Episode 62: Your Reprimands Are Broken

Have you noticed how often you have to reprimand the same people, or different people with the same problem? The premise of a reprimand is to stimulate growth and change in your organization via processes and the people that drive them. Why then, do our reprimands consistently fail to do just that.

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Transcript

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0:01

Welcome to The Sovereign Guide. I'm your host, Alistair MacDonald. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 0:08

Welcome back. In the last episode, I explained to you the difference between simple, complicated, and complex problems, and how the bulk of your attention as a leader in your business has to be oriented toward complexity because it is complexity that destroys your systems, your protocols, and creates all of your downstream simple and complicated problems. One of the best places for us to begin that journey into complex problems is with reprimands. Let's walk through a standard reprimand in contemporary business. You know this one. It's called the shite sandwich "Hey, Jane. Good. Just want to take a few minutes. Uh, glad. Please come on in, take a seat. Look, Jane, you look remarkable. That-- You just love what you've done with your hair. That's, that's great. Hey, you know, I just am a huge fan of you. You're such a good person, and really, you've been with us all these years. And I just wanted to point out, you know, what a thoroughly underwhelming job you did with that particular report for Mr. Smith. Uh, really just, uh, it's been going on for ages, just really subpar work. Sometimes I wonder if I've hired a primate, uh, you know, maybe Neanderthal, but, you know, you just are not improving. So I need you to really get a heck of a lot better. And hey, you know, the team loves you. We're all grateful to have you here, and I'm so glad we could have this get-together as you go out there and make sure you do a much better job. Thanks, Jane." That's the shite sandwich. Granted, it's a little bit of creative license. Do you know where that came from? Nobody really does the shite sandwich. The sad thing about this is Jane knows it's coming the moment she sits down and you stop being nice to her. Haven't you noticed? The moment that you begin this sandwich approach, your employee sits back, crosses their arms, and looks at you like they're trying to poison you with their stare. We're told by business experts in every industry that what we really need to do with our team members, if they're doing a great job, is we need to edify them. We need to edify people, put them up there on this pedestal, make them shine. You've got a new regional head that's coming in to be introduced to the team. A little destabilizing because a lot of people thought they were gonna get the promotion, but here comes Jack. Jack's new, and we're gonna just celebrate and edify Jack in front of everybody. Only nobody really pays attention to what the word edify means. I can be a bit of a stickler for this because words are spells, and I believe that language defines us. If we sat back or if you pulled up your phone, go online, look up the actual definition of edify, and ask yourself, "Is this really what I want to do to celebrate Jack taking over the head of the new department?" Here it is from the dictionary. "To edify: to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually intended to improve their character." To edify somebody is to morally attempt to improve them, in this case, in public. If it were a true edification, you would be saying, hey everybody, just want to introduce Jack. He's our new regional head. Jack has been doing a really miserable job over at Competitor X now for a good couple of years. They finally let him go. We were desperate. We got him here. Jack, just really hoping to have you look forward to have you on the team. And hopefully you can be much smarter. We'd really love to see your intellect improve. Morality-wise, they're a little questionable. I know you do have some moral weaknesses. And then, of course, just your general character is something we would like to improve, hopefully with our time together. So anyway, everybody, let's just give Jack a big round of applause here, having edified the very goodness out of him. That's what edifying Jack actually is. How could we get this so wrong? What is it that Jane, who just went through the shite sandwich, and Jack have in common? In 1981, a book was written by a then famous woman in business. Her name was Mary Kay. Yes, that Mary Kay. Mary Kay of Mary Kay Cosmetics wrote a book on managing personnel and people, her new instruction manual for how to build a business by harnessing the capabilities of others. And in it, she created what had then never been captured before, what was called the edification sandwich. Yes, that's right, friends. The edification sandwich that we now refer to as the shite sandwich began in her book, where we would start out by telling someone how great they are and then tell them, oh, you're actually not that