Why your team's bad behaviours aren't changing

Ahoyt, welcome to today's episode of the team buffalo Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about change, and not the spare change in your pocket to change. I'm not apologizing, I don't care. We're talking about change as in change within your team. And the question for today is why aren't my team's behaviors changing? Your Why aren't things getting better what's happening, where you're putting in all this effort, or you think you're putting in all this effort, and you're not getting the outcome that you're after. So I'm going to talk you through some of the things you might be struggling with, why that might be happening. And then some of the tactics you can deploy to get back on top of that. So as always, the focus of these episodes is actionable insights. And that's what we're after today, with a bit of humor, of course. So what are some of the issues you might be facing? You know, there's such a spectrum of things that can be impacting you and your team and represent the poor behaviors that you're seeing across the organization. We're not going to go through an exhaustive list today. But what I do think is important to start to unpick is, what are the things that are driving you a bit bonkers, the behaviors where you go, man, I'm just, I feel like every week I'm having to have this conversation, or this continues to be a problem. So a good example of this one that I see quite often is two team members not getting along with each other. And so instead of them talking to each other, and instead of possibly you getting them set up for the right success, you have to act as the referee in between them, and you have to go, oh, you know, Sally has come to see me today on this job, come to see me on that, I guess I'm gonna have to go talk to them, or you just play therapist, but you're not really getting them towards a change in behavior, you're just making them feel better about their dysfunction with each other. And I think that's an important distinction to make is, you know, if you're, as a leader defaulting to making people feel okay, or just a bit better emotionally, because of what's happened, rather than treating the symptom, or empowering your team to go treat that symptom, that's not as effective, because you're always going to be stuck in that role. It's not effective at all. So that's one you might be seeing conflict that's going on manage to is you miss deadlines, and people not living up to the expectations that you've set. Three could possibly just be habits, you know, you want people to do certain follow up activities, you want them to manage certain behaviors or certain customers a specific way, there could be a number of things, you'll know, for example, if you were running a team, in a technical role, like a team of engineers, you might be wanting to see a specific habit where they document the process, and it goes into the central database or central file share area. And that then allows others in the team to access it and use the same approach. Why would you care about that, it creates uniform and consistent outcomes across their practice. And it also helps other people gain knowledge where maybe they don't have that knowledge without having to burn hours on it. So it's a really great opportunity to share knowledge across the team. But you might be battling with this, and that the engineers who are not doing it are actually really good engineers, but they're not filling in the forms that are entering the data. And so you're losing the opportunity to take your team from good, and having some really good players to consistently great by having standards across the whole team. That's really important. If you stop and think about that your Yeah, actually, that's tricky. Because they are good at what they do. So their core role, they're quite good at that. But I have an expectation that they're not meeting. So how do I get them to change? And why would I mentioned it to them last time has that behavior not changed? What has happened? So those are the examples. Now, what might you be doing that's causing that to happen? And you're like, Oh, hold on, Travis, like, how am I taking the blame for this? Well, it's not always going to be you, of course, but there are a few areas where you have to take responsibility for how you drive that. And then we'll talk about this kind of process skill will dimension in a moment, which will give you a better way to understand Well, where's this breaking down? And where is it my responsibility versus their responsibility? So what are some of the habits some of the things I see as classic ones where I'm coaching someone and they say, Hey, my people are not changing. They keep doing X, and I got a call, talk to me about what you've done with A, B and C, and they Oh, I haven't done that. Or I did that once or you know, whatever. So the first is not being explicit. You know, when that engineering example we just spoke about, have you been explicit in saying the expectation I have of this team, that you all have agreed to is that you will finish a project you will document the project, and you will upload that project, file and debrief into the shared center knowledge base or whatever use. That's being explicit. Not being explicit. What I sometimes see is the opposite of that as later saying, hey, just a reminder, everyone put this in the database. Well, when how who what does that look like? What's the standard? It feels like you on? You might say, I've told them. But yes, have you really been explicit in what you're asking for and what good looks like, if you haven't done that, then of