Samantha Pruit: 0:22

Hey superstars.

Polly Mertens: 0:23

Welcome back Polly Mertens and Sam Pruitt, what’s up beautiful humans?

Samantha Pruit: 0:28

Hello everybody, and I’m really excited about today. This is our third part of a three-part series, you might say. So what are we talking about today?

Polly Mertens: 0:37

We’re talking about one of the many, many things we are into up to our eyeballs on a regular basis, which is building an A-team, or resurrecting or reconstructing an A-team if yours is broken down or you inherit one.

Samantha Pruit: 0:53

Yeah, yeah, and you got some dysfunction. You’re noticing some dysfunction in things and it’s like, oh, it’s time for some changes. And so I think what we want to do to start is, if you haven’t listened to those first two episodes, maybe we can go through a quick recap or kind of share with them a little bit about those, in case they want to go listen to those episodes. So in the first one, what were we talking about? It was being yeah, what is an A-team?

Polly Mertens: 1:19

So basically, we talked about what do we even mean when we say that? Right, so we’re saying a team, as in capital, a okay, not just a team, but like the, a team is the highest performing team. You can build, lead, be on as a teammate, like expecting an, a performance yes, an awesome performance from yourself and your teammates is what we’re talking about, and that we kind of break it down. So you need to go back and listen. What does that look like, what does that feel like, what does it taste like, smell like and why is it like something that you should be fired up about? So we sold them on the idea and I’m sure it was pretty easy to sell them. And then the next was the why it’s important. So what does it bring in an instance of being on an, a team versus just being on a team Like, how does it deliver the goods? And we picked that apart at length.

Polly Mertens: 2:18

But why should the leader care about creating that highest level of team and why should the teammate care about being on that team? So we talk about why those value systems are so critical and what that really means to the humans, cause really we’re in the business of humans here.

Samantha Pruit: 2:36

And potential.

Samantha Pruit: 2:37

You know. I think yeah, and I think you know people and we don’t no-transcript helping people remember and recognize when they’re not being their best self and what the potential. And you know we’re all about. You know reigniting that fire to remind people it’s there, it’s possible, it’s in you. Maybe you’ve swayed from it, maybe you’ve had some trauma that got in the way of it, maybe you’ve had some people telling you otherwise or whatnot, or you’re telling yourself, but it’s time to come back to that and come back to that. And so today what’s really exciting is we get to talk about, like the how to build it. You know and we’ve been kind of scheming our ideas and want to share those with you. So what do you want to start with? What do you want to tell them about how to build? You’ve got a nice little list of like how to build it, how to choose the people, stuff, like that.

Polly Mertens: 3:57

So yeah, just a brief. But speaking to leaders of communities, of families, of businesses, of sports teams, whatever that might look like, there’s some very basic, foundational, if you will, stuff that needs to be executed first, and it starts with you, the person who is the boss, the leader in charge of the thing mom, coach, boss, all of that stuff. Okay, so it’s so important. Well, let’s be candid. We hear from a lot of people who are leading things, businesses, et cetera, and their struggles right, and they always are wanting to kind of point the finger outbound to their teams, and so we’ll get into how to build that team and how to fix broken teams. But let’s start with having a candid conversation with the leader. Is you are the leader, so you have to take full responsibility for creating an environment where your team can thrive.

Polly Mertens: 4:59

So, starting with some very basic stuff and I’m sure that everybody will get this and be nodding when they hear it, but I hope that they give thought to this Okay, so the leader must have clarity of vision, purpose, values. So clarity of vision, purpose and values, clarity of mission and goals. Clarity of mission and goals Now, these might sound so obvious and so basic, but we see over and over that. That does not exist, and maybe it exists in the individual leader’s head, but they have not really committed to those things in a concrete way. So they can then pick the right people, communicate appropriately, and so forth, with all that information. So I’m going to say it again clarity of vision and purpose, clarity of values, clarity of mission and goals.

Samantha Pruit: 5:52

And one of the things we talked about how we want to format today’s. You know, sharing of ideas is a little bit with story and so I just want to interject what you were saying is like when that’s not happening. Interject what you were saying is like when that’s not happening. So I we’re calling a team that I’ve been on, where the leader, I think, didn’t have their own sense of clarity, you know, like, like they just were like and it’s okay not to know, but like, say that, like, oh, yeah, it’s okay to say that’s a good question and maybe see if that person, you know, like myself, if I was coming to the leader and saying, well, what do you want to do in this situation? Or where should we go with this, or what’s the new objective? If we’re not doing X, what is Y? Right, whatever?

Samantha Pruit: 6:31

So coming to that person and saying , hey, what do you want me to do?

Samantha Pruit: 6:35

Where are we going?

Samantha Pruit: 6:36

Give me the clarity, give me the hand-me-down so that we can run with it, take the ball, and that person, just, I just want to say, like, dancing around it, like it was almost like watching you know someone just tiptoeing around and going, oh, I don’t what about it. And and in that conversation, it’s okay to say I don’t know, let me get back to you, or let me think on that, or pass it back to me and say what do you think we should do, or what do you think is next, or whatever it was, but trying to pull out of that person that clarity and just sort of bumping up and then walking away just like I got nothing, you know, like you know, here’s a high performing person, like a high performing racehorse, ready to run in any direction, send me off, but you know, not, no fuel was available. No, no, it’s like I don’t know what the goalpost is is pretty much what that conversation sounded like. So, anyway, so I just want to say and then the communication, though, like yeah, communicating, and almost over communicating it, I think, to people take it for granted, like oh, yeah, everybody knows that, or oh, they should all know I mean this. Or whatever.

Polly Mertens: 7:44

That’s the thing you see in here. A lot is that people make assumptions, and you know what they say about assumptions. People make assumptions that of course, my team, family, my group, knows what I’m into, what the values are here, why we’re doing the thing.

Samantha Pruit: 8:00

No, they don’t.

