Training Your Team Should Be Simple - 3 Steps | Ep 263
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- What's up guys, welcome back to Build. And today I wanna talk about training your team. This is something that has been ruminating in my mind for the last few days because it was the end of Q1 and the beginning of Q2. I don't know when you're listening to this, probably sometime around then. And what I do at the end of each quarter is I collect a ton of feedback from my teams on what they think is going well, where they think we could improve as a company,

What they see as things that I could do better as the CEO. And so I kind of just drink it all in and I reflect on a lot of it. And the reason I do that is because like I take it seriously. I'm asking everyone to like really put a lot of thought into these things. And I find it to be that I get like the best information from people who are often the farthest away from me.

which I find incredibly impressive and insightful. Like almost every quarter I document who did I get the best information from? And it's always somebody who is at the complete front lines, their layers removed from me, and they just have something really insightful to say. And so that is not the point of this podcast, but I just think if you're a business owner, it is so important that you gather feedback from people that you don't talk to every day. It is so helpful. And reward and recognize them for giving you that

because if you just get it and you don't say anything to them, then they're like, did you even like it? What do you think of it? I don't know, I was a little spicy. So I always acknowledge that people have given it to me. Now, one of the things that I got a lot of feedback about from my team was essentially they want more training, right? Specifically, they wanted more training around

around recruiting, around hiring, around training their teams, around running their teams. So a lot of like leadership and management training. And it's funny because when I used to have a team come to me and say like, oh, we want more training. I was like, okay, let me throw together a deck and let me do this. I'm going to hold a meeting where I'm going to bring you guys all in. I'm going to teach you exactly what I do.

And then it's like funny because now I sit back and I'm like, dude, you can find that online. Like, like you can all get quote trained by me on those things from YouTube or from my podcast or from my Instagram, right? It really brings about this thought, which is like, what is training? And I think that a lot of companies waste a lot of time on what they believe is training. And it's really just incomplete. It doesn't actually mimic how humans learn.

And once I realized how people actually learn and retain information, I actually have saved so much more of my time and I think I'm a way more effective teacher than I used to be. And so it really just falls back to one basic premise, okay? Training is feedback and feedback is training.

Right? So people think that we get better by reading more, by watching more, or like sitting through a really good presentation that took somebody probably six hours to put together. But that is actually not how we acquire skills. And I would argue that you should think about that too, because you're probably thinking, gosh, you know what? I do consume a lot of things, but do you, every time you listen to a podcast or every time you listen to a presentation, do you walk away having completely assimilated it, learned and changed your behavior? The answer is no. Right? Right.

We don't learn by absorbing information. We learn by doing and then getting feedback on the thing we did. That is actually how humans grow. You can also think about it in a sports setting, right? So think about like how athletes train, okay? They don't like sit in a locker room and study a PDF, okay? They get on the field, they run the play, they mess it up. And then somebody, a coach, gives them direct immediate feedback.

So then they take that feedback and they do it again with the feedback incorporated. And then they see what the result is. And that is how they learn, right? And so it's the same for business. It's just a different kind of field. And there's a guy, gosh, Anders Ericsson, okay? And he talks about deliberate practice, which is what separates top performers from average ones. Okay, so he did a whole study on this.

And he found that what separates the top of the top from average, it is not talent and it is not hours logged. So it's not how much you practice, it's also not natural talent. It is purposeful practice paired with consistent feedback. That is what leads to complete mastery. Okay? So without feedback, what people do is they just continue to repeat bad habits.

Right. Where with feedback, they get to refine and evolve and they get to master the thing that they're working on. And so when someone says to you, I don't have time to train my team, what they're actually saying is I don't have time to give feedback to my team. And what that means is that you don't have time to evolve and to grow your team. And that, my friend, is a dangerous mindset to have.

right? Because we don't get better later. We get better now in the moment through correction and through clarity. And I say this all the time and I've talked about my content, but latency beats intensity every time. And so if you're listening to this and you're one of those who's

stays in your head, you want everything to be perfect, you're super self-conscious, you overanalyze and overthink things, you are probably falling prey to this, which is a lot of people might hear from somebody, oh gosh, I want more training, right? And then you're like, oh my God, I have to put together a 12-month learning plan, and then I have to make sure that I have all these milestones. No, like you could actually just identify with that person. This is what I would do. Okay, what's the one thing that if they did better would unlock their potential growth?

