The Brad Weisman Show
Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! #TheBradWeisman #Show #RealEstateRealLife
The Brad Weisman Show
Crisis to Clarity with Daryl D. Black
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Daryl Black shares his framework for empowering leaders to bring order to chaos, drawing on his experience in disaster response and corporate settings. His approach transforms toxic leadership and micromanagement into autonomous teams that thrive under pressure.
• Building leadership skills through practical experience rather than traditional training programs
• Applying emergency response principles to corporate challenges
• The three pillars of effective leadership: self-mastery, productivity, and influencing others
• Why "ships don't sink because of water around them, they sink because of water that gets in"
• The common mistake of promoting technical experts without leadership training
• How to implement the 1-3-1 Method for team problem-solving and autonomy
• Setting clear expectations and decision-making boundaries for team members
• Leading upward effectively when facing obstacles from higher management
• Transitioning from command-and-control to a chain of support leadership model
Connect with Daryl on LinkedIn at Daryl D Black or Instagram @DDBleadership and mention "Team Brad" to receive his leadership guide. Check out his podcast "Lead from the Inside Out" and YouTube channel at dddtube.com for more leadership resources.
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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife
Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.
from real estate to the market as a whole, which then sometimes will affect the 10. Right, you know the real life we all learn in different ways. If you think about it, wayne dyer might not attract everybody and everything in between. Mission was really to help people just to reach their full potential the brad weisman show and now your host, brad Wiseman. All right, we're back. Yes, we are back for another show. This is just so fun. You know. We're lucky to be able to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't you think so?
Speaker 1:I see you shining.
Speaker 2:I love to see you. Do I need makeup? Do I need powder or something?
Speaker 1:No, no no, no, just shining your curiosity and you're, you're just desire to learn more.
Speaker 1:It is fun, right? We always learn every show. We have a really good guest here. He's not in the studio, which is just as great, it's all good. He's actually from Canada and, uh, I've been looking at his information for a while. We we are had somebody that talked to us about him and I said this guy seems like the guy to have on. He's all about like dealing with chaos and crisis and things like that within companies and with other things, and actually what really caught me was this it says Darrell Black eliminates toxic leadership and micromanagement in high growth organizations by empowering leaders I like this part Leaders of leaders to bring order to chaos in their professional and personal lives. Let's talk to Darrell about how this happens. His name is Darrell Black, by the way, darrell, how you doing man?
Speaker 2:I am doing really, really well. Thank you so much for having me and, before we jump even too far into, I want to commend you for the amazing work that you're doing. Just getting the word out and the type of guests that you have and the reach, and I know it's not easy and it's not always rewarding. So I just want to take that opportunity right off the bat and just you know, thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you, and thank you for being here and thank you for being that. Your, your, your bio is unique and your your whoever the guy that was pushing you out here I think it was Devin is his name that that's working to get your word out and you're just stuff that hits me here was was this? We're going to start right off with this. It's your. Leadership includes ongoing disaster response to wildfires, floods and major emergencies, where you build high performing teams under extreme pressure. This is a different resume. I mean, what did you go to school for? Chaos or what? What? What was your? What was your? Uh, your your school? I don't even know. It's not even hard to understand how you learn this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, and and taking those lessons I learned and continue to learn there and applying them to the, to the corporate environment. And so you know, probably the the most um succinct way of me putting it is it was uh year 2000 and I was with volunteer search and rescue and I was working full-time as an it project management, uh manager for a large Canadian telecommunications company happened to be the largest but um, and we got a call. It was a Friday night and it was 5 20 PM, and um, there was a tornado that ripped through a campground in central Alberta, so the province I'm in, and there was as many as a hundred to 150 people missing and presumed deceased. And so we get the call, and um, so we make the drive there, and so on. And so we get the call, and um, so we make the, the drive there, and so on, so forth, and um, with any kind of response. There's a briefing, so you go there and you just try to get a lay of the land. You're just, the information is uh, sparse. At the best of times you're already feeling the energy of the stress, the, the life flight, helicopters are coming and going, screaming. You know all of all of the things that you can imagine.
