3PX Coaching

How Great Leaders Hold Team Members Accountable

• 3PX Coaching • Season 2 • Episode 5

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In this episode of 3PX, Steve and Wayne wrap up their series on morale, accountability, and culture by introducing the Accountability Flywheel. Steve and Wayne discuss why most organizations get accountability wrong, how reactive accountability damages trust, and why the best leaders focus on preventing failure instead of punishing it after the fact.
You'll learn how clear expectations reduce anxiety, why visible progress energizes teams, how consistency builds pride, and why morale is the natural byproduct of healthy accountability and culture working together.
If you're a business owner, manager, or team leader, this episode provides a practical framework for creating accountability that drives performance without destroying morale.

🌍 Interested in getting one-on-one coaching from the 3PX team? Go to https://3pxcoaching.com

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Wayne Foreman: @wayne4man
Steve Kincanon: @Steve_kincanon

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Intro and outro music by Korshun
https://audiojungle.net/user/korshun

Produced by Quentin White | @quentinlwhite

🌍 Interested in getting one-on-one coaching from the 3PX team? Go to https://3pxcoaching.com

Follow us on Instagram:
Wayne Foreman: @wayne4man
Steve Kincanon: @Steve_kincanon

LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1810132342
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6icTxp0wsvMPmnjZsGtybV

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3pxcoaching/
📖 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/61575312680020

Intro and outro music by Korshun
https://audiojungle.net/user/korshun

Produced by Quentin White | @quentinlwhite

SPEAKER_01

Accountability is preventative maintenance.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01

You don't wait for the machine to break down before you go and fix it.

SPEAKER_02

There's gonna be breakdowns here and there because you can't prevent some of that. But if you take care of it and do it on a schedule, then it works well.

SPEAKER_01

There is something so powerful when any team member knows day to day what am I responsible for doing when I show up to work today? You have to find a way to simplify those things. Hey everybody, welcome back to the 3PX show. I'm Steve, and this is Wayne. Uh, we're really happy that you're here. And uh we're gonna get kicked off uh really fast, except I gotta just one plug before we get going. Okay. I'm not gonna wander around for 10 minutes like we normally do. Chasing rabbits. I won't do it.

SPEAKER_03

All right, let's go.

SPEAKER_01

But just as one thing, because I'm fired up. So Landy is in like her third or fourth week of nursing school. Yep. And dude, they just had their first major exam and she got an 87. Oh, woohoo! So fired up. She's so fired up. And um, because she's stressed about that because they're worth like 150 points. And that's a lot. Dude, at this nursing school, if your score drops, if your scores drop below a 78, you're out of the program. Oh my God. Wow. Like serious business. Way to go, girl. You got it. That's awesome. Even more even more respect to all the nurses out there. Yeah. They didn't just skate by, you know, just barely above failing. Like, no, you you got to maintain like a 78 average other or you're out of the program.

SPEAKER_02

I always call that a really good C. I was um hey, C is getting degrees, right?

SPEAKER_01

I won't tell you. I won't tell you what my last uh I was only in college for a few years, but I won't tell you what my GPA was the last year, but I can but it it it wasn't a 78.

SPEAKER_02

I didn't graduate college myself, so uh mine obviously wasn't.

SPEAKER_01

No, I didn't I didn't graduate either. That's probably this that's probably a good reason why.

SPEAKER_02

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_01

But all right. So this is actually the third part of um a three-part series that we've been talking about, uh morale, accountability, and culture, and how those those forces um are all at play. So this is kind of like the culminating episode, and we've been telling you that we are going to deliver you um a system, sort of an operating system of what accountability, healthy accountability looks like. And we call we've been calling it the accountability flywheel.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

We're gonna talk about that in this episode. We're gonna, we're, we're gonna lay it out, talk about what it looks like. You you may or may not hear some examples of how I have screwed it up in the past. Uh and um so you can once again learn from all my mistakes as opposed to making the mistakes yourself, which is always the best way to learn.

