Leadership #growthmonday

Rollis Fontenot III:

And I want to go ahead and take this as a, as my opportunity to introduce my guests I have a special guest. He builds himself as the housekeeping savior for for long term care which we need that we need more of that in our lives okay that's cool, training and developing and management teams to improve efficiency and increase revenue. He's a keynote speaker is a best selling author. Welcome to the show, Ralph Peterson.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. I like the idea of being a housekeeping savior I feel like I need like an outfit like a logo. A big HBS exactly yeah we need to get to a big age, and a cape. Yeah, we need that. I mean, though. Sometimes we're talking about healthcare heroes, for example, you know, and we've been talking about this recently, yes our nurses are doing amazing work our physicians are doing amazing work, nurse practitioners physician assistants all those. But if it wasn't for that what will we call the EBS in the hospitals, the ones who are doing the cleanups and all that. Man, imagine it would be a tough, tough place. So, yeah, let me say that it is tough to disseminate and say this, this part of the wheel is more important than not part of the wheel or, you know, housekeeping couldn't do without nurses nurses couldn't do it. I think, as if we work as a team as a unit in term care and and health care, and all of us are super important. Trust me when I say if we weren't important we wouldn't be there because there's no, there's there's no fluff in healthcare, nobody's got time or money for fluff so if billing is just as important as MDS and an MDS is just as important as frontline nurses is just as important as dietary just as important as housekeeping, we all play a very important role, truly, that's a great point. Yeah, absolutely. So those who are signing him for, let us know where you're signing in for a moment of breakup my comments right now to make sure that I am in tune with your comments. We want to want you to be involved actively in this discussion so let me click on that. And I want to make sure that, and Joe, Joanne, if you haven't already done let's make sure we tag in Ralph, and tagging myself, and we will see here. Very good. Now, just to kind of get us going. I want you to describe for me. The typical process and this happens across all industries. The typical process of what happens with management, who ends up getting promoted to managers and what problems that creates.

I'll tell you the number one way to get promoted to a management position. The best way to get promoted and there's a lot of people who want to get promoted thank God because we need them is to simply be the best at your job, make your job, your profession and it doesn't matter if you're in housekeeping or if you're in dietary if you you sell cars further and become the best at it. Have you ever went and tried to purchase a car from somebody who knows nothing about the car you want, as opposed to going and buying a car from somebody who knows every integral step of the radio process, how to set the timer how to set your preset. I mean, you get into a car with somebody who said who really loves their job who really knows cars. It's a way different experience. That's how you get promoted into leadership. Be passionate, show some show some initiative be show up on time be early be early be willing to stay late I say this when you're in management, there is no I'm willing to be early I'm willing to stay late no manager means you are early and you stay late there's no unwilling to, if you're terribly in management I'll tell you you're not long for this world, unfortunately, you do it you we promote the super workers to supervisors and there becomes a big, big problem with that everybody will tell you, just because they're a good worker doesn't mean they're a good manager they'll make a good manager. And my answer to that is well that is true. So what could you imagine if we decided to we're going to go and try to find the worst worker to promote them, who choice do we have, if you imagine, like, oh you know it'd be really great at this manager position, or what's her name she's not here today because she called out again but I bet if you gave her a leadership position. Nobody thought that nobody does. We always work for the Best Worker, always promoting super worker to supervisor. The challenge is a challenge and there's many of them. The challenge is, when you promote somebody into a leadership position. Two thirds of all first time managers fail within 90 days. And that is a seven out of 10, that is a huge number. And I don't mean, I don't mean fail is in they didn't do well their first 90 days, I mean, we just promoted our best worker, the one who said I wish I had a demo machine and I could make 10 of her. We just had to hire her. We just had to let her go. So you lose that Best Worker, because you didn't, not only organizations do have the ability to do some really better training and keeping managers and especially brand new managers along managers themselves are their own worst enemies.

Yeah, absolutely. Joanne maybe you've already updated this I want to make sure we have the right description on this particular episode it's got an outdated description. Jonathan I don't know if you can see that from your end want to make sure that that's corrected. Let me hit refresh on that. That was a great point you hit on Route just now, um, that was so key. Yeah, it looks like it's not updated let me just do that really fast while I'm in here, Ralph.

Sure, and Joanne go back if you can just match it up with what we had on the event.

There we go. Perfect. So let me ask you this, what, what would you say is the reason why most managers fail within those first 90 days Why are they not able to make that transition so easily and quickly into a manager Oh, sure. Well, I'll give you two there's two different scenarios so one Why is it their fault. And why is it perhaps their employers fault. Those are two different scenarios. So, first, why is it their employers fault because it's a little less intricate there most of the time the reason is there, it's not there I mean the reason that their employer is faulty. There's so many different ways to go about this but the number one thing is, most employers when they promote someone their directive to that new manager is just get everybody to work as hard as you did, and you'll be fine. You may as well say I know how to solve hunger, I'm going to go eat dinner, the world hunger is over because I'm just going to go eat dinner, I mean it's the most far fetched ludicrous training methodology. And so they don't show them anything there's no, there's very little shadowing there's very little mentoring and there's very little room for failure. I know managers brand new managers who never get written up, they never get spoken to there's never a hard conversation, even though there should have been. And instead, there's the promotion, everybody's like, Whoa, you get promoted yay great, then they fall in your face for a few weeks and then they get terminated. When and there was no conversation in the middle because first of all we don't like people failing right cost money to let people fail, and even our, even the experienced managers, the one who are promoting the managers are so afraid of confrontation, that even they refuse to have eyeball to eyeball conversations, it is one of the most challenging things about leadership, and it's one of the most necessary things about leadership if you don't have the ability to look somebody in the eye and correct their behavior, you're not gonna have the ability to lead, you just simply are not and you're setting that person up for way bigger failure than the small uncomfortable conversation you could potentially be having, you know it's real. It's a real challenge so ongoing education is a big problem we don't train our new housekeeping managers we don't we don't bring them into the fold, we don't. A lot of times the culture of the organization isn't such that it's a breeding ground for leadership, and it's so easy to do. It is so easy to create a mentoring environment. Imagine if I said, all you have to do to create a mentoring environment is spend five minutes a day with all your managers. That's all it is. minutes of. Hey, how are you doing today, that's incredibly simple.

