What is up everybody and welcome to the very first episode of the darn good leadership podcast. We all struggle with leading effectively, and this show is going to help you face those challenges. You're going to get ideas, inspiration, and practical advice. You can take action on today to become a darn good leader. I'm your host, Emily Hoelting. And in today's episode one, we're going to talk about becoming a better leader through KYP. So what the world is KYP? Well, you may have heard of the acronym KYC, which stands for know your customer or know your clients. KYP is what I lovingly refer to as know your people. If you're looking to be an effective leader, one that is respected and one that your people trust. And if you want to lead in a work environment where people are excited to collaborate and have high psychological safety, there is no better foundation and quite simply, there is no substitution to make this happen without really understanding and knowing your people. I'm not just talking about the names or their roles, of course it does help too. but more about what makes them tick, you know, what's important to them. What do they value? Both in and outside of work? So I want you to think about your own work relationships, how much time are you currently dedicating and what practices have you habitualized around KYP? Meaning how well do you know your people? How well do they know each other? Is there a person or a team that you're either struggling with or they're just not working effectively together. Because if I'm a betting woman, my guess is that much of that struggle likely comes from them. Just not understanding each other. So today I'm going to share with you the three most powerful practices for building KYP. But first a story. Years ago. when I moved from Missouri to California. I had to do one of those things that we all dread doing when we move a certain distance, and that is, finding a new hairstylist. But I did it I found the stylist and her name was Frankie. Every time I would go to the salon, it was a wonderful experience and yes, my hair did look pretty dang good. But it was the conversation and the small, but meaningful gestures that Frankie did that always got me super excited to go back. Every time I visited Frankie, she would greet me with a beverage. Now that sounds nice and all, but the better thing about that was it wasn't just any beverage. She got to know me so well that depending on the time of day, she would know exactly what I would want. So if I would come in for an early morning appointment, she would greet me with black coffee with a little bit of cream. If I came in for an appointment around noon, middle of the day, it was sparkling water. And if it was on the weekend, she would greet me with a nice cold glass of Prosecco, which is my favorite. She really taken a time to get to know me what I liked and when I liked it. And that meant something to me, she would also casually ask me questions about my life. Things that I had brought up from my last appointment. Often, I didn't even remember talking about, but they would be things like,"Hey, what's going on with your new job at Boeing? Are you liking your new boss? And how's your sister adjusting to being a new mom and. How did that big bear trip go? Did you end up snowboarding? And did you end up liking it?" Spoiler alert. I did not like snowboarding cause I fell a lot and I sucked at it, but I did like Frankie's attention to detail and remembering that fact. And this was before Facebook, Instagram Tik Tok so she wasn't looking these things up. Frankie genuinely cared. About me and all of her clients, because when they would come into the salon everyone interacted with her like she was this long, lost best friend. They had inside jokes with her. You could tell people generally trusted and shared things with her and she cared about them. So one day I did finally learn Frankie's trade secret. She kept a journal at work. And after each customer visit, she would take that journal out and she would write down two to three important personal details. And she'd also write down any hair preferences or hair observations she had made. In order to make sure her clients were always looking and feeling their very best. And then before that client came in the next time she would take out her journal and she'd review those notes. Simple as that. Easy, but incredibly powerful. She had found a practice and had carved out time and energy to get to know her people. All right. So let's bring this back to you. And your own relationships at work with individuals. These are your relationships like the ones you have with your employees, your boss, your peers. This is like the relationship Frankie and I had. So the first powerful practice for building KYP is at the individual level. And it's this. Having consistent recurring one-on-ones. Let me say that again for the people in the back. Cause this is it. It's by having consistent recurring one- on-ones so I want you to think right now, do you have these in place? Do you have consistent recurring one-on-ones with your employees? Cause that's a really critical. Do you have them with your boss? Also super critical. And what about any important individuals that you need to be strengthening those ties with. If you don't. You should. And you should make that a priority today to figure out how you can get those on your calendar. These meetings are so critical and you should treat them as such. I personally believe you should have a minimum of at least one weekly one-on-one with your employees and your boss. Every week. This is what I do. They could be 15 minutes. It could be 30. They could be the full hour. You have to find what works for you and figure out what the relationship needs, but you need them on the calendar and you need them to be recurring. They need to be routined into your workplace practices. Now that you've got those on the calendar, What are you actually going to do in these