SPEAKER_02

You might hear about a few of my mistakes, so who knows? You know, we'll we'll we'll pick it apart and pull it apart and look at it. And uh, hey, you know what? You have wins, you have losses, and uh, you know, hopefully you can learn from the losses. Or hopefully you can learn from somebody else's losses sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_01

For the record, I would never call out your losses. Uh you know, but if you want to, okay, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02

You kind of hesitated when you said that, but that's let's let's just go. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know I was being you know you know I was being completely sarcastic there, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I know that. Yeah, I appreciate that. So, but you know, I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01

On these episodes, we're I think we're both always looking for opportunities to call out each other's losses.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Take it off bus and throwing off somebody else for a second.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Um, so we're gonna talk about today is is shifting what account accountability looks like and what it means for your business, like reclassifying it from accountability looking like and feeling like punishment over to accountability being prevention. The goal of accountability should be to prevent failure, prevent underperformance. But I came from a uh a culture prior to this, and to a certain degree, be uh it's it's here because we bring so many people from other companies and other cultures here that that we we deal with this today. We're trust me, we're not perfect. But the previous cul uh culture that I came from, when when when you were told you need to hold that person accountable, that was that was culture speak for you need to write them up or you need to fire them for poor performance.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

That's what it meant when we said you need to hold them accountable. But that's not what accountability should mean in a healthy culture.

SPEAKER_02

Man, have you I I I've heard that so many times over the years, you know, but that's a deflection sometimes too. You need to hold that person accountable. Well I mean, you know, it's just it oh that that one has always driven me nuts. And and and that's why accountability has such a negative sound to it, has such a negative connotation because people look at that and think, oh, that means the hammer's gonna come down or something negative or something bad is about to happen. And that and it shouldn't have anything at all to do with that.

SPEAKER_01

Right. It um accountability has a terrible stereotype to the word when you hear it. And um just because you listen to this podcast and and then you have one meeting or send out an email or something, it doesn't make mean it's gonna change. Right. Stuff like this takes work to shift the culture of what accountability means today to what you want it to mean in the future. So, and we're just gonna talk about how you uh how you can bridge that and um and and capitalize on the on all the mistakes that we have made in the in the past.

SPEAKER_02

100%.

SPEAKER_01

So um let me let me start with um what what we feel like the definition of accountability is and and really what it means is you're holding someone accountable. Um to hold someone accountable is to form, uh communicate, and align as well as inspect expectations. Now you're and you're doing this in a positive and principal way. What it is not, it is not waiting for an outcome. And then you go and you punish someone or hold them accountable after the outcome has already happened.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well that that's so good right there when you said that, you know, because everybody just thinks it's like you said, it's waiting for the outcome to happen. And then if it's good, then you're gonna praise them. If it's bad, then you're gonna hold them accountable. No, accountability starts at the very beginning. It's it's the whole process, it's the whole training aspect of it. And then, you know, it's just yeah, it's that's why the that's why the word is so can be have such a negative impact on people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. Even just hearing the word, it creates a negative energy or a negative emotion. That's right. So let me let me talk. Well, I'm gonna give a really quick example just to kind of crystallize um what what this means, you know, how it applies, you know, in in a business setting. Um the easiest way for me to do that is usually operations and sales. That's just because that's where I've always I've always been. So um, you know, and and and we're we're really in in a we've got our organizations are primarily sales organizations. So in a sales organization, for example, this is what that type of accountability could look like in the negative sense. The the week ends and you see a salesperson's performance is below the expectation that you had for that person or that you have set for that department or whatever. Then you have a meeting about that performance, and and you talk about you know, you've got the write up in hand and you're documenting the performance for the week, and then you tell them that it's unacceptable and that next week needs to be better, and then you spin the paper around, and then you ask them to sign it, and then your parting gift to them is is there anything I can do to help you? That is the negative punishment form of accountability, but that's probably what accountability looks like in 95% of the companies around the country. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I'd say 99% of the companies around the country, it probably looks like that, right?

