EP277 - When Good Teams Go Wrong with Julie Hutchison and Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, we help you work out what to do when good teams go wrong.

INTRO: Welcome to The IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster. At the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to The IT Experts Podcast, and welcome back into the podcast lounge, the MSP Growth Hub’s incredible leadership coach, Julie Hutchison. How you doing, Julie?

JULIE: Hello. I'm fabulous. Thank you.

IAN: Fantastic. We've got a real cracking show for the MSPs today, and we're going to dive straight in when good teams go wrong. Again, and again and again, we're talking about people, the cost of people, you know, the amount of efficiencies that aren't or aren't within MSPs, you know, balancing it with the automation, this whole resource thing. How do we build a business that works for us rather than, you know, it the other way round and it always comes down to people, which is why we need people like you in our lives, Julie, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way round you look at it. So...

JULIE: Oh, there you go.

IAN: So it's great to see you if people haven't heard you before. Tell everyone who are you, what'd you do, and who's your help? Julie?

JULIE: Well, I help business owners and leaders to grow their teams, therefore grow their, grow the profits in their business through the functionality of their team, helping teams to perform. Because that's what's going to create your ROI as you said there, you know, if our teams perform, it's because they want to perform, yeah. It's not just function. As we were saying the other day, it's the fields. Yeah. It's not just the function, it's the fields. And so as much as we can set systems and processes and we can create all of the, you know the numbers and all of that stuff, if people don't want to do what you want them to do. They won't do it.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: And so we have to have a team, a leadership team, or any other team. But if we we're talking about your businesses, you know, your MSPs, they've got to have a team of people that can actually work together to create whatever it is they want to create.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: In this world.

IAN: And it's okay. You know, I think so many times people think that everybody in the team has to be the same. Everybody in the team has to enjoy what they're doing. But that's not the case, is it? You know, we've spoken about DISC many times. Different people get into flow in different ways. They connect in different ways. And although you've got a technical team, you know, generally the technical team is the largest team in the MSPs. It doesn't mean that everybody's all got to do the same thing and all be the same person and all be, you know, operating in the same way. Does it?

JULIE: No. To be quite honest, that's the first point of dysfunctional teams and that you could try and do, you know, the complete mistake is that people, and often make is they try, the first thing they do is they build up clones of themselves and then they wonder why things aren't any different. It's like, well, because you've just created some function over here that's the same as everybody else's function, but you've missed out all the bits you were lacking in the first place, you know? So we want different people. We want different skills. We want different perspectives. Having said that, the, what is it, the thing you fear the most? The, the thing you need the most is also the thing that can cause you the most problems if you're not careful, because we have to be able to work together. And if we aren't able to understand the types of people and work together and deal with conflict and all of those things, then we just feel bad about the fact we've got these people that we don't understand. And we just argue and it goes nowhere. You know, egos get in the way and, you know, people get confused by the way people show up and conflict starts and it all goes downhill, and then none of the function gets done because all of the fields is coming out negative.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: If that makes sense. And so, you know, we need all of those different kinds of people, but we have to be able to understand people and work together with those people, particularly in like your SLT, yeah. In the very first place.

IAN: So in the last, in one of the last shows, I coined the phrase the 'Huff-ometer', the 'Huff-ometer'. Every time you huff is a signal to say you need to step back, fly up to 30,000 feet, and have a look at what's going on and kind of, and make an assessment around this. So, if an MSP owner is huffing a lot at their team and they can see that things aren't working quite well, what's the first step to, you know, identifying, have I got a dysfunctional team or a functional team? What do I need to kind of like do about it? What's the first thing that any leader needs to do in this situation?

