Skip Weisman - How Communication is Killing Company Profits in Small Businesses (E1618)

Time is precious and so are our pets, so time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24/7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to 5 pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments, and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care. Welcome to the Exit Coach radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for. Their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on exitcoachradio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm very excited about our guest lineup. Let's get right into it. My first guest is Skip Weissman, and Skip is joining us from Weissman Success Resources Inc. He is a workplace communications expert and he's in the business of improving workplace communication so that small business owners can create a more positive, productive, and profitable company. We're going to talk about how communication is killing company profits in small businesses. Skip, thanks very much for joining us and welcoming to the show. Thanks for having me, Bill. Skip, I'm, um, I'm intrigued by the title that we're gonna be talking about how communications killing company profits, and I want to get right into that, but first tell us a little bit about you and your background and how you started uh Weissman Success Resources. I spent the 1st 20 years of my professional life actually in minor league professional baseball in the United States and I was, uh, president and general manager of 5 different baseball franchises over that, uh, over that period and it was the only thing I ever wanted to do since childhood and I loved professional baseball, wanted to be a ball player like every other 7 year old boy in America. I realized at an early age I couldn't, uh, play the game at that level and decided to get into some career that I would that would keep me close to the ballpark and I was able to do that for 20 years and ran some really successful minor league operations, and the last stop I was at, we built a 4500 baseball, baseball stadium in 71 days to open up a brand new market just north of Manhattan and about 65 miles north of New York City. And we were toast of the town. We were created tremendous success and enthusiasm in our community. Uh, I ran that team for 8 years and decided after 20 years in baseball I wanted to do something else with my life and, uh, didn't want to be tied to a baseball stadium or a baseball schedule for half a year, which is what it was and decided to look back at my career and figured what I did well, and that was building small businesses and building great teams and small businesses to get great things done. I thought I could help other organizations do the same and I started that in 2002. Wow, that's fascinating. That sounds like a whole different interview unto itself and it's be fascinating fascinating to hear. I bet you have some good stories, yeah, but, um, now, now right now you, you typically work with uh with small businesses between 6 and 60 employees. So why do you focus on that marketplace? What do you love about that market? A couple of things. One, that's, that's what I grew up in. That's my baseball background was a small business. We had at one time, I think the smallest organization I worked with as the president and CEOs there, there were 3 of us running the whole team for a year and I think my biggest full-time staff was about 15, so that's, that's where I'm comfortable at. But even more importantly. What I find is that I can really make a long term difference with organizations of that size because everybody from the CEO or the business owner on down. is hearing the same message together at the same time and there's buy-in throughout and you know, as you know, and most of your listeners probably know stuff flows downhill and I've been in so many organizations, uh, coaching and doing some training early on in my business career where everybody in the audience said well this is great, glad you're teaching us, but you know our bosses need to be here. And so what I found in large organizations, a big corporate type of setting. We could do some really great work with a division or a department, and the next edict from on high from some home office in London or Chicago or Boston would undermine and pull the rug out from everything we just did and and kill the work. And so I didn't have as much control, you know, over over the long term success, but when you're working with the CEO and the owner of the franchise all the way on down to the the receptionist in the company, everybody's hearing the same message and it's much more likely to stick and create longer term success. I get it I get it, yeah, working with the, the uh owner operators, so to speak, and the people that are really making the difference and you know they're really the fabric of our economy, I think don't you agree? Oh, absolutely, you know, that's where all the, the real jobs I think are being created and, uh, you know, entrepreneurship and and the challenges that I find with with those type of business owners and similar to what I I was, you know, making that leap from business operator to, uh, you know, from employee to business operator and owner is, you know, we like doing what we're doing. It's a typical sort of Michael Gerber thing where we like what we're doing. We like the job, but we don't really have those leadership and management skills. Uh, to lead our people