Top Tips From Sam & Ruth Harrowfield.
1. Ask for Feedback Regularly:
“Periodically ask for feedback. After a meeting, pull aside a trusted team member and say, ‘Hey, how was I in that meeting? Can you honestly tell me?’ Establish a culture where it’s safe to give feedback by asking for it and receiving it first.”
2. Build Trust:
“Building trust with your people is the bedrock on which you can do everything else as a leader. It’s not hard to find resources on how to build trust between you and your team and also between team members.”
3. Invest in Personal Development:
“Make time for your development. It’s always easier to do your deliverables than to think about how you’re delivering what you do as a leader. Spend time and energy on making yourself a better leader.”
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, work, leader, team, good, conversations, leadership, tools, feedback, business, helping, give, part, accountability, person, bit, assessment, love, important, set
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 00:00
Big part of it is, do you get a quiver and you liver at the idea of leading people? You know, does it excite you? Do you think? Yes, I want to empower other people. Periodically ask for feedback. You know, after a meeting, pull one of the trusted members of says, Hey, how was I in that meeting? Can you honestly tell me how it was? Was I great? Bad? Not so good. Where was I good? Where was I? Where could I be better establish a culture where it’s safe to give feedback by asking for it and receiving it first. So modeling that, I think, is something you need to do permanently.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:36
Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, Taylor and I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses. I’m a certified EOS implementer, an FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner myself with several business interests, I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:19
Today’s guests are experts in the topic of people and leadership. They’re a married couple working together with four kids that were homeschooled. They’re best mates, despite working together for five years in business and 21 years of marriage, and they’re both completely fascinated with people and relationships and how to get the most out of relationships. On today’s show, they’re going to share with you how you can improve communication, clarity and accountability with your leadership team and with the people in your team to get the most from your business. So good morning and welcome to the studio. Ruth, Sam. Lovely to have you here.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 01:54
Delighted.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:55
Yeah, so I you’ve got Harrowfield people being your own business. Tell us a bit about how you got to even come up with that idea, and a bit of your backgrounds as to where you where you’re from.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 02:07
Great. Yeah, I think the best way is that Ruth and I were a husband and wife team, and we always wanted to have our own business together at some point. And at one point, we just went, let’s take some time out and figure out what that might look like. We hadn’t had any plans to start anything or hadn’t, didn’t have a timetable that we just sat down and said, Well, where do we add value to the world? Where? What do people appreciate us for? And what we landed on was the ability to help others understand themselves, understand others, and then how to communicate in a way that’s more effective, more efficient, more harmonious. And so that was the, that was the essence of it, yep. And then through that, and a bit of workshopping and just some good discussion, we settled on what, effectively, as a training business, with a few extra kind of tools in the toolkit that we know really helps people when they’re looking to collaborate better. So that’s, that’s the origin story, really, of the business.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 02:58
So what about your background? So I mean, what were you doing before this?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 03:02
Well, in a way, I’ve been doing what we do as a business, probably since I was a little girl, you know, I just was always the one in the playground at school, reading, you know, reading situations, helping people to figure out their struggles. I read self help books as a teenager rather than romance novels, I just think I’ve just always been really interested in what makes people tick, and ended up doing Organizational Psychology and study, but have gone into work for lots of different companies helping to develop their people. And I think for me, it’s just, I just really love seeing development in individuals and in groups, and I love doing that in the business world. And I think we both do really, don’t we? We really have a real interest and passion and businesses doing well, seeing it as that in a way.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 03:57
One way that I like to describe it is that, for better or for worse, the workplace has become the modern village. You know that it’s where, it’s where people spend most of their the best part of their working, awake days, and also it’s where people find most of their connection, you know, a lot of their connection will come from work. And so if we can contribute to making that a better place for people, then that brings us a lot of joy. Yeah, so that’s, I think that’s what’s behind. Yeah, we do what we do, and there’s common there’s common needs out.
There’s common kind of frustrations and pain points around how people relate with each other in the workplace or and relate to themselves sometimes, and get frustrated with themselves that perhaps they’re not getting to the things they want to do or and no one’s perfect. We’ve all got our limitations. And you just got to take one personality with all its history and story, and you pop it into a particular, you know, work environment in a particular culture, and good things happen and frustrating things happen and we’re all about helping just to do, you know, just translate that into ways that people can actually just work better and just be more peace with themselves and enjoying their work, yeah, and the people and the people they work with.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 05:07
Absolutely, I think you’re right about that being kind of the modern village. Because, I mean, really, that’s where we spend most of our time these days, and most people are at work, probably even more valuable time, if you like, than they are at home these days.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 05:19
Yeah, and, and, why not have that be a place where you’re just at your best, you know you’re your best self, and your relationships at work are as strong as they can be. And yeah, and I just It brings a lot of joy to us, doesn’t it, when we see that shift just a little bit more towards people being more confident, more connected, you know, being their true self at work and and therefore more productive. Yeah, yeah. Everyone wins.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 05:49
Yeah, and we talk about any us about, you know, doing what you love with people you love. And that is really important, because he said, spend a lot of time there, but also being authentic, right? So there’s, if you’re trying to be something that you’re not, it’s going to be really hard to be happy, no matter how hard you try. Is that fair?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 06:04
