How to Improve Your Leadership and Communication Skills with Maureen Werrbach

Amber Hawley [00:00:21]:
Welcome to season 4 of the My Biz Bestie Podcast. I'm Amber Hawley.

Melissa Hall [00:00:25]:
And I'm Melissa Hall.

Amber Hawley [00:00:26]:
And today we have a very special guest, our lovely friend Maureen Werbach, who is a therapist and a megastar entrepreneur, actually, if that's fair to call you that. Hopefully you're cool.

Melissa Hall [00:00:41]:
I think megastar is a very good description of Maureen.

Amber Hawley [00:00:44]:
Megastar. Welcome, Maureen.

Maureen Werrbach [00:00:47]:
Thank you for that nice intro. I'll take it. How are you guys?

Amber Hawley [00:00:53]:
Yes, I'm good. How are you?

Maureen Werrbach [00:00:55]:
Not too bad. You know, as we were talking before, lots of things going on. So it's always fun to juggle a ton of random business and personal things at once.

Amber Hawley [00:01:04]:
Yes. Well, maybe that's why I'm thinking megastars. You have 3 very successful businesses. And I think of that when I think about women who have million-dollar-plus businesses. It's such an amazing thing because so few women have ever reached that point. So I think we should give shoutouts to all the ladies who make it. So you are my megastar, Maureen.

Maureen Werrbach [00:01:26]:
That's awesome.

Amber Hawley [00:01:28]:
And one would ask, how do you get there to a million-dollar-plus business? Multiply is— it has to do with your team, right? Like having a good team behind you.

Maureen Werrbach [00:01:39]:
Yeah, I'll have to say that the business wouldn't be anything without the people in it. So having a good team of people that are the right people make all the difference in a well-oiled machine versus something chaotic and non-profitable.

Amber Hawley [00:01:55]:
Yes, which is why we want you on here talking about Radical Candor. So Maureen has done, you did like a book club thing with this, right?

Maureen Werrbach [00:02:06]:
I did a book club thing with this, yeah. And I also had interviewed the CEO of Radical Candor at some point as well last year, right after reading the book. So I was so enamored by the idea and was so excited to learn about and implement it. And my leadership team has read the book as well. So we try to be really aware of the concept of radical candor in our everyday working lives.

Amber Hawley [00:02:30]:
Great. Yeah, because being in your groups, I guess I've seen you talk about it so many times and you reference it a lot. So that's why when we thought, hey, we really want to talk about this aspect in the leadership, that you were our go-to gal for all things radical candor. But before we get into that, why don't you share with our audience just a little bit about yourself?

Maureen Werrbach [00:02:49]:
So I own a couple of businesses. I have a counseling group practice in Chicago that in just under a month will be 7 years old. And I have 3 locations and just about 30 staff members in, in the group. I also have consulting business where I just help people who are wanting to start or scale their group practices do so. And recently started a partnership with another mental health practice owner on just putting out conferences that are business-oriented for mental health professionals that are group practice owners. As you can tell, I stick with, stick in that realm.

Amber Hawley [00:03:32]:
I think they call that having a good niche.

Maureen Werrbach [00:03:34]:
I agree.

Melissa Hall [00:03:35]:
Yes.

Maureen Werrbach [00:03:36]:
I know what I know and I stick with it.

Melissa Hall [00:03:39]:
Well, and you're profitable. You're a smart business owner. This is how you do it, people, right?

Maureen Werrbach [00:03:43]:
There you go. Yep.

Melissa Hall [00:03:44]:
Well, how did you come across this concept of radical candor?

Maureen Werrbach [00:03:48]:
Someone mentioned it in a Facebook group somewhere a couple of years ago, and I filed it away like I do with all my other business ownership and leadership books. At some point when I, you know, was getting down with the books that I was reading, I, I just randomly picked this one. I was like, you know what, I probably was at the moment struggling with something team related or with a person in my business. And I was like, need, wanna, I I I'm gonna intentionally choose a book that's focused on bettering yourself as a leader among your, in the workplace. And so that's where I got to reading that book. And let me tell you, it changed a lot about how I see myself as a business owner, how I connect with staff through issues, not just through the good times, but also through issues. It's been a sort of a game changer in terms of how I navigate and communicate with staff.