JULIE: Well, well your first question was how am I going to see it? So I, I just answered that first, which is like, what are you going to start seeing if I'm going to be huffing, you know, what's, what's the thing? And you're going to find that you might have a bright idea and you are going to people and they're sitting there and they're meeting with their arms crossed or their change of subject, and the egos are getting in the way and people are just arguing over stuff that you don't understand why they're arguing over it, because it just doesn't, you know, it's like, well, what, what's your problem? Why aren't we actually able to do things? You know, you might find that things get agreed in meetings and nothing happens, yeah. You may find that everything's a blooming problem, you know? And that definitely is where your huff comes out. It's like, what, what is the problem here? And that people are arguing for the sake of arguing, but they're not really, they're arguing because there's something going on underneath, yeah. And so it's the surface level symptoms that you are going to start seeing of why are we taking longer to do things? Why did that not happen when we all seemed to agree that it was going to happen? Yeah. Why didn't you tell me this before when you're now telling me now, or why are you blowing up into, you know, getting the, something, what's going on, or maybe I'm seeing a lot of turnover of staff as well. That would be, you know, people are leaving. And so that's what you're going to start seeing and, what you need to do is you need to understand what's going on because there are, I mean, we were talking in your intensive about the five dysfunctions of a team.

IAN AND JULIE: Yeah.

JULIE: And what that's talking about is as Patrick Lencioni's model, is that at the very be, if you imagine like a, pyramid is the word I'm looking for here.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: You know, a pyramid where at the very bottom of that is, is that we have to create trust. We have to be able to be open and honest with each other. And so, you know, when you've got a bunch of tea people that are getting in the huff, not speaking to each other, blowing up in front of each other or just showing this negative behaviours towards you. So it's probably because they aren't saying what needs to be said. Okay, right. And they're not saying what needs to be said until the moment when they cannot hold it in any longer, and then it all comes out the wrong way. Okay. And that even comes out in behaviours like huffing around all over the place.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: Stamping out meetings and, you know, acting like ahr, the prime type thing, or it just takes so long to come out that you know it, it's wasting time. And so people are guarded and are not allowed to be vulnerable because they don't trust that whatever they say is going to be taken in the right way or you know, that it's safe to do so. So that's number one that we've got to build trust. We've then got to be able to have. The honest conversation and deal with conflict, be able to say, no, I don't agree with you, Ian. No, you're talking rubbish. Not like that obviously, because that's not going to help. But to be able to say, no, I disagree. You know, with you know, with genuine care. But to be able to say it, because if we don't say it, then we just start resenting things because we, it's not that we don't feel it, it's that we just sit there and seethe quietly, you know? And then later on, not so quietly. And when we do, when we can have those good conversations, then we can say, right, well, as a team, this is what we want to do, and are we all committed to it? So, you know, Patrick Lindsay says, we've got to have that commitment to each other of what are we going to do. And when we have that, then we have those meetings where things get done. We have those times where, you know, Ian, you are going to be doing this and you go away and you go ahead and do it because you take responsibility and you own that, yeah. Whereas what we see when teams don't feel that commitment, probably because they're too busy not saying what needs to be said is where everybody's a bit confused about what's supposed to happen. Everybody's not really sure what their role is. And then you go around in circles trying to reinvent the wheel every five minutes and trying to reinvent like what needs to be done and then when it doesn't happen. You don't, if you're not able to have like the conversations about like, Ian, you said you were going to do that, but you haven't done it, and you hold each other accountable because you can't do that because again, you can't, you don't trust to say the thing that needs to be said and you don't have the conversations that need to be had. And then that means that you don't work towards the same result. You don't work towards the goal of the business. You start to work towards your own agenda, okay. Because you've got the ump. And so if you were to look at all of that, what's it based on? It's based on that trust. What's that based on? It's based on communication. It's based on being honest and open. And so what do we then do about it? Well, we've got to start to learn to communicate, in my opinion, yeah. All of that starts with are you having good conversations? Are you able to communicate? Are you looking at people and understanding, you said about different types of people. Are you understanding the different types of people? Are you understanding what's going on for them? And are you communicating in a way that they're going to, they're going to take on board, let's say.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: And if I'm entirely honest, Ian that's the hardest thing for a lot of MSPs.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: Yeah. Or do I have to actually speak to people? And not because they're not good people. because of course they are. But quite often it's, well, I didn't want to upset somebody. They're actually really nice people and they're perhaps, you know, not able to say what needs to be said because they're like, oh, I'm not sure how to say that without causing offense, or, I think I might do, or, I don't want to, I don't want to push too hard, or those things. So quite often it's that way around rather than just shouting and hollering, let's say. And so what we find is if we can work on the communication and the understanding of people, we can build this and therefore build really good teams because then you start to trust each other. You start to have proper conversations. You can tell somebody no, or I don't agree and be honest about it, without causing World War III. And then people can say, right, okay, well I trust you. I want to be in the room with you. Let's get on it. Let's work towards something. And now I can be completely safe and secure in the knowledge that the effort that I'm putting in, is going to be reciprocated by everybody else in the team. And we're not going to have like little children conversations. We're going to have good adult conversations where we hold each other accountable. We can't do it without communication and trust.

