SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Well, I'm glad you're all here. I'm springing the questions on you, and you don't have time to prepare. So it's I think that real reaction is the best case. I've got a good one to start with if you two are ready. Two employees can't get along, and it's draining everyone, including me. I manage a team and two of my employees just can't seem to get along. It started months ago with petty arguments and passive aggressive behavior over things like who handles certain tasks, etc. I've addressed it several times, reminded them about professionalism and even rotated duties, but the tension never really goes away. This week it flared up again. One of them was chatting with me in my office for a bit. I allowed it since things have been tense. I wanted to build up some positivity. The other one then got upset and said she was stuck taking calls because the other one was in my office chatting. Even though she often misses calls herself when socializing. The hypocrisy and emotional reactions are exhausting. Neither one of them is breaking rules or being directly insubordinate, but together it's toxic. The rest of the team feels it and it's honestly draining my energy as their manager and the team's energy. Has anyone successfully dealt with something like this before and how do I handle it?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13

It sounds very challenging because I think the team has to come first before individual ego or it sounds like there's an element of fairness that's coming up. I think really it's important to try to understand each person's strengths and goals and really where they can shine and where the other one can shine as well. And have, you know, it takes a lot of troubleshooting something like that as a manager, one-on-one conversations before you bring people together. I think that's another thing I'd I would have tried to avoid because I've been in the situation where sometimes a manager's brought together two people who aren't getting on and saying you have to get on with each other. I think you have to be a lot more surgical in your approach to solving this problem. But also very make it very clear that this is not acceptable. It may not be breaking the rules, as they said, but it's really not an acceptable way to behave. And there's, you know, and I think there's a need for both of these people to step up and lead, be behave as leaders and be powered to and find out what's going wrong there.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

I dealt with this a lot in the hospital just because there were so many different people on the floor, so many different personalities. If I felt the two individuals could hand like a group coaching session with me after I had individual conversations with them, I did pull them together and we talked about like what their triggers were. What were they saying? What was their body language? How was that making them feel? And I did lead with I feel, not you're making me that type of language. And we really broke it down that way. So when your tone comes across this way, I feel that you are talking down to me. So we did that. We did those exercises more than once, and then we all agreed before we left the room on what each of them were gonna work on and agree upon. And then we would meet again a couple of weeks, and that did work for the majority of the situations. So that was extremely powerful. Now, if I had an individual who was totally closed off, didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to make changes, didn't really want to work on that relationship, I had to go down a different avenue with that individual.

SPEAKER_00: 3:23

Yeah. Very good. I have used that strategy as well. And it does work sitting with the two, but I do want to preface that by saying they have to trust you for that to work. If you don't have a good relationship with each of those people individually, that conversation will not work. So you have to read the room because I know, James, what you're saying is accurate. If you're gonna just try to huddle them together and be like parents in that situation, tell your kids to get along, it isn't going to work. The focus, and you already said this earlier, has to be on the team. So being able to say to them, I do want to draw your attention to the fact that working together as a team comes with expectations. And here's the expectations that we're going to be kind and respectful, and we're going to always hear each other, and we're going to be respectful when we disagree. So trying to do that as a team, as often as you can, these reminders, it kind of helps ahead of time that people know that just won't be acceptable. Like you said, it's not acceptable to have passive aggressive stuff going on or comments or jealousy. It's just not acceptable as a team. So I think we're all in agreement with the question.

