Let’s get back to my client Sharon.

Sharon is a VP at a relatively fast-growing company. I looked at her calendar the other day and it is so colorful. Like a stained glass window that is designed by somebody who doesn’t want any breathing room. Every single block is filled. Meetings are stacked on meetings stacked on meetings. Even her focus time has somehow become a group activity.

She keeps telling me she doesn’t have time to think. And there’s just enough pride in the way she says it to make me think she doesn’t mean it the way I would expect her to mean it.

The Con Job

You see, we’ve somehow decided that being too busy to think is proof that you’re important, instead of proof that something has gone really deeply sideways.

So I asked Sharon: “If we looked at everything on your calendar this week, how many of the things are actually moving you closer towards your goals?”

She paused for a while. Looked at her calendar. Thought about it.

Then she said: “Honestly, maybe one meeting. Everything else is just stuff.”

And there we have it.

Being busy is a con job. It makes you think you’re achieving progress. It looks productive. It feels responsible. Other people actually reward you for it. And you can end the day completely exhausted and point to that exhaustion as proof that you actually accomplished something.

But activity and progress are not the same thing.

Heck, you can walk on a treadmill for 15 minutes. That’s activity. But you’ll end up exactly where you started. There’s no progress beyond a feeling that you made progress.

Which you didn’t.

What Busy Is Covering Up

Here’s the thing. Your busyness is probably covering something you don’t want to confront.

That’s okay. Everybody does it.

Maybe it’s that important project you keep getting ready to begin. Or the decision you’ve been avoiding for a month. And of course there’s always that conversation you keep rescheduling because the timing isn’t quite right — which is fascinating, because apparently the right time is a day after never.

Busy is usually what we do instead of the thing we’re actually afraid to do.

Being busy is also an amazingly convenient form of avoidance because it actually comes with compliments. No one questions the person who’s slammed at work. We admire them. We call them committed. We tell them we don’t know how they do it.

Meanwhile, the thing that matters most keeps getting kicked down the road.

The Kayak Question

If you want to know what your busyness might be hiding, I have a question for you.

If you decided tomorrow to circumnavigate the world by kayak — no phone, no laptop, no opportunity to send your team a quick thought, nothing to do but keep paddling and don’t get eaten by the sharks — what on your calendar would still move forward in a good enough way without you?

Think about that.

And then pay attention to whatever discomfort or defensiveness you feel.

This is actually better if I ask you in person. But I want you to actually do it yourself and pretend I’m there. You probably have a lot of reasons why your situation is different and you’re actually needed.

That reaction is exactly what I want to talk about.

Let me explain.

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“I’m just not good at this.”

Business.
Leadership.
The whole vulnerable-human-being thing.

I said it so often that nobody questioned it.
Including me.

It sounded humble. Like I was just being honest about my weaknesses.

Until a decade or so later when it all hit me like a ton of spiraled zucchini.

I wasn’t describing myself.
I was protecting myself.

If I wasn’t “naturally good” at something, then it was ok to fail.
By claiming to not be good at something, I was lowering everyone’s expectations. Including my own.

It wasn’t humility.
It was a wall to protect my fragile ego.

The scary part wasn’t that I believed it.
The scary part was that I never bothered to wonder whether it was actually true.

(Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. I’m actually pretty good at the stuff I said I wasn’t good at)

That’s what happens with the stories we tell about ourselves.
Do you know what your story is?

• “I’m terrible with money.”

• “I’m not creative.”

• “I’m not a people person.”

• “I’ve never been good at conflict.”

• “I’m just not confident.”

At some point those sentences stop becoming opinions and start becoming your identity.

The problem is that most of them aren’t based on fact.
They’re conclusions you reached years ago that you never bothered to re-confirm.

This prompt is designed to uncover one of those stories.
The one you’ve repeated so many times that it feels like part of your personality.

Then I will challenge you with this simple question:

What if that story isn’t true anymore?

Be warned…

This prompt is surprisingly uncomfortable.
Run it anyway.
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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Their names are Sparrow and Willow.

I say “our” cats like I feel a sense of ownership.

Sure I feed the cats and I clean their litter box, but I’m not much of a cat person. I don’t need, nor want, their affection.

Don’t judge me.

Fortunately, the cats feel the same way. They are obsessed with my wife and daughter. My wife and daughter are also obsessed with the cats. The cats don’t care about me.

Everybody wins.

Three years ago, the wife and kid told me they wanted a third cat.

Nope.
No way.
Not gonna happen.

I told my ladies that we are never going to have three cats.

Three cats is the tipping point into “crazy cat lady”. And I will not live in a house with crazy cat ladies who will no doubt put this bumper sticker on the car.

If you want another pet, I said to them, let’s get a puppy.
So we did.
Say hello to Twiggy.

What I Didn’t Expect

The thing I didn’t expect was for my wife and kid to not care about Twiggy. I mean she was (and is) really cute, but they definitely like the cats better.

Soon enough, Twiggy became my dog.
I walk her, I feed her, I train her.
When I stand up, she stands up.
When I walk across the room, she walks with me.

For three years, my wife didn’t really like our dog.

She’d never say it in those words, but it’s the truth. There was a distance between them that everybody in the house could feel. Even the pesky cats.

I’m pretty sure it’s because Twiggy isn’t a cuddler.

She’s not the dog who curls up next to you on the couch while you watch TV. She’s not even the dog who rubs up against you so you keep petting her.

Twiggy is the dog who sits four feet away, facing the window, monitoring the perimeter for threats that don’t exist.

My wife wanted a couch dog. What she got was a security consultant.

And somewhere in the first year, she came to a conclusion about Twiggy.

Twiggy doesn’t really like me, she said to me one day.

She was pretty direct about that. And every so often she’d say things like “she’s your dog” or “she doesn’t care about me.”

I got three years of that.

The Week Everything Changed

Four months ago, for reasons I can’t remember, I decided to teach Twiggy a new trick.

Not sit. Or stay. Or shake. She does all those with gusto.
I taught her to kiss my wife.

Whenever my wife came home from work, I’d say “give mama a kiss” and then I’d reward her when she did it.

It only took a week, maybe less, but Twiggy figured it out.

Now, whenever I say “Give mama a kiss”, she hightails it across the room, or to wherever my wife is sitting, and gives her a smackeroo right on the face.

Every. Single. Time.

Lo and behold, my wife and Twiggy are suddenly best friends.

She loves the dog and the dog loves her. Twiggy follows her around the house like she does with me.

Three years of uncomfortable distance magically disappeared in a week.
All because of a kiss-on-demand.

Twiggy Didn’t Change. The Story Did.

Here’s the thing… Twiggy didn’t change at all.