What was your What was your challenge today. Can I help with anything. Oh, that's interesting. I tell you didn't worry things gonna happen. Oh really. Oh good. No, look, I'd love to hear what happens tomorrow. I'm not making decisions for you I'm asking you to tell me you know right like that's mentor I learned how to lead through suggestion. And when it doesn't work, you go. Alright, well, you know what, because here's the truth to a pat on the back, could work for you today and tomorrow that pat in the back won't be effective on you. And same thing, a kick in the pants today might be effective for you tomorrow kicking the pants and you're the same person. Yeah, you haven't, be able to roll with the situations with the same person having to understand that dynamic. Now let's talk, that's, that's how, what's the employers fault. Now let's talk about your fault. I'll tell you what, there's this thing called an unspoken benefits rule. I don't know if you've ever heard of the unspoken benefits rule but no I'm not talking about it. It's what every manager, every person believes they get these additional benefits when they're promoted the leadership, and even if you don't believe you get them. Your wife does your husband does your kids do your parents do your friends do you can be late. You're in charge now. Tomorrow it's the Super Bowl, everybody knows you're gonna call off, everybody's fine, nobody's in St. Louis you're in charge. Right. And I'll tell you what it is that attitude that Oh my, I am in charge, I can do whatever I want. Oh, yeah, ineffective so fast, so fast. It is, it is. Oh it's terrible.

Yeah, no, that's a great point. Now I want to ask you this, though. Out of let's say 10 leaders or 10 managers that are promoted from a super worker to a supervisor, like we've talked about roughly how many of those 10, on average, do you think can be saved and then they will make it through those 90 days. While 10. Okay.

All 10. Here's the thing. And it may not be, it may not be that they're saved in that one job. But I'll tell you what, if, if at the end of this you're like hey Ralph Do you have a call of action, you know, is there something you want to promote or you know you have a new book out or. This is what I would want to promote, I would say if you ever have had the desire to be in charge. Please raise your hand and be in charge and the reason it's coming from a real honest place two reasons number one is because it is the greatest job in the world to be responsible for others to help others to help others grow and succeed and build it there is no better job. Just no better satisfaction. And the second part is we need it. We have such a shortage of leaders in this world, and it doesn't matter, the industry, it can be government church, schools, car business housekeeping health care. We are, we are really in need for people to step up and say I would like to be in charge now. I'm saying all that to say this, if you have the ability, if you're like you know what being in charge sounds like something I'm interested in doing. Even if you fail 100 times you can still be a successful manager, you can still get it. There are too many people who aren't even willing to be injured they're not even willing to take the responsibility, then that's all it is it's responsibility. They're like, Hey, would you like to, hey, we need to promote somebody No, not me not me I'd rather not be in charge of anything No, I don't want to be responsible, which is fine, which is fine I'm just saying that as a unique person that says, I'll be in charge you can count on me I'll be responsible. And so, 10 out of 10. If you have the ability to say I'll be in charge you really want to be a manager, you might not be a good manager here. You might you might be too new in management maybe you're not, you haven't got it yet, but if your willingness to, if you are willing to take responsibility. You could definitely become a really effective manager, I got fired. Eight minutes. My first time I got charged good put in charge from one of the leadership positions, I got fired in eight minutes. Not only did I get fired in eight minutes, but my boss told me as he drove me home. I was 16, years old, he told me he will never ever be able to be a manager, he's like you I thought you had the image I thought you were a good worker I thought you were smart, or capable, I was wrong about everything. I remember having to bite a hole in my lip to try not to cry I was so devastated I was getting fired. And here I am. Five years later, he was a management trainer, I'll tell you he was right that I wasn't good at that moment but he was not right that because I was failed in that one small incident that I could never become an effective manager.

Yeah. You know, you just hit on something and I think that this is something I had had recently with someone where I just tried to give them some honest feedback, and just based on what I saw at the moment, I was like, this may not be the right fit for you. And the person, immediately lash back and says no that it is it's just and here's the reasons why, but I think that there's two things here. One is, when you get that kind of feedback, it has some level of value you just have to extract what level of value it has it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be there forever. Right. It could be that you know you make the adjustments and you can be a fit for whatever that is. So maybe, maybe you can kind of talk on that a moment like how did it first. You said at first it made you upset to the point where you wanted to cry when it was that you could you start to see some of the value that you got from what he said, like what are what do you notice what he saw.