course, it's not going to get to the standard you're after. So not being explicit. It's the first one and articulate in that description. And what you expect is incredibly important. Then next is saying it too few times. You know, this is an interesting one, I've sometimes found that leaders are really busy. We're all busy, right? I know what it's like, I'm a leader. And I've dealt with all these challenges myself, but you might be really busy. And you mentioned it once ago, hey, everyone needs to make sure they put this in the database, then you come back a couple of weeks later, no one's done it. And you're frustrated you what the f#ck guys like we had a conversation about this. I don't understand why this happened. So you get a bit grumpy about it. Then when you see the team next time you How can we not have these are in the database. And people go, Oh, I didn't know we were supposed to do that. And you're frustrated even more? Because you go Hold on. I told you to do this. What the h3ll do you mean, you didn't know? Well, you knew, but the problem wasn't whether they knew or didn't know. And it probably was some of them genuinely didn't know. But the problem is you didn't say enough. So when you say something, I think about relationships you have, there might be a time where you know, your partner or spouse at home has said something to you. And you've kind of have heard it, but then you've been interrupted, or you got a phone call, or you just your brain switched gears. And then the next week, they're like, Oh, hey, did you do that thing? We talked about it? Oh, sorry, I forgot. And then they get grumpy with you. It's kind of that similar thing. It's, well, if I haven't said it enough times, people don't understand that one. That's important. And two, there's a lot of noise in the workplace. So our job as leaders is to help people understand where they should focus their time and energy. They're smart people. But sometimes distractions get in the way, and we have to continue to reinforce that, hey, this is where I really want you to spend your time, I'm going to keep reminding you until we get there. Third is lack of clarity. So this ties in with being explicit, but articulating really what you're after. So you need to be explicit, you need to say it multiple times. But you need to be really clear on what you're asking for what does good look like. So often, literally, the number of times I've asked this question and coaching where someone's well, they're just not doing a good job. I said, explain to me what a good job looks like, well, they would have done this and work. But tell me like, show me what is that standard? I will we don't have that documented anywhere? Okay, do you have an example of what a good one looks like? No. Okay, well, look, I'm sure there is a better version than what they've done. But if you can't help me see what's possible, and what good looks like, how am I going to get there? How am I going to own that? How do I know if good is good enough? You know, your version of good might be someone else's version of poor. And their version of poor might be your amazing, like, it's, it's all these different variations that are quite subjective. So we have to remove that subjectivity and make it objectively clear that this is what good looks like when I say I wanted to this standard. I've been explicit. I've said this many times. But this is the standard Look, here's a template for the engineers have a good project debrief. Amazing. Because now I've been explicit in what I wanted. I've said it multiple times, so no one can get out of it. I've probably said it, and email and reports and whatever else meetings, and I've been really clear what good looks like. Well, there's no excuse now. And we'll get to the rest of that in a second. So when you've done all of that, there's a kind of checks and balances is that really, the term I would use is that there's a process you can work through. And it's really quite simple, but it doesn't work. And it has three core components. Its process skill, and will. I've used this for God, back when I was in corporate in the US, even back then. So I'd say coming up on 20 years, this has been a process and frame that I've used. It seems really simple, but it really quickly allows you to identify where there's an opportunity to understand the breakdown. So if I said to those team of engineers as an example, that I want you to do this, you have been explicit, here's this, you put the document in there. I've said it multiple times, and then had been really articulate and what good looks like I've done the first part right And then now I can work through process skill. And we'll to understand what happened when they don't do it. So let's say everyone's doing it well on the team. But Tony, random name not associated with anyone but Tony is not doing it to the standard, right. So you, you sit down with Tony, you go, Hey, Tony, I've seen you've been putting the forms in, but they're not quite at the level I was hoping for. Can you? Can you tell me what's going on? Talk me through how you created this. And this is where process scale them. Okay, that gets really useful. So Tony, Mike attorney go, Well, I just followed the instructions here. And it turns out Tony's using an old set of instructions. But the process didn't wasn't updated to reflect that. Well, that's a process problem, right? So we have to go Hold on, I can't be grumpy with Tony, even though everyone else got it right. He followed the process, and he still got the wrong outcome. That means the process is defective and needs to be improved. So Tony, I'm really sorry, actually, those instructions