Stop Promoting Your Best into the Wrong Role (feat. Traci Austin)

Who can't manage people?

I see this every week.

You take your best carpenter, and make him a super without giving him a system.

production drops, the crew starts fighting quality slips and you're left wondering what happened to your A player.

So here's the truth.

It's not a bad employee.

It's a bad handoff.

Tracy Austin is on the show today.

She says 87% of delegation failures happen in the first 30 days because of one missing conversation.

She calls it the delegation litmus test.

The difference between asking for 25 nails versus a level door.

One creates chaos, the other creates accountability.

Later, she walks through the exact six step script to fix a struggling crew member in five minutes without firing them.

Without the drama.

So if you're bleeding margin through your field, you need to hear this.

If you're new here, hit subscribe.

We install systems like this every week.

This is beyond the bid.

Let's get into it.

You're listening to Beyond the Bid, the show by GO First, where we share the systems, strategies and practical AI for builders.

Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale.

Beyond the Bid.

All right, welcome in, Tracy.

Thanks so much for being here.

Welcome to beyond the Bid.

Well, thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation.

I know we, were chatting a little bit off air, just about, like, what you've been up to and just the crazy things that are going on in construction, and also just, you know, content strategy as a whole.

Right.

But for those who haven't met you do you mind just kind of giving, like, a quick spiel of, who you are and what you've been up to?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, Tracy Austin.

so we've.

We've been working with construction organizations, consulting for about eight years.

specifically teams.

You know, how do we build teams?

How do we retain the best?

How do we ensure we've got the best people in the best roles?

Because here's the deal.

You could have the best people performing their worst because they're not in the right role or they're not being led the way they need to be led.

And so, you know, we're really looking to say, hey, how do we kind of get to this apex where the individuals are getting everything they want out of work and the organization is getting what they want and need out of the team?

You notice I didn't say individual, but out of the teams that come together to produce those outcomes for the organization.

absolutely.

Yeah.

What's that, like, cheesy adage?

Teamwork makes the dream work?

It can.

Or it can make life hell, depending upon where you're at.

I mean, you know, let's be real, then.

It's not a team, but that's a different conversation.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Though, I mean, you know, in construction, too, this is.

It's.

I, you guys have been around for eight years.

It's obviously something that so many, you know, both residential and commercial builders really need in terms of, because construction isn't really the one that's.

The.

The industry that's known to have, you know, the best culture when it comes to environment.

you know, and let's look at that for a second.

Like, I know this isn't on our script, but let's dive in.

Like, why do construction typically not have the best cultures?

Like, I have my stance on this, but I'm curious from you.

Yeah, I think, you know, that's.

That's a great question.

I.

I think a lot of it is just the.

It's kind of like the.

The.

The tools that people carry.

Right.

Like, they Just like my background's in tech and so I've come from software companies where, you know, you, you do essentially the equivalent of like a disc assessment.

You do the, the personality test, you get to know yourself, get to know your team.

and the, the culture in, in most software companies, even though it's high pressure, it's very different than the culture that you find like on a, on a job site or, you know, when you're vetting subs or anything like that.

And I think the, the tools that you have to like, you know, get to know your team and also just your work style, I think it's improving by a ton.

But, traditionally those tools haven't really been promoted for contractors.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think some of this comes down to a definition of a team.

Right.

Like, if we look at what is a team truly?

Like, if you follow like the Patrick Lincione and five behaviors of a team, although is like A team is eight to 12 people that work together consistently for six months or more.

If you look at our, you know, job sites and our construction teams, do they meet that definition of a team?

The answer is typically no.

Like, we have core teams for sure.

But when I'm working, you know, with our line level leaders, what I'm hearing so often is, yep, I was bounced to this job and I was bounced to that job.

And you know what?

Very rarely do I have the same folks that I'm working with consistently.

You know, it might be two weeks here or three weeks there or a day here and there.

And so there is a piece of high turnover and we don't have that true team because of the nature of the work.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, the team dynamics.

That's a really good point.