Well, it took a couple more years so I was 16, I didn't even attempt to raise my hand again nor was I even anybody even asked me if I wanted to be in charge again for a couple of years, honestly. And it happened organically again. The reason I got chosen to maybe perhaps be somebody, good for for leadership. When I was 16, is because I outworked everybody. And the reason that I got asked again when I was 19, is because I was out working everybody knows that same thing where you just somebody's like well you have the one thing that we need in a manager, you know that one thing is, what's that credibility credibility. Yeah, I mean, could you imagine if you promoted me and I'm the one who's always late, always trying to get out early. Always have alcohol on my breath, always, like I rolled out of bed five minutes ago. Oh, he's in charge me You gotta be kidding me, no credibility. Just don't look you know credibility. That's, that's how that's how I got and I legit got fired when I was 18, or when I was 16, because I deserved it I was fist fighting with one of my employees now in my defense. I had learned a very valuable lesson and that is, it is very hard to get promoted from within, in the same group. So I got promoted, I was working with a team of guys, I was the youngest of all of them have a lot to prove, you know, we're men, you know, young men. And so we're just a bunch of testosterone, and it was raining out and one of the, you know, my boss said Ralph's in charge now, and they all went like yeah okay. And he left. And one of the kids was rapping over there, pulling a tape measure through the mud and I was like hey that's not how you're gonna ruin that tool, and so he threw it at me. So you didn't you take care of it. So I started fist fighting him. My boss comes back, eight minutes later because he forgot something. he's like you could be fighting with your employees and I'm like, he was ruining your tape measure. I mean, is that is that where the company we are, we're going to take measures. And the spot, but you know we're not going to get promoted again I'm 19 I'm a laborer are doing lugging bricks around and right event. And I'll tell you what I knew, I knew the tape measure somebody ruin a tool a shovel attainment wasn't worth my job. So I would go hey don't, you're gonna trick. Okay, now get it a tie.

Yeah, valuable lesson. Let me point my, my attention to the comments here just to make sure that I do recognize those who have come in so far today. Looks like Bibi has dropped in and say hello. He says Happy to be here. Glad to have you to as well BB course Joanne and Jonathan are here, and I see some other folks have liked it like Steven so glad to have you here as well, Steven. So thank you all, all of you for being on here and if you have any questions about leadership, if you have some comments you want to add personal experiences. We would love to hear that. Now, Ralph Let me ask you something. What's something about you that surprises people, when they first hear about you.

What is something that people are surprised about me when they first. So that's a fair question, I think one of the biggest things that people find very disconcerting is I'm a high school dropout. And so sometimes that takes people by surprise.

Wow, yeah that surprised me.

You know, be where you are, but I'll say this. I have, I have call I did go to college I did get my GED I did get an associate's degree then a couple of bachelors ago but master's degree, but high school didn't work for me.

Wow, it didn't work for me, and it, and it's and it's not it. It's hard to say like it's the High School's fault or my own parenting fault but one, maybe a combination of the two. I didn't have a good foundation to come from in my own house and school was school was, you know, I remember in high school, I'd take an assessment test ninth grade assessment test. And they told me I was a hands on learner. And I was like, Okay, what does that mean, and they said construction work.

Right. And I gotta say, I hated it I was like construction. I don't want to work in construction, so I left there of course and went to work in construction because I was told, that's all I was good for Right, right, of course, years later, I am 24, years old when I went to get my GED, 24, I didn't get my GED before so quit school at 16. Working construction until I was 24, and I hated it I mean I hated it I eventually got a job working for a masonry company I eventually started to be able to drive the forklift which is probably one of the coolest jobs if you're going to work in, in construction, and I used to get in trouble because I was always writing, getting caught writing little stories and snippets on pieces of paper I'd write on the forklift I'd write on pieces of Styrofoam, I was just always like, Oh, this wouldn't be a great idea. The whole time was I just felt like I was better than that. I was like I have way more to offer than yeah work I just got to be, I've got to be a different kind of learner, I mean it's Yeah, I gotta be How can I, how do I become a book learner. And so I went and I got this book out of the library called How to be a master student, like, okay, I want to be that. Okay.

And it said, hands on learners are really good at explaining things. I was like, well that's that's different than construction.

Yeah, sounds like teaching. Exactly.

And sure enough, I really, I learned the best. If I can take apart something and explain it to you how to put it back together. I lower it forever. That's my hands on leadership like,

Okay, this is, this is a very Happy Ending Story I think we need an applause for this one.

I learned I learned that I could learn so that there we go.

Yeah. That's amazing. Oh man, I mean, I love that. I love the story. I love the fact that you at one time, you were a high school dropout. You figured out a way to get back into school and actually take your gift and leverage that gift in a place that really fits your personality much better. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's, that's amazing story yeah I'm looking at your profile so your master's degree organizational leadership I never would have thought about the high school dropout. That's amazing. folks in the comments let what's, what would we be surprised about about you. When that you know if we heard I want I want to hear some of your comments as well for those of you who are watching. That's if you're watching this live or on the replay. All right, so, Ralph, I want to ask you this, what are some top, maybe the top two or three things that a new supervisor can do on their own he or she can do on their own to start moving into that space where they can get pixels like that 90 days kind of like that key area they want to get past so to just to get to the first 90 days well the first two or three things they should be doing so as a leader.

Oh this is such a great question. I'm so happy that you asked it because one of the number one things that we self sabotage is the self sabotage one on one for a new manager. We think that we got promoted, because we already know everything. And therefore, if we ask a question, if we, especially if it's something we think you think we already know, or should know. We don't ask and instead. We try to just pretend I'll, I'll make it until I'll fake it until I make it terrible advice, terrible advice and leadership, because in leadership everybody's looking at you, there is no autonomy and leadership, you don't have the ability to go like oh nobody sees me, everybody, not only is everybody sees you, but everybody's like getting moving stuff out of the way to look at you like everybody is got their laser eye on you because they want to know who the heck are you to be promoted, everybody can't wait for you to fail, and I'm talking about the COVID the people who were working with his coworkers and now you may be in a supervisory role above them. The best thing you can do the very best thing you can do is be use these words when you first get promoted say thank you for the bush I'm super excited. May I come to you every single day and just to be sure I'm on the right page because I don't want to pretend I know something I don't know I don't want to get it wrong that's, that's amazing.