Amber Hawley [00:04:40]:
And that's why we thought it would be so valuable because, like you're saying, it's not just through the good times. It's— there's inevitably going to be issues. Anytime you have people, there are always going to be those things that come up. I guess give us a little bit of, like, maybe an overview of kind of what your takeaways were from Radical Candor or what the approach is about.

Maureen Werrbach [00:05:01]:
There's essentially a— it's a very simple concept. It's just the applying of it and learning how to navigate your own feelings around how you communicate with people. But essentially there's these four quadrants that people fall into, and the quadrant you want to be in is radically candor or Radical Candor, which is the name of the book. There's ruinous empathy, which people think of as you criticize people or the things that they do wrong without caring about them as a person. So that's kind of the idea of ruinous empathy, which is one quadrant, and that's where you don't really have that much empathy for the person and you challenge them on the things that they do wrong or the mistakes that they make without caring about them. Radical candor is in the other quadrant, which is you care personally and you challenge them directly when there's an issue. You don't beat around the bush. You are direct and clear, but you truly care personally about that person. So how you bring up the issues that are happening in the workplace changes, how you bring it up changes when you care about the person personally. And then there's manipulative insincerity, which is the bottom left quadrant. And that can sometimes feel like front stabbing or like a false apology. It's manipulative, it's insincere. Then there's the obnoxious aggression, which a lot of people— I tend to be before really working on Radical Candor was more of that manipulative, insincere type where it was more about my own feelings and I would take things personally and I didn't want people to be upset, so I would not tell the whole— If someone was making a mistake, I would kind of beat around the bush and be like, "It's okay," which is very manipulative. I know people might think of it as that they don't want to hurt someone's feelings, But that's essentially a manipulation. You're not helping them, that staff person or that person in your workplace get to a better place because you're afraid. We hear a lot about this with business owners who keep employees for way longer than they should. And they don't give them that feedback, direct feedback, but inside they're counting every single thing that they're doing wrong until there's like this breaking point where they let that person go. And then that person has no idea that they've been making all of these mistakes because the business owner felt bad and didn't want to give that direct feedback, but then ended up sort of like totally surprising them when all the things that they were stacking in their heads finally was like, enough is enough. This person is not a good fit here. That tends to be the manipulative insincerity piece. And then the last one is obnoxious aggression, which I know a lot of people bring up. It tends to be a more common one, which is a mix of belittling or a mix of belittling with complimenting. So it tends to be the people that like lash out when they're upset, and then give compliments when they're not upset. They, they aren't consistent about how they give their feedback, and they tend to be aggressive about how they give their feedback. So they might be like, you're always making mistakes when it comes to doing your notes, you like never do your notes on time, I don't get what's wrong. That is obnoxious aggression versus being in the quadrant of radical candor, which is, I'm noticing that although I've said that notes need to be done every Friday, or I know I've said that you need to clock in at 9 o'clock every morning, and you're coming in at 9:10. This is something that doesn't work for the business and isn't what we've asked. I'd like to see how you and I can get to a place of helping you come in on time. You're caring personally about that person, you're not belittling the work or the lack of work that they're doing, and you care personally about them as a person and how they take that feedback. But you're also challenging them. That's essentially what radical candor is. You're directly challenging them while caring personally about them. If you could think about every conversation you have with— whether it's people in your personal life or people in business that you work with, you can tell pretty quickly if, when you're giving feedback or when you're communicating with them, if it's coming from a place of, "I care about you personally, surrounding this issue, and I'm also wanting to make sure that I'm challenging you directly and being very clear about what my needs are." so that you're not confused. That's essentially the premise of the whole book.

Melissa Hall [00:09:13]:
Yeah, it sounds like a lot of it is— it's communication and it's managing expectations, right? Yeah, like clearly communicating what is expected of people, clearly communicating when people aren't meeting those expectations, or even when needs change, right? Because things do change, especially if you're in the process of scaling your business. And I think we hear those themes a lot when we learn about leadership stuff, and I love that you are a therapist doing this, and yet you're saying that this whole process, which includes things like empathy and clear communication, you would think that therapists would be people who would be excellent at that, so they'd make awesome leaders, right? And yet that is not the case because leadership is a totally different thing. So I'm, I'm kind of interested to hear like how, how did it adjust your style personally? Like what were things that you changed?

