The 5 Reasons Your Team Isn’t Following Through | Ep 882

0:02Alright, so let's face it, getting other people to do what you want is arguably the most important skill because if you have that one skill, it unlocks every other skill that every other person potentially has. The problem is other people don't always do what you want them to do. So I'm going to share a five-step framework that I call the star system that you can use, whether you're a business owner or you work within a business to influence other people. So let's dive into it.

0:27What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to the game, where we talk about making more money so that we can eventually question the meaning of life to begin with. And today I've got a fun little star system, very tactical. Fundamentally, the thing that separates your business's growth from happening is people doing stuff that you want them to do. And I have a little five-star system that has worked very well for me to have very direct conversations that in no way feel direct and have really, really helped a ton. and I would show this framework to every one of the people who works for you so that they know what you're going to be going through.

1:08And then it just becomes almost like a, it's just, it's just a, it's almost like an unspoken language of performance management. And so when you walk through all five of these, you can remember them very easily. And you can run through it in five seconds with a teammate who's not performing the way you want to. So with that being said, enjoy. So I want to read you a real exchange I had with an employee that wasn't performing the way I wanted him to. I said, hey, what are you doing today? And then he gave me his little rundown. And I said, I asked because I haven't felt like I've seen a lot of production from you compared to what I think you're capable of.

1:43So I'm curious whether it's not knowing what to do, that I want you to do it, how to do it, or that something's preventing you. Or if you're not motivated to do the above.

1:55and by framing it that way um it completely shifts the whole vibe of the conversation and by adding the piece and i think this is really key in terms of how it was framed this is like compared to what i believe you're capable of so i'm basically weaving in a compliment saying i think you're capable of more i think your potential is significantly higher rather than saying hey you suck i'm actually saying hey i think you're awesome and i think your performance which is separate from you as a human being is below what I believe you're capable of. So what do we think the gap is? Is that, you know, that, how, what, when, or you're not, or something's blocking you or you're just not motivated.

2:32Help me help you. And from this perspective, both of you are basically attacking the problem on the same side of the table, trying to figure out how to get the person to their potential, which both of you were aligned to have happened. And I'm telling you, it's just like, imagine if I'd started that being like, Like, hey, man, you're at your subpar right now. You're under expectations. Like, that sounds pretty bad, right? And that everyone's going to be defensive. They're going to be thinking it's an attack on their character. When it couldn't be further from the truth. And so having little frameworks like this have just like made life so much easier for getting people back to where you want them to be.

3:07So let's paint the scene. You say, hey, Kyle, I need you to make me that TPS report by Monday. Okay, fine. You said that. Monday comes, Kyle doesn't have the TPS report. What do you do? Now, normally you could be like, I could yell at Kyle. You'd be like, what the hell, Kyle? Whatever. Right. But the thing is, there's a lot of people don't confront people who work for them because they're afraid of pissing them off because they're afraid of losing influence. Like, Hey, if I bring it up, I don't want things to be weird. And so being able to have these kinds of confrontational conversations and having a framework around it has made it so much easier for me to have really good conversations that don't in any way attack the other person.

3:45All right. And so thinking through this framework is how I do it. And so I'm going to make this really simple because it has to be simple or you're never going to use it. All right. And so it's called a star because there's five points to the star. And there's really a five points that you work through when you're figuring out why they didn't do something. And so the first thing is, hey, Kyle, and I set this frame. So the people who work for me already know that I have this frame. So I was like, I don't think you need to keep this a secret. I mean, listen, there's only five reasons and someone doesn't do anything.

4:13It's either number one, you didn't know that I wanted you to do it. So did you know that I wanted you to give me that TPS report? And he might be like, oh, I thought we were just talking. Now you might hear that and think, wow, Kyle, what an insignificant or what an arrogant ass, right? No, but like, let's be real for a second. Like you probably don't follow up on a lot of stuff that you tell people to do. And what do you think people learn? They learn that if you don't follow up, it's like, oh, it probably wasn't that important to them. Because like you probably maybe as an entrepreneur have a lot of ideas.

4:44And if someone actually acted on every single thing that you said, they would have a mountain of stuff, they wouldn't even be able to do their normal job, right? And so they kind of just like wait for you to maybe cool off on the idea for a second. And if you mentioned it two, three, four, five times, they're like, okay, this is something I actually have to do, right? And so the solution for the that problem is you write it. All right. And so one of the sayings that we have at internalacquisition.com is if it isn't written, it never happened, right? So if you just have a verbal conversation that exists IRL just in the air, it doesn't ever matter because no one has proof of it.