Can I just come and just everyday Can I have a five minute timer. At the end of the day, can I just have five minutes. I'll tell you what, if you're promoting leaders, you're promoting forget leaders, if you brought anybody in to your organization, lowest to the highest doesn't matter if you're not checking in with them daily for at least a couple of weeks, you my friend or wrong. Engagement. You're not showing that you care, you're not showing value. You know that there's this. There's this great. There's this great study, and it was maybe perhaps a stupid study but it was a study based on the game Chutes and Ladders, and it was to try to find out who is best at Chutes and Ladders, and they worked with countries like Norway against Sweden or whatever you know like countries, who's better at Chutes and Ladders thing that they found out though is actually biologically, there are people who are first born first born people kids, or have a higher IQ than kids who are second or third born. But that only happens later in eight years 18 because up until the year of 12 younger born, the youngest born has a higher IQ until the age of 12, and then the oldest born has a higher IQ after 18, and there's all kinds of hypotheses and why that is why that the biggest takeaway is that the youngest gets all the information from all the others. And so, there's just a plethora of constant information going their way like oh don't do that because we tried that don't do that. And the firstborn doesn't get any of that. Right, they only get the negative, they get the sticky finger and the lights are like, Ah, right. The youngest like hey don't stick your finger in the light socket. Right, right that constant loop, first and foremost before they get there. I think it's a smart way to look at it, that mentoring is five minutes, and if you want a successful employee in any sense. Give them constant information. And if you are the new manager. Ego Oh my God, my ego is so large, I have to get in a second room, it is massive and I am constantly having to go check yourself Ralph is that your ego or is that accurate like are you serious right yeah gets in my way, my ego get it's like a, it's like a full body shadow I stumble over this stupid thing all the time. That's what's gonna stop you from asking questions that's what's gonna make you go Hey, I should know this so I'm just going to. I'll ask somebody else I'm gonna have somebody else. Set it up in the beginning. Can I come to you every day. Your boss, if you're if your manager is any good and that's the other part too I mean, there's a lot of people who have you ever heard the turn of phrase seven tire fives. Hmm. No, it's just a rating thing it's where on a one to 10 scale of your effectiveness as a manager and so one being very terrible and a 10 being very great a seven on that scale will never hire another seven. They will only hire fives, because they have to hire somebody they feel like they can control, somebody at their own level and certainly nobody above them. And so you'll find and it's easy to see once you start thinking about it like that and you start going into organizations and working with organizations I work with a lot of organizational teams in nursing homes, and you'll see a seven, and how do you tell there are seven because everybody under them is a five. Nobody has the free will of thought nobody is very you know pushing the envelope nobody's asking. I know that we've always done it this way but what else can we do that questions not being right, only articulated, that's a seven at the top of that organization, and they're only hiring, they're not hiring anybody above them. Matter of fact, I bet when they get the resume, they just dismiss it automatically. Nope, they would never work for us, they would never work.

You know, that's the term overqualified is use qualify oh they're way too overqualified or under qualified and you're scared.

Yeah, That's a great point. Let me do a quick little refresh and see what who we have coming in as far as the comments and I got some more questions for you. And I'd like to know from you guys in the audience. I want to see if they is anyone brave enough to tell us something that would surprise us about you. Okay, so I have another question for you. no one's been brave enough to answer that yet. I have a question for you, Ralph. Yeah. Would you rather have a plugged nose or perpetually plugged ears perpetually plugged ears. Why is it because breathing is just one of those things.

I mean, you still got a mouth.

No That's true, that's true. I do still have a mouth, I don't know I really, I really think that my, you know, that'd be it'd be way different if you said you know can't hear or you didn't really say can't hear but can't hear or can't see I would say you know take away the ears I'd much rather see than to than to hear, but I feel the same way about breathing I'd much rather have clear, nose, mouth and then, yeah, and to hear I can, I can learn how to read lips and sign language and carry on with my own head.

Okay I'm kind of with you because like I said I you know I can always breathe out of my mouth if I need to, if I go ahead and do that when I get really congested because I have a lot of congestion. I have to sometimes breathe, but mouth so I'm with you on that I'll take the plug Dears, I believe, I think I'll take the bugbears,

if I breathe through my mouth too much and I have a dog, and my wife and my I slide my dog sleeps on one side of my wife I sleep on the other. And if we're both snoring I mean she's just going to kill one of us right now it's just the dog. So I yeah okay so one of the things I did want to ask you about before we got on a lot of you were talking about your stuffed animals.

I have a ton of them here, this is my whale, listen to. Do you know how whales die. No, they don't have a natural predator. I mean sure some of them are fished, some of them do get cotton nets, right, but traditionally How does a whale die.

I guess old age. It drowns. What it drowns because it's, it's a, it's a, it's a mouth breather it has to get above the air it's gonna have to get above the water to take in breath and eventually it gets too big and too heavy. And it does all this work constantly working to stay afloat, and eventually it will drown is matter of fact, when you see a beached whale. That is a whale attempting not to drown. What whale, attempting to not drown.

I did not know that.

I'll tell you in management. This happens to managers, all the time, they take on all the work. They're like, No, I'll do it. But you know what, if you want to do something. Don't worry, just do it yourself, that attitude is going to make you work 24 seven and how long can you work 24 seven, not long before you drown. And when you drown. You're going to get fired, you're going to get terminated you're gonna get hurt, you're gonna get sick. You're not gonna be able to do the job anymore. You're gonna end up just like this poor whale.

That is amazing amazing analogy I need another hand clap for that one. I love that one. That was, I love that analogy because it's so fitting, I've, I've felt like that well before.