SPEAKER_01

And we're not perfect here. Like we're not, you know, we we have that here. This is a this is a work in progress for for us as well. Now, now let me talk about what a preventative accountability looks like uh before we kind of get into the flywheel and all and all that, in that same scenario. It starts with clear expectations, fair standards, and aligning on what good behaviors look like and good activities look like in advance. So, what that what that looks like is hey, let's talk about what you're gonna do this week. Here's the quotes that are coming in that we can expect. You know, here's the calls that you should be able to make. Here's the contact rate you should have. Let's talk about the closes that you're gonna use and overcoming obstacles and or or overcoming objections, you know, with the customer to move to the sale. But you're what you're establishing is you're establishing what are the specific behaviors and activities that are gonna drive the performance that you want. And you're aligning with your salesperson or your sales team on what those things are, and everyone's agreeing like this is what we're gonna do to achieve the results. Then as the day goes on, you're not monitoring performance. You are monitoring the expectations for behaviors and activities that you set earlier in the week or earlier in the day. So that when you notice a salesperson who's up from their desk or not making the calls that they should, or you're monitoring calls, because you know, we have a calling software where we can monitor calls, um, you're monitoring calls and you're not hearing a salesperson overcome objections as well as they should, or you're not hearing them ask for the sale multiple times as as they should. Then at that point, right then and there, you don't wait for the performance report to come out the next week. You you pull them to the side and you say, Hey, I was listening in and this is what I noticed. And I think if if you address these couple of things, it's gonna help you have a much better week. What do you think about that? You know, kind of thing. That is preventative accountability without emotion, without frustration, without that punishment feel, because the goal is to prevent a bad outcome at the end of the week or the end of the month.

SPEAKER_02

That's such that that's so good because that it's the clarity that they get with it. What it reminded me of when you were started talking about that is uh yeah, uh I've I've grown up in the in the uh uh manufacturing side and it and I think about it and I look at it, I think, okay, you have a maintenance program uh for equipment. You know, when you when you start putting equipment in, this equipment is supposed to do this amount of of doors or whatever, because we're in the door business and we're supposed to focus on that and it and it's gonna do that. Well, if you have the machine and you put the throughput and it's going through and everything's coming through the way you expect it to, it's fantastic. But if you don't have a good maintenance program, you don't have a good preventive maintenance program, then the machine may break down or something may happen. It's just you're preventing things from happening from falling apart, right? That's the whole per purpose of like the sales team or whatever it is. You're preventing future disaster or future issues because you're you're taking care of it up front. It's being proactive instead of reactive, right? And that's the whole thing on the whole part of it is not just waiting for a bad outcome. You're you're laying clear expectations of what needs to happen. Here's how we need to do it. And it's and it's all about it's uh it's clarity. It's all about clarity with the with the person.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And um, I was gonna say this for later. Um, but well, two things. First, I love what you just said that accountability like what I heard you say is accountability is preventative maintenance.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01

You don't wait for the machine to break down before you go and fix it. It the countless machines that we have out out here now, we've got extensive daily, weekly, monthly preventative maintenance schedules that that we're doing. We spend time, the machine goes down, we take an hour and grease and lube and clean and everything.

SPEAKER_02

Uh but you do that during the process while it's running, because if you don't, then all of a sudden something worse could happen. You know, there's gonna be breakdowns here and there because you can't prevent some of that. But if you take care of it and do it on a schedule, then it works well. Same way in the sales department or wherever it is, you you take care of it up front, you know what your program looks like and it works.