100% Yeah, I just had a conversation with the leader, you know, last week, where we were talking about what he did and whether what he did was a good idea or not, and I just said to him, but I think you could question what you did, but what you did was that was you being you. You can’t, you shouldn’t be turning yourself into another person to be a good leader. You the best kind of leader is being is being you with some tools, yeah? Sure, with some good tools. But yeah, yeah. Ultimately, this work, the work we do, should make people the best version of what they actually already are. Yeah, yeah. It’s part of our vision. It’s a part of our vision as people being authentic and being their true selves. And I think a lot of people feel like they’ve got to bend themselves into certain shapes to achieve things in life. And there’s definitely some disciplines that will help you, but you can, you can, you’ve got, there’s a lot of leeway there to show good leadership disciplines, or good, you know, Team contributor disciplines, without having to kind of be a certain type or act in a certain way. And the things people have got bs radars, they can pick up when someone’s not being real or being true to themselves, and which diminishes people’s respect for you. You’re when you diminish. When that happens, you’re diminishing respect for yourself. And it just, it just feeds off itself. So it can either feed positively or negatively into their authentic piece is really important.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 07:24
Now I know that in New Zealand, we’re going through some pretty tough times at the moment. I mean, we’ve obviously got an economic I’m not sure if I’m going to call it recession, because I don’t like that word, but economic downturn for sure. I know, and I still think you can actually make those things anyway. But then got an economic downturn, and obviously that puts a lot more pressure on business owners, a lot more pressure on people working, what are the kind of the common things that you’re seeing in the workplace at the moment?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 07:46
I think a lot of I have a huge amount of respect for anyone trying to run a business right now, it is. It just takes so much courage to stare down the expectations that you have of yourself, let alone the expectations everyone else has of you. You know, you set up a business, you get going, you hope you can be able to help people and make a profit in the in the in the in the process. But there’s just so much weight. And anyone who, who puts their hand up to run a business or lead a business is just hats off, man. It just takes courage. And so I think there’s just a lot more to juggle right now, I think, out of covid and the working from home, or a lot of different expectations around what employees were looking for and what they need or feel like they need, that’s kind of been layered up. So there is just a lot more resting on business leaders, not just to make sure people are engaged and doing the great work, but they’ve also got to be across often. Now, in quite some detail, people’s personal circumstances, because if someone’s working from home, there’s reasons for that. Some of those reasons are optional. Some of those are not.
And so an employer has to have an appreciation of all these different dynamics going on for people. Whereas in the past, perhaps you could have seen how you come to work, do your thing, head home, and there might be some flexibility around that, from a coming and going point of view, but now there’s just so many layers to it and that that is a there’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear on anyone who’s responsible for others. Yeah, yeah. So that’s one thing. It’s huge, isn’t it.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:13
We always sort of thought that technology would make things a whole lot easier, but in some respects, it’s added a whole lot more complexity, hasn’t it?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 09:21
Just love the five minute faff around at the start of a meeting. Everyone’s swearing and cursing over zoom or trying to get it all up. And working with we can actually start having a conversation.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:28
You’re on mute. You’re on mute. Okay? Right, I mean, with the work that you’re doing with people, what is it, sort of, what are you focusing on mostly, at the moment, do you think>
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 09:40
We are finding that the main focus tends to be training people in disciplines and areas where they are lacking knowledge or lacking the tools that they need to be able to see the change that they’re wanting to see, either in their people or in themselves. As leaders, It is so that tends to take the form of one on one training. If it’s a particular area that someone wants to grow in, or it’s with groups, you know, with whole teams, where there gets to be not only learning tools and disciplines, but also getting to have those facilitated conversations where you’re deciding, as a team or as a business, how you’re going to approach that you know particular area of challenge, whether it’s how you do feedback in your business or how you know how leaders might coach their people to take more responsibility. Yeah, and, and in terms of what we’re ending up doing, the training work in, it’s across a range of different leadership skills.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 10:45
How leaders can have conversations with the people that they’re working with to get the best out of them, and interpersonal skills, not necessarily just for leaders, but how do I have an assertive conversation and then, and then Personal disciplines. So how, how could I be more confident in the work that I have to deliver, or how can I manage my workload and priorities better? So it’s that that’s the personal disciplines and the interpersonal work.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 11:11
It’s interesting because before we came onto the podcast, we talked about, you know, this whole responsibility account, they’re holding people accountable, and it’s a tough thing to do as a business owner. I mean, I’m sure you know, yourself from your own business, I know I do that whole accountability thing. It feels a bit icky. It’s kind of like, oh, you know, I don’t really, it sounds almost old fashioned, but, but yet, it actually, it’s a bit retro. It is a bit retro, yeah, but at the same time, it’s really important, right?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 11:36
Totally, yeah. You have to start with really, we’ve been talking about this on the way here, but just the importance of setting really clear expectations and accountability. Accountability is a real I’m the kind of person that can have a lot of ideas in my head, and I don’t necessarily always communicate them clearly enough, right?
Debra Chantry-Taylor 11:51
So as every other visionary in the whole wide world, I think.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 11:55
Yeah, only ENFP, so that doesn’t help, because I’m bouncing all over the place. But so you got self awareness to know what your limits are, but you have to, you have to set, at the outset, accountability becomes harder when you haven’t set clear expectations. We’ve probably got more to say on this as well.
Yeah, it’s, it’s that it’s going to be really difficult for me to hold a person accountable to something that hasn’t been really clearly set out in the first place. And not only that, but that we’ve both agreed, if we if we’re both seeing different versions of what the goal was or what the expectation was, then it’s got to be harder for us to have that accountability conversation, so that that early on conversation becomes one of the most important things for accountability, and makes accountability easier in the end.