Twiggy’s feelings about my wife didn’t shift. It’s not like she was secretly indifferent to my wife for three years and then suddenly warmed up because I gave her a command.

Twiggy always loved my wife.
She just didn’t have a behavior that proved it in a language my wife could understand.

My wife wanted evidence of Twiggy’s love. Twiggy didn’t know what to do with that.

So my wife built an entire story about who the dog was - all based on the absence of a behavior.

The Person Standing In The Middle

If there’s somebody that screwed anything up in this scenario, it’s me.

I knew my wife wanted affection.
I knew Twiggy had it in her to give affection.
I knew she was trainable, because I’m the one who taught her all the things.

I was the sole person standing in the way of two beings who liked each other and couldn’t figure out how to express it.

And I did nothing about it. For three years.

I had the ability to fix it the entire time. I just never considered that it was mine to fix.

Let’s Talk About Your Team

Somewhere in your company - or on your team - there are two people who “just don’t click.”

Maybe you’re convinced it’s just different styles or different personalities. Maybe one’s an introvert and one’s too blunt.

Whatever the reason, they’re like oil and orange juice - they just don’t work well together.

You’ve told yourself that story for so long, it feels like a fact.

But what if your story isn’t true?

Maybe there’s one person you’ve decided isn’t warm enough. They aren’t a team player and don’t care about the group the way the others do.

Usually the evidence for that belief is based on some behavior they’ve never actually demonstrated.

Not a behavior they refused to do.
A behavior nobody ever taught them how to do.

They don’t speak up in the all-hands. They don’t say thank you in front of the group. They don’t ask people how their weekend was. They don’t do the small thing that would make everyone stop wondering whether or not they give a damn.

And whatever it is, you’ve translated that lack of behavior as a character flaw.
You might very well be wrong.

You Already Know Who This Is About

In every one of those situations, you are the person standing in the middle. You know both parties. You know what one of them needs. You probably know the other one has it in them to fulfill that need.

So why don’t you try to fix it?

Because my story about Twiggy isn’t really a story about Twiggy.
And it’s not about my wife.

It’s about a guy who had the solution to a problem for three years and never once thought to do anything about it.

Don’t be like me.

-
P.S. Twiggy still monitors the perimeter. Some things don't change. But at least now my wife gets a kiss whenever she wants one.

The patterns keeping your team from connecting - the ones where two people "just don't click" - are exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop addresses. Sign up now.

If I asked you right now what they are, could you list them all? Go ahead. I dare you. List them. Just pretend I can hear you. And you know what? I’ll pretend I didn’t plant a bug in your phone.

If you can’t remember them, I bet you can probably picture them. Because they’re probably printed somewhere in some bold font with a clean, pretty design. They probably include some version of integrity, problem solving, collaboration — maybe even accountability if someone on your leadership team was frustrated when they created them.

So here’s my question to you.

When was the last time you made a decision by actually referencing one of those core values?

Take a second if you need to think about it.

The Decoration Problem

I’m often brought in to moderate leadership offsites or company retreats. Naturally, I look at their core values in advance. I then ask people at the company to name the core values to me.

More times than not, no individual can name all the core values. Meanwhile, leadership is no doubt proud of them. They refer to them when they talk to me.

This actually happened with a client recently. I asked the head of HR when she’d last used one of the core values to guide an actual decision. She thought about it for a while and said, “During hiring, I guess.”

They hired 4 people in the past year. 4 times per year, somebody thinks about their core values. Then the values go back to the wall and the employee manual.

That’s not a core values problem. That’s a decoration problem.

Because there’s a difference between a company that has values and a company that uses them.

It’s this…

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You know what I’m talking about.
Maybe it’s the parent who goes quiet and cold when they’re upset.
Or the one who yells and complains for no reason.
There’s some behavior from your parents that you’ve sworn you’d never replicate.

And you don’t do it.

Until one day your significant other makes you realize that you act exactly like your parents.

Shit.

Here’s the thing… you learned how to deal with money, conflict, love, and work before you were old enough to have an opinion about it. You watched. You absorbed. And now you’re doing the same exact thing, whether you know it or not.

And you usually don’t know it.

Some of it works to your benefit.
Some of it has been guiding your life in the wrong direction without you knowing.

I created a prompt to uncover all the stuff you learned from your parents that unconsciously guides your life.

Fair warning: this is the one that makes you call your therapist. Or your mother. Possibly both. Especially if your mother is a therapist (like mine)

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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From the archives…

Every once in a while I reread an old article and realize it’s more relevant today than when I wrote it.

This is one of those articles.

If you’ve been with me for a while, it’s worth a second read. If you’re newer here, it’s a good ‘un.

And if you’re ready to change your trajectory, this is the last chance to get into the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop. Secure your spot now.

There are only three problems in life.
That’s it, just three.

I don’t care how complex or unique you think your difficulties are - what I’m telling you is that they can all be boiled down to one of three problems:

1. Your head

2. Your heart, or

3. Your bank account.

Let me explain.

Let’s start with the problems in your head.

The Problem Is In Your Head

We all have problems in our heads.

The question isn’t whether you have this type of problem - the question is how much the problems in your head are limiting you from being the person you want to be and doing the things you want to do.

Here’s what I mean:

• Do you ever doubt yourself or identify with imposter syndrome?

• Do you wish you were spending your life doing something else?

• Have you ever struggled with decision-making - or avoided tough conversations?

Yeah, I thought so.

These are all problems in your head. See, I told you have them.

Head problems are challenges with your intellectual reasoning. They manifest themselves as things like confusion, decision paralysis, and/or a desperate need to be right.

Your ego? That’s a head problem.

Your tendency to take on too many things? That’s also a head problem.

When people get stuck in their heads, they end up creating more confusion than clarity.

That’s the primary symptom to look for when diagnosing head problems: increased confusion.

As an example, think of that entrepreneurial leader you know who changes their priorities every few days. Or that person who thinks it’s more important to over-analyze than to just make a gosh darn decision.

In the end, the confusion they create is what destroys productivity and progress.

The problems are in their head.

If you are a person who is dragged down by problems in your head, here’s my advice:

• Stop waiting for certainty - it’s not coming.

• You’ve got to practice being okay with the grey zone. So acknowledge your discomfort, even though it feels uncomfortable. You’re going to get over the discomfort, I guarantee it.

• Do the thing you really know deep inside that you’re supposed to do. You’ll be a better person on the other side.

And that brings us right to the second problem: the problems of your heart.

The Problem Is In Your Heart

People who struggle with problems of the heart are often stuck in a place of resentment, fear, sadness, or some other similar emotion.