IAN: Absolutely. And would that be a good time to mention a previous podcast that we did, which is the top podcast in the whole of the IT experts with you about difficult conversations. Would that be a right time to mention that?

JULIE: Oh, you can. You better watch that one? because, I still need to keep that, up, that number.

IAN: Yes. Julie, so, so blowing Julie's trumpet, a great episode and I will never live it down. It's the most successful episode ever. Thousands of views on that one, which was absolutely amazing, which is all about. Having a difficult conversation. So go into your favorite search engine of choice. Hit the website and go and check that one out, which is absolutely, absolutely amazing.

JULIE: But doesn't that prove a point that the most watched episode is how to have a difficult conversation? Because I don't like communicating because I might offend somebody or I don't know what to say.

IAN: Exactly.

JULIE: Yeah. So we've got to learn to use what we were talking about in your intensive

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: Which was Kim Scott's Radical Candor.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: In her book, I think it's How to Be a Kickass Boss she talks about how do you successfully intersect the two elements of caring personally, but challenging directly. In other words, I have empathy, I care. I don't care as in like, oh, I love you Ian.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: As much as I do, Ian, of course. But I care about you because I care about how you feel and the impact of me on you.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: And the impact of you on me. So I have empathy for who you are, how you think, what's going on for you, and what you need. But equally, I have the ability to say, yet I disagree with you, or I'm going to challenge what you say, or I'm going to challenge what you do in equal parts, really. Because if we can do that, then we have what she described as radical candor, which is the ability to say what needs to be said in a way that the other person can actually hear it. Do something about it without being entirely offended upon it because it's done in a way that is sensible and realistic and empathetic, yeah. And if we don't do that. Then we fall into three other groups essentially. And the first one, which I think a lot of MSPs owners fall into, and I was talking to one the other day about, this is what's called ruinous empathy Ian.

IAN: Okay.

JULIE: Which is where I have so much caring personally yeah. So much empathy for people that I, and I then choose not to, I have a lot of empathy. I can understand other people and then I find it difficult to challenge directly. So basically I say nothing. Okay. Because I'm so busy caring for the other person and being empathetic towards the other person. So I ruin my objectives and my agenda by overgiving to everybody else. In terms of like, well, what do they need? Okay. And so, well, that doesn't work because then I don't get what I want. It's like a win-lose in the difficult conversations section.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: And then we have the other side of that. It's like, well, I don't care personally, actually I don't care at all about you, Ian. But I'm still not going to challenge you because I don't like those conversations, because they still make me feel bad. Okay. So that's a bit like passive aggressiveness because I'm not going to say anything to you. I'm not going to say Ian, that was unacceptable. So I'm going to be manipulatively insincere, okay. So it's like, I think the perfect example of that is when say, how are you dear? And they say, fine.

IAN: Oh, I'm fine.

JULIE: I'm fine. It's like, no, you're not. Yeah, but it's like I'm not being true. I'm not being honest.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: But I'm also...

IAN: Not bad. The other one, isn't it not bad?

