Meghan Watkins of CEO Coaching International joins us this week to discuss the intricacies of managing your businesses growth and productivity.

Episode Transcript

Intro:

Welcome to the Practical Tax podcast, with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. The Practical Tax podcast is brought to you by Moskowitz, LLP, a tax law firm.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this podcast is based upon information available as of date of recording and will not be updated for changes in law regulation. Any information is not to be considered tax advice or legal advice and does not form an attorney/client relationship. Further, this podcast may be construed as attorney advertising. You should see professional consultation for your individual tax and legal situation.

Chip Franklin:

Welcome to another edition of Practical Tax with tax attorney Steve Moskowitz. I'm your co-host Chip Franklin. That would be the host to my left or right there. You get it. I love talking about productivity because I know that there's a lot of different ways to measure that, right, Steve? I mean-

Steve Moskowitz:

Absolutely.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. And as a business grows, obviously they want their people to be more productive. One of the things though about coaching and training employees is, are you ready for success? I mean, a lot of people, they're worried about what's coming around the corner, of the bad thing, but sometimes successes then comes, and you find out that you're just not ready for it. Well, joining us to start this show is somebody that does this for a living. She's a CEO of Coaching International with more than two decades in building cohesive teams, and she's very passionate about this. Meghan Watkins, it's nice enough to join us. Hello, Meghan.

Meghan Watkins:

Hey, good afternoon-

Steve Moskowitz:

Hi, Meghan.

Meghan Watkins:

... [inaudible 00:01:14] Steve, nice to see you.

Steve Moskowitz:

Pleasure.

Chip Franklin:

Good. Thank you for being with us. Let's just jump right into that. I mean, because you both have a lot of experience in this. Steve has had many employees over the years. Your job has been to try to get employees to be top producers. But there's another caveat that too, you want to be happy. How is that, how do you achieve that balance, Meghan?

Meghan Watkins:

Yeah, I mean think it's really, I think that a lot over the last couple of years has really encouraged leaders to understand that really knowing their team, and taking the time to really understand what motivates their team, is really vital to the overall happiness. And for some that are looking for maybe the opportunity to work from home, that could be really something that's really important to them. And others really actually want to have the ability to work together in an office. And so what we found is typically that hybrid model is usually the most optimal, and sort of allows the ability to have a level of accountability with their team, but also give them that level of flexibility that a lot of people are really demanding at this point.

Steve Moskowitz:

That's what we have in our office. Prior to the pandemic, as a traditional law firm, everybody was under one roof. With the pandemic, we all had to go home initially for three weeks, we were told. And then when the pandemic dragged on, a lot of people got used to working from home. And a lot of clients said, "Wow, you mean I can just talk to you on the phone or your computer?" Just like we're doing now. Physically, where are you?

Meghan Watkins:

Physically, I am in Dallas, Texas right now, and I'm in my home office, but I also do have a shared workspace that I go to as well. And that really speaks, I think to, at the root of it, what we're all craving. We're all ability to have flexibility in our day to day. But we're also still humans that crave the ability to connect directly with others, and be able to interact with others face to face on occasion as well. So for me, it kind of gives me the best of both worlds.

Chip Franklin:

Have you ever read the Peter principle, you guys?

Steve Moskowitz:

Yes.

Chip Franklin:

Okay.

Meghan Watkins:

I am not familiar. I'm very intrigued.

Chip Franklin:

It's a book that's 65 years old. This is, it says that person will rise to their level of incompetence. And in essence, here's the perfect situation. You have a great group of salesmen, really sales people, really good people. So you want to promote one to a management. Well then they're no longer selling. And because they're so good at selling, and they see the ins... And everybody knows a great salesperson, the people that are not as good as the others, well they just become, they're a poor manager. They're no longer selling. So what they end up doing is they promote the people who aren't great salespeople, who are inferior, who aren't as good, to management positions. And then the salespeople resent it.