effectively and that's where I find most of my clients struggle with, you know, most of their time and they pull their hair out and struggle and. And are frustrated with that angle of the business. And so that's that's basically the work I do to help them communicate the motivate, that's I like to say, yeah, and as a small business owner, there's you, you plan to have that time to work on the business and it gets eaten up by working in the business a lot of the time it's just difficult. So let's talk about how specifically does communication kill company profits and small businesses. What do you mean by that? Well, poor communication is, I think it's, you know, in the work I do, it's, it's an epidemic, uh, in, in the world, and we don't really even know to what extent or or how until we dig deep into it. And if you were to go into any organization and sort of facilitate a focus group with, you know, say 12 employees or 6 employees, virtually every situation communication will come out in the top 2 or 3. Issues all the time and yet We can have the same conversation with that group in 3 months and the communication would still be at the top of the list for a couple of reasons. One, it's something we can always get better at as one of my clients said the other day to me, um, but also organizations really struggle with defining what that means. It's a catch all for everything and so we just throw, you know, communication banner out whenever there's a problem. And in one context they're absolutely right because communication. Is the cause of virtually every problem in an organization. You just have to figure out where that communication breakdown is and what the problem is behind it. So it really permeates an organization, uh, all the time. Now how do we fix it? We have to, we fix it by trying to define what those issues are more clearly and succinctly so we can do something about it. What I find is that organizations never get to that stage. We throw it under the communication umbrella. And that's sort of where it lies. Yeah, we really should, you know, we really need to improve communication. We really, uh, do need to improve communication here and there, but nobody ever really defines it. And so that's, that's a, a major issue just defining the problem, uh, as to how communication, uh, needs to improve in our organization. And when we don't, when it perpetuates and we keep having the same conversations over and over again, it leads to low levels of trust in an organization. We stop trusting the business owner and we stop trusting our peers because Well, you know, John just threw me under the bus, um, to save his own rear end, um, or, or so it seemed to me when in reality it was just lazy communication and there was no ulterior motive, but it seems that way to me that's my perception. You know, and so it creates mistrust among peers. It creates mistrust between bosses and their direct reports because maybe they're getting delegated to, but they're not getting all the information to do the job successfully with the delegation, so they get their hands slapped. Again, it's rarely malicious. It's just poor delegation habits or communication habits because we don't know what the person doesn't know and what they need to be successful because the the task is so second nature to me. I leave some details out. And so all these little miscommunications just chirp away and chip away at trust in the organization and causes these uh these breakdowns and you know Stephen M.R Covey, who wrote the book The Speed of Trust, which I highly recommend, um, you know, says when trust goes down in an organization, uh, speed goes down and costs go up, which means the speed to get a project done or to get some type of task done. You know, stalls, you know, if I don't trust you, Bill, um, you know I'm not gonna follow through on a request of yours and it may take me two weeks to get to it or not at all. And then when you finally realize I haven't done it, you know, significant time has been wasted, um, and so that increased costs increase, uh, it impacts customer service and on the flip side there's great examples that when trust is high. Uh, you know, speed, uh, moves up, you know, things accelerate through an organization quicker, um, and costs will go down because of that, uh, great, uh, great work together and things moving forward quickly. So, you know, if the, if, if communication is a problem, it's undermining trust which leads to, uh, lower profits because of the higher cost of doing business and getting things done and it's also going to impact customer service, uh, and client retention. Well it makes a lot of sense and so what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see out there from communication um among small business leaders? Well, From the work that I've done over the last 12 years, I started this work in 2002, and looking back at my career and all the mistakes I made as a young executive as I was doing this coaching and consulting with small businesses when I got started with my own business, I noticed similar patterns to how business owners were communicating that looked an awful lot like all the mistakes I made when I was a young baseball executive. And so what I've done is actually I categorized them into seven. Of the biggest communication mistakes that are happening all around us. I call them the seven deadliest sins of workplace communication, um, and within those seven are 3 that interact, uh, in a kind of a unique