Why Your Team Isn’t Performing

Why Your Team Isn’t Performing

Tim Fitzpatrick
Do You feel like your business is spinning its wheels no matter how much effort you pour into it? The key might just lie in your team. If they're not on fire, neither is your business. I have the expert here to unravel the mysteries behind why your team isn't performing and what you can do about it. Let's dive right in. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks to accelerate growth and marketing shouldn't be difficult. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am super excited to have with me Julie Hutchison from Think Be Do leadership. Julie, welcome. Thanks for being here today.

Julie Hutchison
Hi, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me, Tim.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, I'm looking forward to jumping into this with you. Before we do that, I want to ask a few rapid fire questions to help us get to know you a little bit. You ready to jump in with both feet?

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, go ahead.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?

Julie Hutchison
I've got two beautiful kids and a husband. So I'm mainly with my family, cooking probably, and just talking, chatting and having a good time.

Tim Fitzpatrick
How old are your kids?

Julie Hutchison
I've got a 16-year-old who's just started his A-Levels here in the UK and just coming up with 13-year-old. So we need entertaining.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. What's your hidden talent?

Julie Hutchison
My hidden talent is, you might not like it, but I'm vegan. And so my hidden talent is actually making vegan food taste good to non-vegans.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay, Oh, I like it. Okay, I'm going to go down a little step or path here just to share a story about this. So I bought impossible burger patties at Costco. They were there. I saw them. I'm like, I'm just going to try these things.

Julie Hutchison
Just give them a go.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. So I bought them. My two girls were with me, and I was like, I'm not going to tell them. I'm just going to say, hey, we're making burgers. What's going on? I make burgers. They had all the fixings, everything. And I was like, What do you guys think? How do you like it? Oh, my God. This is the best burger we've ever had. This is amazing. And then when they were completely done, I was like, That wasn't meat. They're like, What? My youngest was like, What? And I said, I didn't tell you on purpose. So vegan food can be good if we're open minded about it, right?

Julie Hutchison
Exactly. Yeah.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Julie Hutchison
The best piece of advice is stop worrying about what people think and be honest and open about your views and just say what you really mean. I think that's the best piece of advice, not to worry.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I'll tell you, that is something many of us, a place many of us never get to. And as business owners, we're far better off. The faster we can get to that place, the far better off we're going to be.

Julie Hutchison
Absolutely. I was told once, Oh, you're very externally validated. And it was a long, long time ago. And at first I thought, I don't know what they're talking about. And then it came to my realization that I was worrying and waiting for other people to give me permission. And now actually the best way you can be, it's not rude or I'm not talking about being rude and offensive, but really being able to step up and say what you really mean and what you think and standing for what you believe in. It's really important.

Tim Fitzpatrick
To me, too, it's also not letting people stop you from getting where you want to go, right? There's so many people that hears somebody say something and it just stops them in their tracks.

Julie Hutchison
Exactly.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's just never a good place to be. Other than being vegan, what's one thing about you that surprises people?

Julie Hutchison
Generally, they take a step back than I tell them that I was 16 years a police officer. In this role now, in my business now, that's not what they're expecting.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So 16 years as a police officer and then you transitioned.

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, there's a reason. There's a pathway, I suppose, but then there's some stuff before it that makes it even more relevant. But yeah, absolutely. Because do you know what, Tim? As a police officer? I was good, but I couldn't run very fast. And so if I wanted to arrest somebody, then I had to talk a good job. I had to build relationships in minutes and get people to do what I want them to do in seconds. So it was important to me to learn about people, about what makes people tick, what motivates people, what makes people want to be part of what you're doing, even if it meant that you had to arrest them. So in the absence of being able to run that fast, I really needed to get good at that. So that's how... I don't know. I don't know how I got here, but it's surprising to some.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What does success mean to you?