great. You're really kind of pretty crappy over here. And if you can improve that, hey, it would really be great to keep you around. That's version one in modern American business. And it is so pervasive. So first of all, making the case, don't edify anybody. And if you do, do it in private and make sure that you've got evidence that you are in a position to morally or intellectually improve someone else's character. Those are fairly heavy lifts, both individually and collectively. But this is the standard approach that we take. And yet it's so awkward because it is so pervasive that your employees know the moment you sit down to do it. Haven't you noticed? Their arms get crossed. They sit back looking at you with those dagger stares. They're like, okay, here it comes. What is it exactly that you want to tell me? It is by now so widely known that it is revealed to be structurally dishonest. It's just not honest. Well If you can hear my voice, you've probably evolved beyond that. You've got your own version of it, but I wanna suggest that whatever it is you do, it's still suboptimal. Let's go to version two. This is the one that is probably more common in today's world. Jane, back on the chopping block. Come on in, Jane. Uh, hey, listen, I know that, uh, we have spoken about this before, but this issue of you not getting those reports done has been going on a long time, and I don't know why or what it is, how many times we have to talk about it, but you keep doing this and, you know, really letting us down. Uh, this has been going on now for months, and it's getting difficult. Uh, not just that, but some of the others have been talking about it. Some of the team members have come to me and said basically that they, uh, have had enough. This is really costing them, and, and they're pretty upset by it. So I'm gonna need you to go ahead and, uh, you know, turn this-- these results around, and, uh, what I'm gonna do is send you an email outlining this as a formal reprimand. I need you to acknowledge the receipt of the email to say that you're gonna do a better job in, you know, this particular thing, whatever these reports and so forth. Uh, you know, as I say, a lot of other people have complained, and you, you just keep doing this. So, you know, please, this has to turn around. Let's meet again in two weeks and make sure that it's stopped. Uh, some of the other problems that we've got, we'll talk about at that point, but for now, let's just leave it there. I appreciate you. I think we can get through this. You're a good person. Uh, but anyway, um, yeah, looking forward to the progress that lies ahead. I'm paraphrasing, but you're with me. That's how conversation number two went or goes with Jane. Let's have a look at these two versions. Let's actually deconstruct what's just happened. In both cases, we spoke about them. Okay, so you are Jane, all right? And by the way, you're doing this. You're doing this to people, and I don't think you realize how inadvertently unkind and ineffective you're being. So first of all, you are Jane, and I said, "Jane, listen, you have done this. You made this mistake. You're coming up short. This is not good enough," et cetera. You'll catch yourself when you find a mistake and the very first word out of your mouth, very first question out of yours, or just as insidiously out of your team leadership's mouth, or even the team on the whole, is, "Who did dot, dot, dot?" "Who is it that..." Another favorite is, "Why did the package not go out?" "Who was supposed to..." "What were they thinking?" These questions are all oriented toward identifying someone to blame. You would have seen this. Who? Does that really matter? Does it really matter if it was Jack or Jill? No, it doesn't. What matters is that it happened at all, and that we can build a corrective course to avoid it happening again. But this is what we do. The moment that we discover problems in our business, we immediately become aware of, like our aperture widens to the acknowledgement that these things could be happening everywhere. Wait, that went wrong? That's a simple thing. How many other things could-- That's what the human brain does. It jumps from one problem that catches us unaware or something we thought was solved and it's not. It catches us and stimulates this almost spawning of fear about all the other things that could go wrong, all of the other stuff in my business that I'm-- I wasn't even paying attention to because this seemed so normal, so basic. How can they be getting it wrong? The point being, the realization of potential loss opens a realization to future potential loss or loss in other areas. And so we have decided at the basic level that what we need is someone to blame, somebody to take responsibility for it. But to take responsibility for what? An error in understanding? A lack of tools? A breakdown of priorities or structure or instruction, resources to equipment, supplies? Is that really what we need? Or is it something that they specifically chose? Even if it is, which is reasonable, that Jane-- if Jane chose to do this in the face of all of the