts!
Learn DIY Due Diligence Get training from an Acquisitions Attorney to become a DIY Due Diligence buyer!
Well, this is probably my third recording of doing the employee resolution or conflict resolution and it's my third recording after the conversation happened, because the first two I'm struggling between the balance of wearing my heart on my sleeve, being open with everyone here and giving practical advice from an owner to an owner or someone who wants to get into entrepreneurship or have your first employee and how to have these tough conversations. And if I give details about my specific situation, I don't want to open myself up to things that may just be a trouble down the road. So all I can do is just really provide like a very glossy overview and what my takeaways takeaways are as what, how you should approach conversations. So I'm sorry but I'm not going to give details on the conversation because it's going to be too nuanced. I want to put my foot in my mouth and I'll basically have the conversation very cordial, very amicable, amongst person a and person B on the management instructor shift, lead that whole like they can make money for the studio. So they are an employee of some caliber at the studio One person that was. They both owned up to the we'll just call it the incident. That happened probably two weeks ago. It was a one-time moment where two people lost their cool, and that was, and probably two weeks ago it was a one-time moment where two people lost their cool and that was. It's not just the incident, whatever we want to get details on. Uh, some additional things are brought up from one of the individuals to to go over that are relevant, and it was more so about person a bringing up stuff about person b, about person b's overall, trying to keep it glossy, just some working friction that person A is noticing about person B, and for better or worse, it was not a very productive dialogue. Person B was rather defensive. They were owning things that are factually true.
Speaker 1:
But when it came time to like, hey, here I can make some changes and improvements, the response would be yep, okay, sure, just very flat, unresponsive, non-engaging type remarks. So an example would be like hey, like we. Oh, you don't have to be best friends with the rest of the management instructor shiftly team. You're able to be engaged with them. Okay, like, well, why? Why would you not? I'm just withdrawing from those friendships. So I'm just going to engage and interact, but I'm not going gonna be forced to be best friends with them. Like, okay, well, like when folks are, and it was just a part of the conversation was not productive, and that's just one example, one thing I'm taking, and so I'm not gonna. That'll be the end of how that went down.
Speaker 1:
The rest of this episode will be like takeaways, how you can be a better employee and a better manager, and so something I'm seeing is to bring solutions to the table, to be engaged, to be lively, to be interactive, to show that you care, as an employee, about your job, and, granted, our instructors are not making bank, they're making. They're making instructor wages, and it's for lack of better terms it's going to be beer money. It's not going to change people's lives and keep your day job is what I'm trying to say, for our my instructors don't rely on the studio to cover your, your bills, and so part of that, though, is when you show up. You need to show up, and you need to be. You need to be light, appreciated, engaged by speaking, spoken of well, and have that peer support for you as an individual, and something that I'm seeing is this person is disconnecting, disengaging, unplugging, checking the boxes, and it appears they're doing the bare minimum. That's straight up. They're just trying to do just enough to not get fired. And lo and behold, trying to do just enough to not get fired. And lo and behold, they're not doing enough to not get fired. So there's things that they're not doing which they need to be doing. So that's going to be. We're going to have to take some action on what they're currently doing and that's not going to work going forward.
Speaker 1:
And the takeaway is if you're an employee and someone brings you some tough feedback, own whatever you can from that tough feedback. If there's some bit, say they say something and 80% of it is lies and 20% of it is truth, own the 20% of truth. If you think the 80% are lies, say like hey, I don't quite see that 80%, the same way you do. Are you able to give an example? Are you able to give a general situation that I'm not aware of? I want to see what you're seeing so that I can improve across the 100% of what you're bringing. And so be very open and inviting and almost like asking to be shown where you're making mistakes, because when you know when you're making mistakes as an owner or as an employee there, you can improve.
Speaker 1:
If you are only taking the 20%, that is non-debatable and then the other 80%. That is kind of fuzzy or not true. You say, nope, that's a lie, and you're like, okay, well, you're not here to be productive or contribute or engage. You're here to be defensive, argumentative, disruptive, rub people the wrong way. You're here for yourself. You're not here to have a better work environment, to have a magnetic personality, to be engaging, to be lively, to smile, to be happy about life. And that is not what does an employer want. An employer wants an engaged, happy, proactive, problem-solving, value-creating, positive ethos, good, team player kind of individual. You can train all the rest of the little nitty gritties if people don't know it. And so when? So that's one situation.