Of course we all have. We all have, oh my goodness I have,

I have my ego. My ego is really fun. Here's the best thing, here's the best thing about an ego I mean there's so many great things about an eagle. I really love about an eagle is how subtle they are, they will when they're gonna have babies and they're gonna put their, their put their nest together I mean, they will travel hundreds of miles to find the softest, the best twigs and branches and leaves and, I mean, they make their nest. so that kings could sleep in them I mean they are amazing. And then the little baby Eagles get hatched and you know what they immediately start doing, but little bit one at a time they start pulling the nest apart, taking away all the niceties, and so soon before you know it, the baby eagle is like misplace sucked out of here, and it's their way of getting them out of the nest. See, hire an employee, you have to make it the best space available to them, you want to make it, you want to call them you want to go you're gonna love working here. But eventually, if you don't pull off all those softies, they're not going to be able to last because they don't have the ability to fly on their own, they don't have the ability to work on their own. Ah, yes. That makes sense. I like that.

Well, my squirrels my favorite right now and it's because I can identify with a squirrel, the most I think because a squirrel spends about 90% of his life working, and only doing one thing, and that is trying to find food. 90% of squirrels life is spent looking for food. And when they find it. They want to hide it because they don't want anybody else to find it. Yeah, then comes winter, you're not gonna believe this My poor squirrel. Then comes winter and it turns out that a squirrel can only find about 20% of the nuts it buried there right 80% of the work it does its whole life is fruitless it's

Oh my goodness.

He's literally growing an entire nut tree about farm, like all these trees are gone. He's like those trees or, I didn't Why are those those trees weren't there last year, cuz you buried all your nuts here, employees, I have that all the time we've seen employees they're super busy and they don't, they're non productive but you look under like ISIS she's always worried Yes, amen that I've done that. There's so much stuff I did in 2020, that was a total waste of time as I look back on it. I mean, I had, I got no results out of it but I therefore spent lots of time, I was very busy. Very busy doing it, but it was not a good use of my time. Okay, before I don't want to ignore my audience because we've got some folks watching here and looks like, oh baby she says knows for me. Ears would drive me nuts. Okay, so she's gonna take the plug knows she's gonna breathe out of her mouth, probably, and maybe she'll eventually figure out a way to somehow breathe out of water for no I think she's right

I probably would be like what is going on in my ears.

She wants to be able to, to hear I think. Yeah, that I'm actually, you know my actually kind of leaned towards that now Ralph I'm thinking if I have a plug nose because I've already been lived with it most of my life anyway. I can hit my nose I have my nose can be plugged, I can still breathe out of my mouth, but I can hear perfectly. Yeah, I mean some of the beautiful things we can hear it's just amazing.

But what about smelling your food

I mean, wouldn't it got me on that one. Oh my goodness.

That tasting your bacon was reading, I was reading the other day. And, oh it was sound it wasn't oh it's the opposite. I was thinking it was smell it wasn't it was sound, and the author used to turn a phrase that it sounded like July.

Oh goodness. boom, you know, as a writer, you're always trying to figure out ways to describe things, right, to define sound like a slick a month of the year. Sounded like July, that's the greatest thing I've ever read.

That's pretty good. I'm impressed wine. Okay members refreshing to see if I haven't had any other comments have another question for you here. Yeah. All right. So going back to our, I'm going to do a leadership. Leadership question. What are some things that organizations can do to identify those who would be the best leaders because let's say if you have more than us assume you have more than one productive worker. Yeah. Which one of those they should probably move. First, to the manager line, what what's the things they should look for.

I gotta tell you the best thing that I've ever seen a company do is competition. So you take, let's say you narrowed it down you have one spot available for for a new manager position where we only have one spot to promote one of you. Let's do a competition between the two of you, where if it's a position where you're creating something if it's like I work in housekeeping. And so for me, I would say, I want you both to create an annual calendar for floor care. Just come up with whatever you think would be the best design. And then, I would fundamentally be able to understand first of all, one person, most of the time when I say that one of the person is going to go. I don't want to do that. You're out. That was easy.

That's a good way to filter right there.

Easy filter, but then you you really get to see how they look at things and like their knowledge set their skill set how they're breaking the, the level of detail they add the anchor intricacies. And I got that actually from there's a there's a story that's been going around for a long time I have no idea who the author is I'm not going to quote the whole story but it's basically, this guy who is stepping down as the CEO and chairman of a wood company, and he's got two people who he's been slaving to take over as the CEO of the company. And he chooses one over the other and the one that he didn't choose comes up and says I don't understand why you didn't choose me. And so he says to the guy. How many Maple lumber do we have in the yard he goes Hold on, I'll go find out. And so he goes and he comes back he goes, we have so many board feet of the maple lumber. He's like, Okay, how many cherry lumber Do we have, he's like all right so he goes out and he looks at cherry comes back, he does this for four or five whatever kind of goes okay and not gonna go that yet the other guy goes so the other guy comes in. He says hey how many Maple lumbers do we have in the yard he goes hold on I go check, he comes back out. He goes, we have so many board feet of maple he goes, how many cherry. Oh, and we already have this cherry, he counted them all while he was out there. He came back completely prepared for everything, where the other guy had to be told each time what to look for. The lesson, when you're trying to choose your who's gonna do this. Who is the person who's more system oriented and more widespread has a bigger view. And that's a good lesson for all of us who are trying to get promoted. It's it's important to not just see your own thing. You got to expand your horizons see other areas, get to know other departments look at how the whole building operates. You know, there's this. There's this great turn of phrase in jujitsu and I am not into jujitsu but I was in the Marine Corps and so I do know how to fight. And in jujitsu, there's this turn of phrase that says if once you see the way you can see the way in all things. And they're talking about the way of life and all the sudden it's the same in business. Once you see how a business runs. Yeah, from the bear but once you understand it, you can see it and everything. That's one of the biggest challenges new managers don't have, if they don't have the business point of view. And so you need to get familiar with the other departments, you need to get to familiar with how they gain customers how your company sells how your company provides a service how they get paid to tell you. One of the biggest things I ever did professionally for myself, is I decided that I was no longer going to be the type of person who said no to requests that my company made, I was working for a large housekeeping company at the time, and they would ask for help in different buildings in different states in different regions in different areas. And everybody would always give pushback like under under the narrative my phone I'm not gonna answer my phone you know I saw he was calling I'm not gonna, I know what he's after he wants me to work Saturday, like, you know what, I want to grow in this company I'm going to stop saying no, and start saying yes, the amount of opportunities that I got I this is my fourth year in business for myself. I would never have been able to do it. Had I not kept saying yes, I got one guy said, Hey, I gotta, I gotta do these collections where the people are not paying us you want to come with me. Now, could you imagine. I don't have there's not my job. That sounds pretty scary. It doesn't sound right right,