training to-- and experience to the contrary, that's different. But we're still going to have to diagnose the actual breakdown, which means who Jane or Jack or Jill are is irrelevant except for data retrieval. So when we open this investigation with who and why and how and what were you thinking, instead we need to ask ourself this. Friends, this is the most important question. It is in fact the only question that you should bother asking with any mistakes in your business. It is not who, why, what, how. It is simply, has this happened before? Has this happened before? At some point, you need to come to terms with the reality, and the reality is that you either want to be right or you want to be effective. Most people Just want to be right, and they will get stuck there like a Roomba in the corner of the living room for the rest of their careers until they get to the point where they're finally sick of the results that their choices are creating, and they will turn around and realize, "I was so right, but I died alone. I was so right, but it didn't work out. I was so busy being righteous that my business was a fraction of what it could have been." There is another path where that same entrepreneur looks up and says, "I might have been right, but I was not effective." Sometimes you can be effective and be right, but you will not find efficacy if you focus on being right. You won't. You just won't. Has this happened before?" brings you to a beautiful, simple decision tree. Has this happened before? Follow me in your mind. Yes, this has happened before. Great. Next chain of decisions. Do we have a plan? Yes, we have a plan. Did we use it? No, we didn't. Great. Use the plan. Do we have a plan? Yes. Did we use it? Yes. Then we have a toilet plan. Fix the plan. Do we have a plan? No. Great. Make a plan right now. Finally, go back upstream. Has this happened before? No. Brilliant. Let's build a plan so it never happens again. The person who asks, "Has this happened before?" is somebody that is actually, actually subordinating their egoic need to be right and is fully and effectively and demonstrably invested in progress. That's what that question yields. Has this happened before? I want you to get so good at this that when your leads come to you with a problem, you open with it so consistently that they come to you and they say, "I know what you're going to ask me, and no, this has never happened before." Progress. That is an organization that's oriented toward growth, and that is a change you can make tomorrow that'll create a profound impact for you and your employees. It bypasses the need for blame, for assigning responsibility, when in fact, the responsibility is for everybody to solve the problem. So we let go of this who, and we go straight to has this happened before. So consolidating our two examples, we have said you, Jane, have done this. Not just that, but you have done it multiple times. You know, we had a meeting last month, or you made the same mistake three Tuesdays ago. Well, and then finally, the real coup de grâce, which is others have come to me. Some of the team members are having a hard time with it. People are talking about it. Think about what this does. Okay, truly, truly walk through this with me right now. What I've done is I've made this about you as a person. That's the first thing. Not your action, not your results, which is actually what I care about. I don't even have to necessarily know or like you, so long as you consistently produce results in the domain that you take responsibility for. I am pointing out you. I am coming after you, not your actions, not the results to start with. The second is that I've told you that this has been going on for weeks. Now, if you're anything like me and every other human on the planet, you have avoided those conversations dozens of times. "Oh, I'm so busy. I've just gotta... I've gotta deal with this customer. I've got this patient here right now. I g- I'll deal with-- You go ahead. Just... I'll pick it up with them tomorrow." Whatever it is, you have consistently chosen to leave this issue for another day because you actually thought the conversation would be easier in the future, and here we are, and you're discovering that no matter what the problems are in our lives, they will never be cheaper than now. Those conversations, as hard as they are, will never be easier than now. But here you are, having kicked the can down the road now for weeks, lacking the courage, the time, the confidence, the vision of long-term implications for you, your wellbeing, and the business. Down the road long enough, you are now coming back, and this time you're loaded for bear. Here is a way to spot a major hole in your personal leadership. If you go into a reprimand loaded for bear, filled with righteousness, and you've got to t- tell them about how many times this has been going on, I've got something to tell you, my friend, that you're not gonna like, but it is gonna help. You're talking to yourself. When you say the words, "From now on," you are talking to yourself. The level of resentment that you have, the negative