Polly Mertens: 8:01

They would they know this. They are not you, why would they know this? And the level of just misfiring between these two really basic, elemental opportunities of do I know these things about myself, about the organization, about the family, the team, whatever? Do I know them? Have I written them down? Am I committed to them? Do I have great clarity? And then have I conveyed this to the individuals who I want to be following me in the path of our journey together, like that is just a big misfire. So anyway, I’m really on a soap box right now. I know that that is just a big misfire, so anyway, I’m really on a soap box right now.

Samantha Pruit: 8:47

I know that, but it’s making me crazy. No, and I want to. I want to add emphasis because one of the things, too, that I think is okay, that people sometimes lose track of, is it’s okay for those goalposts to change, because that’s fricking life and business and stuff and what you’re saying is not.

Polly Mertens: 8:59

Oh, you know, like I remember put it down once and walk away from it. Right, right, right, like people.

Samantha Pruit: 9:03

You know, like I remember counseling people and like write a business plan and then put it in the drawer.

Samantha Pruit: 9:07

It’s like, yeah, that’s not like you know, oh, here’s the marketing plan, boom, and you, you know, throw it in the round file, right. It’s like, no, it’s living, it’s. You know, we’re working on it. It’s like you go out, you test stuff and you see what works. Oh, that didn’t work, correct and continue, right. And same thing, I think, with the goalposts, the vision, the things that we’re doing. I mean, the big, big vision should pretty much stay the same, but you need to be re-communicating as things are adjusting, because hell, I mean, some things can change by the week, you know.

Polly Mertens: 9:39

So yeah, yeah, Okay, so, and then the other thing is wait for it Get the right people again.

Polly Mertens: 9:50

Communication and being foundational about these things we do not clearly convey. We put a job description up, right, and we put names and labels and people in buckets and all these things that we do, but we’re human beings. It’s so much more complex than that, right? So how are we going to go about finding the right humans to be on the team? Do they share the same value system, they care about the mission and are they committed to it? Do they understand and I mean really do they understand what is involved in being on a team, a network of people working towards a common goal? Or are they just ticking a box, right? Or are you just ticking a box putting warm buns in seats, right? So this can go both ways. So, getting the right people on the team and that does be like. What is your job description? How does it read? How are you interviewing the humans? How are you deciding if these are the right humans to be with you on this journey, and how are you getting these right humans?

Polly Mertens: 11:10

Let’s say there’s five roles on your team, or 50 or 500 or whatever. Do they complement each other? What a concept person could have these skills, but if they all have the same skills, that probably isn’t going to work right, you need complementary skill sets, but yet individual skill sets to come together as a stronger, greater entity. When conjoined, are their communication styles radically different? Are their value systems radically different? You know, do some people like to work a 12 hour day because that’s the kind of individual they are and other people are, you know, four hour humans Like. If you try and put all these people together on a team and they’re very different from one another, it’s going to be a lot harder to manage that, unless you intentionally are filling those roles individualistically, are filling those roles individualistically, but then you, as the leader, can bring those individuals together to all perform at their highest in a unit.

Samantha Pruit: 12:11

And I think, yeah, and I wholeheartedly agree Some things that were kind of bubbling around in the back of my mind as you were saying. All that is, you know, one of the things I’ve learned in the last, I’d say later in my career let’s say, building teams and stuff is the importance of fit, like the person, fit, and it’s a little, you know. So we published on our podcast the interview that we did with Becca Shea, who she uses that tool, culture index, which is fabulous. I think it’s wonderful in helping you understand, like, the inner workings of the person. That person may not even know their inner workings, right, you know. So you ask them direct questions, but in that questionnaire and in that culture index and there’s other ones out there there’s, you know, that you can look at, but it’s helping us understand the human and what they’re like.

Samantha Pruit: 13:03

And I think one of the a couple of things that I see people have some big breakdowns, especially in smaller teams or smaller businesses, is a they’re not really financially savvy, so things get off the rails fast. They’re not knowing their numbers. So finance is a whole nother conversation, but the other big one, I think, is in the team and in the dynamics and I think people keep team members around way too long and I’m not saying you have to let them go, whatever, but like they keep people on their team because they don’t know their own skills at finding the right person right. Like they don’t have tools, they don’t have processes, they don’t have filtering, they don’t have a good inner gut. You know sense. They don’t know what a good fit is. Like they haven’t really looked at this thing that you’re talking about.

Samantha Pruit: 13:49

Like you know it, like what you’re saying you know. Like putting the people in and then make it high performing. Like it’s it’s so who you are, but people who aren’t there right now, like they haven’t built a great team, like they have to understand. Like it’s a process, learning how to study people and and pull the best out and and knowing what fit means versus like a skillset, right, it’s like, oh, you’ve done Microsoft Word and you’ve Excel and you know this program that we use and it’s like, okay, great, checking those boxes, but, like you know, are, do you show up to meetings on time? How is your communication style? What happens to you when you get put under pressure? Can people count on you when deadlines get tight? You know whatever. Like those things that are fit, that you’re talking about, that. Are these like gooey subjects? That they’re gooey?

Polly Mertens: 14:37

Yeah, that’s a perfect word for it. Yeah.

Samantha Pruit: 14:40

Yeah, humans are gooey though Right.

Polly Mertens: 14:43

So we’re trying to get humans to come together individually and then into a collective entity to perform at their highest level. So you have to take all the gooeyness into consideration, because they bring that with them. They don’t leave that at home when they go to work okay, yeah, so they’re not.

Samantha Pruit: 15:02

They’re not robots. Some people can compartmentalize, I get that. You know they don’t bring the the too much of the at home drama, but they’re so human, you know it’s their personality?

Polly Mertens: 15:14

yeah, like they’re perfectly imperfect, and so is the leader. Yeah, right, so I wouldn’t want to walk into a room or a dynamic or some kind of situation where I’m going to be asked to perform a skill or whatever without people looking at me as a human being. Right, I want them to be like okay, this is your skillset and we need to do these things, but we also see you’re a human. Okay, and so, within reason, how do you get there? What does it sound like to you? What are your ideas? How do you navigate the world? Samantha Pruitt, right, and then let me see if I can support you in the process towards our goal. So I would know how to meet that individual’s needs. Yeah, right, if I understood them. Yes, what? Get out of town, anyway. Okay, now we’re going into rabbit holes. Okay, talk about the foundation we should get started.