Julie Hutchison
Success means being able to do the things that you love, not being a slave to your business or to somebody else's business as well. But having the time and the energy and the enjoyment of life. So yes, it might be I want X amount of money or I want to achieve a certain goal, but actually, really it's about what am I going to do with it? And that to me is about having that time to spend with my family and the people I love.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Where's your happy place?

Julie Hutchison
It's probably in my brand new... Well, it's not that brand new anymore. We had an extension, but in my kitchen diner, because I can get loads of people in there. You can fit at least 20 people in there, all eating my food that I cook and just chatting, enjoying life, having a good time, telling bad jokes probably.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?

Julie Hutchison
Honesty and being who you really are. No hidden agenda. That's my biggest thing. Tell me if you disagree. If you agree with me, agree. If you disagree, disagree. But be honest, be open, and let's have a good conversation.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So Julie, tell us a little bit more about what you do at Think Be Do leadership.

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, absolutely. So my focus is around helping tech businesses to grow, but to grow by growing their leadership team. So when we grow quite often, more clients or more customers, whatever it might be, doesn't always mean a happy inside in the business because we end up with chaos. We end up with more communications problems than we ask for or whatever it might be. So I help those leaders in those businesses to grow themselves and to grow their teams so that when they grow, and I'm sure your marketing helps them to do that, but when they grow, it's sustainable, it's profitable, it's productive, and it's actually fun rather than stress and chaos. That's what I do.

The Three Primary Issues Impacting Why a Team Member Isn't Performing

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Awesome. I love it. Well, let's talk about why our teams aren't performing. I can't wait to dig into this because you keep things super simple. And man, one of my mentors said to me, complexity is the enemy of results. And it always stuck with me. Gosh, it can be applied to any aspect of life, personal or professional. So let's dig into this. What are the three primary issues impacting why a team member isn't performing?

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, brilliant. And I think it's incredibly simple. It's easy to do and easy not to do, as somebody very famous, I'm sure, said. So for me, there's three things. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. And quite often what I see is that people look outwards to their team and say, Oh, they're not performing. They're no good. I've got to get rid of them. And really what we should be doing is looking at three things, and that is that for some reason, and there really is only three reasons, people either can't do, won't do, or just darn well don't do what you want them to do. They don't perform. And so if we look at those things and I'll break them down for you in a bit, Tim, but if we look at that, what we really want is we don't want can't do, we want can do. We don't want won't do, we want will do, and we don't want don't do. We want really wants to get on and do it. And let me tell you what I mean by these three different things, because at first glance, you might say, well, that all sounds the same, but it's not. There's three very different reasons. So when I say people can't do it, they either can't do it because they don't have the skill or they don't have the confidence too. So there's an actual reason why that person can't. So maybe they don't know how to do the thing, which is probably the easiest thing to fix, or for some reason, you want them to make good decisions in your business, but they don't have that confidence to do that. So we need to give them that confidence. We need to enable them. But the other reasons are very different from that. It's not about whether they can or they can't, it's more nuance than that. So the second one is won't do. What I mean by that, Tim, no offense, but they won't do it for you. So even if they could, so we've ticked off the can do box, but still they don't do it. The second reason is I'm not going to do it for you. And that is because there is some form of disengagement, some relationship issue, either the way in which you've created that connection, the impact that you're having, or the way in which you communicate with these people. They aren't engaged with you or maybe another member of their team. So they choose not to because of something to do with that relationship. Now, the final one is different again. So even if we've got people that can do it and they want to do it for you, they want to be on your team, let's say, they really think you're a great guy, Tim, I'm sure which you are, obviously. But this last one is different. And this is the don't do or the darn well don't do. And it's like, why not? What's wrong? Actually, if you think about it, here we're saying that, well, even though I would do it for you, I'm not on the bus with you. What I mean is I don't want to go where you want to go. I don't agree with your vision or your mission or your values even, but I don't agree with the direction with which the business or the team are going. So it's very different from I might think you're a great guy, but I just can't go there. So I quite often tell the story that when I left university, one of my first jobs, I'd gone on a graduate recruitment, and I got this job with a biscuit factory because I did engineering when I left university. I was an engineering graduate and was going to go into production. And I thought, biscuits, great. I love biscuits, or cookies, as you would call them. The slight problem was they also owned a chicken factory. And as I've just said to you, I don't eat meat anyway. So my first role was going to be not in the cookies, but in the chicken factory. And needless to say, I was devastated. But what I mean is for this and the reason why it's relevant is because it didn't matter how much I like the people or how much I could do the job, I was never going to work in that chicken factory. Okay, so here what I'm talking about are these three different reasons why people won't do for one of these reasons, what you want to do. Actually, quite often when we're looking at them, we think, Oh, they just don't do it. What's the problem? When really, if we understood the jigsaw puzzle underneath, we could work out very simply, which one of those three is it? What do I, as the leader, need to do so that they want to? They can do it, they want to do it, and they will do it because they're on the bus, they're coming with us. They really want to be going where we're going, and we've told them about it, obviously, that's another problem we have. They want to go where we're going. They want to go with us, and we've given them the confidence and capability to be able to do it. So we create enabled, engaged, and excited people, and they can make confident decisions. They're like a trusted alliance with us. They want to be with us, and they're eager. They're committed to our cause as well. And that makes an amazing team, what I call the team performance engine, because it really revs them up.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. This is awesome stuff. I want to just summarize this really quickly. So three primary issues impacting our team's performance. One, can't do. They don't have the skills or the confidence. Two is won't do, which means they won't do it for you, right? They're disengaged in some way, shape or form. And the third one is just don't do, and they're not on board with the direction or the vision for the company. 