And so you have this thing, and it seems to me it's like for you guys trying to understand this and define an answer here, I mean a nihilist would say, just promote the best person and let it all work out. And that's kind of how I look at it. I don't want to go too deep on that. I've hired people before from a 10 minute meeting. I look for the cues. Talk to them about their parents, talk to them about their goals, and try to get an insight. But Steve, you've hired dozens and dozens of people over. How do you solve the Peter principle problem?

Steve Moskowitz:

So the first thing is, this isn't real scientific, but probably, for me, would be gut feel.

Chip Franklin:

Well, social science is both of those. It's social and science.

Steve Moskowitz:

And also talking to people with what's really important to you. For example, suppose somebody says, "Look, what's really important to me is skiing on the weekend." Well, okay, so they're really happy Monday through Friday, but they're not going to be available for much things outside of traditional business hours. Somebody else says, "What's really important to me is producing the absolute maximum. And I'll be there day and night." Well, that person could fulfill a different role. Also in the, not just the hours they're working, which is part of it as lawyers, but also what do they like or dislike doing? You could have somebody say, I like doing A, B and C, but I hate X and Y. Well okay, is there something we can do to have you really concentrate on A, B and C. And X and Y, you know what, there's a guy sitting next to you. It's like when I started my practice, [inaudible 00:05:56]-

Chip Franklin:

Can I interrupt you, Steve? How do you know they don't like X and Y?

Steve Moskowitz:

They tell you.

Chip Franklin:

I mean if you're not a boss that allows that kind of communication, how do you know? They just do bad?

Steve Moskowitz:

You find out the hard way.

Chip Franklin:

Yeah. Okay.

Steve Moskowitz:

You'll find out. What I've always said with my employees is the worst thing you can do to me is lie to me. I'll eventually find out and we'll both suffer. If you tell me the truth, we could both avoid the suffering. And that's really worked out well. And the bottom line is that's so important because I started out, when I started my office many years ago by myself, and then I started hiring people. And I'm not so foolish to say that I know how to do everything or like everything. And I'd say, "Well, all right, I like doing this and that. And I don't like doing so and so. I'm going to look for somebody that likes doing what I don't like to do. And he or she can do that. And we'll both be happier and more productive."

And think about it, if you have an employee that can spend a hundred percent of his or her time doing what they're best in, measure the productivity against another employee with equal skills that you force them to do something they hate. They do it because they need the paycheck until they can find their next job. Look at the productivity.

Chip Franklin:

Well can I ask you this, Meghan, and Steve too, I guess in a way. So how do you balance pushing teamwork but also rewarding individual accomplishments and achievements?

Steve Moskowitz:

So first you can have team meetings where you discuss things, and you say, "Look, I really hate to do X." And somebody says, "Well I actually like X." And you can shift as much as you can. And there's also practicality. Sometimes you have to do something that you don't like to do or hate to do for the good of the team, but can we limit it? Okay, is there a project where you have to do x? I know you hate X, but we really need it done and we need it done by next Thursday. But it's rare that we get a case like that.

Chip Franklin:

Were you doing this personally, Steve, or did you have an office manager doing this?

Steve Moskowitz:

I learned the hard way, Chip.

Chip Franklin:

Okay. Meghan, real quick. So is that a real problem about rewarding, talking about, everybody talks about the team, but then you see somebody, like I go back to my Peter principle thing, somebody that you think is not as good as me gets the job above me. That seems to me that when you grow, sometimes you grow so fast, you're not prepared and you make the wrong decisions here. How do you not make those wrong decisions?

Meghan Watkins:

to me to say that they are disappointed in someone's performance and that they're not meeting expectations. And then I will go back and say, "Can you show me the job description laid out for that individual?" And I'll take a look at the job description and I'll say, "Okay, what part of this is not meeting expectations?" And often they'll have forgotten about the job description. They don't even realize what's on that job description. They probably didn't even write the job description.

And so truly the expectations that that manager has in place for their employee is often very much like this.