Because you’ve said, What would doing this well, look like? You know what? Whether it’s a team goal or it’s an individual goal, what would success actually look like? Let’s describe it, and then it’s going to be easy for me to ask you in at the deadline or whenever, how did that go? Where have you got to so setting it up. Well, I think helps to take some of the discomfort out of it. Yeah. And I think also one of the things that can help is, is that team goals around accountability as much as possible. You know, individuals still need to be held to performance standards. But where you’ve got team goals, it means the whole team’s agreed, and ideally it’s going to work if the team’s had a chance to have a really good argument or debate about what they’re committing to. But once those once those goals have been set by the team, it’s like there’s a natural peer pressure towards achieving it, and so I think that takes some of the pressure off the leader to do all the accountability work themselves. You know, people will be more keen to hold themselves accountable and each other, yeah. But ultimately, the leader’s got to stand up to be the one to have those conversations that will ask the question, you know, where have you got to what’s getting in your way? Yeah, and giving feedback, you know, giving regular feedback.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 14:06
I think one of the, I think that I’ve heard a couple of objections to holding people to account, as they’re off. I,if I hold them to account, they’ll get, they’ll just won’t turn up to work tomorrow. No, and, and that’s, that’s a very real concern, and especially around covid, when we went through a massive labor shortage, when businesses were absolutely cranking. People would just get, you know, would literally joke with us, man, which I get anything with a pulse, you know.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 14:27
Even my dogs on the payroll kind of type thing, you know, because it just, they were just that hungry for, for manpower to get, get, get through the work and so they’re concerned that, if they actually just kind of challenge people, that people will throw their toys. They’re also concerned that, you know, that either they won’t come to work or it’ll look more like more of a bigger deal than actually is, so say, performance managing me now, or that, oh, you know, this is escalated quickly, and people take it the wrong way, and often it’s normally due to an absence of a culture of expectations that, hey, when you come here, this is your role, and this is you’ll be hoping you’ll achieve through your role, and this is, you know, these, these are your goals or your metrics. However you want to describe them, you can make it pretty basic or get pretty, pretty sophisticated with that, depending on the kind of business you’re in. But if it’s not part of the narrative in your own and it’s in your own way, then then it becomes harder to kind of just to have the conversations where you need to. And I think also, I mean, it was, I was in a, we were in a workshop a couple weeks ago, and just someone said, Oh, man, how do you give someone some feedback without it looking like it’s going to be a big duster and, you know, where it’s going to turn into fisticuffs and all the rest of it.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 15:35
And, you know, there are some tools that you can deploy that keeps it there. But, I mean, feedback is a breakfast of champions. I mean, as a husband and wife team, we’re each other’s biggest advocates, we’re also each other’s biggest critics, right? And so thanks for some pretty testy conversations, but it’s necessary if we’re ever going to get better, yeah. And so feedback has just got to be it is probably if someone said, What’s the most important skill right now for leaders to master in order to have high performing teams. And say, just get good at giving people objective, data driven feedback. That’s the that’s that will help you to it’ll help you to get to the bottom of issues quicker. It’ll you can deal with issues while they’re small, before they blow up. Because often, sometimes we’re asked to help coach a leader through dealing with a problem, a problem person their team, and sometimes the actual issue was the fact that it wasn’t dealt with earlier, and people been putting it off and putting up on it, and it’s normally just a lack of confidence and a sense of a lack of skill. And what do I do? So yeah, we teach a couple of models to just help people get going around that.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 16:41
I think the data driven thing is really important as well. Now, when we teach people to give feedback, we always say, you know, it’s best to have sort of three data points you can actually be specific about. Otherwise it ends up being a little bit like a husband and wife conversation, you know, like, Oh, you’re so lazy. Well, what do you mean by that? Oh, well, you know, you’re just lazy. Well, give me an example. I can’t give you one. You’re just always lazy. That’s that’s not helpful for anybody in the in the you have to go specifically. Well, when I asked you to do this, this is what happened. And then there was also this example here, and, and here’s a third data point, and this is why. And, yeah, it’s it’s always difficult, right? I always sort of say, when I have those conversations, sometimes you feel like you much of the shove your head down the toilet and have the conversation. But, yeah, but you have to have it, otherwise it just right? Snowballs. It gets worse and worse, right?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 17:19
Can be in situations that I’ve just, like, turned into complete train wrecks and they go legal or something like that. You know, not every time, but a lot of times, it can be avoided when you just, sort of, I see something I’m not happy with that I need to and even if it’s an expectation you haven’t conveyed, you can still let someone know when something’s not quite right.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 17:40
But on the same side of it, it’s about making sure that if you’re going to have to deliver the not so encouraging feedback and perhaps pull someone up on something, you’ve actually been putting some money in the bank by actually saying to someone, hey, love this work. And specifically, what I love about the work you’ve done is this, this and this or this, is what I appreciate about you and what you bring to the team and and being really specific. So it’s data driven both ways, whether you’re giving the positive or constructive. Yep, it’s got, it’s got some substance to it, and it’s got some meat to it.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 18:10
Yeah, we talk about that in our core value stuff, as well as, like, you know, we recognize people for core values. Again, it’s quite important to be quite specific. You know, it’s great that you are helping first, and we saw this activity that really showed that’s what you were doing. Just that again. They’ve got a really strong data point. They can type that too, and it’s reinforcing positive behavior. But just just in terms of humans, I mean, we actually like boundaries, right? I mean, people get worried that, oh no, we can’t sit accountability, because we know people have to be able to. Most people actually enjoy knowing where those boundaries are, what they can do, what they can’t do, and we all enjoy celebrating success. So they’re pointed by having a boundary is you’ve got something where you can also go? Yeah? Can also go, Yeah, we achieved it, or we were, you know, that was a great project, yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 18:49