How to Effectively Address Issues Impacting Why a Team Member Isn't Performing

Tim Fitzpatrick
So I love this, super simple. Now that we know these, how can we effectively address each of these issues? And I think I know where some of these are going to go. I'm really curious to see.

Julie Hutchison
What you say here. I hope they're going the same direction. Yeah, sure. So let's start with the first one, can't do. We want it to be can do. So what do we mean by can do? We want them to be able to do the thing and to make good decisions as well, because it's got to be in the context of where you're trying to get to. So they're all linked. So here what I'm saying is that, well, yeah, let's give them the skill, pretty obvious. Let's get them trained or whatever it might be, but that's not the main bit. But we want to give them independence and the ability to grow. So we need to make sure that they are coached rather than just thrown in at the deep end. We need to make sure that they're clear on exactly what it is that they need to do so that when they're looking at what they do. It's a bit like baking a cake. The skill of mixing the cake up is the thing that they're doing, but they need to understand the recipe. They need to understand what cake am I making? How do I do these things? And so what we're saying is that we build capability not just go mix this thing, but we build context as well. It's like mix it like this for this purpose. So we're linking in. How do we make people more confident to make good decisions in our business? So this is about that first part that really enabled people. The second part, well, let's get them engaged. Let's get them wanting to be with us. Well, that's about us. That's about how do we create a connection? So we need to understand who's in the room. We need to understand what motivates that person. How do they think? How do they feel? What's going on for them? And truly, as a human, really understand them. And then we need to look at, well, how do I show up, Tim? Because I don't know if you ever worked for a bad boss. Have anybody here had a boss? I'm sure you've got some comments on that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I've had a few, but not many.