Just in terms of the, almost like the temporary nature of these projects.

Right.

And some of it is that now there's longer term ones That's completely different.

Right.

But I do think that that is a piece of it.

And then culture, how we define culture here at Elevated Talent is culture is the behaviors that we allow or don't allow in our work environment.

Well, if we think about that, what's the culture here on this job site and is that the same when we go to the next?

And the answer is typically no.

Right.

So now we have this, you know, almost disagreement around the quality of work to be done, the quantity of work to be done, how the work is done that shifts between each individual that you're working with.

absolutely.

Yeah.

How.

I guess that's a really interesting point.

how do you get people to measure that just like the, the consistency of the culture from job site to job site?

Yeah.

So, you know, when we're looking at it, we're typically looking at outcomes.

Right.

So it could be, you know, jobs done on time or quality, those types of things that are there.

And so, you know, a lot of what we end up doing and working with our clients on is it's really the introduction, introductory.

Wow, I can't talk today.

In the first 90 days.

Right.

Like, so what is that onboarding program?

What are those outcomes that we actually want folks to get to?

Are we actually giving enough training time and enough time to ensure that folks actually understand what the processes are and that we're holding accountable to it versus man, not enough time.

Not enough time.

Not enough time.

Right.

The not enough time becomes the culture, which ends in safety issues, which ends in a lack of training.

So, that's one of those items where how we train and onboard our team has a significant impact in what that culture is going to be long term and ensures that we have some consistent.

absolutely.

Yeah.

That's, that's pretty neat.

I, I, I guess, how do you get.

Well, the first question that comes to mind actually is, you know, is that the number one reason why builders and contractors start reaching out to you and you know, is that they, they recognize that they don't want to have a culture where everything is just so, you know, like so much in a, insta pot, high pressure situations.

So what I'll say is I don't typically get a call from construction folks asking about improving cultures.

Right.

Like that's not quite the language that we're using.

However, you know, what we do get the calls on is, hey, how can we increase our retention?

you know, we've got, you know, folks that are leaving, we're getting misses on different items.

So those are typically where we start to get those questions is it's definitely staffing related.

and it's definitely around, hey, how do we shift this?

The other one that we get.

So we've talked about, you know, that training at the very beginning, but the other one that we get the questions around is, you know, we've got, we have a leadership vacuum inside of our organization.

So how do we start, you know, essentially promoting folks through the organization into, you know, the next level so that, you know, they stay, stay engaged.

and we're not promoting folks into people leadership roles when they should never, ever, ever manage people.

Right.

So so that's kind of that other piece.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean this is often a common, just like with most sales teams and high performers is if you're exceptional at, one role, then, you know, we'll put you into a management role, hoping that you can kind of spread that, that like your best practices to the rest of the team.

But you mentioned that I think somewhere I read that you talk about like this best man paradox, which is kind of, that it's you know, essentially just promoting the, the best performer into a manager role.

Right.

And just the, the maybe you can talk about the consequences of that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So when we look at this, well, I'm going to back up to move forward if that works for you.

So what we find, and Then I'll get into our best guy paradox.

But we find four drivers of engagement.

So four drivers that keep folks kind of happy at work.

Right.

First one is fit to roll.

The second one is, is the leader leading them the way they need to be led?

The third one is, you know, is my team, you know, playing whack a mole on me or are we turning up each other's strengths?

And the fourth is the culture.

Right.

So those are the four, you know, kind of drivers of engagement.

So this best guy paradox falls into fit to roll.

And what we typically find is you got a guy that or gal that is in the best role for them.

Let's say they're a framer.

Right.

And they're phenomenal at what they do.

They see themselves as a craftsman, a craftsperson.

Like they're phenomenal at it.

Right.

And so, hey, you're great at it.

Now we're going to have you lead this team of them.

Well, that job is fundamentally different because now the core of the job, are they still doing some of the framing aspects of it?

Sure.

But depending upon the organization where you're at, it's 50ish percentage of it, if not less.

Right.

So now we fundamentally change their job.