Maureen Werrbach [00:10:04]:
So like I said, I, tend historically to fall in the manipulative insecurity category, which is like, it's okay. Like, even though in my head, I would be like, why can't you just do this thing right? I feel like I've explained it really clearly, but the people pleasing part of me would tell them, it's no worries, as long as you can try to be on time more, that would be great. Or, you know, this whole, which is pretty manipulative, it just didn't feel like that until I read that book and I was like, Oh my gosh, it's totally manipulating the whole situation and it's not getting me what I want. And they're not realizing the value and importance of timeliness. I'm just making this up as an example. And so when I had read this and realized, oh, that's such a manipulative tactic. And because you look at manipulation, you think it's the idea of manipulation is you're getting something out of it. And I would never thought I was getting anything out of saying it's okay or like, No worries. And, but in reality, what my manipulation was is keeping people liking me instead of being clear and direct and honest, right? And so my biggest shift happened because in reading this, she brings up a lot of different stories in her own life about in business, about letting people go way too late and actually how that plays such a, huge role in terms of their ability to even grow, because if we're not challenging them as leaders, then we're actually not even doing them a service in terms of their own professional growth and work growth. And if we're not a good fit for, as an employee, if we're not a good fit at a place, it's the job of the leader to be able to articulate that without making them feel like shit, without making them think that they're bad people. And that's where the radical candor comes in, is the ability to be able to if there's a case like this person's not a great fit and they should go, is being able to do it in a way that the person actually sees the— that the business owner has their best interest, has that person's best interest in mind as well, and wants them to succeed, even if it's not at their business.

Amber Hawley [00:12:10]:
It's interesting that you said the obnoxious aggression piece. You said that's what is most common. 'Cause I guess when maybe I'm thinking, maybe it's because I'm thinking about a lot of therapists and a lot of women, But I would see the manipulative insincerity. I could see a lot of women falling into that category.

Melissa Hall [00:12:28]:
That's what I was thinking too. Yeah. Like even when I think of, you know, people who have been bosses or leaders of mine, it's very rarely— I feel like that's more maybe like sales culture or something like— Well, it might.

Maureen Werrbach [00:12:40]:
Also be because most, most leaders are men.

Amber Hawley [00:12:43]:
Yeah, that's true. It's true. Because now that I think about like my clients who come in, that are working in toxic environments, it is usually that other— the other side of it. It is more the aggressive side. So maybe that's why my brain is going there because I think as you talk about it, even though I don't feel like I do that stepping around thing, I tend to wait way too long to address issues. I do more of that, just feeling super like, oh, come on, this is so clear. We talked about this.. And I have my little like, ah, and then I go to them and it's a very like nice professional, although, you know, usually straightforward, but I wait way too long. Like I know that's my issue. And then by then I'm so frustrated. And so like you're saying where it can be that thing of like, hey, this isn't going to work. And they're kind of shocked because it hasn't been addressed per se. I don't even think I go there because I think the same thing, like, well, I haven't addressed it. I can't just like, you know, bamboozle them with this one. So I'm still holding on to like, oh, this is miserable.

Maureen Werrbach [00:13:44]:
Yeah.

Amber Hawley [00:13:44]:
Hoping they'll just leave.

Maureen Werrbach [00:13:46]:
I was reading another book and I'm just gonna quickly tie it in with this, but he talks about put on your face mask first or something, put on your, you know.

Amber Hawley [00:13:56]:
Oh, put on your oxygen mask first.

