Brian Downes 0:00
Unless somebody's engaged in the work and engage with the company and engage with their team, they're not going to perform at their best. And if we're manipulating them in any way or lying to them in any way, that's going to take away their engagement, they're now not going to trust the leader the organization, and they will operate well within their capabilities. That's
Finola Howard 0:18
Brian downs performance nerd, Adventurer, on team development and coach. We talk about what it takes to be a good leader and why Alpha types aren't always the best. We talk about choosing trust over manipulation and that golden rule for all leaders, don't be an asshole. I think you'll enjoy Brian's perspective. I'm Finola Howard, Business Growth strategist with a joyful heart, and your host of the your truth shared podcast, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or not, and your story has to resonate with who you are and with the people you want to serve, and this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you, because great marketing is your truth shared today. I wanted to dig in a little bit deeper into this idea of leadership and leadership from a couple of perspectives. We learn a lot about leadership from corporate organizations because it's a critical part of how organizations grow. So I want to kind of dig into that a little bit, but I also want to dig into what can we learn from corporates and apply that to our own businesses so that we can scale. And I needed someone that would focus on leadership from a performance perspective, someone who was really into performance around this, someone who understood, who has a very strong position on the humanity of leaders and lots more. So today I want to introduce you to Brian. Downs, welcome Brian.
Brian Downes 2:04
Hi Finola, thanks for having me. I'm delighted
Finola Howard 2:07
to have you. I'm delighted to have this conversation because I think it's one of the I mean, there's two industries we're talking about here. There's the SME, the entrepreneur who's growing a business wanting to scale a business. And then there is the life of the leader in large organizations, and what's happening with leadership. Because we discussed this, I discussed this in an earlier episode of your truth shared, and I kind of wanted to dig in a little bit more, to kind of go under the belly of it, of why we're struggling with our leaders and growth in that perspective. So I thought what we might do is start with your journey into this space that you're in, in leadership, coaching, team coaching and performance coaching. Can you share a little bit with us about that? Please? Sure,
Brian Downes 2:55
I've always had an interest in performance. I've been a sport not since I was a kid, and just very interested in people and relating to people, but I suppose I had my first business when I was in college, and so I sold sports equipment, I guess coach in various schools and and things like that. And loved that because it gave me a bit of independence. Why
Finola Howard 3:21
you were a guest coach.
Brian Downes 3:22
I played. I was involved in a lot of different sports, but I ended up being quite good at hockey, and I was a sponsored athlete, and I would have been reasonably well known in Munster anyway. And, yeah, I was available and asked to come and do some of these things. Being a student, you have, you had a bit of time, right? So, yeah, I love doing that. That was great fun. And you're involved in coaching some school senior teams and things like that. And then when I finished college, I went to Australia. I primarily went to play hockey, but I had a job while I was there, my first foray into the corporate world with Zurich Insurance, and I was an account manager, and stayed there for a while, and then came back to Ireland and went into logistics. So I worked for two of the really big companies at the time in the logistics world, company called Excel, who are now part of DHL and then a company called expediters. And I enjoyed it, right? It was largely interesting and new, but didn't like the structure so much and kind of being told what to do. And, you know, I did, this is my own thing. I have ADHD as well, which I didn't know then, but I know now, it just, it didn't really suit me, right? I did well. I got promoted quickly, and that was great. But I I knew I wanted to do something else. I'd always, I'd always, really wanted to work for myself and have my own independence and clap. A guy that, and then in 2005 I went into business with a group of people, and we grew a really large company, and I stayed in it for seven years ish, and at the end, I mean, I really needed to get out of it, because, you know, between me and the other six people involved, there was probably a bit of a values clash. And, yeah, it was time for me to step away from that.
Finola Howard 5:32
It's such an interesting turn of phrase, though, a values clash. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Because it's something that before is a nice theory, theoretical position to have in a business, to have values. And I know over the years in my own area of expertise, values has become critical component about for me, it dictates trajectory of a business, where how far you go, simply by how you treat your people, how you work, all of that kind of stuff. Tell us more about the values clash and why that's actually really important these days.
