The Most Dangerous Employee | Coaching Series #4

Itamar Marani 0:00
In 2013, I was in Rio de Janeiro preparing for the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championships. And during one specific day of sparring, I really got stuck, I couldn't get myself out of sight out of one of the black belts. And after a while, I got frustrated. So I went to my instructor who was a nine time world champion, a phenomenal instructor and asked him Hiko what's going on here? I feel like I can't get out of control, what do I need to do? And he looked at me said, calm down, get Ross, it's all okay. But I don't actually think you're asking the right question here. The right question is not how to get out of control. But how do I not get into that bad situation? From the get go? That's the real problem, why you're getting your guard passed, and you're there. And it taught me a very interesting lesson that a lot of times when we ask a question whether ourselves or other people ask us, it's about not accepting it at face value. And asking ourselves, is this the real question? Or is there a deeper problem that needs to be solved? Now, the way this relates to today's podcast is that we have Dave on Dave had a situation where he really wanted to follow this new Northstar will always be a phenomenal manager and leader for his company. But he had these two employees, where they're kept being friction with them, no matter what he was doing. They were always issues. And he's kept thinking himself, how can I be a better leader to them. But what we needed to do was actually zoom out and say, How can actually be a better leader to myself and my company in general, and do these two people fit into them? Now, the reason I thought this was so valuable, and wanted to bring it into the podcast is because I've seen this happen with so many people, so many entrepreneurs, myself included, at times, we actually lose interest almost in the company, and we don't have as much passion for it anymore, because there are people there that don't fit. And because we can't see it as such, we end up losing the most valuable for that the most valuable asset for the business, which is us. So in today's episode, we're going to be coaching a little bit but explaining why this happens and how we can avoid it. One last thing, before we get started, just for a little bit of context, Dave is not the real name here, and also the person behind Dave, he owns a chain of hospitality businesses all across Vietnam, and Southeast Asia. So when you're hearing us talk about gems and properties, it's gems of those specific properties, listen in hope you get a lot of value out

Dave 1:58
of to general managers who just don't, they just don't pull their weight, they're just not really getting the results that are expected. And some time, most of the time, when you say when I bring up these issues about, you know, walking through the processes, and etc, their daily tasks, and like what we're doing, we're doing it and the results just aren't there. If they are doing, and I've known for some time that that I'm going to actually have to eventually probably move these guys on. And not even sideways. But one I've known for a very long time. He's worked on and off for me for about 10 years in different roles, not in this particular role. And the other one is a young guy who works for me who in his wife, or five month old baby he's living at from England. And so I want to try and give this guy every opportunity to succeed. And, you know, talking about the leadership thing that we're in my you reframe that reframe that mission statement of mine, trying to live with that and not bulldoze. What I want to do in the business over these guys, not just say this is what you're doing, this is how you're going to do it, trying to get these guys to accept and sort of, sort of do the work and also focus on it. But I don't seem to be having any any luck getting through getting through them. My junior business partner doesn't seem to have any luck getting through to them. And but if I try to have a tough conversation with these guys, I'm always worried that I'm gonna lose my shit. Because then they just keep they'll push back or they have got excuses and this sort of thing. And I'm just wondering, how do I control myself that I don't block the situation? And if I do feel that coming on, how do I react quick enough to stop, stop it, like stop getting angry or stop saying something that may hurt their feelings or whatnot, whether it's true or not. to that?

Itamar Marani 4:29
So let's recap. Dave's perceived problem, what he sees is that he wants to be a really good leader, but he has these two gyms that are underperforming, and he doesn't know how to approach them have a good and productive tough conversation without him losing his shit and is getting really annoyed at them. And that's what he's trying to figure out. But let's figure out what's actually going on underneath here when I was trying to listen to it for the red flags. So the first thing is he's saying I have these two gyms that I know are underperforming and for a while. I know that I'm going to have to let them go. So I was already aware of that. Now why can you Knock on that, and we go deeper. And he says, the thing is, I know one of them for a really long time for 10 years, and the other one has a family. So what's going on now, it's also playing with him the difference between what he knows logically should do that, eventually, we're gonna need to let them go. But Emotionally, I don't want to be a bad guy. And that's what's tearing him apart. And why he feels that he has to pent all this stuff up. And then if he has a conversation with him, he's gonna blow up, because he feels like he's trying to be a good guy. But they're not. And that's the real issue here. So let's get back into it. Okay. So they're gonna clarify I understand correctly, you're saying that you have these junior managers, you feel like, honestly, they're not going to be a long term fit. In the meantime, you're like, I still want to be completed to them, correct?

