Why your team is draining you

Nicholas, thank you for having me on the show. This is gonna be fun.

Yeah. Well, I'm an executive coach and profess professional mediator. I'm also an author of a book called Build New Bridges: The Art of Restoring Impossible Relationships. I work with executive teams, business owners, leaders, intact teams, where I actually come in and work on the internal or external relationships that are so vital to the bottom line. and I help people have those difficult conversations most people want to avoid, but they know they can't any longer. Most people push it off until they can't handle it. and we we don't move until the pain of staying where we are gets too too bad. And then we make a move. I'm that person people call when they're ready to have that conversation. They don't know how to do it. The stakes are high and the relationships are very important to maintain. And most people don't know how to give messages or receive messages in that sp space, how to construct their message, how to think on their feet, how to manage their emotions, how to influence the emotions of the other person. I work with executives doing that type of work.

And I'm also, yeah, I'm also a professional mediator, so I do a thing called team mediations where I get teams who have been having difficulty working together. And actually we have a closed door session. I have a process I walk them through where we get everything talked out. And also that's a hard one for people to swallow. No one wants to do what I'm do what I what I'm talking about when we do that, but everyone wants the result on the end. It's kind of like you you wanna look good at the beach, but you don't want to get in the gym. Well, you gotta get in the gym if you're gonna look good at the beach. And that's what we tell that's what we do.

Well, I'm gonna go back even further. I'm gonna go back I it to when I actually went out on my own. I went out my own when I was seventeen years old. My dad told me, he said, He graduated from high school. my your mom and I are moving in a week. here's five families that said they would put you up for the summer. You need to decide who you're gonna live with for the summer, get a job, pay them rent. And figure out what you're gonna do with your life. So I had one week from the day I graduated. I had no no one told me anything in that moment. I I thought I hadn't picked a college, I hadn't done anything. And from that moment it was like grow up and kind of push me out of the nest. And so I made choices, I worked, I did every kind of job you can think of, put myself through college in four years. did some crazy jobs right after college. Then I got a job with a large pharmaceutical company that's based out of Switzerland, Roche Laboratories, and here in the st in the United States, worked with them for 13 years. And during that time I took courses in human development, human behavior, human potential, did all of that background work because I just knew I wanted to be able to deal with people. in because I knew that that was the career I wanted and I thought it was in sales. And then I outgrew my sales job with Roche and started my own business choice consulting back in nineteen ninety nine. At first I taught man woman relationships to the public, some things I'd learned along the way. I constantly took courses. Roche would pay for me to take any course and since I put myself through college I thought I'm gonna be a lifelong learner. So they paid for the courses after college. I took everything I could. So for thirteen years, twelve of those thirteen years, I was taking public speaking, human development, sociology, psychology, all of these different classes. And eventually I hired a life coach and I ended up becoming a life coach and then moved it over to business. I ran into some guys in choice consulting that wrote some books called Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Crucial Influence. before they'd written any of the books, I took one of their classes and actually asked them if I could teach their material and go sell it. And I did that but kept my independence. And so I did that for more than twenty years, keeping my independence and coaching people, but also going and training those other skills. And then two years ago I wrote my own book and just decided to kinda do everything on my own. I'd started alignment resources with the idea of bringing different people I knew in to create alignment in organizations and also with different specialties than me. I I have a I have a stable of great coaches and trainers that I can reach out to if I'm not a fit for a company. That's the alignment of resources I wanted to have because my lane, I wanted to stay in my specialty But so often people come to me and they want someone for business strategy, which I can do, but I don't like business strategy. I can do it, I can do organizational development, I can do a lot of those different things, but I like to get into where it's about the relationships, it's about the hard conversations. So if someone decides that we're talking, well, I really want something for business strategy. here's the person I think you should connect with. And I have a great way of connecting with people. doing that as well.

The twenty or the eighty do you want me to discuss?