Brian Downes 6:10
Let me stop within this. Whether a company has worked on coding and defining values or not, there are still values at play, right? Every, everybody has values, right? So whether they're known or not is actually irrelevant. The values are there in this scenario I had, I'm a very strong belief around our own people and how people should be treated and how people should be, should be encouraged to perform and supported and developed, essentially. And my colleagues in that business didn't share the same value, didn't treat people in the same way,
Finola Howard 6:57
and were their values articulated? Because I like this idea of whether they're articulated or not, they're
Brian Downes 7:03
there. I mean, I probably could have a very good stab at identifying what they were, and I didn't share them. Now, you know, when we started, it wasn't as obvious, and but as we grew, it became much more obvious, and for me, it just caused a lot of stress and a lot of a lot of aggravation even. And, yeah, I absolutely need to step away, because it was just going to end up in in in a massive row. And there was enough of those already. So and I did step away, but we fundamentally had different beliefs in how we were going to go the business, keep and keep it going,
Finola Howard 7:48
just as a because this is always very interesting to me. Do you think that businesses, corporates, small businesses, miss a trick if they don't state the values? If they wait?
Brian Downes 7:59
I think it's helpful to state them. It's helpful to work on them and actually define them. And ask yourself the question, well, actually, how do we want to go about this? Right? How, how do we, how do we expect people to behave, or, how do we want people to behave? And because that behavior is informed by values, right? And and it's important to then your a lot of companies will go and define, and, you know, pinpoint the words, but it's really important to define what those words mean, absolutely what they mean in the context of that of the business, right? So one, one thing you might hear a lot is integrity, right? I think a lot of companies use that. But, you know, you could get, if you had a room with 10 people, and you could get 10 different definitions what integrity is, and they may not all align per se. So it's important that we that we have clarity around what each of these identified value words mean, and then how that informs behavior, right? And it's not just about the people in the business. It's about everybody who, who comes into contact with the business. It's not just about employees, about customers and vendors and our suppliers, sorry, and your everybody's impacted by values. So that's
Finola Howard 9:15
interesting from a people and performance perspective and cultural perspective, stated values that are more than just single words, but our behaviors are critical. From my perspective, from a marketing perspective, I completely concur. I know when I'm working on values with a client and with their team, we're not focusing on single words, we're focusing on what. Let's state the behavior. Let's actually say, Well, if my back is to the wall and these values are tested, how will I behave? Because, and I found over the years that it shapes trajectory because it brings clarity to the business. And I'm assuming from what you've said, Do you ever say? Perspective
Brian Downes 10:00
I do, yeah, no. Clarity is actually really important. And I think it's, it's something that a lot of business owners and companies and corporates don't do particularly well, and it not just in terms of values, but I mean, a big one that I come across is actually job descriptions, role descriptions, you know, they can be very ambiguous sometimes, or, you know, hidden behind acronyms, and then, you know, over time, become fuzzy because they're scope creep, or whatever it is that that clarity is lost. Why
Finola Howard 10:33
are they ambiguous about the cynical view? Yeah,
Brian Downes 10:39
I'd like any view the cynical view, is that I think companies want to keep them broad because they can. They can get people to do more, cover more bases, without there being a challenge, as it were, if it's if it's super specific, and you're asking somebody to go do something that's outside of that that scope, but then you have to have another conversation about, okay, well, what can I let go? Or, you know, am I going to get paid more for this, or whatever it is? I think in a sense, it makes life easier for for people who are managing these people at the same time. I think it makes it difficult for the people who are trying to do a job, because they're not clear. Because they're not clear precisely what it is. So that's one another one might be on on objectives for the year, right? I you know again, something I've come across a few times that you're so the review year would start in January, say, but people might not have objectives until March or April.
