My Team Member Refuses to Do This Simple Request . . .

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree Leadership, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches. Right alongside you. If you've got a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the form of entree leadership.com/slash ask.

Or call and leave a voicemail at 844-944-1070. That number's 844-944-1070. Allison is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Allison. How are you? I'm good, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So I work for a wine and beer distributor. I've been a sales manager for one year and really I'm the first one to be in this position.

Uh we have about 18 employees, 12 reps are under me, and our revenue is 6.9 million. Um and my question is, how can I inspire and support my sales team to turn in their weekly recap? Well th I mean there's a couple of things. We we start with an explanation of to why this information is important.

And that would sound like uh the details, the tactical details. I've got if we have this information we can act on it and help you guys in the field by making sure supplies are there, inventory's done properly, every th everybody's planning and that way you don't end up

promising a customer something you can't deliver. Uh and we have to have the n we have to have the data to do that. Okay. So that's thing one. Thing two is you could start even at a higher level and you could say, Hey look Most organizations don't have good communication, and most organizations suck. We're going to be an excellent organization and that involves really good communication.

We're gonna practice good communication. One of the elements of good communication is getting this data in on these recaps every week. And so it's really, really important from an inventory management standpoint, from an ordering standpoint, everything else, delivery standpoint that we know what you're doing in the field. If we don't know that, we're gonna end up letting the customer down because of

bad communication. And so that's why we're doing the reports. So now that you know that, also know that you're doing the report. It's a condition of your job. Like, you know, it'd be like, uh, I don't want to make sales calls. Oh, well, I don't care. That's a condition of your job.

There's a reason you make sales calls'cause that'cause that's how you make sales. There's a reason you make sales calls, cause that's where your money comes from. There's a reason you make sales calls, but the biggest reason you make sales calls is you're a salesman and salesmen that don't make sales calls don't work here. And salesmen that don't turn in their recaps don't work here. Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm gonna unload that hammer on'em until I've done the other stuff.

And I'm not gonna unload that hammer. to the whole meeting, the sales meeting. But if I got one goober that's too arrogant to follow through, I'm gonna pull him aside And we're gonna say, hey, look, I've explained to you why this is. Do you have any reason to think that if we don't need these reports? No. Then you're gonna need to know that, you know, I'm gonna have to see these reports from you or you're not gonna have the a place to work. This is how it works.

We're asking you to do this because it's very, very important. It's part of being a grown-up. Right. So I calculated that um our rate for these reps submitting is about eighty four point five percent and you could probably guess. I have one guy, the goober, as you mentioned.

who has literally went over one month without turning it in and I have tried I would just have a difficult I'd have a difficult conversation with him in. I would just say, listen Apparently you're not understanding. And let me make sure because I don't want to be unclear. It's not fair for me to be unclear with you.

I need to explain to you one more time that this is part of your job. And if you're not going to do your job, then you're going to have to work somewhere where you can do your job differently. But here We turn in our sales reports. If you want to be a we, you know, I have to have this. But if you don't want to be if you don't want to work here, all you got to do is not turn them in anymore.

And that'll solve your problem. You won't be working here. Because if you I I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to you about one more time about this, and then I'm gonna give you an absolute ultimatum that if you ever miss again, I'm gonna fire you. And so nobody's getting fired today, but you need to hear really, really clearly that I'm on your team. I want you to win. I appreciate the work you do.

But just ignoring something that we've all agreed that we're all doing and you think you're the only one that doesn't do it, we're not gonna do that. And if you can do that in private and sit down with him, if he still doesn't get it, you're gonna have to fire him. Yeah. I was thinking that was probably the answer. Yeah. I mean It's um so what do you think the probability is if you get real direct with him? And you can be kind, but very, very blunt, very clear.

That I hey, I'm I'm rooting for you. I want you to win. I want you to be here. I like the work you do, but I can't you can't be the only guy on the whole team that doesn't do this, and you basically are the only guy on the team that doesn't do it.

Yeah, I've I actually recently had to have one of those conversations'cause it was kinda like He was ignoring my calls and wasn't getting back to me, but essentially his answer was, Well, I don't have anything nice to say and if I can't say anything nice I shouldn't say anything at all so Probably a little bit of a a deeper problem. Yeah, this guy's a butt. Yeah. He's he thinks he thinks he he thinks he can't get fired.

