In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss a Reddit post about an agency leader going MIA and the repercussions for the team. They elaborate on the importance of communication, perception, and flexibility for agency owners.

The conversation includes personal anecdotes from both hosts, highlighting the need for frequent touchpoints, setting clear expectations, and maintaining a balance between taking personal time and being present for the team. They also stress the significance of transparency during challenging times and the benefits of empowering employees to reduce bottlenecks.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

What is happening?

Chip Griffin: That effect really only works if you’re watching this.

Gini Dietrich: I don’t know what just happened.

Chip Griffin: I, I slid off screen. I went MIA.

Gini Dietrich: Oh my gosh. So I don’t even, that was, that was, I think, the best, the best intro we’ve ever had. You just left the screen. And even though I knew what the topic was, I was like, what is happening right now?

Chip Griffin: So it’s just, it’s my way of encouraging listeners to become viewers because. It just, it completely loses the impact of, if you only listened to that portion of it. I, I don’t know how much impact you have, but from watching it either, but, you know, at least it’s, at least you understand what’s going on.

Gini Dietrich: He literally just left the screen.

Chip Griffin: I left the screen. But no, we are, we are, we were inspired by a Reddit post and we haven’t gone to the Reddit well for quite some time.

Gini Dietrich: We haven’t, no. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: So we decided to go back to Reddit and see what people were talking about. And so there is a relatively recent thread there where an agency employee says the principle of their firm has gone completely MIA, leaving them to do all of the work and feeling abandoned by the owner.

That seems like a worthy topic to be discussing.

Gini Dietrich: I feel like the answer is don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t ghost your business or your employees.

Chip Griffin: Don’t ghost your business. And here we go, we’re done. Thanks for listening.

Gini Dietrich: The end. Don’t do that.

Chip Griffin: No, but I, I think it’s, it is, as owners, we sometimes overlook how our actions can be perceived by those who work for us.

So it’s, it’s not necessarily being completely MIA, which obviously we would discourage. But your general availability, for example, can play into your team’s perceptions or your client’s perceptions of what your business is like. Absolutely, and we all, we certainly encourage owners to take all of the, the freedom that comes with being a business owner, don’t just take on all of the risk and stress.

And so you need to have flexibility. And you shouldn’t feel compelled to, to necessarily, you know, work 9 to 5 every day exactly. You should absolutely build some flexibility in to what you do because that is honestly one of the perks of being an owner. and absolutely, increasingly a perk of being an employee these days.

But, you know, that’s a conversation for a separate day. You know, so, but we also have to be mindful of how this can be perceived, particularly by our team members, but also our clients.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you, you’re absolutely right, like taking advantage of the flexibility that you can build in for yourself is one of those things.

And I think there are lots of agency owners who do things like maybe they’re giving back to the industry by teaching, or perhaps they’re volunteering for PRSA or IABC or one of those, right? Or, you know, doing something like that that may be tangentially related to what we do, but not taking, taking you away from the business.

And I think that those are things are good. I think that you absolutely, those are things that you’re passionate about, that you should absolutely be doing those things. But not at the expense of the business or, or of your employees. Because if, if your employees are feeling like they’re running the agency and they can’t get you to make decisions or to have one-to-ones or be present, that’s a problem.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, I mean, this is something that I have struggled with a lot over the years. Not because I just go off and sit in the mountains and, you know, hike and relax and all that kind of stuff. It’s, it’s because I’ve often been running more than one business. Mm-hmm. And so, inevitably one of them will typically get busier than another.

And so those involved in the ones that are less busy at the moment may feel abandoned at times, by me. And so I, it’s something I’ve had to be particularly aware of and making sure that, that I’m safeguarding against being too absent from a particular business. Sometimes you’ve got a business in, in my case, I would’ve, businesses that were running really well and smoothly and the team was executing and so I didn’t feel like I needed to be there.

But the perception can be very different from the team side, right? Where they feel like, well, why are you ignoring us? Right? And the answer might be, because you’re doing such a great job, I don’t really need, I don’t need, yeah. To be there and I’m not adding the value. But unless you’re communicating that to them, they don’t know that.

So I think there’s, there’s two things you need to be mindful of here. One is the perception, and two is your communication strategy around what you’re doing. If it’s industry events and things like that that are causing you to be absent, make sure that the team understands why and how that fits into the, the bigger picture. Because that makes it easier for them to understand and less likely for them to think, oh, well, Chip’s just on another junket.