SPEAKER_02: 4:39

I think I really like what you said there, because I think the overall values that you believe in as a team is the other thing that was coming up for me when you know when you were both talking, and making sure that you really anchor on those and then check in on whether everyone is behind that. Right. Yes. And then individually, are we behind this as a team? And then that hopefully helps to turn it around. And then it becomes very clear if someone's just kind of an outlier into in that world then.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

It's really important the pre-work is everything. When we're talking this situation, it's almost like a reaction they have to have to this situation. If you do the pre-work, then it it makes it much easier to respond to a situation the second it's happening because you bring everybody back to those team expectations. Hey, remember when we've talked about what we expect from each other as a team? Does this fit what's happening right now? Does this fit those expectations? In our big formal training, we have, I created um a whole workshop that's called TEEP and it's team engagement and expectations packed. So it's all getting a team to sit down with each other and talk about how we're engaging with each other and what our expectations are. And then creating like a two-sentence or three-sentence packed with each other that when we disagree, this is what we'll do. When we're feeling a certain way, this is what we'll do. If you do all of that ahead of time, then you're always bringing everybody back to that thing. You can't make it once, hang it on the wall, never talk about it again. It it has to be an ongoing process of bringing everybody back to those core values. And then this makes these situations either happen way less frequently or get resolved much quicker.

SPEAKER_01: 6:19

I agree. And I was gonna say the same thing, James, about values. And the whole pre-work is a hundred percent accurate. You know, we had our teams come up with values. Of course, we had the hospital values, but we had the teams and units come up with our own values. And then the managers always spoke to that with the hiring, with these difficult, uncomfortable conversations, with the firing, if it ended up to that, it was just about the values that the whole team agreed upon. And they were knew what they were, they had conversations consistently behind it, and it does make it extremely easier to set those expectations on absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 6:56

So for this poor person that wrote this in, this manager, if we had to just give this person a little bit of advice to try and get this thing back on track, what would we say?

SPEAKER_02: 7:08

I think another thing that's coming up for me is important that I would say to this person is checking on yourself as well. And make sure that you are ready to have the conversation that you're checking on and whether you're actually if there's anything that you can do differently in the situation that could be contributing to it. That self-reflection, I think, is the first thing. And then mainly making sure that you step back and think about the plan that you're going to have and how you're gonna talk to people and what kind of what kind of questions you're gonna ask. And when I mentioned that kind of surgical approach to it, thinking about that and making and checking on your own emotions and make sure that you're being very professional about the situation and not reacting yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 7:52

Yeah. I I would say to this person, you know, I feel like it's just a symptom of a of a bigger root issue. Yes, we need to get this addressed and resolved, but I would be going back to the source, which is your team. And I think you do need to get everybody realigned or aligned for the first time on a set of values as a team and just see if that work alone brings the temperature down to the this argument. Because I I feel like if if we're to just moderate this and get them getting along, I think it's gonna repeat if they don't tie it back to something bigger. We don't have to love everybody we work with or see everything eye to eye, but we do have to be kind and respectful. Whatever our duties are at work, they're all tied to a bigger thing. So we have to stay focused. Okay. Ideas for a meaningful monthly team meeting. I'm a new supervisor leading an established team of three. One team member shares an office with me, and the other two share an office in another location, though it's they're in the same city as us. As an employee outcome for myself, as well as a way to get to know my team better, I'm thinking of implementing a monthly meeting for all of us to get together. This would be in addition to already our weekly one-on-ones. My biggest concern is that the meeting might feel pointless or a waste of time. I want it to be a good balance of discussing roadblocks, problem solving, and genuine team building. For those of you who are supervisors of teams, what kinds of recurring meetings or activities have helped strengthen your team dynamic? And I don't want it to feel like another meeting on the calendar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:27

Ashley, you go first.

SPEAKER_00: 9:28

Okay. Ashley, take this one.

SPEAKER_01: 9:31

So in my experience with my immediate team, because I was director in healthcare, so indirectly, I had a lot of employees, but my nurse managers, my secretaries, my educators, they were all my immediate team. And yes, I also had I had monthly one-on-ones with them, but we had monthly, we called them service line meetings. And that was they were long. We knew it was long, but we did a little fun. We always talked about because this was our team and our environment. So this was our culture and our team. Just personal things that were going on. We always had something to celebrate, whether someone was getting married, another baby, moving, like there was always moving parts. So we always just made that personal connection and talked about those things. We brought food all the time. Different people would bring different things they cooked, or we would go out to lunch and have conversations. And then we focused on the work part, the updates. But it was not just me like lecturing them. It was getting their feedback. What did you think of that? What is your thought process on this? And just hearing everybody's opinions and point of view, that's how you got to know one another. And that's how you saw their strengths, maybe what they weren't comfortable with. And then eventually they would say, I just am, I'm nervous about this. Like, how can I do this better? So just having that conversation and different areas after connecting, it was really powerful. They enjoyed them.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

