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Dennis Collins: Hey there, welcome back. A warm welcome back to Connect and Convert. This is the podcast where small business owners come to hear the insider secrets about how to grow sales faster than ever. Yes, indeed. We’re glad to be back. I am joined, as usual, by two of my colleagues. You’ve met Producer Paul. He pops in every once in a while. He’s at the controls today. But my partner in crime, as always, Miss Leah Bumphrey. Hi, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey: Hey, Dennis. We are going to be the sharer of secrets today, aren’t we? Just as always.

Dennis Collins: The sharer of secrets. Yes, and they’re insider secrets. They’re not just any secrets. They’re insider secrets. And I just have one question. Are you guys getting any kind of springtime up there in Canada? I mean, you had a snowy and cold winter. How’s it going?

Leah Bumphrey: We did. And you know what? It is a little bit chilly out there, but there’s a tiny skiff of snow in my front yard. It’s pretty much done. Now it’s dust season. After this season, dust. All the roads are covered in sand, covered in dust. We don’t complain about that because I can go for my long walks and it’s gorgeous.

Dennis Collins: Good for you. Well, again, I hope that I can come up and visit Canada this year. I don’t know if US citizens are going to be allowed inside.

Leah Bumphrey: We love you guys coming up. Don’t believe all the rumors.

Dennis Collins: I don’t want to get into all this political stuff. But you know, I must say, have you been seeing the craziness that’s going on here in the news, Leah? I don’t know. Maybe you guys cut that news out. I would if I could.

Leah Bumphrey: There’s stuff going on. It depends on what craziness. You can always find what you’re looking for, I guess.

Dennis Collins: It’s layoffs, government layoffs. It’s turnover. It’s holding people accountable. It’s wild and it’s happening lightning fast. Lightning fast. When I see that happening, I think back to several topics that I think our listeners would be interested in. All I know is back in the day, my radio days, I’ll tell you, this topic or this area, this discussion was probably one of the hottest topics we ever had in our meetings. And it’s very controversial. And I don’t know if there is an answer. But today I want to talk about it, put it out there, see what you and I think. Maybe producer Paul will pop in and let’s see if we can help our small business owners come up with some ideas on this. Okay?

Leah Bumphrey: Okay.

Dennis Collins: So the whole topic is the topic of accountability and employee turnover. I will tell you, if I had one meeting, I had a thousand meetings in my career about those topics. And everybody has an opinion and everybody thinks they are the expert on accountability and employee turnover. And so it made for a hot discussion. But there’s something I think of. I want to start today with an anecdote. This may or may not be true. I can’t verify it. I am old, but I am not fourth century BC old.

Leah Bumphrey: You’re not old, Dennis, just to be clear.

Dennis Collins: But I’m definitely not fourth century old. And this is how the story goes. Famous anecdote, ancient Chinese history. You’ve heard of Sun Tzu, the renowned strategist, author, Art of War. Well, he claimed that he could train anyone to follow military commands. So his king, King Helu, challenged him. Demonstrate your expertise by training the royal concubines. Yes, the women. So Sun Tzu divided them up into two groups, 90 each. Two companies, he appointed the king’s two favorite concubines as company commanders.

So he trained them. He explained some simple commands. When the command is given to face right, you turn right. Command to face left, you turn to the left. Command to about face, you turn around. Command to face front, you go back to your original position. Pretty simple. And then he verified, like any good general would, do you understand the instructions? Well, they said, sure. But when he gave the commands, they just giggled. Well, Sun Tzu then re-explained that if the instructions are not clear and not followed, it’s the general’s fault. So he repeated his instructions and he asked once again, were they clear? And then he repeated the commands.

Once again, the concubines failed to show any interest in following orders. They giggled, they laughed. Sun Tzu then stated that if the instructions are clear, but the orders aren’t followed, it’s the commander’s fault. In spite of the king’s protest, Sun Tzu had the two company commanders executed as military law required. So he appointed some new commanders. The remaining concubines perfectly executed all commands. Sun Tzu then told the king, the troops are now properly trained and ready for inspection. But the king at that point had lost his two favorite concubines. He declined to review. But he was impressed enough with Sun Tzu’s discipline and commitment to military principles, he made him a general. So how about that? Ever heard that story, Leah?

