Text us. Share your thoughts. Ask Questions. We would love to hear from you.
In this episode our discussion takes a hard look at the respect, or lack thereof, within teams, especially in the wake of the Great Resignation and the pandemic's unyielding challenges. By elevating the collective over the individual, we suggest that leaders can cultivate work environments that thrive on positivity and effectiveness.
The episode takes a turn towards the complexities reshaping the modern workplace. With automation on the rise and the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training - a person who is unemployed and not receiving an education or vocational training) population growing, we grapple with the persistent undercurrent of dissatisfaction among American workers. Despite more flexible benefits, the discontent is palpable. We tackle this conundrum, pondering the roots of this malaise and debating how much leaders must bend to meet their team's needs. It's a nuanced conversation that doesn't just identify problems but also seeks solutions, underscoring the importance of genuinely listening and responding to what employees are experiencing.
As we wrap up, the spotlight turns to actionable strategies for leaders eager to forge stronger bonds with their teams. Setting aside quality time for pure, undistracted interaction emerges as a transformative tactic for fostering trust and respect. We underscore the significance of these connections, advocating for the creation of a robust communication strategy and the indispensability of one-on-one meetings. By committing to these practices, leaders aren't just checking boxes—they're building a resilient, connected, and ultimately more successful workforce. Tune in to gain valuable insights on leadership that doesn't just manage but truly inspires.
Text us. Share your thoughts. Ask Questions. We would love to hear from you.
In this episode our discussion takes a hard look at the respect, or lack thereof, within teams, especially in the wake of the Great Resignation and the pandemic's unyielding challenges. By elevating the collective over the individual, we suggest that leaders can cultivate work environments that thrive on positivity and effectiveness.
The episode takes a turn towards the complexities reshaping the modern workplace. With automation on the rise and the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training - a person who is unemployed and not receiving an education or vocational training) population growing, we grapple with the persistent undercurrent of dissatisfaction among American workers. Despite more flexible benefits, the discontent is palpable. We tackle this conundrum, pondering the roots of this malaise and debating how much leaders must bend to meet their team's needs. It's a nuanced conversation that doesn't just identify problems but also seeks solutions, underscoring the importance of genuinely listening and responding to what employees are experiencing.
As we wrap up, the spotlight turns to actionable strategies for leaders eager to forge stronger bonds with their teams. Setting aside quality time for pure, undistracted interaction emerges as a transformative tactic for fostering trust and respect. We underscore the significance of these connections, advocating for the creation of a robust communication strategy and the indispensability of one-on-one meetings. By committing to these practices, leaders aren't just checking boxes—they're building a resilient, connected, and ultimately more successful workforce. Tune in to gain valuable insights on leadership that doesn't just manage but truly inspires.
We did this podcast really for the 95% of Americans that are grinding away every day doing the heavy lifting, working in the trenches and making it happen.
Announcer:Welcome to First Lead you, a podcast dedicated to building leaders, expanding their capacity, improving their self-awareness through emotional intelligence and developing deeper understanding of selfless leadership.
John Ballinger:Hello America and welcome to First Lead you where we believe selfless leadership is essential. America is suffering a leadership crisis. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence is the key to developing selfless leaders.
Announcer:Now here is personal growth coach John Ballinger.
John Ballinger:Hello America, Hello the world. This is John Ballinger, with First Lead you, and I'm here with my co-host, Mr Douglas Ford.
Douglas Ford:John, how are you doing this week? Fired up.
John Ballinger:I am fired up. I'm fired up about today's podcast on the edge of my seat.
Douglas Ford:Yes, you were a little amped up coming into the pre-production. I was.
John Ballinger:I was fired up about this. So how are you? I'm doing good, good, good. So the topic of the podcast today and we'll call our title is why First Lead you? And we're going to give the answer for the leader and the worker. Now there are two words that we really have been trying really hard to take out of the marketplace as best we can, and that's the word worker we call them team members and the word hire H-I-R-E. We like to use the word select, but for purposes of this podcast today, because of some statistics that talk about the workforce and the worker, we're going to say worker today. But it is really our hope that leaders start seeing they're the people they lead as team members and not just workers. And when you hear the definition of worker, you're going to understand that right.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I think they'll be more motivated to start using the word team on a more regular basis instead of employees or workers or some of the other terms that you used to refer to people who were on your team.
John Ballinger:Now I looked at the last three podcasts and we had words that we used were patience, calm and discipline.
