What I’ve Learned Managing 17 Direct Reports | Tips for New Managers

Paul Leon: today we are going to explore what I've learned managing 17 direct reports and we're starting now. One is giving enough feedback. The way you deliver feedback is shaped by your personality, tendencies, and the blind spots If you don't know these things about yourself, you're typically projecting and projecting your emotions on is a surefire way to start taking that rapport and putting it down the toilet. Think about the last piece of feedback someone gave you, someone on your team. Now ask yourself, was that feedback designed for you or was it really designed for the other person? And if you truly can't say in your heart that you were coming from a place of where you wanted to better this person. Well, then that's the gap. And that's typically where report dies in most of the communication styles, because it's not about what you want on a personal level. humans, again, are very good at sniffing out intention. That's I think that's one thing we all share inherently in common with your doctor or lawyer, ⁓ station. It doesn't really matter. We all know how to sniff out intention very, very well. And good news is as a consequence ⁓ of good and doing this consistently, ⁓ Your personal brand will grow. Giving effective feedback is an opportunity to grow, not destroy it. ⁓ Here's the reframe. Feedback is not a performance conversation. Feedback is an opportunity for more rapport. I want you to really say that in your heart because that's what's really important. ⁓ So most management training will tell you, ⁓ you wanna give to correct behavior, drive results. and hold people accountable. And those things are true in some regard. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that accountability doesn't matter. But here's what nobody tells you. I became a manager, every time I gave feedback, ⁓ was either building or destroying that relationship. here was the key thing I was missing was psychological safety. When people psychologically safe, they trust you more. and come back to you when there's something wrong. And that's really one of the biggest compliments is if somebody come back to you or comes to you with something, ⁓ that maybe you didn't ask them to do that. talking from the heart here, like real talk, I used to think directness was always the answer until I learned it's not the words you say, it's the music you play. Now, if you're a surgeon and someone's life is on the line, direct is the only answer, my opinion, because situation does matter here in the context of giving this key advice from my experience. Now in sales or customer service, when somebody is mad about a change management thing with like a product or how a software works, ⁓ we do need directness, but we need that directness more kindness and empathy. ⁓ when we do this right, ⁓ people will notice and say certain key things. These are what I call green flags. people will start to say positive things about you. Like, man, this guy really is self-aware I feel that if you challenge yourself to do this for 90 days consistently at the end, you will have more rapport with your teammates on accident. I would encourage you if you haven't for a while is take a human behavior assessment like disc Now I'm disc certified. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I feel like if you go online and do even some of the free profiles, a lot of them can be just as accurate as the ones you pay for. And here's another tip. You could just ask for a 360 review from your leader or manager. What that'll do is a couple of key things. One, you'll get feedback from people in your closest circle. Two, You'll be looked at as somebody who can take feedback and be the leader. And what I would encourage you to do is tell people you've done that because then they'll be like, OK, well, he's doing that and he's asking for feedback. So I need to model that. I took an assessment with this company called Eureka Connect. They are not sponsoring this episode. This is what's coming top of mind. But I remember when they gave me the test results, part of my area was this, that I only had three percent goodwill. Now, what that means is people could perceive me as cold and just not caring. And that's simply not true. I cry the time. I see musicals. I just saw the outsiders. Great musical, by the way. for whatever reason, when I took this test, that's just how I'm coming across, even though over intent are two very different things. we're gonna through the fast feedback loop framework. Now let's talk about how to give feedback in a way that builds your poor rather than breaks it. I call this the fast feedback loop. timely, specific, and looking forward. So timely is don't wait for the annual view to stockpile bunch of bad advice. People don't learn that way. That's dumb. I don't know why people even do that. ⁓ This should be something you should be doing in all your one-on-ones. And hopefully you're doing them weekly for a minimum of 30 minutes to really have effective one-on-ones to show your paying and tension. Now we want to be specific. I don't mean saying things like just communicate better. That's dumb. Like everybody, anybody can say that. Being specific, even if it's challenging, it's more endearing. So something along the lines of like, Hey, I noticed you interrupt this other member of our team. I want to talk to you about that because my concern is this. where that can make you appear like you're not a good listener. That's just not simply who you are. And I'm confident that if we do this differently, you're gonna grow your personal brand for poor and members with your team. See how much different that feels? Yeah, some people can't take feedback, but at least the way I framed it specific with a challenge and who they are, it's just a way better effect, a way of giving feedback. And then you always wanna be forward looking. I think this is probably, if you do get nothing from this ⁓ Being forward looking is so important. here's how this works in a real dialogue. To say something along the lines of like, here's what I see going forward. What you want to see going forward? Think about any time who sold you something or came to your home. ⁓ It that they sold you what they currently could do. They could sold you what they could currently do and we could future avoid. It wouldn't make them more valuable. And that's what your job as a manager, because you're always selling technically. And here's something else I think you should end every meeting with. is to say, what do need from me? Every single one on one, ⁓ you want end it with, okay, we've covered