Are they good at the job that we just shifted them into?

The answer is typically not.

Right.

Do they want to do that job and could they be good at it if they want to?

Now those are two questions that we have to both ask and answer.

And typically it's just a promotion and they see dollar signs and say, yeah, great.

because what's very difficult is unwinding that where we still want to retain somebody.

But we figured out that this was a bad move.

Right.

And so, you know, how we solve for that is we have, and I kind of mentioned this earlier, our mentorship program, which is we have folks, kind of go through some leadership training and then what they're doing is they're putting that into action very specifically with being a new hire buddy to new hires coming on.

And so what we're looking at then is, hey, how, you know, how's that new hire after the first 90 days?

Remember the consistency that we talked about at the top of the conversation?

so.

And we also, you know, talked about the leadership vacuum.

So what the new hire buddy program does is it solves the leadership vacuum and the turnover issue in the first 90 days while allowing the organization to start to implement some of these kind of structured.

This is kind of how we do things.

And here's the reason why.

Without putting that on the manager's shoulder, we're giving this new hire buddy an opportunity to determine, hey, are you a good people leader or are you a better process leader?

And how do we get folks to actually improve on their own skill set?

We have them train somebody else.

So typically they're going to learn more by training someone else because to have to explain it differently and actually explain the steps that they wouldn't have to do for themselves.

That's right.

100.

Yeah.

If you want to, what's that, thing from college?

If you really want to learn something, you got to teach it.

yeah, that makes perfect sense.

yeah, I know that I've always been a fan of kind of that style of onboarding too.

Or even that style of change management where you have kind of an accountability partner, whether it's a buddy, if you just started a new role or just someone who you can kind of relay information to and fro in terms of, hey, like this is my workload, this is what I'm expecting.

But also, you know, I'm kind of vetting out these ideas.

if that person's been there a little bit longer, whatever it is.

Yep, yeah, that's great.

I really like that.

the other, other thing that I noticed that you had mentioned is kind of this, this concept of like a tough talk script.

Right.

Because so many builders, so many contractors, just people in general.

I kind of, even though the, the, you know, the Persona is the, of a con, a construction business owner is this tough guy who's yelling all the time and stressed out, most, more often than not, people just avoid confrontation.

The tough talk script is that, is that one of Those tools that can be kind of useful for, for those people.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's a piece before, kind of the tough talk that we like to walk through.

And that is essentially it's looking at and saying what is really the problem.

Right.

And so before we can have a conversation, we need to know what we're having a conversation about.

And so I like to look at this and say, okay, like, what are the complaints?

Right.

Like, I may hear, you know, no one wants to work anymore.

My team doesn't take their work seriously.

Nobody wants to implement this new, software platform, like, whatever that is.

And so the first thing we like to do is say, okay, let's, let's look at our complaints and really start to determine what is the real.

What's.

What's.

What's the real problem that we're solving.

So do you have one?

Do you want to go through it?

Yeah, let's do it.

so let's see.

yeah, a friend of mine, he's a, like a 4.5 million in revenue builder.

They just, implemented this tool called Job Tread Big Construction management software.

but he's having a hard time basically getting it off the ground by getting his team to adopt it.

Awesome.

This is such a good one.

I just presented this topic at the Trumbull user conference back in November about implementing different softwares.

So, essentially what I'm hearing is nobody wants to use this new software.

Yeah, exactly.

So what are the facts around that new software?

So, you know, when I say facts around the new software, I'm looking for key numbers around, like, hey, how much time are we spending on the process right now?

How much time should this actually save us at the end?

you know, like, what are all of the facts around the new software that specifically are related to the folks that aren't using it?

Right.

Or the folks that are making it.

So it's not getting off the ground.

sure.

I think, part of it is kind of they've, built so much of the business in spreadsheets and so, like a fear of moving away from that, okay, something's going to break, or thinking that something's going to even, you know, take longer than it currently is.

Right.

the, you know, the reason why they, they bought the software in the first place is to overcome that.