Whereas the problems of the head are intellectual challenges, the problems of the heart are emotional burdens that feel like the weight of the world in the pit of your stomach.

• Do you feel out of sorts when somebody doesn’t like you?

• Do you feel like you aren’t appreciated when you’re left out of a meeting or get-together?

• When you get constructive feedback, does it feel like the world is collapsing in on you?

If any of these things resonate, you’ve got some problems of the heart.

People who have problems with the heart don’t hold their team accountable because they don’t want to hurt their feelings.

They take things personally when it’s not about them at all.

They make rash decisions driven by emotions. Like that passionate email you sent that you regretted the next day.

Heart is important, but it can’t lead a team on its own. You can care deeply, that’s ok, but you also have to lead firmly. You have to set boundaries.

You have to separate the emotional from the intellectual. Because emotion sucks at making decisions on its own. And emotion really sucks at building out a strategy.

So if you are plagued by problems of the heart:

• Remind yourself that it’s important to make decisions from the intellectual brain, not the emotional one.

• Talk to someone, get a leadership coach, journal it out - get the support you need to help you understand when you’re about to make rash emotional decisions.

And that leaves one more problem: your bank account.

Subscribe now

The Problem Is Your Bank Account

Bank account problems are resource issues.

Keep in mind, I’m not just referring to money problems. Even people with more than enough money have bank account problems.

Instead, bank account problems are about time constraints, lack of tools, capacity problems, or, yes, finances.

• Do you wonder why you’re spending your time working late every day?

• Are you not hiring more people so you can maintain your current profit margin?

• Do you feel like you’re too busy to fix the things that are making you too busy?

Those are all bank account problems.

When you create an excuse and pretend it’s reality - that’s usually a bank account problem.

When you tell people to work harder because you believe they can get it done on their own - that’s a bank account problem too.

When you haven’t taken more than a week’s vacation in 5 years because you can’t possibly understand how the world can keep revolving without you. Yup, bank account problem.

Sometimes the bank account is actually an issue, but oftentimes it’s just a convenient scapegoat.

So here’s what I’m suggesting you do.

• The challenge isn’t that you have constraints - the challenge is that you need to get creative with them.

• Think of how you can trade the resources you have for the ones you don’t.

• Dig deep inside and ask yourself if you really have a resource issue, or if you are simply avoiding making a harder decision.

The Diagnosis You’ve Been Skipping

We all have problems. That’s not the problem.

The challenge is figuring out which problems are of your own making and which are actual obstacles standing in your way.

That’s why I boil all issues down to these 3 problems in life: your Head, your Heart, your Bank Account.

The faster you diagnose which category your issue falls into, the faster you can move forward in resolving it.

Most leaders waste months solving the wrong problem.

They throw money at what’s really an ego issue.

They read leadership books when they should be setting boundaries.

They call it “lack of resources” when it’s actually “lack of courage.”

Head. Heart. Bank account.

Which one are you actually dealing with right now?

PS — Which of the three nags at you the most? Tell me in the comments.

My name is Jeff Matlow. I am a 3x entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker and leadership coach. 

I help leaders and their teams solve their biggest problems fast.

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That’s not my voice, you think. That’s not what I sound like.

Except it is.
It’s exactly what you sound like.
It’s the only voice anyone else has ever heard come out of your mouth.

The one you’re used to hearing is the fake one. It’s the one that reaches your ears through your own skull, filtered through bone and cartilage until it sounds nothing like what actually leaves your body.

You’ve been mishearing yourself your entire life and you never knew it.

As it turns out, you do the exact same thing with your personality.

You think you’re patient. You think you’re a good listener. You think you handle pressure well, delegate clearly, give considerate feedback.

You’ve been listening to yourself this whole time, and the version you hear sounds pretty reasonable, right?

But that’s like the bone-conduction version. That’s not how other people experience you.

Your team has their own experience of you.

It’s the one where you interrupt before someone finishes a thought because you’re already three steps ahead. The one where your “quick feedback” is really just bossing them around. The one where your calm exterior during a crisis makes them feel like you don’t care.

You didn’t build that version on purpose.
Nobody ever does.
You’ve just never seen it. Because you can’t see the label when you’re stuck inside the pickle jar.

I put together a prompt that reveals the version of you that other people actually experience. Not the polished 360 review written by someone protecting their own job. The real one.

What it’s actually like to sit across from you, report to you, get an email from you.

It’s not going to feel like your voice.
But that’s the whole point.

Run the prompt below.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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There are serious problems with female leaders in the workplace.

Problems we pretend don’t exist.
But they do exist.

And we have to stop ignoring them.

So here it is, the four problems with women in leadership.

Problem #1: They Apologize Too Damn Much

Enough with the apologies already.
C’mon now.

“Sorry, I didn’t know…”
“Sorry to bother you, but…”

Female leaders seem to apologize for everything. They apologize for asking questions. For taking up space. It’s like they apologize for simply existing in the room.

And you know what?
Maybe they should be apologizing.
Maybe it actually is all their fault.

If so, that’s fine. Take the blame.
See if I care.

Except here’s the thing.

If you pay attention to what they’re saying, female leaders are usually not apologizing because they did something wrong. They’re apologizing as a way of acknowledging the other person’s experience.

That’s called empathy.

“Sorry to interrupt” doesn’t mean “I’m wrong to speak.”
It means “I see that you were talking and I’m aware this might disrupt your thought process.”

So yeah, women apologize more than men.
Because they actually give a shit about how other people feel.

Problem #2: Female Leaders Are Paid Less Than Men

Women earn less than men for the same job. That’s just a fact.
On average, they earn about 19% less.

The most obvious reason is that they’re just not as skilled at the job as men. After all, people get paid based on what they’re worth, right?

Wrong.

People get paid based on how well they negotiate. And women don’t negotiate as aggressively as men do for their salary. Not because they’re bad at asking. But because they trust the system.

They believe that if they do good work, someone will notice and pay them accordingly.

Men are different. We don’t trust like that. We assume nobody’s going to hand us anything, so we have to take it.

But trust is important. Every functioning team requires it. And you can’t build a healthy culture without it.

So yeah, women get paid less.
Because they trust more than the rest of us.

Problem #3: Women Get Pregnant

Women take off many months, sometimes years, to have children and raise them.

As if that’s not bad enough, they sometimes have to take kids to school and pick them up. God forbid there’s a sick day, a snow day or a parent-teacher meeting.

Seriously, how are we supposed to run a company with behavior like that? And how are they supposed to be effective leaders when they’re constantly pulled away?

You know what good leadership is?