Dave 5:44
Well, that means a lot. I want to be a good leader then. But you know, they both know me, I'd say fairly well. And I know them. And I think it's a little bit like they're not friends. But yeah, they were friendly.

Itamar Marani 6:01
Yeah. Like a clear hierarchy.

Dave 6:05
Yeah, they just don't. They're just not getting the results. And they just spoke when we

Itamar Marani 6:12
got here. So honest questions. So this is what I'm doing. Whenever you hear me ask someone, Can I be honest with you? Can I ask you an honest question, right, I have your permission to be honest with you. What I'm basically saying is like, in a way, brace yourself, because I'm gonna hit you with something hard. So I need you to be ready for it. And I laugh because I know a lot of my clients always think it's hilarious when I asked him that, because they're like, Okay, just give it to me. But that's really the point that I'm about to say something that I want to go really deep, really fast. So I have to get someone's permission in order to do that. Otherwise, you're going to Shell up or feel like they're being attacked. But the moment I can say, can I ask you some honest questions here, he can immediately recognize that I'm on his team, that I want to go really deep in order to help it. And that's why I use that tool of asking someone can ask you an honest question, Do I have your permission to be honest with you, all those kinds of things that give me the ability to immediately go deep, but without somebody feeling like I'm trying to attack them? Because they recognize that I'm on their team? Let's get back to the pot. Yes. What Why do you feel like you being like you wanting to be a better leader means that you have to be better with them, instead of saying, okay, they're not a fit. I need to move from them.

Dave 7:16
Right now, finding people in those positions in Vietnam isn't easy, like recruiting new new people. So they fulfilling a role. They're not fulfilling a higher role. Yeah. And I'm struggling to get them to do that rather high role.

Itamar Marani 7:36
They ask you a question here. Do you feel in some way in trapped by them? Because they're you kind of stuck because you don't have somebody else to fulfill their role? So you feel like you're almost kind of like held hostage by their annoyance? Absolutely. Okay. So this is the big thing. That's probably why you have such a hard time having conversation with them. Because there's a lot of resentment towards them because you feel trapped. Yes. Now, I want to stop here. Because either if you're listening in, or if you're watching this on YouTube, you can't see everybody else on the call, because we were moving, but everybody was shaking their head, and it's like, wow, that hits home. Now, here's the reality. A lot of times, we're not actually angry at a specific person. But we're frustrated at the situation that we feel stuck in, because what we feel this person is causing. And it's a very subtle, but very important nuance. Because the moment we just feel we're frustrated, this person, and this is what it is, we don't have any power. The moment we recognize we're frustrated, this situation that we think this person is creating, that's when we can actually influence that situation, we give the power back to ourselves. And it's a really powerful and very subtle distinction that we have to make in order to move forward things. Let's get back to the pot. Yeah. So like, truthfully, from what it sounds like, these people are bad culture fits. If they're not taking accountability, they're not taking ownership. It's not just a technical failure, it's obviously you can move them sideways, you're not saying okay, we just have a skill set skill set the vision to just move into a different place. Yeah, I really think this is less of an issue about like, because a tough conversation framework is when you have two people who actually have good intentions. I mean, they might have their own personal vision, they have good intentions, these other people don't want to take ownership. It's like that whole thing like that. I like to say like, one of the culture things like in our company values in my company values is excellent. And what we mean by that is that we don't try to push lazy donkeys. That's a big thing. And it sounds to me, what you're saying is that if I were to have other people that I knew could fill in this position, this would be a non issue. Yes. So therefore the issue is in the conversations with them, it's just not finding people for this role. And I think your energy honestly, especially if you're saying these are not long term fits would be better invested instead of trying to figure out how to have better conversations with them. They're like how can actually find people to fill this role correctly?