He must have been there a while. Yeah, a little while. And he he's a cool dude, it's just a butt. He's not a cool dude at all. I'm not I'm going to ignore a direct request from my boss. And the way I ignore it is, if I ain't got anything nice to say, I'm not going to say nothing. That's the way you're gonna do this? I mean, what are you for? I mean, that that's ridiculous. So no, I don't think this guy's gonna make it. Yeah, nice.

I hate it, but I mean I've I've been doing a lot of work to get like the K RA's and spelling everything out, which you know, turning in your paperwork is on the K R A that everybody signed like a month ago. So Yeah. So I mean I'm gonna sit down with him one more time. I'm gonna say, Listen. Um, I I I I'm afraid that you're not gonna be with us any longer. And I hate that.

But if you can't do this, that's gonna be the result. So you need to sign this right here and this says if you fail to turn in a report again, that will be your last day working. This is your last this is your formal warning, your own probation. And so um you're gonna have to have just I mean if you want to give him one last shot, I I honestly think the guy probably just needs to leave.

Because I think he's running around behind your back, running his mouth too. That's this guy. There's an arrogance in what he's doing that is not acceptable. Yeah. And how old are you? I'm thirty. How old is he? Thirty six. Okay. So he's not like some old dude doing this. Okay. He's just just being a he's just being a twerp. Okay. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's sad. You know. Is he a high producer?

Uh, he was actually the last couple of years. It's just really tanked and it also feels like he's kind of the biggest complainer and isn't really solutions oriented. He just wants to complain about The things that's preventing him from doing better. I mean, he also said he didn't want to go open new accounts because what's the point if we're had out of stock issues or something. So he could out of stock issues'cause you didn't turn on your dad gum report.

Okay. So h here's the thing. One last thing. And when when I teach entree leadership on hiring and firing, I often say, Don't fire somebody right this second, but you can. Um but I mean I I got a room full of two thousand entrepreneurs and I'm speaking to them. This one will get you right here. If you wouldn't hire him again, why are you keeping him? And you wouldn't hire the No. Do you have the power to fire him?

Um, I have a lot of I mean not the final say, but I do have a lot of influence and they do listen to my advice. I think I would sit down with your leader and say I think so I don't think he I I've I've tried everything and I don't think he's salvageable. I think his I think his attitude left the building and he needs to take his body with it. Cause he's let me tell you, I promise you that a guy like this is running down the rest of the team.

He's not he's not causing anyone to be excited. He's causing people to be down in the dunk. Mm-hmm. And you're gonna you you're gonna feel like cool breath breath of fresh air blows through the building when you get rid of it. And it's sad because he's done it to himself, but there's nothing worse than a bad attitude, an arrogant attitude towards leadership. And he's testing you. And by the way, everybody else is watching to see if you're gonna react.

So I'm sorry, but you're y you know, you're you probably need to sit down with your boss this week and say, I I hate it, but I can't seem to turn this guy around. I got everybody else going and I'm afraid he's bringing everybody else down. So I I really think he needs to be somewhere else. I think it'll I think he'll be happy. Right. Yeah. I I would I would let that guy go. I would set him free in Jesus' name for sure. That's what I

And um it's not mean, it's not arrogant, it's not anger, I'm not being a bully, it's none of that. It's he's unhappy with a lot of things and there's no point in keeping a guy around who's dragging himself down and the whole team down and re and is just straight up uh you know, he's straight up not submitting to leadership's request. That's not a you just can't do that.

You know, if you wanna do that you need to run your own business. Hello. That's how this stuff works. So yeah, but that's what I would do. I'm sorry. A hard thing for him and you yeah, I I think I would I'd probably I don't I don't see that one being sufficient.

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I'm great. Thanks for having me on. It's an honor to speak with you. You too, sir. What's up? Well, I'm a fifty percent owner of a small lawn care service. Last year we did just over four hundred thousand in revenue with the profit margin about seventy five percent. Uh we have f five full-time seasonal workers. Uh my question for you is how do I navigate being in a fifty-fifty partnership when the other partner's a bit of a donkey?

By so you're saying he's you're saying he's not pulling his weight? Correct. In what way? Tell me about tell me about it. Well Uh, the business was formed over fifteen years ago when I was fourteen, just to learn the value of work and back then it was a third a third and a third between my father, my brother and myself. Uh my father passed away about six years ago and we then became fifty fifty partners and last season he missed uh at least some work on thirty two different days.