Speaker 2:And when I received the briefing, brad I the uh, the campground was just down a hill and so I actually hadn't seen the sound, seen the, the destruction. Yet you kind of go in there, you get your info and they're like okay, you're going to be in charge of this particular part, so searching the, the debris field, as it's called. So, yeah, roger that. So then I remember I walked, I was like, okay, before I head back to brief the team and figure out what we're going to do, I remember distinctly walking to the crest of the hill and it was like um, you know just one of those defining moments in your life where it's like holy smokes, you look through it and and the tornado had cut a for lack of better word a perfect swath across right through the campground. You could see exactly the boundaries. It jumped the lake and then, across the lake, it also wiped out a bunch of things. And you know, at that moment all you can do is take a couple of deep breaths, yeah, and then just say, okay, let's get her done.
Speaker 2:And then that was that really started me down the road of okay, I do this all the time.
Speaker 2:I do it in corporate world as well big projects where you're not even sure where to start.
Speaker 2:And so I really, at that point in particular, I was like, okay, there has to be some through lines here, there has to be a critical path that I can follow that will allow me to handle my own stress, make decisions in the moment with bad information, no information, build teams from people that I'd never met and go do high performing stuff. Right, there's no time to do a whitewater rafting trip to build a team, there's no opportunity to be like, hey, you know what, let's meet about this over the course of three weeks. And so that began my journey of really sitting down and saying, ok, what is what I consider, brad, that what I call the minimal viable effort, what moves the needle the most, the least amount of effort in the least amount of time, because, you know, shit gets real awfully fast. And those are the things that I've taken and and really distilled down. And, as I said, I continue to practice in emergency management and I do executive and leadership coaching.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a unique way of looking at things and a unique way of grabbing that information. Because, yeah, in the corporate world, obviously it's not life-threatening typically, okay, and it's not like you're looking over that cliff to down to the carnage that you probably saw. But in corporate world there's carnage, it's just different kinds of carnage, it's different types of a swath of devastation. It could have been the last CEO that created the swath of devastation. I mean, we see this all the time.
Speaker 1:I know right now, jaguars is going through some serious changes. They've lost a lot of their business and a lot of their clients because of a different path in their marketing and things like that. Somebody's got to clean that up, you know, and it's the same thing. I mean, that's the way I look at it too. So, and what's interesting, what you said is that you know, in those moments that you explained of being there is you don't have. There's no rah-rah, there's no. Oh, I'm going to get to know the person next to me. It is just you're going by the seat of your pants, but you have to also be organized.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And one thing I did realize early, fortunately, when I first started my leadership journey and I don't know if it's the same for yourself, but when I got into leadership positions, when I was, frankly, I was running organizations when I was 18, 19, I thought it was all about me.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, or, you know, it was about me, but basically telling others what to do, and if there was a problem, well, obviously they're the problem, like it's not me. And I realized, thankfully pretty quick, to be like you know what, um, it starts with you, my friend, like leadership and interactions, and and, uh, you are essentially your team. How it interacts with you is a reflection of you, not a reflection of the team. And so I realized that early that I have to get my own stuff together. I have to manage my own emotions, my own stress, I have to figure out how to communicate, I need to be a better listener, all of these other things to even start navigating what that uncertainty looks like. Because you're a hundred percent correct, the one constant in today's world is change, and we just I think we can't avoid it, and so you better learn how to navigate through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's very interesting. Now let's go back to what did you start in? I mean, you don't start out in doing disaster response and wildfires. I mean, to what did you start in? I mean, you don't start out in doing disaster response and wildfires. I mean what? What did you start out doing? Well, I can't wait to hear this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Lower, lower the bar of expectations because it was nothing that was earth shattering. I joined volunteer search and rescue when I was 18 years old and again I started with the telecommunications company around the same time and worked my way to project management and did some massively expensive IT projects while at the same time a parallel path of doing volunteer search and rescue. And then I started to get paid to teach search and rescue stuff. And and something that was always interesting to me with leadership was it was never about ego, thankfully, uh, or at least it rarely was it was, for me, about the level of impact. I'm like you know what I want to affect change. How can I do that? So, inherently, I would just continue to learn.
Speaker 2:I had a growth mindset and then eventually in 2006, hurricane kat hit um or 2005. And um, uh, I was still working full time. I had kind of really great opportunities with the six figures and all that other fun stuff and I was teaching and using my holidays to do teaching and all of that stuff. And um did hurricane Katrina uh, headed down there, for I think it was about 10 days and we operated out of Mississippi and Louisiana and then Hurricane Rita hit a few weeks after that, which not a lot of people remember because Katrina was so devastating.