Here he goes, you know, he, he’s off to San Diego or Miami and you know, it’s the middle of the winter. Of course he is. Why not? And, and, those are things that are, that are important to factor in because it can have a meaningful impact on your team’s performance.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I was on book tour both times, I was absent from the business every week.

I mean, one, I think 2014 I traveled 50 weeks out of the year. So it was extremely hard for me to be on book tour and speaking and business development while also running the business. And my employees. I am fairly confident, felt the, felt the brunt of that. And I don’t think I probably handled it the best way either.

I probably shouldn’t have taken on that much travel. It helped the business grow significantly for sure, because I was also doing business development as part of it, but they definitely felt abandoned in that they were running the agency in my absence. And that I was just off traveling the world and having a great time and Right.

That was their perception. Right. So I think you do, I think communicating that is right and there are certain things that you still have to do. Like I should have, continued with one-to-ones. And because I was traveling and I was speaking and all that, I just sort of let those slide. I should have continued with all team meetings at least biweekly, if not weekly.

So I, I let those things slide because I was traveling and I was exhausted and you know, in many cases I was around the world and so time zones were, were crappy too. But I think that’s right. I think that’s the right approach is that you still have to do certain things. If, if you’re quote unquote, abandoning your agency because you’re doing something else that may or may not be helpful for the agency, or be because you want you, you’re taking advantage of flexibility, which is fine too.

Communicate that, but also continue sort of the process things like one-to-one, right, so that people feel like you’re still involved.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I think that’s key is, is putting in that bit of additional effort to show some sense of normalcy to the rest of the team when you’re, you’re doing those kinds of things. And you know, I suspect that if, if we talked to the owner of, of this person’s agency, they probably wouldn’t describe themselves as MIA.

They would probably describe themselves as busy with a variety of different things, some of which may be beneficial to the agency directly or indirectly or, or what have you. Or, or they may say, as I did, You’ve got this, I don’t need to be there. Mm-hmm. But making sure that you have those regular touch points with your team can certainly help.

I think the other thing to keep in mind is that, and we’ve talked about this before, is that you do have to lead by example. And that means also understanding how the example you are setting is received by your team. So for example, if part of your perception of being MIA is that, that you disappear a couple afternoons a week for your kids’ sporting events.

If you are not enabling your team to do that, maybe not with the same frequency, but at least periodically. That can lead to a real disconnect because why is it okay for you and not for me? And look, there, there are certainly things that are okay for the owner to do and not for employees to do. Yes, yes.

But the more of those things that happen, the more frequently with which they happen, the larger the gap is between what you can do and what your team can do, the more it tends to underscore things. And, and so you do need to be mindful of that perception because your team will often magnify things beyond what you even realize. And that can then lead to morale issues and, and other things that, that can crop up.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think that’s right. You know, I, am most productive really early in the morning. My brain is really fresh and works really well creatively in the morning. So I get up and I work early in the morning just on the, like, the stuff that takes thinking and deep thought, deep work kinds of things.

Then I, you know, do the kid thing and I get school off, get ’em off to school and all that, and then I come home and I work out. So. I am at my desk really early, but then not again until 9:30 or 10. And for a while there people didn’t think that was fair. And I was like, okay, well I’ll see you at 4:30 in the morning then.

Right, right, right. But what I discovered that after I got over my smart assness. Is that really giving them the opportunity to do those things throughout the day. As long as their work gets done and they’re meeting deadlines and you know, all of the things that matter, and clients aren’t requesting their time, then that’s fine.

So I have one person who leaves at 1:50 every day. He goes to the gym at 2, he’s back by 3:15. Okay. That’s totally fine, because he’s doing his job, he’s getting his work done. So giving them the same level of flexibility that you feel comfortable with, I think is an important thing to be able to do as well, because then they don’t feel like you’re getting all this, these advantages and they’re not.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I, and I think that it’s important to, to factor these things even more during tough times for your agency. So, you know, if, if the, the business is struggling and so you’ve, you know, maybe you’ve cut back on resources in order to, to save expense. And so maybe you’re asking your team to do a little bit more.

That’s the wrong time for you to be perceived to be doing a bit less.

Gini Dietrich: Right, right.

Chip Griffin: Or, or immediately after layoffs. You know, you show up with a brand new Ferrari or something like that,

Gini Dietrich: perhaps

Chip Griffin: a bit tone deaf. And, and again, it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, if you’ve gone through tough times, or are going through tough times as an agency that.