X, Y, Z. What do you need from me right now to be more successful in your job? Boom. And just give it back to them. that's the loop framework. Be timely. You should be doing this every week. Be specific, not just general and be forward thinking and you communicate and every meaning with what do you need from me so you can get the results you're looking for. And I feel that's going to help you out dramatically. As we've said, number one, you want to know yourself first. So getting that data is so crucial. If you're new, do a disc assessment after six months, then ask for a 360 review to make it worth your time. Two, separate intention from impact. I know this seems counterintuitive because I've talked about how intention is so critical, but what is how it lands. the hard thing about management that they don't train you is people don't see when you're those hard or hard conversations, those one on one where people get closed off, or they put their eyes down because they start to distrust you or trust you. Those are the moments when you're truly born ⁓ and There's no perfect video or book on that. That's just gonna come from experience and hopefully this buys out some of ignorance attacks from sharing my feedback with you. Which brings me number three, is ⁓ the feedback loop framework I've given you in this video. timely, specific, forward-looking. And don't just use incorrective feedback. it for positive feedback too. Catching someone doing something right and naming it specifically is what I mean here. because that's one of the most powerful rapport builders. And I'll leave you with a personal story I through once with an employee who reported to me to kind of cement all of this in a nice bow. ⁓ And this can relate to you ⁓ and you something to reflect on. I had person worked with me who was an engineer, very smart man. He was an engineer before he was 21 years old. I had the pleasure working with him when I was in the car rental world. And I'll never forget he was so quiet one day and which was weird for him because he would always talk all the time. a lot of the times in the car world, especially when I worked at, we would deliver these cars to a lot of these rich people who would ask us to deliver it ⁓ Disney or something along those lines. And ever had that car ride that was just like really quiet and like a lateral example is like when you had like a fight with your partner or something along those lines and you didn't want to be in the car, but you couldn't get out of the car. It was similar to that type of discomfort. But I remember we had went there the entire time and we didn't say anything. We delivered this car and this rich person and then we would take a car back. I could Uber or something along those lines. And we're sitting there and I turned over and I said, Hey man, listen, don't have to share anything you don't want to share with me. I've you're really quiet, which is unlike you. Just know you reserve the right to keep being quiet. But if you do want me to be a sounding board to you for whatever reason, know I'm here with you in this car. We went a little farther, we were in the Uber, and what may have been a few minutes, it felt like an eternity, because silence for me is just like, I don't do really good with silent treatment. That's just like a flaw I have. I know I'm working through that. But he turns over to me and he said $17,000. I was like, what? And he goes, $17,000. I said, don't understand. And he said, in my country where I came from, the police are typically paid off or they come and get you for whatever reason. And I got a phone call on my phone that said, there's a warrant out for your arrest. Please put your social in so you can comply with the warrant so the police can come and talk to you. And he said, Paul, I put my personal info into this. Robocall because I was so afraid of the police because of that trauma I have in my country and then they took that information and they emptied out the $17,000 in my bank account and he confided in me this really intense story and he had also said like I feel so dumb like know my I got my family here and ⁓ be real with you like my face was red not because I was mad at him because I was mad at the fact that these criminals are out there like doing robo calls and just trying to take advantage of people's well-being or hard people who come to our country or people who work in our country and work really hard and just really got me super angry. even bounded together me and other teammates ⁓ raise money. had luckily I had a blessing of a really popular lawyer who's been on TV and got people, saved them from really intense crimes and they didn't commit. Really good guy. And I remember that We raised all this money and we went to him and he was such a good guy, he goes, listen, I could take your money. I could, Paul, but I'm not. He's a lawyer friend. He goes, unfortunately, this kid's gonna have to learn the hard way. There's no possible way to track down these criminals. They pop up every second, they disappear overnight. That $17,000 is gone. And like, I actually teared up started to cry. Because I had to tell him. You we tried to bound together and everything. said, hey man, listen, I talked to the lawyer. I shared him everything. Like, he could have taken the money, but he didn't. And he still said, Paul, thank you so much. I said, well, I didn't get you anything. I didn't get you the result. He goes... But just thank you so much just caring. It means everything to me. The fact that you just cared so much. ⁓ a few years later, post COVID, he got his engineering degree in America, bought his mama a house and took care of his family. So did he lose $17,000? I argue that he gained millions from that mistake and his pain. Now, please don't misunderstand me. Do not go and fall for a scam and put your info in to cause yourself harm. The point of this story is to help you avoid Hopefully you learned some key things anything like that is just wrong and don't involve yourself for that. But that grave mistake he made. bounded us all together and it made him more wealthy. And it made me more wealthy. Not wealthy in like a money sense, but wealthy in a rapport sense with him and the team. How we bounded together, And what I will tell you is if you're already doing this, recognizing people, you're recognizing their praises, ⁓ personally believe you've already won. That's my belief. So here's my practical promise. Over the next 90 days, if you apply ⁓ one insight from this you will build more rapport with your team by accident. If you just apply you so much for watching this video. I'll see you on the next one.