Speaker 1:Did that hit the same spot?
Speaker 2:Roughly. It hit the Gulf Coast, but it was more impacting of Texas and Louisiana.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. I kind of do remember that now.
Speaker 2:And and so somewhere in there I decided you know what, at the end of the day I want to go and do this other stuff. I've always been one of service look for the helpers, wanting to help others who couldn't help themselves. And it just reached that point in my life. That inflection point said hey, you know what? It was never about the business, it sounds so cliche, but it was about the good work and I knew I could earn a you know some money off of it. But you know, like, like I would show up on a Monday, for example, monday morning, and I had just done a search and rescue, or search and recovery, to be frank, of maybe a 13 year old kid or something.
Speaker 2:And then Monday you go into work and your threshold for what is stressful and not and what's pressure and what's important, it just naturally changes you and uh, and I just made the decision and when I got back from katrina to leave the, the big telecommunications company, and and um, multi-million dollar projects, and I still do a lot of that on on an ongoing basis, the, the project management, and still very much connected to the corporate world, but I'm also still very connected to the emergency management world. As recently as a week and a half ago operating doing evacuations 300 people for a wildfire in Northern Canada across one of Canada's largest rivers. So I still very much. That's a part of me and it will never go away.
Speaker 1:Well, obviously you're good at it and then you have passion for it and I think that's something you can't fake. You know what I mean? You don't fake that kind of a job or contribution because there's nothing really in it, there's nothing glorious in it for you it, but it is in a way, it's it fulfilling something for you. But that's that's incredible. And it is amazing that the parallels between you know putting out fires in corporations and and that's what you do, you coach, you coach on this, you coach on leadership, on, on, and I love here in in the thing. In the beginning, you talk about empowering leaders of leaders. We're hearing more and more about this, about you know leaders are supposed to be creating other leaders, not followers. You know, and I'm sure you train on that stuff. So tell me what's the big thing that you're working on now as far as leadership and coaching, like, what are you seeing out there? What are people needing as companies?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about that, and for me, I have an order to chaos framework that is born from all of the years and I continue to fine tune it and all those and I use it.
Speaker 2:So, for me, I'm talking ad nauseum about the three pillars that I consider make up, you know, leadership, if you will, and so my first pillar is what I call self mastery. So I alluded to it earlier. Where, you know, for me to influence others and to move through the world, particularly an uncertain world, I have to have my own stuff together, and so that means I need to be able to manage my stress very, very well and manage it in the moment too. Right, there's so many strategies out there mindfulness, which I'm a huge fan of, meditation, cold plunges, all of which I do but none of that actually helps you in the moment when you are faced with making a decision, for example. So one of the things I think about often is that adage of I'm gonna butcher it, but it's the. You know, the bird doesn't land on a branch because it has faith in the branch it. It has faith in its ability to fly.
Speaker 2:And so that's what I think about any time I go into a new coaching opportunity or an emergency management. So that's the first part is self mastery. The second is I realized that leaders, of leaders, have to be super productive. Have to be super productive. You know the amount of overwhelm that comes with the to-do list, the amount of pressure it's coming from all sides, and so we have to be very, very good at managing our time, managing our to-do list and, while still maintaining time and decisional space, to be thinking bigger picture. So we have to be really good at knocking things off of our list. And the third part is what is we're talking about now? Is that influencing others? And a huge part of that is just how do I build autonomous teams? So those are the three areas that I see, you know, really lacking in this in this day and age of ours. And so how do we, how do we get our own shit together, how do we get shit done and how do we herd cats?
Speaker 1:essentially, and pardon the Canadian language there, but oh, I didn't know shit was Canadian. I didn't know that. Did you know that Hugo Never knew that was Canadian? Thank God we're not licensed by the FCC, we're good. We're good, we can say whatever we want. Oh, that's really interesting. So if somebody comes to you, is it companies that come to you? Is it CEOs that are coming to you? They come to you. Are they in crisis when they come?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the interesting thing. So, yes, I do corporate clients, and within that, typically the leaders of leaders include executives, founders, um c-suite, uh, essentially anyone. And in terms of the actual demographic, it's, it's the ceo or the owner or the leader of leader in um high growth industries, typically tech and ai, because that's your stereotypical exploding all the time and it's revenues of 10 million dollars or more per year. And in fact, I worked with a client that has just reported 4.8 billion dollars worth of revenue all over the world. Wow, I will say that does. That does require brad 4 am calls, you know, all over the world, but that's what caffeine is for yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with that yeah, so by my 6 am I'm a little the world, but that's what caffeine is for. Yeah, that's right, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, so by my 6am I'm a little jittery, but that's okay. So, but at the end of the day, these organizations, no matter the size, they all grapple with those same issues. Right, it's just a different of scale at that point.