Um he's just less competent, has less drive and he'd rather put things off and than get them done. And we had a discussion recently about the lack of attendance and poor attitude and kind of the disparity in in the workload. And actually that conversation went pretty well and we decided going forward we're gonna split profits sixty five and thirty five percent. But the ownership he doesn't wanna budge on at fifty fifty.

Um, all that being said, I struggle to see into the future how his role is gonna grow as he's less competent, even if he does shape up. Um, we have a strong relationship outside of work and we play sports together and I've got kids. You you're you're you're twenty years old? What's that? No. I'm thirty. You're thirty years old. Correct. So you've done this for sixteen years. Correct.

Okay. And your dad passed away how long ago? Six years ago. Okay. So I'm I assume there's absolutely no partnership documents of any kind. Not right now. Okay. And the day to day getting customers, billing, uh dealing with the customers, who's doing that? Oh all me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now the and the four hundred thousand was your gross revs, that's not your profit.

Correct. Okay. Our expenses were about ninety grand last year, so about three ten, a little over. So you made a hundred and a half each. Yeah. Okay.

Um well I I I think you just gotta keep an open conversation with him going and say, listen, okay, number one My relationship with you as your brother is more important to me than this business. And this business is starting to sour. the relationship because of the discussion we had the other day. And um, you know, y you want to be a fifty percent owner in something that you don't contribute fifty percent to. Correct. And that's n I'm that's just not right.

And I need to we need to keep talking about that. So we need to think about how to solve this. Um, because I don't think you're gonna come back and carry the fifty percent of the load. I think we're all in agreement on that. So since you're not since you're not, how are we going to solve this where you're not the fifty percent owner anymore? Maybe I buy you out. Mm-hmm. You know, if this was a an I'm sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, I was saying I think you've just kinda got an ego about being that fifty percent over or owner and He's stubborn about it. He's willing to give up money for it, like the percentage of profit being split, you know, towards my way. Yeah, but but he's still not he's still not doing anything. Well the the ownership has no value except for the profit it creates right now. So that's a misnomer in that it the the fifty percent ownership has no relevancy until you sell.

Mm-hmm. If it's not how you're calculating profit split, right? If you change the way we're cook calculating profit split, it could be ninety ten and fifty-fifty owners, but the ownership that means nothing unless we sell the business. Mm-hmm. Um and it's just kind of weird. Is this his only job and your only job?

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Well, I I I think I think you start talking to him and just go, Okay, I we're gonna have to move in a different direction. We don't have to do it instantly and I'm not um You know, I I'm not saying but but two years from today I'm not gonna be sitting where we are right now. I'm not okay with it.

So we need to think about how we take this. If you wanna take some of the customers and you wanna go run your part and I'll go run my part, just two separate businesses, we can do that. I mean you own fifty percent, I'll give you fifty percent of the customers if you want'em. Yeah. And fifty percent of the uh the lawnmowers and fifty percent of the team, if you want to go do that and we'll just split it and you go run your thing, I'll go run mine and um

We can do that. I can buy you out. Um but I'm not going to continue to build a business that you're the fifty percent owner in when you're not contributing fifty percent of the average. It's not fair to me. And so we've gotta think about how we're gonna do this, how we can break this up um in a way that that that you're good with and that I'm good with, because we still wanna be friends, we still wanna be brothers.

And again, there's no hurry, and I'm not gonna try to slit your throat, but we do need to start talking about how we're gonna do this because I'm not going to Sitting the way it is is not going to continue. The only question now on the table is: what are we going to do? Because we're not going to keep doing what we're doing right now. Yeah. Giving you thirty five percent, me sixty five percent, you keeping fifty percent is not a fix for me. I'm that's not a good for me.

It's good for you. You're you're accepting that. But I'm not I'm telling you, I'm not accepting that. That's not okay. It's okay for a little while, but long term long term it's a bad idea. Yeah, I think it's just a band aid for right now that Yeah. That's exactly say that. Just say that. It was a band aid for right now to to start the discussion and then, you know. But I I

Sometimes I get in these situations and I rush them too much and that damages the relationship. And so I've learned to slow down and say, you know, we can do this over a period of a year. I just don't want to be forty and still doing this the way we're doing it right now.

As a matter of fact, I'm not going to be forty and do this the way we're doing it right now. I'm giving you notice right now. I'm not gonna be here. We're gonna I'm gonna be doing something different. And of course, we both know worst case scenario. There's nothing stopping you whatsoever from just shutting down this business and the next morning opening up another one, and you'll take all the clients. And he gets nothing.