Samantha Pruit: 16:10

I love this. I love this. So one of the things that we will share in the show notes is a wonderful. Do we call it like an infographic that we found, or like a diagram, a concept? You know, and we’ll quote who this is from and stuff, but it’s imagine like a triangle and on the base of the triangle, or the foundation of a house, if you will. Yeah, there’s five tiers. I’m just going to speak them and then we can. We can go into them a little bit and how this was built on.

Samantha Pruit: 16:38

Like potentially, what the five dysfunctions of teen, like what can get you really off the rails, you know, like lead to pain in your business, if you will, or in your family, and then what leads to success, or high functioning teams or high performance, or your everyone is achieving their potential, if you will. So, first one, bottom of the pyramid, the biggest one, building trust. I know we’ll come back. I love it Building trust. Next one, resolving conflict. Next one, above that commit as a team. Next one, above that, hold each other accountable. And the top of the pyramid, focus on results. So we have a lot to unpack there. So maybe we start with the bottom and in this, what’s beautiful and we, you know, as you’re listening to this you can’t see it, but I’m hoping you can kind of picture it. It’s actually very pretty. It’s like multicolored. That’s like, you know, part of our brand. You know it’s like colorful and on the left-hand side of this diagram, what this person, who is this, patrick Leoncini in his book, has created is like when teams are out of balance, when they’re in dysfunction. So the five things that you get, and more, but like basically the five dysfunctions you get guardedness, resentment, yuck, hesitancy, flakiness. I love that.

Samantha Pruit: 18:02

One. Status games. That’s fascinating status games. And then the flip side of that is when these things are in place and functioning and running smoothly and operating, the brilliant the potential for a team is. You have in trust, you have openness as you go up the ladder, you have candor amongst the people, you have clarity, like you were just talking about. You know the vision and the clarity. High standards love that. And then collective success. I mean it’s like the best. That’s what we want. So all right. So let’s, let’s unpack some of this, my dear.

Polly Mertens: 18:46

So foundational building of this house that we’re speaking of, the foundation, has to be built on trust. Yeah, has to be built on trust, and we both have had many, many experiences as is every other human who is listening to this podcast right now where they have lost trust in another human being, not always in the workplace, but sometimes in many times, unfortunately, um, but in other areas of their life. So everybody knows what it feels like to not trust somebody. Oh, it’s the worst. Yeah, it hurts, it kind of breaks my heart actually, just to say it out loud.

Samantha Pruit: 19:14

Yeah, and we see that in sometimes leadership in our own government or businesses and whatnot. Okay, we won’t go there, you’re right.

Polly Mertens: 19:22

Yeah, please go.

Samantha Pruit: 19:23

But I mean. So I’ll just give a small example of this. I just wanted to tell a quick story. So, um, you know, in a team that I was working with, uh, not too long ago, um, there was a person who was overloaded and the more it felt, like week by week, month by month, that person became more and more overloaded. And that person was the kind of person who would like make a commitment.

Samantha Pruit: 19:46

And you know, like, oh, I’ll get you to that thing, or you know, I’ll send you an email, or you can expect this from me by whatever, right, and those are, they seem like micro moments, right, but when that didn’t happen, right. So, like, I’ll get you that by Friday, right, and the email says you know, I’ll get you that by Friday. And the email says you know, I’ll get you X by Friday, okay, and then you don’t hear from them Friday, you don’t hear from them Monday, you don’t hear from them Tuesday. And then you know, like you, me, I’m reaching out to that person on Wednesday, like, hey, what’s going on? And then there’s excuses, whatever. You know all this stuff.

Samantha Pruit: 20:21

And that can happen once, but this started to happen repeatedly and I think trust is a I kind of look at it either like you could say, scales on, like that old fashioned, you know judgment, you know the balancing of the scales or bank accounts right. Like you make deposits and then withdrawals. You go into the black. When you make deposits and trust, you know you are your word, you say you’re going to do something and you keep that commitment, or you tell somebody that they can count on you and you come through and then withdrawals are, you know those like micro moments and sometimes macro moments, where something happens either in your control or out of your control, and then how do you respond to it, right? So something that I learned years ago in the Landmark Forum, which was something that transformed my relationship to integrity and trust, is you’re your word and if you’re not, you clean it up.

Samantha Pruit: 21:08

So it’s not saying that you’re never not your word, but you take steps. You have to clean it up if you weren’t your word. Like you know, and in this pursuit, in the world of the Landmark Forum, there are big things that people get up to like, let’s say, high-, high performing teams and what they would share and kind of their philosophy was things are going to break down, Like if you’re performing at a high level, you can expect deadlines. Will you know?

Polly Mertens: 21:34

promises You’re under pressure.

Samantha Pruit: 21:35

Yeah, things are gonna like, oh, you know, and like, think of busy moms is what I think was like 36,000 things or whatever, like, oh, yeah, she forgot to text you. Oh, didn’t get the groceries that are, you know, didn’t pick up whatever and stuff, and it’s the, it’s the response. It’s like what do you do with that relationship? Do you recognize that there was a breakdown in the relationship, the commitment to your child, to your coworker, whatever it is, and how do you respond to that?

Samantha Pruit: 22:06

Like I’m sorry, this is you know excuse or no excuse, own it and what? And what’s next? And what are you going to do about it? Right, like, and I’ll get it to you tomorrow and I can’t, I can no longer do this. What? Maybe that’s it. It’s like I made that commitment but I’m physically or emotionally, whatever, I can’t do it for you. Whatever it is, you know so.

Polly Mertens: 22:20

At the root of that is being honest with yourself and then being honest and communicating with others, which, again, they seem like really basic, integral parts of just the functioning human. But we have to say it because we repeatedly see it not happening or we see trust is lost and trust, can you get it back? I mean, it’s pretty tough right.