Maureen Werrbach [00:13:58]:
Oxygen mask first. It's what my book club book is this month. And he brings up the idea of toads, like the animal. And he says, everyone has a list of toads, which is like these things that you don't, want to do and they get added to your to-do list. And he says there's like, it's essentially like a to-do list of stupid shit that no one wants to do, whether it's like go to the grocery store or write that email to someone or fire someone. It's all the list of like the non-fun things that we tend to put like on the back burner and do the more fun to-do things first. And then those other things stay on the back burner. And his whole idea is you should do like lick a toad once a day at the beginning of the day. Because at the end of it, the worst part of waiting, which kind of leads to your point, Amber, is the hardest part is the whole thinking about it. The fact that you, like, if we're talking about the example of a person who's just maybe not a good cultural fit, who you're getting resentful over because they're not doing this simple thing that is so obvious that they should be doing that maybe you mentioned once, and for whatever reason, they're just not doing it again. And then you're inside like, getting upset and sulking and thinking, "What the hell? Why are you not doing this simple thing?" And you wait all these months until you decide that this is it, this person just sucks and can't work here. It's that whole time from the moment that you started to get resentful to the point where you actually let them go, that's usually the hardest emotional piece versus the 15, 20-minute conversation you might have in your office saying, "This doesn't seem like it's a good fit for whatever reason." Tying that into it is, he says, if you can His quote he always uses is like lick a toe 'cause no one would wanna lick a toe, but if you do it, the hardest part is like thinking about doing it. Once you're done, it's like, "Now I'm done." Your actual whole day gets better. So I like to try to apply both of those because I know I, with the manipulative insincerity piece of me, I will, my go-to is to just hold it in and say like, "It's not that big of a deal. Like people are people. She's got stuff going on." And do that whole, think about everyone else, don't think about the business piece, all because I don't want to have a difficult conversation or all because I don't want to make them feel bad or think that I don't like them or think that I am mad at them. And so I've implemented adding that and reminding myself of, I care personally about this person. All I have to do is challenge directly. So my issue is always the challenge directly. It's not the care personally. I don't have the issue of not really caring about people, but having to pretend and be like, like, I'm "Oh sweetheart, I really think," you know, that's not an issue for me. It's more the challenge directly versus I don't want you to think that I don't like you. I don't want you to think that you're a bad employee or you're bad at your job. And so a lot of what the book talks about is different tools you can use and different skills of remind. One simple one, and we learned this in therapy, is the problem is the problem, not the person. So if you can stand next to them, and I always like to visualize myself standing next to them, my employee that I may be talking to, and I'll say this, like, visualize me standing next to you, the problem is over there, you and I are gonna tackle that problem together. You are not holding the problem, and I'm not coming at you for you to fix the problem. The problem is in its own league by itself, and you and I are gonna tackle that problem together. And that, for me, feels like exactly what Radical Candor is and how I can implement it.

Amber Hawley [00:17:19]:
[Speaker] I love that visual, and I think that makes it feel like such a doable, thing 'cause it feels like for those people who fall into that category, which I think a lot of women do. Yeah. Is I care about people, but I'm really frustrated and it's hard for me to be direct in doing something that I know could make them feel bad or hurt somebody. Yeah. Or cause more stress in the business.

Melissa Hall [00:17:46]:
And it kind of depersonalizes the problem too, right? Usually like if we're a business owner, we feel strongly about our business, right? And so it's upsetting when people are almost like, it feels like somebody's sabotaging the success because they're not doing what you think might be basic or what you think is expected, right?

Maureen Werrbach [00:18:07]:
That is where the obnoxious aggression comes in. There's a point where people who are in the manipulative insincerity place where they start to, they go past the beginning of being resentful and think like, this person is intentionally hurting me, right? This person just doesn't care about me, they don't care about my business. And that's where we start to lose the care personally part, which is where the obnoxious aggression can come in, where we start to, we look at that person and we just see negative, we just see toxic, we just see, ugh, with that person. And that's, I think, where, when she's bringing up in the book that most business owners go to at some point, the obnoxious aggression, is that they start to lose the care personally because they are so resentful of the staff that they have that are maybe not following through time and time and time again on whatever the issue is, you know? And so then they start to not like that staff member. And that's when care personally is gone. He says that's the hardest part to get back.

Amber Hawley [00:19:05]:
It's too little, too late, as I would say in couples counseling.

Maureen Werrbach [00:19:08]:
Yeah.

Amber Hawley [00:19:08]:
It was like, sometimes we've let resentment build for so long, it's too little, too late, no matter what, happens, you almost can't get past it. And so, but I love that idea. I don't, although when you said the idea of addressing it every day, I was like, oh my God, dear Lord, no. Like, that just sounds so stressful. But I do think you're right in I'm not giving weight to, you know, the amount of stress it causes me on a daily basis. I'm thinking of all kinds of things, not just right? leadership, Like all of those things I'm putting off, like, oh, I got to do that. Oh, I got to, I'm thinking of all of those things. And I know I've said to people like clients, sometimes I said, maybe you just have one day where you do a lot of the hard things. And that's what I've kind of done is— You batch. Today's going to be the shit show. Yes, it's going to be the batching of all the crap that I don't want to do. And it's hard, but I've already mustered all of that energy to like, OK, we're just going to do this. We're going to write all those crappy emails and we're going to— address all these issues and kind of do all those things I'm putting off. And then, you know, and then it's like, ah, but there's a big comedown from that.

Maureen Werrbach [00:20:18]:
Yeah.