So true, yeah. And engagement goes up when people are getting regular feedback. And it doesn’t have to be positive. Only if people are hearing when they’re not doing well, that increases their engagement. But you do need the balance of the positive, and I think there needs to be an underlying trust. So something that helps you as a leader, to have a better pathway for giving people feedback is that you’ve built trust. You’ve done all of those things that help them to know that you’ve got their back, you’re giving positive feedback, but you’re also you’re asking for feedback, you’re spending time getting to know them pretty, pretty basic stuff, but yeah, and probably a bit too much to go into here, but how you build that trust? But if you can just do a few things that build that sense that you are for your people, then, then that is really the groundwork for being able to say that the tough thing when it needs to be said.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 19:46
Absolutely.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 19:47
We actually have worked up a module on boundaries for the workplace, because some people just don’t know leaders. Don’t know what they can expect of others, and they don’t know how to.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 20:00
Sometimes, some leaders struggle to kind of let people know when they’re not comfortable or happy with something or how to just make sure that certain you know people. And it’s not necessarily to deal with bad behavior, but it’s just when people not for people to help them know their own limits about what they’re up for and what they’re not so we develop that because we know it can really, really help, and it’s okay to it’s okay to set boundaries with people and those kind of things. I you know, I know someone who just often will have people constantly dropping into their office and they like they’re tearing here. I’m just trying to get stuff done. They have a huge amount and a big number of direct reports, so that makes it challenging in the first instance. But then there’s just the people that don’t just drop in to actually ask a specific, particular question. They rock in to kind of have the yarn. And as much as this person loves a good yarn, this person has things to do and so and their frustrations, they don’t know. They haven’t learned how to say.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 20:57
Hey, right now, you know. And, you know, what do you need from you right now? Can this weight? Is this important and that, and that’s taking that up the chain, not just with people that are reporting, but also when the when the senior leaders turn up and one of them, it’s like, how do I set boundaries with them? Yep, and that’s, that’s a whole, whole another thing. But you’re right. People need, they need a playing field. They need to know where they stand and where the boundaries are and what the goal line is and what’s out and what’s in, yep, um, it’s the sporting analogy is pretty handy.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 21:23
I actually, I was reading something the other day, and it was, you know, it’s talking about, even with incentive schemes, like, people like games, we actually like games, and we like winning. And the thing about games is that there are rules, right? You know the rules of the game. You know what position you’re playing. You know what the end game is and what you’re trying to achieve. And therefore, you can actually work towards it. If you don’t know all those things. How do you work towards it? Yeah, hey, I want to ask an interesting question, because you just said, you know, the span of control, like, if you’ve got, what is the ideal number of people a person can manage? Is there a limit? I’ve got my own views, but I’m just interested to hear what you have to say. Yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 21:56
Great question. I think, as with anything, there are factors. And you know, as to how much someone can manage so their own skill as a leader come into it how much other workload they’re carrying aside from simply managing others. But I would usually say anything over about seven and you’re getting you’re getting taxed, Yep, yeah, yes. It’s becoming, you’re, you’re likely to be giving less unless it’s all you’re doing, if you’re not really having to do a whole lot of strategic work or other type of delivery work, yeah, you may be able to, you know, I know quite a few leaders that are doing up to 9-10 people, but, but that’s all that they’re doing. I find that they’re struggling with it. You know, that’s what we’ll find. They’re just there are challenges with that many. And I think people can do it for a time, but I don’t think it’s sustainable to go on. And I suppose optimum, optimum number, oh, that’s a challenging one. I think, yeah, I think five, yeah.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 23:03
I’ve always said no more than six. I’ve always had no more than six, I think, because I think that six is where it starts to become a little bit challenging. Like you said, does very much depend on the leader. Depends on exactly what they’re doing in the business. But you know, six humans is actually quite a lot of humans to look after. And if you’re really going to take the time to build the trust, get to know them, work with them, your job is really just to remove obstacles and barriers and help them on that journey, then that requires input and time, and so yeah. And then you’ve got business as usual, as well as all the special projects on the go as well. It becomes really challenging.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 23:33
Yeah. And we say that, we say to leaders, especially young leaders that are going through, or rookie leaders, younger, they’re just, they’re just early in their leadership journey, that leadership actually is work, and it’s a very tough that’s very tough to navigate when you are required to stay on the tools as well as have others report into you that can that can be really, really difficult, because you’re focused on sometimes you might be doing the same work as the people that are reporting into you, and so you know what that takes in terms of effort and energy and focus and all those kind of things, but yet, you’re the one who gets lumped with all the tricky questions and kind of go to lunch and what’s, you know, all those kind of things, and that can, that can be very, very taxing. So, so how the how, it’s how your role is structured, and what you’re expected to deliver for that is, yeah, is the big? Is the big, the big piece. Usually, what we’ll see is that if someone’s got too many direct reports, they’re dropping the ball on one thing or the other. And often it ends up being the leadership that they drop the ball on, you know, because the deadlines and deliverables, I’d know, they’re just a bit more like a burning, you know, a burning signal come and come and deal with me, whereas the leadership. But it always feels like it can wait, because it’s never super urgent. It’s just important. And yeah, so if you can keep it to a lower number, where it’s possible, that just helps you to give more to it and give more to the leadership. And yet.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 25:00
I think there are some people with a little more capacity, you know? They just have that capacity to to understand people quickly. And yeah, maybe it’s a natural thing, or they’ve just had more time and practice at it. Also, how needy your team is part of it, right? Yeah. So some people need a lot of leadership. They need a lot of time in terms of leadership, whereas others, they still need leadership. It’s just the amount, in terms of time, will be less, but it doesn’t mean that thought doesn’t need to go into it for them.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:30
Yeah, it’s interesting. I was reading, there’s a book called people by EOS, and it was really there. They said that make sure the people you put into leadership roles are actually leaders, because sometimes you’re the top salesperson gets put into the sales leadership role, but they’re not really a leader. And I was, it gave me the thought in my head, like, is leadership? Are you born a leader? Can you be made a leader? Is a bit of both, some and I’ve got, again, I’ve got my own opinions, but I’d love to hear what you think about that.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 25:53
Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, it’s very common. And actually, in sales, are very common, you know. Oh, man, you nail the numbers, mate, you know, you can. You can show everyone else how to do it, you know. And, and it’s, it’s very common for people that put in that position to step out of it. They’ll go into sales leadership for a season and realize it’s, oh, they’re off the tools. They’re not out there hustling and doing the face time what they love. So it’s a common, it is a common profession or business discipline that obviously suffers from people going in and out of leadership. And I think that most people can learn essential leadership skills, but there will be some people that have a greater capacity to to hold more intention and be able to be comfortable with a lot more plates spinning than others.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 26:37
So I think, yeah, that. But many people can actually lead, and often do, and it starts to be technical capability, which is that, you know, where you’re a salesperson and you’re amazing at sales, and so you have that technical ability. And I say, well, let’s scale that and put you into a leadership role. But you know, going from being on the tools to being on people is a very different transition,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 26:57
And you’ve got to want to do it right too. I mean, I think that’s why you see those people jump, flopping and up, because I actually love being in front of customers. And you take that away from them, and suddenly it’s like, Oh, don’t think I like, yeah, there’s this side of it.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 27:06
So, yeah, what I was going to say, Debra, I think a big part of it is, do you do you get a quiver and you liver at the idea of leading people? You know, does it excite you? Does Do you think?
Debra Chantry-Taylor 27:15
Yes, I want to empower other people.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 27:16
Like that idea of, I will help you to get unstuck. I will help to empower you or help you to know what you’re going after. Yeah, and so that can be a huge range of people like I really do believe that some people are born with some special stuff that makes them amazing as leaders, but they still need to learn how to do it. And yet, I have seen people that may not have been naturally like that, you know, naturally a leader as a child or even as a young adult, but because they want to learn to do it, they’ve learned and become very good leaders. So there’s not, it’s not that, like there’s one pathway to being a great leader. But I do think one of the biggest elements is that they want to do it, yeah, you know, and that they’re actually, they’re actually prepared to make that mental shift from I do to I support you to do, you know, I power and enable the serving role, you know, yeah, serving leadership role, yeah, yeah. It’s interesting.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 28:15
No, I think, I think there’s a little bit, yes, there’s certainly people who or people who love people naturally, like you said from the from the very early age, you were all about helping people. So was I. I was always a person who wanted to help everybody, make sure they’re all being looked after. There’s obviously a natural thing that comes in into us when we’re born. But then I do believe that, yes, you can develop, and certainly I you don’t get born with all the tools that you need to actually. So you might have the want and the desire and the and the people loving part of it. But there’s a, you know, being a leader has got, well, being a leader, you’ll be organized. You’ve got to have say, the good conversations, the difficult conversations, you’re there to remove those obstacles and barriers and really lead and manage people, to help them achieve their role. It’s, it’s tough, right?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 28:57
Yeah, it is. And you can, you can have the charisma and be quite comfortable in front of an audience, and I’ve, I’ve made that fatal mistake in my lifetime, aware of like, oh, well, bit of a leader. I can make things happen and, you know, rustle a crowd along, get people going on stuff, but actually the back end, the organization, the discipline, the planning, those are all things that you need to work on. Whereas some person might be amazing at planning and knowing what needs to be said, but needs a bit of a nudge to really stick their neck up and actually say what has to be said. So it’s a,yeah, everyone, everyone brings it. But I think I love Ruth. What Ruth just said about the hunger for it, you’ve got the hunger for it, then you can work with that.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 29:34
The quiver in the liver is what she actually said. And I quite like, I’ve not heard that’s always about what makes your heart sing, but the quiver in the liver is great, yeah, really deep inside of us, like, yeah, I want to do this, yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 29:44
Marie Kondo, spark joy, you know, don’t just use that for decluttering. It’s like, do you have a little Shing about, you know about, yeah, I really want to see people grow, and see people come better, and, and, and it’s the thinking ahead too, you know?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 30:00
Yeah, that does that, that thinking they’re one step ahead, they’re looking further down the road everybody else’s and that’s actually that, that’s the buzz I get in our work. Is that we’ll be sitting there with a with a client, doing some work of some description. I remember happening earlier this year. We were doing some team development with a group of people. You know, they were sitting down understand the personality mix in the room. We’ve done some testing, and then we were workshopping this whole thing out, and you was watching the penny drop around the room, and just that, that’s, that’s a dream. That’s just a buzz, man, that’s totally a buzz. When you see people suddenly realize how much they now appreciate the strengths that someone brings what they thought was an irritation and a frustration with their relationship as a strength and they could, they saw how they could value it and not where they get under their skin and become collaborative collaborators, or people who can collaborate together rather than collaborator.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 30:54
Maybe that one, yeah, yeah, that one, or, you know, where they can just truly go from being adversarial in the workplace to being truly, truly partners. Because, Oh, I get it. Now, this is how you see things, and that’s that’s why. And so when we see that, that just totally gets me jazzed. Yeah, you know when you when the lights turn on? So, so, yeah, so that’s everyone’s got to find the quiver in their liver, and they might be to do something amazing technical and write code, or it could be just to help people figure stuff out, or just serve great, serve customers well, or any number of or put great strategies together that kind of bring about change and influence. So yeah, that’s what that’s part of our quiver.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 31:30
I think we see it as well. When we work with teams who are going through the EOS process, we talk about having visionaries and integrators, and so in the past, there was always a leader at the top of the organization who was somehow expected to do both. And they’re two very, very different roles, right? One is opening doors. One is really, really big picture thinking, big problem solving. Not so great, definitely developing the culture, but not so great at actually having the more difficult conversations than the minute detail. And so we have these two roles, visionary. And then the integrator, who was more about the managing of the people, the making sure everything’s on track, the project plans, the profit and loss, all that kind of stuff. And I did it with it with a couple who were married, working together. And as soon as they actually understood that one of them was very much a vision, and one was very much an integrator, suddenly the personal element came out of it.