Samantha Pruit: 22:48

Depends on the the what is it Agree is how agree is it was? You know, was it a malicious or was it repetitive? Was it repetitive? Does it? Does it show character? You know? Is that, like you know, is it narcissistic or is it non-trustworthy? You know whatever you know, types of things so like narcissistic or is it non-trustworthy? You know whatever you know, types of things so like as people you know, believe what they say, but watch what they do, you know, kind of thing.

Polly Mertens: 23:21

So 1,000% your actions and a quick, high performance team experience. I have around trust, that one of the things I because I event produce on a regular basis and have, for you know, almost 20 years now produce on a regular basis and have for almost 20 years now.

Samantha Pruit: 23:31

So when you’re in those environments and you’re in a very high stakes game team.

Polly Mertens: 23:33

everything is under the wire here. People do interesting things because it’s like a bit of a pressure cooker kind of thing. But it’s so cool to be on those teams and I have the privilege that I have been, luckily to be reaping the rewards or to contribute in this way, where you absolutely know your teammates have your back. You might make a mistake, whatever, not hit the deliverable or something, but somebody steps in and gets you. They cover for you. I mean, that kind of workflow is the perfect situation, right? So balls are in the air and they’re not going to drop. Even if I’m not perfect today, because I’m human and I’m tired, or this or that, or I can’t get there or whatever the thing is, one of my teammates swoops on in, makes it happen and what you’re linking is the first, foundational, and the top one, which is like everyone’s focused on the result, right?

Samantha Pruit: 24:30

So yeah, you’ve got all the other little layers. You know people have trust, and I want to say one of the things we’ve talked about before, as we’re looking at this diagram and this interpretation of the dysfunction is, I think, especially for women, and I don’t know if this is true for men. I’m not a man, but I think people would also say safety, right. So trust and safety, and a lot of things can come out of that physical safety, emotional safety, communication safety, what have you? So, when you feel safe to you know A be yourself, tell people I’m having trouble today, whatever, or like I can’t do that or whatever or something. Or you know the safety. It’s safe to tell somebody that you’re having trouble today, whatever, or like I can’t do that or whatever or something’s. Or you know the safety. It’s safe to tell somebody that you’re having trouble with them, you know. The next one is like resolving conflict right, when there’s a safe space created, a safe space.

Samantha Pruit: 25:18

Yeah, for people to speak and there’s trust with those people. You’re not going to attack me.

Polly Mertens: 25:24

You’re not going to blame whatever you know and you’re not going to have any problem raising your hand and saying help. Yeah, because I can be vulnerable enough to do that and I’m not worried about backlash, judgment and all the drama that might follow suit. Yeah, raise your hands and say help, and everybody comes sweeping in, for sure.

Samantha Pruit: 25:41

For sure, and so you have a lot of experience with this next one, if we want to talk about resolving, conflict Resolving, conflict. And so this is all about. I mean, this is communication, communication, communication, email, text, phone, in person, whatever, zoom, whatever, and unresolved conflict. Right, Like what does that breed, right?

Polly Mertens: 26:03

It’s at the root of conflict, I would say fear, and it generally comes from individuals or an individual. You know it takes two people to have conflict, so it starts with one and maybe whatever, everybody brings their own fun to the party when there’s conflict involved. Their own party favors, but there’s fear of not being able to fully express, be seen, be heard. So that’s a common thread. You know there’s two people that are radically different humans. Hallelujah, you know, I mean people don’t work with their twin and all that. You know, like we’re all really different. We come with a lifetime of experience to the meeting, to the table, to the group, and we should be seen as individuals and respected as individuals.

Samantha Pruit: 26:52

So yeah, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say and I think that’s a key point is people think that everybody’s like them, or people who make the mistake they do?

Polly Mertens: 27:03

It’s the weirdest thing how come Sally doesn’t see it like I see it?

Samantha Pruit: 27:07

Like I do it right. Yeah, what’s wrong with her? How?

Polly Mertens: 27:10

come. Fred does it this way. My way is right, Fred’s way is obviously wrong. It’s like huh.

Samantha Pruit: 27:15

And I’m raising my hand over here. I’m so guilty of this at times, so guilty I’m like what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you like? But it’s like we have to remember. What you’re saying is like recognize who this person you know, and it’s not. I think what’s beautiful is I brought up just a minute ago about Becca and the culture index is when we can know our own inner workings, right, like. So. I’ve done these tests in a lot of different ways, whether it’s Myers-Briggs or just you know, disc or works place, whatever. I know the way I am better now and so I know some of my shenanigans I get up to, like my you know my brevity and my you know competitive spirit, and I’m like you know and it’s like. But it helps me also in the process of learning about myself, which I’m a continuing, you know, student of this learning how other people are and being able to recognize them faster, right.

Samantha Pruit: 28:09

That’s so important because, let’s say, there’s in a lot of these things there’s usually four buckets that you can draw people into, with little flavors or whatnot.

Samantha Pruit: 28:17

And when you understand that there are a different bubble or a different bucket than you and they’re gonna function and they’re gonna need and they’re gonna communicate and what’s important to them is different than yours, then you can start to build that bridge right well, at the root of that is compassion and respect for human individuality, and again we’re talking about like really foundational yeah things, and I love how our voices are so like shot and because we see so much yeah, this is, this is, and it’s so emotive for us because I think this is where we, as humans, spend so much time, right like there’s so many either breakdowns or successes in the area of just sending an email or a text or communication, or having a freaking conversation stop texting for business.

Polly Mertens: 29:12

Can we just set a rule right now that that should never actually happen?

Polly Mertens: 29:16

yeah or dms or whatsapp or whatever. You can’t have a business conversation in. You know 100 characters or less. But, um, I want to circle back on one thing, because we’re talking about conflict and there is a lot of it, and we’re human, so it’s going to happen, but like, how to navigate it? But it’s also so incredibly rewarding, as the leader, to look and be really present with the individuals. So see them for who they are, understand what makes them tick. This is because you’ve invested in them, by the way. Okay, so now I’m not talking about stereotypes or making assumptions. You’ve invested time to find out. Who is that human? What makes them tick? What are they about? How can I best be of service to bring out the best in them so they can reach their potential? This is the gold. Who doesn’t want to be on that team, sports team, family team, work team where you feel invested in and you are investing in one another? It’s so good.