Finola Howard 11:42
How common is
Brian Downes 11:44
this? Brian, it's it's pretty common. It's pretty common in certainly in my experience. And that doesn't help performance at all. You know, it really doesn't. So I think for people to perform, and this is a very basic thing, they need to know what their job is, the scope of their authority. You know what their deliverables are, very specifically. And then what are their what their objectives, and how are they expected to go, to go do that. So
Finola Howard 12:12
quite so it's interesting, right? So you've got two scenarios, then you've got ambiguity to protect the organization. And and what to protect the organization, to give them the scope that they can move it wherever they are, right? And then at the other side, you've got a lack of clarity, which means it'll directly affect the growth of the business, because you don't have clarity in the first place.
Brian Downes 12:37
I think so, yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, that's essentially what I'm saying. And that's not really good for anybody, is it? You know? Why
Finola Howard 12:46
is it so common like because this seems to always come back to this question of fear and leaders not understanding what their roles are, the lack of clarity and what the business is here to do in the first place. Like, what are your thoughts on that from being embedded in an organization that you helped really grow?
Brian Downes 13:07
I think there is a latent fear of being taken advantage of. There's a mistrust, actually, let me put it that way. And I think that mistrust is is driven by fear, right? So the mistrust being that the people at the top of an organization don't, you they want, they don't want the people further down the food chain to take advantage of the market, and I'm putting that in inverted commas, or, you know, they, they want to be able to, to, to using word here, manipulate people into doing things you know, through through that ambiguity as well. But I certainly think theories will have to do with it.
Finola Howard 13:51
What's more effective, trusting people and empowering people, or manipulating people from a performance perspective, trusting
Brian Downes 14:00
and empowering every time. Manipulation never ends. Well, it's our taste, and while people might not get it immediately, the manipulators might not understand that they're being manipulated immediately, in time they will, and that's just going to switch people off. So I mean, engagement is what employee engagement is, one of the important, most important parts of performance, unless somebody's engaged in the work and engage with the company and engage with their team, they're not going to perform at their best. And, and if we're lying to people and and, you know, telling them things to get them to do stuff that aren't necessarily true, or making promises of promotions or whatever it is, manipulating them in any way or lying to them in any way. That's gonna, that's gonna take away their engagement. They're they're now not going to trust the leader the organization, whatever, wherever it's coming from, and they will operate well within, within their capabilities. It is. It's just human nature. So why is
Finola Howard 15:04
why we I mean, we know this, like, we know this to be true. Why are we still doing this? Like, what? Why are we still at this point where we're not truly embracing this idea of bringing people with us on the journey being clear and upfront and allowing them to be on part of something powerfully successful for everyone. Why? Why would we not do that? All the stats tell us it works.
Brian Downes 15:36
Yes, they do. And the stats that are telling us that it's still not being done, right, that there are some companies that do really, really well. I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to paint everybody with the same bush here. There are some companies that do it superbly well. But I think the question you're asking is, is, why does it happen? I think that's a there's a very complex answer to that. Are a number, a number of complex answers. Context plays a large part in that, but I'd still come back, if I'm looking at a central team, I'll still come back and and find myself at fear and say, Okay, well, what? What are they afraid of? That that maybe that's where thing gets complicated. I think we behave humans try and control things, and sorry, leaders try and control things and so that they can mitigate risk and and all of these things. And in doing so, I think they they also limit performance, right? And they do that because they're afraid of things getting out of control. You know, they're afraid of mistakes being made. They're afraid of, you know, it could be as simple as you've got a line manager managing a team of 10 people. He's He's limiting them because he doesn't want a mistake. Because if there's a mistake, his boss is gonna, is gonna haul him in front of him and give him a kick. And metaphorically speaking, and and that all the way up the chain, right? It could be as simple as that, but I think there's a lot of a lot of at play in terms of the context of individual organizations.
