Stop Blaming Your Team and Start Building Accountability, with Bill Gilliland of ActionCOACH

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36Hey there. I hope you have a fantastic week. I just want to remind you that the Asheville Business Summit is coming up in September. You can go to wncsummit.com. You can check it all out. You can get your tickets there. If you want to become a sponsor, you can do all that. But it's time to get started on that. We look forward to having it. It is going to be about a one-year anniversary from whenever Hurricane Helene hit. We're going to be celebrating the recovery. We're going to be celebrating where we're headed and how we're becoming stronger and better every day here in Asheville. So make sure you get out there to WNCSummit.com.

1:21Check that out. Also, you know for this episode, for this podcast, that we can give you more if we have more subscribers. And so if you haven't hit the subscribe button, you're listening to this, please hit the subscribe button. We'd appreciate it, and it'll allow us to give you even more value. So I was talking to one of my clients, and he was lamenting the fact that he just wasn't getting the results. And basically, he put it down to the team just wasn't performing up to par. How many of you said that? My team isn't doing what they're supposed to do. They're not getting it done. It doesn't mean you have a bad team.

2:05It just means that for some reason, we're not getting the results that we'd like to get from our team. Well, here's the problem. Life is a mirror. So basically, if you reflect back what your team is doing, you got to look at yourself first. And so as the coach that I am, I called him on it and I said, hey, life's a mirror. What are you doing to hold the team accountable? Okay. And he said, well, you know, this and that wasn't really anything, not much. And I said, well, what kind of team meeting rhythm do you have? And then his response was, well, I don't like meetings and meetings don't work and blah, blah, blah.

2:46And you've heard it all. But it was like, well, it was like, hang on. It's not the meetings that are not working. It's the fact that the people aren't working. We're not getting the results. So how do we know if the meetings are not worth it? Now, the point of a team meeting rhythm is that it builds in accountability. And you're saying, well, all right, Bill, what the heck is a team meeting rhythm? Well, it's having a regular schedule of various kinds of meetings that everybody's going to set. Now, look, I'm with him. I don't like meetings for the sake of meetings. I do like meetings that have a good agenda, that are well organized, and they're regular so that everyone knows how to set.

3:24So you say, all right, Bill, what is a good team meeting rhythm? Well, here's a team meeting rhythm for you. And this will build in automatic accountability. Now, there's some prerequisites to this, and I'll get into what those are. So Monday, we have what we call a LION meeting. The LION meeting stands for last week. So what happened last week? What are any issues that came up during the week? What are any opportunities that we have moving forward? and then what are we going to get done this week or next week? And the reason it's called the Lion is because this is meant to be a – every week your team should be individually filling out a Lion sheet on Friday afternoon before they leave or whatever their last day is before they leave and putting that in and bringing it to the Monday meeting.

4:17And that's a good statement for you to understand, bring it to the meeting, because a lot of things come up during the week that will just be distractions, but they should be handled in the meeting with the whole team so we can get doing. Now, the second thing is individual report meetings. Now, I personally like to do these on Thursday. I like to have the Monday meeting. Then I like to have the Thursday meeting. And you say, well, why do you want to have an individual meeting or coaching session or whatever you want to call it with your direct reports on Thursday? Well, if they haven't finished or they haven't gotten the stuff done, they said they were going to do that week from the Lion meeting, then Thursday still gives you a chance to get them back on track and potentially save the week by getting some stuff done Friday.

5:02So those are two kinds of meetings. The third kind of meeting is daily huddles. And that should happen in individual groups, individual teams, small groups. You come in in the morning, no more than 10 minutes. I usually like to do a quick wiffle. If you don't know what a wiffle is, you can look at one of my other videos. do a quick whiffle same deal what happened yesterday what are you going to get done today but it's quick quick quick no more than 10 minutes standing up that's why we call it a huddle then you also have quarterly planning sessions and then you have yearly and five yearly planning sessions now the other prerequisite is that you do a to-do list every day that everybody on the team does a to-do list every day the night before they go home.

5:47So every day they have one to-do list and on Fridays they have the weekly to-do list. So we get people thinking ahead, we get people focused on what they need to done, what's important for them to do, and they get it done. Now, by definition, having this team meeting on Monday and having these individual meetings on Thursday, automatic accountability is created. That's what we're after. We're not after meetings for the sake of meetings. In fact, I want to keep the meetings as short and to the point as possible. That's why we have an agenda. But I want the people to get the results. So if your team isn't getting results, then you may want to set up a team meeting rhythm.

6:33Now, if you'd like more information on all of this and how to do it, then you're going to want to get involved in our Management Masterclass. It's a 12-week course. Design it. If you'd like more information, respond to this email. I'd love to get you in. We've had hundreds of people go through it, and the ratings are five stars. They're getting great results. You're getting great results from your team. And the nice thing about the Management Masterclass is it creates the accountability for you to create the accountability for your team. So I look forward to seeing you in the Management Masterclass.

7:06If I can help you with anything, hit me up here. Until next time, all the best.

7:15Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly.

8:03Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.