It's to streamline, you know, their communication, their estimates, the way that their team is actually working together.

but yeah, the, you know, I would say There's, there's just this concept of being scared of, change.

Right.

So we have a fear, Right.

And the fear is an emotion that's around it for something that's changing.

But what I'm curious about is when we look at, is it that, you know, we don't know how to use the software yet?

Is it, you know, we have to run duplicate systems, so for this period of time, it's actually going to take us twice as long to do this than it will afterwards.

Is it that, you know what, We've tried to implement a software system before and it lasted three months and this is just, you know, next flavor of the month.

Right.

So what we want to get is what are the facts and the data around it.

Because once we get the specific facts now we can really start going into what is the problem solving mode.

Right.

So, let's.

Do you want to just pick three or four?

Yeah, we can, let's see.

So to start, they have, like, what did they say, 100 plus spreadsheets.

Okay.

they've tried four different project management platforms.

Okay.

Failed.

for one reason or another.

They.

What else?

they don't know how to use it because they haven't dedicated the time to actually look at some tutorials.

Yep.

and let's.

And there's really, unfortunately no like high level or I'm sorry, like top down direction either.

Okay.

Even though the, even though they're paying for it, even though the CEO has kind of adopted it, he is, isn't even sure how to begin with.

So, you know, what I'm hearing is we don't yet have a project management plan and we need somebody that truly and intimately knows the software that can work with us to create a rollout plan is what kind of I'm hearing.

Right.

Yeah.

So what would be the impact on the CEO if this project management software is implemented successfully?

just the, the ability to have trust that his business isn't going to close up doors in six months.

And so forecasting is a big one.

Okay.

Being able to actually know what his team is working on and making sure that they're working on the right things.

Okay.

And then what's the impact on the team?

let's see.

Yeah, being able to not have to spend so much admin time in spreadsheets and just talking about this fear of breaking things.

the fear of, you know, typing in one wrong thing in a spreadsheet cell that might break other formulas.

yeah.

so I would say, yeah, just the like, role disparity yeah, absolutely.

So the impact on the CEO then is, look, we can forecast, we know what's coming, we know what revenue is, we know what our costs are.

you know the, the impact on the, the people is that they're working on the right thing.

the, you know, it's, it's a significantly reduced time once they've learned it and are trained on it.

What's the impact on the customers?

that's a, communication is streamlined so they would probably have, they would know one I guess there's a client portal so have more trust in their decision to work with these guys.

Yeah, they can you know, see communication in real time.

They can get projects updates a lot faster.

see photos and all that.

See the, the full transcript of our timeline of everything that's been done instead of you know, these piecemeal weekly updates or bi weekly updates that are probably being pulled from numerous spreadsheets into one.

Yeah.

So we're starting to impact the client experience which means, hey, this is a key differentiator between us and other firms because we're not just delivering a product, we're also delivering an experience and this completely shifts that.

And so you know what started as the complaint of we can't get this new system off the ground.

We've kind of looked at the facts as to why we haven't been able to.

It's the fourth system in a period of time managing 100 plus spreadsheets.

We don't have a trainer right now on it.

We, we've not been kind of, you know, we've been taught to, to self taught, teach this to ourselves versus actually go through a change management, project management cycle.

And so the key impact on you know, the client is a significant shift in the their experience, what they know.

Which means that we're probably going to increase the client satisfaction at the end and we're going to also decrease the missed deadlines with that which will probably increase our revenues as well.

Right.

So when we can kind of look through all of this now we come to kind of the piece where it's going.

Okay, what requests do we actually need to ask relating back to kind of that complaint which is we can't get this thing off the ground.

Requests we, that we would ask from say like a project manager consultant or.

Well yeah, it could be a request to like the CEO that says hey, we really need to bring in a project manager or consultant on this because here's all of the reasons.

And this investment of x dollar amount will actually make it so that we can get it implemented on time for, and not go with another system.

Nice.

Yeah, absolutely.

does that make sense as to how we've walked through that?

Yeah, I would say so, absolutely.