one-on-ones? Well, you've got two objectives here. The first is you want to get to know your people. Both professionally and personally. Now, when you do address the personal side, we're not going to go about this, like you would on a blind date. All right. So this isn't where you're going to share your deepest, darkest secrets and desires. No, no, no. So you can use the start and the end of any one-on-one as a perfect opportunity to ask the more casual, personal questions. So something as simple as, Hey you know, have you watched any good shows or read any good books lately? Do you have any fun plans coming up this weekend? Keep it light, and see what they share. So if they do share something with you then in the next one, build off of it the same way Frankie did ask a follow-up question about something they did or something that I brought up. The most important thing I think is letting your people's responses to your questions guide and help set boundaries on what you should further ask. And what you should even share about yourself. So, let me give you a quick example of what I'm talking about here. I have employees who sit in north America and they are very open. They share quite a bit with me about their families and their personal life. And it's lovely and wonderful. And then I have employees who sit in Europe and they're a little bit more reserved culturally about sharing things. So. Talking about family talking about personal details. Doesn't come up as frequently. However, they are very open about talking about hobbies and interests travel. So the questions I ask are just different, depending on who I'm speaking to. This goes back to again, knowing your people. And this includes the cultural differences, the personal preferences. And unique personality traits. Okay, so let's go to the other side, your professional side. This is about the work at hand role expectations, career goals, how they learn best what's their strongest skill sets and capabilities. Where do they have room to improve? How do they like to receive feedback? What do they need from you to be successful? So I always think it's really wonderful. If you can find. Very organic ways to bring these questions into your one-on-ones. And again, you don't want to ask all these questions in one session and make someone feel like holy crap, very bombarded, like they're back on their first job interview. That's not the intention here. You want to build these out and figure out a way for yourself to have a priority list of what you need to know given what's going on at work and what your employee needs or your boss needs, or this relationship needs. There will be people you interact with who know themselves very well. They know exactly what they want out of their career or what they need from you. And they will have this prepared material of this is where I want to be in a year. This is where I want to be in three years. And this is where I wouldn't be five years out. This is my strengths. This is my weaknesses. And it's wonderful when you get those types of people. However I have found that more often than not either people just aren't sure about these questions yet. So when you ask about what they want other career, they're still trying to figure it out. Or they tell me one thing and I actually discover and observe something completely different. So, let me give you an example on this one. I had a coworker once who claimed he loved receiving feedback and was very open to any suggestions, big or small, whatever I observed. Please share back with him immediately. So I did. And I did this just once. Because I found in reality, it was the furthest thing from the truth. He was only open to the feedback if it was insanely positive. And if it wasn't, if it was constructive or some opportunities improve, well, he was not interested. And he was upset for you even bringing it to the table. Another example, I had an employee who felt their weakest area. Was in presenting, but by happenstance, I was on the call and when he presented. I was like, holy crap, this is actually his super power. And he didn't even realize how good he was. So one you do need to listen to your people about what they share, but two, you need to be mindful of what you observe because they might have a different perception about themselves than what you were actually seeing in the workplace. Knowing these two things of what you hear and what you observe, this has helped me navigate these personal relationships much easier. And really understanding and knowing my people. The more that these individuals realize that you have a genuine interest in setting them up for success. And that you care about them as a person in their career. The more radical candor you can have with sharing your own feedback and your own observations. And vice versa that they'll share things back with you. So you have to build into this, but this is what creates real trust, meaningful relationships. And better leadership. So the most powerful practice for knowing people at the individual level. Is consistent. One-on-ones. Alright. Now let's talk about building KYP for your teams that you lead. The second powerful practice for building KYP at the team level. Is having consistent retrospectives. For any team you lead retrospectives I personally feel is a must. I recommend holding them at least once a quarter. Personally, I hold them once a week, now if you are not familiar with what retrospectives are hang tight. I will be doing future podcasts on this topic because it is very near and dear to my heart and retrospectives are not reserved just for scrum teams or R and D type squads. They can be for any in every type of group. It doesn't matter what the work is Retrospectives are an opportunity to inspect. and adapt with your team. What's working. What's not what can we improve? Those are the typical questions, but you can mix them up in different ways. You can ask them in different formats. And by asking these questions to your