I wasn't sure he's like you will make sure I learned so much about not only the value of getting across, anybody can get a customer, anybody can write a contract, anybody can provide a service get paid campaign. That's tough. That's hard. And if you don't learn that skill set somewhere. You're gonna you know it's it's so important to learn how to get paid, and I learned so much. So maybe that's the answer to. You want to get promoted you want to do more you wanna take her to the next level. stop saying no to things.

I like that. Yeah, I like that so every aspect of the business. One of the first things you mentioned asked questions. And you also mentioned spinning five minutes a day. I mean, folks. I minutes, I remember that and then you also mentioned, kind of exploring and kind of understanding the business and then being able to anticipate with the leader once. I remember that. And then you just finish it up with this last point. I am an amazing guest. You're You're a great guy. Yes, you get you, you get the great guest award that will that will that in to that in three, that in three bucks will buy you a small buck cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I was gonna say it has to be a smile I live on Long Island, New York, it costs you three bucks to get in the door.

Yeah. Okay, so I have another question for you and folks in the comments if you have feedback you'd like to share if you have questions you'd like to share what we have, you know, we have Ralph for a few more minutes let's let's definitely make the most of this time we have together, let's support each other. All right. So, would you rather walk in circles, through a revolving door 1000 times, or hang upside down in an elevator for three hours. And I want I want the folks in the comments to answer this to which one would you go.

That's an easy one for me because I'm scared of heights.

Okay.

The idea of an elevator shaft. Nope. You put me in a revolving door for three days. No, I'm more of a revolving door than I am, and I am a, I'm a long distance runner long distance runner Okay,

I've done a bunch of marathons where they're one mile loops, that means you got to go around 26 times so I'm not averse to go in one direction, why not. Oh, you get your exercise in at the same time.

That's right. I'm in.

But just to be fair I did say when it said hang upside down, it says in an elevator for three hours so that could be just the elevator itself so you wouldn't be very far off the ground. Oh, but. So just to clarify, but I do like your I do like your approach here because yeah

no I still do that I still do the door, I'm with you, fun you can, you know, be a lot more engaging you can, yes, you can get knows, you might be able to speak to some folks while you know, they might join you in the hallway, you come in early opening doors.

Hey, come on in. Come on in. Okay, see you later, come back and see. Okay, let me hit refresh to see if anybody else has their opinion, see we're talking about very serious stuff that I guess I like it, that we've talked about some really cool stuff that I mean, there are lots of great ideas now BB says I have to leave I have a client, but this was so great. Appreciate you baby thank you for for hanging out with us. Joanne says wow that will thing thanks for sharing Ralph, so she loved that about the whale thing. And that was the main comments for now. Okay. So, let me ask you this, that, that 90 day thing. Can you talk about how like a lot of the managers don't last past the 90 days. If they last past the 90 days, what's the likelihood they're gonna be there let's say for a year, do you have any numbers on that.

I don't, I don't have that number I know that day 91 is a big difference than data.

So, okay so let's say they go past the 90. Obviously, the chances are much greater that they're going to work out as a manager. So I guess what I'm learning from that is we need to spend the most amount of time training mentoring everything our leaders in the first 90 days. Is that a fair assessment. It is, it is. However, there's a back end to the story that.

Tell me about that you'd be interested in maybe enough worth looking at. And that is when you look at fighter pilots. So fighter pilots in the military. have an amazing amount of accidents when they first start flying, as you can probably imagine, I mean they run into everything right on the ground accidents on ship accidents in the air accidents. If you hear of a plane crash or military plane crash and that person probably hasn't been flying for longer than a year or two. In the first two years of a pilot's life they make a lot of mistakes. As you can imagine, though, after two years. I mean they get good. I mean real good to where they are to where the statistically, they never have a crash. Never until you're six. What year six, a fighter pilot starts to have accidents, and it starts going up quickly. They go from four years of not a single incident to all of a sudden, getting a little close on this scraping that running into that losing an airplane, what happens at year six. See what happens is we decide we are so good that we no longer need to do our checks that we no longer need to pay attention. Yeah, no longer have to check in that we no longer oh I've been doing this forever. Right, right. This building will get clean even if I don't show up that team will work without me. It surely will surely Well, yeah, good luck. Good luck.

Yeah, that's, that's good, that's good. So, first 90 days. Let's give them the love and attention and mentor them, then maybe have some type of what do you think of every refresher or what do you think we should run your five or something.