They really did. That's good. I want to ask you a question. Like if you're already doing weekly one-on-ones, in my opinion, is doing another weekly one that's supposed to be fun in this is just it feels too much. It feels like too much. Do you think that too, James?

SPEAKER_02: 11:06

I think the frequency is important to think about with these bigger meetings, right? So less frequent makes more an event. But also I think there's two things I think about is talk to people about what they need and want. Because I think there's a lot of making assumptions, right? When actually the people closest to the problems can probably tell you exactly what they think they need in terms of content and activities and things like that. And the other thing that I try and do is see who on the on the team's interested in running something and doing some activities and making sure that that's being fair and equitable as well. Because sometimes certain people are selected to always do these kind of activities. So I'm very mindful about that as well from a kind of inclusion point of view, and making sure that I am very careful about you know who's doing meeting organizational work and things like that. I like that a lot. That's something to think about uh and make sure it's not always the same person. And perhaps, you know, someone who's a bit quieter or more reserved sometimes, it gives them a really good opportunity to be able to speak up and feel as though they've got some purpose to be able to run some elements of a meeting or the whole thing. So those are the kind of things that come through my mind is trying to make it feel as though this isn't we're being told to do this, it's our idea.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

Yes, I love that. I love that. If we're doing extra, it feels like to me that's supposed to be about some fun and some bonding, and then also having the work element of the problem solving or talking about projects. If we're gonna do that, then I don't think as a manager we dictate how that goes. If we were to have this feel lighter than our weekly meeting, say we're meeting once a month and it's gonna be a bit longer meeting, but we're gonna include some fun. What does that look like for you? What would you enjoy as a team that we could do? And they might say different trying different restaurants or bringing in food from culture, like different cultural things, like they might surprise you and then it'll feel like they're taking ownership and then they'll look forward to doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 13:09

The other thing I'd say is that sometimes what people want is actually to have an opportunity to come up with new ideas for ways of solving problems at work. So there might you there might be an assumption sometimes there's an assumption all that people want to do fun things. But then I've had feedback that no, I'd do that with my family at the weekend and quite sure right. Like playing, I don't know, online game during the pandemic. I remember someone saying, oh, this feels just like what I have to do with my family on Zoom at the moment. So I think that's the other kind of thing. But I really agree, you know, Ashley, I think your point about problem solving and coming up with, you know, I think you mentioned some of that. I think that's a great idea. And I think the other thing as the manager or the leader of the team, it's important that you're driving decisions around it because the danger is when you start asking everyone what they want, there isn't any closure and decision making on it, being clear about timelines and um things like that. Make sure that you're helping everyone agree and commit to something.

SPEAKER_00: 14:06

And I really liked the celebrating the personal things. I mean, that could be something that's a tiny part of your weekly meeting too. Like that can be built in where people just have like good news things.

SPEAKER_01: 14:17

And like James said too, you just have to know your team because I do have people on other teams who didn't want that intimate personal sharing of what's going on in their life, which was totally fine. So we talked about more work-related stuff and the the wins and all that type of thing. So you just have to know what they feel comfortable with and what their ideas are for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

This next question really, it's it's one of those where I read it, I was like, oh no, like what's the right answer? But it kind of piggybacks off of what we just did. So I'm gonna go with this one. I'm looking for ideas to help boost morale and to help with recognition of employees. My department is going through a major change and merging with another company, and it's caused some low morale and even some loss of staff. I'm on a low budget, but I need ideas that are more than just telling people I appreciate them. I do have a kudos recognition that comes with a candy bar, but I feel like it's not getting through to some people. And that's what makes me gig a little bit, could go on for days about what motivation is. So that question seems simple, but not.