Well, I think the there's some basic things you have to if you want to I wanna tell your listeners, because you have a lot of different you're gonna have a lot of different people in business. What I do is I deal with the engine that's underneath everything. there's the sports car that really looks, I want want that, I wanna make that money, I wanna do this. But everything that's gonna make that sports car run is in that engine. And that's what I work on, the things you don't see. And so what I find is your relationships as a leader, as a business owner are so important. Your alliances, your alignment, you'll the more you're in business, you're gonna find it's hard to align people. And when people aren't aligned, it's you're dealing with egos, you're dealing with emotions. There's a lot to do, and most owners will tell you. that this is the thing that drains me of my most time. And when you have skills to be able to do that, you can actually increase your bottom line dollar. Increase your time, have more fun. That's the other thing. Most people don't get in business to have problems. They feel like I want to do really well in this business. I'm gonna have fun doing it. And the problem solving, all of that is great. Typically, the energy drain for leaders is the people. It's the people drain. They you can have a great team, but if your team's not aligned and you've got personalities battling each other, it's gonna slow you down. And most people are like, I don't have. Time for that. I need to get this done. But this is truly, if you don't spend the time doing this, it's gonna affect it. So what I tell people consistently, you've got to make sure you talk about respect. People go, What? We're great respect meters. We know when we're being disrespected. Think about that. As human beings, you know, Michelista, do you know when you've been disrespected in front of someone? Yeah, you don't have to guess. What happens in that moment? What do you do with that? And everything from that's gonna affect the relationship going forward. And most people don't know how to engage with that conversation in an effective way early to actually handle that. And it's interesting because people talk about it all the time, they talk about emotional intelligence. It really comes down to respect. It comes down to where did my emotions come? Where did their emotions come? Most of our downfalls and misunderstandings. And so a couple of key things that 20% to do in communication, two things. Always go back to your original intent, talk about what respect looks like, and set up agreements about how you'll keep respect in your relationship. Because when it goes aside, we don't talk about it. We let it fester, we bury it, we walk away. And it is detrimental in hurting our organizations and hurting our relationships.

Thinking you can put it off, thinking it doesn't matter, it'll work itself out, I'm not gonna discuss it. I think that's the biggest one. And they also, or if they do discuss it, they don't do it well because no one's ever taught them. Most people think, this person's leading the organization, they've got great communication skill. That may be true at one level, but typically when the pressure's on, I don't find anyone who's really great at it unless they practiced it. somehow. Now I've got I know a couple of great COs when I walked in, they were they were amazing communicators when it w when when it was the pressure was on, the emotions were high, all of that was going on. And when I dug in, each one of these people had a family, maybe a father or mother. That maybe ran a business or something that actually taught them the skills that I teach people. But you don't see that that often. You it typically our families are the worst communicators. We there are th things at home that we would, you know, we we we everyone at work gets our A game. At home, they see under the hood, they see who you are. So communicating at home is probably the more difficult conversation. But if you had a parent, that raised you teaching you some of these skill sets, you've got a you've got a leg up, but I just haven't seen it that much. That's it's probably about less than one percent, honestly, McLissa, with all the people I've run into and talked to. But I have seen it. Doesn't have to be that way. But that's just it. Also at the level we tend to think I should have all the answers when I'm a when I'm the owner C-suite or or whatever that is. I everyone's look at me. I can't show vulnerability, I can't show that I don't know, or they just need to do what I say. All of those require us to show that we're vulnerable in a way. But here's what I found: if you want to be a leader, leaders get to go first. That's what a leader is. I'm going first. And if you want your people to communicate well, if you want that to show up in your organization or even your clients, you have to lead the way if you're really going to expect that. And I think that's one of the things we have. We don't have leaders that understand how to lead in that area where they've just never been taught.