Finola Howard 17:12
Is it not very childlike behavior? Then? Oh, it is, for
Brian Downes 17:16
sure. Yeah, it is. But I mean, I think when people are operating from a place of fear, they're far more toilet you know, you want to control things, and want to want certainty and security and to know how thing, how something is going to pan out. And I'm of the opinion that we need to take off those shackles and be a bit more adventurous, and think a bit more adventurously. If we really want to accelerate things, you can't control your way to success, at least not in any reasonable timescale. I think there's certainly an argument to be made for taking off the shackles and asking tougher questions and having more difficult conversations and trusting people more. And when it comes to trust, because
Finola Howard 18:09
I want to take a moment, because I really like that phrase, that phrase, which is you can't control your way to success and and this idea of success as an I was about to say uncontrollable adventure, but let me just say success and as an adventure, because you're someone who likes this idea of adventure and performance. Can you? Can you dig a little bit more into that? I like that success can't be controlled.
Brian Downes 18:34
I I think, you know, yeah, right. So, so when I say control, I mean you, can't you can't take people who want to express themselves and limit that, right? The best ideas and the best problem solving come outside of that. Most likely, you've got to get people in a room where they can speak freely, where they can throw stuff out in the table and and have it debated, and if it's if it's not suitable, it's not suitable, but they need to be able to do that without fear of being ridiculed, or, you know, belittled, or retribution, or any, any of that kind of stuff, this idea of psychological safety, I suppose, even though I'm not a big fan of that term, I my approach would be much more to to say, right, here's the problem. Is clearly state the problem. Now let's throw some ideas on the table, and whatever you have, let's have it out there. It's not good, it's not good, but let's throw it out there. Let's really explore these things and use and trust in the skills we have to be able to discern from what will work and what won't work, rather than coming into something with a preconceived idea of what's going to work and and kind of cajoling or steering people into that, if you know what I mean, which, which, again, is something that happens quite. Bit.
Finola Howard 20:00
So that means, then, if you're approaching it like that, then it's not the leader's responsibility to have all the ideas. This exactly what I
Brian Downes 20:09
was just about to say. There's this conception that that leaders should know everything and they shouldn't. Leaders job is to facilitate, right? Yeah, and obviously, you know, they will have experience, because typically that have been around a bit longer, they may have seen a bit more, so they've got to facilitate, and then they've got to make a decision, right? And they should be clear on those. And just to go back to the trust thing, in that scenario, the leader should be trusting first, right? Because a leader is in a position of authority, a position of power, let's say, and a leader needs to show the way. So a leader needs to trust the team, the people first before they'll ever trust him or her,
Finola Howard 20:55
which also means, then back to our beautiful job. Spec means that you have to hire the right team in the first place. Yes,
Brian Downes 21:04
you've got to hire really good people. And look, I know this has been said by lots of people before. Not be afraid to hire people that are smarter than you, that are better than you at certain things. You know, that just makes sense. It's been said so many times. You know, it's almost to the point of being a cliche now, well, that doesn't make it any less true. Here's
Finola Howard 21:27
a question for that cliche. How do you manage someone who knows more than you? You
Brian Downes 21:32
allow them to do the work that you hired them to do? You know, you you get really clear and said, This is why I'm hiring you. You know, if you can worry that didn't that they know more than you, that's just ego talk, and that's fear. That's irrelevant. You've hired somebody with a set of skills, and they may know a hell of a lot more than you do about this particular skill. Give them, give them the outcome. Just wanted let them at it right, be available to them for support, trust them to do the work. You've hired them because they're smart. You've hired them for a reason. Let them go do it.
Finola Howard 22:11
So I've seen situations with client companies of mine, and they've hired people. Sometimes it's their hiring in expertise, and then they place all their trust into that, in that person to go and do the job that they hired them for, and then they get burned because they placed all that trust into them. So what do you say in that situation? It depends on
Brian Downes 22:36
how they got burned. But I mean, you know, you still have to manage the process. You know, you still have to check in, not not check on. You still got to check in. You still got to be looking at the numbers and the milestones. You know, you still got to be involved. When I say trust people, I don't mean just let them often to go do their own thing for weeks, months at a time. You still got to be checking in and monitoring and you know, without micromanaging, you still need to be getting involved in the process. You still need to be offering support if they need it. You still need to be helping them, certainly in bigger organizations, to navigate the organization, find the things that they need. So you know, if you've gotten burned, chances are you've taken the hands off too much, and that doesn't mean that you distrust them. That just means you're not managing the process. So you got part you didn't get burned because you trusted somebody too much. You got burned because you took your hands off.