No, I think, I think that the, the best thing to do is to if let's just let's just call a spade a spade It's okay. If you want to be an effective manager. I don't care what field, it doesn't matter. It could be a school manager administrator, it could be a nursing home, it could be housekeeping, it doesn't matter the field. If you want to be an effective manager, treat management like a profession because it is it is a profession, it is a. There are schools for it. There are studies there are 1000s of books on him I've written a few myself on the topic of management. There's all kinds of classes and CPUs and all these. It's a profession. It's like a doctor you need a doctor needs to constantly be trained constantly be updated on the latest tips and tricks and that's the same thing in any kind of professional field and management is no different. If you want to be an effective manager you it's it's a it's a class that you never should, you should never be able to get a management degree you're the greatest manager and ever you never have to do another thing that's not how it is, right, then one of the biggest challenges I've ever come across. It took me a long time to figure it out. Was I would hire these managers who had amazing management experience their resume was just the picture perfect resume, but there was a gap there was a couple of years between their last management job in this one, not, not a couple of years since they've been working they've been working the whole time but they hadn't been in a leadership position, and so they get into a leadership position, and I am always amazed. It's like they're starting over like they've never been in charge before, and I'm like, Did you lie. Is this resume a lie. Did you fib like, how is it possible, here's the reason it's because management takes an awful lot of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is a muscle, just like your leg muscles if you don't use them you'll lose them. Emotional intelligence is the same way, management is the same way, it is a muscle, being in charge. Having people can have that confrontation the eyeball. Nobody ever comes to me with, with a problem, everybody brings me a problem dipped in sarcasm. You don't mean like everybody comes to me with, with a sign of aggression. Nobody ever just goes, Hey, there's a leaky toilet over there. No, it's delete the toilets leaking the water's going out into the hallways. Okay. Nobody ever brings me this tiny little hey if you get a chance, you know, talk to the housekeeper there's a cobweb I've been seeing it for four days and the cobwebs taken over the building fell Yes.

Yeah.

So it's that, so it's that piece so it's not one of those 90 days you no longer have to do any training anymore. And quite honestly, when we're identifying why people, we can identify why people fail and get fired in those first 90 days says there's a lot of research we can determine all these reasons on why they fail. It doesn't mean they're effective at 891. It doesn't mean they're any good, you how many people how many managers are managing right now they've been managing for years and they are terrible at it.

Oh yes, of course, go to Glassdoor and you pick up any company and you'll see that everybody's, if they if somebody doesn't like a company they don't like the manager is the manager this manager that matters is not to say that managers are terrible by the way I must also I just let me throw it out there. I know way more terrible staff members and I do know terrible managers. I know way more staff members who have no abet who have no business even being employed than I have right managers. So a lot of the complaining and the griping on the glass door is just people trying to, you know, well, I'm going to have my phone will stay on the closed door because that manager tried to make me do my job, you know, that's normally how that whole thing works so so not lashing managers.

Right, right, right. So let me ask you this, when you say terrible manager I want you to define that by the way someone just said, Denise hi Denise she says, Rollis or Joanne I hear North Sea anything but I'm here. So, but I'm looking at them online I can see it. Exactly.

That's a question for me.

Yeah, so, so maybe, Jonathan makes sure that it is, I can see it so I'm not sure why. Denise is not able to see it. Maybe you can look at it right now and it's fine on my end.

Yeah, so okay so it might just be a situation on her no need to refresh. Yeah. obsessively please refresh. Okay, very good to have another question for you. Yeah, now for you ready. Yeah. Okay. What's the last thing you bought for under 50 bucks that you that you love and you'll use it often.

Well I just, I just got Douglas my blue crab. He was $9 and I love him. I've been playing with him on my desk. And so, what inspires you. What inspires you about stuffed animals in general and particularly we could talk about this crap or stuffed animals in general what yeah I love the illustrations by the way I love what you did that.

No, I appreciate that it's very I so I had my, I first started out with a, with an example about a giraffe a mother giraffe. Do you know what the first thing a mother draft does to their baby when they're born.

No kicks it. What. Yeah,

it doesn't kiss it, it doesn't snuggle it, it doesn't say welcome to the world. It doesn't say here's my, this is where you feed. Nope. It takes it and it kicks it hard and it keeps kicking it up because the mother giraffe knows that if the baby giraffe doesn't get on its feet quickly it's going to get eaten by lions. Now that's because in in management, what happens is we hire a new employee, and we're like coddling them and not giving them the full work assignment, we don't realize that all the other employees are lions and there, that can't wait to pounce on that new employee, the quicker we get a new employee up and running engaged doing their job where they're supposed to be doing it, the safer they're going to be away from anyway.

But you're not you're not proposing for us to kick our employees Oh, well I'm just telling you that it's very hard to get the giraffe here in my office to give you an example so I had to go with a stuffed version, so you ask why stuffed animals is because it's hard to travel through customs right the giraffe, of course. Yeah, so the proverbial kicking that we're talking about maybe it's a. Maybe it's just give them the real job and don't don't don't sugarcoat this just give me a real deal. That's right, that's right, get them. And I don't mean to physically kick your employees but. But I do mean to get them up and running quick, a lot of times we hire an employee and we're so scared to lose them. That is true. Fear, oh my gosh, if there's a sin of all sins it's managing through fear and be like, Oh, I don't want to give them too much too soon. You know what you just said to all the other employees that you expect them to carry the weight of that person until they feel comfortable. Hey, sugar, better start feeling comfortable ASAP. I have had, well maybe this doesn't happen to you but I've had employees start at 7am, and then take their coffee break at nine, and it's eight years later, and I still never seen or heard from them again. And the people like what happened, I just look out over my lines I say what are the lions gonna do I'm gonna bother you got it. I don't know which one nothing's gonna come clean you ever tried to get a straight answer out of a lie and they don't say it.

Right Right, exactly. anyway yeah blew my crab Douglas and you don't think about crabs john if you know this, but crabs will always hold down other crabs. Really. Oh you put a, you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket of water, and you'll see one crab trying to get out as soon as it gets to reach up and grab it poop. You're not going anywhere. Ah, crabs down. Don't hang out with crabs. And don't be a crab. How about you're not having to hold people down, so do the crab. Somebody has to do something I love that, I love that.