5:18You don't have proof of it. They don't remember it. You remember it differently than them. And so this is why crystallizing those experiences so important because then you can point back to it. That way everyone's on the same page. Hey, I thought you said you want me to send you the KPIs by Monday. It's like, no, I said the TPS report. It's like, oh, well, here's the KPIs. is like, that's not what I asked for. But how do we know? Maybe you did say KPI. How many times have you said something, thought you said something different? Happens all the time, right? And so number one, figure out, set the frame that these are the five reasons and be like, hey, Kyle, you didn't do it.

5:47There's five reasons someone doesn't do anything. So did you not know that I wanted you to do it? If it says, I didn't know, then you're like, great. It's problem solved. I'm going to write it down next time. Here we go. I'm going to write it down for you right now. And if you want, I'm going to memorialize this with an email and send it to you. That way we You have a timestamp and everything. But what if he's like, oh no, I knew that you wanted me to do it. It's like, oh, well then did you not know how to do it? So once it was like, okay, Kyle, did you not know that I wanted to do it? They might be like, okay, yeah, I did know that.

6:18But then did you not know what I wanted you to do? Because he did send me something. Okay, what's the that versus the what? Let me explain. So two things don't always mean the same things. and it's like, what does that even mean? Well, you want to define what you're asking someone to do in terms of behavior, uh, or outcomes. So if I wanted that TPS report right now, that's a really simple example. Um, I would probably be like, well, when I say like, give me that, I was like, does that mean it's going to be printed out? Does that mean I want to print it on my desk? Does that mean it's an email?

6:51Does that mean it's going to be like, like verbally given to me? Is it going to mean it's a presentation in what format? And the thing is, is like, you might hear this and be like, oh, that sounds like such a pain, but it's like, it probably takes like two or three extra minutes for you to be like very clear. And then someone's going to take that two or three extra minutes and then save themselves like two or three extra hours. And so it's high leverage, like clarity is high leverage work. Right. And so like, I would say that if this is something that makes you feel comfortable, you need to break that habit for real.

7:21And let me explain why. How do you think AI works? Why do you think prompt engineering is such a high leverage skill right now? Because the problem is no one even knows how to communicate. Like you have this ultimate being or whatever you want to call it, right? You've got this thing of ultimate intelligence that can do things incredibly quickly, has access to the world's information. And yet you can't get AI to do stuff for you. It's not because AI is dumb. It's because you don't want to talk to AI. And if you can't talk to AI, you can't talk to a human, right? AI honestly has more context and more like tries to ways to figure out what you're trying to say because we communicate like monkeys, right?

7:56The thing is, is we're communicating with other monkeys. We got to be as crystal clear as humanly possible. Now, what's interesting is that the bigger the organization gets, the more this banana phone issue becomes a problem. And so this little five, this little five system, the star system, I run through it in my head all the time, right? Did they not know that I wanted them to do it? Did I not know what I wanted them to do, which I defined in terms of behaviors or outcomes. And I need this thing on my desk by Monday printed out with that nice paper. Or it's, I need you to, when someone says this, say this instead next time, right?

8:28Not be less of a dick or, you know, stop harassing Courtney. It's like, well, what does harassing Courtney look like? He obviously isn't trying to harass Courtney. She might describe his behavior as harassing. He might describe his behavior as being cordial. So now what happens? Until you actually break down the behavior that they are both labeling differently, he's saying, Hey, I said, good morning to her. She's saying, Hey, he's hitting on me. And you're like, well, what the hell? Like what's going on? But until you figure out, wait, Courtney, when you say he's hitting on you, what exactly did he do?

8:59It was just like, we always like smiles at me and waves when he comes in. It's like, I don't think he's hitting on you, Courtney. I think he's being polite. Right. And you might on the flip side, it's like, what do you think hitting on you is? It's like, he always squeezes my ass when he walks by. It's like, well, that's a fucking problem. Right. And so like, let's be clear here, Mike, you shouldn't squeeze anybody's ass, let alone a girl's. All right. On the flip side, like you go to what I'm saying here, but like, if we say he's hitting on me or be less creepy, no one knows what it means because one person thinks they're trying to do something.

9:28Like no one wakes up and says, I want to be creepy today. No one does that. Creepy people act in ways that they don't think is creepy. And so by telling them to stop, be creepy, they don't know what the fuck that means. That's the problem. And this is why we have to describe this as might be one of the best explanations I've given of this. this, like, this is the problem. And this is why so many people behave in ways that they don't want to, not because they don't want to do a good job, but because they don't know what doing a good job looks like because that hasn't been taught to them. And so you just got to tell them, right?

9:56And so number one, they didn't know that they want to do it. If they did know that you're like, Hey, you know, be nice to Courtney. He did. He grabbed Courtney's ass rather than saying, hello. Right. He didn't know what to do. Right. So if he did know those two things, well, what's the third thing that could be the issue. Okay. Well, they do that. They wanted the TPS report and they knew how to deliver it. Okay. They knew that I wanted the TPS report and they knew exactly what it was. Well, then why didn't, why didn't it happen? Well, did they know how to do it? So I told you to do that, but I was like, honestly, you asked me to, but I don't know how to put a TPS report together.