So rather than it being, oh, Lisa, you’re always holding me back. You know, you’re such a pain in the ass, it was like, Ah, you’re being an integrator. And that’s what an integrator does. And so therefore it becomes less personal, not and that’s sort of the work that you do around the personality profiling and stuff too, isn’t it? So understand what, what makes people text. You can understand where they’re coming from. So it’s not a it’s not a personal thing. It’s just that actually, they’ve got different strengths and different weaknesses. Yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 32:35
Yeah, yeah. And we just, we absolutely love this work, and I’ve seen some real changes in teams as a result of it, where people are understanding you. This is how you, ah, this is you didn’t make yourself like this. This is your it’s your inherent nature, and we can learn to balance our inherent nature. But it’s that realizing what a what a gift it is. And I think once you understand a bit more of the mechanism behind the way that another person perceives the world, or makes decisions, or, you know, has conversations, likes to be in meetings, how what’s happening for them in their mind when they’re doing that, then it, it suddenly doesn’t become this personal, irritating thing at all. Yeah, it’s suddenly like, Oh, you’re just coming at this from a different perspective than me, and you can actually see that it’s good for you, that that person is different. It’s good for the end result, at least.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:36
Well, it’s for the greater good the business, you’ve got to have different people, right? The diversity is actually really important, because that means, I mean, I’m a terrible detail person in some areas, and in other areas, I’m completely anal, so I’ve got different skill sets there, but if you if it was all just down to me, we’d miss some pretty important stuff in the business. So thank goodness I have somebody who’s much more detail focused, who will pick up on those things, whereas they would be absolutely horrified about going out and doing keynote speeches or going to networking events or just opening doors of people. And I love that stuff. So again, it’s about working out where you naturally fit and what makes your live equivalent off you go.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 34:11
Very much. Yeah, yeah.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 34:14
No, that’s okay. Tell me. Tell me about the personality profile stuff that you do, a little bit about the work that you do there.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 34:21
So we do a lot of that for teams, but also for individuals. So when we’re working with teams, we’ve got a number of different tools we can draw on, and the purpose of the using those tools is to build trust in the team and to help people to understand each other. So understanding leads to trust. If I can understand you, where you’re coming from, what makes you tick, it helps me to trust you. And it’s there’s a little bit of a magic that goes on with that. There’s a once a person knows another person, it’s like trust is automatically built, and once we understand the reasons behind why people do what they do, it just builds a bond, and then that means it’s easier for the team to do all the other things that make it a strong team.
You know, psychological safety is number one as far as team performance goes. And so if people can feel safe in the team, and being known is a big part of feeling safe, then they are able to have those challenging conversations with each other and do all the other things that make them impactful as a team. So we do a lot of that work around knowing each other. Sometimes that’s personal histories, you know, learning about each other’s life.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 35:33
Patrick Lencioni was that it was originally his stuff or not.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 35:38
That’s one of his ideas. Yeah.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 35:40
Yeah. So we use it in our annual planning stuff.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 35:41
I think it’s a great exercise. Yeah, so powerful and yet, so simple. Yeah, tools like, like personality tests, you know, those, those are quite helpful. And then, and just learning techniques for building trust in terms of giving each other feedback. So how you give feedback, so that you can, you can really be truthful with each other. And then we also do personality work with individuals, so helping individuals to understand themselves for their own development. So, you know, an example of something like time management, you know, so I’m struggling to prioritize my workload. There could be a number of reasons underneath that. It might be that I struggle with distraction. You know, part of my personality is that I’m, I’m easily, oh, there’s something interesting. Oh, look, look, look. Or it could be that I’m someone who takes on too much, you know, I just, I’m over disciplined and responsible, and that’s making me load up my plate to the point where, you know, nobody could possibly hope to get done all the things that that I’m hoping to get done.
So I think often, if you look under the hood and understand your own personality that can help you then to know, rather than slapping, you, know, a bunch of tools in your face. Hey, just be more like this. It’s like, well, let’s figure out who you actually are. Let’s work out what your personal struggles are with this thing that you’re wanting to change, and be realistic then about how you will change that so that you’re not, you know, it comes back to what we were saying before, you know, so that you can be authentically you while you try to develop better time management skills and that kind of thing. So that’s where we find assessments, you know, really helpful for that, but we also use them for hiring people.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 37:16
So we as part of the process, we stress that it’s very important how that gets done, but we will. We will use an assessment as a way of helping hiring manager, hiring leader to determine, does this person have the competency set that we’re looking for. And it’s not to say, Oh, the test says it doesn’t, you don’t have it. You don’t have it. It’s no. It’s to flag. Where does this person is? Are they likely to naturally have some struggles in this area? So that I’m able to ask them some really good interview questions when I speak to them, and I’m able to ask their referee some really targeted questions.