Douglas Ford:Those were the words of the day.
John Ballinger:Words of the day.
Douglas Ford:For the traits that you needed to be a effective leader.
John Ballinger:Yeah, well, guess what we're going to be using today? All three of those. We're going to be using all three of these to understand the word for today, which is respect, right, and the definition is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievement.
Douglas Ford:So we have that in abundance in the United States right now.
John Ballinger:So can I read that again? Yes, please, and think about this as the leader and your teams that you're leading and the workforce today, population. But our word for the day, respect is having a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements, and so I've got this question. Maybe you can answer it for me.
Douglas Ford:All right, I'm listening.
John Ballinger:Can it be said that there is a deep admiration between the leadership and the workforce today?
Douglas Ford:No, I don't think it can be. I mean, you could certainly be said, you just said it maybe, but no, I don't think that that's realistic. In general, there's not a deep aberration. There could be certainly incidents and certain teams, but overall, no, I don't think so.
John Ballinger:But I agree. I think in general there is a great divide between leadership and the workforce in America.
Douglas Ford:Oh, absolutely.
John Ballinger:And so I want to read the definition of worker.
Douglas Ford:All right. Does that? Does that require a definition?
John Ballinger:It's a definition. We're still waiting on Webster's calls, by the way, I read this and I had to stop because this is straight out of the dictionary A person, animal or thing that works. I had stopped there because in the dictionary it'll give you this brief definition and it'll go into maybe a, B and this one said specifically under it, but I thought the one line definition a person, animal or thing that works I'm like that just doesn't sound good.
Douglas Ford:Well, it's a simple and easy definition. Right, this is a plain definition. But yeah, I mean, when you think about that certainly doesn't bring to mind some of the other words that we want to place worker, workforce with us in terms of team and team member sort of thing. So there's certainly a different feeling there.
John Ballinger:Yeah, so specifically. So under that that subcast, specifically a person who is employed to do a physical or mental job for wages, especially in order to earn a living, as in a trade industry, business office, farm, ranch, etc. That was the sub to it. So I started thinking as leaders, are we looking at the worker just and that's and that lens? I think in a lot of cases we are.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that's for a while that's been the view of the leader worker relationship.
John Ballinger:Yeah, and so what? I can I go back to the top and say why are we doing this podcast? We started this because we wanted those who are in leadership positions to be better equipped to lead those they're responsible. That's, that was the entire reason. Like, how do we empower and bold and train, teach you know, assist, help, all the things that you need for those in leadership position? Because we knew, coming out of the great resignation and covid, that leaders were going to be more challenged than they've been in my lifetime, for sure.
John Ballinger:Right, and you can even look back up to maybe the great depression, where, you know, people were jumping out of buildings, killing themselves during the Great Depression. They just couldn't handle it anymore. You know, and fast forward, they weren't jumped out of buildings, but they were commit suicide, suicide rates were up and alcoholism was up and there was a lot of bad things happening. And in America after covid, I mean isolation by itself, like. So we really started this podcast for the leader, but the primary goal was so that they would learn to lead their teams better, which would make it much better on the leader, because if your teams following you versus you're trying to beat them, it's going to make you your job easier as a leader Right.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, absolutely yeah, and, like you said, I mean there there was a lot of challenges and one of the things that the great resignation showed was the change in the work and at least the mentality of the workforce. Not that that wasn't already coming, because obviously it was covid just kind of sped up the process of that realization. I think you know so that leaders are challenged more than any time you're in your professional career and lifetime and I think it's I think it's because of this shifting dynamic as well. It's like you've got leaders who don't really know how to respond to the workforce and the workforce is no longer kind of adapting to the way leaders want to lead. So you've got to leaders have to skill up right, they have to skill up themselves so that they can be better leaders going.
John Ballinger:Yeah, and then here's, here's the, and we'll talk about this later in the podcast, but then what happens is now the team member has got to let go and start following the leader again and gaining trust and respect, which is tough, right.
Douglas Ford:Well, and you've got people who don't even want to go into leadership anymore because they've seen such bad examples for so long that they're like, well, I don't even get part of that, and so they don't want to take the official leader roles that would be traditional, and so that's going to become a problem as we continue to go down this road.
John Ballinger:So when we process through to this point, you know talking about why did we begin the podcast and the intent with the leaders so that they could whip those that they're in charge of leading. In other words, what we're doing. What we're saying is we did this podcast really for the 95% of Americans that are grinding away every day doing the heavy lifting, working in the trenches and making it happen Because, douglas, if those team members aren't doing it, the leader doesn't have anyone to lead. Yep.