It’s patience when someone’s melting down for no reason.
It’s being calm and organized when everything feels chaotic.
It’s motivation when nobody wants to do the thing you’re asking of them.
It’s inspiration when the task seems impossible.
And it’s decision-making with incomplete information and no time to think.

That’s leadership.
Turns out, that’s also motherhood.

Mothering children is leadership at the most strenuous level.
You’re managing tiny humans who can’t regulate their emotions, don’t understand consequences, and actively resist your direction. And you have to do it while keeping them alive, fed, and not completely feral.

Compared to that, managing a team of adults who can tie their own shoes is kind of a walk in the park.

It’s no wonder that studies found mothers to be the most productive people in the workforce.

Not despite having kids.
Because of having kids.

So yeah, motherhood pulls women away from the office.
And puts them into the hardest leadership training there is.

Problem #4: Female Leaders Don’t Promote Themselves

Women don't advocate for themselves. They undersell what they can do. And when they're offered a role they're not sure about, they'll actually say so.

Honestly, if they’re not confident in themselves, why should we believe in them?

Except that’s all backwards.

Women don’t underestimate their abilities. And they don’t lack confidence. In fact, they’re fairly accurate in estimating their own abilities.

It’s men who screw it all up by overestimating themselves.

When women say they can do something, they’re sure they can.
When men say it, they think they probably can. Maybe. If they get lucky.

Honesty is an important element of great leadership.
You can’t make good decisions if you don’t know what you don’t know.

Women know what they don’t know.
Men figure it out later. Usually when they’re trapped in the hole they’ve dug.

So yeah, women don’t advocate for themselves enough.
Because they’d rather be honest, than guess on their chances of success.

The Problem Was Never Female Leaders

Here’s the thing I learned about all four of these problems.

They’re not problems with women.
They’re problems with everybody else.

We’ve built a system that rewards overconfidence over competence.

We reward aggression over empathy.
We think self-promotion is more important than self-awareness.
And we’ve convinced ourselves that negotiation is better than trust.

And what do we punish women for?

All the traits that define great leadership:

• Empathy

• Trust

• Self-awareness

• Resilience

So yeah, there are problems with female leaders. But the problem is that we keep acting like their behaviors are weaknesses rather than strengths.

The problem is we need more female leaders, not fewer.

Maybe the problem was never that women didn’t lead like men.
Maybe the problem is that we spent decades teaching women to act like mediocre men.

And maybe it’s time all the mediocre men out there started acting a little bit more like exceptional women.

P.S. Forward this to a rockstar female leader (or a mediocre man). I know you know them.

Your patterns that are reinforcing the wrong traits and punishing the right ones - those won't change on their own. They change when you understand what you’re doing and why. That's what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop will show you. Reserve your spot now.

Starbucks became what they are because of how they designed the experience of being there.

They all have comfortable seating, warm lighting, soft music, free wifi, and they put your name on the cup. At least they try to. They’re crappy at spelling. But everything aside from that spelling issue is intentional. Everything is sending the same message to the customer.

The message is: you belong here.

The Office Tour I Can’t Forget

That’s what I was thinking recently when a client took me on a tour of their brand new office space.

It’s a beautiful looking space. They had all the things. Foosball table. Ping pong table. Cold brew on tap. They had a brand new logo on a light-up sign and a whole wall painted with their company values in giant letters.

And then I saw the chairs at the employees’ desks.

They were kind of cheap looking. Closer to the kind you find at a banquet hall than an executive office. You know the chairs. The ones that make your tailbone beg for mercy by midday.

I pointed at them.

“Why those chairs?”

The CEO shrugged. “Budget. We saved a fortune. Do you know how expensive chairs are these days?”

So I looked at the wall. The one with the giant letters. With their core values.

Then I shook my head.

What Is Environmental Psychology?

There’s this thing called environmental psychology. Most companies have never heard of it. And very few take it seriously, even if they have heard of it.

The idea is pretty simple. Your physical space shapes how people think, how they feel, and how they work. And I’m not talking about this in some fuzzy, feel-good way. This is documented, it’s researched, and it’s a measurable fact.

Your office is influencing people’s productivity right this second. Whether you know it or not. And whether you meant it to or not.

The Message Your Office Sends Every Day

Here’s where it gets a little bit uncomfortable, depending on you.

Your office sends a message to every single person who works there, every single day. They show up and it’s one of 2 messages.

The message is either: we thought about you.

Or: we didn’t.

And once I show you where to look for it, you are going to see this everywhere.

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When I asked him what he was doing about it, he said to me, “Fortunately, I’m a really patient person. So I’m letting him do his thing. It will eventually work itself out.”

I paused.
Because I could see through what he said.
You can probably see through what he said.
Everybody can probably see through what he said.

He couldn’t.
Because he convinced himself he’s being patient.
He’s really just being avoidant.

We all do some version of this - and I’m not exception.
We all convince ourselves at some point in our lives that looking the other way is the better decision.

Do this enough and you start believing that looking the other way is the right thing to do.

And that brings us to you.

There’s something you keep tolerating.
Maybe it’s a person, a dynamic, your own behavior or a situation that you believe will “eventually work itself out.”

Do you know what it is?
Most people don’t - because you’ve disguised the tolerance as something more positive.

But I guarantee you’re tolerating stuff in your life that is holding you back.

Are you ready to hear the truth about what you’re tolerating and how to change it?

Your simple solution is below.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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I have one direction for you before you read this article:
Whatever you do, don’t think about the pink elephant standing behind you.

Ok. Now let’s talk about dieting.

At any given time, about half of the people in the United States are trying to lose weight. Odds are, you’re probably doing some combination of a new diet, more exercise or maybe even some magical medication.

You may have lost some weight in the process.
If you’re committed enough, you will lose some weight in the process.

Which means you’re going to be really disappointed by the next thing I tell you.

It’s probably not going to work.

Within 4-5 years of losing weight, as many as two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than they lost.1

In other words, trying to lose weight makes you gain weight.

This is a problem.
But it’s not just a dieting problem.
It’s also a problem with how you act at work.

The Pink Elephant You Aren’t Thinking About

You know what? Let’s talk about that pink elephant. The one you’re trying not to think about.

There’s this guy, Daniel Wegner, who was a professor at Harvard and did a bunch of other smarty-pants stuff. He and his colleagues decided to study how people suppress their thoughts.

The study started off by telling people not to think about a white bear.

What he discovered is that when you consciously try not to think about a white bear, you keep thinking about a white bear.

Wegner called this the Ironic Process Theory. He also called it the Rebound Effect. And the White Bear Experiment. Clearly the fella had a bit of trouble with decision-making.

Anyway, the basic gist of Wegner’s finding is that the harder you suppress something, the harder it returns. People trying to quit smoking by not thinking about smoking end up thinking about smoking more than when they were smoking.