Amber Hawley [00:20:18]:
And, and sometimes I love it because then I'm like, this means I get peace for a while. But I like the idea of thinking about, but if you're addressing it in those, like every day, those small little chipping away, which is really not my personality, but it would, that would give you so much peace every day.

Maureen Werrbach [00:20:37]:
When we do something that we've been holding off for a while, even if it's just one, and he says to do one task a day, whether it's like go to the dry cleaner and bring that stupid suit or outfit to the dry cleaner, that when you get like such an adrenaline and all the emotional things, a rush that makes you actually more energized for the rest of the day when you check off something that you didn't want to do. I can see what you're mentioning is more my style too, is like batch all of the crap and get it done. But I typically Typically when I do that, I end up feeling exhausted and then have to sleep. Whereas his idea actually energizes you to do all the stuff that you wanted to do for the rest of the day, the fun business building things or the fun home life things, whatever it is that's on your day, on your task list for the day. But if you can chop off at right, and he says right at the beginning of the day before you do anything else is sit down and send that email that you need to send or go to the grocery store and just get all the groceries for the week, that you actually are more energized for the rest of your day to get the tasks that are more fun done. I think of it like when I was in college, I hated giving talks, like doing a speech on any, whatever. And I would always say like, I'm just gonna go first and just get this shit over with. But I would not raise my hand and then I'd be like, next one, next one, after the next one. And the whole time I'm not even listening to the people talking because I have a headache, I'm getting nauseous. I'm like, I just did not like giving talks in college, but I would literally go through 3 days of 20-minute, you know, people doing their 20-minute talks and be the last one. And I would get sick afterwards, like just a cold or something because I was so emotionally brought up being anxious about doing the stupid speech, whatever it was on. Realistically, if I would've been the first one, I would've been thinking I was going to vomit for 5 minutes, started doing my speech because like normal, a couple minutes into it, I get in a roll and everything's fine. I would've gone through 72 hours of less stress. But instead, I think that's the idea of the whole licking the toad thing is you do that thing in the beginning and then all of the mental and emotional and physical repercussions of not doing that task go away.

Amber Hawley [00:22:56]:
Yes. Also, you're building a muscle when you do it every day.

Maureen Werrbach [00:22:59]:
Yes. That's what he says too. Habit building.

Amber Hawley [00:23:01]:
I guess maybe I am thinking about things that feel so arduous, but I agree with you that if you save them all for one day, cause I'm a batcher, it definitely does feel— you feel exhausted. Like that's definitely like, I'm going to have some nachos. I'm going to watch some Real Housewives and.

Maureen Werrbach [00:23:18]:
I am good.

Melissa Hall [00:23:22]:
Well, and when, like, to bring it back to leadership, it's like, it's so easy to let like the first little thing slide, right? Or like little things go. And yet those are also much easier to address than waiting for something to become this huge problem that then is like, oh, well now like I have no choice but to address it. And I think that's kind of this manipulative thing like you were talking about, which yeah, I would not think of. Calling it manipulative, but really it is, it's just, it's avoidance of whatever it is that you're trying to avoid.

Maureen Werrbach [00:23:55]:
For the sake of not making other people feel bad, you know? And I think that's like the big piece is, especially in leadership, is this fear of people thinking we don't care about them. And it just has more to do with learning how to expand your emotional vocabulary when you're talking with staff so that they understand that you do actually care about them. You're just being very clear and direct so that they know what they need to do and they don't mess up again and have you feeling resentful. Like, I thought I told you that you needed to do X, Y, and Z. Oftentimes when someone— not that this is every time, but oftentimes it's because that person wasn't 100% clear with what they wanted that person, that staff member to do. You know, the leader wasn't super clear. They said, you need to do better, your numbers need to go up or whatever. But they didn't, that wasn't direct enough to help them actually bring those numbers up. If you're caring personally and challenging directly, you're giving them feedback as to how they can do that. This is what it'll look like when your numbers are up. This is what it'll look like when you do X, Y, or Z. Yeah.