Douglas Ford:They'll look behind them and there'll be no way there.
John Ballinger:I mean, to me that's just kind of like basic business 101. If there's no one behind you following you who needs you, and I think that also left the marketplace. I think I think leaders got in this position where they're up here, up here, you know, high up, and they were looking down and there was this, this demand going on For the worker, and the worker is looking up like you don't even know who I am and what I deal with every day. All you're talking about is more profit, more profit, higher stock price. You know margin, margin, margin. You don't come down here in the, in the on the floor, even know what I do every day. You know so.
John Ballinger:So now you've got that that just trying to find that balance, we felt a deep desire. It first leads you to ensure that the people that made up that 95% of the labor population were being led well, treated well, paid well and listened to by those in leadership. That's a mouthful, you know I talk about that the military. I've had clothes, housing and paid. I really think that average person out there in the workforce just wants to make sure that those four things are covered down on and I don't know that the leadership in America has zoomed in on that and say and look inside, if we just take those four things and make sure that our temperature in the company is always being looked at in those four ways, is that going to make our worker workforce better for us, are we going to be able to lead them better and will they follow easier? Instead of having this friction, this resistance to talk about and trying to, I'm like I'm going to scream it from the Empire State Building.
John Ballinger:Every day I get involved in companies that aren't doing that, or a business owner or a leader is looking at me like I've got three eyes when I say that they're like what are you talking about? Like one executive said, is it's caring about your team a thing? And I said it's not a thing, it's the thing. But are we as leaders, do we even know how to show that we care about our team the way they need to be cared for and regain that trust and respect that been lost over time? So, to do what we're talking about, you got to listen, and the leader needs more than ever to learn how to listen to their teams in order for them to lead well.
John Ballinger:And one of the deficiencies that I see in a lot of the assessments we give is leaders aren't very good at listening, which causes a challenge that starts that vacuum between the workforce population and the leadership. They're like they're not even listening to me and the leaders up here no, you're not listening to me. I keep saying I need this margin, I need this profit, I need this production number, I need, I need, I need. And they're down here saying, well, I need this in order to get you what you need, and they're not sitting down at the table and talking through that to gain a healthy respect for why the leader needs what they're asking for and how the workforce can actually help give them what they need, Because most likely, there's something coming from above somewhere that's causing the leader to need what they need.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, and listening starts with being heard right, and I don't think there's a lot of opportunity being put in place just so people can be heard just to voice their things. Now, listening by definition would be a little bit more active engagement and participation in that. But if you're not first being heard, there's very little likelihood that you're being listened to as well.
John Ballinger:Yeah, I wonder, you know, when we talk about doing these survey monkeys and things like that in companies, they kind of shiver. When we talk about that, like just blind survey, just find out what's going on in your company, that's not really embraced. I wonder sometimes if leaders truly want to know what's going on or if they're just like if I don't know it for sure, if not heard it actually, then maybe it's just not real. So let's just not do that. And that's a challenge, because if we're saying all you got to do is answer these 10 questions for the workforce and let's do some tabulation of numbers and find out, here's the top three things that your team is asking for. But I think that scares a leader today.
Douglas Ford:Well, and I mean to look at it on the other side, I mean I think leaders are being challenged. Like I said, I mean there's more demands being placed on leaders. Fewer people want to go into leadership. It's hard to find people who can fulfill leadership roles, so leaders are challenged more, just in their day to day, and so when it comes to priorities of things, it's what have I got to get done and what would be good to get done? And they don't always see making that connection with their team and leading their team. Well, one of those got to get done.
John Ballinger:Yeah, we were talking to a leader in a company the other day and he said my boss is only worried about two numbers Sales and profit. Well, what's that? What's the gap in the middle of all that? There's a lot of numbers I call a lot of geo codes in the accounting software that has to do with sales and in profits.
John Ballinger:And if all you do is focus on sales and profits but you're not trying to figure out, like what's in the middle of all that, how we can control and contain, cut whatever it is, and still understand that we need sales and profit, make sure that payroll happens every Friday and the bills are paid, and you know it goes back to communication. Are you telling your team why you're asking for what you're asking for, so that they'll know the reason they're having to do what they need to do? So when we come back from break, we're going to be talking about some statistics and you know I like to do these root cause analysis and so I did a root cause analysis and finding out if we've paid the team members or money and we've given them more PTO and more flex time and more vacations and more, more, more, why are they still unhappy we're going to be talking about that.