Yeah. But that's screwing your brother and that's not a good long-term play. But legally and from a practical, tactical standpoint, you could do that. I'm not recommending that. But hi my point is he's not holding many cards. Yeah. You got all the cards in your struggle. Yeah, I kinda struggle with the guilt knowing that There's no guilt. There's no guilt. There's no guilt. Your dad both gave you half. And one's pissing it away and one's not.

Mm-hmm. There's no guilt. He's the one should struggle with guilt. Yeah. You haven't done anything wrong. If you did something wrong, there'd be guilt.

But I I would deal with the unpleasantness rather than deal w uh of facing this and beginning some kind of friction that's at some level in an effort to preserve the relationship. Because you know, you're gonna have tremendous r you're either gonna have some level of unpleasantness or you're gonna have resentment. Mm-hmm. Because you already got resentment started. Oh yeah. I'm resenting him and I'm not even there.

You know, just based on this discussion. It's not because it's not fair. It's not right. You know? Yeah. And it wasn't what your dad intended. He he was trying to teach his boys both to work. One of'em didn't learn it. Mm-hmm. You know? A and so h he didn't do anything wrong. The only thing did wrong was you guys have no partnership documents at all. And that should have been established the day he died or before he died.

And y'all should have been talking about, you know, here's what happens if one of you's not carrying their weight. It's forced buyout, you know. And so Yeah, I'm just gonna begin talking to him and saying, Listen, okay, I'm I'll pay you fifty thousand dollars a year for three years for doing nothing, and you go get a job. And and buy you out, you know? And um or what's the third thirty five percent is that's probably about fifty grand, isn't it? Maybe sixty.

Yeah. Listen, you can quit tomorrow and I'll pay you for three years and we'll call that your buyout. That's a pretty sweet deal. Because it's obvious you don't want to be here anymore. You're stuck. And I don't want you to be stuck. You're my brother. I love you. You know, I'm I'm offering you a way out. I mean, we can do something like that. You could get pretty radical and pay him and him not be there. You really wouldn't notice much. No.

Yeah, I I like that. You know. So you can afford to be generous but not but the generosity doesn't go to but John Deloney talks about this in relationship things all the time. Choose friction or some level of guilt, if you want to call it that word. I don't agree with that in this situation, but choose guilt or friction over resentment. Mm-hmm. Because guilt and friction have an end to them. Resentment goes on forever.

Yeah. We've been on this road for a long time. So Yeah. I mean, I I I bet you if you go back in your memory to sixteen years old, he wasn't carrying his part. You're not wrong. Yeah. And so th this is this is you know, it's a a a splinter and it's festering. That's resentment. And um so I I I just I think it's best for your love of your brother to figure out some way that he is smiling about the fact that he got the best deal in the world and it's over.

And uh then he's happy. And, you know, I don't mind if he gets all the ego out of it. I don't mind if he gets too much money out of it. I don't mind any of that i if if it's over and I don't have to deal with him anymore. I kinda look at that sometimes we pay too much severance.

I mean we let a guy go the other day here at Ramsey and the severance was kinda ridiculously large and one of my new leaders was asking me about it and he's like, Dave, that this just seems like it's too much I said, you know But when I'm ninety-two and I'm on my deathbed, I'm not thinking about I cut that guy. Instead, I'm thinking about I overpaid him as he went. I was overly generous. He had a bad day. He lost his job. You know? I had a bad moment. I lost a little bit of money.

Mm-hmm. And and so you can afford to be generous with the math if it gets rid of the problem. And there's an end to it. Once you see an end to this and there's light in the tunnel, you're gonna breathe different. This is standing on your chest. And you're feeling the stress of it. And your wife knows it, that's for sure. For sure.

Wow. Be careful about partnerships. I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you. Your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing

The paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it. They did. We got Netsuite. That was years ago, and we've never looked back. See, Net Suite isn't just for tech giants, it's built for growing businesses like yours. Over forty-three thousand businesses already run on NetSuite.