Melissa Hall [00:25:01]:
And I feel like that helps you also figure out like what is the barrier? Right. Right, like I think about this research that they've done with nurses and employment and figuring out that so often they're not comfortable saying when they've made a mistake, right? And how that creates a very toxic environment when people can't— don't feel like they can come forward and say, hey, guess what, I messed this up. And yet when you create a culture where people can do that, it improves everything. Yeah, like patient outcomes drastically improve, employee engagement improves, like employee satisfaction improves, right? And it makes sense because then you're able to tackle like the real issue and it's depersonalizing it again. It's like, oh, okay, this is, and you're able, I think, to more easily tackle the issue. It's not this ambiguous, like, oh, just try harder. And this person feels like, oh, I don't know what I need to do, which nobody does on purpose. And yet I think that's so common in business.

Maureen Werrbach [00:26:02]:
And I think the longer you wait, the more as a leader, as a business owner, the harder it gets to not see the problem as synonymous with the person. Whereas if you tackle it right away, when you're less resentful, when you're just in that curious place, which I love, that idea too is looking at problems in the workplace as from a place of curiosity, because you tend to personalize it less, you tend to be less finger-pointing at someone and blaming. And so I think the longer that you hold off on having those direct conversations, the more likely it is that you're gonna lump them together, the problem with the person, because you're resentful.

Amber Hawley [00:26:43]:
Thinking about my own, like, leadership in, you know, that being curious thing is something like I teach my couples to do with each other because it is such a good way to like lower defenses. And there are certain things that I'm able to do that with them so easily, right? Like going when somebody has poor retention, I make this one-on-one, we have these one-on-one sit-downs and we talk about it and it's coming from such a, like, let's try to figure out what's going on or what's coming up here. And it is such an exploratory process and that doesn't feel stressful to me because I've had so much success with that, with like figuring out like, okay, what are like the themes that are coming up or kind of exploring it? And it's been so helpful. And then I've, I've seen people's retention radically shift. And then there's this other category of, we've already gone through this. This is like basic, you know, like this isn't your clinical work. Somehow I separate the clinical is like so easy to talk about. This is like just being a basic employee person showing up and it's like, I've already addressed it. And my thing comes up like, why do you keep making me have to talk about this? And that's where I find it gets so much harder. And it's so like one of those things of thinking like, I need to approach with that same curiosity in that, that I do with the clinical stuff because I've had great success on the clinical side. It's that other stuff. How many times do we have to go through this? You know?

Maureen Werrbach [00:28:12]:
I totally resonate with that. And then I think about two things. One, have you read the book, The Ideal Team Player?

Amber Hawley [00:28:19]:
No.

Maureen Werrbach [00:28:20]:
Oh my gosh. It's another really good one for any type of business. If you're a business owner, it's a great book to read. Essentially, the first 75% of the book is a story. So you're reading a story about a guy who takes over a construction company business. He's telling the story about how he takes over this business and he's never been in construction. So how to be a leader in something that you haven't done work in yourself, but he's a business— someone who buys businesses and he's a leadership coach. So he knows how to talk to people and turn businesses around in terms of a leadership perspective. But he talks about The ideal team player essentially is humble, hungry, and smart. And that's what the book is about, is making sure that you're hiring the right people. So it's two points. One point being, sometimes it is that we made bad choices in our hiring and it shows up then later, right? Your person, I'm just making this up as an example, but maybe a great therapist, but isn't a great fit for you culturally because they're not hungry. So they're not going and doing, they're doing like the bare minimum, which is see clients and do that decent, but they're not doing the other things, whether that's the admin, administrative stuff or whatnot. I love looking at that when I think about people in my businesses who are not doing what I need them to do. I'm like, is it something that I've done? Have I done, have I messed up on the hiring process or is it something that's teachable? And then the other piece is, that we tend to— and I don't remember what book this was from— but that for every 5 minutes that someone is learning some— 5 minutes of a task, they should spend 20 minutes learning it. And I know personally that I don't do this. And I have people now on my staff— part of leadership is bringing on people who can do the things that you can't do. So now I have someone who trains new employees, because I tend to be very fast, as people listening probably are noticing with how I talk. I'm just I'm pretty quick. I'm not the best to train people. And so one of the other problems that often happens is that we explain something once or twice, and then we get annoyed when they don't just do that thing I just explained to you twice, right? And so with this book that I read, bringing up the idea that every 5 minutes of a task, which you could have, I mean, on a 40-hour workday outside of therapy, any employee might be doing 20 hours out of their 40 hours of new things, right? They're not always like repeatedly doing the same thing that only takes 5 minutes for 40 hours. That that would, would be painful to do. But the average employee is probably doing a lot of different tasks in a 40-hour— if you think about it, if you're supposed to spend 20 minutes teaching for every 5 minutes of work, That's— I don't know how I'm to— not— I have never done the math to figure out what that is in terms of like 20 hours worth of different types of tasks, but that's like hundreds of hours that we likely are not spending with the— with an average employee in the beginning.