Samantha Pruit: 30:26

Well, I just want to stand out and say that this is the Samantha Pruitt way. That’s why what you just said is you’re knowing, like you said that, like so confidently and like effortlessly, because you’ve embodied it, you’ve believed it, you’ve lived it and like that’s who you show up in the world, and I think it’s important to just recognize, you know, if it’s not how you feel right now about your team, or maybe you’re not recognizing in your own team that you’re, like you just said, like you’re getting to know the humans behind the role or the job or the name or whatever, you do that and that’s what makes things harmonious for you, I think massive rewards yeah, massive rewards.

Polly Mertens: 31:06

It feels damn good, but it also speaks to high performance. It delivers the goods and also this is how I want to be treated in the world. So there’s that, which seems, also should make it really important to you to do it with others, right, yeah?

Samantha Pruit: 31:26

Well, so I just want to put a pin in that Navigating conflict, navigating conflict.

Polly Mertens: 31:29

It’s a thing. You’ve got humans. It’s going to be messy with others, right? Yeah, yeah, well, so I just want to put a navigating conflict, navigating conflict it’s a thing you’ve got humans. It’s going to be messy. Yeah, they’re bringing.

Samantha Pruit: 31:35

What you don’t do is send them a text okay, you said they’re bringing their party, their party favors. I was like, yeah, and their personality flavors. You know that’s what I would say. Like they show up with all these spices that they bring to the recipe that you guys are going to cook and it’s like prepare, like it’s going to taste different now that we’re cooking with. You know all of this.

Polly Mertens: 31:53

Yeah, you know that’s funny. It’s like going to a meeting with a bunch of coworkers and you know there’s a whole. There’s a couple of people that always want to order Subway.

Samantha Pruit: 32:03

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 32:03

Right. And then there’s a couple of people that always want to order Thai food and then, like, everybody has a different desire for food, flavor, spice in their life, it’s no different. Like, if you just think of that as being, how can we come together and create a dish that is going to be palatable and taste good to all? Right, meeting them where they’re at, having an energy match, identifying dysfunctional energy. So let me just pinpoint that for a hot second is, as the leader, you feel this and smell this and taste this before you actually know about it the breakdown in communication, the dysfunction in the communication bucket. You’ll see people acting out of fear. You’ll see them wearing their anxiety right.

Polly Mertens: 32:57

It will come into the space vibrationally different with one another and, frankly, even with themselves, how they will carry themselves, how they will look at each other. You need to pay attention to all of this because that’s happening way before things are blowing up. That’s happening way before, so pay attention. I love this and again be in the know because you’re invested in them. So you know that Susie’s way of being in the world is always a certain you know. This has you, and all of a sudden you feel something has shifted there.

Samantha Pruit: 33:29

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 33:30

Why are you ignoring that?

Samantha Pruit: 33:32

This is so good because two things I think I want to echo what you’re saying. One is you’re you have developed your spidey sense of your people because you know them. You know there’s a lot of rapport, if you will like. You know this person is usually like this and when they’re not like this, okay, that’s what’s happening there. Right, and I would say two things.

Samantha Pruit: 33:53

One is, as we looked at that pyramid, one of the things on the left-hand side of like dysfunction is resentment, right, and resentments are build up, just problems, let’s just call it. You know, whatever that is like little withholds In a relationship. We would say resentment between a husband and wife or partners is withholds. Like I’m not speaking my truth with you, I don’t feel safe or be, I don’t think you’ll value it, or it’s unresolved, whatever. And you start to create these little micro moments.

Samantha Pruit: 34:20

And so if you start to see that, as you said in the team, people are withholding or you can sense like they’re biting their tongue or whatever, you know, you’ll start to get and if you don’t dig into it, like, hey, we’ve got to open up that little wound before it becomes a massive abscess and we need to, like get it out on the table. So when there’s that, the trust and the safety, if you will, to communicate, then you can have that candor that they talk about is like let’s resolve this and be up for each other. Right, it’s not a, you know, it’s. We’re not trying to conflict, we just don’t see eye to eye on something. How can we resolve it? So okay.

Polly Mertens: 34:56

So how do you deal with the conflict? You have hard conversations I mean again, that’s also just called life and maybe through a lifetime of doing it or not doing it, you maybe are good at it or you maybe suck at it, but it doesn’t matter. You’re in a leadership position and part of your job is being willing to have the hard conversations. So showing up, speaking truth kindly, genuinely, authentically, not, you know, pointing blame and all the drama. I’m talking about just having conversations that maybe are uncomfortable, it must happen.

Samantha Pruit: 35:33

Yeah, you got to develop that muscle somewhere, right, absolutely Okay. What’s next? We move to commit as a team. This one to me, I translate commit as a team to buy in right.

Samantha Pruit: 35:46

Where I’ve seen myself or I’ve seen teams work or not work, is are the people bought in? You know, like, do I have buy-in from this team member to get them to do X, y, z right, like you know, and they may not always love the thing Right, so it’s not like everything, you know, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows doing the thing. But are they bought into the mission? Are they bought into their role? Are they bought into the future? Are they, you know? You know, are they committed as a team? And so what you see, when they’re not the on this pyramid, it says, is hesitancy or sabotage.

Polly Mertens: 36:21

Oh, I’m not going to deliver those things on time to Fred, because then I’m holding up Fred’s progress. Look at me having some power and control over Fred setting him up for failure. Why would you do that to a teammate I know? Why would you do that? You don’t believe in the mission. You don’t have commitment to the code of conduct of the team, and I want you to talk about code of conduct. You don’t believe that your values are aligned with the values of the organization of the team.

Samantha Pruit: 36:50

Yeah, for sure, for sure, and you know, we’ll just maybe, maybe this is a good time we can talk a little bit about code of conduct and I had thought maybe I would read a little bit. And I had thought maybe I would read a little bit. So I have this thing that many years ago, when I started teaching my entrepreneurship classes, I came upon this thing called the Rodel way or O-D-E-L way. I can’t even find it myself anymore, but that’s what it was called.