Dave 9:53
Yes. Yes. It is. That's the whole issue.

Itamar Marani 10:03
This is a very powerful moment for Dave. Because right now he's recognizing, oh, this is the actual problem, and you can hear it in his voice. He's like, yes. Oh, okay, that makes sense. Now, why were we able to get here. So a very interesting concept actually learned from Farnam Street, we talked about three week problem, three months problem and three year problem. Basically, there are some problems that if you solve them, manifest again, in some way, three weeks from now, if you only are deeper, they're gonna manifest again and three months from now. But if you really get to the root of it, you're probably not going to come up with this kind of problem again, for the next three years. And that's always the goal was to coaching to figure out how can we go a bit deeper and figure out what are the long term problems that we can create long term solutions for? So once we were able to dig into that now Dave is empowered to figure out okay, this is the real problem. Let me get to solve that. Let's get back to the podcast. And I think with leadership, it's also been interesting that it's bringing up is that being a great leader? Like Dalio said it really well, it's like, being a leader means I prioritize the organization over an individual as well.

Dave 11:07
Yeah, including myself? Yeah.

Itamar Marani 11:10
Like, I don't think you have an issue with having tough conversations. It's just that you feel really frustrated these people because you're trying to be at your best, you feel like they're not. And on top of that, you feel like stuck, because you don't have a replacement for them. Yeah. That's it. And I'll save this man, like from personal experience myself, because we've just gone through something a bit. Similarly, this within my, my smaller company, and from working with a lot of guys, whenever there's somebody that's not a culture fit inside the business, the founder or CEO becomes infinitely less effective. Because all of a sudden, they don't want to come to work in a little way. And part of that is just so unpleasant. Like, I don't want to fucking deal with this. And all sudden their creative juices just plummet. And I can see from your eyes right o'clock. Yeah, I don't want to go to work. I don't want to deal with these people. Yeah.

Dave 12:10
That's exactly it. I go on. Yeah. Because I've I go visit the properties and see shit. That's wrong. And just literally, yeah. Not even that. Yep.

Itamar Marani 12:24
Like I have myself and I have done this with other people as well. I have not yet experienced somebody letting somebody go. And that was fucking terrifying. Because like, Man, I need this role someone's going to fill it did it up? They haven't been super happy to do that. Yeah, like what I would also consider is there. Are they the gms of those properties? Basically? Yeah, that's a substantial nugget that has a lot of weight in it. But when you look at it on an overall level, what do you think actually will create a bigger outcome than staying in those roles right now, when doing it their way? Or them getting the boot you having to pick up the slack around them? Will you be actually doing inspired to do it? In the meantime, while you're searching for someone else? Yeah. So this is a really important question. I asked him, there was a reason for this. You don't want to just leave somebody a bit inspired for you. Okay, this is how you got to solve this problem, because it's also going to go on their head is like, Wait, do I want to actually pay the price that's going to require for me to solve this problem. And it's why I've seen so many people, including myself, at times, leave people in the wrong role for way too long, because we dread what will happen after they're gone. Am I going to have to pick up that slack? But the reality is, and why I'm asking that here is, is there going to be actually more slack or less slack? Is this actually in cause you more bullshit, or less bullshit after you let them go, even though you have to take over the roles? So listen in because it's gonna get interesting.

Dave 13:43
Yes, number two, door number two.

Itamar Marani 13:48
And it's a tough one. Again, I've been there. It's been fun. I'm gonna take all this on this is going to be challenging and that, but it's interesting, because like, what I have found, again, with myself and others that we take on more technical load, like more actual things to do, but because of that emotional just like dissipates, because you don't have that frustration or damn entrapment or resentment. You actually have a lot more energy.

Dave 14:11
Yeah. I'm just picturing how that would work. And, yeah, it's fine. Actually not an issue.

Itamar Marani 14:20
Yeah. So we're here to, like, we make this stuff. We're bigger than it is. Again, I'm saying that from experience as well.