Finola Howard 23:29
I like that clarification. Can we say a little bit more about this? One of the things you said when we had our original chat was we talked about the things that make a good leader, and you said Good leaders aren't pushovers. And he said they can manage both sides of the equation. And I like this idea of both sides of the equation. On one side, it's, I'm going to help you in your role, with me, with us, in this organization. You know, what do you need to help you do everything that you need to do. And on the other side, it's to balance, you know, that situation where you may have to let people go because it's not working. So how do they and that's a real juggle, balancing both sides of that equation. Can you say more about that, please? Yeah,
Brian Downes 24:09
so let me start with the first thing. You said Good leaders and pushovers, and they shouldn't be they should be kind. And I think I spoke to you about this when we spoke originally that I have very simple leadership principle, leadership 101, don't be an asshole. Now, that's quite a catchy right, but it's quite deep, right? And there's a lot to that, and I think that that two sides of the equation captures it, right? So on one side, you've got to be that facilitator. You've got to help people, you've got to, you've got to engage them. You've got to they've got to know that you support them, you want to back them, and that you're involved, and you're that you're going to ask them tough questions. Right at the same time, you need to be able to objectively you. To objectively assess how they're doing in that role, even if you like this person, if they're, if they're not doing well in that role, you've got to, you've got to, you know, have that conversation. And it's a tough conversation to have, right? And, you know, then you've got to say, Okay, well, right? This isn't going very well. What do we need to do to get you to to to a point where you're performing well in this role, and then you facilitate that, you support that, you get them the training they need if that's an issue, and if it still doesn't work, you've got to make a call, and you've got to decide what's best for the
Finola Howard 25:36
team. How long do you give someone? Brian, Oh,
Brian Downes 25:39
listen, I think that's that's largely dependent on context. It really is, and context really, really matters in that scenario. You're, I'm I'm very tolerant of somebody who's genuinely trying. I'm very tired to somebody who really wants to be there and really wants to do well, but maybe they're struggling with with something within that I'm not as tired as somebody who really doesn't care that. That's just my take on it. And even within those two extremes there's there's a lot of context required, right? And I think we also have to accept that sometimes we make the wrong hire. I've done this myself. You hire somebody that you know maybe you generally thought would, would, would fit that role, and pretty quickly you realize, actually, I made a mistake. And you've got to take that in the gene. You got to take responsibility and ownership of that and all of those situations required to be able to have difficult conversations in in an empathetic way, right? So you we will have heard, and I'm sure you've heard this. I've I've heard and seen it myself, where people in the industry positions have had to have a difficult conversation, and rather than having a difficult conversation, hypothetically, what did they both get angry and shout or insult or whatever, which doesn't help the situation at all. Obviously, you know, somebody leaves the business then, but the rest of the team are seeing that happen, right? Or they've heard that it happened, or whatever it is, and that damages that relationship with the team, you know? And I again, I've heard people kind of dismiss that. Oh no, it's fine. It's fine. It's not,
Finola Howard 27:37
yeah. Do you think that the one the people that are left behind are thinking, well, there, but for the grace of God, go I, or that could be me. And that is a nagging feeling that stays in their minds, yeah,
Brian Downes 27:52
absolutely. Well, let's take the extreme situation. So was it last year, the year before that, a lot of the tech companies started to let people go right? And there was some horrible stories how this was done. I wrote about it at the time, actually, but I heard some examples of and it was people from Twitter at the time who had showed up to the office and their key card would work, and that was the first that they'd heard, or you had people waiting for an email, and they got an email, or they could log on to their to their work issued laptop and that, and that's how they were told that, sorry, you're, you're, you're no unemployed, which is a horrible way to do anything, right? But then for the people who are left behind, they're absolutely thinking, Oh, well, yeah, that could be me,
Finola Howard 28:45
but it's cowardly.