SPEAKER_02: 15:24

So one of the things that, you know, I work in an engineering world, right? So I have a team of engineers, and I know that most engineers enjoy tinkering with stuff and building things and having a bit of freedom around what they're building. So what we've been doing recently quite a lot, especially, you know, with all these these AI tools, is trying to seed some ideas in advance and then letting people pick an idea, which is high-level. It's not like, you know, do ABC. And then have an event where people can just kind of tinker and build something and then share that and have a bit of freedom from you know more of the roadmap and things like that. And the beauty of that is it can also inspire new innovation and new things that you can add. And I think you can apply that to any field, right? I'm sure that whichever field you're in, the f a lot of the frustration is, well, you know, why do we have to do it like this, right? When actually once you bring the team together and you unlock that creativity, then you can end up having much better systems and ideas in place than anything that maybe the manager would have thought of. So I think that's something that I would say can be quite a good exercise to bring also foster, you know, empowerment or an autonomy as well, around some freedom of thinking.

SPEAKER_00: 16:40

I really like that because I like the idea of saying to people, hey, if you got to play in here, you just got to have that freedom. What would you come up with? What would be something you'd want to do? That feels like a fun activity. It's tough when we talk about boosting morale, because this is just my opinion. There is only so much as a manager we can do to boost morale. It's more about engaging the team and trying to have them feel like what they do is important. When they know that what they do is important, then that motivation is there naturally. So that's why I kind of always snicker at those because you can be the most talented manager in the world and have all the most creative ideas. You can't do that 24-7. They have to be internally motivated because either they love what they do or they're excited about what they do or they feel like what they do is important. Do you think I'm right with that?

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

Or I agree 100%. I have a lot of conversations today around ownership. And that's everything you just mentioned. And James, same with you. How do you get your team to own the work? So, one, they take initiative and want to do it, but they do have that sense of pride that, yes, I did that. And this is how it connected to the biggest, bigger picture or this success of the company, whatever it may be. And when they do that, it does studies show that the burnout reduces and they feel better connected either with their team, in our case in healthcare, the patients. Like it just the positive things that come out of that is just so great. But I don't think a lot of leaders out there really focus on that ownership piece, and it's so big, it's extremely just powerful.

SPEAKER_02: 18:18

Yeah, and it's very totally agree. Because it's I think the you know, the most common problem is there's this problem, and people feel as though they they're not empowered to be able to solve it themselves, and you have to encourage them. And so one of the things that for this event and that I I actually went to a talk by someone I really respect, Wade Chambers. I mentioned it before, I think, on this.

SPEAKER_00: 18:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 18:42

And he said that they ran an event a bit like this, and they came up with a best failure award. Because you need to be able to normalize trying something and it not working. So I actually made a, you know, as a talk, uh I I made a talk on this, and I said, Oh, you know, my my team member actually won the best failure award. You know, and you don't often hear a manager celebrating that. But then they turned it around, they learned from it. But I think that the biggest problem that people have with taking on something new or trying something new is the fear of failure. And feeling as though that's a negative thing when actually it's a huge opportunity to learn. So whenever setting something up, it should be really about shameless early sharing, making sure that it's really safe to show something that is not perfect, right? And that's the kind of spirit I think. And the so the recognition there, right? We you mentioned recognition. I think having a series of recognition and that can be another part of it, right? If you do an event like that.

