Two Things every leader MUST do with Scott King

Join Scott King and I as we discuss the critical importance of managing your time well and building genuine relationships with your team. I interviewed Scott in my first podcast and invited him back to speak with me on these two important topics.

Scott's LinkedIn 
Manager Tools website
Redeeming Your Time book
The Effective Executive book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 
The Monk Manual website
Hobonichi Techo Planner
Big Rock demonstration video 

Transcript

Jason 0:04

Welcome to the biblical leadership at work podcast. I am your host, Jason Woodard. On this month's episode, I am joined by my good friend and brother in Christ. Scott King. Scott is an executive in the food safety industry with 20 years of leadership experience. He has a husband father and serves as an elder at his local church. Scott is also my first guest to come on the show twice. But instead of the usual questions that I ask Scott and I discuss what I think are two activities that every leader must be striving to do well in order to be effective in their calling. These are managing their time and building relationships with their team. Scott, and I will discuss why these matter as well as many practical ways that doing them. I have included links in the show notes to all of the resources that we discuss and the show. I hope that you enjoy this special topic centric episode. Now let's meet Scott King. Scott King, one of my closest friends and brother in Christ, and, uh, someone I respect as a leader very much. I, I appreciate you coming on today to talk about the two topics that we wanna focus on.

Scott 1:21

Good morning, Jason. Uh, glad to be with you, uh, once again and, appreciate you, you thinking of me and, uh, look forward to the.

Jason 1:29

Great. Hey, Scott, before we get into the, to the topics at hand, why don't you spend just a moment and let people know a little bit about your, career background and your, experience as a leader, and so they understand some of that context.

Scott 1:43

uh, yeah, gladly. Um, so, uh, I guess I can start with where I am and, and give you a little bit to walk back, but I'm currently, uh, vice president of Food Safety for P ssi, food Safety Solutions. been with p ss I now for, about a year and, year and a quarter, I think a little over a year. I lead our entire food safety function across, uh, across the company. have, uh, a team of approximately 60, direct and indirect reports. Um, and I've spent my entire career in this food safety space. So, uh, prior to Pssi, I was with, Kellogg's for. Oh, nearly 20 years. And, prior to that, I, I'd actually worked in genetics, but in the food safety space. And I studied food safety and food science all the way back in school. So this is what I've been doing. I, I'd say my career has been 50%, in operations and in plants. So working, uh, quality and food safety in, uh, manufacturing, capacity and 50% in like a corporate support, which is, lot of what I do now. And it's, it's a good mix cause I spend a lot of time in manufacturing plants and working with manufacturing plant teams, which is where I spent half my career. but I also get the exposure to, you know, hundreds of manufacturing facilities and teams. And that's, uh, uh, a benefit to be able to bring best practices and lessons learned to everybody that I work with.

Jason 3:06

thank you for that. I think it's important for people to know that, these topics we're talking about today are not just theoretical. Right. And you and I are gonna talk a a lot about the practical aspect of we have practiced them, both of us for many years and not perfectly. but we were passionate about the impact that they can have. And I would also say, and I think I can speak for you on this, we're both passionate about, Doing our work well to honor Christ. That is our ultimate objective. And he's, placed us in, workplaces that are not ministry focused. They are secular workplaces, and that's good for us. It's the, the spot he's put us in for a long, long time. Both of us have an, uh, a lot of experience in manufacturing, so that's always been fun to, to share, our experiences there and to sharpen each other. But really it's all about being better leaders, being more effective leaders so that we can fulfill the command that we've been given to, work as though we're working for the Lord and not for man. So, and I know you're passionate about that as well.

Scott 4:07

I was just gonna say that, yeah, I'm reminded of that, more and more every day. that's who we serve as the Lord. Uh, no matter what it is that we do, ho hopefully we're serving him well. He asks us to love him and to love others, and that's a big part of what leadership is. Matter of fact, we're sitting here in March and, uh, it's employee appreciation month and I've spent a lot of time, number one, trying to do some things to show my employees that I appreciate them and encourage them to do the same cuz I'm a manager of folks who manage other people. And, there's nothing more important and we'll talk about that as we talk about these topics than getting to know your people and, them knowing that you genuinely care about'em.