Dave 14:25
Yeah, it takes a conversation with the missus and the kids and luckily, we're coming into summer holidays here so that would the kid that kid's gonna be much easier to handle them during school days. So yeah, though for four weeks when someone else No. Thank you.

Itamar Marani 14:44
So the kind of harp on that a bit. So this is a conversation principle I have for myself, I noticed myself I'm getting a bit heated in the conversation or whatever it may be with an employee. Something I asked myself put in the chat like am I frustrated them or the situation that I'm in Because of them are two very different things, very different things. It's easy to confuse them. Because I feel like for you what you're saying the big thing that you were frustrated wasn't at them. But it was fun. I mean, this situation, and I'm stuck because of them. To therefore recognize the situation like that I need to fix situation, I don't need to try to fix my conversation with them. Yeah, and it's a common thing that a lot of everybody faces, I think pretty much everybody faces in the company at one point or another, you have a, like a key employee or someone who's a star, but they're a bad culture fit.

Dave 15:35
Okay. Yeah, you're the wrong. The Wrong person in the wrong position. Just ruins everything. Yeah, everyone has those.

Itamar Marani 15:49
Yeah. He does. So much intangible things that it's like, it's amazing how much leverage in the organization and how much creative juices like it's really hard to be creative. When there isn't liberty, then there's a lot of resentment there. So let's talk about the honest challenges of culture and tangible things and where they usually meet in a bad way sales. So a lot of people say my salesperson doesn't fit the culture, but they're bringing in something so tangible. And this is exactly what I experience with one of my one on one clients who this salesperson was supposed to be a big deal, a big star, but he was causing him to actually want to work in his own business. And I think this is the specific area sales, where we have to be the most cautious of this. Because the culture stuff it's very intangible is hard for us to explain, you know, what, if I'm not really interested, and I don't have my creative juices going, then it's going to cause this outcome. But it is very easy for us and very simple to say, if we let go this person, this amount of money won't be made right now because of him. And therefore, we succeed to that number because it's more tangible. But we don't need to. And I think this is a really important thing to step back and ask yourself, Am I just going with this because it's more tangible, especially around sales, or I'm actually doing the correct long term thing, I make sure the culture is fit, and that I'm actually interested in passionate about being involved in the business. Very important detail. Let's get back to the pot. Yeah. And on a macro level, so remember that like, Who do you think is the biggest asset to your business? My wife and I, and my agenda? Exactly. So if anybody's fucking your shit up, that's a problem. Pardon my language. But like, if there's anything, yeah, basically, there's anything that's causing you to not want to be engaged into the business. That's a really big problem.

Dave 17:35
The masshousing primary key people as well, yeah.

Itamar Marani 17:39
Yeah. So that's a giant problem. But even just yourself. Like if they're not wanting to be engaged.

Dave 17:45
Yeah. My wife doesn't want to be engaged in the business, because we've got people in there that she just finds frustrating. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 17:56
That's the thing, man, it's like, they're I get it. They're an asset, because they're the GM, but they're actually taking away from the bigger assets wanting to be involved in the business. So even just from a driver perspective, not a personal thing. It's like it just that doesn't make sense.

Dave 18:08
Yes. That's now very clear.

Itamar Marani 18:14
What's your main takeaways here?

Dave 18:17
I takeaways is that, yeah, about the frustration in the situation caused by these guys who either who have just written competency or unwillingness to do their jobs. And for me, to just to accept that it's going to make it's going to cost me more time in the short term, more productive time, though. And it'll open up the opportunity to find other people who are possibly going to do a better job. And get people back involved in the business who have sort of slipped away, which is in cost personal emotion, and then also, because they're very, very productive in the business. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 19:08
So let me just go back a little bit. What do you think like, you know, that whole thing, what's your person's most prized resource? So I say that again, what's your most prized resource?

Dave 19:21
My most prized resource? is my passion. So

Itamar Marani 19:31
they're gonna say definitely, the only thing we can buy back is time. Exactly. So like, what you were saying is that it's going to cost me more time up front, correct? Yeah. Do you agree that like time is a really the most valuable

Dave 19:44
resource? Absolutely.