SPEAKER_00: 19:40

But recognizing effort, recognizing people that are trying something new, that are putting themselves in an uncomfortable position to see if something works. Like figuring out what doesn't work is sometimes just as important or more important than figuring out what does work. Because when you try things and you see that they don't work, there's so many lessons wrapped up in that and so much good that comes from figuring out, okay, I tried this, I tried this, I tried this. None of those things are working. And there's a lot of joy and a lot of fulfillment that comes after having that experience when you do get to the finish line and it works. You have you've gotten so much knowledge from that process, but we don't talk about that enough. We're always talking about the end result. We need to talk about all the effort. So it's good to recognize achievements. I'm I'm all for that, but I think we need to do a better job as managers recognizing effort. So when somebody tries something and it doesn't work, we're still commending them on the fact that they tried something.

SPEAKER_01: 20:41

Because I experience this very frequently. And again, it ties about to self-awareness as a leader and your energy and presence that you're bringing to the team. And if you can get a team of your core leaders or leads or whoever is in charge, whatever your environment may be, if they have a positive energy and you yourself are coming in in a positive way, people feed off of that. You know, I had a lot of other managers like, gosh, my my team is just so down all the time. I'm like, well, look at you. They're acting how you are acting. They're feeding off of your energy. So it's it's very important to see how you're coming across to your team. And if it's if the morale is really low, changing your focus and your presence, and it will eventually, maybe not to everybody, but they will feel that and hopefully mirror that behavior or whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_00: 21:34

And that sounds so simple because it it is simple. Smiling changes the energy in a room. People don't smile, they get you get stuck in what you're doing and you're, you know, you're just thinking hard. But if you stop for a minute and you smile at your tea, it makes a big difference. Walking into a room with a smile on your face is very different than walking into the room without a smile on your face. I feel bad for anybody new in a supervisor position, a management position when they think they're responsible for inspiring everybody's day. Right. You have a responsibility to keep the energy positive and respectful and kind. But the bigger step is having them have buy-in in what they do. And it's not just about, oh, we're gonna have this contest and prizes and gift cards, and those are nice little perks, but they're never gonna be enough to keep people motivated. They're they're just not. We have to have them feel like they own what they do and they have freedom and independence to make some decisions and get excited about their work. Oh, this one I left. Is it bad to leave the office on time? But I know where this is coming from. So this person has an office that's only seven people. It's a small office. They're all lovely people. There's a lady who comes in to clean the office at 4:15, and she likes to make a comment because I'm one person that leaves at five o'clock. And now she has found it like her mission to constantly say, Oh, there he goes again. He's getting ready to leave at five o'clock. Oh, look at you leaving right at five o'clock, and says it out loud in front of the other six people. Yes. So I loved this one, A, because it made me laugh. And B, it's this, it's the lady cleaning the office that's making this person not even one of the team members. So I have lots of thoughts, but I know where that is coming from. There's a philosophy out there, and that's why this question exists. So give me your thoughts before I tell you what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_02: 23:28

I think to me, the last thing that I'm concerned about as a manager is when people are coming and going. I try to focus on making sure that people are clear what the objectives are and why, and what we're trying to get done as a team. So that to me has to be the focus and the work that goes into that is not straightforward, right? You have to make sure that you've got very clear objectives that you're leading through with the team, and everyone has to be excited about them and bought into them, and you have to check back in on how people are doing and if they need help and all these kind of things. But when they leave the office, when they come and go, everyone has different commitments. So I tend to focus a lot more on that, on results rather than presence. Obviously, if you've got a team that needs to collaborate certain hours and everything, then you know I think that's where the team norms come in as well, to make sure that there are hours when people can meet and keep your calendar update up to date. Those are the other things. So there's no surprises and people can see when you're going to be in and out. I think that's another thing I always say to people.

SPEAKER_00: 24:30

Yep, communication. Absolutely. And you might have an office that has to stay open till five, and somebody has to be there to answer phones till five, or people walking in, let's say. So yes, that has to be coordinated. Go ahead, Ashley. What were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_01: 24:43

There's just the conception out there that the harder, the longer you work, the more productive you are. And it's just not true. And it's it's extremely frustrating too, because you want, as a leader, to have that flexibility and you want to honor what is important to your team member, you know, whether it's family time, going to the gym, whatever it may be. And that doesn't mean that they always have to stay there until that exact minute and then do what they need to do. And also, I experienced this myself too, is just having that feel, oh, I'm getting out 20 minutes early today. Can I do that? Like, did I do enough? So it's just, I feel like the culture of the workplace currently and more environments than some, that just the more you're there and the more you're dedicating your hours, the better employee you are, where it's just not that's not correct.