Speaker 2:But what I have also realized is that high growth is exactly like an incident to me. All of the characteristics are the same. It's now we're outpacing our capacity, we're outpacing our capabilities, we're outpacing our ability to keep control over everything that's happening, and with that lack of control, that triggers stress, that triggers overwhelm, that triggers sleepless nights and all those other things. And so the parallel is like so, so close, with that high growth industry and markets and all those things, with responding to a wildfire or flood or earthquake or whatever it's. It's actually. It's very interesting because then, once you strip away the circumstances, at the end of the day we're all in the people, business and uh, and.
Speaker 2:And just to add another point to that, my lived experience dealing with literally thousands of leaders is that we promote because let's say you're, let's say hugo, for instance, right, uh, hugo, who we? We talked about a little earlier before we were recording. So hugo is really good at uh coding, let's say really good computer programmer. So then what we do typically is we'll promote hugo because he's good at that, right? So then next thing, you know, we give hugo yourself and maybe three others. So hugo is now the leader of that group. And now it's not about the coding, it's not about you know what language are we using, it's not about the coding, it's not about you know what language are we using, it's now the people part.
Speaker 2:And then just to compound that, what we do for poor Hugo is we're like hey, here's more money, so you kind of have to take the job, like if you want to provide for your family, that's your incentive, even if you don't want to, um. And then, uh, yeah, hugo, um, we're not going to give you any training for that, but my door is always open, like Hugo, come and see me whenever you want Open door policy. So Hugo finally is like OK, I'm just done, I can't, I don't know what to do about this poor performer, or everyone needs me to do everything. So they go talk to Hugo's boss and Hugo's boss Like I'm so sorry, I'm really busy. You can figure it out, hugo, you're a smart guy, you're a smart guy, you. If you need anything else, let me know.
Speaker 2:And then Hugo is scar tissue learning, ping, ponging off what doesn't work, maybe he's YouTubing or, in some cases, worse, he takes supervisory training through his HR department and no disrespect, but that's a different kind of animal that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And then Hugo is stressed, he's losing hair, all of the things. He's not able to sleep, and then he may end up just struggling through. And then he gets another promotion. And I'm here to tell you that it is amazing to me how many people achieve senior levels of organizations that have to struggle through the leadership part of it because it's scar tissue learning. They haven't had the opportunity to be told hey, these are the things that actually matter to you, not all of this other. What's the signal and what's the noise? And so I that's the part that that I uh find really, really interesting, because we promote people that are good at things, uh, but we forget that as they go up through the, the support chain, it's about people, it's not about widgets or coding, and and we don't acknowledge that, or if we acknowledge it, we don't do much about it.
Speaker 1:We don't train for it. We don't train in that situation. We'll keep using hugo's'll keep using.
Speaker 1:Hugo as the guinea pig here. But in that situation and that happens a lot, in fact we've had other people on the show that we've talked about this kind of stuff too. And actually even in my world I'm a part owner of a franchise for Keller Williams and we go through this, we automatically. And we go through this, you know, we just think. We automatically think, because somebody's he's the best coder, that now, because we need more coders, that he's going to run the coding department and maybe Hugo doesn't even want to do that. You know, we don't even think about it. You know, and I think and yeah, you give them more money, but at the end of the day, they're not trained how to lead people, and that's a completely different world than making the widget or doing the coding. You know, it's such a, it's interesting. So you obviously see that a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I do. I also see with founders a lot and owners. You know you go into a particular area like entrepreneurs. You go into a particular area and that's why the tech and AI space is so interesting, in that those folks go into it because they do have that skill set and then quickly they burn out because they're there.