JULIE: I'm not being helpful. Yeah, exactly. And then the other one is, is that I also don't care. So I'm down on that bottom half of the graph. But I will challenge you.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: In which case then I become obnoxious. Yeah. So I'm going to be obnoxious, obnoxiously aggressive, can't even speak today. And that means that I'm going to say exactly what I think, because I want to say it, but I'm going to have no care for you. Okay. Which is awful, yeah. And so radical candor is that beautiful blend of being able to say what needs to be said. And having good conversations that say, let's work together. I can see your point of view, but I disagree or can we do this? Yes we can. Okay, brilliant. And working in a space where everybody is able to be open and honest, which includes that vulnerability and that trust

IAN: absolutely love that. And I'm sure that, you know, as you were just explaining that there, not only was I popping into my head where you can either think of people that you've come across in your life who fit in one of those boxes, and I'm sure the listeners here today are going, oh, that's me. All that's me.

JULIE: And we all, yeah. But we'll all fit into each one of those boxes at some point. As well. I mean, I put something on one of your posts the other day that probably fit into the old manipulative insincerity because I had the, and so, you know, it, the thing is, it's so easy to go into these things. You know? So if nobody's perfect and we can't all sit in the same place all at once.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: So, you know, we are human, but it's the this understanding of like, oh, actually, hang on a second. Do I have a tendency...

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: To be in one place or another? Everybody dips into every, you know, other bits. But I want to try and get into radical cannabis much as possibly, because if I want my team, let's talk about my SLT if I want them all to be absolutely on fire and we're on fire in the same direction and we are looking at the results that we are created and thinking look at us. We are amazing.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: It's a team. It's a group of people who are supporting each other, who are honest with each other and are working towards the same goal. So it needs this, it needs to, you need to be able to be honest and to be able to trust that you can be.

IAN: Absolutely.

STUART INTERRUPT: If scaling your MSP is your goal, but you're not sure which road to take, then you'll really want to get hold of the MSP growth guide. It's the shortcut most MSPs wish they had much earlier on to work out what the right support is for them. Even better, if you like meeting up in person, why not come to join us at one of our live events? See the system, meet the people, get inspired, get to kick the tires and see exactly what we get up to at the Growth Hub. So, details are on the show notes below. Go have a look, click and come and join us and we look forward to seeing you another time, but let's get back to the show.

IAN: Thanks, Stuart.

What was some of the feedback and conversations that you had after you delivered that session to the guys at the Growth Hub intensive a few weeks ago?

JULIE: Oh, the feedback? Well, I mean, everybody...

IAN: Or what conversations kind of...

JULIE: Yeah.

IAN: That was me or kind of how did, how did that spark the conversation? Which is what the purpose of the session was, wasn't it?

JULIE: Yeah. There was a couple of people who were, had a little bit of a light bulb moment as to why certain people have left their business because they never had the conversations that they could have had. So what those ones, I won't name any names, but what happened there is that something wasn't said, something wasn't dealt with, and therefore we ended up in obnoxious aggression or manipulative insincerity, and it got what I call Ian, old and hairy. Okay. Like I have this vision, I don't know why, but you know, like a piece of mold, like a piece of bread when it goes moldy and it starts getting old and hairy.

IAN: Yeah, yeah.