team. You are a listening to what they're saying, which is very important. And you're learning about that and where you can help them. But B it's also an opportunity to observe again, the observation piece. And this is where I actually see the real value of retrospectives for me as a leader. Who on your team is vocal, who on your team is a little bit more timid? How much are they willing to share with one another versus what they're sharing with you? What's the tone in which they talk to their team members. And finally, as you're observing the team as a whole. What do you think is the level of psychological safety within the team? Are they sharing openly and honestly with each other. And are they receptive to each other's feedback? Now whether you have a team that's very high trust. Or a team that has very low trust. KYP at the team level, just as at the individual level is something that requires you as the leader to consistently work hat. It's not something you can just set and forget. So even with high trust teams, they can only stay high trust. If you continue to foster these types of things with them. If you're looking to build off of retrospectives, here are my top four tips for building upon K Y P at the team level. Team tip one. Have the whole team take a personality test. Now you've probably heard of things like Myers-Briggs. So you could pay for the full kit and caboodle personality overview. And then they come back with a very robust report and analysis. So there's that option for you? Or if you want a more budget friendly one, they also have a lot of great free tools and my team just took a free one and it was still incredibly helpful and gave us lots to reflect on about yourself. And about others. You start to look at these things as you get all the team's feedback and you're like, huh? Well, my goodness, these are all the common personality traits and dynamics that the whole team possesses. And then you can see other areas that the whole team is lacking, perhaps. Or there might be certain people in the team that are the only ones who have a certain type of skill set that they're strong at, or that they're weak at. And this is a great opportunity for cross training learning for seeing areas that people have. Maybe just more organic leadership areas for something that they're really excelling at or excited about. It further helps people understand one another more and figure out how you can work effectively as a group so I highly recommend personality test. Okay my team tip number two. Is team-building. Now, I think it's critical to do team building at least once a quarter. And these can be lightweight things. You don't have to do anything lavish. Although if you have a budget for that, go for it. But it can be free things or they don't have to be budget heavy. This can be having lunch together in person or virtual. If you're doing more in-person things or things like escape rooms going bowling, ax, throwing mini golf, hiking, the list goes on. If you're doing more virtual team building, it can be a little bit more challenging, but not impossible. Again, you can do those virtual lunches. There's also something a lot of people love called Jackbox TV. Which is a fun online game. And if you haven't done, that's a huge hit with any group I've ever worked with. So different opportunities for team building, but just a great way for people to connect with one another personally. And it's a little bit more fun and relaxed then the personality test, which tends to be more focused on the work. Team building can be more focused on the people and getting to know each other on a different level and hopefully you can open up to each other in ways that you wouldn't when you're just focused on the work at hand. Okay. So teams tip three. Having a good cadence for bringing your team together in person. Since the pandemic, most companies have gone from fully, in-person face-to-face on a daily basis. To some sort of hybrid model, if not full virtual format. And this can make it even more important that you take the time for your team to figure out, when are we going to carve out time to space to come together in person? And let me tell you, this is going to be different for any group, depending on the location of everyone, the work, your budget, what type of role your team has at the company. So if your sales versus marketing versus it, it's going to be different. It's not going to look the same. There is no one size fits all. For teams that are fully remote, it shouldn't mean that they never meet in person. I fully believe there is something that in-person face-to-face does that virtual will never be able to replace. However, if you get that in-person cadence, right. Then you can be even more effective in the virtual world. But without having that foundation, it's really hard for teams to reach their full potential. For example, I have an incredibly strong team. But again, half in Europe, half in north America. And for the first time we've recently all came together. In person. And this was amazing because half the team never met each other in person before. There's a bunch of people who were hired during COVID and not only it was an incredible to see everyone in real life and to have those fun moments and opportunities to get to know each other. But. After this event, and now that we're back in our virtual environments to see how much stronger. And how much more effectively we are communicating and working and understanding each other as it's pretty incredible. So finding that in person cadence for your tea is team tip number three. Alright, final tip team tip four. This may sound silly. I'm okay with that, but it's icebreakers. So I am. Huge believer in icebreakers. I will probably do a full episode on icebreakers because that's how strongly I feel about them. They are very lightweight, but they can also be very impactful in a positive way and a practice that is just easy for anyone to embed into ceremonies and meetings