Speaker 1:
If someone brings a hundred percent of a situation eighty percent are lies, twenty percent are truth instantly all the twenty percent say yeah, I am not, you're right, you're spot on. Twenty percent, hands down, agree. Here's what I think I could improve. Is that kind of what you would see too? Okay, cool. Here's how I can improve on that 20, awesome, let's, I'd love to proceed with improving there. Cool on that 80. I don't quite fully agree. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't see the way you see it can. Can we like get an example or a situation or get some added context. I just want to know, like what you're seeing, because I'm definitely seeing it from a different angle and I want to improve in this area and just show that you care, because I don't think a lot of people show that they care. So we'll quickly change here. Cool, and so that's something that is needed on that front of things.
Speaker 1:
Uh, what else? What else? What else as an owner and employer? Uh, the way I approach the conversation is to more sit back and allow and, fortunately, the person a and person b both very mature, adult, uh engaged, uh, they're not like, they're not like 18 to 22 years old, so they've been in, they've worked in companies before they know how to have these kinds of conversations. So that was very good as an employer, just to set the stage on. Hey, thank you both for coming.
Speaker 1:
Uh, we're here because of the incidents that I'm sure you're both aware of. Um, it sounds like there may be some additional topics that person in person be ought to go over, that are connected to the incident, that are probably worth going over as well. So that's why we're here today and the goal is to walk away with action items or things to improve the studio, the instructors, the managers, the shift leads or the member experience, so that this is a valuable conversation. So they establish why we're here, what the goal is, what we're aiming to walk away from and set the stage and then just sit back and let, if the folks are able to lead the conversation, sit back and let them run the conversation and fortunately here they could. There wasn't a lot of hand-holding and I think that's the right context to have it. So something that I'm noticing and just thinking on the fly here for future hires, whether it's a manager, shift lead, an instructor or whomever people that are able to have those tough conversations and are mature to see that they don't know everything, they don't see the full picture in every context and that they're willing to interact, engage, log own mistakes, own growth and be passive. I've had co-workers in the past that they will not do that ultra defensive, ultra accusatory. They deflect and run around negative feedback. They only own positive feedback and there's no way to improve them as an individual because they're stuck and they're static. And hiring someone like that would be a real tough process if they're not open to some negative feedback Like, hey, this isn't quite working, let's approve this.
Speaker 1:
Employers do not hire people for the goal of dropping them Unless you're a Trudenberg sales shop, I guess. But anyhow, I'm learning. What kinds of people do I want to hire down the road? When it's time to hire people on all different levels, what character qualities am I looking for? And there are some that I saw last night that were fantastic. Some are like, oh, I don't want to see that side of things, and so all I have to say what else, what else, what else? So, as an owner, those are the kinds of people you want to hire, because these are the parts of owning a business.
Speaker 1:
As an employee, what can you do to increase your job retention, to show your engagement? What things will employers appreciate about you as an employee? Taking action, staying organized, owning mistakes, owning your next growth plans, not dropping things that are handed off to you. And those are my takeaways. So all my weekly All right, cool. Uh. So my man, uh, my one of the person a, person B, people's uh, catching up with them in the next couple of days? Uh, I offered to catch up with the other person a person B there. They were indifferent whatsoever to my offer, like, hey, anything else that you'd want to have covered and they're just like me whenever and we're like okay, cool, I guess we're good then, and so all I have to say we shall see how things proceed from here.
Speaker 1:
Whenever there's a negative person in a business, though, from what I've seen and heard from other owners is usually there's a sigh of relief. So, between person A and person B, one person is definitely as I don't know the right wording for it but between the person A and person B I don't know the right wording for it but between the person A and person B, the one person is definitely not as optimistic, upbeat, engaged, lively. It was the person that was responding yeah, okay, yep, that person. My hunch is that letting them go saying, hey, this isn't working out, we're going in a different direction, wish you the best and to part ways. My hunch is that there's going to be a sigh of relief from the other folks that are in the business, working and interacting with this individual. That may be true, that may not be true, I don't know. We shall find out, because something is not quite working and that will need to change. That's where we're at, that's where we're going, so let's rock and roll.