Leah Bumphrey: I have not heard that story. And that is just a template of information, especially in these times and the things that we’re talking about and accountability and… Oh, wow. Where do you begin? Dennis, this is fantastic. Because honestly, it’s the pull the bandage off. How do you take a bandage off? You had small kids, I have small kids. You just rip that sucker or you go little bit, little bit, little bit. And you know what? By the time you get it off, it’s bleeding again.

Dennis Collins: It is. Well, clearly, Sun Tzu made his point. Strict discipline, a clear chain of command, and clear consequences are essential. So can I update this now? Maybe you’ve heard of Jack Welch. You’ve heard of the former GE CEO?

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Pretty famous guy, wrote 10 books and was on TV… He was the hero. Remember back in the day when I was running the radio stations? He was the guy you had to emulate. He came up with what he called the vitality curve. Maybe you remember this. It was the 20-70-10 system requiring his managers every year to rank the top 20%, the middle 70%, and then the bottom 10%. Now, if you were lucky enough to be in the top 20%, you got promotions and rewards. If you were in the middle 70, well, you were developed. You were given training. You were given accolades, praise, et cetera. But the bottom 10%, Leah, the bottom 10%, what do you think happened to them?

Leah Bumphrey: Ooh, it sounds like they didn’t get the Ginsus…

Dennis Collins: Yeah, they got last prize fired.  They were called underperformers. And every year, the bottom 10% got fired.

Leah Bumphrey: Even if everybody achieved. If everybody overachieved on goals, what you’re telling me is you don’t want to be in that bottom 10%.

Dennis Collins: Right, so here’s an example. Let’s say the team you were on had a great year. And you just blew everything out, except you were in the bottom 10%. See you later. Hit the road, Jack. And from what I learned and studied over the years with this, he was serious about this. And at the time, I remember a lot of businesses emulated him. I will tell you what, I’ll be honest, in our management team meetings, this came up fairly often. Should we do this? Should we do this stratification of 20-70-10? It was discussed. And I will tell you, we had a modified, we didn’t have as severe as Jack, but we had a modified 20-70-10 plan. So I have a little bit of experience with it. So that’s kind of the updated Sun Tzu, isn’t it? No blood is shed, but he was taken seriously.

Leah Bumphrey: Dennis, I want to know what was the modified version? Was it somebody that just, was the bottom not achieving their set goals that you had to roll?

Dennis Collins: Yeah, correct. We didn’t actually stratify 20-70-10, but we did make a commitment to ourselves that we would look at the lowest performers at the end of every year and make decisions. And I’ll tell you why we did that. And maybe some of our business owners can identify with this. You can make all the speeches you want to make about accountability and about consequences.

The way you’re evaluated by your team is what you do, not what you say. And my management team was a pretty sharp bunch of people, thankfully. I needed every one of them. And they agreed that the standard that you set by keeping the lowest performers becomes the standard for your company because you are allowing them as management, as ownership, you’re allowing them to stay there. And everybody knows they’re not performing. Everybody.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, so back to Sun Tzu, why did he not just get rid of the bottom 10? So there’s 90 on each side. So you’re getting rid of the worst. It’s like you were the worst and you were the worst on each side. He got rid of the worst leaders. So based on that, Dennis…

Dennis Collins: Aha, glad you pointed that out, Leah. That’s an important point, isn’t it? Maybe Jack Welch had it all wrong. Maybe the people who were leading these poor performers should have been fired. How about that? I don’t recall in the literature at that time, I don’t know what he did with the managers. I’ll bet if I did a little digging, I could find this out, but I’ll bet you he also ranked his managers, his leaders. And I’ll bet the bottom 10% of them were cut as well.  You would have to, to be consistent, wouldn’t you? You’d have to.

Leah Bumphrey: You would have to. I’m thinking about the hesitance some businesses are to do this. And I recently was talking to a businessman who said, we just can’t get rid of the lower performers because it’s so hard to fill their spot. And that blew my mind because if you can’t find someone to work in your industry that’s better than your lowest performer, that begs a whole bunch of questions.