yeah. yeah. Well I have a framework where I p walk through people through my team mediation. So I'll I'll I'll pick that up 'cause people are like What you get a team in and you talk about everything? Yeah, because most executive teams or business leaders, they'll do an off-site with their team and they get away and they talk about these different things. They might do a team building exercise, all of that, which is great. Those are all important things to build relationship. But I find typically they get back and they don't know how to ho have the hard conversation still. They talked about it, they talked about those things, but when the feelings get hurt, my CEO may have talked down to me in the meeting and the executive team, but I don't I don't talk about that. I hold on to it. All of those things affect us. So what I do, I have a process, I walk through people through. I actually break everyone apart, go one-on-one with each person. And so let's say I have the director of marketing. I'll find out what works, what doesn't. And anything they tell me stays with me. I tell them up front, I'm not gonna share this. This is for you to share. We're gonna help you do that. But they walk well, they walk me through what does and doesn't work. So I get a real clear view from the marketing perspective. Then I go to finances and I find out what happens there. I go to CEO, I find out what happens there. I go through the whole entire team. And then I have them work on their messaging. So they're gonna say everything. I tell tell them to write a message to each person that I have a problem within the organization. And write it how you would emotionally. They just write it out. Just, you know, you backstabbed me in the meeting. You did this, this, this, and this. I have them write it out. And then we sit down. I say, now let's reconstruct this to say this respectfully. They never thought about it like that. How can I say what I really need to say respectfully? And I work with them on that, and then we practice it. And then we have a get together and everyone has their messaging. They can read it if they want to. They don't have to. It's up to them. But it's to get everything out. But that's just it. I've got a entire view of the whole team. So I know if they're holding back. So I might at I might at at one of the breaks say, hey John, you know, you talked about this, but you didn't talk about this. Tell me how you've got that handled. Well, I just didn't. Let's go over it again. It's not going away. If we walk out of that room and you haven't, you can let it go. You can completely let it go right now. But I find most people need to state what that issue is, at least be heard about it, how it landed here. When you did when this happened, this is how it landed for me. When they can say it like that and do it respectfully, it creates, I didn't mean to do that. I didn't when everyone has to take their responsibility. We don't come in and we don't blame. Because there's a there's a phrase I use, it's a quote I heard years ago from an old business partner, and it is everything in my life I create, promote, or allow. So if I'm living that I created, promoted, or allowed this, this is my world I live in. This is what I'm doing. I'm cleaning up my side of the street. And I learned this by practicing it myself. When I started doing all this work, I made a list of all my incomplete relationships. I had 36 different people on it. It took me two and a half years to go clean all of those up. But I did that so I could stand in front of groups with an experience. Rather than a theory about it. So many people say, you know, I tell people to do this all the time, and I'm not doing it myself. I know how that goes. But I decided I'm I want to lead from a space of experience. So I still do that. When I start having things break down, I go clean things up. And so I know what it takes, but I walk people through that. And I did that earlier this year with a group that a real toxic team that I was working with. And the CEO after we finished the we had a breakthrough in it, it was amazing. And at Dinner that night, the CEO leaned over to me and said, Greg, you just moved us forward more than a year. He said, I couldn't see what happened in that room today ever happening within a year to two years. He said, It and it's it's a tough process. He said, Everything you said was spot on, and it was tough. I'm so glad we did it though, because I saved a year. Now, did that mean all his problems were gone? No. What happened was He started finding out where the rot was in his organization, where it's been taken down, where and he has ended up having to let a lot of people go because there were things happening that he wasn't he wasn't leading the group. And now he's leading again. But it's a painful process. Now they've got it where they've got an effective team, and then they're building again. And he wanted to build it to a certain point in the next three years. But many times you can't build it to that place if you've got all these things holding you down. And at first he's like, why does this have to happen? I said, it's a cleansing. You weren't paying attention. Now you're paying attention. Now it's time to get this cleaned out because you're going to be able to move forward much faster.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I've got a book I've written and I'll just show it real quick. It's Build New Bridges: The Art of Restoring Impossible Relationships. I released that about two years ago, but I'm still doing all of my work on that. It's about how do I clean up things? How do I build a bridge on something I thought was impossible? Because It being impossible is a limiting belief. When you know how to do it correctly, it's amazing the breakthroughs you can have. And that's what this book is about. I've started another book now though, calling it just pulled to me, and I realize I've been doing this for a long time, but I've been helping people with conversations with loved ones who have a terminal illness, or people who've had a terminal illness wanting to talk to loved ones before they pass. And I'm calling that book Building Final Bridges, Healing Before Goodbye. But again, the principles are the same because it's all about relationships, it's all about skill sets, being able to close the gap, build that bridge, complete what you need to, because w so much gets broken down, just like an old bridge, it gets run over, run over and over. It needs attention. It needs it it needs to be resurfaced. It there's there's structural issues that can come in. And if you don't have the skill set, you can't really build that bridge. So I teach people how to do it, not that they should do it. There's the mindset that you should, that's so important. And mindset is first, but then you tell me, okay, now I know I need to. How do I structure my message for that person? They're about to die. Or I'm leaving them and I want to clean something up. I haven't talked to my daughter in two years. And I want to have this conversation with her. How do I do that? And I have a process that I walk people through that as well. And so from business to personal, to me, it's all the same because it's all about relationships. And I like to take on the hard thing. I've always learned there's a bigger reward on taking hard on the hard thing. Most people are like, I don't want to do that. Well, you don't want the big reward then.