that they're already doing. Icebreakers can be work-related. They can be fun. They can be a minute long. They can be five minutes long. They can be 15 minutes on. Your icebreakers with a caveat should be no more than a fourth of your meeting. But I typically like to carve out if I have a 30 minute meeting, five minutes for an icebreaker. If I had a 60 minute meeting, 10 minutes for an icebreaker and you can set a timer. Do whatever it is to to be really. Intentional about the time you're giving it and a very quick icebreaker. I'll give you some examples. It could be a rating scale. I have one to 10 or a one-word answer, or what's an image what's an emoji. Something that people can quickly put out on how they're feeling about something. Again, work-related. Or non-work-related. A quick example of this is We just did one gosh, a couple of weeks ago. And it was this visual of six different goats with, six different facial expressions of these goats. And then the whole thing was like, choose your goat vibe today. And one was like a very tired goat. One was a happy go. One was like a goat with its tongue out. When was it go? That looked like it was going crazy. All funny faces and you could interpret in different ways. And although it was a super fun, silly exercise, and everyone got a kick out of it. When we went around quickly to share why they chose a certain face. Certain goat face. If you will, one. One of the people had chosen a goat face that was the tired face. And when it came for their time to share, they said a couple things that I realized, huh? Mental note, I need to tag up with this person and our next one-on-one and further ask about this. So when I did. I found that this person was feeling very overwhelmed, very burnt out. And it was because of that 10 minutes silly goat exercise that I was not able to have a much needed effective conversation. And help prioritize. Where their work needed to be and what work needed to be deprioritize or move to someone else. Icebreakers are also an incredibly fun way to learn about other people's favorites. So we'll do icebreaker on. What's your favorite song, your favorite color food beverage hobbies. And when you know all of these favorite things then when you have something to celebrate for your people. You can acknowledge them with these very personalized items. So, for example, if somebody is having a baby on your team or getting married or has a work anniversary or is retiring. Then when you put together these things, you can make it more meaningful because you can select things for that events and for them that are customized things that they care about. And that shows how much you care about them. Because it's based off of how well, you know them. So there are some fantastic opportunities here to learn more about your people and find out where you need to lean in for your people. And allow yourself to be that more effective leader. So anyhow, go on and on about icebreakers, highly recommend them. So to sum that up, if you're looking to go beyond the practice of retrospectives, the four tips to further build your team. K YPs. R a personality test. Quarterly team building. Finding your cadence for when your team should come together. And icebreakers. Okay. So now we're to our third, powerful practice for building kYP. And this is at the community level. It's having consistent employee pulse surveys. This is what your community is interested in. It's what they care about. Where do they have concerns? It's giving you a baseline on how they feel and again, where and what you need to lean in as a leader and take action on. If you don't already have an employee poll survey going on at your company. The first thing you need to ask yourself is, do you have the bandwidth or does somebody have a bandwidth to review and take action on the feedback from the people you're pulsing? If you don't. Do not start this practice. Okay. So it's a great practice, but only if you have the time and bandwidth. And that's because there's no quicker way for people to lose faith. Then asking people to give their input and then never looking at it and never taking action on it. So to make this practice easier, I suggest starting small, start with five critical questions. Only survey 10% of the organization or the community that you're trying to pull at a time. And that way it's less feedback to review and a smaller employee base. That's being bombarded by the same questions at whatever frequency you're looking at doing this. There are so many employee engagement tools out there. So just ensure you're committed to the practice and the intention behind this before you invest in a tool. I think this is the hardest of the three practices to start, but I will say the higher up you are in any organization. And the more your company scales and the more global you are and the more removed you are from your employee base. It's probably more central that you're starting this. Employee poll surveys give you that data to make sound decisions for your community. To be that leader and really leading for them. Because it's giving you access to employee perceptions needs and what they value. So let's recap. Being a better leader requires embedding habitual KYP practices. That's knowing your people really understanding them. And the three most powerful practices. For knowing your people KYP is having consistent one-on-ones with individuals. leading consistent retrospectives with your teams. And supporting consistent employee poll surveys for communities or your entire company. None of these are a one and done exercise. And the underlying theme between all of these is consistency. Dedicated routines. Repeat repeats repeats. Thank you so much for your time today. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it helps you on wherever you are in your journey. I also welcome you back in next week. As new episodes, we'll be dropping every Tuesday. Be bold, be bright. Be a darn good leader see you next time