Dennis Collins: Well, it does. I have this notion, I think we’ve talked about it on here before. If not, we certainly will. I believe the responsibility of the leadership is to create a magnetic workplace, a sticky workplace that people don’t want to leave. And unfortunately, when someone does, which is rare, you have a long list of people that are highly qualified that want to come to work for you because you are the workplace of choice. You are the workplace of choice.

And you know what? I’ve got a whole manual on that because my management team made me sit down one day, several days, and actually map that out, Leah. We mapped out what does it take to become a workplace of choice. And I’m not saying we were the icon of it, but I’ll tell you what, we did a pretty good job. And how do I know that? Because the numbers back me up on that. They support that we were the place everybody wanted to come to work. So when I hear a owner manager say, well, nobody wants to come here, I’m sorry, that’s on you, buddy. That’s on you.

Leah Bumphrey: I agree. If you can’t or there’s something wrong with the position you’re hiring for, that’s the other possibility.

Dennis Collins: Exactly. Maybe there’s a problem with the job description. Maybe there’s a compensation problem. But that’s still on the leader. All of that’s under the control of the leader, correct? Everything.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah. For sure. Think back to the concubines. And I got to go back to them because if they would have failed again, okay, then he kills the next two. And then again, and then the next two. Well, eventually you’re not teaching them right. They don’t understand it. They’re saying something. So same thing with staff. There comes a point where if you can’t find the right people and they’re not doing it, either the position is bollocks or your training is.

Dennis Collins: Yeah, but at the end of the day, this was a hard pill for me to swallow in my young management days. I came with all the excuses that we all come with. Oh, it’s the economy. Oh, I can’t find the right people. Oh, gee whiz, we mis-hired. They weren’t the right fit for us. I had my book of excuses, I’m embarrassed to say. I had my book of excuses and I used them liberally until that day. And I guess everybody, well, maybe not everybody, but people that hang out and do well in business find out there’s nobody coming to rescue you. It’s all about you. It’s your decision. It’s your training. It’s your onboarding. It’s your accountability system. It’s all about you. There’s nobody coming. There’s no rescue. Are you familiar with that? Have you observed that, seen it, felt it?

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, for sure. Or you magically think something’s going to happen, something’s going to change. I’ve seen it happen with people working in a position and they’re hanging on and they should have been let go a long time ago. Somebody else leaves. And so then all of a sudden they’re the only game in town. And just by default, they end up getting a couple of clients and then it kind of clicks for them. But how long do you wait for that?

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s a good question. I had a guy when I was at my very first sales job. I actually got him the job. They needed somebody else to come in and I recommended this guy. And he’s a good guy. He came in and they gave him… And those days we worked off what’s called “account list.” They gave you a book of business, a list of business. And my list of business was the freaking phone book. That was my account list. And I had to go out and hustle everything I could get. They handed him an active booking list of business. And he was not working. The guy was playing golf every day. And I was embarrassed because I recommended him. But I’m saying, wait a minute. Hold on. Here I am busting my ass. And this guy is playing golf and he’s got this list just billing away, doing very nicely.

Leah Bumphrey: He had pictures of who?

Dennis Collins: Have what?

Leah Bumphrey: He must have had pictures of somebody.

Dennis Collins: Yeah. I don’t know what he had. But Leah, that set the standard for performance or non-performance. He was willing to just sit there and let this thing bill, whatever it billed, and he didn’t work it. He didn’t care if it went up, down, or sideways. That’s a terrible feeling. If you’re on a team and you know that there are several people that are not pulling their load and there’s nothing happening to them.

Paul Boomer: I’m jumping in now.

Leah Bumphrey: All right.

Dennis Collins: There he is, Producer Paul. How are you?

Paul Boomer: You knew it was coming.

Leah Bumphrey: You were lurking.

Dennis Collins: I was hoping it would come.

Paul Boomer: Well, of course. So listening to that, and I agree regarding if they’re not pulling the load that they’re supposed to be pulling, there’s something wrong with that. And going back to the managers and everything, the leadership team, it’s on them. But my question is with the structure, the 20-70-10, does that not create a fear-based compliance rather than genuine engagement?