Yeah. It's interesting now 'cause I was trying to build it to a place that I thought I wanted to and recently I ha I've had some changes. I love that I'm just a small organization. I don't wanna scale, I don't wanna go big, I'm I'm a specialty boutique. I'm a fine clothing store that you go into that you come in and you're like, this is fitted perfect for me. So I've learned to really not only now teach, but stay in my lane around that. what I'm really doing now is I'm working on I find a lot of executives or leaders don't have time to take a I've got a six-month class where I can train them how to have these conversations. I'll always have that. But I find with today's fast pace, many business owners and executives don't want to take that time to do it. So I have a retainer program. I called it, I call it tip of the spear. where I have executives on they've put me on retainer and they're about to have a conversation with their board of directors or they've got a a team issue that's happening or something, a bad relationship is happening or some drama is happening in the organization. They call me up and say, hey, Greg, I need some help. We'll s I'll sit down with them. If I can't do it that moment, I do it as soon as possible. We sit down. They we work it out. It's kind of a hand holding, but it's not really they have to have the conversation. I can't have it for them, but I can see it from a different perspective. And so we sit down and we carve out, just like I do in all the others, what's emotional about this? We break it down and then we say, How do you want to start that conversation? Okay. Then I role play with them. They they start it and then I throw them a curveball. How do handle this if this comes up? And when they go to that conversation, they feel ready. That may take 15 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe an hour, depending on the severity of it. So maybe a CEO is going to talk to about the to the board about something that just occurred. How do I do that in a way where I build the relationship? We can talk about the problem. We don't mix the two. We make a stronger relationship while we do that. I call it my tip of the spear program. So that's what I see me doing mostly in the in the time to come. Also, once I Do the work with once I release the next book. I have a five-step process for people who are how having those conversations. I've been doing it for years with but those who are about to pass or those who are gonna pass and they need to have it with their their loved ones. People can hire me out for that. So I see myself being more of a communication firefighter in essence in the next years rather than training groups and I love doing that, I always do it. But I see most of my business doing the other.

Yeah. Well, where that can find where that where can they find me? you can find me at Greg G-R-E-G at alignment-resources.com. It's not an underscore, it's a dash. Alignment a-l-i-g-n-m-t-resources.com. Best way to get a hold of me. the advice around communication or relationships, it's not impossible. It's it don't put it off. It's not gonna get better. Wishful thinking. Here's what Michaelis, here's what tipi people typically do. You have a problem with someone and you think, I'm gonna talk to Greg about that today. And then you come in to talk to me about it. And I'm real nice that day. And everything's going great. And you think, I don't need to have this conversation. I don't wanna. deal with this right now. It's fine. So everything's fine for two weeks. Then two weeks from now I do the same thing that I was doing before. And now you're back where you were, but you're actually even a little lower because How dare Greg, he did this again, he did this again. I've never spoken about it. And that's what I'm saying. And these things happen over and over and over. And what happens when you bury a seed? It grows into something bigger. And it doesn't get smaller. And it you don't see it for a while, but then it comes back and it's going to be stronger. What I found is deal with those issues immediately, because if you start dealing with them immediately, you have You know what you're dealing with. You know, you don't have the drama that's coming. You don't have the hurt hurt feelings. They're going to still happen. But when you understand how to deal with it immediately, you'll have that skill the rest of your life and you'll never want to go back. That's one of the things. I don't like my relationships to get even messy a little, and they do. But I have to go back and clean them up because I know the cost of doing it long term, not addressing it. So deal with it as quickly as you can.

Nicholas, thank you so much for having me. Have a great day, everyone.