SPEAKER_01

Man, Opus, you need to clip that. Accountability is preventative maintenance in in in your business. Um, yes. So um, okay. This is before we transition to the next uh thing, we're gonna go through some of the steps of the of the flywheel and uh so get your get your pen out or get your pause button ready so you can you can write this stuff down, you know, uh kind of thing. But I want you to think about this is gonna be rhetorical, but it's more about awareness. Where are you at in your business right now? Are are you in reactive accountability mode, which is the performance has happened, it's late, it's emotional, it's outcome-based, and it feels personal. I'm not saying it is personal, it feels personal. Okay. Is that where you're at? Or are you in preventative accountability, which is it's early, it's calm, it's process focused, not outcome focused, and it doesn't feel personal, it feels supportive. Like you're intervening in the situation because you want to help the team member be successful before they have the opportunity to even fail. So it changes the feeling of that conversation. All right. Let's get into the uh accountability flywheel. There's really only a few steps here. Don't overcomplicate this. Now we have talked about some of these things when we talked about the uh the book last episode or a couple episodes ago. Uh, how did that happen? Um, one of the greatest books on accountability I've I've ever read. Another great book uh that Cheryl mentioned, uh The Oz, the Oz Principle, um, yesterday when we were having uh fall 2.0. So there's no short shortage of information on accountability, great information. And what I can tell you is everything that you will read about accountability is gonna talk about the steps I'm talking, I'm I'm gonna go through here. None of it, I don't even know how accountability got so far off track. No one teaches accountability to be performance-based, outcome-based, reactive. How like it almost makes you think, how did we get here? How did we get to where accountability, when we hear that word, it's you either need to you need to write them up or fire them for something that they did that, you know, the performance was bad.

SPEAKER_02

I think across the whole system of of business that just accountability has just had a a negative, you know, it's a negative word, right? And and people just look at it that way, but nobody ever takes the time to dive in. I mean, not I won't say nobody, but I mean most people don't take the time to dive in and to see what accountability truly, truly is. And and and that's not, you know, coming down and and giving the pressure and and giving someone a hard time because they they failed or they did something wrong. Accountability starts way before, like we said earlier. It starts with, hey, setting the right process, setting the right expectations, clarity, making sure that everybody knows what their job is, and then it's it's performance-based at that point. When you know what you're supposed to do and it doesn't happen, then there's some accountability with that. And hey, you know, hey, you have to do this, this person has to do this, and this person has to do this. If we're all on the same team, then we work together, but you can't have somebody having to cover for somebody else all the time. And so, you know, it's a it's like in the in football or whatever. If you got your lineman and you have that uh offensive line and they got to protect the quarterback, if if three out of the four are doing their job up front, but the fourth one's not, that quarterback still gets sacked. You know, right? And if he's not protecting, so these the other three guys, as long as they do their job, then that's great. But you have to have all four of them that can do it. They all have to per you know perform at a high level and they have to know what their job is. And and as long as they can do that and take care of the quarterback, then then they they can do a lot of different things. They can make things happen, right?

SPEAKER_01

So I'm gonna skip the first one. I'm gonna come back to it because it the uh the second one is exactly what you're talking about, and it just leads it leads right into it, and that is I'm gonna say the first thing you need to talk about, but this is number two on my list. But the first thing I want to mention building the culture flywheel is fair standards build trust. And that's exactly what Wayne is talking about. But you got four offensive linemen and three are doing their job, they're practicing hard, they're showing up on time and all that. And then you got the a fourth lineman. Well, he maybe he's a five-star recruit. He's the biggest one on the team, he, but he's not showing up to practice on time. He's not doing his drills the way, the way he should be. And the coaches, they really don't want to address it because he's the big bad five-star recruit or something like that. That destroys trust inside of a team when you fail to have fair standards across your organization or at least across the same job responsibilities. It has to be fair for everyone, regardless of performance or what whatever.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they've got to they all have to perform at a high level. Doesn't matter how you come in and how you're perceived, you know, because like in that example, that that guy comes in and says a five star, these other guys may be three stars and four stars. Doesn't matter what the stars are when you get on the team. At that point, everybody has to do the work and get there. And you may have been praised and may have been this the high level type of person. But when you come into a new organization, you know, it's I won't say it starts over, but at that point, you still got to get in and prove yourself. It doesn't mean that everybody's gonna fall down because, oh, this guy's coming in and watch out for him, you know, and all they got to do is stand there and he and he and he just protects. Well, that that's not how it works. You have to do it, you have to work, and then you have to earn the trust of the people that are beside you as well. If you don't earn that trust and and earn that uh with your teammates, then stars mean nothing, but that position doesn't mean nearly as much. You know, you got to have the right people in the right seats.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. A hundred percent. Um so number two, which was the f the the the the first one, but but number two uh here is clear expectations reduce anxiety. Wow, yeah. There there is something so powerful when a any team member knows day to day, not just what the performance is supposed to look like at the end of the month or the end of the quarter, the end of the week, but what am I responsible for doing when I show up to work today, throughout the day, and having those ultra clear expectations? And let me just throw in like a little like side sidebar here about that. It can't be 20 different things. Those clear expectations should be no more than three to five things.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