Then the result here is that we, then are able to implement this.

The Tough Talk audit, then is how we have this conversation, what that really is.

Sometimes these are performance conversations, sometimes these are a request.

In this scenario, what we may do is say, hey, we actually need to walk through and figure out if our request to bring in a project management or if our request is to remove a significant amount of, you know, workload from someone so they can be the expert internally.

We've got to move some things off their plate.

Right.

So whatever that request is, it could be internal, it could be external, doesn't really matter.

But we have to have clarity on what is the project scope, you know, what is the deadline in this, who do we need to enroll in it and what that looks like.

So what that, you know, kind of productive tough talk audit looks like is the first one.

The first step is to prep with intention.

So grant, for this conversation, what would be your intention of this conversation with, let's say, the CEO?

it would be to, yeah, essentially put together, a roadmap to make sure that we don't fail with the implementation.

Right?

Yep.

So.

And for them to say yes to the roadmap that we can get the resources needed to implement it.

Yep.

And so, the second kind of step for this Tough Talk audit is to set the tone.

So what I see happen so often is that we go in kind of almost demeaning the person that's there of like, well, why didn't you think about this?

Or, well, why didn't this happen?

And it's kind of like this backhanded, passive aggressive way of addressing it.

I don't know if you see that, but a lot of times that's what I, I see.

and so, you know, it's really to set the tone, about how we want to go about the conversation.

So for this one, it may look something like, you know, hey, I wanted to talk to you about the project management system that we have.

And I know that this is the fourth time we've done it.

And what I really appreciate is your commitment to ensuring we have the right tools in our organization, knowing that we're tiny and yet at the same time we're not going to be able to grow further without doing that.

yet what we're currently doing isn't quite working.

Would you be open to another approach?

Nice.

I like that.

Yeah.

So that's setting the tone with kind of the respect and the openness of where we're going.

the third is to stick to the facts, which is why when we set the whole thing up with the complaints is, what are all the facts?

Now we can kind of start to name, hey, here's what we've seen.

Look, there's no blame or shame on.

This is the fourth time.

It's just, hey, here's the facts of where we're at and here's our commitment to where we want to go that aligns with what their vision is and what their commitment is.

A lot of times what I do now is I just stop talking when it comes to, like, presenting the facts.

Yeah.

So it's presenting the facts and then saying, hey, what are your thoughts?

Because what's important here?

And our fourth step is to notice what's not being said.

And so if Whether we're, you know, having a conversation that's a performance conversation, whether we're making a request for something that we don't have, you know, it's really important to understand, hey, what's going on in their head, so what's not being said that I'm not sure about?

And so often it's like when we're having these tough conversations that nobody wants to have.

We talk so fast and we're not paying attention to body language.

We're not paying attention, again, to what's not being said.

So that's where just stopping and giving folks either a chance to catch up with their thoughts or to start to ask questions allows us to.

Which takes us to our fifth point, which is to collaborate on solutions.

I like that.

So with the collaborating, do you.

I know there's a lot of different, strategies with how many solutions to present?

Should it be two?

Should it be three?

do you have, like, any recommendations on, you know.

Yeah.

Volume?

Yeah.

So a lot of times when I'm going in with something, I've done my research, and so I'm going in with a solution that I want.

Right.

So in this situation, you may be coming to him with, you know, a solution or two or an alternative.

So like, we actually came up with two solutions.

One would be to hire a consultant with it.

The other would be, hey, is there somebody internally that this would actually be a stretch role for them.

It would be huge for their career that they want to dig into.

Yet we have to get them the training.

So it may be, you know, and then we need to make the request to move some things off their plate so they actually have the time to do this and get the thing off the ground.

Right.

so, you know, there's times where I may present too.

But the key here is that we have the curiosity and the openness to say, hey, this is what I see from where I sit.

What do you see from where you sit?

Because have you heard the term multiple competing priorities before?

I don't think so.

Yeah.

Okay, so when I say multiple competing priorities, what I mean is if I'm sitting in an HR seat, there's very specific things I am A, exposed to, but B, kind of what I'm rated on.

