ep 133 – Chris’s Nuggets – Will Skill Model

2:49 Understanding the Will Skill Model

4:12 Training Contributors

7:43 Challenging High Performers

11:49 Addressing Potential Detractors

19:59 Managing Low Performers

Hey, friends, in this episode of head cases, we’re taking a side bar to dig into the big ideas and questions that have come up recently with our guests. We’re calling these little detours Chris’s nuggets. You’ll still get an entertaining story or two with hard won lessons learned, but also some focused insights that I know you’ll be able to use in your business and in your life. I’ve got my trusty iPad here for some visual aids. So now is a great time to find the video versions of this episode at Coach Chris Baran on YouTube or on Chris baran.com and we’re switching to nugget mode now.

Chris Baran 0:54
Someone sent a message to me the other day, and they said something to this effect for me, as they said, I’m a new salon owner, and I’m new to the leadership position, and I’ve got a variety and diverse staff, and I’m new to the leadership game, and I want to know if you’ve got any tips that you can give me, any advice that you can give Me on coaching or managing or leading the team. So yeah, that was a mouthful, but I thought, rather than just sending that one person a message back, I know there’s a ton of people out there that have that situation, and I know I did too at one time, had a had a salon, it was really interesting trying to manage everybody, and because the diversity that you have and the kind of the willingness and the different skills that people have when you’re trying to lead them. So I want to take you through a model, and it’s called will skill model, and I want you to just advise you, if you’re listening or watching right now, just to take out a pen and a paper, because I want to give you this model. I want you to write it down, because I promise you, if you if you go through the model, and if you can visualize the model, it makes it that much easier when you get in a tough spot, so you know exactly what to do. So my mission to you, the what I want to accomplish to you today, or the intention that I have for this podcast, is to give you the model number one so that you can identify whether where people are at in the model, whether they’re there, regardless of their skill or regardless of their willing, you’ll know how to get into them. So just before I get into the model itself, because there was a variety of topics that came up in there. Number one is they’ve talked about coaching, they talked about leadership. And I want to just bring this down to it to right away, if you are in a new leadership position, or, let’s say you’re not an owner, but you’re in a leadership position or a manager, or you’ve got a team that you’ve got to leave, whether it’s you’ve been appointed to it or not. There’s two things when you’re leading. Number one is, is it’s to know when to coach and know when to manage. And I want to talk a little bit about that first so first so first thing I just want I’m going to display this for right now. For those of you listening, I promise. I’ll keep you up to speed right now. And what I’m showing you right now is, is as a model. And if you can imagine a vertical line that’s going up and down with arrows on both ends. So that’s a vertical line, and at the very top of it, you’re going to see that somebody is either willing or at the bottom, they’re unwilling So, and we know we run into that all the time, and it might even happen to you and I each and every time, depending on the day, depending on the task, depending on where we’re at in our skill set, we may or may not be willing to do something now corresponding to that. I want you to imagine a horizontal line that’s going through that vertical line and making quadrants, four quadrants. And on the left side of that horizontal line, it reads unskilled, meaning that they’re not skilled. On the right side, it’s they’re skilled. So the vertical line, going up and down, is willing or unwilling. The horizontal line is either on the left is unskilled, on the right, it’s skilled right. Now I want you to think about, if you’re if you are unskilled, if you’re unskilled, but you’re willing, then I want you to think about, what would you do in that, in that, in that scenario. So let me kind of paint a picture for you. These are your contributors. These are the people that that will say, Put me in coach. They’re there. They’re unskilled, but they’re really, really willing. They’re willing to do anything you want to do them. So I would ask you, what do you think that you need to do with them? Well, it’s really quite simple because, and I’m sure that you’re guessing that right now, the big thing that you need to do with those people, they don’t have the skill, they are willing, but so you need to train them. Now. What does that training mean? What how would you help that person? So I want you to imagine this could be a new kid that just came in and is working for you. It could be somebody that you hired over from another team that has a different skill set, or whatever, but they’re not skilled in the way that you want them to be skilled. So there’s a couple of things that I would do inside there. Remember, first of all, it’s always about how. You onboarding them. What do you need to do as an onboarding to set up to set up a plan for them, to set up a plan for how you’re going to increase their skill set. You know, the next thing that I would do, so, first one, obviously, is onboarding. Second thing that you would do is, is coaching them? Okay? How are you coaching them along? Or are you setting them up with a mentor, somebody on your team that has that skill set and they know exactly what to do, and you can help them to do your trainings. Remember, as a leader, part of what you need to do is not take on everything yourself. You need to be delegating some of this stuff out other people on your team that are skilled can jump in to help and to mentor those people that are not skilled yet, okay? And then the other part of it is, is one, I find that I know what I had done in the past. I would either set that aside, put it on somebody else’s shoulders, etc, but at that time, I would fail to check in with them, check in with them to see how they’re doing. And I think that’s as a leader and as a manager, if you whatever position you’re in that’s really, really important is to keep check ins with them and set them up regularly. I would probably do like set up just and set them up weekly meetings. Now, people usually freak out when I say this, because they’ll say, Well, there’s all these meetings that I have to do. They don’t have to be a formal meeting. They can just be a five minute meeting while you’re having a cup of coffee with them, or you’re meeting that with them. Of some sort of side by side stance doesn’t have to be a formal meeting, but just check in. How you doing? What’s going on? How are you how is your How is your training coming along? What do you find that’s working? What do you find it’s not working? How can we support you in that way? Because remember the support that you get out of the not the knowledge that you get out of your check ins help you determine what is missing and what is not. So you can do that. So just remember onboarding, coaching, mentoring, check ins with you, and then what kind of support that you’re going to give to them. Now remember, that’s for the contributor. Those are the ones that always want to help. They’re there for you all the time. They’re there. They work late, etc, and that’s the training. Okay, now let’s move over to that other side. And now, do you have somebody that is willing and they are skilled? So this is really the interesting part, because I found, I’ve talked to people in the past, and what I found that they say to me is they say, Chris, they call me that because that’s what my name is. So I always find that’s a better thing than some of the names they call me on some of the times. But what would you do if you had somebody that’s willing, somebody that’s skilled, and I want to make a really important point right now, is that if somebody doesn’t see a place that they can grow to, they’re probably on their way or looking for other places where they can and if it’s not right now, it will be down the road. So the big thing is to always make sure that the the people that you have, these ones that are willing and the ones that are skilled, these ones are what we call these are your high performers.