energy, the charge that you bring to this is directly connected to how long you have allowed it to happen That's on you. That's on you. The action is on them. The bluster, the furore, the buildup of pressure behind it, that's on you, and the longer you leave it, the more charged you show up, the less the likelihood that it's gonna go well. In fact, that level of compression and suppression is likely to lead to the worst version of you showing up, that even if you are correct, even if you are right, you will be ineffective because that person is going to feel the weight of your charge, your vitriol, your anger, your resentment, and that employee definitively in this moment is not safe. Progress will be halted, creativity retarded. Nothing good will come out of that. So when you walk in to do a reprimand, the first thing you need to do is to take complete responsibility for the energy that you bring. 99% of the time, the resentment you carry is at yourself. You've let this happen, no one else, and you don't get to take out your low standards on someone else. Of course, I'm talking to myself here just as much as you, but let's press on. So I've told you you did this, and it's been going multiple times, and finally, the real kick in the pants, others have come to me. Let's ask ourselves how this might feel. I am a bad person. It's not just that I spilt the milk. Not just that, but when you tell me that this has been going on for weeks, and in those weeks I have been seeing you every morning and saying, "Good morning, Doc. How's it going?" And you've been all polite and friendly, it's been a lie. Every day I showed up completely blind to the thing I was doing that you were too... let's, I'm gonna be a little kinder about this, that you lacked the courage in that moment to confront. You lacked the clarity and the generosity to come to me and help me correct my mi- my errors. You have now taken all of that, and you are carrying that resentment against me every day that I said, "Hi," and, "How you doing?" And you had a fake smile and asked me how the kids were. I do not trust you. You are not safe. And they're absolutely right to feel that way. Finally, what else have we done? We've done something that is so cruel, something that causes such harm in human b- minds and bodies, that it is borderline physical assault. You think I'm exaggerating. You told them that they're on the out group You told them that others have been talking about this. You did this because you felt like you needed evidence. You needed a justification to come to them with all this bluster. You only do if you're judging the person. But if we can disembody this, we realize that it's really about these results. We've also made it look and sound like in our delivery that my standards are not being met. Mine. Well, if Jane was capable, you've hired me in this role. You've trusted me and empowered me and authorized me to make these results my own. But I am not good enough. It's taken weeks. You've been lying to me with your friendliness and fake nice guy stuff for weeks. And the team is now talking about me behind my back. This is a nightmare. It's actually now known in neuroscience that social rejection like this is processed almost identically to experiencing physical harm. Actual physical harm. The specific, there's a part of the brain, there's a certain region called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Yeah, that's a long one. Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. What it does is it fires identically for physical pain as much as it does for social exclusion. It's the same neural pathway, same neural signature. What does this mean? What it means in middle school, when you see people do this, and high school, it means for that person that rejection isn't just in your head. It's in the same place in your head as a broken bone or a gunshot wound. It wasn't that long ago that to be excluded from the herd would turn you into saber-toothed tiger feces, just to be a bit more graphic. Staying in the herd is quite literally inside our operating system. It is so important to our survival that the threat of being excluded is very much akin to taking a gunshot wound. And this is what you did. And this is what I've done. But I can't allow myself to do this anymore, not just because it's incredibly cruel, but it is incredibly ineffective. By the way, this is the same employee and the same army of employees that you go to with this unbelievable expectation. that they shouldn't come to you with a problem unless they've got two or three ideas of how to solve it. So I'm Jane, and you've told me that I am a bad person because you focused on me as opposed to the results. You've told me that I can unwittingly feel safe around you when in fact I'm not, and this can go on for months, days, years. You've also told me that the entire herd, the pack, talks about me in an exclusive fashion, meaning I could be removed from the tribe at any time. But now, on top of all of that, you expect me to be creative? You want me to come up with two or three creative solutions for this problem? Do you