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

And it's tough because this is very generational. I was raised for sure that you celebrated the last person leaving the building that day. Everybody's I worked 18 hours yesterday. I was here for 20 hours yesterday. That was celebrated. And you would look lazy or you would look like a bad employee if you were rushing out the door.

SPEAKER_02: 26:00

I think what we're getting at here is similar to the earlier conversation about empowerment, telling people when they have to come and go. I mean, it does depend on the job, obviously. Yeah, this is kind of a logistics thing. Yeah, you know, I couldn't like get off the plate and I have to show up in an hour and advance. No, um, and there's a schedule. But I think for knowledge work, if I'm expecting that my team are in creative commit with new ideas, they're on call, right? That's another thing. And we also have times where people are flexible in terms of working extra to help ensure they get things done, then it's not fair the other way around if it's like when you have to be there five every day and sit in your seat and all the and it doesn't lead to people solving the problem in a way that makes sense if they know what their high-level objective is, right? So I tend to think about things like that, but it it might be because of the environment that I'm working in as well. So I'd that's what I'd say to everyone, do what makes sense based on your environment, but give people the flexibility to be able to solve a problem in a different way, even if that means working at a different time to do so sometimes.

SPEAKER_00: 27:08

And it's understanding our own expectations. You're expecting someone to see things the way you do through your lens. So if we go back to the question for this person, how do they handle somebody making that comment daily? Because let's assume their work is done and they're leaving at five because that's their schedule. What are they supposed to do with that? What is that young person supposed to do with that? I would just be like, yep, thanks for letting me know it's five again. Like, thank you. I would just have to make a joke because I I don't know why that person feels it's okay to do that. Anyway, what what are your thoughts, James? What would you say?

SPEAKER_02: 27:46

I think I I agree with you. I think I think it's not good if they're doing it every day and it is actually causing this person to feel stressful, yeah. Stressed, right? And it's not their business. I think depending on who can who's the best person to talk to them, I'd say that someone should say, please stop doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 28:05

That's what I think too.

SPEAKER_02: 28:06

Because it's not really your place to say that. If there is a problem with that person performance, it should be coming out through another channel, not through the cleaner reporting that they're leaving on time every day.

SPEAKER_00: 28:19

I would really, in all seriousness, I would say to that employee, I would go have a talk with your manager or supervisor and just say this is embarrassing and it's happening in front of the rest of the team and it's not appreciated, and you let it roll off many times, but you need that to stop because it's causing anxiety. It makes me feel guilty when I'm leaving when I should not feel guilty for leaving and let them handle it because that's just inappropriate. Okay, do you guys want to do this again another day? Because I enjoyed this today, it went fast. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:50

You enjoyed it?

SPEAKER_02: 28:51

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01: 28:53

I think it's great that we're all in different fields because I know for a fact, James, your team is probably totally different than mine was just because of the different industries we work in. So I think it's really good to get different perspectives and how you would handle different situations. But it's also interesting because our answers are in line, in tune, because that's what a great leader does. They have the the same core principles and values.

SPEAKER_02: 29:17

Because I think that to your point, right, there isn't a right or wrong with any of this. And and sometimes people want to rule book. Thing that came up a lot, right? I think the theme that comes up in everything is trust.

SPEAKER_00: 29:28

Gosh, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 29:29

And I heard that a few times. Yeah, that's really a lot of things become a lot more difficult if that doesn't e exist.

SPEAKER_00: 29:38

That has to be there. As a manager, we have to build trust with our team, or they're not going to come with to us with real things. All right, you guys, it was so good to see you today. Bye. Bye. Bye.