Julie Hutchison
Oh, good. Well, you're lucky because what we see is that here what we're saying is that if the impact of you or any of your leaders or anybody in the business on somebody is negative, then they are not going to perform. They're going to choose not to. So if we can design our own positive impact by getting conscious, by looking ourselves, I often say, are you watching yourself on TV? If I were watching myself on TV, how would I be seeing myself? So getting conscious about my impact in the business and really truly creating those good relationships, making the effort. And then lastly, what do we do? Well, we want eager, committed people to our vision. Do you know what, Tim? So many times I speak to leaders in business and they're like, Yeah, we've got a vision, we've got a mission, we have values. But they've forgotten to tell everybody. And so there are two, believe you me, it's in a drawer somewhere ready for the bank manager. That's about as far as it goes. And so what happens is that at the top level, people think, Oh, yeah, I've got a vision, I've got this. But actually, we either haven't told anybody or we haven't made it really clear. So if we haven't got one, we need one, okay? We need it to be inspiring, but we need to actually tell everybody in the business so that they can choose, Tim, to either get on board with us or not. And perhaps this is one of the reasons why people would leave if they really truly weren't on board with us. But if we can get them on board with us, then that's fantastic, because they will be eagerly committed to what we want to do as well. We need to make sure we share it. We need to tell people. And then the final thing we need to do is we need to link these three things up. So I said before about making a cake, if I'm the mixer of the sugar and the butter, I need to know what the cake looks like. I need to know what's that big vision. I need to know if it is a three tier chocolate cake or a one tier Victoria sponge or whatever it might be. I need to see the big picture so that I know in context, how do I work towards that? If I'm working in your business, how do I work towards that? Because what chance have I got? If I've got all the skill, I can do, but I don't know where you're going, I can only go where I think you want to go. And that could very easily be the wrong way. So when we define that vision and explain it to people and talk about it and make it part of our normal conversation, everybody's clear, then when everybody's capable and they're engaged, then those three things align. So it means that people come to work knowing what they need to do to help the business achieve, I call it knowing how to make the boat go faster, and they want to do that. So they come pretty happy, pretty productive, and they're going fast in the right direction, not any old direction that they think they might be going in. So that's how I say it's simple when we break it down into nine areas, but essentially they're based off of those very simple first three principles of let's create enabled, engaged and excited teams so that they want to be there and do the best work.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Enabled, engaged and excited. I love it. It seems to me that the starting point to make sure that you get off on the right track with these three elements is actually in the recruiting and the hiring process. What are your thoughts on that?

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, I think that's very, very important because you want somebody who has the same... If we were to look at that vision and values, and I said to you, didn't I? Just now I said, This is where people could leave, or you might want them to leave. You might kick them out. Because we can teach skill. So the enabled part is easy. The can do is easy because we can teach people. But what we can't do is to make sure that we have the right person, the person who has the same values as us, who would agree, don't employ me in your chicken factory, as we said before. It's like, find out what somebody believes in. Find out what they're about before you employ them. So yeah, okay, you've got some team members now you're going to have to check that out, make sure you get to know people. But yeah, absolutely. In the recruiting process, imagine if you are recruiting against the values that you hold, gets the values of the business, and goodness, let's tell them about the vision for the business and see what their reaction is. Let's see that they would want to be part of that. And also let's look at how they're engaged. Well, let's look at how we behave when we show up in the interview because it's as much as an interview for them as it is for us in terms of it's two way. So if we can manage to... Yeah, you want people to have some experience or some skill or whatever it is, of course, but that's actually easy to build. It's over here where we've got the right vision and values. If we've got that, then they are going to want to be in your team. They are going to thrive, and they are going to thrive, and they are going to be a positive impact on the rest of the team as well. And so you get the growth of that and the enjoyment and the productivity because you brought on the right person with the right mindset as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It seems like you can go very wrong or very right in the recruiting and the hiring process, right? Because to me, I mean, unless somebody's values change while they're working for you, it should be on the more rare side that you have somebody that's at that don't do phase. You should be weeding people out of don't do in the hiring process.