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Bruce is with us in St. Louis. Hey Bruce, how are ya? Good. Thanks for having me on, Dave. Absolutely, brother. How can we help? Well, I've got a business that has nine employees who do one point two million gross yearly and we've been in business about twenty one years. We kind of invented our space where uh

We sell a home maintenance plan to residential homeowners and we take care of their home repairs and maintenance. So essentially w and we work for a high end clientele. So essentially we're looking to hire Probably the the top five percent of technicians are home repair guys, you know, they they can't just know one thing. They gotta know everything, they gotta be experienced and they gotta be able to handle things on the fly because who knows what they're gonna throw at'em.

And they need to have a good customer interaction. So the top five percent. So my question is So they got any people skills in addition to fixing a dishwasher. Exactly. Not to mention integrity. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Yep. Everything. Yep. Um so anyway, we've had some success at improving our hiring process over the years.

But one thing we're struggling with right now is we need to hire more people and we tend to lose people at the n during the ninety day probation period more than we would like. We either lose them or we get rid of them. So we want to improve our ratio. What are some things we can do to help recognize moral compass or character traits before the ninety day probationary period?

Okay, so that's why you're losing them is their uh personal sty I mean th their character. The la lack of character is causing you to lose them more than anything else. Well, I'd say it's fifty fifty. We're losing some because of they don't have the skills that we thought they had. We have a pretty extensive testing process and our interview process. It's very involved. We have a lot of questions. So we have a pretty good idea of how

Their ability is how many have you lost during the ninety day period in the last two years? Uh about five. Okay. And how many of those were due to techni how many of those were technical skills and how many of those were moral and value and character issues? Um one was on technical and four would be on moral character. Okay. And what type of moral failure did they have? What what was their issue?

Well, they they don't align with our values. We have eight values. Um the the biggest one is we tell the truth around here, you know, um so they're we're we're finding out that they're they're covering for themselves in this way or that way. Um we've had a couple of guys steal from us by by using the company card. You know, it takes us a while to catch it. Um that kind of stuff. Gotcha. Okay but essentially too not showing up.

on time or leaving early and we find out from the customer, that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Okay. So they're they're uh a lack of truthfulness and or uh just stealing. Okay. All right. Correct. Um Well uh um

I would say that um one thing we could do is to this pops into my mind instantaneously, is just go ahead and tell those stories when you're interviewing. And say, you know, we've had a couple of people join us and they thought they could steal and we've got systems and when we find someone steals, they get fired instantly. You need to know that. Right. And we've had a couple of people that told us they were working and the customer tells us they're not at the job.

And um that's not telling the truth. And we've one of our core values here is da da da da da da about the truth, right? Whatever your core value says, right? And and this is these core values are not brochure fellers. This is who we are. And so if you have a problem, we're going to have your back. If the kid is sick, we're going to work with you. But you have to tell us the truth, and you can't steal.

And I I I don't think that's you, but I need to tell you that, that we are like freaking nuts around here about integrity. We're crazy. And if you don't want to work in a place that's like uptight about integrity, you won't like it here. We're freaks about it. And so you need to know that that you need to know that coming in because, you know, we find this out in the first ninety days when you're here and then the job doesn't stick because you don't

You know, you didn't tell us something. So you gotta you gotta tell us everything that's going on, and we'll help you, we'll be there with you. We're not we're not merciless, but we are merciless when the truth isn't told. And so we've got it, you gotta, you know, just bring that up in your in your interview process. There's nothing wrong with that. You can fire somebody for not telling the truth and you can warn somebody.

And and I don't want you to, you know, i I don't know where else you worked or how weird they were, but we're kind of weird around. And this is how we view it. And if you wanna be a we, you know, a and you need to leave early from a customer's thing, you need to tell us that you're leaving early and why. And and obviously you can't use a company credit card and steal from us and you can't steal tools.

And you can't be you know, so so these are obvious things, but a lot of places they don't bother with that. They don't think about it, but we're like nuts about it around here and so You're you know, the guys that came here, they don't work here anymore, and they didn't like it because they thought we were nuts, and I just need to tell you up front, you're not gonna like it.

If if you're if you know, but if you do like being among a bunch of people that tell the truth all the time and that follow through and that do stuff, if you like that, then you're gonna love it here. And I would love to what I try to do with interview questions is I try to run them off in the interview. If I'm gonna have to run'em off later, I'd rather run'em off before I fi before I hire'em. Sure. Yep. Okay. So one of the funny ones, it's almost humorous.

But in today's world it's kinda weird. We're in Tennessee and, you know, a bunch a bunch of us are just rednecks at work here and a lot of us are are hunters and we carry we we carry a pistol, most of us. Okay. Like ninety eight percent of us, okay, in the in the building. I mean it's crazy. So um but one of the interview questions is our CEO carries a gun every day. How does that make you feel?