JULIE: And it gets worse and worse and worse. And it's like, oh god, that's horrible, or it gets stuck to something. You can't get it off at that point.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: That's what happens when you don't have the conversations that you want to have. So what happens is, is that good people? Who you, and you might, even if you're listening to this, you might even recognise this, where you might have been best friends at the start, you know, you might have had a really brilliant relationship, right? But something wasn't said and something wasn't dealt with, okay and then trust has gone. We didn't hold people accountable. We didn't have the conversation we needed to, we didn't deal with that challenge that we needed to. And then resentment grew. Okay. Confusion grew, resentment grew. Egos grew, right? And frustration and annoyance grows, and it's all because you haven't dealt with it because you didn't do anything about it. But what happens is if we are not being, you know, open and honest is that, that it gets so big old and hairy that now it's massive. And now we can't say anything.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: Until we really do and you know, and it all hits the fan, let's say. And so there was a couple of people who are like, oh my God, if I had dealt with the thing that I should have dealt with, that person probably wouldn't have left, and we might still be friends and we might still be working together as a fabulous team. So that was one thing a lot of people were saying, oh God, like I'm totally in ruin in this empathy help. Which is why we then talk about having difficult conversations. Because that's how do we, because it's all very well sticking ourselves in a quadrant here, but the question is always, how do I get out of that one if I don't want to be in that one? So that's why we talk about how do you have difficult conversations? What do I say? When do I say it? How do we say this? Yeah. And so we want to pull ourselves across into radical can but they, they've got to be a methodology. Can't just snap your fingers and we're done. So a lot of people are like, okay, how do I do that? Then? So we then have the conversation about, well, you know, what do I say to Bob? You know, so I had a lot of those, like, Julie, can we just have a quick conversation?

IAN: Yeah, yeah.

JULIE: I've got a Bob, you know, which is our, our favorite name of course.

IAN: Favorite name.

JULIE: So a lot of people like that. And a lot of people just saying, flip a neck. That's why we don't have the top level, which is we are not working towards the same results. It's because we haven't nearly built the trust yet. It's not that we've got bad people, but we are not, we've not set the climate of the team to be able to perform at top level. And there's too many little niggles, which do get old and hairy and then go horribly wrong if we do so, you know, it's a dangerous situation.

IAN: And that's the, you know, and that's the business owner. It's the self-awareness, it's the being consistent with the messaging and kind of like just making sure that we've got, you know, we do all the things that we talk about every day at the Growth Hub, but also want to what we talk about on the podcast, those small pieces, you know, if some MSPs have trigger themselves today with this and said, I need to be a bit more like this, or I need to be a bit more like that. How do they approach this model? What's the best kind of action for them to take after listening to today's show?

JULIE: Come and talk to us? I think that's a good start. I think the first thing, it's a bit like Alcoholic's Anonymous, you know? You've got to accept that you are where you are.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: It's like, oh, okay, yeah. Actually I'm seeing something here. We are not very open and honest or we have got some of

them.

JULIE: Great, that's good because that's the first level of acknowledgement instead of putting your head in the sand and pretending that hairy little thing isn't going to grow probably. Okay. So that's the first thing. And then I think the next thing is to really sit down and have a good conversation with people. For example, your SLT, if it's there and say, I want us to talk to each other better. I want us to have a better relationship. I want us to be able to trust each other and to set that foundation, that scene of like. I don't feel that we actually do have enough of a trust and to open up the conversation and be honest about the problem, because we can try to fix by putting a sticking plaster on many different things.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: But that isn't going to work, because you like, you could just say, well say more then, you know, like communicate more. It's like, yeah, but once you've got this issue, you need to talk about the problem as opposed to trying to fix the problem. As in like, I'm noticing a pattern here.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: And the minute you can say, I am noticing a pattern that we don't speak to each other when we don't say what needs to be said or we are always arguing or whatever you are noticing, you are kind of labeling it and naming it as a thing that we all, as a group of people can help to solve. So we're not blaming, we're not going into like, you need to stop doing that. We're saying, I'm not sure this is right. And then we need to talk about it, yeah. And then I think the biggest thing is to leaders go first, a vulnerable conversation about how you feel about it and what you really want, and then to ask for people to recommit to being a team.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: You see how it's not, that's not the function. It's not like we need to do more. It's like we need to commit to being a team before we do anything, yeah. And to be honest with each other, and it's not always easy. It sometimes needs a bit of facilitation or it needs people to, kind of go through things with you, a specific situation. But I mean, we've had one really lovely team that we've been working with in your group that

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: That sat down. And they won't mind if they recognise themselves in this, but they won't mind me saying that they're, you know, not the sort of people that are sit, sitting there normally doing the old touchy-feely type stuff.

IAN: No.

JULIE: Like that.

IAN: Definitely not. No.