Brian Downes 28:48
I think it's very cowardly, to be honest. And I think I think that's that's an example of really, really poor leadership,
Finola Howard 28:54
really poor so two scenarios for you, so someone who's taken over a new leadership role in a large organization, and perhaps someone who's wanting to create a team around them. So from an entrepreneur's perspective and a corporates perspective about leadership, what would you what would you say to them, or advise them, or lead them with? You know, things to consider when they're moving into these these particular roles? One is entrepreneur, one is leader. So entrepreneur
Brian Downes 29:23
starting a business. Early stages of starting a business is chaotic. It's It's very tough, and it will require a different kind of person, I think generally, because in the early days of a business, there's a lot to be done, and there's, by by nature, there's going to be a lack of clarity. You're going to need people who are comfortable in that right, and that that requires a certain type of personality. And having said that, I think any entrepreneur who's starting a business should be striving to get clarity, to evolve clarity, right. But so. Need to start, you're going to need a certain type of person, and that type of person will have to be comfortable in in in ambiguity. So that's a real
Finola Howard 30:10
stage of self awareness in the entrepreneur of saying, I don't have clarity. So therefore, if I and I know, I need people, so therefore I need to consciously choose people who are okay with that, instead of kind of going, you know, there's the role, and let's just see what happens, which I think is often what happens,
Brian Downes 30:27
yeah, and look, I think, you know, startups will put out a job description, and they will generally be reasonably ambiguous, but you know, they'll get lots of people applying for those roles. I mean, anytime you see a role advertised, you're going to you're going to see lots and lots of people applying for it. It's when, when you get somebody sitting in front of you that you can test around how comfortable they are with ambiguity and that kind of chaotic nature on the start. And it's very hard to tell from a CV, right? You need to be you need to have somebody sit in front of you, or whether it's virtually or in person. For me, I just prefer in person anyway. But you need to be able to test for that and be aware that that's what you need. Obviously, depending on the startup, you know, some of the roles that are further down the food chain, further further down the hierarchy, are maybe more transactional. That requirement isn't going to be as high for that type of person, typically. And there are people going to come into to our management positions, for somebody going into a corporate and, you know, tasked with building, building a team, um, I think they, you know, they've got an opportunity to be really clear about what it is that the team needs, but they've got to start with, Okay, well, what are, what are the outputs of this team? What are our deliverables, right? Okay, so here's our deliverables, and then walk back through there. What kind of roles do we need in order to be able to achieve those deliverables in that timeframe and build our clarity on it back from there, reverse engineered from there.
Finola Howard 32:11
Do you think people do that?
Brian Downes 32:14
No, no, I don't.
Finola Howard 32:17
For everyone to know that this is not what happens. No,
Brian Downes 32:20
I think, I think, I think the next piece is something that that that isn't done either, and it really, really should be, think about the type of people that you want, right? So again, any, any job that's advertised now there's, there's hundreds of people applying for jobs. And what you'll see in most job descriptions is a list of maybe tasks or responsibilities, and a little bit about the company and their culture and your qualifications and experience. It won't tell us, and they rarely tell us about what kind of person would do well in this role. So there's a really good question you can ask once you, once you've understood what roles are going to be required in this team, or if you're taking over an existing team, what roles are there you you ask yourself a question, as if the role Take, take the human out of the equation, and look at the role and say, Okay, what does this role require to be a high performance role? Right? What? What? What? What does this role require in order to achieve superior performance?