Jason 4:47

That's exactly right. So the first thing that we wanted to talk about, the first thing I'd like to discuss is these idea of managing our time well and ensuring that we're focusing on the right things as you and I were talking briefly before we hit the record button. these two topics were chosen because in my experience over the past 10 to 20 years, when I see leaders struggling and sometimes failing, it can always be tied back to them not doing either or both of the things we're gonna talk about today. And that's managing your time well and building the relationships with your team. the first one I'd like to talk about is, you know, it's time management, is how it's, uh, commonly known. I think there's much more to it than time management. And so I'd like to talk about, practices that you've found to be helpful. I'll talk about things that I found to be helpful, but the way that the principle was probably explained best outside of scripture, and I know you're gonna share a scripture on it because you recently led a Bible study on this topic. So I'll let you. share the scripture, that Ru earlier was based on, but I also think about what Stephen Covey wrote about and the, seven habits of Highly Effective People. And he talked about, you know, doing first things first. In fact, that habit for him was so important that he wrote an entire book on first Things First. And it's about, putting that big rocket. And if for our listeners, if you've never seen a video or you've never seen somebody demonstrate this principle visually with a big rock, I would encourage you to go on YouTube and search for First Things First Big Rock principle. And it's a real powerful visual of ensuring that our number one prior. Have a been identified, we've spent time thinking about those and praying as believers. We've, prayed about what are our number one priorities, and those are at the top of our list as far as time management. They're on our calendar. They're on our agenda. When you look at your, your calendar for the day, for the week, for the month, those things are prominent in there and everything else comes next. So that's a real powerful, way to explain this principle in a visual way. but that's what we're, that's what I want to talk about first is, is time management and putting first things first. So Scott, if you would, gimme your thoughts on that and, and from scripture and even what you, we recently spoke on.

Scott 7:13

our recent conversation was actually more in my, my thinking and preparation for this conversations. as you know, we could probably stop with what you just said there. I mean, getting first things first. I think Stephen Coy said it very well. Scripture, will add quite a bit to that. but, I like to think of time as our most precious resource. it's a resource that, uh, we can't renew. for sure. once it's gone, we never get it back. You can't buy time. Um, but when we think about life, it's metered out to us in time um, until eternity. That is so, one thing I like to think about is, you know, being proactive with our time, and our focus. And so that's probably a little bit of what I'll talk about. I want to share Ephesians five 15 through 17. so in Ephesians five 15 through 17, Paul says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. Making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And that's really packed with a lot of wisdom. Paul's talking about our new life in love and he's given instructions for holy living. Um, and he's focusing on the purity of life and avoiding evil deeds and associations. But he's doing that by adopting holy practices. he talks about making the best use of the time. And so, this could mean, uh, to redeem or to purchase that time. And, uh, that has a, you know, a major. implication. You know, again, you know, we're, we want to make, we wanna redeem that time and use it for holy practices and holy purposes. And that's, that's what I try to organize. Uh, I think that Stephen Covey's kind of saying the same thing, you know, well, if that, if that number one priority, uh, that big rock is, God or what God wants you to do with your life. And that's, that's really where I start. You know, when I think about prioritization, you know, what does God want me to do with the time that he's given me? It's a gift.

Jason 9:14

couple things I'd like to piggyback on there, Scott. when you talked about redeeming your time, I, every time we have a podcast, I think it's important that I always ask my guests to share, books that they're reading, leaders that they're following. And I have to say that uh, Jordan Rainer wrote a book called Redeeming Your Time. And I will say I have not read the book, it's on my list for this year, but I have watched some of his teachings on it. On right Now Media, which is a video service that we get through our church. It's, uh, a lot of different devotionals and things like that. But Redeeming Your Time by Jordan Rainer, But, the other thing that you mentioned in that scripture so Ephesians five 15 through 17 is, uh, the verse that you, or the verses that you talked about. And one, the thing that stands out to me is the very first few words that Paul writes and he says, look carefully. And it makes me think about the fact that we as leaders and as people, as followers of Christ need to take time, quiet time. to think about how we're spending our time. And I know you and I have shared that, we both have, time that we do that annually as well as monthly, quarterly. We have, we have practices that we've developed over the years in which we stop and look back at how we've spent our time and looked forward at how we should be spending our time and doing that in prayer and trying to understand, you know, where God would have us to spend those times. But I think that that's an important key that you have to stop, pray, and think about. Paul says, look carefully. It's looking carefully. That means you're spending time, you're, you're getting some quiet time and devoting some time to do that, and not just being reactive and waking up each day and responding to whatever stimuli comes your way. That is not a way to look carefully than how we walk.