Right.

yet if you're in finance, you're looking at things very differently because you're looking at numbers versus people.

If you're an operations, you're looking at it very different from a finance perspective than an HR perspective.

If you're the CEO, you're also.

So when we're in different seats, we have a priority that is most important to us.

So when we say multiple competing priorities, so often as a team, we don't actually lay out what those are on the table so that we can disagree on it and move So, you know, when I say, hey, I might come in with two solutions, thinking about things from where I sit or maybe who I've talked to, but I'm not going to have the perspective from You from where you sit.

And it's important to invite that in because that starts to create the collaboration.

And, you know what?

I never thought of that because it's not something I look at from where I sit yet.

But it will be in the future.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially if you're.

If you have a systematic way of just documenting that, like, getting to know.

I mean, there's so much value in, you know, having a transparent conversation like that.

Just getting to know, hey, what are your directives?

Like, what are you.

What are you actually trying to overcome right now?

Right, absolutely.

And what's so interesting here is this takes us right back to what you talked about before, which was, you know, you went right to the feelings.

Why isn't happening.

Well, it's fear.

It's those things.

Well, those things that fear will come up all of the time, but most of the time we're not going to say we're afraid of it.

Right.

Like, I'm going to give an example, but I want to finish this out with the six step, which is to clarify the next step.

So, like, when we clarify the next step, it's going to say, hey, this is what we agree to do.

Yep.

You got to go ahead to go ahead and bring in whoever I'd like to interview them.

And we're going to do this by XYZ date.

So we're going to clarify that next step.

I love that.

Yeah.

At that point is the next step.

You've.

You've solidified the, the direction that you want to go.

So in that case, we'll say that they want to actually move forward with a consultant.

and the next step is like, okay, let's discuss our options when it comes to who we should actually be vetting or working with.

Yeah.

So that's what you're going to determine.

Right.

So it could be, hey, Grant, go find us two consultants.

We'd like to do interviews by.

Today is February 2nd, by February 25th.

And we'd like to have a consultant hired by March 15th.

Nice.

Like, so that's the examples and the key part on clarifying next steps is, you know, who's responsible for it, what are they responsible for, and what is the buy when.

Huge.

that's awesome.

So do you.

Do you see that the most successful companies that you've worked with kind of have almost like an internal directory of, you know, internal projects listed?

Exactly like that, you know.

Yeah.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Whether that is in like a Monday.com or a 90io or especially for those organizations that are using, like, the EOS system, like a lot of them are using, like, you know, or.

Yeah, not Monday, the other one.

Whatever it is.

IO because, you know, they're tracking.

So it's clearly visible and transparent to everyone in the organization.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Have all those rocks and things listed out.

Yeah.

But I do want to go back because I was going to go into a story and I wanted to kind of complete this first.

But let me just name these six steps so your listeners can hear it all at once.

So what we have found is the six steps for that productive, tough talk is to prepare with intention, set the tone in the conversation, stick to the facts, don't go into feelings, stick to the facts of what's there, notice what's not being said so that you can bring in those multiple competing priorities and start to have some of those disagreement conversations through understanding so that you can collaborate on solutions, then clarify the next steps.

Amazing.

I love that.

Yeah.

So what I was saying is, as we Were talking about fear.

Like, I've had this, know, kind of goal of, hey, like, I want to start doing these lives.

You know, I've done a ton of podcasting and whatnot, so let's go do an Instagram live.

Well, we go to do it this morning and I realize I can't even get on Instagram on my phone.

Then I realize, I don't know, I can't figure out how to do a live and all these things.

And sometimes it's like you have to just do it the first time.

And doing that kind of like with a buddy, the first time one creates accountability.

But the second piece of that that it does is it also has us get over the fear of not knowing how to do something.

yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Having, just somebody who's, you know, like that almost like a positivity coach or something, just kind of pushing, like, say, hey, let's do this together.

Yeah.

And if you think about it, like, think back to we had talked earlier in our conversation about our new hire buddy program.

