The Problem Is Always Upstream

In this episode, Joe shares a cool tip for leaders: the real problem is usually not what you think it is. He tells a story about how sometimes sales teams have trouble not because they're bad at selling, but because there might be something else going wrong, like the product not being good enough or not having the right tools.

Joe also talks about trust within teams. He points out that if a team doesn't trust each other, it's not just about spending a fun day together to fix it. It's more about understanding the deeper reasons behind the lack of trust, which can sometimes be about personal feelings or doubts.

The key takeaway? Good leaders dig deep to find out the real reasons behind problems. It might mean getting into some serious talks about feelings and challenges, but it's worth it to solve issues for good. And Joe says that for leaders to help their teams open up, they need to be open about their own struggles too.

So, if you're leading a team and facing some challenges, think about what might be the real issue. It could help you and your team do better and trust each other more.

___
Videos for all these episodes are on my YouTube channel.

If you enjoy my content and you want to get in touch to find out how I could work with you, or someone you know, you can reach me at:

My LinkedIn Page

Or you can drop me an email.

Transcript

0:02

Great cEO's know that most problems have recalls upstream. So a friend of mine, Paul Kenny, he's a sales trainer and sales consultant, and he always comes across and here's the same problem. The CEO's that he works with always say, yeah, my salespeople, they really have a closing problem. They can't close deals. When he's some training to help them to get better at closing deals. And of course he knows that the. Real reasons why this sales team can't. Close deals is often knock. They're not great salespeople, but there's a problem. Up stream. Maybe. They are starting to the wrong people. Maybe their product's not right. Maybe they haven't got the resources that they need. There's lots of causes. The result in the fact that the sales team can't close a deal. And if you were CEO that, you know, you should always look upstream for the cause or the root cause of a particular problem. I was talking to a CEO. Kind of mine recently and he. Had challenges with trust. He felt that his C-suite team didn't trust each other. And he wanted some tips and tricks doing. Engender trust amongst the team, you know, can we do an away day to help increase trust? Now the challenge there being obviously. And the questions I had around. Well, what makes you think they don't trust each other? Can you talk me through the situations as to why that might be, because of course we want a shortcut to this, but often there aren't shortcuts. You really have to go upstream. And understand really why trust isn't there in the first place. So you kind of go beyond that surface reason of, you know, people say, well, I don't, you know, I don't work very well with them or, you know, you see, you hear what squabbles or stuff doesn't get done. There's always symptoms of this stuff. Yeah. And he was right to go and lay beneath his symptoms of challenges and what not getting done to look at the trust. But there's looking beneath that trust underneath that as well in Germany, more often than not, it's an emotional reason beneath. And that can be quite a scary place to go to with your team, especially your C-suite team. Because emotions, strong emotions or from reactions to a more tangible problem underneath. So maybe we don't feel we have the skills to do something. Maybe we feel like we're an imposter. Maybe we don't know how to do something. Maybe we're not clear on something. Maybe we can't see a vision. Maybe we there's something about another egg. Um, executive that just triggers us based on relationships with pad before something that they say, which seems like quite subtler and meeting triggers, mistrust within me. These are all emotional symptoms of a deeper problem underneath with that executive. And so of course I got to the point where my cEO that I was working with. And he was obviously. Challenged by the fact that he had to go to deeper, more emotional challenges underneath that, which again is not something we expect to have to do as leaders. But you look at the best leaders. That's exactly. What they do is they are going deeper with their team to understand, well, what's really going on here. Really? What are your motivations? Right here. And what was interesting is the more I spoke to the CEO, his intuition about what was going on. It was strong. All he needed to do is to follow his curiosity, to go to that place. And so the skills to understand that and to go to that emotional place require different sets, a set of skills within you. Right? You can't just answer, ask simple questions, like what's really going on here. Maybe you can, but if you know what the answer is, or that challenge is deeply emotional underneath it, you have to. Allow that person to be vulnerable in front of you. We're not going to, as humans don't like to share. Our emotional challenges. We'd like to keep them in a tight box and only share them with people that we trust. And to become vulnerable and to trust the other person. There's that T word again? We need to understand that we can trust them that they are a human being as well. And that requires within you as a CEO to be vulnerable yourself. So it's often talked to a lot about in terms of. The modern CEO is being vulnerable, but this is really where it comes into its own. And you being able to tell stories of your own shortcomings and how you've overcome them. That shows a deep vulnerability yourself. And in sharing those stories with the folks you work with to show how you've overcome them. Helps them to open up. To be vulnerable with you. They can understand that you're a human you've gone through the same challenges that they've gone through. You feel the same things that they feel sometimes that you feel imposter syndrome sometimes because, Hey, we all do. And in being vulnerable to those people, you understand, and you allow them to open that emotional box and share with you. What's really going on. And then when you know, what's really, really going on, you can solve. That problem. Because, unless you really do know what's going on, that problem won't get solved. You'll just be dealing with the emotional. Layers of that onion that sits above that, the symptoms of the problem, not the underlying problem in itself. So requiring and challenging going to the real root cause of something relies on you going to a more challenging place yourself becoming vulnerable. And helping people deal and be vulnerable themselves to understand really what's going on underneath. If this story resonates with you, I'd love to hear more about that from you. Have you done this yourself? Are you worried about doing this yourself? There's nothing wrong with feeling like that. Of course. Um, let me know your challenges. I'd love to hear that either drop me a comment below here, or just drop me an email. I'd love to speak to you and learn more about the challenges you're facing right now. Thanks again for your time. Bye bye.