What are the things, the three to five things that any team member needs to be doing on a day-to-day basis that will help them be successful in their role? And setting those very clear expectations reduces the anxiety across the team.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

I I loved it, but what because Opus is gonna be on fire for this one.

SPEAKER_02

When you just said that, I'm I'm just sitting here thinking, how many times, you know, in the past I've I've done this, we probably have all done this, where we have set too many expectations, right? You said, okay, hey, here's the the 10 things that we've got to get done. Nobody's gonna remember the 10 things.

SPEAKER_01

Rocks.

SPEAKER_02

Rocks, my gosh, dude. When we talked about that in the early days, when we'd set rocks, we'd set 10 rocks. And knowing that our uh leader would always uh, you know, we had a uh uh somebody coming out from the outside that uh integrator that would come in and help us uh with uh uh EOS is what we went through. And he'd always say, Hey, you you got you have way too many. Oh no, we can get this done. And you know what? Our team, actually, our team actually did better than we did because as a leadership group, you know, you're supposed to have 80% completion, and we'd be 60%, 55%, 63, and and and you and you get defeated at that point because we set too many. And when we started realizing, hey, let's set really good, clear expectations, but good solid rocks, achievable, achievable rocks, then you can hit 100%. And it's okay to, you know, and and maybe 100% sometimes you look at it and say, Well, we could have done more. Maybe we could have, but guess what? We we achieved what we needed to. We we were good at these three or four and knocked them out, and uh then being bad at 10 because now those three or four didn't get the time and effort that they needed in them. So having smaller, uh achievable items, you know, can do so much more.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And uh for anyone listening who's who's who's running a business or ha or has people working for you that are that are really complex jobs, if if there are, if there's more than five, I'll just so let's say six or more. If there are six or more things that that person has to do well every single day to be successful, you're gonna have to scale that back. Right. It really can't be more than three to five things that a person has to do in that in that job really, really well to be successful. Otherwise, what you'll find is they're about 50% good in 10 different things. And and that is a recipe for disaster. So you've got to find a way to simplify when when you are um setting clear expectations, you have to find a way to simplify those things for your for your team members so that they they can be successful and they can go after those three to five things and do them at 100% perfection every single day.

SPEAKER_02

And when you lay that out though, and you and you do it, I mean, because it's gonna take some thought process and it takes the team to maybe even have your team build, help you build those three to four uh steps. Number one, that's gonna create buy in from the team, and they're gonna realize okay, this is this is really what it is. But you everybody can tell. those ten items or those seven or eight or even six and and squeeze it down. Hey, what are those things that really, really what are the top let's just say, you know, hey, maybe six items are are what we got to do. What are your top three? What are the top put them in order and figure out, okay, these are the top three things. If we do these well, that will cover 80%. Okay. Well then let's do those three things really, really well. And once we become masters of them and and know them so well, then yeah, add another one or two. And over time then you'll get to that that point that you want to, but really focus on the top three.