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, that's true. And I absolutely agree that if you have the opportunity to hire new people, then my goodness, you should be talking about those values and you should be finding out what they are. Absolutely don't hire somebody who's wrong. Internally, if you've already got a team, let's say you got 50 people, you can't kick them all out and start again. Then here what we need to look at, though, is did you give them a chance to know what the values are, to know what the vision is so that they can get on board? Because some people might actually have those, that, that, but not know what you want from them. So we've got to do the whole like, well, let me make sure that I'm explaining it to people so that they have the choice to jump on board and say, yeah, actually, I agree with all of that. There will be a proportion. And probably the people that sit there with their arms folded in the meetings and don't really want to engage in anything. When you start to talk about this in your business with your current team, say, for example, you've not really done this before, and then you start saying, Actually, do you know what? This is what we're all about. You will start to see who isn't on board. You will really start to see, Oh, that's why Bob really irritates me, or that's why we're having problems here, because actually, fundamentally, Bob doesn't want to be here. Bob's here for the money and only the money, and he'd probably walk and should walk if he could or if he found something that he did align to somewhere else. But if he's not aligning with you, then he's never going to do his best work because he doesn't want to.

The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in Relation to their People as their Business Grows

Tim Fitzpatrick
So what are some of the biggest mistakes that founders are making in relation to their people as their business grows?

Julie Hutchison
I think what's happening is that the people that you need or the people that they need to be and you need to be in your business changes as you grow. Okay, one, in relation to two types of people, the leaders within the business need to grow, okay? So we need to get them thinking about this impact, how they share who they are, okay? So that's one massive thing that I think that quite often we don't realize, because possibly it's been a small company. They've got into that leadership position by just being in the right place at the right time, let's say. So we need to grow those people. And so the biggest mistake is thinking that everybody else is the problem. That's my biggest thing. What we need to do about that is we need to educate and help implement, because education is no good, not actually implementing. So you need to implement a new way of thinking, a new way of being that aligns with the level of growth of your business. That's number one. And the second one is that, and it leads on from that mistake of thinking, Oh, well, Bob's not performing because he's just not performing. He's a bad apple, is making assumptions about people and not going around this jigsaw puzzle when saying which one of these three things actually is it? Because much of this is only one area, really, where you would want somebody to leave, and that is they don't agree with where we're going. The rest of it is sortoutable.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So here's the question. Let's say I'm sitting down with a team member that it's not working, right? We're not firing on all cylinders. Do I actually communicate these three things? Like, Hey, Bob, something's not working, right? It's either you can't do it, you won't do it, or you just don't want to do it. You're not going to do it, right? Yeah. I want to try and figure out which of these three things it is or if it's multiple so that if I can help, I want to do that. And if I can't, it's not a good fit, then let's just figure it out. Do you actually recommend people have conversations like that where they talk through these three elements or is that a bad thing?

Julie Hutchison
Actually, no, actually, I do. I think there's a level of sensitivity to that. You can't say like, Well, if it just can't do it won't do a darn well. Don't do one of them.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Bob, which one is it? Shoot me straight.

Julie Hutchison
Maybe some people you could do that with, actually. But yes, in terms of like, actually, the questions that you ask, I actually really like the way you put that, because I think if you said that to somebody with empathy and with, let's say we're going to start rather than starting with, Bob's awful and I need to get rid of him, which I hear all the time. Actually, Bob, look, things aren't really working out or whatever you want to say. Things don't seem to be great for you. We're not getting the performance we want. I'm really curious, because normally there's only three things. Normally there's something wrong, you can't do something or you're not confident about something, and we can fix that. We can give you the skills. But then sometimes it's just because people don't feel like you don't want to do it for me or somebody else in the team, or maybe it is you just don't like where we're going. I've just really love to understand what it is because then I can help. If you go with that, you're probably going to get a much more honest and open answer because probably, and this goes all the way into conflicts and all sorts of things, but probably something's going on for Bob. And really what we're trying to do is find out which one it is, because Bob might turn around and say, Well, actually, you called me X, Y and Z a couple of weeks ago, and that really annoyed me. And now I just feel like I can't work with you because it's really offended me. If you are open enough to hear that thing, then you can fix that. That might be like, really, Bob? I'm so sorry, I never knew. I never meant to offend you. And it goes on and you sort that piece out. And then suddenly Bob's working again because that was the piece of the jigsaw that was missing. Okay, it might not be that. It might be, well, actually, I don't really know what I'm doing here because I thought we were on this journey over here, and I've been really working hard to do this, and you've changed where you're going, and I'm confused. And you're like, okay, great, well, let's talk to you. But do you agree? And you explain and you tell them and he's like, oh, well, that makes complete sense. And I agree with it. So I'm back on board. So here you can solve these problems by literally using this jigsaw. Obviously, there's some skills to be able to talk to people, but that's what I teach.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I was going to say rewind to what Julie said, not to what I said. She was much more eloquent about that.