Scott 11:11

Yeah. And I'm a, I'm a quality guy, so looking carefully is pretty important to me. I think that the harder you look, the more you truly can see into the heart of things. I think about it two twofold. One is from a, a daily, almost minute to minute, hour to hour perspective, right? Because that one, one side of me, and one, one thing I've learned is that today is the only day I can live, right? and, and so if I want to redeem my day, I have to do that, very carefully starting. I usually start the day before thinking about tomorrow, and what's on my plan for tomorrow? And I, I do that at the end of each day. And, uh, not that I didn't know, because I think often, I think, you know, week by week and I, I'm pretty sure, uh, um, I'm not sure if it was, uh, manager tools or, Peter Druckers, the effective executive talks about, you know, looking at your work in a week by week segments, cuz that's kind of how we work is in week by week segments. And so I, I, I try to do that as well once a week. Sp actually carve time outta my calendar, about 45 minutes to think about next

Jason 12:17

And you, yeah, and I think that's, so, I think that's really important for people to understand that. And it took me quite a few years as a leader to put that sort of discipline in place. And I do the same. I haven't, you know what, I will admit, it has not been on my calendar in a long time, and I used to do the same thing Friday afternoon. I would put time on my calendar, half hour or so to look at the, the following week. I do that as a habit. Now. It's the last thing typically on Friday I do is open my calendar for the next week, look at it, make sure that it's organized, if is there anything I need to be prepared for that I haven't, so I'm not walking into a meeting unprepared the next week. But I think that's really important putting those things on your schedule and planning for them, if not, they won't happen, right? It's not gonna happen.

Scott 13:02

Well, yeah, I mean, uh, so, uh, we are, I mean, I don't know what your calendar looks like, but I do know what mine looks like. Uh, besides the things that I put on there, I would say half of it. At least is things that other people put on my calendar and for, for oftentimes for good reasons. and sometimes they're urgent needs that come up and so they get put on your calendar last minute. and so I like to have the most important things on there first, and that's what I'm trying to see. When I look at my next week, how much time am I spending on urgent needs that have come up? And how much time am I spending on the most important things that I decided at the beginning of the year? Or maybe it's just reflecting my values and my priorities, right? And so, um, I, I have priorities that I would say are, they're just mine. They're not the ones that work gave me, right? So work's gonna give me priorities. And if I were to let them, they would give me enough priorities to fill up 100% of my time. And if that were the case, then, uh, I wouldn't have time, well, I wouldn't guess, I wouldn't have time to do this Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have time to be with my, uh, with my family. I wouldn't have time to spend with the Lord. and that's the most important thing. And I mean, that time with the Lord actually directs everything else. so I wanna spend time with him in the mor I do it in the morning, in prayer and in the word. And then I think about my day after that. I'll, I'll pray over my calendar. What do I have coming up today? what conversations do I have? I spend a lot of time talking to people and trying to, you know, help them move forward. just helping, getting to know them, which we'll talk a little bit more about and enabling them to, uh, to be able to be, successful in whatever they're trying to do in their service, in their service to the Lord.

Jason 14:46

Scott, how would you talk to somebody that came to you, maybe as a mentor? They came to you and they said, I understand what you're saying. I agree with it. Hopefully they would agree. I mean, these are principles that I, I've never met somebody that says, no, those, that's a wrong principle. A, it's scriptural, and B, I mean, it's. because it's scriptural, it's truth, it's it's, it's, right. but I think anybody who has experience knows that it's important. But if they came to you and they said, I haven't done this well, and my days are filled with fires, they are filled with reactivity. I mean, what's an approach you would take? And I have some thoughts on this too, and they're probably pretty well aligned with yours, but, you know, let's think about maybe someone who's listening, who wants to get more proactive, who wants to do a better job of managing their time. And, and sometimes when we think about where we are and where we want to go, it's overwhelming. So how do we, how would we give them guidance on how do you maybe take that first step at getting more proactive and doing a better job at, managing their time and using their time well?