Chris Baran 7:53
These are your high performers, and those are the ones that you really want to get at. There’s the ones that are your are your people that are going to help your growth of your business. So what would you do with them? And I it’s interesting when I say this to people, what would you do with them? And I’ve talked to her to people, I say, we have to keep them motivated. Well, the reality is they are already motivated. They do have the gumption. They have the get up and go. So what you need to do with these people is they need a challenge. Now, what do we mean by a challenge? And so I find that so many people that I’ve seen that they have some young kid that’s coming along, they maybe their skill isn’t quite to what yours is as the owner, the leader, the leadership team, but the one thing that they require, and you should give them is autonomy fancy pants. Mean is just let them run, let the just like if you were, if you had, instead of holding back the reins on them, let the reins go, let them go and let them have fun with it, and be willing to let them make a mistake when you do something because they need growth opportunities. You know it might be something that if you delegated to them to train this person you know, don’t micromanage them, just let them go and have regular check ins with them as well, so that you can see how’s it going, what’s working, etc. But they want the autonomy they want to be able to grow, and the only way they’re going to do that is by making a mistake, and you you’re the one in these other meetings that you’re going to have with them is to help them to correct the mistake as they go along. They want to be empowered. So the fact that you’re going up and you’re willing to trust them to take on a task, to delegate or to do something, or whatever that might be, if it’s in charge of a fashion show you’re putting together, if it’s putting together a training program, if it’s to help somebody that that really needs the help, and it’s just in a one on one scenario, empower them to do the job. You don’t need to do it yourself. And then one thing is the most important is to celebrate them. Celebrate them while they’re doing their work. So if you see them, catch them doing. Something right and congratulate the hell out of them. Hey, good job. You’re doing an amazing job. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. I can’t tell you how much you’re appreciated in what you do. And the other side of that is that people, when they’re doing something wrong, people always will think, Well, that what? How do I do that? How do I deal if they’re doing something wrong? I just say to them, Look at this. You say, I want to celebrate you. Number one of everything you’re doing right now, there’s a couple of things that I’ve seen that I want to be able to help you with, because I’ve made those same mistakes in the past, and I want to help you so you can correct that as your growth forward. See it, I didn’t take the power away from them. I didn’t say wrong and wrong, because that’s going to help to just shut them down. You don’t micromanage them. When they do make a mistake, give them a quick course correct and then put them back in the game. They’ll figure it out. They’re the ones that are willing. They are skilled. So remember, in that upper left hand quadrant you want to those are your contributors. You want to train them on your upper right ones, those are the people that are in your they’re your high performers, and they want somewhere to grow into. They want a challenge. Okay, now here’s the interesting part, because this is where on these upper two this is whether I would suggest that you keep you spend most of your time, because this is going to be about coaching. This is going to be about encouragement, about advancement, about growth. Okay, now let’s drop down below the line. So if you can imagine where that unskilled and versus skilled is, and above that, these are your your performers. These are the ones that are your growth. So you’re going to spend a lot of time up in there. But we also know that below that horizontal line, that’s where people move when they’re unrealing. So I want to take you on that bottom right hand quadrant, the one below challenge. That’s where I want I want to give you two kind of scenarios right now. I want you to think about it in this manner. I want you to think about it that you might have someone that was willing and was skilled, but somehow they’ve dropped