JULIE: And came to the offices and they got kind of, they got dual lead, I think the word was because...

IAN: They get dual lead.

JULIE: They were assisted in being honest and open and vulnerable with each other. Okay. So it was a very uncomfortable situation for them at the start, but they were able to really say how they felt. Really say what was important to them, really say what they loved and didn't love about what the situation was. And now they've moved forward and now they're absolutely cooking on gas, they're on fire.

IAN: Oh no. It's been amazing. It's been incredible to see that team. Many people said.

JULIE: Exactly.

IAN: You won't fix that team. And...

JULIE: There you go.

IAN: We we're certainly on a very positive route to that.

JULIE: Exactly. But that's what it needs. That you need to be able to be open and honest with each other.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah. Julie, a lot to take in, but I think a real gentle message there for MSPs around, you know, if you are huffing and you're puffing about your team, you need to go and have a look in the mirror. You know, that's where it all starts. Nine times out of 10, whenever anything goes wrong. I've had a situation this morning where I came in, had a conversation with the team and there was a misunderstanding with an instruction. And you know, it's so easy and I remember, you know, back in the day when I was a lot younger and a bit more fiery that you'd just go straight in bull in a China shop, have a go at people and then they'd turn around and go, well it wasn't actually me because you didn't tell me to do that properly to start with.

JULIE: Yeah.

IAN: And that's, you know, and that's, it's not okay, but it's part of living and learning, isn't it? And as you learn and, and grow from these things, it's always that self-awareness and that using that, uh, radical candor to understand where you are, understand where they are and then rebuild that team, I think rebuild that culture of that team. As you sort of say, once you've had those conversations, I think the respect just goes up. A few notches straight away.

JULIE: Yeah. Well, you know, and when you think about it, like every single human being, dare I say, you know, has feelings, and we are driven, our behaviours are driven by our feelings and our emotions.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

JULIE: As much as we say, oh no, I'm not, it's like, yes you are. And so if we feel, you know, angry, that's a feeling, an emotion.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: You know, if we're angry or we are frustrated, or we're annoyed or whatever the thing is, we are driven by that. And so we have to have the conversation that can co, you know, cope with that can uncover what's going on and making us feel, dare I say, bad.

IAN: Yeah.

JULIE: And when we stop doing that and we start having good conversations, suddenly we realise that we're all good people. Nobody comes to work or starts a business because they want to be horrible. No, we're all good people. We just need to be more communicationally vulnerable and open.

IAN: Oh my word.

JULIE: With each other.

IAN: What's a statement to end the show? I know communication, vulnerable. I think you're absolutely right. I would not have said it like that in a million years, but you did. And that was, that would be one of those, one of those things we're try and turn into the language, but of the MSP Growth hub, along with all our other 184 million acronyms.

JULIE: Yes.

IAN: And we'll see how that goes. Julie, absolutely amazing information there for MSPs to kind of walk them through that and to help them to work out when, you know, good teams go wrong and what to do about it. Any final thoughts? You're happy to wrap up? I think we're good.

JULIE: I think we're good. Apart from talk to each other.

IAN: That's it. Talk to each other. Brilliant stuff. Thank you, Julie, again, I know it's late in the day and it's been a long couple of weeks, so I appreciate your help and support putting the show together and sharing with the incredible MSP audience out here. So, I look forward to catching up with you on the next one, all the listeners there. We'll see you in the next week and take care, look after yourselves. Be good. Listen to the show. See you later.

JULIE: Bye.

IAN: Take care.

TEASER NEXT WEEK: But just before you go, I need to tell you about next week's episode. We have got Mit Patel from Assurix. He went from under a million pound all the way up to an 8 million pound MSP, and he's going to help you understand how to, the steps to take to stand out from the crowded MSP market space. You're going to absolutely love it. Don't miss it next week.

OUTRO: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Just before you go, and if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz, and in just three minutes, you're going to get 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time engage in, align your people and help generate more leads in your msp. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes and if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify or iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now, you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best day.