10:33And I'm like, wait, I didn't, like, you didn't get that in onboarding. It's like, honestly, no. it's like oh okay well the solution to this is training and all you do by the way if you're like man and i like this drives me absolutely insane is that i will hear people say you know these things aren't trainable everything is trainable how do you think a baby learns how to do anything how do you think humans learn things to begin with it's just that some things are more trainable take longer to train than others. And it's not even that a specific thing takes longer to train. It's just that that term has more skills underneath of it that ladder up to the larger thing.

11:14Meaning if I say be kind, be kind has like 500 behaviors underneath of it. And so yeah, it's harder to train aptitude than attitude because attitude is 500 behaviors. Aptitude might be 20. And so yes, it is easier to train this than that, but it's not that something isn't trainable. And this is why specificity is so important. And so we have to do is like, okay, if you don't know how to do it, what part do you not know how to do? Do you not know how to turn on a computer? Do you not know how to turn on the internet? Do you not know how to send an email? Do you know how to use Excel? No, I know how to use all this stuff.

11:45Okay. Boom. Underneath that, do you not know where the data is that you need to extract this from? No, I know where the data is. Okay. Got it. Uh, then, then once you have the data, do you not know how to format it? Yeah. I don't know how to format it. Got it. So now, instead of being like, oh, this guy's an idiot. it. It's just like he knew how to do eight of the nine steps. He just couldn't do the last step. So now I can say, cool, let me show you how to format it. Done. And from here on out, when I ask you for a TPS report, this is what I'm looking for. Make sense? Yes. Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast.

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13:08Now, let me give you a little pro tip. The higher the general skill and competence of the individual, the greater the expertise of the person in the domain, the more vague you can be with your directions. All right, so let me explain. it. So if someone comes to me and says, Hey, I've got this product, this new marker, and it writes upside down and it's invisible ink. It's amazing. Alex, can you build a business around this? I could just say yes, because I have all the other skills it takes to build a business. Now, if you go to somebody who might be lesser skilled, you might have just like, Hey, can you make a marketing campaign around this?

13:41Now that person probably might not be able to like set up the editing structure in a tax efficient manner, or be able to source the materials or be able to, you know, set up HR practices and all this other stuff. But like they could do the marketing campaign and you might be able to go to a good marketer and say, hey, can you run a good marketing campaign? They say, sure. Now, if you go to a junior marketer, you'd be like, hey, can you run a marketing campaign? They'd be like, uh, it's like, okay, can you, can you write some emails about this? Right. We just keep chunking it down. And so the more skilled the person, the vaguer the instructions can be, the less skilled the person, the more specific it has to be.

14:11And for anything around trading, I talk about this length, but basically document, demonstrate, duplicate, which means that I do it in front of you. I write it down. I do it in front of you. You do it in front of me. And then sayonara. That's how it works, right? So we create the list is me doing it. I observe myself or someone observes me doing it, puts the list down. I then do that list in front of the person. They do that list in front of me. And then we have a great day, right? And so with the TPS report, I say, hey, here are the steps for formatting. I'm going to write them down. And then I'm going to do those steps in front of them.

14:40And then I'm say, hey, let's do a second TPS report for next week. We can do it together. They do it in front of me following the exact same steps I wrote down. They did it. Skill is transferred. And now next time I ask for the TPS report, it'll be on time. You guys are amazing. I can't believe you guys keep sharing this. It's like, it's going nuts right now. We've had record months back to back. And it's all because of you. And so I just want to thank you guys so much again for sharing the podcast. It's why I keep doing this. And yeah, so if you can text it to a friend or an enemy, slack it to maybe a work rival or slack it to a work friend that works as well or share this on the gram to the many strangers who follow you so that they too can grow enlightened by business principles or just share it because you feel like it anyways love you all and enjoy the rest of the podcast all right so slight recap first we figure out if they knew even that we wanted them to do it Second, we made sure that they knew what we wanted them to do.

15:41And the third, it's like, okay, if they know those two, then do they even know how to do it? Now, if they do, then did they know, and this is a big one, which happens all the time, is did they know when I wanted it done by? And this sounds so silly, but the reality is that the solution for this is deadlines, right? And so let me, but it's not just deadlines. I'm going to give you a little 201 version of this. if I say, hey, Kyle, when can you get me the TPS reports by? He might say Monday. Now, a boss or leader or whatever who doesn't pay as much attention might just say, sure, that sounds good.