Douglas Ford:Sounds good. See you after break. Welcome back to First League G. Today, we are talking about the reason we started this podcast originally, which was to equip leaders with the information and knowledge they needed to better lead themselves so they could be better leaders for their team. The word of the day was respect We've talked about. Is that even something that is part of the workforce today? Do leaders and their teams? Is there true respect between them and what we need to do to help bring that back together? And John was talking about? After COVID, there was a big push to bring people back into the workforce after an extended period of time away, and some of the concessions or some of the trade offs or some of the incentives whatever word you want to use that companies were using to bring people back to work, and some of those things happened, but we still have a workforce that's largely disgruntled and unhappy, and so you want to share with us some of the things you come up with thoughts on that.
John Ballinger:I will. You were talking about the concessions and I thought about the interview I did with an engineer. I know I've told you about this before, but I was flipping through the resume to see if we could select him for this particular company that I was consulting with. I saw the word items on his resume that were things that he needed as part of that. So it was like a demand page and I thought, well, it's odd, you know, and he wanted Uber and Lyft transportation to and from work, organic food in the office, kitchen, pet friendly environment and college reimbursement for his tuition he had paid in college.
John Ballinger:I was reading those list of requirements, think it good, gracious, is this what we've come to? So now the American worker has so much power that they would have a list of demands just to decide whether they're going to work somewhere, somewhere you know the company. Obviously I didn't select that person for the position, but I did follow up with them and someone did meet those demands. I thought, man, how out of balance are we? Because I mean, that's a if you're going to do it for that person, if they, if they can negotiate those kind of incentives and that gets out, are you not going to have to be renegotiating contracts. So are we. Are we entering portals and doing the NIL stuff with athletics and, you know, hopping around? Is that what we've come to? And I think there may be a little bit of that in the workforce today.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I think we certainly are seeing a workforce that is becoming much more concerned about themselves, because they don't feel like anyone else is looking out for them. So they've got to, they've got to make those demands, they've got to put those things forward so that they feel like they're getting there.
John Ballinger:Well, and there's a challenge with that and you're going to see what these statistics in February of 2020, the American workforce was at 164,600,000. By February of 2024, the workforce population had decreased to 131,820,000, a reduction of 32,780,000 workers. You asked the question where they go, I mean physically, the people didn't just disappear.
Douglas Ford:Right right, you know where are those 32 million people that once were game-fueling in the world.
John Ballinger:Well, they're there. There's another statistic that I will share, but they're there. But I think also, what happened when these list of demands started taking place? And I've had companies tell me this we're going to invest in automation. A robot for automation doesn't call in sick, you don't have work comp issues, you don't pay benefits and health care and retirement. I mean, they started listing all these things that you can't afford. They listed all these things that you do not do. So it would make sense to invest in automation and, instead of investing in leadership development so that the workforce would be led well and the yeah, that's what we're going to do. And so I think there there's a new category called NEAT, which stands for not in education, employment or in training. So there's somebody that's just out there. They're couch surfing, they're staying at their buddy's house and they're just chilling out and maybe just off the radar and not working any particular place, doing side jobs, construction or whatever. And that's 11.7% as of February of 2023 for the workforce. So if you do the numbers, you can start seeing where you know there's. There's a population in America that's kind of just surfing around, not doing anything, hanging out and living together and just not going to do anything. And I'm you know.
John Ballinger:Before we go into the next phase, I'm going to reiterate what Gallup and Bamboo HR, which is a large HR organization, stated that America was still unhappy with their work environment, even though they had pay increases, more PTO, more flexibility and more support. And I thought so, give, give, give, give. Still not happy. So again, root cause analysis why are we still unhappy? So I had to dig a little bit further and asked what was the driver of the continued unhappiness, even with all the added benefits and things that we mentioned? Why is the American worker still unhappy? And so I started kind of processing through companies that we've gone in, companies that we are in, listening. I think we listen. I think our organization going in listens much better than the leadership at the company. Would you agree with that?
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I would say that's probably our key point is we're going to, we're trying to elicit information from people and we certainly try to listen so that we can hear that and a lot of times that maybe we become the default listening device for leadership team.