This is why dieting fails and why a pink elephant won’t leave your brain when I tell you not to think about a pink elephant standing behind you.

Suppression doesn’t work - not for thoughts, not for weight, and not for behavior.

And this brings us right back to you.

Why It Works For Two Weeks And Then Stops

There is undoubtedly some habit you have at work that you wish you could change.

Maybe you want to stop avoiding conflict.
Or you want to delegate more.
Maybe you need to be more patient with other people when things aren’t exactly going your way.

So you decide to change.
You decide to just delegate more. Or whatever your thing is.

And it works.

It works the entire week. Maybe it even works the next week. You’re excited. You feel proud. You’ve cracked the damn code.

Yay you.

But then, inevitably, stress hits.

Maybe it’s a pending deadline or a raging fire you have to put out. And suddenly the old behavior comes back. Usually without you even noticing.

But this time it comes back stronger.

That’s the Rebound Effect or the White Bear Effect or whatever the heck we’re calling it in this conversation.

In the end, there’s one simple thing you need to understand: just trying harder isn’t the solution.

Willpower Always Runs Out

Here’s the thing about willpower: you can’t sustain it. Nobody can.

If your behavior relies entirely on conscious effort, it won’t last.

There’s this concept called Ego Depletion, which I’m not going to explain to you because most of it is kind of bullshit, but there is one part that almost all scientists and researchers agree is true: any behavior that requires a lot of effort will fall apart under stress.

When you focus on willpower alone to change yourself, you’re spending energy to make that happen.

It works great when life is calm. You’ll be convinced you’ve changed. But the moment stress increases, the energy gets redirected into survival mode, and you’ll revert back to your old behavior.

It’s why you eat the entire sleeve of Oreos when you’re stressed, after successfully sticking to the straight and narrow for two weeks.

It’s why you’ll successfully delegate work for a few weeks, right until that deadline approaches and you take it all back.

You don’t fail because you’re weak. You don’t fail because you’re not trying hard enough. You fail because willpower will never be enough to succeed

What You’re Actually Fighting

Here’s the important thing to understand: You think you just have a behavioral problem. You don’t.

You think that if you just force yourself to do the thing you know you should do, that you’ll magically turn it into some atomic habit.

But that’s not the way the human body works.

You’re not micromanaging because it’s a habit. You’re micromanaging because you have a control problem.

You’re not avoiding hard conversations out of habit. You’re avoiding hard conversations because you’re afraid of conflict.

These are parts of your identity.
And willpower can’t change your identity.

You think you’re fighting a behavior but you’re actually fighting the thing underneath it.

Willpower never touches what’s underneath. It just suppresses the symptom. Which means the symptom returns. Every time.

The Diet Approach vs. The Pattern Approach

In the end there are two ways to approach any behavioral change:

The Diet Approach. This is what most people do. They say, “I need more willpower”, “I need to try harder”, “I just need to change.”

In the end you’ll get temporary change and it’ll feel good, but the system hasn’t changed. Your old behavior will always return.

It’s like trying to cure the flu by suppressing the sneeze. The flu won’t go away. Neither will the sneeze.

The Pattern Approach. This is about understanding why you do the things you do in the first place.

Once you understand the reason, you will recognize the triggers. Once you recognize the triggers, you can interrupt the cycle.

Suddenly you’re no longer fighting the behavior, you’re transforming your identity. Or, to kill the previous analogy, you’re not suppressing the sneeze, you’re curing the flu.

Let’s Get Back To That Elephant

Remember the pink elephant standing behind you? Of course you do. How can we forget.

The only way to stop thinking about the elephant isn’t to fight harder.
It’s to not fight at all.

And the way to stop fighting, is to change your relationship with the elephant.

Because that pink elephant standing behind you symbolizes all of your worst behaviors.

Every time you fight the elephant, you feed it. Your behaviors grow stronger.

It’s time to stop fighting the elephant and start asking why it followed you home in the first place.

Because it didn’t show up by accident.
And it won’t leave until you figure out why it’s there.

P.S. The pink elephant is still standing behind you, right? I thought so. You might want to do this 👇🏽

Understanding why your habits exist is exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop will show you. Reserve your spot now. It’s free. But I already said that.

You already know this. I hope you know this, but bear with me for a second here anyway.

The best leaders are the ones who are open to feedback. They’re curious, even coachable. And it’s not beneficial to anybody to operate in a bubble.

Trust me on this, because I did exactly that for most of my life. I’d brainstorm on my own. I’d try to solve problems on my own. It’s not the easiest way of doing things, and I learned that the hard way.

Because the better way - and the way that’s always better - is to ask for input. Stay humble and let other people’s perspectives help shape your own thinking.

Feedback from the right person at the right time can change everything. I’ve had single honest conversations shift the entire direction of my companies. Heck, I’ve had conversations that changed the direction of my life. A well-timed, honest observation delivered in a way that people can hear can save someone from really bad decisions.

So yes. Get feedback. Value it.

But there’s another part of this that’s really important. The part I said I was going to come to.

The Two Kinds Of Feedback People

There are two kinds of people when it comes to getting feedback:

The ones who ask nobody. And the ones who ask everyone.

Do you know which one you are?
Because both types have a problem.

One group is scared of being wrong. The other is scared of being right.

And there’s a part of this that nobody’s telling you about either of them.

It’s this…

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We talk about the climb. The grind. The sacrifices nobly made in service of something bigger.

But that’s closer to a Disney dream than reality.

Trevor Noah talks about the loneliness.
Jerry Seinfeld talks about the perpetual dissatisfaction.
Elon Musk talks about the stress and isolation.

Robin Williams and Matthew Perry… well… they can’t talk about it any longer.

I had a leadership coaching client last year who was successful by every external measure. In the middle of our call, she stopped and said: “I don’t think I know who I am outside of this job anymore.”

It wasn’t a complaint. It was a discovery.

That’s what this prompt is about.

Not whether you’re successful.
Not whether the sacrifices were necessary.

But whether you’ve ever actually figured out what you’ve sacrificed to build the life you’re building.

Most people never bother to face this. Because reality means sitting with the stuff that’s poking at your unconsciousness.

The only question is whether you’re actually ready to face your truth.
I ran this on myself (as I do all the prompts) and… wow, what a wake-me-up.

Run the prompt below and find out what you’re pushing aside.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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I had a realization during a client call last week.

The client is the founder and CEO of a fairly successful company. Smart guy. Incredibly nice. And he genuinely cares about his team.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t get frustrated with them.1

And that’s how I found myself on a Zoom, listening to him vent about his employees.