down, and they’ve dropped down into that there are skilled. They’re unwilling. Now this is where I find that. It’s really interesting, because in the idea behind this. They were at a good place, and there’s not they’re not now in this bottom right hand quadrant, they’re potential detractors. Now, what does that mean? That’s just a fancy pants name for when people have bad attitudes and they’re detracting or distracting the attitude of the rest of the team, particularly the ones that live above that line. And if we don’t get into it right away, they can act be cancerous in the runs, in the rest of the in the rest of the team, meaning that they’ll start to get feedback like well, if I’m doing all of the work, then why aren’t they? Or if I’m playing as a part of the team, why aren’t they, or if I’ve got my attitude is in the right place, and theirs isn’t. What is that doing for the rest of the team? You see it? So we’ve got to catch this one right away. You want to nip all of this in the bud. So generally, if that happens, and you’ve got somebody that was willing and skilled, but they’ve dropped down to they still have the skill, but they have but they’re just not willing. They’re one of the people that you could challenge before, but now they’ve either they’re burnt out or whatever happened and inside this, this is where you have to come in with conflict, with conflict resolution, because what you’re trying to do with them is you want to get them back from that, and you want to move them back up into that willing, skilled area. So how do you do that? Well, first of all, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs always says that there’s a certain needs that people have in life everything from physiological just meaning air, food, water to drink, et cetera. And then you have the needs where they go up and they want to be able to be a part of a team, for instance, and you want to be a part of the team. These people might not be a part of the team anymore, or they just might have needs, like there’s something going on with their life, with money, with family, with whatever, all of those things. Can find out. They can drop people’s attitude, and you can take some people out of it. You and I have probably gone through the same things in our life, where everything was hunky dory, everything was going along smooth. All of a sudden, something is weighing heavy on our life, and we need we’ve got to correct that. So you know my as a as now as a coach, let me rephrase that, because I would say, as a manager, I would want to sit down with them, find out what is the missing need with them, and what that needs often is you’ve got to take and that’s called, what we call like, to call Straight Talk. To just have us have a meeting with them, have a sit down with them and talk about where they were, what’s going on, and and say, I’m just noticing that you’ve you’ve dropped down, and I just noticed that there’s a change in you now. And I just want to have a conversation and do this. And I would always advise us do this one on one, never in front of people. Just pull them aside, say, hey, look it. I just noticed that there’s some change going on, and I just wanted to have a sit down with you and just be able to chat about it and see what’s going on. And just ask them questions on what’s going on in your life, what’s happened to it? More often than not, they’ll probably tell you, and once you find out what the missing need is, whether it’s money, whether it’s attitude, whether it’s something going on in their life, you may be able to help them with that, or you may be not. But the reality is, it requires conflict resolution, and with that straight talk, you can move them back up into that line as well. I want to take you into the other area, because it may be, it may be that you just have that you just have people that are in there, that they’re the kind of people that they didn’t want to they are skilled. They just never been team players. You know, they might not want to join every little thing that you do, etc, but what do you do you do with those people, with those with those people that fit into it, they are skilled. They’re just not willing when it comes to anything. They might not be attending meetings. They’re kind. They can find an excuse for everything in that quadrant. So you want to get them to the point where you’re going to move them back up again. But the this is the area where what you want to do is you want to motivate.