Scott 15:44

Y Yeah, I mean, I, well, I've been there, I've been in those shoes when my, uh, calendar was filled with reactivity. And usually, you know, the way that that, uh, manifested was instead of spending 10 hours a day working, or, you know, I would spend 15 or 16. And, and that's, uh, not a long-term, uh, strategy for, effective work or for, a healthy family or for your own health, to be honest. so I think you have to start figuring out what you know, what you cannot do. that's probably where I would start, is looking at my full day today and say, what are the things here that, I mean, I could go through my calendar now, even after years of this practice and still find things on there that if I needed to today, I could just cancel them

Jason 16:29

Yeah. I don't need to do

Scott 16:30

I don't need to be at that meeting. I don't need to be. Yeah.

Jason 16:34

And what I, I heard a, a leadership speaker one time point out that as leaders, we need to always look at what is, what is it that only we can. and we need to be doing those things. But the, the rest of it's really optional. So I think that's a good way to think about that and looking at your calendar and saying, why do I, why do I have to be involved? do I have a team that I trust and, and maybe you don't, which is another problem, but do I have to be there? And yeah. So really scrutinizing where you're spending your time, that's a good one to peel things back and stop doing'em. I call it, I shared this with you the other night. There's a, there's something that I think I coined this term. I think I did, but I, if I didn't and it's from someone else, then I'll give credit to'em. I just don't know where I got it from. But it's called planned neglect, is what I've termed it over the years. Yeah. And it's doing that. It's saying, I look, I know there's things that I could do today or this week, whatever I could do. And they might even be, let's call'em important, but I have more important things that I need to do, and so I'm going to. I'm planning to neglect, I'm gonna walk by in a manufacturing setting, I often will say, I'm gonna walk by that for now. it hurts. It's painful because I know that should be addressed. And I'm not talking about safety issues or customer quality issues. You know, those are important. There's other things though, that I can walk by and maybe next month or next quarter, it might be next year before I address'em. For now, I'm neglecting'em because if I don't neglect them, then I'm gonna get into that situation. So I think that's, I think that's wise,

Scott 18:05

well, yeah. What happens if you don't have plan? then what hap you know, you're, you're gonna still neglect things because there's only so much time. Even if you extend it to a 16 hour day, uh, there's only so much time you won't get to everything. And so you, if you extend your day to 16 hours, what are you neglecting? Well, your family, I

Jason 18:24

Yeah. Your

Scott 18:25

God,

Jason 18:25

Yeah. Your health. Yeah. Your, yep.

Scott 18:27

your health.

Jason 18:28

That's right.

Scott 18:29

And so you start to ask yourself, why am I doing this? You know, uh, what is it I'm trying to, what, what goal am I trying to achieve? And is, is that the most important goal? Is that what the Lord wants for me? and my family and the people that I influence? Um, so yeah, I would definitely, I, I think you're, you're spot on with, planning that neglect. And there's no doubt when, you know, when emergencies come up, people have no problem crossing things out. Oh, I can't be at that. I can't be at that. Well, you know what, if you're in that situation, you're in an emergency because you're not able to focus on the most important things.

Jason 19:05

And I, so I then I think another, suggestion that I would give to somebody in this situation, and I've been in it as well, you and I both been in it, and so take away the things that aren't important and really look at what is important, but at the same time, put something on your calendar one thing next week that's proactive, whatever that is. I'll, I'll share an example with you, a specific example. I joined a team one time, and again, my, my whole career is in manufacturing and much of it has been in what's called distressed operations or, you know, uh, a little bit of a, chaos if you will, not running well. And so I've, multiple times in my career joined a new team that was already in a state of chaos. And one of the worst situations that I ever joined, after maybe a few weeks, maybe a month of those 12 hour days nonstop, I, I was looking at what we were doing as a team, and I wasn't, I wasn't the lead. I was, uh, I worked for the, the general manager who ran the entire site. And so I was kinda his number two. But I looked at it and I said, as a, as a leadership team, we're not, we don't even get together once a week to talk about planning, to talk about what we're working on. I mean, I'm telling you, it was, it was 60 hours a week of crisis management nonstop. And so I had a good relationship with my boss by then. And so I suggested to him that we, we need to at least step out of the fire for a half hour once a week as a leadership team and talk about what are we working on, uh, how can we support each other, you know, what's our plans for the coming week? I mean, our time horizon was ours at that time, so we weren't looking out too far. But, for me. That was an example. I was glad I did it. We, you know, we did, it certainly didn't solve all of our problems, but that was one step, one little bit of time that we invested each week. And, and as you become more proactive, the fires will decrease. I mean, that's something I've learned in my career, and sometimes you have to start out working some of those 12 hours for a while, but as you do the practices we're talking about, right? As you get a little more proactive, step by step, some of the, if you're doing it right, the fires start to dissipate, right?