“They act so entitled,” he said. “They constantly complain that they need to work from home. Nobody needed to work from home before COVID. They don’t understand that you can’t effectively run a company without people in the same place.”

He’s not alone in his venting. I hear some version of this from leaders on a regular basis.

A lot of leaders are frustrated with their teams when it comes to the work-from-home policy.

If you’re one of those leaders, there’s something important you need to know:

You think you’re playing the same leadership game as the one from 6 years ago. You’re not.

The game has changed.

Believe it or not, it’s better for everybody. Including you.
You’re just the only one who hasn’t realized it yet.

You Don’t Have A Remote Work Problem

If you’re a leader who thinks employee attitudes changed after COVID, then it sure sounds like you’re someone who only trusts people are working when you can actually see them doing the work.

You probably manage your team by judging how they get something accomplished, more than the results they achieve.

I hate to break the news to you, but you don’t have a remote work problem.
You have a trust problem.

In fact, you’ve always had a trust problem.
You just needed a global pandemic to expose it.

The Real Reason Productivity Improved

Here’s a little something you should know about human behavior. There are two types of productive people: structured workers and fluid workers.

Structured workers thrive on structure (duh). They love the freedom of the 9-to-5. They feel comfort with clear boundaries and defined processes. The office can sometimes give them the focus to be their most productive. The drive home is where they can decompress and transition to their personal lives.

Fluid workers, on the other hand, thrive on integration. They love the freedom of not being bound by a 9-to-5. They may start work early in the morning, run errands at lunch, work, exercise, then jump back into work before and after dinner. They blur boundaries because the boundaries make them feel confined.

Both types of workers are equally effective. They just have different methods of getting the same results.

In fact, a 2021 study of 16,000 workers found a 13% increase in productivity due to remote work.

Another study found 77% of remote workers were more productive than their in-office counterparts. Even when they were sick!

Think about this for a second.

For decades, you forced everyone to be structured. Even the fluid workers. They came to the office, sat at their desk, and pretended to be productive between 9 and 5, when a lot of what they were actually doing was pestering the structured workers who just wanted to get their work done.

People were being as productive as they could be, while feeling trapped in a cage.

When COVID hit, the fluid workers finally got to work the way they work best. And that also allowed structured workers to focus the way they focus the best.

It’s no surprise to me that productivity improved.

Many structured workers still want to go to the office.

Many fluid workers are fine with the office, they just don’t want to be judged if they don’t adhere to a strict 9 to 5.

It’s not laziness. It’s not entitlement.
It’s trusting people to be as productive as they can be in the way that suits them best.

You Say It’s About Collaboration. It’s Not.

When you say you want your team in the office, you talk about teamwork and collaboration. But that’s not really why you want them there. What it’s really about is more simple:

Control.

You think visibility means productivity.
You mistake attendance for commitment.

You want to control them, but you can’t do that when you can’t see them. You don’t know how to lead what you can’t watch. And you don’t know how to trust what you can’t oversee.

That’s not the team’s problem.
That’s a you problem.

They’re Not The Ones Who Are Entitled

Your team spent a bunch of years learning to work in a way that’s actually better for them.

They got more done. They felt more human. They even built better lives.

They watched their kids grow up - and got better work/life balance because of it.

They started exercising - and became mentally and physically more healthy.

They reduced their carbon footprint, lowered their stress levels - and still hit their numbers.

And now you want them to give all of that up because you’re uncomfortable.

They’re not the ones who are entitled.
You are.

They know what they’re worth. They know how they work best. They know that the version of work you believe in wasn’t actually better.

It was just easier to manage.

And easier to manage doesn’t mean better for the company.
It just means better for you.

What To Do About Your Remote Work Problem

Here’s my advice: stop trying to manage where people work and start managing what they produce.

Figure out who on your team is more structured and who is more fluid. Most leaders have no idea. You probably don’t either.

Ask them. They know.
Then build accountability around outcomes, not hours.

Here’s the simplest tool I can give you. It’s only two questions.

“What are your top 3 objectives right now?”
“When do you think you will accomplish them?”

Make sure their answers align with your expectations, then hold them to it.

If they hit their objectives, and communicated effectively, who cares whether they did it from a desk, a couch, or a coffee shop in Cape Verde?

If they don’t hit their objectives, you need to have a C.A.R.E. conversation. Not about where they work. About what they’re delivering.

That’s how management works.
The ones who get that, are the ones who succeed in remote and hybrid environments.

It’s Time To Solve Your Problem

Go ahead and force everyone back into the office five days a week. Punish flexibility and reward physical presence. I dare you.

Your fluid workers will either quit or quietly check out while cashing their paychecks. Your structured workers will get frustrated with the lack of structure.

And your best people will leave for companies that already figured this out.

The game changed.
It’s time you did too.

P.S. Ask yourself this: if your team hit every objective, every quarter, without fail - would you still want them in the office?

The patterns driving how you manage your team - including whether you’re managing outcomes or managing presence - are exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop reveals.

Forty thousand!!!

There are apps and frameworks and courses and coaches that have entire productivity philosophies dedicated to helping you get more done in less time.

And I’ve tried a lot of them throughout my life.

If you’re like me, and most other people out there, you use some of these productivity philosophies and it feels a lot better for like two weeks. Then you’re back to the same problem you had before.

In fact, you should go listen to a little rant that I had about Atomic Habits. I think you’ll like that one.

The Thing Nobody Selling You A System Wants Me To Tell You

The reason none of these really work to solve the problem you’re trying to solve is because there’s a thing everyone who’s selling you time management systems doesn’t want me to say.

But I’m gonna say it anyway.

You don’t have a time management problem.

I know. It feels wrong.

You’re saying, “Jeff, I have a time management problem. I don’t even know why I am listening to you. I’m busy, I’m overwhelmed. There’s not enough hours in the day to get done what I want to get done. And if that’s not a time management problem, then what is?”

Well, listen, I’m glad you spoke your mind to me. Honesty is really important in our relationship, so I appreciate it.

And let me be fair to some of the 40,000 authors out there. Those systems aren’t useless. Time blocking works. A good to-do list helps. I’ve got an awesome to-do list. It’s really long. And getting your calendar under control matters a lot.

But none of those cure the problem. They’re just treating the symptom.

It’s Not The Problem You Think

Time management isn’t a time problem. It’s a

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You know you need to have it - you should’ve had it already.

Yet here we are.

Most people think you just don’t understand you need to have the conversation, but not me. I believe in you.

The problem isn’t about awareness. The problem is that you know exactly what you need to do - who the conversation is with, what it’s about, what needs to be said - but you’re still not having it.

You’ve got reasons. I know you do.
They’re probably even good reasons.