have any idea the neurological privileges of creativity? Do you have any sense of how incredibly safe a human being has to feel to be creative? They need this fridge filled, their babies fed, a roof over their head. They need safe passage through the world. They need to not be excluded. They need to be rewarded for their contributions. And then if they-- if you're lucky, if they're brave enough with all of those things, they're gonna-- they've, they've proven to you, you've proven to them that they're not good enough as in who they are, and not just that, but everyone else has noticed and come to you. But in the face of all of that, I'm now gonna t- have the audacity to put an idea out there that might be a bad idea? You're out of your mind. There is zero chance I'm gonna do that. It's not even safe enough for me to do what I do and make a mistake from time to time, let alone be courageous enough to put myself out in front of anyone and say, "Guys, I think I've got an idea that might help," when those same guys have already lit the torches and sharpened the pitchforks. It's not gonna happen. Here it is. And then in part two, we're gonna talk about what exactly to do. Why is this so dangerous and so cruel? Because if you want to destroy the long-term viability of a relationship, stifle creativity, stifle connection, just impair somebody's dignity. Just impair their dignity and watch what happens. Haven't you noticed? Haven't you had somebody or don't you have someone in your life that when they fight with you, they don't fight about the topic. They crush your dignity They point out the things that you are most ashamed of. You have done this. I have done this, and I am ashamed to confess that. This is a work in progress, catching ourselves where we can so casually, so easily, so accidentally or obliquely inadvertently impair someone's dignity and then wonder why the space between us gets cold and they just move a little further away. Friends, you've got to protect the dignity of others. Oh, well, I will do that, and I will respect them when they... Nope, nope. No, nope, nope. Dignity is a human right for purposes of us wanting to be benevolent leaders of our businesses and good people in the world. Dignity is their inherent right. Respect, for sure, has to be earned. Dignity does not. when we deliver our problems this way, you'll see that once we impair somebody's dignity, they immediately respond with shame. Shame makes us retreat. Shame has us pull back to protect ourselves, and we, we really need to because shame, again, speaks to this in- in-group, out-group, this exclusion thing. It is a deep, deep feeling of withdrawal and self-preservation. I'm not interested at all in helping you hit some EBITDA target. Sorry. I'm over here trying to protect my own soul. We've got to ask ourself, do I wanna be right or do I wanna be effective? I have to ask myself this question way more than I would like to, and I wish I could tell you that I've nailed it and got it right every time. This question never lets me down. I let it down sometimes. I forget to ask it. Caught up in the bluster of coming back from my own personal insult or disappointment or injury, I completely let go of being effective, and I find myself in the same loops over and over again when I fail to do that. You might be doing that too, and I don't want that for you, and your team doesn't want that from you. Once you see that you do this, you'll recognize that you do it everywhere and others do it to you. They assign this blame on you, and you feel the guilt, and the guilt turns to shame, and it's an unnecessary sadness, and it's creating a division in your team that is completely unnecessary. Oh, and by the way I mentioned in the last episode that once you focus on complex problems, you can start to see the solutions you design are applicable across all domains. In this case, your teenager, your spouse, that little kid, your parents, you've got to protect their dignity. You can't go back into time and punish them for things they weren't even aware of or weren't aware that you were aware of them. After all, you don't have bad people in your life. You've purged bad people from your life. What you have is just people that sometimes do bad things or do things badly. And the difference is massive. And the path forward is so clear and so obvious. And the framework that I'm going to share with you will only work every time to facilitate growth and creativity and connection. And the real cherry on top is that you can actually feel good about yourself. And that's what I want for you. Because we know the opposite is true with the current edification sandwich. In the next episode, I'll show you the exact deconstruction of the core elements of how to turn a reprimand from something everybody hates to something that makes perfect sense and actually fosters growth and connection.

Speaker 3 30:06

That's it for this episode. Thanks for being here. Hey, there's only two things that you have in your life, your time and your attention. That you've given both to me for these few minutes of today means everything. Cheers.