Dennis Collins: Good question. Leah, what do you think?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, I think that I don’t like the idea of just firing someone outright, because then it’s giving, like if you’re the bottom 10 and you just get rid of them, I don’t think that that shows any opportunity for training, any opportunity for the managers to do better with this person. I think that there should be consequences, and I think that a lot of times people are afraid to give consequences because they don’t want to lose these people just because they’re placeholders. And it depends if a manager is trying to create a kingdom of their own. And we’ve all seen that happen. But Paul makes a great point. You don’t want people scared because they’re going to leave. Even your top performers are going to leave.

Dennis Collins: Well, look at it this way. Everybody knew the rules. The rules weren’t promulgated at the end of the year. Everybody knew going into the year, if they ended up below that line, they’re going.

Paul Boomer: But that’s fear. And that’s fear-based. And it also goes to the idea earlier of why are people not wanting to work here? Because I don’t want to go somewhere where I feel fear.

Dennis Collins: But let’s flip that, Paul. It’s also accountability. And the top performers, your top people, they say, thank you. Thank you for doing that. You’re honoring us by taking out the people who are pulling us down. So there’s two sides to that. Of course it’s fear-based. And a lot of people would say, well, we don’t want to scare these people. Jack Welch didn’t give a damn. He wanted good results.

Paul Boomer: Well, hold on. But did he not care because he’s so high up in the organization that he doesn’t know these people? Because if he doesn’t know somebody, you don’t have a connection to them. And that’s the thing that’s missing as well is also how do we honor the whole person while still holding high standards?

Dennis Collins: Well, Jack Welch didn’t try to figure that out. He came up with a system. And he felt his responsibility was to be accountable to the shareholders of GE and to Wall Street.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, but does it mean you’re accountable if you get rid of someone? Let’s say the whole team made their goals. So there’s 10 people, but the last bottom 10%, those last two guys, they made their goal, they achieved, they overachieved. So you’re going to cut them loose. They’re going to go somewhere else. That’s not a benefit to your business. Now, maybe being the bottom two, maybe there’s some other form of, I don’t like the word punishment, but some other form of, okay, this is what happens when you’re in the bottom 10%. But getting rid of them…

Dennis Collins: Well, you know how it’s normally done. I don’t know how they do it in Canada, but in the US, there’s a thing called a PIP. And when you get put on a PIP, that is tantamount to your exit plan. Very few people ever survive a performance improvement plan. And it’s given to you so that you have evidence when the lawsuit comes that you justifiably fired this person.

Leah Bumphrey: You’ve been written up. It’s in writing. Yeah.

Dennis Collins: That doesn’t work. That doesn’t work. It sounds nice, performance improvement plan. It’s baloney, doesn’t work.

Leah Bumphrey: Why doesn’t it work? It’s because people don’t follow it. Like the people in charge, they’re not committed to that.

Dennis Collins: If it’s truly a performance improvement plan, it doesn’t work. It does get rid of people because… I don’t know what the percentage is, but it is a high percentage of people who get put on a PIP that leave, that get fired or leave. Some real ethical questions here. How severe do consequences have to be to get people’s attention? Sun Tzu got their attention, Jack Welch got their attention. How severe? Maybe that’s the only answer. What do you think?

Leah Bumphrey: Dennis, if you’ve worked on a dream team where everybody is pulling, everybody wants to overachieve, everybody sees the vision, they own it they’re breathing it, and you can just tell there’s nothing like it. But if you are on a team where you’re the only one, or you’re of a handful, and the rest think that they’re working for a union, and I think unions have had their place and unions have done good things in the last hundred years, but we’re now a more educated people, now we’re more accountable for ourselves individually, and to have this mindset that I am owed, it’s like talking about basic income. Are you really owed your job? Are you really owed what you’re doing? And that goes down a rabbit hole, and I’m going to keep talking because Paul’s going to interrupt me right away. I can just see him. He’s edgy. He’s close. He’s almost…

Dennis Collins: His face is this close to the screen, you know he’s about ready to spew some wisdom, except we can’t hear him.

Leah Bumphrey: Everybody waits for me to stop.