Yeah. Now get to the point. Yeah, it's kind of weird, isn't it? It doesn't like you know, it's like, oh God, you guys are fruit loops. I'm not working over there. You know, and we've had people post online that we're weirdos because we are weirdos. I mean, but we're in a culture we're in a cultural setting here. in Tennessee and I grew up in this environment

to where uh it it's just like carrying a wallet or having car keys as far as I'm concerned, you know? And so and I would never shoot anybody. I would run. I'm I'm I don't wanna shoot anybody. I'd run away if I could. Right. But but uh but I've just it's part of

Uh, you know, and there's a hunting rifle in my green room right now that I just bought that was delivered today. You know, and so you know, you just need to know that kind of stuff is here, otherwise, you know, you're gonna freak out when you walk in the green room and there's a dad gum hunting rifle. And so that that's just like we warn you ahead of time. So it's a different subject matter than integrity. Integrity is more important by far. But we just go, okay, we we had to let a guy go.

The last guy that took this position because he stole, he used the company credit card to buy himself something. How what do you think about that? You can just say and turn it into a question. Go, what do you think about that? We had a guy that left early. He came late and left early and said he didn't. He lied about it, and we let him go. What do you think about that?

Because we're nuts about integrity. I mean I'll just bring all this up in the interview and you could ask the question and see how they react. Are you guys doing a spousal interview where you go out with the spouses before you hire them? We don't. We quit doing that. We did that some years ago and we quit. Um we feel like'cause we're technic hiring technical physicians, some of our candidates are like

Dang, this is the most thorough interview I've been in, which I want. I want that. But we feel like we had to cut it off somewhere. Maybe I'm wrong, but we're not doing those. Well, the reason I ask is is that sometimes my wife can smell a bad dude faster than I can. Yeah. She's like there's something wrong with that guy. I don't know what it is, but there's something wrong with that.

And we get back in the car, she's like the way he treated his wife, the way he looked at her He he there's something wrong with it.

And so you know, that that might also be an answer is to reinstitute that. Uh it is kind it is Can I ask a secondary question? Do we have time for secondary question? Okay. So one of our issues is that Um, we're struggling to find like if we interview ten people, I don't like any of the ten. Okay, so then we go to ten more and we don't like any of those ten. But

We kinda feel like we have to pick like the best of the ten because we need somebody. So I know that's a bad position to be in, but we're kinda pressured against that because there's There's not the perfect candidate out there. We feel like okay, this is a better compromise over here than this is over here. So I think this is the guy who wants to try to make an option.

It's the most frustrating thing. But what I've discovered is I'm going to spend X amount of time on this position. I'm either gonna have to rehire it four times. Because I got in too big a hurry and and compromised my values and put somebody in there that I knew I shouldn't have put in there. And so I get to do it over. Um, or I'm gonna take that exact same amount of time and do it once right. And it's just but it's a pain. You're right. It's God I hate.

And um we get we get in a pinch around here and we need the help. We get need the work to get done. We got stuff backing up and we and you just get tempted to hire a body and throw a body at it. But man, then you end up with corporate America and you end up with people in your business that are stealing from you and treating your customers wrong.

And then you get through it again'cause you gotta fire'em.'Cause you got in too big a hurry or you compromise, said, Okay, this guy's not quite really what we want, but I'm gonna hire him anyway, just'cause I'm more concerned about the work than I am the culture. I would rather grow slow and have a good life. and not go there. That that's what I would do. It's what we have done, but it's tough.

Guys, if you want to help us out, click the follow button, the subscribe button, leave us a nice review, share this show with your friend. If you ain't got something nice to say, just don't say it. Go somewhere else. It's okay. We don't mind. Hey, you can submit your questions here at entreeleadership.com. You can call us at 844-944-1070. We'd love to have you. Heath is with us in Dallas, Texas. Hi Heath, how are you?

Hey Mr. Ramsey, thank you so much for the time. My pleasure. How can we help? Well in two thousand eighteen I founded a construction technology company in my spare bedroom and since then we've grown to be just over forty team members with offices in both Kansas City and Dallas, Texas. Wow. As my company has grown. I've struggled with I guess my internal dialogue on how to lead from the front.