Speaker 2:It's not about any of the thing that they wanted to do, it's about the, the people part, and I've heard it time and time again that, uh, same thing on the sales side, we promote good sales people to be managers of sales people, but what got you here won't get you there. So what made you really good at sales may or may not be what will make you a really good manager, and so those, those folks are set up for failure. And then what ends up happening is is it becomes a scorched earth underneath them because they just simply don't know how to navigate the complexities of human interaction and communication and motivation. How do we build autonomous teams? Like they're just overwhelmed and next, you know, hugo's team has a pit in their stomach driving into work and it's not hugo's fault per se.
Speaker 2:Um, but that's what ends up happening and that's where now people have toxic workplaces, they start calling in sick, they start doing the bare minimum now because they don't care about anything and they're worried about making decisions because Hugo will come down on them really hard Like, well, something went wrong, why, what did you do wrong? And there's just so many other ways that we can handle all sorts of different situations in our workplaces.
Speaker 1:Just so many other ways that we can handle all sorts of different situations in our workplaces. Oh, and that's why, going back to, I think, in in any company business, we're supposed to create leaders, and and and part of that is is training them how to lead, or or and, and not everybody can do that either. I think there's. We have to realize, too, that there's people that are just not built for that and they don't want to be built for that. You know it's, it's stressful, it gives them an ulcer, it gives them, you know, high blood pressure, it gives them all these things because they're not naturally built for, for doing that. Now, how do you? My thing is this so, if, if you put Hugo in that situation, how do you? What do you do then? What is the best way? Do you hire a leader instead of him leaving the coding department? Do you hire somebody that's good at leading people, even though that person might not know coding that well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a that's such a great question. And the leader of leaders. That is what I focus on for a very particular reason, one of which, as a frontline leader. So, let's, hugo is looking after, uh, you know, a team of coders. We consider that a frontline leader, so hugo's interactions and his ability to influence is very direct. He's got five people or or you know whatever it might be. They could be virtual, maybe they're in person. Hugo has the ability to reach out personally, say hey, uh, hey, jane, just wondering if you can come and chat, let's figure this out and let's brainstorm, and so on and so forth. So we can influence very directly, both for good or worse. But at that level that's more of tactical level. So probably the challenges that Jane is having. Hugo needs to know what's going on there. Like you know, hey, hugo, I just can't get this particular issue figured out. I need some help on it and we'll talk about a framework here shortly.
Speaker 2:So the quote unquote lower down in the organization, generally speaking, the more technical and operational. Uh, you need to be and have knowledge of that Now as you go up through the ranks quote unquote up through the ranks and I have some reservations about you even using that phrase, but your ability to directly interact and affect change with people at the frontline is greatly diminished. It's almost like if you picture a bullseye or a bunch of concentric circles. You're in the in the middle of that concentric circle. Then that first circle around you is pretty bright. You're able to reach into it and impact it, influence it. But as that concentric circle builds and more circles happen, your ability to reach out and influence and communicate and all those things it just starts to diminish. And so it's a different skill set altogether once again. So the skill that Hugo uses, even if he managed to be an amazing manager, is now different if he now becomes a director where a bunch of hugos are now reporting to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so? Um, the the general thought. To circle back to your actual question is the higher up you are in the organization, generally speaking, the less technical or operational you need to be. So it's highly situational and those are kind of the general rules there. As you go up through.
Speaker 1:It's less about the operational and tactical part, more around risk management, liability, strategic thinking, all of those other things and sometimes what happens in those situations sometimes and I'm just going to not is the people below will go. What does he know? Or what does she know? She's never been in the basement with me or she's never. He's never been in this situation. He doesn't know how to code, so how? Why is he telling us what to do? You know you get that. Then you get resentment. You know it's very intense.
Speaker 2:I agree with that, and so one of the remedies to that, because it happens all over the place. You're a thousand percent correct. That's Canadian math, I suppose, so work with me here.
Speaker 1:We use a hundred percent in this country, just so you know. Yeah, well, let's not even go there, right? I know he's going to say, yeah, but you don't do Celsius.
Speaker 2:So you know the the the whole problem is now when people get to senior levels. I think what, what, what the quote unquote, rank and file are actually saying is that person's not in touch, that person's not responsive. If you look at the underlying, you know the motivation for saying things like that. That person doesn't even have a clue what's happening. That person doesn't even have a clue what's happening. Now, that's different than somebody that comes in from a different department or something that says hey folks, I'm not from this environment, but I can promise you, my job is to support you. It's not to command and control you, it's to remove barriers. So you tell me, and I'm going to put very smart people in charge and they will be able to help you, and when they can't support you, it's going to get kicked up to me, and I think that that's that's such an important point is don't be arrogant.