Finola Howard 33:33
I like that you're qualifying that high performance, superior performance. You're expecting great things from the outset. Well, you should, why wouldn't you? Because I'd say a lot of people don't. I'd say a lot of people are focused on onboarding, taking time, all of that kind of stuff. But if you're setting the bar from the very beginning that I want every role here to be a high performing or or, you know, superior performance role, it changes your thinking,
Brian Downes 34:02
but it doesn't that, but that's what it should be, right? I mean, you want, you want to fill all the people in your team, all of the roles in your team that performing. Say, Okay, well, I want everybody on this team to be a high performer, and I'm going to help them get there and go. I'm going to support them, and the company is going to support them, but we got to be really to be really clear on what it's going to take in terms of a person to be that. And sometimes, when company, companies think about this, they think about the alpha type personality. And that's that's not right. You know, alpha type personalities are not always good at everything. In fact, they're good at probably a fairly, a fairly narrow band of things. So, so, so that's why it's important to look at the role as a role, and not as a human to what does this role require, right? So if you think about, let me see a good example. You think about a trauma surgeon. You. Right? You you want your trauma surgeon to be an alpha type, per se, somebody can make decisions correctly, think strongly, be commanding in a room that's really, really useful there, right? If you want, if you want to hire a nurse, but you don't want, you don't necessarily want your nurse to be an alpha type. You want a nurse to be caring and somebody who's very smart, obviously, but you want enough to be caring, and somebody who's very human, centered and can relate to people, an alpha type person, won't work as a nurse equally. That, that that more caring, more more people centered person wouldn't, wouldn't work very well as a trauma surgeon, right? I know they're very, they're extremely perfect example, perfect example. But I think it illustrates what I'm trying to say. So when you look at when you look at your team, and you look at the roles in the team, you can't ask what kind of person is going to do really well here, I think its point is asking any other question other than that, if you're coming into this thing, okay, I just want to fill the role, and when I get to where you get so you can do the job. You shouldn't be
Finola Howard 36:07
hiring love that love. You shouldn't
Brian Downes 36:09
until you're really clear on, on, on what it's going to take to be successful in this role. Somebody's going to be high performing, who's going to who's going to add something to this team, as much as they're going to the role you know, you've got to start to think, Well, what kind of person will do that? What traits are going to be important, what characteristics are going to be important, but what kind of experience is going to be important? Do you know? Another thing that comes up a bit is leaders, hiring managers, hiring people that are like them. So I may share the same opinion, and this is actually a part of the problem with with culture fit hiring to an extent that you end up with, you can end up with echo chambers, right? You know, I think when, when you operate as part of a team, it's really important to disagree. Not only get to have diverse opinions, to have to be able to challenge up, to be able to have good debates, and that's that's where you're going to come up with, the good stuff, the good solutions, the good ways forward, the things that were actually going to make it even genuine, just gonna be mistakes too. Of course, there are, but there be mistakes anyway, and we can't be afraid of making mistakes. So I think high performing teams make lots of mistakes. That's why, that's why they're high performing, because they try things that they you know, they walk in things, they recognize a mistake quickly, and they fix it, and they understand why that mistake was made. They learn the lesson. They move on, right? It is true for teens, connectives as it is for individuals. But yes, I have some strong opinions around this stuff.
Finola Howard 37:47
What I love, where we've gone with this. What would you like to leave people with today out of this conversation,
Brian Downes 37:57
if you're in a leadership position, treat people like people, respect them, trust them, walk off the assumption that they can be really, really, really good, and then your job is to facilitate that. Obviously, if that's not going to work and you need to have a tough conversation, have that tough conversation with some empathy that's a human at the end of the day, and you more than likely hire them, so be gentle where you can be gentle. Fantastic. I think that's that's probably the most important thing for me. Thank you so much, Brian.
Finola Howard 38:32
Fantastic. My coaching, and that's it for this episode, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Make sure to connect with Brian on LinkedIn and reach out if you have any thoughts you'd like to share on this topic. Thank you for listening to your truth shared. And if you enjoy this episode, make sure to share it with your entrepreneurial friends and help them grow their businesses to even greater heights. And until next time, let's keep growing. You.