Paul Boomer: That’s a problem. That’s a problem. You can’t hear me. That’s a problem. You’ve hit a nerve with me here, Dennis. You’ve hit a nerve.

Dennis Collins: Good. Nerves. We like nerves.

Paul Boomer: When leaders adopt that rule, they often forget that people aren’t static percentages. They’re dynamic. They’re growing. They’re evolving humans. And it’s lazy leadership to think putting the 10% is the path to greatness. It’s the hard, worthy work in growing the middle and asking the upper 20% to teach the rest of the people. We as humans are connected to each other. Why would we just go, ah, 10% gone, see you later? That’s called laziness.

Dennis Collins: Well, Jack Welch called it effectiveness.

Paul Boomer: Good for him. I don’t think he’s a great CEO. Never did.

Dennis Collins: Remember this, Paul. The middle group, which was the largest group, they were trained and developed. They were the high potentials to move into the top group.

Paul Boomer: What about the 20%? That 20% should be teaching, not the 70% to 20%.

Dennis Collins: Well, that’s another philosophy.

Paul Boomer: No, no, no, no. It’s another philosophy, but it should be tied into this 20% because that’s what I go back to what I said earlier in terms of Jack Welch being so high up, he doesn’t see the human side of things.

Dennis Collins: And he honestly didn’t care. He was there to run the business, and he let his management team run that side of it, and he thought it was pretty effective. The other thing, Paul, is when you have arbitrary standards. So let’s say person A and person B are fairly similar in their performance, but yet person A has maybe kissed up a little more to the boss or has… You talk about we’re human. That’s a human thing. We kiss up to people. That’s what we do. And all of a sudden, it comes time to let someone go, and either one of them should or could be let go, but person A stays and person B goes because there’s an arbitrary, unmarked line, where the system that Welch had was definitive. There was no question about it. That’s the way it goes.

Paul Boomer: I’m not saying you shouldn’t have standards. My God, you have to have standards. You have to have standards. Otherwise you have loosey-goosey crazy people just doing whatever they want. The inmates are running the asylum.

Leah Bumphrey: Sometimes people do… Obviously, there was a shock value to what he was trying to accomplish here. I’ve trained for teams. There was one sales team, and the top performer was a buddy of the guy he was working for. So everybody knew that, and that was fine, and the person, the owner, would have swore up, down sideways on a stack of Bibles that he did not let that influence him at all, but of course it did. And when you knew, as a trainer, when you were able to see this was when new people were coming in, and yes, as the top performer, he was asked to take them out, take them out on calls, and the times that he would take new people out, well, first we have to pick up my dry cleaning, and then we’ve got to have a haircut, and I’m getting fitted for a new suit, and I’m doing this.

And it was a joke for everyone on that team, including the owner, who allowed it because he’s bringing in all this business. But do you think it lasted, and do you think that a lot of people ended up getting punted because they couldn’t achieve that because they didn’t have either the relationship with the owner or with long-term clients?

Dennis Collins: What you just described is happening in every business probably in North America, where teacher’s pet is given special treatment because the owner, the boss, is afraid of the revenue loss if that person goes away.

Leah Bumphrey: Right.

Dennis Collins: They’re sacred cows. Is that fair to the other people? That’s a whole other issue then. That’s not even on this issue. We’re talking about people who are favored not because they are actually the best at what they do, but because they have the ear of the boss. How about that?

Leah Bumphrey: It also speaks to producer Paul’s comment that, okay, so the top 20%, that 70%, and then these poor number 10% people, whose fault is it? Who’s taking responsibility? Who’s making sure…

Dennis Collins: It’s the boss, always.

Paul Boomer: No.

Dennis Collins: With all respect to Paul, if I’m one of those 20%, and I’m kicking butt and making that team look good, I don’t really give a rip about training the bottom 80%. That’s not my job. It’s the boss’s job to do that. It’s not my job. It’s my job to create revenue. Now, if you have a friend that you want to mentor or if you have a personal relationship, I get that. That happens all the time too. But to assign to the 20% the mandate to train and develop the other 80%, I don’t go with that. No go.

Leah Bumphrey: But if those concubines didn’t like the next two, number three and number four, they don’t like them. Wait a minute. I know how we get rid of these women.