Maybe the timing isn’t right. Or it’s not that urgent. Maybe you don’t want to damage the relationship and it’s better to handle it after this quarter, after this project, after that thing in the future works itself out.

Meanwhile all the stuff you’re not saying is taking up space. Not just in your head, but in the room every time you’re with that person. Whether you can sense it or not (and you probably can’t), it’s impacting the dynamic between you two, and turning it into a new normal that’s much more destructive than the old normal.

I’ve watched leaders avoid conversations for months. Sometimes even years. Most of them cover it in the belief that “I’m a really patient person.”

You’re not patient.
You’re avoidant.

This prompt not only points out the conversation you need to have, but it tells you exactly why you keep not having it.

You already know what needs to be said.
Let’s figure out why you’re still not saying it.

Run the prompt below.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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Picture this. Someone is drowning in a deep pool.
They’re flailing. Gasping. Their head is going under.

It’s not looking good, and you know it.

You’re standing at the edge of the pool with a life preserver in your hand, looking at them with pity - and maybe a little frustration.

Instead of throwing the life preserver, or jumping in the pool to help, you cup your hands around your mouth and yell:

“Just swim!”

Then you stand there confused when they don’t stop drowning.

Turns out this same thing happens at work all the time. And you probably don’t even notice.

The Four-Letter Word You Keep Using

Almost every piece of crappy leadership advice starts with one four-letter word.

Just.

Just delegate.
Just trust your team.
Just have the conversation.
Just be more decisive.
Just stop micromanaging.

Using the word “just” to give someone growth advice is like seeing somebody drowning and clapping to help motivate them to survive.

It’s demeaning, demoralizing and definitely not helpful.

They don’t need a lecture from you.
They need saving.

When your advice to someone includes “just,” you’re actually pretending that the really hard thing to do is really easy for them. It’s an insult to the person trying to do the really hard thing.

It makes them feel like an idiot.

You think you’re helping.
You’re not.
So just stop with the “just.”

Knowing Isn’t The Same As Doing

There’s a big difference between knowing you should do something and actually doing it.

It’s fairly easy to know you should do something.
It’s meaningfully harder to actually do it.

Let me give you an example.

A lot of people know that they should delegate more. You’re probably one of those people.

But knowing what you need to do doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly do it. You probably won’t delegate more.

Because this isn’t about your capabilities. You know how to delegate. And it isn’t a problem with willpower. If it were, you’d already be delegating.

It’s a deeper problem that connects right down to very core of your personal identity.

When someone tells you to ‘just delegate more,’ they’re assuming you already know the root cause WHY you’re not delegating.

You don’t.

The reason you can’t delegate isn’t sitting on the surface of consciousness. It’s buried deep in your Unconscious Operating System. And it’s protected by a suit of armor that you’ve been building since you were a kid.

You can’t ‘just’ take that armor off and change your identity.
It’s not that easy.

Your behavior isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a system of interconnected parts. To change one thing, you have to change many.

The problem is that you don’t even think about your Unconscious Operating System. Because it’s unconscious. It’s right there in the name.

Meet Gary. Gary Is Drowning.

I have a client. Let’s call him Gary - because I’m flying over Indiana right now.

Gary is a highly accomplished person at a big-name company. But Gary gets defensive when people disagree with him.

He knows it’s a problem. That’s why he originally contacted me.

Recently, Gary had his yearly review. His boss told him, “you just need to stop being so defensive when people disagree with you.”

Imagine that working. Imagine Gary hearing those words and thinking “ooh, you’re right. I should just stop. Great idea. Problem solved.”

Remember, the drowning person can’t just start swimming. They’re drowning.

Gary isn’t defensive because he chooses to be. He’s defensive because something in his Unconscious Operating System is trying to protect him. But it’s causing him to drown.

Maybe he wants to be right. Maybe winning makes him feel validated. Maybe he simply doesn’t want to look stupid.

Whatever it is, you can’t make any of that go away by simply willing it to disappear.

My leadership coaching work with Gary never includes the words “just stop being defensive.”

Instead, I embrace his defensiveness, because that’s part of who he is right now.

He is drowning in defensiveness. I’m not going to stand on the sidelines and cheer him on. I’m going to accept that he’s drowning, and toss him the life preserver to save him from it.

“Just” Is What You Say When You Don’t Know How To Help

Most people don’t use “just” to be cruel. They use it because they don’t know what else to do. They don’t know how - or don’t want to make the time - to help.

“Just delegate” is what you say when you don’t know how to teach delegation.

“Just be more decisive” is what you say when you don’t understand why they have an ineffective decision-making process.

“Just” is the shortcut for skipping the hard work of actually helping someone change.

And they know you’re not helping.
They always know.

When you use ‘just,’ they can hear that you don’t actually know how to help.

You’re not being a leader.
You’re being lazy.

They’ve Already Tried

The person you’re saying “just” to has probably already tried to “just do” whatever you’re suggesting.

The problem is not that they don’t know the problem. They do.

They’ve tried to be more decisive. They’ve tried to delegate. They’ve tried to have the conversation they know they’re avoiding.

The problem is that the trying didn’t work.
Because the behavior isn’t the actual problem.

The root cause of their problem, is the pattern underneath the behavior.
And patterns don’t respond to commands.

Patterns respond to awareness. They respond to the interruption of the Pattern Environment Loop.

Nobody can ‘just’ change who they are by simply being told to.
If they could, you would have already changed your worst patterns by now.

There’s Actually A Simple Fix

There’s actually a simple way to get out of your tendency to tell people to “just be better.” And the solution is surprisingly simple. It’s this:

Replace your “just” comment with a question.

And the good news is that there’s only one question to ask: What.

Instead of “just delegate more” → “What is making it hard to delegate?”

Instead of “just be more decisive” → “What are you thinking about when you hesitate in your decision?”

Instead of “just have the conversation” → “What are you afraid will happen if you have the conversation?”

“Just” closes a conversation.
“What” opens it.

Once the conversation is open, you can actually help them change.

Back To The Pool

Let’s get back to the drowning person in the pool.

We can both agree that they don’t need to “just swim.”
They need help and support and somebody to make them feel safe.

We all need that when we feel stuck.

And we’ve all been stuck in patterns that took us years to build. The word “just” can’t, on its own, undo any of them.

So next time you’re about to tell someone they ‘just’ need to change, shut your trap.
You’re not being helpful.

Replace ‘just’ with ‘what.’
Ask the question and begin the journey to transforming their life.

P.S. In case you missed it, this is the most dangerous word in leadership

The patterns underneath the behavior - the ones that make change so hard - are exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop allows you to see.

The Journal of Vocational Behavior just published what I believe is the most comprehensive analysis of workplace stress ever done.

