MBA2347 Q&A Wednesday: How do I get better at holding my team accountable?

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, where your business gets better with every episode. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started back in 2014. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday. On Q &A Wednesdays, we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Gary, and Gary asks, How do I get better at holding my team accountable? Most of my team members are great and do what they're supposed to do.

0:44but some are falling behind, don't hit deadlines, or just simply space out. How do I hold team members like that accountable? I don't want to feel like I'm micromanaging, but at the same time, I don't want to let it slide. This is a great question from Gary because as a founder of a business, as you start hiring people, this is a skill you're going to need to build to hold people accountable. Because when you're doing everything yourself in the beginning, you hold yourself accountable, right? You know what to expect from yourself. But as you start hiring people, you start to realize, wow, not everybody's like me.

1:16Some people need to be managed in different ways. And the thing about accountability is that it's a very slippery slope. You got to nip it in the bud before it gets worse. And I'm going to show you some strategies, some techniques that you can use in your own business with your own team, how to hold your team accountable without it being so confrontational, without you feeling like you're micromanaging them, but rather coaching them. We'll also talk about what happens if you don't do this. You can get a lot worse than you think. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Whenever you're managing anybody, your job is not only to make sure that they do their job and they do their work and they hit their KPIs and all that.

1:55Your job is actually to make sure they're doing their best, that you're getting the best out of them, that they're actually getting better and better under your management, under your leadership. So holding people accountable is more like coaching people. So one of the things I like to do is when I hire somebody, I let them know that as a part of our team, you will be coached. You need to buy into the fact that I'm going to try to make you better and better as a professional. Are you in? If so, sign the contract and let's get started. They need to understand that this is the nature of working for you.

2:26I'm going to give you the resources. I'm going to let you do your thing. But if I need a coach along the way, hold you accountable, then I'm going to do that. That's my duty. That's our agreement. Now, just because you didn't do this when you hired somebody, it doesn't mean you can't do it now. And you can just tell your whole team in your next all-hands meeting and just be upfront. Hey, I want to do better as a manager. I want to make sure that I'm coaching you, making you better, investing in you. Because when you get better, the company gets better, your job satisfaction goes up. It's a win-win for everybody.

2:57So what we want to make sure here is we address the concept of holding people accountable with our team members so we get buy-in first. And it sets expectations. They know that this is happening before it actually happens. So when you do talk to them, they know where this is coming from. Now, having said that, every time you feel like somebody is not doing their job properly or maybe is not doing out of the standard they should, you should see this as a teaching moment, as a coaching moment, a chance to talk to them about how they can get better. It's an opportunity and you don't want to waste this opportunity and you don't want to let it slide because by letting it slide, you are telling not only that employee that, hey, this is OK and the way you handled this was perfectly fine.

3:44You're also telling everybody else on the team that what they did is fine. Remember, your team is not only watching what you do, but what you don't do. So seek out these opportunities. And in most cases, you can actually make it sort of like a group coaching situation. For example, just recently, I was running a meeting with a department in my team and somebody on that meeting, one of my team members showed up late. It was like five minutes late. And we have a very strict policy. We want to make sure we start on time so we can end on time. We want to respect everybody's time. And that means showing up early, if anything, to make sure you're not late.

4:18So when this person showed up late, they had a reason why they're late. But regardless of the reason, OK, they are late. OK, and I just made it a teaching moment. Hey, team, I know that sometimes things happen, but let's make sure that we are here early. So we're not late. We want to start on time no matter what. I'm not calling this person out by name, but it's a general reminder. People kind of know what happened. And I say it with a smile, say it in a friendly way. But I have to address it. I have to hold them accountable. If we have a policy in the team that you got to show up to meetings on time and somebody doesn't show up on time and I don't do anything, the policy means you can be late.