Stop being a crab nine Bobby in a crab. That's it. That's Joanne that we put it in the notes that is a clip. Don't be a crab, and don't pull other people's other people don't don't hang out with crabs. Don't hang out with crabs. Thank you. I like that. Yeah. This has been a great day to day. Okay so, Ralph. I want you to give us some, some parting words of wisdom here on whether it's on the employer side that's helping to promote managers and help them to stay, or for individual leaders themselves. Give us your parting words on either one of those two topics,

I would totally go with the employer side. I'll go with the employer side just because I am far more. I think there's a lot more we can do from the organizational development point of view, then we can the origin of the organizational behavior so some people are like oh let's just talk about the behavior of the employee and I'm like, there's so many things we can't do with that, I'd much rather stay on the employer side. And so, if you are in a position where you have managers, God bless you, and you should treat your managers, like they are the most important thing to your organization because they are. I'm talking about special lunches I'm talking about giving them a special place to meet I'm talking about having them have lunch together, get to know each other do activities together, provide them with training, it doesn't have to be leadership training, it could be basket weaving training, get them to engage in activities together as a group. That's how you build a management team who know super important to build a team I work in healthcare and I can't tell you how much the director of nursing hates their director of housekeeping, and how much of the director of housekeeping can't get along with the director of maintenance and the director maintenance hate everybody and the director of. It is so toxic, and there is no unification, and nobody comes together, everybody is against everybody's throwing each other under the bus, it is the worst environment in the world to be a manager in, and the person in charge of that group. If they took five minutes to go. You know what, I'm going to read through this. I want you guys to get along. I want everybody to have each other's cell phone number, could you imagine having all the all the managers having each other's cell phone numbers. I mean, the communication that can take back the initiative that can take place, that is a key point Saturday morning I said hey hey Sally I got a problem I'm having at the nursing home with one of my staff can you give me a hand or talk me through how you would like to handle it or what all of a sudden we're working together. If you have a nursing home and they're not working together. You can change it. You can change it. You gotta put your managing your gotta treat your managers, like they really really really do matter i mean i. A lot of people say like you got to spend all your money on staff, I spend nothing on staff, and I'm not trying to be like this big. First of all, I only work with manager so you know what am I saying, if you have a very small budget for engagement, spend it on your managers.

So ultimately they're going to make the life better for the employees it's going to help the employee so I would imagine you cannot you cannot provide a good service if your managers are disgruntled. You can't get a good employee if the person they're reporting to is disgruntled.

Yeah. And there's this old saying that people leave managers not jobs, and a lot of cases.

That's, that's, I heard that statement, I'm not sure how true it is but I mean it's yeah and I you know I beat.

The only reason why I would push back against that kind of a statement is because you probably can tell through this interview this interaction we're having. I'm not the easiest person to work for. I demand an awful lot. I demand a lot from my employees I don't matter a lot for my managers, because that's what we, that's how you're effective is you have out you have expectations and you hit them and you know this is how you do this, this is how you do that this, let's get it done. If you're not going to keep up with me, it's not going to work out. I can't tell you how many employees have left working for me and managers who left working for me saying I'm the worst person in the entire universe, am I, no, no, no, of course not. But I am a challenge to work for, as all men all effective managers are a challenge to work for. Here's the thing, employees. I remember when Verizon went on strike right before Verizon when I strike, I got this job to go speak, And a lot of the Verizon employees were there, I had no idea they were there but I'm talking about management, and you know I'm not getting glossed over I generally never talked to Matt to staff but the staff are in the room. And so I decided to go ahead and engage their eye rolling. I go alright so clearly some of you are not liking what I have to say. So here here. Who here is an employee who wants to know how to get a raise, I mean everybody works out the engineer, I want to know how to get out. I'm going to tell you a foolproof way. I'm going to I'm going to give you a foolproof way how to make more money this this works in any industry. I mean, you could have heard a pin drop everybody's just like yeah well what are we gonna say what do you say stop needing management. The only reason you're not getting paid more is because we have to pay this guy $80,000 a year to make sure you're where you're supposed to be. If you were just where you were supposed to be that money on him. Guess what we could do could pay you a little more. But no, instead of having one Manager for 25 people in this industry I need one Manager for 10 people. One major has to watch 10 people, this other industry, they can no they have 50 employees for one manager no not us, eight people one manager, because you won't be where you're supposed to be you. You want to raise stop needing management here's the other secret though, all those people who don't need management, don't tell them, we try to promote them into management.

Yeah. Well listen, it's been a joy having you on today Ralph, what's the best way for folks to keep in touch with you.

It is Ralph peterson.com that's my website and so from there you can find out everything about me, all my phone number, email,

Ralph peterson.com, by the way, Denise says she says teamwork makes the dream work. She says Don't be a crusty immovable crab, but a delectable one crawling out of the barrel. And she says, oh, and you were talking about the different directors she says or the director of patient access representatives with CHARGE nurses. Yeah, yeah. She also said this is called standards for managing excellence is always attainable, when we're engaged. Absolutely, and engage anytime you hear that buzz word engage because I know that gets thrown around a lot, and it's hard to understand what it means. Take the word engage and just turn it into Word listen. Feel listened to.

Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. Well listen, thank you very much Ralph, if this is an hour, we've already blown an hour but it's been a great hour, it's been an excellent hour much for having me on a lot of fun.

Yeah. Appreciate it. We've been working on this for a while I'm glad to glad to finally get you on the show, guys. Go ahead and connect with Ralph Peterson, he said Ralph peterson.com whatever he says sir Ralph peterson.com, right. Easy enough and then we're also going to have you too so we have you tagged in here too, is it okay for they reach out to you for LinkedIn connection. Okay. Excellent. send me requests I accept them all. One person.

Well let's say bye everyone. Bye everyone, thanks for coming on today.