Julie Hutchison
I think you did a great job. But there's only one area. There's only one point at which you would say, do you know what? I think maybe you're not right for this company. And that is when you say, this is what we're trying to achieve. This is where we're going. And they say, well, I don't agree with that. And you're like, do you think this is the best place for you? And to be honest, if you have that conversation, they probably choose to go anyway because they see it because you've been really clear.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think most people would appreciate the openness and the authenticity, right? It's like you don't want people there that don't want to be there. Yeah. I love this because it really does... Honestly, it gives people a very simple framework. When things aren't firing on all cylinders like, hey, let's just have an open conversation about this.

Julie Hutchison
Exactly.

Tim Fitzpatrick
And It's once we identify what it is, that's going to tell us what we need to do to make things better.

Julie Hutchison
And you might say, Oh, I'm not really sure how to do that, but at least I know what it is. And then you can get some help to achieve that thing, whatever that might be.

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I love it. This has been fantastic, Julie. Any last minute thoughts you want to leave us with?

Julie Hutchison
I think the biggest thing for me is exactly what we're saying here is don't make assumptions that your team member is just beyond all help and just needs to be sacked because it's in the too hard box. Because what I see often is that people find the whole being a leader, managing people, it's all in the too hard box, conflict or I don't know how to deal with it, it's going to be awkward. Don't make it awkward. Look to this and say, I genuinely want to understand which one of these is, and then just work your way through it. And if you need some skills for then please feel free to ask. But don't let it just be I'm going to remove my staff member because they're not performing. Because believe you me, that will cost you more in the long run, because if you don't fix what you do with your staff, then the same thing will happen again and again. And your turnover of your staff will just continue to keep going costing you an absolute fortune. So we need to fix the way in which you deal with that. And you can inspire people with your leadership in that way.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. We If we just get rid of people to treat the symptom and not the actual root cause, it's going to happen over and over again, right?

Julie Hutchison
Yeah, exactly that. I mean, like I said, only time is if they really disagree with your values and your vision, and there's some major reason why one of these cannot be fixed, then I think there's a lot more that we can do to fix the problem, and it's cheaper and it's great because that person will be on board for a long, long time if you do this.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. I think most people would just appreciate a manager or a boss, whatever you want to call them, just having that type of conversation, right? It's like to me, you're showing that you care enough to actually have the conversation.

Julie Hutchison
Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I think they'll reciprocate as a result. Where can people learn more about you if they love this conversation?

Julie Hutchison
Yeah. I think he's going around on the bottom of there. But also, find me on LinkedIn. There's a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. There's videos, there's things on there. I'm out there on LinkedIn. So find me there just to pop Julie Hutchison in and I'll come up. I think we'll put the link in the comments or something as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, we'll make sure thinkbedoleadership.com is in the show notes. We'll make sure that your LinkedIn profile link is in the show notes as well. So...

Julie Hutchison
Cool.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Please go connect with Julie. Love what you had to share today. Thank you so much for doing that.

Julie Hutchison
You're very welcome.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Those of you that are watching, listening, I appreciate you doing so as well. If you want to connect with us at Rialto Marketing, you can do that at rialtomarketing.com. You can always schedule a discovery call. I'd be happy to help you push through some of your marketing roadblocks. If you want to know which of the nine revenue roadblocks is slowing down your growth, you can also do that over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. Takes less than five minutes. Tons of value there, so go check it out. Julie, thank you for watching, listening. Thank you. Take care.