Chris Baran 16:49
You want to motivate them and find out what takes want to get back up into that path, to move them either up into that where you they are willing. You know, they’re skilled, but how do you do that? Well, with that, I mean, it’s, it’s a performance plan, set set up a plan with them. Obviously, have a meeting. This is going to be a longer meeting where you have a you get, you want to get a performance plan so that you can get them, you improving. And so that’s going to require setting up some goals for them so that you can do it, having regular one on one meetings to help them through that and to set up a path of accountability. Now I was out, I was doing a seminar the other day, and they said, Well, we’ve tried some of that before, and and I did, and we, I walked them through how to go through a straight talk meeting, and inside there you can say, look at we notice that that you’re you’re just not willing to be participating in anything, and that’s okay. I’m not saying that you have to take on the world, but I just noticed that you’re bowing out of every meeting, and it’s affecting the other teammate and I, and I also noticed that when you’re we have things that you got to take up in the evening, like even when it comes to simple things like cleaning up after your station, etc, that is affecting the other people, and other people are complaining about it. And here’s the line that I like to use, and I say, if, if you were me as the leader of the team, or the manager of the team, and somebody else was playing that game where they were not, they weren’t willing to be involved even to the slightest degree. What would you do? How would you handle the situation? You see it, and often they’ll come off with it, and they’ll it’ll bring them to light, okay? And that will help them to move forward. And then from there, once that’s going on, and they show some willingness, that they’re even willing to start again. That’s when you go back and set up the goals and the performance plans, regular check ons. And remember, celebration happens here too, so you can’t when you catch them, when they’re doing things right, even more so than when the when the people that are you’re willing, you’re willing skilled people, so that they are being noticed. Now what I want to be perfectly clear here, where most people that are in manager leadership positions, they spend all of their time below the line trying to get everybody above the line, this should be something that they need to have accountability on their own and hold them responsibility. Hold them responsible for doing it. Okay, so now remember, upper left hand quadrant is trained. That’s your contributors. Upper right is your challenge as that’s where you challenge them. That’s your high performers, as you drop below on that bottom right one, that’s your potential detractors, as we say, if you can’t get them back up, it could prove cancerous for the other rest of the team, and start to bring them down. Now I’m going to go over into that left hand quadrant. Now, in that left hand quadrant, these are the people that are they are unwilling, and they are unskilled. Somehow along the way, those people are. Or whatever training was going on, they’re either not attending or they’re not applying it, or whatever. These generally are what we would call these are your low performers. Now, there’s really two ways that you can deal with them, and you either have to redirect so in these people, you either have to redirect them. That means that what’s what’s right now is, even if they’re unwilling, they’ve got to start to bring their skill set up. Okay, so how do you do that? Well, you’ve got to be have a real, clear role expectation for them, and give them honest feedback. This is where it could be. The same thing as we talked about in that bottom right quadrant. When you have to motivate people, it might be, look at we just noticed that you’re you’re not willing to participate anything. Your skills are low. What do you think that we need to do with that? And if they just come up with, well, I don’t know, then you can use that line on again. What would you do if you were in my position, and we needed to grow our business, and I had a person that was just not willing to do anything, and they’re not willing to take even on any training and improve their skill set, what would you do? They might solve your problem right then and there, but you need to have this honest feedback with them, and remember without emotion motion and the reality is, the more you can keep yourself calm for a couple of reasons. When in when emotion is high, intelligence is row is low, and we say things that we don’t we shouldn’t have said. So if you keep your emotion low, keep calm when you’re in the conversation, still have more straight talk with them and do one of two things. This is where you set up an action plan with it. How are we going to train? What do you need to train? Where do we need to start? Put it on them right now, if you try to say, here’s what I want you to do, or here’s what we want you to do, you know they’re probably not going to buy in at all? Now, hopefully you can save them. Hopefully you can start the circle and move them back up to where they’re training. They’re going to see improvement then. Now, once their skill improves and their willingness will improve, and you can get them back in that in that upper quadrants. Now, okay, what happens? You you do it, and it’s like speaking to a blank wall. Well, I think that the the writing is on the wall. It’s really easy to go through in there, because now what you need to do, obviously, with that is just release. I like to think of that as if we if they’re not happy with their working for you, I have a good friend out of Australia that I loved, and I always tell this story about him, and he said he had one of these people that just was it. He they just didn’t feet fit, that you could tell that they had they had gone, they just hadn’t left yet. And what he said to them is, I know that you’re not happy here. I can see it in your actions. I can see it in the way you were around the team and around me. I’d like to help you find a place to work at that you are happy at. And quite frankly, he meant it. He wasn’t being snarky, he wasn’t being rude. He just cared about the person. There was something about the fit that they had, and he just allowed them to release them and move them on. Okay, so I hope this helps. So just remember, in that quadrant, you’re either going to be training for your contributors, you’re going to be challenging your high performers. You’re going to have to go into your conflict resolution or motivate for the people that are in your potential detractors, and for the low performers, you’re going to either redirect them or you’re going to release. So I hope this helped. I know that in just the everything that I teach in here, I like to think about is not only as just leadership skills, but also as life lessons. So just remember is, if you kind of use this will skill model, it’s been a great help to me, and I hope it’s been a great help to you. Thanks again for watching this episode, and if you liked what you heard, remember to smash that like or follow button, depending on your preferred platform, and make sure to share it with anyone you know that might be a fellow head case. Head cases is produced by cut action media with Marjorie Phillips doing the planning parts, Lee Baran on the video bits, and Adrian Taverner mixing the audio jazz you.