Samantha Pruit: 37:13

I squirreled that document away in my family of documents and I used it for years in my teaching, and so I would start each of my classes with every student signing the rodel way and then we read it out loud. So it was two steps and, and I love, I was had to sign it and assign it. So it’s like one of those, like I blank.

Polly Mertens: 37:41

Good job teach.

Samantha Pruit: 37:43

I blank and you say your name, you know. So I Polly and then it goes on. You know it’s not, there’s nothing in it that’s uncomfortable, it’s more, it’s the commitments and the agreements for how we’ll speak with each other, how we’ll be with each other, how we’ll act with each other. What you can count on me for and and in my favorite, is in the world that I get this from Blair Singer. He talks about the code of code of honor is his work out of the work of his book called sales dogs. Sorry, that was a lot there, but he calls it calling it tight, okay, and so I just wanted to share this idea with people. So you create your code of conduct, right, and in military they would say whatever the military words are, you know like they have their whole code of conduct from what I’ve understood right, and it’s calling it tight is you create this container. So I would create this container with my students, or sometimes I’ve used this with my women’s mastermind groups, things like that.

Samantha Pruit: 38:43

And then when things don’t go that way, way, or somebody performs or speaks or acts in a way that’s outside of what we’ve agreed to, everyone in the room, everyone in the group that’s agreed to this, can call it, can say hey, you know.

Samantha Pruit: 38:59

So let’s say it was speaking. I think one of the things it kind of sounded like you know, speaking positively to each other, right, we don’t cut each other down, we don’t blame each other, we don’t, you know, criticize you know, you know, I mean you can give feedback or something, but it was, there was just not a sharpness that was allowed. It was like things were delivered with a compassionate casing, you know, like I love what you’re up to and this is some feedback I have for you. And so calling it tight is like when somebody would gossip, or they would blame or they would, you know, cut somebody down. Anyone, anyone in the room could say, hey, you know, I just noticed this, and it just brings it to the level of the awareness of the person who maybe realized that they weren’t following the code of conduct. Right, and give them an opportunity to take a step right.

Polly Mertens: 39:44

I love when you use the word container. So earlier we talked about creating a safe environment where all of these things we’re talking about can actually be grown inside the safe container. Right, not the weeds, but the quality of the garden we’re trying to create. So when you say code of conduct, but the quality of the garden we’re trying to create. So when you say code of conduct, it’s like that is the safe container where this is what we will and won’t do right With each other on the daily, in the space, as we work together as a team towards this common mission, shared set of goals. This is our operating system, if you will.

Samantha Pruit: 40:21

Yeah, I think where you see some ways somehow. When you started to say, say that I was thinking of like people’s vows when they get married. You know, I mean, maybe that’s a.

Polly Mertens: 40:28

Oh my gosh, who goes back and reads those? Oops, my husband’s like hello. We should probably revisit that after 26 years.

Samantha Pruit: 40:39

OK, totally.

Polly Mertens: 40:40

Why do people renew their vows? I?

Samantha Pruit: 40:43

know, did they forget? No, because they want to be reminded, they want to recommit. And it’s amazing, you know, I could talk for a while and from how your mind works, from a hypnotherapy standpoint of speaking and that committing, and then, especially what I would say, why I used to do it. We read it aloud as a group A now I understand energetically that we were creating vibration together, you know, and so we create that context in a harmonious way and it’s like we’re going through this portal together.

Samantha Pruit: 41:13

We’re going to embark on this thing, but in my, in this case, was like you know, container together, yeah, and while we’re in this container, you can go be, you know, the wild, wild west Outside of here, in your family. You can treat them any way you want, but in this container we come together, you know.

Samantha Pruit: 41:30

So, like one of them, and this is I, don’t know why this is jumping up at me, but I literally had this thing that I did in my classes because I was on kind of a high horse for integrity for a while. So this building that the class that I used to teach was in, they had a door that they would shut and it was. It was a kind of a security thing. We were there after hours, nobody else was in the building, and stuff like that. So I would teach, you know, I would share with my students, like this is the code of conduct, is you need to be in the building?

Samantha Pruit: 41:59

because our room was within the building, right, and I wasn’t going to stop the class and, like, go out and I couldn’t leave the door open, so it was like you have to text me five minutes before if you’re not going to make it or if you’re going to be a little tardy. So we know to keep the door open, have someone that you know will look for you, but if you don’t, doors shut.

Samantha Pruit: 42:20

I loved it I love this yeah and it felt like when I was first telling people like their minds were a little like what the hell you know, like having to show up to class on time, like there was a pain point.

Polly Mertens: 42:33

You are outrageous, putting these demands on people, and you don’t ride a horse, you ride a unicorn, so you were on a high unicorn.

Samantha Pruit: 42:42

I will tell you from all of the teams that I have been in that are high performing, and when I do things like that and I hold the line and I hold a standard, people rise. Hell, yeah, they rise to it. The students were different, a because of the context, b because of that little freaking thing I did, like you have to show up on time, like they had integrity every single time. We got together right and what went on inside those classes was magical. Like they had all kinds of conversations and ideas and you know, things that they would do that maybe they’re not doing out in their life, but people rise to that right life but people rise to that right 1,000%.

Polly Mertens: 43:28

What we have said over and over and we’ll say it again ba-boom is A-team players want to be with A-team players. I work out at CrossFit. It is an organized situation. These workouts have a methodology to them, okay, and there is nothing more annoying and infuriates the entire class, not just the coach, when someone is late to the workout. You have disrupted the integrity of this workout this one hour. We are doing this thing together and we are committing at a high level to perform at a very high standard for that session and you strolling in late, la-di-da and interrupting our experience unacceptable. So there’s a burpee punishment, there’s all these things around holding that safe container, around that very high level of the experience, and I’m all about it and calling it tight.