That you, you know, you have to, you know, appear to be a pauper. That is not, that is not what I’m telling you. However, you do need to, to understand what the perception will be if you all of a sudden go on a two week vacation to the Alps while you’re taking away resources from your team and making them work, you know, 50, 60 hours a week just to make ends meet within the business.

And, and those are not the kinds of things that you wanna do because it does make it appear as if you have abandoned, not necessarily the business, but at least the team members. And that is not how you get the best performance.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think the tone deafness and the, the perception piece of this is extraordinarily important.

So I, we have a client who about two years ago had to lay off… It was about 35% of their team. And right before they did it, their CEO went on a three week European cruise, all around Europe was gone for three weeks and then he came home and did this. And I remember saying to him, this is a bad idea.

Let’s either do it before you go. Or let’s wait a month or six weeks after you get back, like right after you get back is a bad idea. He did not listen, he did it as soon as he got back. He didn’t wanna do it before and he couldn’t wait, and so he did it as soon as he got back and there was one person who, let’s just say rightfully so threw that in his face when he let him go, and then they ended up suing. And I don’t know, it’s, you know, I don’t know if that that person will win that, that suit lawsuit, but you’re still having to go through the process of being sued and, you know, having to provide documentation and things like that.

And, you know, he could still take the vacation, he could still take the three week cruise. Sure. Right. But the, the timing of it is what was a problem. And so I think we have to really think about that. I think we have to think about, you know, what kind of car we drive and, you know, if people know what kind of home we live in.

And, you know, certainly we have those advantages because we own the company. But at the same time, there are things that people perceive, rightly or wrongly about how you’re running the business and how they’re being treated when, when they have that kind of information about you.

Chip Griffin: Right. And it’s, it’s not about, you know, living your, your life differently necessarily, right?

Because of these things. It’s, it’s, it’s the awareness of them, right? And trying to figure out, you know, how to, how to either communicate around it or make other decisions that, that don’t make it worse at least. And, and preferably even mitigate it to some degree. And, and this is obviously not the topic for today’s show, but you know, whenever you’ve got bad news for your team, don’t sit on it.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: I mean, you, you, you’ve gotta get it out there because people will find out, and, and the sooner that people have bad news, the easier it is for them to make a course correction because of it. And, and the more that you sit on it, if you know that you’re going to have to lay somebody off, just get it done right.

Just get it done

Gini Dietrich: right.

Chip Griffin: Anytime you’ve got bad news, it, it, it stresses you out. It stresses them out. If they find out that you knew it a month ago, two months ago and didn’t tell them so. Just rip that bandaid off and, and move ahead with it. But again, not, not really the topic for today’s conversation, but I, I feel remiss if I don’t make that point.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, it’s, it goes to your point earlier, right? Which is communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. And if you’re having consistent touch bases, you know, you and I both, both believe in weekly one-to-ones. If you’re consistently doing that, if you’re consistently communicating with them, these things will be mitigated just by the fact, the mere fact that you’re talking to your team.

So ensure that you’re doing those things even while you’re doing some of the other things that you might be passionate about or, you know. Have, are enjoying the flexibility with, because that’s the right thing. You know, some people to your point, want to be at their kids’ events and you know, school is not made for working parents.

So sometimes that means 2:45 to 5 is they’re gone. Right. You also don’t see them working late into the night or early in the morning because you’re not at your desk at that time. So you have to understand there are things that, that those owners are going to do to, to quote unquote, make up the time where maybe our employees don’t see that.

So communicate, just talk to them, tell them what’s going on.

Chip Griffin: Yep. Yeah. And, and it’s, you know, just as important it’s to, to talk with ’em. You’ve got to listen to them. Right? Right. Because again, to my point that this owner probably would not describe themselves as MIA, you need to be, you know, tuned into your team so that you can pick up on perhaps that’s the perception.

So if, if you finding that they’re saying, Hey, you know, I, I’m not getting the answers I need, or I’m not getting the information I need, or when do you think you might actually be around for this? Or, you know, kind of listen to some of those things and particularly the tone of some of those things and, and key into them so that you can spot some of these issues before they really become major problems for you to deal with. Because if, if you can sense from these conversations and through the listening that there are things that need to be addressed, you can take care of it a lot easier now than you can six months down the road when it reaches a boiling point.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s the exact correct thing to do.

