Unbound with Chris DuBois

Does your team know that message came from you? Or are they assuming? Well, let's discuss why this is dangerous. For you, leader trying to get more from your business in life, need to. So join me as I document the conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Okay, there are lots of ways to communicate, verbal, nonverbal, written communication, there's tons, I'm not going to get into all of these, but I want to talk about our two overarching modes of communicating, right, you can either be covert or over. And so I call this bridge talk and tunnel talk, some people will travel across an entire country to see a bridge, right? A lot of people do live New York live on the east coast. And they will drive to go see the Golden Gate Bridge all the way in California. Right? It's because bridges are made wanting to get over an obstacle. But they're done in a way that is very overt, everyone gets to see this bridge. And so a lot of times, architects will actually make them look really nice. So people actually want to see these, it is not the same with tunnels, nobody is driving across any country to see a tunnel. Right? That's because while tunnels are also trying to get around an obstacle, they're done in a way that actually maintains the landscape. They're not meant to be tourist attractions. And so when we're talking to our teams, we want to do the same thing. If it's a message that everyone should know that this message is coming from the leader, that's going to be bridge talk, right. And we want to be very deliberate in how we use this so that people know the message is coming from us. And then similarly, tunneled talk, right, we still want them to know the message is coming from us, but we're doing it behind closed doors where people can't actually see it. And so it's you know, that's usually to protect the employee, whoever we're working with, just include a little privacy in that case. So that's the covert side. First, let's talk bridge di now there are five P's, when it comes to bridge dot, you have principles, processes, positioning, policies, and praise. Let's start with principles. These are your company's values, your team's values, so you want them somewhere that everyone can see, or they should be on your website, they should be posted somewhere, if you have an actual office, everyone on the team needs to know what these values are, because everyone on the team is going to be held accountable to these values. And now you as the leader, who actually own the company and team's culture, you need to ensure that people know these are coming from you, you are the standard bearer within this organization. Okay, two processes. So this is how we work as a team, anyone on the team can make a process because you as the leader, are not always the best person for creating a process. But you can be the one who holds people accountable to this process. Now, keep in mind, you can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility. So if a process is terrible, you're the one responsible for that process. And so it's really on you to make sure that you're getting great processes, and that people know that whoever made that process, like it is coming from you that everyone on the team needs to follow that process. The next positioning, this is how we present ourselves. So this can be you know, the company's positioning within the market. But it can also just be our team, right? When we go back to culture, people like us do things like this. And so you want to make sure that everyone knows, like, how we are positioned is coming from the leader, right? This is your vision for how everything needs to kind of look and work out. That's coming from you. Next policies, he's guide the way we do business. The reason we set policies is to create the ground rules for what we're willing to be flexible on what what we need to remain rigid. People who break policies are often fired. Right? And that's because there is this increased level of severity here. And it's the leaders responsibility to ensure that their name is on each written policy that is communicated and their intent for those policies is that they're followed. And finally, praise. As as a leader, you are responsible for everything your team does, or fails to do. Now, the egotistical side of everybody is like yes, let's let me accept all the praise. But that's not what you want to do. As a leader. You want to pass the praise to your team, and you want to make sure you are constantly recognizing them for everything. This needs to be done in public. Because we want everyone to know when someone succeeds because they're going to see that praise. It motivates everybody. It encourages everyone and it gets them excited to achieve the same Same results, right hearing You're doing awesome from your team is one thing, but hearing it from the leader in front of other people who get to increase your status, right? That is huge. Now, there's a couple other things you can be doing with with bridge.if. You, if you go out and do spot checks, right, where you just go down, you're on the floor. Good example, if you're working in a factory, right, if you went down, and you just kept looking at one piece of machinery, or one piece on all of the machines, right, people are going to notice that you're doing this, and they're going to start to pay attention to those pieces as well. And so you want them to know you're looking for these things, right? If you run a marketing company, you might be looking at a certain piece of the creative every time and asking that same question about it. And that cues people in that they need to be looking for it as well. Finally, internal marketing, this, this really should come from the leader, when you get good reviews for your company. When you get other positive news, you want to share it with everybody, this, this is separate from the praise of an individual, right? This is like, Hey, we are doing awesome things. And I want to make sure you guys know, so you're really bought into the vision, people need to see that coming from you. Okay, let's move into tunneltalk. So just a quick reminder, in case you lost focus over the past five minutes. We don't want everyone to hear these conversations, we still want to have them, we still want people to actually know they're coming from us. But it's not something very overt. Because usually we need to maintain some privacy, we need to respect our team enough to know these conversations need to happen behind closed doors. So what are some examples of tunneltalk? Out see, if if you have a team member has personal matters that they want to share, right? If someone is confiding in you, then you want to be able to pull them in, you want to let them they're trusting you. So you want to maintain that trust by going somewhere that other people aren't going to be paying attention. Next punishment, if if you actually need to punish someone, do not do that in front of other people. One, it's it's going to embarrass the the individual who's being punished. But also when your team sees that, they're not necessarily seeing all of the details. And so they just see that you are publicly embarrassing someone and they are not, you don't wanna mess up. So that is going to kill any positive culture you may have, it's going to stop people from wanting to share as much just don't do it, it is not a good idea. Another one mentoring, hey, if you want to give someone advice, like there's like quick advice when someone's sitting at a computer, and you just walk by or whatever. But if you're talking bigger problems, and someone asked for your help, or you just want to mentor slash coach, someone, bring them into your office, do the coaching there, because the goal is that you are going to get them to come up with the answer themselves. And when they go back to the team, and they start enacting whatever they came up with with you, it serves everyone better if that idea came from them, as far as the team is concerned, right. Because if they know that, hey, this person went, went to the boss, the boss gave him all of this advice and stuff, and it was your idea, everyone's just going to be reliant on you for everything, and it doesn't build up anyone else's self esteem as they actually come to that conclusion and then go out and, and execute on it. And so anytime you're mentoring someone, I strongly encourage you to do it behind closed doors, so they can get some of the credit for this. And one, it kind of forces you to work on your coaching skills as well to make sure you're you're helping them come to whatever conclusion they need to be at. So there you have it. brigstock tunneltalk, super simple concept. Really, it just comes down to being deliberate about how you are approaching certain conversations or, you know, just certain times where you're engaging your team. Is this something everyone should be aware of? Or is this something I actually need to pull back? Take the required individuals behind closed doors, and then talk to them there. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership, visit leading four.com And as always deserve it