Samantha Pruit: 44:22

Calling it tight. Hey, we need to have a conversation. This is this is the last time, right, like I don’t know what, had you not be here two minutes early? Not just on time late, but like early, cause those students started getting there five minutes early, which was beautiful, right, like say, they could talk to each other and other magic happened and stuff. But you know, like where are you pushing that line and so good, oh, we’re getting down a little rabbit hole. I love it. All right, what’s next? What’s next? Okay, the next one on our foundation or our building, this house or the garden. I love that. One is hold each other accountable, kind of what we were just talking about right.

Samantha Pruit: 44:56

So on the one end, if you don’t have it, you have flakiness.

Polly Mertens: 45:00

Oh, that’s just disgusting to me and the other one high standards.

Samantha Pruit: 45:04

So I think what we were just talking about kind of leads into this. So as you commit as a team, you have buy-in, you create the code of conduct, you keep each other accountable. That’s another way of saying you call it tight right.

Polly Mertens: 45:15

So here’s a problem.

Samantha Pruit: 45:16

Okay, let’s talk about the dysfunction when it gets off the rails.

Polly Mertens: 45:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of people don’t hold themselves accountable. Okay, so then they have no skills around holding another accountable and they wouldn’t because they have so much guilt and shame and distrust of self that they wouldn’t even know how to begin to bridge the gap with another human. So can you, for a second, unpack that.

Samantha Pruit: 45:46

Well, you know, I don’t want to get up on my high horse Two hours later yeah yeah, I would just say, you know, start with the self, because I think what I don’t want to do here is like judgment. You know, I started to feel, as you were saying, that it was like, oh, somebody that doesn’t have accountability with themselves, because I will raise my hand and say there was many, many years of my life where accountability with self wasn’t something I was practicing, understood, knew that I was deficient in whatever you want to say. So when I say you know how important it is, it’s something that I’ve had a fricking hard road of learning, you know, and the lessons. So I would say, you know, maybe what we want to talk about is for anybody that’s listening that might be feeling that where I have felt and you have felt, where our accountability and you and I have had a beautiful episode where we talked about self-trust- yeah.

Samantha Pruit: 46:41

And so accountability, self-trust, those are kind of you know there’s a lot of selves that go with each other, but self-trust and self-accountability are the basis of that. And if you find I mean especially former addict here raising my hand right now the addiction eroded self-trust right, so I couldn’t count on myself to do things.

Samantha Pruit: 47:06

I couldn’t count on myself to do the things that I wanted to do. Now that’s a different story. We talked in the beginning about the building the trust, like little bank accounts, little deposits, little, you know it’s a balance and whatnot. So I had to, step by step, my way out of an inner relationship that I had with myself that was broken. I mean, I was in the red with myself for years and decades and so, whatever that looks like, from wherever you’re starting, you know it’s like you’ve got to.

Samantha Pruit: 47:35

You owe somebody some money or you owe yourself some accountability, right, you just start ticking away at it. I, you know you, you start with one thing, and so I would. So I always, you know, when I’m coaching my clients, it’s small wins. You don’t need to go for big. You know home runs right out the gate like some small wins and if you feel like your accountability with yourself and IE, your team is in a negative situation, just look at like what’s one little thing you know and some people are, you know where I’ve been with the brokenness and the lack of trust and stuff and it’s like why bother? You know, like the resent, you know self-resentment Exactly.

Polly Mertens: 48:12

I think what we want to say most importantly is you can rebuild that right. You can make that different for yourself. Make that different for yourself. Yes, it requires awareness and being honest, and that is painful as hell, but once you’re aware, you can no longer pretend you’re not aware.

Samantha Pruit: 48:31

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 48:32

And you can want it to be different and you can take action. So it is different.

Samantha Pruit: 48:35

You know and something that, as I’m unpacking this, as we’re talking, you know there’s a lot of research and you know me and the habits and stuff like that and the world of habits. One thing that often is pointed to is people will often do for other people more than they’ll do for themselves. Ie, hey, if Sally’s going to be at the gym today, I’m more likely to suit up and go meet Sally than get my own ass to the gym, right? So you know, it might need to look like that for a while, right, like it might.

Samantha Pruit: 49:09

It might be something you know, especially one of the things that gets laced with the shame and the addiction and things like that is, you know, just this, like, why bother, woe is me. You know, like, kind of all this, this cocktail of yuckiness, right, and it’s very self-focused, right, it’s very self like depression is an over-infatuation with your problems, right, that’s a simplified way of looking at it. But when we can turn our attention outward, you know, so, if we can give accountability a shot with another human being, god bless us a member of our family or our team, and we can start to have those little shooting the baskets. You know having little jump shots, baskets. You know, making that accountability move, we can start to develop that muscle and then, if we can turn that appreciation or that recognition and acknowledgement like wow, I showed up three times this week for Sally to the gym hey, guess what? Sally just happened to be there. I was showing up for me.

Polly Mertens: 50:04

Well, soon, you are showing up for you Exactly. So that’s exactly what does happen, and I think people need to be honest and be willing to ask for help, like there are some things I don’t really like to do, so I tend to procrastinate in certain areas of my life, but I have awareness, and so then I would set up systems. They probably wouldn’t work because I still like to procrastinate and I hate to do certain things. Right? So then, setting up an accountability partner with honesty and saying, hey, um, I really hate doing you know the end of month reporting boring, it’s tedious. I hate numbers. My eyeballs explode on screens, whatever. Right, can you work with me on this? So it’s communication and being honest, being transparent. And then, and then, how can I support you? Right, polly, what’s your thing? Cause this is my thing, I hate it, it sucks. Help me out what’s your thing, and somebody might love that, you know, and somebody might love that and might want to do it for me, and then I’d be even more excited, right?

Samantha Pruit: 51:06

So I know we’ve talked this one through, but holding each other accountable and there’s a lot that we can unpack there in the business world about, you know, setting up KPIs and having great meetings and you know, yeah, Communicating when things are breaking down and stuff like that. But let’s just jump off that one and get to the next exciting one. So the top of the top pyramid, the top of our house you might say, a focus on results.