SPEAKER_01

That this goes back to something that we we've talked about a lot, the Pareto rule, right? And that is basically 20% of your effort is going to generate 80% of your results.

SPEAKER_02

Amen to that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So you don't document a hundred percent of the things that someone should do on a day-to-day basis or you don't enforce accountability on a hundred percent of the things that someone should do on a day-to-day basis. It's what are the most important things that generate the very best outcomes and focus on those processes and those behaviors. And that's where you want to focus your your clarity, your expectation, your alignment, your training, your follow-up on those handful of things. Yeah. The other stuff isn't isn't a real business driver anyway. So you don't need to get overly worried about it.

SPEAKER_02

Hey and the other stuff can sometimes just be noise, outside noise that you don't want to get rid of. I mean, and and that or you want to get rid of, I'm sorry, but it's just it it it creates more of a conflict. It creates more of a distraction for the team. And uh those are the things that you have to so you have number one, you have to be accountable to yourself, right? To make sure that you put the right things and the right accountability or the right processes in place and say, hey, here's what we're going to do. Everybody has the clear expectations and and and then you can really own it. You can do it but you had to be accountability you have to have accountability to yourself before you have accountability to your team.

SPEAKER_01

Man, when you said that about noise it just reminded me of a conversation I was having with Jim last week one one day and um what he was talking about is he was talking about the diff like signals versus noise.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

A signal is something you need to pay attention to. Hey something's something's up I need to go apply some time or go look at this noise can look, sound and feel like a signal, but really it's just something that you need to push out of the way. Yeah. You don't need to be distracted by, you don't need to let it you know kind of turn you left, left and right sort of thing. And being able to identify the difference between what's a signal and what's noise is really that's a whole podcast right there.

SPEAKER_02

So I probably tough as well you know that that's a that's tough yeah it's hard because you have so many things coming at you um and doing it. And especially like for Jim right now, him coming in, you know, he's got to really pay attention and listen because there can be a lot of noise coming his way.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know and um that's that almost leads us to like the next episode we're gonna talk about is when you know uh the next episode is going to be awesome by the way when we when we talk about the weight of of leadership because that then it gets really hard to to decipher between the signal and noise when everything's kind of crushing down on you. Um all right the uh the the next here on the culture flywheel so this is number three if you're keeping track at home number three is uh visible progress energizes the teams now now let me give you a really easy example of that what I am not talking about is when you send out the weekly performance report okay I am not talking about performance necessarily what I'm talking about is demonstrating that people are doing the right behaviors, the right activities. When you demonstrate that progress, that energizes your team one thing that I I used to do is I would send out every in in a in my previous role, I would send out every single day at about 10 o'clock the morning call activity report every single store. I didn't send out revenue I didn't send out charge offs I didn't send out you know um how many accounts got cleared or anything like that. What I sent out was the call activity report for every single store as an opportunity to celebrate and recognize that that the stores are making the calls that they need to make to generate the contact with the accounts that they need to make so that we can generate the performance that we need to make. So when I sent out that report and then we would shout out stores with calls, you know, that had the most calls and and the right calls per hour, I was signaling celebrating behaviors and activities. And then when the stores didn't have those phone calls that they needed it was a very, very easy you know call to that store hey, you know, tell me what's going on. Well I'm shorthanded so-and-so called out okay I got it when do you think you'll be able to get to your calls and what can I do? Do we need to have somebody dial in and help you? Like it's a supportive conversation as opposed to waiting till the end of the day and then finding out none of this stuff stuff happened. And then you're saying why didn't you make any of your phone calls? Why was revenue down? All this kind of stuff. So but when you send those things out consistency, when you show your team visible progress, man, that's what energizes people because you're focusing on the things that they can control in the moment.