And you know, I think if your employees are feeling like they’ve been ghosted or abandoned, that’s, that is definitely a you issue. And that needs to be solved pretty fast.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And you, and you’ve gotta encourage the team to open up to you as much as possible. Sure. I mean, you do sign the paycheck, so you’ve gotta be realistic about how much candid feedback and such you’ll get.

But one of the things that, that I have always encouraged my team members to do is to, to feel free to beat me about the head and shoulders if I’m not getting them what they need in a timely enough fashion. And do I believe that they will consistently do that? No. The vast majority of the employees I’ve had haven’t done that consistently, but they know it’s an option to them, so they do tap into that.

As and when needed. I’ve had a handful of employees who are actually really good about it, and by really good, I mean, really kind of annoying about it because like the minute I was a minute late in getting them the feedback that I had promised, I, you know, get the, the knock on my, my office door. Hey, you know, I, I need this.

But frankly, that was helpful, right? It, it, at least it was, it was direct. It got them what they needed and, and so you need to be listening for those cues so that you can spot them and, and hopefully try to improve your own behavior in that going forward. Whether that’s by setting different expectations of the timeliness with which you can get to it because you’re traveling, because you’ve got these other commitments or whatever.

Or simply by, you know, being a little bit quicker to turn those things around.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. That is one of the most, I think that’s one of the most challenging things is that piece of it is being the bottleneck on, on certain kinds of things. So. Figuring out ways to communicate that effectively. And sometimes you promise something, like, I could promise something to you by Wednesday, but I don’t know, based on what my schedule is right at this moment.

Right, right. But there’s gonna be client things that come up. There are gonna be HR issues that come up that I am not at all expecting, and all of a sudden my whole week is thrown into chaos where there’s no physically possible way I can now get it to you by Wednesday because of all this other stuff and some of that I can’t communicate to the employee.

Right? Right. So I just have to say like, some things came up. I’m really sorry. Can I get an extra 48 hours? Or whatever it happens to be. Right? So I think those are the kinds of conversations we have to be really understanding about, because the perception is that you’re just ignoring them and you’re sitting at your desk drinking wine and painting your toenails.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I stopped painting my toenails a few years ago. But anyway, so, you know, but I think that along those lines, I think it’s, it’s important for you, excuse me, to, to be clear about what you actually need to be a bottleneck on. And so sometimes this can be a useful exercise to say, do I really need to, to review and approve this?

Do I really need to edit this? If not, maybe that’s something that you can pass off. And so maybe the way that you solve some of those things is by passing it along and saying, you’ve got the authority to handle this now. I completely trust you on this. I don’t need to see this. You take it, you run with it.

And, and I’ve often used those situations where I’m becoming an increasing bottleneck to try to figure out how do we change the process. So that I’m not. Either by involving me at a different stage or just taking me out of it altogether. Yep. Because, and that’s particularly true when I would find things where I was consistently just saying, yep, this is good.

Yep, this is good. And, and I, and I didn’t feel the need any longer to keep going through that. And so you need to find those things, but also communicate why you are taking yourself outta that process. Because if you just take yourself out of it. That’s where you look like you’re going MIA. Right? If you say, look, I completely trust your judgment you’re doing, I don’t need to see this and you should usually include the caveat unless you want me to look at something, right?

Because sometimes someone just feels more confident about, maybe there’s something they’re putting out and they just, they want your set of eyes on it. They just, they want that perspective. Sure. Don’t discourage them from doing that, but let them know that on a routine basis, that’s not necessary.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think that’s really important too. So I think there are a few good takeaways from this, that this is not necessarily the, the topic of the day, but you know, breaking up that bottleneck, ensuring that your team is, is you’re consistently running the business from like a process perspective.

I think that’s really smart. Communicating effectively is really smart. There was one other that you said our top, the podcast wasn’t about that I thought was really good. Shoot.

Chip Griffin: Well, the beauty is people have the recording you, you can just hit rewind, go backwards. They can look at the transcript that Jen puts up on the website.

I do that sometimes as well just to see what I said. Right. Figure, figure out, you know, so I’m consistent ish in my advice that I give. So, but in any case. Hopefully you have some, some things that you can use as tools so that you’re not perceived as MIA or if you have to be MIA. How to communicate more effectively and work with your team on it.

And lots of bonus tips in here as well, because we just can’t help ourselves and we’ll follow whatever path we might find we do over the course of the conversation, at least after I come back on camera and on work so that I can participate. So with that, I’m gonna go, I guess I’m not MIA because you know that we’re wrapping up and so it will make sense when I leave at the end of this.

But I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.