And it's like having that, you know, that individual, you know, that's been there a while, kind of good in their role.

Hey, let's have them kind of be that buddy for someone new coming in.

Are they a positivity coach?

I would say no.

But what they are, is there somebody that can connect with that person to help to ensure that they're learning kind of the things that they need to know to move forward?

absolutely.

Yeah, I can absolutely see that being super beneficial to or really anybody, even super small teams, just having, But yeah, you said you're going to start doing that more, lives.

Cool.

So that Tough Talk blueprint, I think, Grant, you've got, a link to that if somebody wanted to download it.

So that is out there.

So if you liked kind of the process you heard today as we walked through it, check that out.

And that way you've got the steps in writing as well.

Yeah, that will definitely be in the show notes in YouTube and then also on the webpage.

you also mentioned something about a delegation litmus test.

Can you just briefly cover that because, so many of our audience members would just love to hear about that and really find value in it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So here's what I want you to think about when you think about delegating.

Does the person you're delegating to know how to So.

And have you verified it?

You notice when we look at delegation, there's two key pieces to it.

One is the outcome of what we're trying to get and then the other piece is the output.

So let me describe these two things.

so, an output may be that we're going to hammer 25 nails.

Who cares?

The outcome is that we have, you know, a door that, you know, is swinging correctly, that closes, that's level, that's flush, all those things.

Does putting 25 nails and equate to the outcome we're actually looking The answer is no.

Right.

And so the key here, the distinction between an output and an outcome, is that we need to ensure from a delegation standpoint that folks truly understand what is the outcome we're looking for so that it can be handed off.

Now, the key here with delegation is so often when we delegate things, it's like, I'm going to throw it over the fence and I'm going to run.

Yeah, it's drop and run versus looking at and saying, have I truly taken them through the steps that they can pick this up and that they know how to do it versus I just assume that they sure.

Yeah, that's.

That's a good point.

I don't think I know for a fact that nine out of my 10 bosses that I've had in the past do not do a good job of that.

So.

And if you notice, what we're coming back to is we're coming back to training, we're coming back to this fundamental kind of pieces of what things are.

Now, there's a distinction, right?

When we hire someone into a role, we expect that they have a base level of understanding and of know how within that role, whether that is because of years of experience, whether that is because of education or whatever that is.

Yet taking them through that onboarding process ensures that not only do they know how to do it, but they understand kind of what your way of doing and what your expectations of outcomes are within the organization.

Just the transparency there is tremendous.

Yeah, right.

The understanding of what the expectations are and.

Yeah, exactly.

Like what their perceived outcome looks like.

It's huge.

Right.

So bottom line, a litmus test on delegation is does your two definitions of what winning looks like the same?

If they are not the same, you do not pass the litmus test.

If they are the same, then you pass the litmus test.

Amazing.

That's huge.

Yeah.

I think that alone is a tremendous takeaway for so many of the people who listen to the show.

Yeah.

well, Tracy, I really appreciate you coming on.

Like, just the knowledge drop in terms of what the gains that we've been able to cover here.

it's absolutely awesome.

I think so many of our listeners struggle with this tremendously.

And so just being able to take those true, actionable, practical takeaways and deploy it in their day to day, it's amazing.

So how can.

So for those who are struggling with this and those who want to learn more, how can they get in contact with you?

Absolutely.

So we are@ elevatedtalentconsulting.com and you can also find me on LinkedIn.

We run about six leadership development programs a year.

So these are eight week programs that take new leaders through, many of the different kind of, you know, learnings that we talked about today.

And then we also have our coaching programs specifically for our, you know, business owners, executive leaders.

And a lot of times that's where we're starting is with the coaching so that they understand, okay, if I shift this or just the transparency, the significant impact that can happen within their teams.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Well, like I said, thank you so much for, for jumping on and we'll definitely drop the, the assets in the show notes for those who need it, which is pretty much everybody.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much.

It was great to be on and we will connect soon, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

Have a good day.

Thanks.

Bye.

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