515 studies. Over 60 years of research. 800,000 workers.

What they discovered is probably going to surprise you.
It surprised me.

The Leaders With The Wrong Answers

If you ask leaders what stresses their people out the most, you’re probably going to get the same answers every time.

Impossible deadlines. Toxic coworkers. Too much work and not enough time to do it. Maybe a bad manager or two thrown in there.

Those are all reasonable guesses.

They’re also all wrong. They aren’t the thing that stresses people out the most at work.

To be fair, all of those things are genuinely stressful. I’m not saying they’re not. A toxic coworker does not create a relaxing experience at work.

But they’re not the biggest stress creators.

It’s not even close.

The #1 Reason People Are Stressed At Work

The number one source of stress for workers - bigger than deadlines, bigger than toxic coworkers, bigger than bad management - is this:

Read more

They learn from it.
They own it.
They move forward.

It’s all bullshit.

Because when something actually goes wrong, the real version of them shows up.

The one that gets defensive, but doesn’t see themselves playing the victim.
Or the one that assigns blame and believes it’s accountability.

Most often it’s the leader who, once again, works twice as hard to make sure nobody - including themselves - has time to think about what is actually failing.

You are telling yourself a story about how you handle failure.

It’s just not the true story.

This prompt uncovers your real relationship with failure, and what you can do about it.

It’s time to see the thing you’re hiding from yourself.
Run the prompt.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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Your team isn’t going to tell you this directly, so I will.

Everybody hates your weekly team meeting.

There. I said it.
And now that I started, I have a few more things I’d like to get off my chest.

You ready? Good.

Because you’re the only one who actually likes that weekly team meeting. You’ve convinced yourself that it’s a great idea.

But it’s not.

Do you really think the meeting keeps everyone aligned?

If so, you’re nutso.

Maybe it’s the only time of the week where you get to hear the updates - but that doesn’t mean everyone else is out of the loop too.

Your team knows the truth.
The meeting is a joke.

And the joke’s on you.

How Your Team Actually Feels About Your Weekly Team Meeting

If you canceled your weekly team meeting tomorrow, nobody would care. In fact, I bet your team would secretly celebrate.

Not because they don’t like working with each other or don’t care about the company. But because they’d get back that weekly waste-of-an-hour.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a dare for you:

Tell your team that next week’s meeting is canceled. Then see what happens.

Nobody is going to ask to reschedule. Nobody is going to panic. They’ll just remove it from their calendar and go about their day.

You know how I know?
Because when you can’t show up, the meeting doesn’t happen.

Think about that.
If the meeting were actually for the team, they’d hold it without you.

But they don’t.
Because everyone knows the meeting only exists for you.

What's Actually Happening In The Room

Your weekly team meeting probably follows the same cadence as most leadership meetings.

You go around the room. Each person gives their update. Most of the updates are things their colleagues already know, because they actually communicate during the week.

Go figure.

Their heads nod politely and they’ll secretly check their phones under the table so you can’t see. Every now and then someone asks a clarifying question, mostly to make you think they’re actually listening - which they’re not.

And then you wrap up by saying something trite like, “great meeting everyone, let’s make it a great week.”

Everyone goes back to their work, and they’re relieved the damn thing is over.

What Your Team Does All Week To Survive Your Meeting

I hate to tell you, but your weekly team meeting is probably doing more harm than good.

You don’t see this, because everybody hides it from you. They even hide it from each other. But I see it happening all the time.

People hold back sharing information from each other because of that meeting.

• If a problem comes up on Wednesday, they think “I’ll bring it up in Monday’s meeting.”

• When they have a good idea on Thursday, they save it for the meeting.

• When they finish something on Friday, they wait until Monday to mention it.

Not because they’re trying to be tricky, but because they know that the meeting needs fresh content to stay interesting and keep everybody awake.

If problems get solved in real time (like they should be), there’s nothing new to say on Monday. So they bank their updates. They store them like a chipmunk stores nuts in its cheeks. But not as cute.

Because of this, decisions get delayed. Problems last longer than they should. It’s not good.

Your weekly team meeting isn’t making your team faster and more communicative. It’s slowing them down and creating a communication problem.

And you’re blind to all of it.

The Reason You Need To Change Your Meeting

The thing is, the meeting isn’t broken because you’re running it wrong (which, by the way, you probably are - hashtag leadership team coaching). The weekly team meeting is broken because it was designed for you, not for them.

You’re the one who needs the meeting. You need to hear from everyone to ease your anxiety, or make you feel powerful, or however you play out your unhealthy patterns.1

Your team doesn’t need any of that. They already know what’s happening. It turns out they can solve problems in real time.

What they need is for the meeting to actually benefit them. Which means restructuring the whole damn thing.

Not adding more agenda items.
Not better facilitation.

I’m talking about a full restructuring of what the meeting is for.

What The Weekly Team Meeting Should Actually Be For

If you’re going to hold a weekly leadership meeting, why don’t we make it one that benefits everyone. Here are 5 ways for your weekly team meeting to be more meaningful.

1. Discuss metrics that matter to the team

The numbers that matter are the leading indicators that help the team make better decisions. If the numbers you share don’t change how your team views the week ahead, you’re sharing the wrong numbers.

2. Make decisions, not updates

Most weekly team meetings are stale status reports.
You should change that.

Have each person bring one decision that they can’t decide alone. Then transform the meeting to a place where decisions get made together.

3. Address their real problems

Your problems don’t matter the most.
Ask the team what’s blocking them. What’s slowing them down.
Then actually do something about those problems.

4. Create firm commitments

Each person says one thing they’re committing to deliver by the next meeting. Not a list of priorities - just one important commitment.
Out loud.
In front of everyone.

5. Celebrate the little wins

The big wins are easy. Everyone already knows about them.

The wins that matter are the ones that usually aren’t acknowledged.
Hard conversations someone had. Silent customer wins. Teamwork above and beyond the usual expectation.

When you celebrate those, you’re defining excellence.

The Real Question

Think of your last weekly team meeting.
If you weren’t there, would your team have had it anyway?

If the answer is no, the meeting isn’t for them. It never was.

So maybe it’s time to ask yourself this important question: “what should happen in this meeting to benefit the team that wouldn’t happen anywhere else this week?”

If you can’t answer that with something specific, cancel the meeting.

Your team will get an hour back.
You’ll get the discomfort of having to trust them to do their jobs.

And both of you will be better for it.

P.S. The meeting isn't the problem. You are. The meeting is just where it shows up.

There are patterns that make you run your weekly team meetings the way you do. You don’t see the patterns. I do. Check out the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop to see into your blindspots.