Itamar Marani 19:47
I think that's bullshit. So if this sounds like I'm putting him in a kind of philosophical corner and trying to really edge him there, it's because that's exactly what I'm doing here. Now, the reason I'm doing that is really important to explain when I asked him what are your main takeaways? I wasn't just trying to Ask what are the specific tangible things that you need to do? I was trying to ask what are the base assumptions or beliefs about how you think things should work that have now changed because of the conversation and interaction that we've had. And what I was not hearing from him was that once I let these people go, I'm actually going to have so much more energy and passion to drive the business. And that's the key thing, that I need to have no, drive it forward. Because he kept saying, Oh, it's gonna take four weeks of time to find these people. And he was saying that time issue was the main thing. And that was the assumption I really want to challenge. And again, if it sounds like I was trying to corner him is because I was, and it was really important to get to the root of that, that time is not actually the main issue. What is we're going to dive into right now. Really, here's why, yeah, this is a big thing. And I think it's a big realization to have. So you can have all the time in the world. But if you're sick in bed, you're not actually going to do anything, you're not going to be productive. Yeah, I think energy is more important. The thing is, this might actually take away some of your time to do their job, find their stuff, whatever it may be. But I think your overall energy will actually be up despite having to put more effort into it. Because they SAP so much of your energy that you're like, Man, I don't even want to get involved in this your wife, she doesn't even want to get involved with this. You're gonna have all the free time in the world, but you don't have energy. So you're not actually going to do anything positive with it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the best thing, man. Yeah.

Dave 21:24
Yeah, and even sort of looking at the Times thing. Effective time, with lots of energy put into it now, is a much better investment than just time and less energy. Yep. If they get upset about the situation that's on them. Yeah. Bigger Fish To Fry. Yeah. Thank you.

Itamar Marani 21:49
Letter. First off, I hope the episode was impactful, and you got a lot out of it. Now, before we wrap it up, I wanted to share my two main takeaways that I got out of this conversation. And in general, first thing like what you heard from Dave, is that a lot of times the problem you think is actual problem is not the real one, there's something else that's deeper. And when you solve that, that's when you can see a lot of results. And in this context, it was that I was frustrated with this person. But in reality, he was frustrated the situation that was caused by this person, and the moment you can change from saying, I'm just frustrated, this person's I'm frustrated situation, that's when you can actually change things, because you're not going to change people, but you can change your situation. And the moment you do that, you take back power, and you can improve things. That's Lesson number one. Lesson number two is how important is for us to stick up to the culture in our businesses, especially when we have people who think and really influence it. And that causes take a step back. Whenever there's someone in the business that you don't like that you naturally want to avoid, you're actually avoiding being involved in the business, you the CEO, the founder, the head of the company, whatever it may be, you're actually wanting to be less involved in the business because of this one person. And that doesn't make sense, like, regardless how good they are, you probably have a bigger impact. So by you not wanting to be involved, it's going to create a bigger negative impact than whatever positive impact they might possibly make, it's going to be a net negative. Now, especially if it feels scary, because there's something very tangible like sales, you still got to do it. Because the reality is, their positive impact is outweighed by the negative one of you not being involved anymore. But it just requires courage for you to recognize this culture over the tangible things. So you might not find yourself in the exact situation that Dave is in. But maybe it's a little bit familiar that you know, there's something that you need to be doing in your business, but you can't quite put your finger on it. And it's frustrating. And it's really holding you back. Maybe there was a little bit of fear there about I don't want to disrupt some personal connections. I don't want someone to think negatively of me, or I don't want to think negatively of myself because I'm aspiring to be better. But the reality is, a lot of times we can't see what we're actually supposed to do and differentiate it from how we feel. And the reason you saw on this episode that day, he was able to have those epiphanies or those aha moments so quickly was because he wasn't taking it as personal because he worked through his own stuff. He was able to differentiate his own stuff from this new logical conversation that we were having together. So if you want to join us for having better conversations and more logical situation, I invite you to check out the arena. Until then, I'll see you guys in the next episode.