Paul Boomer: Then that comes down to being… I’m not going to go there, but that comes down to being a lazy owner.

Dennis Collins: Yes.

Paul Boomer: Because if you should be as an owner, you should. And here’s the big thing, if you want to scale, if you want to grow, and some people don’t, and that’s just fine. Nothing wrong with that. But if you want to scale, you have to let that go. You have to say, okay, if you’re going to work here, you’re going to be required at some point to teach others. Point blank. That’s a standard that we have. Now, there’s also what’s called a Deliberately Developmental Organization, the DDO.

Dennis Collins: Yes.

Paul Boomer: And with that, do you know what that is?

Dennis Collins: I’ve heard of it. Well, I actually did that at the radio station.

Paul Boomer: You did? Awesome.

Dennis Collins: I didn’t know the language or the lingo, but that’s what I did. I actually had the experienced people mentor the younger people. Absolutely.

Paul Boomer: So within DDO, it basically states that if you do it all the way out, I mean everything, is you really create a place where you can’t suck up to the boss because everybody is holding each other accountable. It’s not a hierarchy. It becomes the standard that everybody’s calling each other out saying, hey, if you Dennis were my boss, there would be no fear for me to come to you and say, hey, I think you’re crossing the line. That is a powerful organization. You can’t screw with that organization.

Dennis Collins: What percent of organizations would you estimate, and maybe you know the exact number, are in that group?

Paul Boomer: Less than 1%.

Dennis Collins: Yeah.

Paul Boomer: And I say that because I do have case studies on companies who use DDO, and it is amazing what they can do. It is scary amazing. The challenge comes down to, and Patagonia is actually one of them that doesn’t do it all the way, but they’re on the edge of full DDO.

Dennis Collins: I’ve studied them.

Paul Boomer: It is a hard thing to do.

Dennis Collins: Yeah.

Paul Boomer: But they are the ones who make change in the world and in business and in culture.

Dennis Collins: Boomer, for the people that aren’t going to do that, and let’s bring this now back down to our listener, okay? Most of our listeners aren’t going to do that.

Paul Boomer: Okay, now you’re inviting me into this.

Dennis Collins: They’re not going to do it.

Paul Boomer: No, but if I’m a business owner and I don’t hold a flame that maybe I’m not going to do that.

Dennis Collins: No, I mean at that level.

Paul Boomer: Okay. Still. But if I don’t hold a flame that big, why the heck are you in business?

Dennis Collins: Well, again, that is a whole another topic.

Paul Boomer: I’ll zip it now.

Dennis Collins: Yeah, I don’t want to go there, but here’s where I do want to go. I think we have an obligation now after opening this can of worms to leave our listeners with something of value. We’ve had an interesting discussion, I think. What the heck can we share with them right now, right here, right now?

What about your accountability program? Number one, should you have forced turnover like Jack Welch did? Forced turnover. Everybody knows the rules, forced turnover. Should you enforce rules almost under the pain of death, similar to our Sun Tzu?

Leah Bumphrey: I think that there should be forced consequences, Dennis. Forced consequences.

Dennis Collins: What does that mean?

Leah Bumphrey: And they have to be specific, and they have to be organizationally specific. I actually coached one manager at a company that I was associated with years ago on a program to make sure that people were goal-driven and they knew what they had to do. And his response was, we actually would never do that. And they ended up with all this dead wood that were unteachable. And also, that top 50%, the high achievers, were sick about it. So you have to have consequences. But the consequences should begin and end with the leader. Dennis, I’d have worked for you in a heartbeat because you would have owned everything you wanted done.

Dennis Collins: I tried. Certainly not perfect, but we certainly had the intent and went through the motions for sure.

Paul Boomer: I’m unzipping.

Leah Bumphrey: Not yet, because I’m going to say we’ve got the three of us on here yet. And right now, bottom 10% for technical ability. That would be me. I’d be out of there. Bottom top 10%. Everybody has a benefit and things that they’re great at and things that they’re not so great at. Top science guy, that’s Dennis. But does that mean that the stories I bring in aren’t good? Paul, we couldn’t do it without you popping in and challenging us. So you have to recognize those things and make them part of the embroidery of the business. But I know Dennis would cut me loose if I didn’t gesture into his priorities. I’d be out of here.

