I was walking around a huge crowd of over 1,000 people who were waiting patiently to get into RHETORIC. It was 30 minutes before the show was supposed to start, the lines were long and they weren’t moving. I was supposed to be getting ready to go on stage to open the show as the host. Instead, I was shouting out instructions for people to get in line as well as assessing how the ticket takers were taking in tickets and giving them instructions on how to make the process go faster. This was a nightmare.
We started the show late, but the audience was forgiving and since the show was great, memories of the experience coming in soon faded. Still this was unacceptable and we had to improve.
Three years later, as the show was getting ready to start, we had grown from 1200 attendees to nearly 3500. A half an hour before the show I was enjoying some Chick-fil-A in the green room and relaxing. The attendees were flowing in happily and smoothly and we started the show on time.
Growing From Chaos to Successful Team
How did I lead the team from chaos to a smooth serene process without me heavily involved the day of the show? It was the Leadership Loop.
When the next planning session started, we laid out the expectations and one expectation for the ticket taking team was for a smooth flowing check in process. In preparation for excellent execution, we created a training manual to provide the necessary skills to get the job done. During the planning as well as after the show, we gave positive and negative feedback to improve the preparation for and execution of the show. All along the way, we discussed and reiterated the consequences of doing well and the negative consequences of poor preparation and performance.
That’s the extremely high level overview of a process that involved many phone calls and emails, hours of individual and team meetings, reassigning and in some cases replacing people, and a lot of learning how to lead and do things better on my part. The result is the last step of the Leadership Loop — Growth.
Trust the Leadership Loop
Now you understand some of how to diligently cycle through the Leadership Loop. Always look to how you can serve the team more as a leader, or make changes to yourself or the team. If you do all of this and relate it all back to Expectations, Skills, Feedback, and Consequences, you will grow as a leader and your team will grow.
I can give direction to someone and believe it is so clear and easy to understand. I may tell them, make sure the ticket line is smooth. They may think they understand how to do that in the best way and then we have a nightmare scenario we discussed. And in my frustration, as a leader, it’s easy to see and point out how that team leader failed.
The hard, but long term beneficial work is in seeing how as a leader I could have asked more questions like what does a smooth running line look like? How many ticket takers does that mean you need? How should they line up? Is there any way technology can help? What went wrong the last time? Is there any way we can prepare the people coming so they know what to expect and can be ready? And many more questions.
To even know which questions to ask, I had to study the process of taking tickets. I had to work with past team leaders to understand their successes and failures. I also have to look at myself and realize how I can take the blame and do better so my team can succeed.
Is There a Right Time to Fire People?
What about firing or transferring people? As we discussed in the article on Consequences, sometimes this has to happen. The good thing is that the personnel changes that need to be made don’t have to be personal. From the beginning and all along the way, lay out clear expectations, support them in skill development, provide feedback that corrects and inspires, then lay out the consequences for good or bad performance.
If things are getting worse and worse, and you make it clear that continued poor performance can result in them being moved out of the position, it will not be a big surprise if that day comes. After hiring and leading hundreds of people, I’ve had to fire some. And only one time has it been a really bad experience. The person was in denial about the reality of their performance and there are times when there’s nothing you can do. But in the main, while it’s no fun, most people knew it was coming and accepted it.
In one case, I put a team member on a performance improvement plan. I told that teammate that if performance didn’t improve within 60 days, we would move to a firing. We laid out specific areas of the individual’s substandard work, clear direction on how to improve and what improved performance looked like. We even talked about some of the attitude changes that would help.
A year later that teammate was employee of the year and recognized as such by all up to the Vice President of our Division. If I had overlooked the poor performance or if I didn’t address it directly, that turnaround may have never come. And here’s the key… It was not personal. I was frustrated with the performance not the person. And when the performance changed, the frustration was gone.
Lead Around the Loop With Authority and Your Team Will Grow
Leadership is simple, but not easy. There are clear steps within the Leadership Loop you can follow to have a successful team. Just know that you will have to work hard to continue to improve your skills as a leader and have the humility to know where you need to grow.
You’ll also have to stop worrying about confrontation or hurting someone’s feelings. It is a fact of life that it will happen. You can learn to lessen the blow, but if you deal with issues head on and follow the Leadership Loop, you can push the success of your team to the limit.
Here are the other parts in the series
Expectations
Skills
Feedback
Consequences
Growth – You’re Here!