interesting way, uh, to undermine performance, uh, in an organization and, and so I'm going to share these 3 which is one is a lack of specificity. This is a vague communication. And again it's rarely malicious. Usually it's just lazy communication habits and we don't realize the level of specificity needed in a communication. And so we, we're, we're non-specific and it, it causes a lack of clarity. The lack of clarity again slows things down. We make assumptions. We expect people to be mind readers, uh, you know, I give you a direction bill and I need something from you, and I say, well, just get that back to me as soon as possible. Well, what does as soon as possible mean? Not much. We have different expectations for that, uh, causes a huge breakdown and when you apply that to performance management and and managing people's performance to move things forward effectively and to build a high performing team, nonspecific communication leads to a lack of clarity and confusion and mind reading and. It just stifles people. Now that's a problem when it comes time for giving somebody feedback because it's, it's interesting the clients that I've interviewed after my work, they come back to me and they say, you know, the problem I was having is. Even though I wanted to give this person feedback on their performance, I wasn't sure I was doing the best I could do, giving them the information they needed or set my expectations clearly enough at the beginning, and so I would hold off on giving them feedback. I would procrastinate on giving them feedback. Because I didn't feel like I had the foundation or the fundamentals, uh, to, to do that. It was going to become a very contentious conversation, so I put it off and, and so the second biggest mistake we make is putting off those conversations which I call lack of immediacy, right, so it's a lack of immediacy in the performance feedback conversation, um, and the third one is a lack of directness and candor which is somewhat related to the specificity, uh, model, but it's more, uh, even more specific and and direct in that. We don't give people direct candid feedback as to what's going on and what we need from them or what our performance expectations are and so when we're not direct and candid, we beat around the bush, we throw out flares and hope people get it and get our meaning and again more mind reading here, but we have a lack of directness and candor, uh, in those situations. Um, because of the lack of specificity, and we can't give people direct candid feedback, so we procrastinate on it, and these three just continue a downward spiral of performance in the workplace that many business owners don't know how to get out of and and can't because of, you know, those communication issues are all tied together, so we have to sort of unbundle all those and start at the beginning. So I can see how all those would tie together to create kind of a building block for uh communications improvement program if you will um being being specific and clear with your communications, the who's the why's the what's the when's, all that kind of stuff, it all in your communication and not taking things for granted and then being immediate with your feedback and and circling back around very quickly and saying good job bad job um where are we with this? and then being direct with your candor and saying. Uh, I, I, I did, I didn't like what you did here because or I liked what you did here because and next time we can be better with this. So, so those specifics are very interesting building blocks and you say there's there's several other mistakes and then you have a, um, you have a white paper report on this as well, correct? Yeah, so I actually have 21 is called the seven deadliest sins of communication, which talks about all of these 7 sort of in and of themselves, and then the next one, the missing ingredient to improve an employee performance talks about, you know, how to apply those communication mistakes to performance management and getting people to improve their performance on the job, you know, in all the right ways for all the right reasons. And so they can, uh, any of the listeners, you know, can get the white papers at uh at my website which is, uh, your championship Company.com. And there's all sorts of uh other resources there at the website that they can get to help them improve their communication in their workplace as an organizational leader in a small company. And so Skip, you're a Visage speaker, which for our listeners who aren't aware, Visage International is the world's largest CEO peer group where CEOs of companies come together, small companies and large companies, and they come together to learn and to hear interesting programs and speakers and work with each other kind of as an extended board. What are some of the comments that you hear from those groups when you talk to them about what their biggest issues and problems are? You know, it all comes back to those seven communication mistakes going back in their in their work environment, and one of the biggest ones is also because of the technology in the world in the 21st century is is what we call a lack of focused attention and people playing on their smartphones and, and, and trying to multitask when they're having communications and conversations and most of the time the the business leaders in those vestige programs or other programs that I facilitate and speak at. Agree that they are the biggest perpetrator of it. And