Amber Hawley [00:31:17]:
Right.

Maureen Werrbach [00:31:18]:
Yeah.

Amber Hawley [00:31:18]:
Well, and I always think of it because I think we're similar in that is, did I fire hose them so they couldn't possibly have retained it? Which is why, like you're saying, I'll like mention it again, but that might not be enough. And I think that's always a good thing to look at, again, to manage your own frustration and your own resentments is, okay, how can I do this in a way that works for everybody in the different styles of learning? So yeah, some of these things we can kind of alleviate by addressing it that way. But I really like the idea of building that muscle as far as like, how do we talk to our staff? In a way that's respectful and direct and still is really caring about them as people and as, as part of your team.

Maureen Werrbach [00:32:04]:
I agree, that's, that's the way to go.

Melissa Hall [00:32:06]:
And I would imagine it goes both ways too. Part of what you're doing is setting a good example, right, so that your staff can give you feedback. Because at a certain point, if you have 30 employees, you need feedback from staff in order to make the best decisions for the business as a whole, right? Because you're not in it as much. And if you're able to set that example, then hopefully you're training people to give you that feedback, and then it's making everyone better overall.

Maureen Werrbach [00:32:34]:
Yeah, and you actually touch on a really big point that I, I forgot to bring up, which is the best way to start is by modeling it. And so you can't— she brings this up in, in Radical Candor— is you can't expect your people that work in your business to be radically candid first. And so you need to show them that you can take feedback. And so when I do my own coaching with people, I always say, you know, most of the time there isn't a fire happening in your business where you have to tackle something like right now with a person. For the most part, all the problems, whether it's retention or sales issues or issues in team culture, workplace culture, All of those things have probably been happening for a while, so this idea that you need to now fix it after reading a book, this moment, there isn't a need. And so what she brings up is this idea of modeling it, which is you're likely, another huge point that she brings up, you likely haven't been asking your staff to give you feedback aside from saying, are things good? Is there anything I could be doing better? And she brought up something that resonated really huge with me, which is if people say everything is good all the time, it means that they don't trust you. And I— you ask my staff and they would always be like, "I love working here. I'll never leave here." And in terms of retention, I've had to let one person go. I've never had anyone leave. One person left because her husband got relocated to Portland, but no one's ever been like, "I don't want to work here anymore." So in my eyes, I'm like, I must be doing great. Like, you know, and when people are like, no, things are good. And I ask, is there anything I can do? When reading this book, it really opened my eyes that even great workplaces have areas of growth, leaders have areas of growth. And so if people are saying, nope, all is great, I love working here, there's nothing wrong, then you haven't gained the trust of your people, even if you think you have. And so we went through a ton of modeling where I would say, okay, you're saying, you know, all is well, I'm going to come back at you next week. But I want something, I want something, even if it's small, it could be like, I wish there was a vending machine in here. I mean, it could be something simple. And it wasn't until each of them started giving me little bits of feedback, because I'm not doing horribly, there's nothing mind-boggling that was brought up where I was like, oh my gosh, I suck. But a lot of like little things where I'm like, that's actually great. And some things where I was like, there's no way I can do that thing. And that's part of the gaining of trust and modeling how you take feedback is saying, let me have it, listening, nodding your head, being curious versus being defensive. And then saying, if you don't know the answer, if you don't know if you can do the thing or make the change that they want or whatever, that you say, I'm taking this information, I'm going to come back at you next Tuesday because I want to mull this over. What that tells them is that you care about their concern enough to think about it more than coming back at them and saying, I'm sorry, I totally can't do that thing, right? Even if you can't, just to say, give me that time to think it through. I wanna take this seriously and I wanna come back to you next week. Those are the conversations that will lead them to take your radically candid feedback and not become defensive either.

Amber Hawley [00:35:47]:
I think, yeah, I think that's so huge. And Like you said, I find when I do get feedback about things, it's usually not the stuff that probably I'm most fearing, right? Like for them to say like, you are the worst boss and I hate you and I hate this place. Like that's never what's happening. 'Cause frankly, if they felt that way, they would be gone. So it is more like, oh, hey, you know, I'm thinking about this thing or I guess right now, recently it's been like noise issues, soundproofing 'cause as a therapist, or just like kind of small questions about procedures or how can we streamline this or things that are important to them. So I love that approach though of saying, no, I need— rather than just accepting like, oh good, I don't have to deal with it. Like, how can you elicit more honest feedback from them? I think that's— I think it's really helpful to say, no, try to come back with something.