Okay, let's say it's giving direct feedback. All right, so I'm going to identify that this person needs to improve in giving direct feedback. Great, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to explain to them how to give direct feedback. I'm going to give them a script. I'm going to say it to them. So I'm going to demonstrate what it looks like. I'm going to give them direct feedback about how they need to give direct feedback, right? And then I'm going to say, great, now I want you to go give direct feedback to this person and I will be there with you.

I will have them do it, I will be there with them, and then I will give them the one thing that they need to change for the next time. And that is how you develop people.

It's not by giving them this overwhelming, intense 12-month plan. It's by identifying what is the one single point of leverage to get this person to go to the next level. And then not even a single point of leverage, but the most tactical thing that you can do next, right? So it might be like for a salesperson, you listen to their sales call and you're not going to tell them three things that they need to do differently. You're going to identify one thing that they can do differently for the next call that they're taking in 15 minutes, right?

That is training. You don't need some 90 minute training module to develop your team. You need a few seconds or a few minutes of honest, useful and tactical feedback done consistently. The funny thing is like it's so simple. It doesn't ever have to feel it doesn't have to feel demeaning. It doesn't have to feel heavy. It doesn't have to feel like an extra responsibility, right? It can just be said very casually like, hey, next time you do that, try this instead.

Hey, this worked really well for you. You should do more of that. Hey, here's where I think this broke and what you could do next time to do it even better. That's it. Feedback and training do not have to be complicated. It just has to be clear and kind.

clear and kind, and done in real time. Oh, that rhymes. Clear, kind, done in real time. Because that's the thing is like a lot of people think that training happens when you're sitting in a classroom or you're sitting watching a video or you're talking to a person after a meeting or whatever it is. But like real training happens on the job, right? It's not in a PowerPoint deck. It's not like some Slack threads. It's in the hallway. It's on the call. It's after the meeting. It's during the conversation.

That's why if you look at teams that are high performing, what do they have? They always have a coach, a coach who's there with the team, right? So you think about a sales manager. A sales manager is on the floor with the reps. Why are they on the floor with the reps? So they can give them feedback in real time. They're constantly teaching them. Why is it that a basketball coach sits in every game and every practice on the side? So he can stop and he can continue to course correct in real time.

And so think about this. Are you doing that with your team? Are you able to course correct them in real time?

Now, I understand that as your business grows, that becomes more and more difficult. But you have to find opportunities where you can catch people in the act so you can give them feedback. You know, a lot of times something I do is when I'm trying to develop somebody, I will sit on a meeting not to watch the meeting. I'm like, I could give a fuck about this meeting. I don't need to be on this meeting. But I want to watch how they show up. I want to watch how they present. I want to watch how they give feedback. And then I want to in real time course correct them.

It's not because I feel I need to be on the meeting, it's because I'm there to help develop them. And so when you're the coach, you're the one, the boss, and somebody needs more training, it's not about a PowerPoint presentation. It's about being there in those moments to course correct them quickly, right? And it's really like every moment that you are around somebody who reports to you is a moment to grow that person. And if you want to have a high performance culture, then you have to create a high feedback culture, right?

So let me talk about three simple, small ways that you can implement this into your team that I have found work really well for me so that if you're like, okay, I understand this, but tactically, how do I do it? Just pick one of these. Start with that. Don't overwhelm yourself because this doesn't need to be overly complicated because here's the thing, getting in to the habit of creating a high performance culture means you have to be a high performing CEO or leader. And how do you do that?

The best leaders and CEOs spend 90% of their time teaching. What does that mean? You're not doing and owning anything yourself. You're spending all of your time teaching, consulting, guiding other people to the solutions, providing them with feedback about what they're doing. You are the ultimate teacher and you look at every opportunity as an opportunity to help get somebody else better. It's not about you getting better. It's about you multiplying the impact of everybody else on the team. You have to look for opportunities to do so.