are wrong. I'm going to update the work instructions, put them in the process now. So you have the current set. And then you should be good to go. Do you have any questions? Nope. Fine. See you later. The next possible conversation, as Tony comes in, he sits down you have that same conversation. And Tony goes, Well, I tried. But this is as good as I could get it. And possibly the issues. In that example, we could say that Tony's writing was not up to a good standard, he wrote really poorly, his grammar was off. It just wasn't good. And so we might say, well, Tony, showed me some of your other work, or let's have a look at some other pieces and see how you've gone. And consistently Tony is poor at writing reports, we would argue there that again, trying to push him to a really high standard, when he doesn't have the ability to write effectively, is not good, it would frustrate you and frustrate him and he would have a path out of that. So there we're talking about a skill problem. The process is correct. Tony wants to get it right. But he doesn't have the skills to get it done. And that's where we start looking at training or micro courses, or some coaching or mentoring from other people where they can lift his skills, so he can write better reports. So that skill would get him upskilled. We send him on his way and make sure he's doing it. Now the last one is will we say to Tony, Tony, you know, this is going on? Take me through the process you followed. Tony goes off. It's this process we're supposed to follow? Yeah. Okay, but I don't like that process. Oh, alright. And when I did it, it made the report to the standard, but I think it's a waste of my time. Okay. Well, Tony, I'm sorry to hear you say that. But actually, this is what we've set as the standard and you have to follow? Well, I just I'm not going to do that. I don't think it's a good use of my time. And I'm not going to do it. So I'm just letting you know, now it's not going to happen. That conversation is a clear indication that Tony is not interested. And there's a will problem, the will is the thing where he's got everything he needs. He's got the skills, he's got the process, but he's decided I don't want to do the thing you're telling me to do and I'm not going to do it. As a leader. That becomes a harder conversation, of course. And then if you look at yesterday's episode on difficult conversations, that's where you would have to dig in and use that framework. We're not going to go into that deep level today. But I'd say you need to prepare for a difficult conversation, and they need to prepare for a series of difficult conversations. Because in my experience, having dealt with dozens of difficult people throughout several years, Tony is not going to change in one conversation. And potentially it will require performance management, and then you get to performance management, and Tony does change or he doesn't change, but you're in for a journey. So it's like get your running shoes on and keep going. But you can't relent on that. There's no way out of that conversation because the absence of pushing Tony will mean Tony is one and now people around him will go What the h3ll? How come he doesn't have to follow the standard and we do doesn't work like that. So if you're looking at back to our central question, why your team isn't changing. We've been really clear on you need to be explicit. You need to say it enough times and you need to be articulate and what you're trying to outline we've talked about some of the examples and use that engineering one as a frame to really pull through today's episode. And then I've given you the process skill and we'll consideration just as a really basic assessment tool there are far more advanced ones but that's for a podcast episode quite easy to cover and still really really effective. And when you get to the end of that, you know that if process broke down, you've got work to do and that needs to be worked on. If skills not there, you've got some work to do but in conjunction with the person committing to improving their skills, and then with Will it is buckle up. Sometimes with the will I will say one kind of last comment on theirs with the will that people can change Sometimes simply by going, you know, Tony, I hear you, but I'm, I'm not changing this, I'm not backing off, I'm not going to pull back on this as a requirement, you're going to have to get on board if you want to be part of this team. And Tony might go, fine, whatever. And then does it right, he might be grumpy about it, I don't care, He'll get over it over time, or he won't get over it. But that's his issue. You want the highest standard, and he'll get there. But other people will not buckle and change. So just be aware that the will can shift sometimes by the act of bringing it out into the light. But be prepared that will is the hardest thing to change. And people because they have to want it. It's literally the will of the person. Good. That's been today's episode on why your people aren't changing on your team and what you can do to affect meaningful change and start to get progress there. So go through those areas we talked about. Look at how you got your message put together, use that framework, and then away you go. I look forward to seeing you in tomorrow's episode. As always, you can check out more content on our website at Teambuffalo.co. And if you want the newsletter to sign up for that, which dropped today really good issue already getting emails back on it. It's teambuffalo.co/newsletter And you can sign up there. Thanks for tuning in today's episode. Keep being a kicka$$ leader and I'll see you tomorrow.