While allowing my leadership team to have the influence they need and not step on their toes. So how do I balance my involvement versus the leadership teams for day-to-day tasks?

I tell my leadership team, and I have for 20 years, that I work on three things big things, broken things. And brand new things. And I'm gonna work with you on all of those things. if everything you're doing is running right and it's not brand new.

And it's not huge. It's not a the major part of our business by yourself. Like if you're managing something that's fifty percent of my business, I'm gonna be in your business, okay? If you're managing something that's twenty percent of our business and you're running it well, I'm gonna leave you alone.

But if it's broken, you expect me to help you, and that's what I'm here for. I'm to help you. The job of the leader is to knock down barriers, solve problems, to make the person that they're leading more effective. And if the person you're leading is another leader, you're making them more effective if you've cleaned the road, smoothed the road before they get to it, and then they can just do their thing with their team.

That's not micromanaging. But if I look up and I see in the numbers Or I see in the weekly reports, or I see in the turnover ratio in that area that there's some kind of a problem, I'm gonna insert myself back into that leader's business because it's broken. The numbers are saying his sales are down or whatever. That area's not performing well. It's broken. So I'm gonna get real involved and I'm not there to to take over, but I'm there to come alongside him or her

and uh knock down barriers and to help them solve the problem together because obviously they hadn't solved it by themselves or I wouldn't be here. Wouldn't be there. Yeah. But I I work on big things, broken things and new things. So we're launching a new initiative. I'm gonna get real involved. I'm entrepreneurial. I've got a gift at that.

If there's something broken, I can come back and help you anal analyze it and and you know, I'll help you with this and go, okay, I'm seeing something here you're not seeing. And I'm going to walk with you, not instead of you and not on top of you, but I'm going to come alongside you and walk with you while we fix your business unit together. But that's going to be very, very, very proactive.

is what it's gonna be. And so the big things, honestly, I don't even get that involved in the big things. That's the least of those three is the big ones. But broken and new, man, I'm all over it'cause I'm there walking beside them. helping to, you know, chop the we're chopping our way through the jungle together, man. And

You know, we both got a machete and we're both swinging and we're both talking and we're ba it's a band of brothers. We're here to win this battle together and all that kind of stuff, or a band of sisters, whatever, I don't care. But the the the that's the you know, so I don't look at it as I'm micromanaging. I look at it as I'm co-leading where I got something broken. Broken or new.

I think what it is is I might just have like a mental block or a fear because, you know, starting out in my spare bedroom, everything was me. Right. And so as we've grown, I have this fear of like I don't want to be viewed as that guy in the ivory tower.

while my crew is doing overtime or like struggling through something. You know what I mean? Maybe like I said, maybe it's just like me being in my head and that's not accurate. Oh, yeah, yeah. You could you can you know you could physically be there. You can just show up if they're if they're doing a bunch of overtime. Show up with some pizzas or something, you know?

Yeah. And just go, guys, I I you know, I I remember burning the midnight oil and I'm not the guy I I'm not that far removed from it, and I'm in here to say thanks and

Is there something I can help you with? Can I carry out the trash? I mean, you know, I brought you some food. Can I answer a phone for you? What can I do? How can I help you?'Cause I you're in here getting it done and I appreciate it. And, you know, you're just coming alongside them then Um but you're also not doing seagull where you swoop in and poop all over everything, right?

That's what I've historically kinda had problems with. I I get in the middle of it and then I can't do what I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah. And and just I'm here to serve. Lead s leadership is service. It's a servant's heart. And so I'm here to help you guys and Ivory Tower is

i is not a servant's heart. Ivory Tower is a you know, it's not necessarily what you're tactically doing. It's the the spirit of the Ivory Tower versus the spirit of the servant leader is the servant leader wants to help them. get their job done and make things easier for them to get their job done. Knock down blockers, help work through, give them ideas they didn't have, whatever it is. I want to serve you. Ivory Tower is I'm gonna stand up on top and throw rocks.

Yeah, that makes total sense. I really appreciate the insight on that. Sure. You're a good man. You're asking the right questions. People that are Ivory Tower never even asked these questions, so you're not Ivory Tower. I can tell you that. Uh but also don't be afraid to stay inserted in your business. It is your business. And it is your brand and the customer does count on you more than they count on that guy or that gal that we're talking about here.

That's how the whole deal works. Good question, man. Appreciate you, man. Good stuff. Hey, folks, remember better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders, so take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us on Entree.