I will find meetings to sit in on. I will walk into rooms I don't need to be in. Why? Because I want to find an opportunity to give somebody feedback. I want to see what problem are you working on? How can I give you feedback on how you're thinking through it? How's your day going? Did anything not go as planned? Okay, well, how can we talk about how you can do that next time? You're running a meeting. Let me give you one piece of feedback to make this better on the next meeting. It's constantly trying to spot people in action. So here's one thing you can do.

give one piece of feedback per interaction. Okay, so whether it's a Zoom call, a meeting, a Slack exchange, leave each interaction with one actual piece of feedback. It can be good or constructive, doesn't matter, just one. It can be, hey, I want you to do more of this thing, or hey, you could do this differently next time.

That's it. So the next time you have a Slack conversation, the next time you have a one-on-one, the next time you host a meeting, the next time you have a conversation, what's one piece of feedback? Either keep doing what you're doing because you're doing something that's working and it's great, or you can do this differently next time. It really doesn't matter. You can just do one. Now, the second thing that I do is

I ask myself this question every week, right? I say, okay, what is one thing I can do to be a better leader to this person?

I think that through each week when I'm looking at the end of week report. I'm like, okay, what does this person need? And now I don't necessarily, because I have quite a few direct reports, try to do every single person each week, but I do try to rotate it. So I think about it in cycles where it's like, okay, I'm going to focus on probably three of my direct reports every week. How can I make each of these three people better each week? What is one thing I can do to make each of them better?

Is it that they need to sit in on a meeting with me? Is it that I need to give somebody feedback? Is it that I need to demonstrate what something looks like? Is it that I need to give them the tools and the consistent feedback to succeed in a certain area? And so if you don't have a lot of people that report to you, this is fairly simple because you could do it each week with everybody. But if you do have a lot of people that report to you, then it's like, okay, maybe you cycle throughout. So it's like, okay, within the span of four to six weeks, you've identified and you've given feedback to all of your direct reports.

And then you can start over again. You can cycle again. But it's fairly easy. It's just a simple question I ask myself. What is the one thing I can do to be a better leader to this person? And it's just one thing. It doesn't need to be a million things. I think people overcomplicate this. Like development doesn't happen with some giant 12-month plan. Development happens in the micro moments, which leads me

to the last one, okay? This is the easiest one. If you are having a lot of meetings, having a lot of interactions, having a lot of one-on-ones, this is my favorite hack, is just prompt yourself with this. You can make a little sticky note that sits on your computer that asks this question, okay? Take 60 seconds after a meeting to send somebody a note of either what they did well, what worked, what didn't, or what you would do differently next time. That's it. And here's the thing is like, small moments are what actually shape culture.

And feedback is probably the most important thing that you can do to capitalize on those small moments. Because if you multiply that over every day, every person, every week, and if everybody else adopts that mindset,

That is how you create a high performance culture. It is not through quarterly or annual performance reviews. I promise you that shit is dead. That is just there to have very high level conversations to review all the things that you've already talked about. It should never come as a surprise. It should be more realigning. Do we still have the right title? Do we still have the right role? Do we need to make any large changes looking forward? But to facilitate a conversation for feedback,

Man, if you wait until a performance review, it is way too small or has been way too long.

And so you wanna focus on how you can give people feedback in the moment. If you're listening to this and you're like, wow, okay, I have like a whole new outlook now on training. Here's a small suggestion I might make for you, which is just, you really don't need a lot of time talking quote at your team to teach them something. Say your team is really bad at running meetings. What I would suggest is something like, cool, I'm gonna put together a 10 minute presentation on how to run a meeting.

Then I'm going to over the next month sit in on a meeting for each of my reports who run a meeting and give them one piece of feedback each. That's it. That's how you train people. It's not by presenting and word vomiting at people for two hours on end with some formal presentation that took you days to put together. It's by giving them a quick piece of feedback, quick insight, asking them to do something and then telling them what they could do differently next time.