Speaker 2:When you come in, you're recognized. It is what it is like. You're not fooling anybody by putting you know tape, you know here and yeah the you know like I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1:You're so right and that is such a great way. It's setting the expectation up front when they, when you come in and say, hey look guys, I don't know this, you can code circles around me. In fact, I didn't know what coding really means, but I do know how to to set up systems, I know how to manage a company and I'm looking to you guys to to help me with this. You know, and I think sometimes, if you're transparent and set expectations up front, that would make a much better situation than coming in and being you know, I'm the, I'm the leader, I'm the guy, you know.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, brad, because you know one thing what's worse than coming in and, you know, taking over an area maybe you're not familiar with is not admitting that you don't know and kind of bsing your way through this fake until you make it, because what you'll actually find in the real world for the most part people will be like oh, you know what that's refreshing. Yeah, brad, came or let me help you that. And that's exactly what happens. It's exactly like hey, I get it. The dude's struggling a bit, he doesn't understand, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna help him out. Yeah, but it also goes back to, I think you know, no matter what level you're at and this is going back to my, my framework our ability to build teams is is critical to our success, it's critical to retaining top talent, all of those other things, and so there's a five step process that I go through no matter what level I'm in, and it's it's something that I just use by default.
Speaker 2:So even as recently as as last summer, I was in a big national park, big wildfire. So what I do is during my spring and fall, I'm coaching, doing my executive leadership, programming and all that fun stuff, my podcast and blah, blah, blah list goes on. During the summers, I reserve that time for responding because I continue, I want to continue to be on the front line and engaged to help. It also allows me to stay current and, um, you know, I have a particular experience level that is pretty helpful.
Speaker 2:So, um, so, as recently as last summer well, heck, even as recently as, as I said, a week and a half ago but this particular case in the national park, a huge wildfire and uh five, I was there for five weeks and I would have teams rotating in every seven to ten days and and not just a full team. So so, once again, I'm thrown into the fact okay, I have to build teams rapidly and there's a lot of pressure, all those other things, and so the process I go through it's five steps, and I would encourage folks, no matter what level you're at, to go through this team building. So, if I may, if I can go through it, and maybe that will help some of your listeners and viewers- so, if I may, if I can go through it and maybe that will help some of your listeners and viewers.
Speaker 2:So the first thing, the first step in building autonomous teams and high performing teams is the saying ships don't sink because of the water around them, they sink because of the water it gets in them. So that's kind of my opening salvo. I'm like, hey, folks, like if we have our stuff together, you know it doesn't matter what's happening out there, and so how do we navigate and move through the world of this chaos and uncertainty? I think about that all the time, and that ship could be your team, it could be you personally, it could be your business unit, it could be your organization, it could be whatever. That is so having that in mind. So then with that comes a very clear setting of standards and expectations. That is so, so important because you know, brad, have you ever been held to accountable to a standard or expectation that you didn't know you had?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what happens? It's uncomfortable. Yeah, it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:You get pissed off. Yeah, you get resentment. You, there's all. You go through the whole gamut. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it's not. You get pissed off. Yeah, you get resentment. You there's all. You go through the whole gamut. Yeah, absolutely, and and it's not fair, no, to be frank. So we want to really set the expectations around that. And so with that is is how am I, how do I expect the team to interact with me? So one example that that I've heard over and over again is and this is holds true for myself I never want bad news from someone else. It's like, if it comes from this team, I want to come from this team. I don't want to hear it from another manager or my boss or another company say hey, daryl, uh, I heard the things aren't going well with that, oh, yeah, that is a little trigger for me. So that's an example.
Speaker 2:And we talk about how we're going to treat each other. What kind of values are we going to try to follow through, who do we communicate with? How do we share information? So it's that macro. And then the second thing I do it starts to go in is clarity, is kindness. So I spend time, or I'll have somebody spend time, going through roles and responsibilities for everybody on the team, to which listeners and viewers are like what they'll a. They have a job description, daryl, so let's move on to the next podcast, or they get paid. They're adults. I'm not going to babysit them. Well, I'm here to tell you clarity is kindness. Maybe it's a review, but what we often miss and this is now the little extra that I've learned over the years is sure, we go through job descriptions, but do we often miss and this is now the little extra that I've learned over the years is sure, we go through job descriptions, but do we spend time talking about your decision making authority like hey?