4:53That's the real rule, right? Reality is the real rule. Now, sometimes you're going to have to take a teaching moment or a chance to hold somebody accountable one-on-one, privately. And this could be very simple, where it's just like you send them a private ping, a message and say, hey, can we jump on a quick call? Five minutes max. You get on a call and you just be honest with them and just say, hey, I noticed this happened. One, two, three, four. Now, I like to do a praise sandwich, which means you say something positive where you You say, hey, you did this right. This was good. But then I say, this is where you need to improve.

5:26This is where we need to correct you. This is where I got to hold you accountable. You missed a mark here. And then I close off and say, hey, thank you for taking the time to talk to me. This shows maturity. This shows that you are a learner. It shows that you want to grow. Again, I sandwich it with positivity. And then I end the call by saying, hey, how about we circle back about two weeks to see how we're going? This means we're not just going to forget this. That means in two weeks, we're going to see your progress. You need to understand that you're taking this seriously and that you are expecting them to perform.

5:57That's the deal, guys. As a business owner, you have a duty to your customers to perform at your best. That includes everybody on our team. So you got to hold them accountable and say, hey, I need everybody to be at their best so I can do my duty to serve our customers. Don't let things slide. Do them just in time and you nip things in the bud before things get worse. because the more time that goes on, the more the problems compound, the harder it is for you to correct it. And what happens is then the riff becomes so bad that either they quit or you fire and it's not a great place to be. You could have saved the situation if you actually acted quickly.

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7:46It's incredibly interesting. It's never dull. Search The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Here's the truth. The reality of business, and when you have employees, when you have team members, is they are waiting for you. They're looking to you for leadership, for management. If you don't tell them what to do and how to do it, and they do something wrong, that's on you. You got to train them. You got to show them. They're waiting for direction. You hired them, right? You thought that you had skills. You thought that they had the potential and the ability.

8:23Now you got to show them. You got to show them what you expect. Show them how to do it. And when they don't do it, you tell them when they're not doing it, hey, this is not what you're supposed to be doing. Just like a coach would do. Just going to say I was a ski instructor and I see somebody doing something wrong. There's something wrong with their form. I say, hey, no, no, no. You're doing this wrong. Do it like this. Oh, yeah. Okay. I don't see it. And the best thing about this is that one day, one of these people that you're coaching will be a manager. You're going to promote them one day and they're going to learn how to manage through you managing them.

8:52They're going to say, oh, that's how I was managed. I learned from my manager. Now I know how to manage others. And therefore, your investment pays dividends on and on and on. This is the daily practice. But overall, in the long term, you should have some sort of accountability and evaluations for your team. whether it's once a year or every six months, where your team members have to hit certain KPIs. There's got to be a minimum key performance indicators that they got to hit. And you should let them know what they are when they get hired so they know what they're going to be evaluated on at the end of their year.

9:25Shouldn't be a surprise. They should know what questions will be on the exam, so to speak. This allows them to understand that they're being evaluated and held accountable on objective criteria, criteria that they know about. And we like to review the KPIs with the team members when they get started. So they agree, yeah, this is fair. I can do this. This makes sense. So that when they are evaluated, they kind of understand, hey, that's fair game. I understand that they expect this from me and I should be delivering at this level. All in all, if you see yourself as a coach, you see yourself somebody who is supposed to always put them back on track and seek out opportunities to do so, you're going to be all right.

10:04Gary, thanks so much for asking today's Q &A Wednesday's question. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net, and I'll make sure to answer right here on Q &A Wednesday. If you're listening right now and you love this show, hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app right now. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, it doesn't matter. Go ahead and hit follow or subscribe so you get our next episode automatically, and you have access to over 2 ,300 episodes in our archives. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Managing people, holding people accountable on your team, it actually gets easier over time because they'll see you do this with others, they'll get the message and just self-correct and momentum starts to build in your team.

10:43And the team members talk, right? They talk to each other. Hey, you should do this because this is what they expect. I went through this before. So as time goes on, as you get more and more team members to join, it gets easier and easier. Don't worry. You're investing in your team. You're investing in your company culture so that you can get the results you're looking for. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 MBA show. I will check you in the next episode on Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.