16:23I like to push on this. And I say, cool, how long do you think it will take you in order to get the TPS report done? The actual work itself, not from now until you can deliver it, but how long will the work take? And usually someone will say something like, I don't know, probably like two hours. I'd be like, okay, well, it's Wednesday and it's two o 'clock. What are you doing between now and four o 'clock? Now, if they have something that's more important, then they can be like, well, I was have to finish this thing by tomorrow. And then I've got this other thing that I'm going to do. And then that should take a full day.

16:56And then after that, I've got this thing. And then after that, I was planning on working on it over the weekend so I could get it to you by Monday. That I'd be like, okay, that makes sense. Now, if I look at all those other things, I might find out a couple of things. Number one is maybe they don't have all these other things, in which case we'll do this now. And maybe they do have all these other things, but this thing is more important, in which case do it now. And so the thing is, is that by consistently asking when they can do it, how long it will take, and then what else they have going on allows you to have a way better idea of everyone else's workload in real time whenever asking people.

17:32And also it just makes you way better boss in my opinion, because if people are like, Oh, I've got these, you're like, Oh no, finish that. That's more important. Do that first after this we'll do, we'll do my thing. And this is kind of a, I would say a pervasive mindset that I have. That's I'll write it down because I think it's cool, but basically end of day is better than end of week. I want end of day to be my default. I want everyone's default in my life to be end of day. And think about how impactful this is. If you just assume whenever you ask for anything that it should be done by end of day, your organization will move at seven times the speed.

18:12Like some organizations, like their default is end of month, end of week. It's like an end of month organization will literally work at one 30th the pace of an end of day organization. And you might think, oh my God, that's crazy. But do you think that some companies grow 30 times faster than others? Hell yeah, there are. And this is why the rich get richer and the poor get poor. And there's the great divide between the doers and everyone else. It's because you really can't outwork someone a thousand times. You really can't. I can put out a thousand times more constant than you. I really can't.

18:43I can do that. We can work that, but we can work a thousand times faster than you. If it takes you 90 days to get something done and we get it done in two hours, we worked a thousand times faster than you. It's crazy. And so then it shouldn't be as big of a surprised that some people out earn other people by a thousand times. And so I'm saying this, I'm trying to transfer this to you so that you can go get rich and do whatever you want. Cause I'm going to die and no one's going to go fuck anyways, long-term. And so like, you might as well do something useful. Yeah. And what's interesting about the star system is that it actually creates stars because if you tell somebody and they are clear, cause you wrote it down, they know that they should do it.

19:19They understand the, what that must be done accurately. they understand how to do the thing because you've done it with them before they know how to do it your way and you've taught them you've broken it down and then they'll be able to do it faster because they have absolute clarity on this point and this is what starts to really move an organization and so the other pro tip is that jeff bezos has an amazing uh one pager that i tweeted about um not that long ago and it was almost like the theme of the month for me but he basically takes Richard, uh, uh, an excerpt from Richard Dawkins talking about biology, that basically biology fights against this environment to stand out, right?

20:00On a long enough time horizon, once something dies, it basically merges with this environment. Like it becomes inseparable on a long enough time horizon. Like you just become dirt, like literally you become the same thing. And the thing is, is that it takes energy, a tremendous amount of energy to stand out, to be different. And the thing is, is that the world will try to pull you down. It will pull, pull you into mediocrity. And the same thing happens within companies. Like the trend line is regression towards the mean that exists for a reason. You have to basically be willing to be so potent as a person that a drop of you into an ocean of clear water turns the entire clear water the same color as you.

20:34And fundamentally that is what disseminating culture is from a leadership perspective. Like that is how great organizations are built. And so you have to hold the fucking line. And so that means that this always happens. That means that like every time I'm on a meeting, if we're driving something, the key word is that we're driving it. Like I was actually talking to one of my leaders in the company earlier today and last week about this. And I was like, I want you to replace the word leader and I want you to switch it with driver in your mind. I was like, cause that's what I need. I need people who drive.

21:02And it's not like you're, you're not like you're a slave driver. The point is that you're, you're driving things to get done. It's like, Hey, hey, where is that? How can we do it faster? What else can I pull off your plate? Which I'm already giving you a little bit of pre-framing for the fifth and maybe the most important part of the star, which is if someone knows that they need to do it, they know what they're supposed to do, they know how to do it, they know when it's due by, what's the last thing that could stop them? And I'm going to take motivation out of this and I'll tell you why. But the last thing that could stop them is circumstances.

21:37Now, what does that mean? It means something else. So if I ask you do all that stuff, but you're like, but dude, you asked me to do 10 other things. So something else got in the way, an obstacle, something is blocking them, right? If I ask the best chef in the world, hey, can you make me an omelet? You know how to make an omelet? Or so, you know what an omelet is, you know how to make it. And I want you to make it for me right now. That guy might not do it. And I'd be like, why didn't you make me an omelet? He might be like, I don't have any eggs. what do you want me to do? I don't have any eggs, right?