John Ballinger:Yeah, and a lot of times leadership is tone deaf. We will say here's what your team members are saying. I don't hear that, or they'll give an excuse for why. You know the reality is, if there's a preponderance of information that leads to you could say you may be guilty, leader, of not listening. So the question has to be for leadership, so the leaders, listening wins enough, enough and what's enough If we keep giving and giving and giving and the team member keeps taking and taking and that the, the employer or the executive business owner keeps looking like I keep giving, I keep giving, I keep giving, they keep taking and they're still unhappy.
John Ballinger:Where's the balance, where's the, where's the medium point? So I started thinking through that, listening to other companies that we work with and their teams that came back to. I really don't think the leadership is communicating well with their teams in order to find out where the unhappiness is at Now. As I started digging through that, I came up with the old Zig Ziglar statement People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and I don't think that that mindset's permeated the leadership in America. I think they felt pain after COVID. I think there was pain they started coming out of that pain. Yeah, they had to increase pace, pace, scales and recruitment and PTO. They did all these things. Here we are four years later. Economy and inflation Automations were in place.
John Ballinger:I don't think the leadership fills the pain that they used to feel. So it's like hmm, we heard them, we've dealt with it, it's not as painful now. We'll just keep doing what we're doing as long as profit margins stay good, stock share prices good, we're good. But I think the unhappiness still that the worker doesn't feel like they're cared about, they matter and the big scheme of things, especially when they see that robot rolled in and three jobs get eliminated, they're like they really don't care because they're just they're replacing us. So I started looking through statistics of why the American workforce may not really be happy. And maybe it's not just not that they're not happy with their job or their position. They just may not be happy right now. I looked at it from that lens so I got some statistics from the CDC that said 65 million workers Now remember 131 million. 65 million workers are dealing with what's called long COVID symptoms that range from cognitive, respiratory and fatigue issues. 65 million.
Douglas Ford:Well, that's a significant number, but those are also significant symptoms to be dealing with on a long term basis.
John Ballinger:Now here's the. Here's the truth. We deal with people that have some of those symptoms from COVID. Absolutely, we've been in companies where we've dealt with people that say I've got this after COVID and you know, we start the leader is. The skepticism inside the leader is are they just saying that because they read that? Is that now new excuse for being forgetful, for not showing up to work, for wanting to work from home? Are these excuses or are they real? When there's not trust and respect, guess what the initial answer for that leader is going to be. They're not real.
John Ballinger:Right, knowing those are real numbers is something that leaders need to understand and deal with inside their company. Do a survey Are these, are these symptoms something that's pretty standard in the company that our teams are dealing with? And we need that, we need to know that. At the same time and this is so important, it goes back to that balance and respect and trust the worker cannot take advantage of the fact that the leaders are now looking at those symptoms and you can't use them whenever you want to to get what you want.
John Ballinger:That's tough when we're trying to strike that balance, but it's like the worker now in America feels like you know what I'm in the driver's seat, I'll do what I want when I want to do it with the resources I've got to do it with. We can't dig ourselves out of this hole that we're in between the leadership and the worker without learning how to trust and respect one another. It's crucial, or we're going to continue going down the road of investing more in robots or in automation and that neat number is going to continue going up and you're talking about a divide. That divide is going to get greater and greater than what it is today.
Douglas Ford:Yeah, I definitely think that we've got to create more opportunities for people to be heard we talked about earlier and for people to listen. That really starts with a strong communication plan.
John Ballinger:I think we're going to give a little homework assignment with the communication plans later in the podcast. So now you've got the 65 million workers with long COVID symptoms. Now let me give you some other statistics. That I think is a driving force between the unhappy worker Inflation in 2021 was 7% and 2022 it was 6% and 2023 it's now 3.4%. Now companies started increasing wages and doing pay structure changes and these benefits we talked about in 2021 coming out of COVID.
John Ballinger:People have left the workforce, left their jobs 43 million people. They're renegotiating. We called I think it was in the podcast we talked about the great renegotiation and people had either left the industry they're in, they're looking for another industry to go into, and you got these inflationary costs. So they're coming with long COVID symptoms. Now they're coming with these inflation issues. So prices are going up and even though there's more money, so to speak, is it being offset because of inflation?