so when I call them out on it, it can be kind of an uncomfortable situation and we have a nice little laugh about it. But again, you know, business leaders at that level, you know, have to model the behaviors they want and so if their employees are not providing full attention in meetings or trying to multitask or whatever, you know, they really have to look inside it themselves and say what what behaviors are you modeling and how are you projecting what the expectations are for behaviors in the workplace. And model that behavior by, you know, giving people focused attention and if you can't in the moment, you know, schedule another time because you're really devaluing somebody by trying to multitask when you're, you know, communicating with them. So that's, that's the other 4th biggest communication sin there is a lack of focused attention and trying to multitask when you're communicating with somebody and it's big in this, in our society for the 21st century with technology. Yeah, I, I think everybody's probably been seen that or or probably done that at some point where they're they think they can pay attention and multitask, uh, look at their look at their phone or whatever, answer emails or whatever, but it's really a myth, isn't it that you can multitask? It is, you know, unless you're playing a musical instrument as I use in, in my, you know, seminars and stuff and my keynotes when I talk about, you know, if you're playing a musical instrument is really multitasking, you know, if you're a drummer, you've got 4 limbs doing the same thing, you know, doing, doing something at the same time. But when we're communicating with somebody and we want to build trust and we want to build value and we want to build high performance in somebody. That deserves some respect and and some focused attention with the person and especially if they're, you know, they're your direct report and you need the most from them, you've got, you got to give them the best of you in the moment. So multitasking when we're communicating really is, is not going to be an effective way to do it and we have to look inside ourselves to transform that in our environments. Well, you've given us a lot of great information, a lot of great tips, and as you mentioned, your website is your championshipcompany.com. Are you accessible for one on one consultations and speeches all over the country? When should people get in touch with you? Well, they can get in touch with me any time. There's actually a contact form on the website, as you might expect, and I do speak all over North America. I've been up in Canada speaking 3 or 4 times the last year or so. And so all over North America I go speak on how to create a championship company in small businesses and use a lot of baseball and sports analogies because that's my background and, you know, a lot of old war stories that people like to hear about, so. Uh, I love speaking to groups and organizations vestige and even larger, uh, larger organizations, so welcome the, uh, the opportunities and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, Bill. Yeah, with your fascinating background in the baseball world, I'm, I'm sure you have some great communication stories, uh, you know, things that they have to act like a team, and if they're not listening and and communicating with each other, uh, teams aren't that great, correct? Absolutely, I think we saw it in the, uh, the Super Bowl in 2014 when the, the first play of the game went over and it was the, the ball was snapped over the head of Peyton Manning on the first play and it went downhill from there for for the Denver Broncos. So there's a lot of those examples. Oh, we, we saw another example of poor communication at the end of the last Super Bowl. So anyways, those are, those are great stories. Skip. I appreciate you coming on. I'd love to have you back on the show another time we can get deeper into some of these issues and talk more about stories now that we've covered the basics of the seven mistakes and appreciate your 33 tips you gave us today and look forward to talking to you again sometime in the near future. Great, I look forward to it. Thanks so much, Bill. Take care. Thanks, we're gonna take a short break. We'll be right back after this, so please stay with us. Business owners, if you came back from lunch and there was a resignation letter on your desk, which employee would you really, really not want it to be from? What are you doing to prevent this from happening? At Exit and Retirement Strategies, we design plans that attract, motivate, and retain key employees. For a free consultation, called Bill Black, the exit coach at 866-370-3774. Call today. Just thinking about what will happen to your business if you're gone keep you awake at night? Will you get the price you need from your business to carry you through retirement? The BEI Network of Exit Planning Professions is the world's leading advisor network with the power to help business owners transition out of business on their own timeline and terms. Ask your most trusted advisor to create a BEI plan for you, or visit us at exitplanning.com. That's exitplanning.com. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. Time is precious and so are our pets, so time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24/7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to 5 pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments, and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.