Speaker 1:what are you?
Speaker 2:allowed to decide. When do you need to come to me, what kind of financial boundaries, how often do I want to be communicated with those kinds of things? It's not just about the job descriptions, about roles, responsibilities and and individual expectations. And then we have an interaction. So, brad, you can ask me questions, I can clarify and we can come to an agreement, being like oh, you know what? You're right, brad, that's a good point, whatever that looks like, so we do that. So that's step two. Step three this is the one I think, out of all of the work that I do and have done and probably will continue to do, it's called the DDB, one three, one method, and the one three one method is is the, the secret sauce for teams. So the one is a team member and this is part of the expectations to implement. One three, one.
Speaker 2:Come to me with one problem or one issue, but it's not Hugo just coming to me dumping problems. Hey, I got this problem. You need to fix it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes. Like what do you mean? What's the problem? What's the scope of it? What's the impact? Why is it a problem? All of those other things. So what tends to happen with folks, is they upward delegate? So're like, hey, here's a problem. You know, bag of flaming dog poop, you're the leader take care of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly it, yeah you need to support me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, got it. But so the one is is come to come with the problem. Again some due diligence, do some legwork, uh. And then the the three are. Come to me with three options. Clue one could actually be do nothing. Honestly, what is the impact of not doing anything? So, three options and then one recommendation. So come to me with one problem that's scoped, maybe some root cause. Three options and your recommendation, and then we go back and forth a bit and then at the end of the day we decide which recommendation to go with.
Speaker 2:And here's the beautiful part is now involvement equals commitment. So hugo now has had a part in the solution. Yeah, he's been seen, he's been heard, he's been respected, he's had access to the boss and we've had the great conversation. We've decided that that's the recommendation. And then he goes away and there's some ownership around it and there's respect. And one of the big job satisfiers, if you want to attract and retain top talent, is respect and autonomy. Go away, do your job, I'm going to leave you alone, but if you need help I'm here. And not to confuse that with ignoring your high performers that's a whole different issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we're going to continue to support them. And then the fifth part of it is leading with empathy. Empathy Wow, that's not a word we used 10 years ago. It's essentially now changing from command and control, which we're all used to, to a chain of support. So now I'm not telling you what you need to do the micromanagement part. I'm telling you what you need to do the micromanagement part. I'm telling you that I am here to support you. I'm removing barriers and what you'll see is, if you're starting to go through that process and I go through it all the time again, I was just a week and a half ago it's it's a very solid framework that I use.
Speaker 2:You see people start to exercise their, their problem solving muscles. You see them take ownership. You see them loving the opportunity to actually go do some stuff and selfishly, from my perspective, it frees me up a ton. So if I have five people on my team, four are doing one, three, one and they're kicking butt. You know, inevitably there's that fifth person that maybe isn't. So that's the person I spend time with, that's the person I coach and mentor, and the other four, I'm just checking in. What are you working on? How can I help and it frees you up to go focus on the big picture, the strategies and all that, and and you know you can satisfy your micromanagement. You know itch to your heart's content, but at least you're doing it with one person and not five.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, so there's just so.
Speaker 2:So many benefits.
Speaker 1:So I love that, I love that one, three, one. That is so cool. It's great because, and also, what you're doing at that moment is you're teaching that person leadership, because leaders, leaders have to do exactly what you just at told that person leadership, because leaders, leaders have to do exactly what you just at told that person to come to you with. You said I, you know what's the problem, give me three possible. Was it three? Um, three options, three options. And then, though, and then the last one was what you think, which way should we go? Right, and you just you're teaching them how to lead, right there. Yeah, that's exactly it so.
Speaker 2:So you're developing them, yes, you're, you're teaching them how to lead right there. Yep, that's exactly it. So so you're developing them, you're, you're, you're building that muscle. You're building that autonomy, that respect, while, at the same time, selfishly. Now, brad, I'm not exhausted at the end of the day, I can go home, I can be with my partner, I can be present, I can even coach, you can even cheer if you want.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You have so much energy, you can now cheer.
Speaker 2:You could be the one that they're throwing up there and twirling.