Polly Mertens: 51:33

What? Okay? So here’s a funny thing. Let’s see, because everything’s hilarious at Everyday Awesome Leaders are so into results, results, results. And why aren’t we getting the results and all these things? But all of these other layers to the building haven’t been built, or maybe the foundation has eroded, but they want to talk about results. Let’s go to a meeting and talk about results. Meanwhile, massive dysfunction is raining down on all the other layers.

Samantha Pruit: 51:58

What is going on? Why isn’t this team performing what’s wrong? I don’t know why we’re not winning. What is going on? Why isn’t this team performing?

Polly Mertens: 52:01

What’s wrong.

Samantha Pruit: 52:02

I don’t know why we’re not winning. The house is all leaning over. You know the plumbing’s bursting. You know it’s like, exactly, the windows are blown out. Rats have moved in. You’re like I don’t know why we don’t have, you know, that nicest house on the block award. Well, yeah, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 52:24

You can’t focus on results unless you have done all of the other work. It starts there and so looking at creating a team and picking people. A lot of times people want to start with the initial conversation of like, results oriented conversations, either in an interview or in their first couple sessions of managing the human, or even in their weekly meeting. They start the meetings with like let’s resume our, let’s review our results. They cannot start at the top of the pyramid. It just doesn’t work this way. Can you explain?

Samantha Pruit: 53:02

Well.

Polly Mertens: 53:02

I think there’s so much confusion.

Samantha Pruit: 53:04

I think I think you’ve done a great job of saying it, because the point is like, if you’re finding breakdowns and you’re not looking at these other areas of the pyramid, yeah, so it’s sort of like going into the doctor and he gives you results from blood work or something test or there’s a symptom you’ve got some bumps on your body or whatever. You know, you can’t see it at a one eye. Whatever is going on. It’s like, oh, you mean, there’s something causing that. Like there’s something like my house is leaning, my foundation, you know, whatever.

Samantha Pruit: 53:39

There’s elements that are taking things off track, that are leading, eroding the strength and viability of this house. And one of the things you and I talked about is, you know, it’s kind of like, well, let’s talk about it like building a house, right, so the foundation is the trust and the walls are the you know, resolving conflict and communication. So there’s this container and stuff like that, great, you got this house and then everybody lives in it. Right, we have to move in. Well, sometimes things I mean you’re living with these people, I mean this is probably where you spend the most of your life energy, hours and stuff Things can go like you might have, you know, just like in a house, it’s like, oh, you need to repaint the walls.

Samantha Pruit: 54:14

Like, oh, we need to revisit the values, we need to revisit, you know, the clarity of the vision and stuff like that. Or, oh, you know, the water flow is a little bit slow. Oh well, are we all committed to this? Is somebody like not committed to this? Are we not all rowing in the same direction? Whatever, it is right, like how we want to look at it.

Samantha Pruit: 54:29

But, like you’ve moved into this house with these people, you’ve got to live with them in harmony and have it flowing and vibrating and feeling good and people enjoying it. Feeling good and people enjoying it if things are breaking down, addressing them, not just sweeping it under the mat or expecting the house just to live forever without a new paint job every so often. Or breathing some life into the team members of you know, getting that buy-in, or making sure people do feel safe. You know if things have broken down in communication.

Polly Mertens: 55:01

Or if you bring in new appliances or new humans. Everybody needs to be retrained. Yeah, don’t onboard a new person into the mix and be like business as usual Nothing going on here.

Samantha Pruit: 55:13

I hope that goes well for you. See you at the meeting.

Polly Mertens: 55:17

Apparently, this is a topic we could talk about all day long, but we got to wrap this thing up, girl.

Samantha Pruit: 55:24

I hope this has been. This has been super fun for me. I I’ve I’ve missed our little episodes, and so it’s been great to, you know, have this time to share these things with people, and I hope we’ve shared them in a way that you know there’s no a like. We’re not judging, we’re just trying to provide a place for people to reach up to, like, like, grow into, like, my two words is here expand and elevate.

Samantha Pruit: 55:47

It’s like I’m you know. I would say you know. If we summarize into the one thing you know, if you get one thing out of this, it’s it’s the team leader’s responsibility to look at these areas, to do something, to diagnose, to evaluate, like you said, noticing when someone walks into a meeting with their head down and not talking to anybody else and they usually are sunshine and rainbows to everybody, taking that moment and doing something. What would you add to that?

Polly Mertens: 56:16

Well, I love how we deliver this information with a great sense of humor, because it is okay to be a leader and have a sense of humor and laugh, or be on a team and laugh your ass off, frankly, because all of this is total insanity half the time. So, you know, making it approachable and everything doesn’t have to be so serious. I just wanted to throw that in and I’m totally with you on the takeaway here serious. So I just wanted to throw that in and I’m totally with you on the takeaway here. Leaders, please, leaders. The call to action for leaders is to really take responsibility and ownership for the teams that they have created, they have chosen. These people, provided the opportunities, provided the groundwork, the foundation, the network, all of the environment, the safe container where these people can thrive. And if it’s not working, then own that piece. What do I need to do differently? How can I change this dynamic for my team so that they can succeed?

Samantha Pruit: 57:19

You know, with that, I just want to. I love that. So two things One is, you know it’s a little bit of the working on the business and working in the business, so like the KPIs and the results and like this is what we’re doing today and sending all in your team, but working on your team and you, my dear, as you said about the things not taking things so seriously and hilarious I have seen that from you for as long as I’ve known you and I admire and respect that so much and it brings so much more to teams than I mean. What’s beautiful is you work hard, play hard, right, and so you’re not saying just be fun and screw around all the time. You’re saying work freaking hard and play and make it, let bring levity to it, and so I’ve always respected that in you and I appreciate that, and so I’m glad we shared it in that way, because that’s who you are.

Polly Mertens: 58:17

You got to be a GSD with a good sense of humor.

Samantha Pruit: 58:21

All right, let’s wrap this party up. All right, what do you want to say to our humans out there? Oh my, gosh.

Polly Mertens: 58:27

Humans pay attention to this how your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Samantha Pruit: 58:33

And remember every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.

Polly Mertens: 58:36

Good job.