SPEAKER_02

That's what I call positive accountability right that that's something that you you what you just said was so good because um you know the accountability when you when you sent out and you gave the call out to the ones, hey, they they they felt it they understood it and they got excited about it, right? They were like, okay, yeah we got the call out we're you know we're excited we're going the way you demonstrated how you called out not necessarily even called out you just called the other store and said hey I saw you didn't meet this what happened? You know how can we help you? That's accountability but that's accountability in a form that you know they they they know and say hey you know we were shorthanded this happened or whatever. Okay, good let's let's let's see how we do it. But you're you're reacting to it and you're being proactive with it right off the bat. Instead of waiting to the end of the month when the end of the month report comes out and then everybody in the whole organization sees it and says well man Steve why's why is your why's your store over here not doing what it's supposed to be doing I mean you need to hold them accountable right that's that's exactly what your bosses would have said to you. Hey 100% you you got to do that and and so instead of that happening you're making that phone call the day over the next day and say hey uh this is what happened what so just how can we help? You know I want you to you know I'm willing to help you get to that point. What what what do we need to do? And so make you're making sure that all your stores were taken care of.

SPEAKER_01

Now this is really going to blow some people's minds okay but when I would do that reporting and when I would when I would shout out or celebrate stores who really separated from the pack when with with with those specific behaviors or activities or whatever there were a lot of times those stores were some of the most underperforming. So I'm celebrating stores recognizing or shouting out stores who maybe last month or last week on the performance report were at the bottom or who weren't you know per who aren't performing very well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well what do you think that does for the morale of the store and the encouraging those team members to stay after it and and and keep doing the right thing when they're being celebrated even though the performance the end result isn't yet where it it needs to be you're now you're creating some morale you know inside the building like hey we can do this like we can win you know kind of kind of thing. And now that that just gets the flywheel going uh even even faster.

SPEAKER_02

That's culture and accountability working side by side at the same time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yes um and then the the the the last thing is consistency when you're doing these things okay consistency creates pride inside the business and inside the department. You are focused on the same metrics you're focused on the same behaviors this the the the same leading indicators when I say metrics I don't mean the the the end of the month type stuff you're focused on the daily leading indicators the behaviors the activities you're creating pride in what people do every single day because it's not changing. And when you continue to do that consistency consist consistently that pride flywheel starts to spin even faster too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah uh you you ever heard of that saying where people say hey uh if you wash the pennies the dollars will take care of themselves yes you say that a lot of people but that that's what this whole thing is is you start watching those things and it's those small things that you're gonna watch every single day that create the large things that's gonna happen, right? So if you take care of these small things right here, here's your accountability, here's the three things that I need you to really take care of, if you do that well, then then everything else falls in place. It should absolutely for the most part.