Maureen Werrbach [00:36:45]:
If you do like a group meeting, I was going to say, usually there's this one person that's willing to give you feedback. Maybe it's someone else in a leadership position who's well-connected. And even saying, I want— I was always that person. Okay, there you go. Is to say, hey, Melissa, we're going to have this group meeting. I want to challenge staff to give me open feedback. I'm, you know, radical candor. I want to be able to be radically candid with them, but it starts with them being able to be that way with me. I'm going to ask for feedback, and if no one's giving any, I want you to be open and honest and give me some feedback so that you're actually modeling it and they can see how I respond, that they start to feel safe to respond, to, to say their feedback as well.

Amber Hawley [00:37:26]:
And I think the important thing in that is in group dynamics, once one person has like broken the seal essentially, then people do, they make it happen because it is like, oh wait, yes, not only did you respond non-defensively, but it's kind of like, oh, okay, this is really happening. This isn't this fake question that they don't actually want an answer to.

Maureen Werrbach [00:37:47]:
Yeah.

Melissa Hall [00:37:47]:
Or I would think even, even if it's like, oh, they, they thought it had to be some big issue, but then they realized like, oh, okay, this little thing that just kind of mildly annoys me, but it does mildly, mildly annoy me every day. They're like, oh, okay, well, I can bring that up.

Maureen Werrbach [00:38:00]:
Right. And I want to say, if you work and lead in a place where it's toxic, that a group discussion like this might not be great because you could have, you know, all the staff raise their hands up at once and bring these huge problems up. That's where the one-on-ones are better suited because you can manage one person to focus on one person at a time, listen to what they have to say, and you don't get that sort of group feeding off of each other sort of thing. So if it's a toxic environment or you just happen to be in a a place where a lot of staff are not happy and you want to make that shift, I would suggest doing that stuff one-on-one and modeling it. Is it one, a lot easier for you to take that information and get it in smaller doses versus feeling like you get bulldozed? But if you have a place where everyone seems to be happy and everyone's not giving feedback or feels afraid or just thinks that they're, whatever they're upset with or whatever they don't like isn't that upsetting, so it's not worth bringing up, then the group dynamic can be a little helpful, a little bit more helpful.

Amber Hawley [00:39:05]:
I also think it's about the personality of the leader. Like, if this is your first time and it feels really overwhelming, probably in the group is not going to feel the safest to you. So start, even if you don't feel you have a toxic environment, starting out one-on-one can feel much safer and, and you kind of build that muscle, like you're saying. I think the other thing, and I can't remember, I feel like this came from The Best Place to Work, But going along the lines of modeling, and it goes back to something Melissa had mentioned earlier, is I know I'm really intentional about sharing my mistakes so that it is creating that culture because there's so many things where if people are holding onto that and not sharing it, there can be these little bombs like building up in your business that you're unaware of because nobody's even shared that this thing is happening. So I do think that the modeling piece is such a huge part of leadership and, you know, making it comfortable for people to talk about all that stuff.

Maureen Werrbach [00:40:03]:
I totally agree.

Melissa Hall [00:40:04]:
Well, Maureen, this has been very thought-provoking. I'm sure this is a huge topic that it sounds like you spent a lot of time really implementing this too. So obviously people can check out Radical Candor, the book, if they want to learn more about the specific approach. But you also have a podcast, and if people are interested in checking out you and what you do, Where do they go?

Maureen Werrbach [00:40:27]:
They can go to thegrouppracticeexchange.com. Has literally everything— how to contact me, my podcast, all that fun stuff.

Melissa Hall [00:40:34]:
Nice and easy. Yeah, simple. Awesome. And we would love to know how you are going to implement this. And I, I feel like this is something that could be beneficial to read at any stage in your business. So even if you are just at the stage of you're going to hire your you first, know, virtual assistant, or you already have a team, this is something you can implement and something you can implement with customers. So if you know how you're going to implement this step, even if that's just, I'm going to buy the book and I'm going to read it by X date, then please head on over to our website, mybizbestie.com, and let us know what you plan to do.