So if the assessment’s showing me they might be one of these people that overloads themselves, then I can ask an interview question that probes around that, what are your strategies in terms of overloading yourself? You know? What do you do to make sure that you balance that? And if the person’s able to tell about how they’ve learned some really good skills to not, you know, to set boundaries around themselves and what they expect of themselves, then, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got a winner in that competency area, you know. So it’s very important not to use the tools as a you’re in, you’re out, kind of tick box exercise, but as an informing thing to help you go a bit deeper in the way that you do your you do your recruitment practice.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 38:35
Yeah, I like that because you said it can highlight some things that you do, because people are often aware of these things, and if it’s how they’re dealing with it isn’t that that’s really the key thing for you. If they’re not aware of it, it’s probably a big red flag, but they’re aware of it, and they’re doing something about it, then you can go, okay, at least this person is taking some responsibility and is cognizant of the fact that they’ve got a challenge there.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 38:55
Yeah, and often, those people will actually probably be some of the strongest people in that area, because they’ve had to struggle to become good at it. You know, they’ve had to struggle to learn to prioritize, or whatever the challenge might be, you know, someone who’s a bit straight and harsh with people, yeah? You know, they might have had to learn to build in, you know, taking the time to listen, to be interested in people’s lives when they really just want to get the job done, that kind of thing. Yeah. So, yeah, when you when you wet. But if you can during a recruitment process, if you can probe into that and and find out where the struggles might be, that’s that helps you to ask intelligent interview and referee questions. Yeah, but, but mostly would, yeah. It’s probably more for Training and Development.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 39:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, one of the ways we use it is when, when a business is looking to possibly put someone into leadership, then, but they that they might use an assessment just to give this person some basic spaceline self awareness of their communication style and what that means for leadership. You know, like, if this is your communication style, this is how this is going to impact how people, you will influence others for better, for worse, that you know the and these and it just gives a sort of neutral language and a neutral view of themselves, rather than just being based on subjective opinions about what people have seen today, it’s like, well, no, this is what, this is what you lined up against million other people around the world might tend to be like, this is something to be aware of, positive and negative.
So you’re not just drawing on the kind of the kind of the risks, but you also looking to accentuate positives as well. And so we will do an assessment there, before giving them a bit of a one on one, on what leadership actually is, and then doing some coaching around, you know, what their career, their development pathway might look like, because for different people who are coming into a leadership role, how they might how they might grow in their leadership will be different for different people.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 40:45
What some but yeah, that’s, I mean, coming, coming back to, oh, sorry, losing track of the question. But the point, the point is that if you want to create some neutrality around self awareness, then assessment becomes jolly handy. Yeah, yeah. And it’s a risky that one good.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 41:03
Okay, so we can probably talk all day about this, because we always have a natural love of people and wanting to see people do their best, but also see businesses, you know, have people fight for the greater good and see businesses do the best as well. Top three tips, let’s just say there’s a business owner listening in and thinking, Oh, I don’t know if my leadership team is working properly, or I’m not sure if I’m. I mean, one of the things you’d write at the things you’d write the beginning was communication, right? Often we have to look within ourselves and go, Hey, is it my fault? Like I had this issue when I had interns, I would talk at a million miles an hour, tell them what I wanted, get them, let them go off and do it, then they’d come back with something completely different. And I used to get really frustrated.
Then I thought, hold on a second. That’s actually my responsibility, if I haven’t taken the time to explain and made sure they understood what I was explaining. So then I turned it on its head and went, right. It’s my issue. I have to deal with it. And I would then ask them, Hey, can you just repeat back to me what you’ve heard me say? And then they come back. So I go, Oh, no, that’s not what I thought I was saying. So obviously I haven’t been very clear in my communication. This is actually what I was looking for, and these are the outcomes I’m looking for. And so, you know, I think that communication, we may think, particularly as visionaries, we’re all sorted. We know what we’re doing. Everybody else knows what we’re doing, but often they don’t. It’s pretty clear in our heads, really clear with our heads, yeah. Don’t understand why they can’t mind read, yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 42:12
Yeah. I think, I think top, I think top three tips for any, any business leader, is to, is to periodically ask for feedback, yeah, as I hey, you know, after a meeting, pull one of the trusted members as I say, Hey, how was I in that meeting? Can you honestly tell me? How was No? Was I great? Bad? Not so good. Where was I good? Where was I? We could have been better establishing, establish a culture where it’s safe to to give feedback by asking for it and receiving it first. So modeling, modeling that I think is probably one of the things I would always and it’s something you need to do permanently. Yeah, you can nearly get complacent and think you’ve mastered a particular discipline and think, oh, man, I don’t have a problem with that anymore, because I think we all suffer from that. It’s part of the human condition. Is to get complacent, and that’s when the wheels can start to fall off.