Speaker 1:I would suggest not doing that, but that's all right. There is liability involved. There's definitely liability involved there. Yeah, I have one more question before we wrap this up, because we're almost at 40 minutes here. By the way, great show, this is awesome. I mean, Hugo, you can agree, this is great information, Great show. I'm really excited about this and I'm excited for our audience to to to get some feedback on this too. So one of the questions I have have you ever come into a situation where you're like, oh shit, the problem is the guy that hired me Love it.
Speaker 2:I love this question. So here, here's, here's what happens. So there's there's a saying that I also use a lot is it's okay to complain up, not to complain down, first of all? So one of the things I do see is leaders that are stuck in that middle. They start throwing their boss under the bus because it makes them look OK Like, in other words, it's not my decision, it's yeah, it's like yeah like I'm just being a good soldier, which is true to a certain extent.
Speaker 2:You know there are certain situations. Sure, it's called a chain for a reason you know. Like that, you have a boss, even as a a um, you know startup. A lot of times you have shareholders and all those other things that this fallacy that you don't work for anybody is is is incorrect. So this is we call this leading upwards, and this in itself is worth a whole podcast itself, but the term is leading upward.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that you need to do, or I would submit to you, is you need to have the conversation, first and foremost because give your boss the benefit of the doubt. They may not even know it's a problem, right? Because you're so good at your job, brad, that it doesn't filter up to them. They're like, hey, this is great. So having a conversation that involves the behavior, the emotion and the effect. So what you do is you come in, hey, if you're my boss, hey, brad, I'm really concerned about the policy around working from home. The effect is it's making our team feel a lot more alienated because there's other teams are allowed to work from home.
Speaker 2:So I want to hear your thoughts on that and then you can start to have the dialogue. So you're not going into into guns blazing that, hey, we need to change this. You're now opening it up. That individual is not being attacked, they're not being defensive, you're merely just taking ownership. Hey, I'm concerned. Here's what's happening, here's the effect. So, starting there, and then what are your thoughts on that? And here's the thing You'll actually find in some cases, it makes sense what they're saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if nothing else, it will, you'll recognize okay, I got it. But then here's the other thing, and you know, just to wrap it up, one thing I do all the time when I deploy or if I'm working with a client, from that that matter, what does right look like? So, Brad, if I'm working for you, that's the first conversation I have for you and I to work together, for me, to support you. What does right look like for you? What do you need from me? Well, daryl, I need a report on Friday, every Friday. Okay, cool, like I don't care. Yeah, I get paid to do it, yeah, so, um, hey, you know what? Or I need us to really focus on this. Sounds good, boss. No problem, I'll go ahead and do that. So that's the other part too. A lot of times we don't have that interaction or that discussion with our bosses to start. I do that all the time because I'm ultimately working for them and I want their support and I want them to look good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's very good. Good stuff, man, Good stuff. So let's, just before we end, before we end the show here, let's talk about. You have a podcast and it's called lead from the inside out. Is that correct? Is it? Is it? Is it going to be like this kind of material? Is it going to be all?
Speaker 2:like kind of this stuff that you, you were bringing out. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I focus on leadership and personal development and the convergence thereof, for instance.
Speaker 1:And you also have a YouTube page. It's youtubecom. Backslash at Daryl D Black.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the shortened is ddbtubecom, so all of my a lot of material there as well. I'll have a. I have a guide that's been done a PDF for for your audience, and so either connect with me on LinkedIn at Daryl D Black, just connect with me and send me a message just saying Team Brad, and I'll send you the guy. All right, just so I know. And also on Instagram, because all the cool cats are on Instagram, apparently, not Snapchat. I'm not on Snapchat, neither am I.
Speaker 2:But there you can reach me at DDB leadership. So give me a follow. And same thing Send me a DM and say Team Brad, and I'll send you the guide.
Speaker 1:Awesome man, awesome. What a great show, great podcast. You definitely have a lot of information and very impressive. I love the way that you communicate and I think you could really really be an improvement for some people, for corporations, for companies. They should be hiring you. You're doing a great job. Thank you, yeah, awesome. There you go. All right, darrell Black you guys have got to check this guy out. Check out his podcast. It's Elite from the Inside Out, just the leadership stuff and talking about the different crises that happens inside businesses and things like that. It's just amazing. He had a lot of good stuff to talk about. We will probably have him back again as long as he comes back. All right, that's about it. Thanks for watching us every Thursday at 7 pm. We'll see you real soon.