Dennis Collins: Oh, Leah. I’m not cold-hearted.

Leah Bumphrey: That’s why Wizard Academy sponsors us, because they know the three of us were about making small businesses better and challenging people to think. Now you go, Paul.

Dennis Collins: They certainly do that at Wizard Academy, don’t they? You never walk away from there without having some new thoughts.

Paul Boomer: No, that’s very true. You’re kind of just going, whoa. But there’s several things that I’d recommend. One, I would start with shared commitments. You don’t have rules, but you have commitments to each other. And they’re non-negotiable of how we treat each other or how we go about things. This is the way we do things, period, the end. But you also have to share what that looks like. Because if you don’t, if the boss or the managers or leaders or whoever don’t share those things, a culture, a subculture is being created. You have to take ownership of all that. Excuse me. And the other thing, one of the biggest things, and this takes some guts, but it’s extremely powerful, is make sure that feedback creates alignment and doesn’t create an attack on somebody.

Leah Bumphrey: Oh, I like that.

Paul Boomer: Start those two things.

Dennis Collins: Yeah, they sound easy, right, Paul?

Paul Boomer: Yeah, exactly. They sound easy, but are they easy?

Dennis Collins: You’ve been in the arena. You’ve been out there. You know that those are not easy. Those are not easy at all. And that is why so many small businesses have this lurking blind spot. I love what you said about subcultures. Beware of your subcultures. I don’t care how hard you work on your main culture, and you may work hard on it and do a great job. Beware the subcultures. That’s where you’re going to catch it. If you’re not aware of them and if you don’t have a way to fix that, to align that, beware of subcultures.

Leah Bumphrey: You’re talking about blind spots, Dennis, and that is why you and I offer a free 60-minute opportunity for our listeners. Get a hold of us, no charge, free, so that we can examine blind spots or where they perceive there is a blind spot. So we can help Eric’s business. Oh, that is a very important part of what it is that we’re doing.

Dennis Collins: We are experts at finding sacred cows and blind spots and comfort zones.

Leah Bumphrey: I thought you were going to say finding sacred cows and shooting them, and I was going to go, Dennis, don’t say that. Now I said it.

Dennis Collins: I do have a little article that I wrote once about assassinating your sacred cows, so I don’t know about that. I don’t know, we’re talking too much about assassinations here today. We’re going to be mistaken. We’re not really that harsh.

Leah Bumphrey: You just did.

Dennis Collins: I said what?

Leah Bumphrey: We are near the end of our time. I can tell because you’re talking about cows, and I’m hearing steak.

Dennis Collins: Let’s try to wrap this up. It’s a great discussion. It’s a healthy discussion. You need to have that discussion inside your own walls. And Paul’s remarks within the bounds of psychological safety, of course. He always will warn us and advise us on that, and he should, because that’s what he knows best. But at the end of the day, you got to run a damn business, and you got to have accountability, and most businesses don’t.

So come up with an accountability system that is sure, it is certain, right? Leah, you said that, certain consequences. Not sometimes consequences, certain consequences. Maybe not as bad as our Sun Tzu and our Jack Welch, but certain consequences. Any last word? Leah, Paul, any last words before we say goodbye?

Leah Bumphrey: I think you summed it up great. Paul?

Paul Boomer: I have one more thing, please. I do believe in consequences, and I do believe in accountability, just FYI. Okay, that’s all.

Dennis Collins: We were worried there for a second. I’m glad you said that.

Paul Boomer: I get it.

Leah Bumphrey: We’ve got to be careful, Dennis. He’s going to start muting us.

Dennis Collins: Oh, man. Yeah, I have to keep remembering he controls this thing, so I’ll behave. But I am done behaving for this episode of Connect and Convert. This is your Sales Accelerator podcast. We hope this discussion today gave you some ideas, stirred up some controversy, stirred up some thoughts. Challenge yourself. Go out there and fix that. Make sure you got that right. It’s important. We’ll see you next time on Connect and Convert.

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