You have to, you have to regularly get your own set of feedback so you know how you’re tracking, and that can be pretty brutal, but it’s the only way you stay sharp. And but if you are but if you are asking for it, it sets the tone for you about to go, Well, you know, maybe this I You will have to give it sometimes, and, and if you’re brave enough to to receive it, then people will respect you when you have to share it as well. So that’s, that’s one piece of wisdom that comes to comes to mind, yeah,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 43:37
Perfect. Yeah, yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 43:38
Top three. I’ve probably got more than three, but I’ll see if you can trigger data three, yeah, try and squeeze it down. I think the big thing for me would be building trust with your people. And you know, we teach on how to do that, but it’s not hard to find resources on how do you build trust between you and your team and also between them?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 43:48
And that is the bedrock you know, on which you can then do everything else as a leader. The other thing, I think we’ve touched on this already, but is clarity around what you’re expecting of people, clarity on people’s roles, what, helping them to determine what their goals are for their role and making sure it’s clear between team members who’ve got more than one direct report how, who’s going to be tackling what part of the work. So, yeah, trust and clarity, and then, and then that following up, you know, so having that, that you’re following up with your people, you’re having one on ones with them, and it’s kind of goes full circle, because that then builds more trust, right? So if you’re following up and people know that you actually care about that thing, you send out, you know, you don’t just sort of send out a thing for someone to work on and then not ask about it. Yeah? And if I can add a fourth thing, yes, go on making time for your development. I see it everywhere that it’s that whole you know, it’s always harder to make time to work on the business than it is to work in the business. And it’s the same with yourself. It’s always easier to do your deliverables than it is to think about how you’re delivering what you do as a leader.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 45:00
And yet you’ve got to champion that for yourself. Because unless you’ve you are lucky enough to have someone leading you who holds you accountable to it. Really, you have to, you have to be the one championing spending time and energy on making yourself a better leader. And whether that’s listening to podcasts or it’s reading or it’s just spending time reflecting on how you’ve done your work. But, yeah, I always am so passionate about encouraging leaders take that time. You know, if I’m, if I’m, I’ve got a client I’m coaching, I’ll be saying to them, make sure you put aside another hour in this week to reflect on what we were coaching on. You know, that’s where you’ll get the real value. If you’re doing some training, put time aside to build yourself.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 45:45
Yeah. And I think goals around it, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. You’ve got to have it in your calendar, right? You don’t booked out as well. Otherwise it will just get filled with other things. That’s the reality. You know, you leave your calendar open, it will get filled with whatever is the stuff that’s going on. So I always say people are booking clarity breaks. Make sure you’ve got some time every single week or fortnight a month, whatever works for you, but just have some time that’s just for yourself, where you can’t be interrupted, where you can’t be driven by other things that are going on, but you have that time to do that inner thought.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 46:13
So good. Yeah. So Right. It’s like, I will often say, see, your own development is one of your most important customers. You wouldn’t say, Oh, hang on a minute. Most important customer. I have to go and do these other things. You would say, No, I booked an hour with this person. They’re my most important customer. I’m going to stay with them. So, yeah, do that for yourself, because out of that will flow all the leadership work you do. You know that time that you spend doing that will make everything else you do better?
Debra Chantry-Taylor 46:42
Yep, perfect. Hey, as you said, there’s probably a lot more things you could share, but if we want to find out, more easy to get hold of you, isn’t it? How do they find you?
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 46:50
Oh, easy. Just harrowfield.co.nz, yep. And they can book online for a catch up, or give us a ring or flick us an email, yep. And we can, we can we can talk shop. You know, if they’ve got, if they’ve got behaviors in the business they want to improve, or behaviors in the business that are already good, business that are already good, and they want to build on them. You know, whether it’s within an individual or a team, just reach out and we can, we can jam on. What a good solution that is going to be fit for purpose.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 47:15
That’s a really good point, actually, because not just about self improvement from whether something’s not quite going right, but it’s actually about developing high performing teams, which is actually taking the next level up. Yeah.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 47:21
Yeah. I would say that’s probably where most of our work lies. Because, you know, often it’s the leaders that can spot. Oh, this could be better, you know, that then go looking for that kind of help. Yeah? So 100% it doesn’t always have to be a big problem being fixed, but more something that you just love to see stronger, become stronger.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 47:40
Yeah, I think working on working on building your strengths is always going to help to mitigate weaknesses and bits and pieces. I won’t eliminate them, but it’ll certainly give people the confidence to tackle weaknesses, because they know there’s other areas where they’re really winning. Yeah, that’s important to know that and to celebrate that, you know, and celebrate and, you know, champion your strengths perfect.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 47:58
So I can try and recap what we’ve talked over, taught such a lot, but the first thing was around, sort of, say, clarity in that communication, and making sure we’re really clear about what we’re trying to achieve, and having that communication being accountable means actually setting some boundaries. There’s nothing wrong with boundaries. Boundaries are good. People like boundaries and making it part of a game that you’re actually going to play. It’s about making sure that you take time for yourself and work on yourself as much as working with your team. And what was the kind of assessment? Yeah, using your assessment, using assessment tools for a number of different purposes, you know, so getting to learn more about the team, and building that trust within the team, which is really, really important, but also potentially for using it in interviews to get deeper into where a person’s kind of psyche is and what’s going on for them.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 48:39
Yeah and I think, I think the big thing that the big thing with assessment is to use it wisely and use it well. And so we’re really hot on making sure that that kind of thing is, is part of a suite of tools you use in that kind of especially in selection, because if you just were all sold out on it, you could be missing a beat, missing a trick. So yeah, there’s got some, got some strong rules and principles around that. Excellent. No, that’s really good.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 49:02
Hey, look, thank you so much for putting the for spending the time. It’s been really fun. Think we’re on the same page in terms of developing our people, but it’s right, yeah, great to chat to you. Thank you all the best mate. Thank you.
Sam & Ruth Harrowfield 49:10
Thanks. Debra.
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Debra Chantry-Taylor
Certified EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner
#betterbusinessbetterlife #entrepreneur #leadership #eosimplementer #professionaleosimplementer #entrepreneurialbusinesscoach
Certified EOS Implementer New Zealand
Certified EOS Implementer Australia
Certified EOS Implementer UK
Certified EOS Implementer NZ