John Ballinger:There was a statistic I read the other day where the average family of four is spending $11,000 more a year on the goods and services to run their family, just because of inflation. That's a big number. That is a big number Right. So now that I looked at this, a huge driver for employees and companies, and it was health insurance. Between 2013 and 2018, health insurance costs increased 47%. Wow. Between 2018 and 2023, 22%. Add those two numbers together. So basically, in 10 years, health care costs have gone up almost 70%. Now here's where I tied it together. Mr Ford, you know I'm like if I'm going to do a root cause analysis, I want to tie it together. Here's where you tie it together. If we're more ill than we've ever been because of COVID and we're using our health insurance more than we ever had because of COVID and our health insurance costs continue to go up because we use it more and inflation increasing, so we're having to spend more and the companies aren't able to backfill us with enough pay to offset that, would that make you unhappy?
Douglas Ford:It certainly would create some stress.
John Ballinger:And so I started thinking through that. Because when I look at the individual health care plan and this is in America, this is an average is now almost $8,500 a year for an employee and a family plan on average is $24,104 on average. And I think of how much of that burden the company has to pay and how much of that burden they have to pass along. And then that's not, that's not caught, that's not counting your co-pays and deductibles you have to meet. So now that's family plan at $24,000. If the employee is 50% of that, so they're 12,000 to a thousand a month, plus they have to pay the co-pays and deductibles before it starts paying. That's some stress.
Douglas Ford:Absolutely.
John Ballinger:Right Now, if you've got that and so we know that. So these are all statistics that anyone can go out and find. It begs the question is the worker actually unhappy in their job they're performing? Are they unhappy in their company, or is it the stress of finances and illness and inflation that's causing them to be stressed? I think it's something worth looking at inside the companies and actually talking about it and letting them know.
John Ballinger:You're aware of it, you know part of just being a leader is saying to your team I'm aware healthcare costs are going up, I'm aware inflation is high. I understand that rent has gone up a lot on apartments that were your renting. I get all that and we're working hard as we can to balance the sales in this company, the profits in this company, so that we can try and meet the needs of our team members. But I'm telling you, douglas, you have to communicate that, otherwise the teams just think they don't even care, they don't care, they don't even listen. So I feel like it's important for the leaders to understand the pain that's going on out in the workforce. That's part of leadership. Part of leadership is actually identifying with it and communicating.
Douglas Ford:Yep, and if you go back to the word of the day, which was respect, it's important that there's respect on both sides. I think that your leaders are communicating these things to their team members, to the workforce. That shows that we respect what you're going through. You know it's a slightly different use of the term than the definition we had, but they're extending that respect of like. We know things are tough, we know things are hard. Here's what we're trying to do and here's what we need you to meet us.
John Ballinger:So I want to give a little homework assignment challenge to the leader. I'd like for you to just sit down and you don't have to go in and talk to your marketing team, or you can. I want you to just do this yourself. Just sit down. Say if I had to create a communication plan to help understand the challenges my team have today, what would that look like? Just put it down on paper.
John Ballinger:And one of the things I encourage executives and leaders to do in company and this, this, all this does is take time. There is no money involved in this exchange, but I'm telling you what it pays off is huge, my opinion, and that's to sit down and do one on one meetings with your key team members to learn who they are outside the workplace. When those team members understand that you will listen to them, just communicate with them just on the on a base, on the basis of their kids, their, their family, their interest, hobbies, whatever that is, and you care enough to sit down and give them an hour and a half of your time or a lunch or something like that. Man, I'm telling you, I personally have seen it pay off big inside company.
Douglas Ford:Yeah Well, anytime you think somebody is interested, truly interested in who you are, and you get to know them, I mean just creates a different dynamic in the relationship. What you're willing to do, what they're willing to understand, just makes life better for everyone.
John Ballinger:Yeah. So again, this is the homework create a communication plan. Just sit down, do this yourself to help you better understand the challenges of your team and what they're facing. There could be a survey, monkey, you know, whatever you, whatever you need. But then I'm going to challenge the leaders. I mean, this is, this is free. I'm going to charge the audience one-on-ones with meetings. I'm telling you they are gold when you start having them and make a habit of it. Make a habit of carving out an hour and a half to spend time and talk very little, even if they start trying to creep in with company stuff. Push that out. That's another. This is about me and you getting to know each other better. I think it, I know it will pay off in spades for the leader.
Douglas Ford:Absolutely Well. Thanks for another good podcast and leading us through this discussion on respect and the team and communication really so all about communication.
John Ballinger:Communication and please, please, please, trust and respect leaders. Find that balance, cause I said this in a previous podcast it's up to the leaders to bridge that gap, because the leaders have created it. Yeah, we'll have a great week.
Douglas Ford:You too.
John Ballinger:Thanks.