SPEAKER_01

Yes 80% of the time it will exactly that that's absolutely right. And the very last thing here is uh this is not necessarily a step but it it's it's what what we have said multiple times that I want to reinforce and that is when you're doing these things, when when when accountability becomes preventative like what we're talking about, morale is the exhaust of the flywheel. Remember, morale is not the thing that you go in and you try and influence what you're influencing is the accountability and the culture environment and morale is just the output of that system or those systems working together whether it's good or or whether it's bad. So this is the outcome it's morale that you're that you're striving for.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah and that's super important for anybody as they're looking through the whole thing is you know you're you're looking for that morale, looking for high output with the team and you're you know and you're you're you're celebrating the wins and then you're not really crushing the losses. You're just talking about it. Now if it comes at the end of the month and you have to make those decisions to talk about it, that at least they they they've already been talked to several times throughout the month or however it is and they already know what to expect. They already know what the accountability is going to be if you do it right.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely and uh I feel Quentin about to signal me here. So um I don't I don't think um we I'm I don't think we get we're gonna get into the two the um the two by two um culture um box but there's a couple of questions I want to I want to kind of leave folks with and then um you know we'll kind of move move to close this out because I think we talked about a lot and I don't want to overwhelm but here here's some questions I want you to think about. If you're if you're listening, okay what leading indicators are are you using to kind of monitor the immediate health of your business that are not lagging indicators. Okay. I'm gonna go back to calls for example a leading indicator of sales or or uh collection success is how many calls are being made per hour and what the contact rate is. That is a leading indicator it's not a lagging indicator. Lagging indicator is what was the sales volume for that week or what was the revenue collected for that week. So what are the leading indicators that you are looking at in your in your business? Second thing I I want to ask you is what are the standards every day that your team commits to before outcomes exist or outcome goals are established? That goes back to what are the three to five things that I'm doing every single day to you know to make to be quote unquote successful in my job? What are the standards that you and your team are committed to every day before outcomes ever happen. And then the the the last question I want to ask you is what are the inputs that you as a leader are inspecting every single day that are not just outputs. What are the inputs another word other words for that is what are the behaviors and activities that you inspect every single day to manage the accountability, the preventative accountability inside your business answer those three questions or maybe even talk talk those three questions, you know, uh with with your team and gain alignment that is a really really fast way to start alignment and clarity around accountability.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Big thing there is you know as we as we close out I guess one of the final things I'll I'll say is accountability and uh morale are our our um our morale accountability morale they don't have to one doesn't have to drop for the other one to go up or vice versa. You know they can go both go at the same time. You can keep your culture and your accountability going um in a parallel at the same time. I I looked on the back over here and I said your team does not want lower standards. You know that's that's the last thing that we want to do is lower our standards to get better morale or culture or lower your uh accountability to get get better that because that it it just doesn't work that way. Then all of a sudden your standards keep getting lower. When is the bottom? When are you going to hit the bottom right? You both have to grow at the same time. They want clear standards fair standards and support to reach them right is you were given support throughout the month making sure that everybody reached their standards that they needed and the morale is what happens when accountability is done right.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely yeah and and and and just to be clear when when we're talking about standards we're not talking about performance standards. Yeah right what we're talking about is what is what's the standard expectation for what I'm doing today to be successful in my job. What are those three to five things those leading indicators the things that a leader should be in inspecting training on coaching on and looking at the inputs what are those standards not hey our standard is you know a hundred percent revenue collected at the end of the month our standard is X amount of dollars in sales what's the standard activity and behaviors that you expect every single day and that's where you've got to get violent agreement with your team on and you don't talk about it just one time.

SPEAKER_02

Here's a test to go out and ask your team and and ask them individually hey what are the what are the what are our three standard items that we want to look at? What are the three things or the five things, whatever the however many that you have don't make them too many, but what are those? If they can't answer that for you, then you still haven't set the expectations clear. So you got to make sure everybody understands it but you got to keep repeating it rinse and repeat.

SPEAKER_01

So it's funny you said that not to drag this out but when whenever I would uh tour regions I would ask general managers the same most of a lot of the times when I would tour regions I'd ask these this question of general managers tell me the three things that make you successful as a general manager in this store. And then what I would look for is I would look for how different the answers are of all the general managers inside that that region. So if you got eight general managers and they all eight answer that same question differently, what that tells me is the regional manager has never aligned what clear expectations are for what day-to-day success in that role looks like. So now I'm not talking to the general manager about about this stuff. Now I'm going to my force multiplier my RM and that's that's who I'm talking to because I'm checking these these inputs to see what's happening. So at the end of the day your team can handle high standards. Okay. That is not the problem. What they cannot handle is unpredictable standards. That's the battle that you've got to fight you know right right away. Okay. All right well if you made it that far thank you. Hopefully you enjoy these last few episodes I'm excited for the next episode when we talk about really the weight and the heaviness um of of leadership. Like Wayne and I were talking uh we came in this morning we said so you want to be a leader. Exactly. So you want to be a leader. Okay. Buckle up. It's not as easy as you think. No, but uh hey thank you for joining us thank you for watching we we appreciate you or or listening. Please uh make sure that you engage with us on social media if if you if you like the episode like share subscribe all the things and we would love to hear from you on on any of our like various platforms wherever you engage we would love to engage with you and uh can't wait to talk to you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_02

See ya see ya thanks