Scott 21:15

Uh, yeah, I mean, you're making me think of a couple of, a couple of situations, uh, just popped right into my head. So, one, I, you know, I, I've spent a lot of time in my career literally just inserting myself into fires. Um, not literal fires, but crisis situations. So it was already outta hand, had been outta hand for weeks or maybe months. Um, I would come into that, chaotic situation and try to help them get on, you know, a path. improvement, you know, whatever it was we're trying to improve. And usually the first thing I would do was just say, stop. You know, let's stop everything we're doing. Let's get in a room and just talk. And usually it was, you know, my experience working with, especially in manufacturing with a plant with a corporate oversight. So corporate oversight is demanding updates on some frequency, and that is the heartbeat now. And I'm like, no, we need to call our corporate oversight and say, now, today we're not gonna have an update. We, we might not have an update till the end of the week because we actually need to be spending all of our time either in this room or out on the floor working on this problem. And then we can come back with a real update and it'll probably, you know, we'll have progress. And uh, they were like, we could do that

Jason 22:29

We're, we're gonna do that.

Scott 22:31

we're, we're gonna do that. I mean, I didn't come here to just, you know, to, to, to march by that drum beat. Uh, yes, we want to give them an update. At the end of the day, I'll call'em and just let'em know. Uh, we don't need to get everybody there. Everybody else keep working and I'll let'em know what we're doing and that's fine. They'll be fine with that. and so the other thing I think about is, you know, as I used to manage, uh, manage programs at a plant, if you're not continuing to advance those programs on a regular basis, and then you're just gonna try to do like audit prep or something like that, you're actually creating chaos. and, and you're gonna produce poor quality. So what I would do is build, you know, an hour and a half segment, couple times a week. You know, if I didn't have time, I would just work a little bit longer. But usually I could find the time by planned neglect and, uh, take an hour and a half, you know, work on one program, focus, right? Focus on one thing, turn all the, you know, text, phone calls, constant, email popups off and work on one thing and an hour and a half, couple times a week, you would actually, I could get through all of the programs that, I managed at, at that, at that point in my career and do a really nice job. So when it came audit time, I was proud of what we had, to present to, to that auditor. And, and it wasn't perfect, but it was, it had, it had hours and hours and hours of time spent on it. Not in the last week, um, but over the last year.

Jason 24:00

Not, not prepping for an audit, but always being ready for it. That's, eh, that's a sign of a proactive team. You're, you're ready. This is what we're doing every day. This is part of our management system and it's proactive, so. Well, that's good. Uh, anything else you'd like to cover on this topic before we switch over to our next topic?

Scott 24:17

I will say this one, one more thing I want to say. Once you've decided on your priorities, your personal priorities in life, whatever they might be, make sure that your calendar reflects those. if your calendar currently just has all your meetings for, for work on it, I would imagine your priorities aren't there because you probably have family, you probably have a church that you're a part of, you probably have some personal goals in life that you're hoping to, accomplish. you want to be spending time with the Lord. If that's not on your calendar, then it's very easy for you to just fill that time with whatever comes up. I may say it's, it's still easy even if you have your calendar built out well, and I think you've heard me say this, if I have an 80% day where I actually hit 80% of the things that were on there, that's a really good day. Uh, because I'm not in control of the day completely

Jason 25:08

that's right.

Scott 25:09

but the pieces that I can control, I want to, uh, I want to plan, I want to focus, and I don't want it to just be my work, because I will neglect the Lord and I will neglect my family, uh, and I'll neglect my church if I, if I don't have it there. I even put, like, when I spend, when I'm in town, I travel quite a bit for work. And when I'm in town, I, I make it a priority to have dinner with my family. It's on my calendar. If somebody says, I need to, uh, take a meeting at six o'clock, I'm not, that's not always, no, but if they're asking me if I have anything going on, the answer is yes. I have an important meeting with my family. and so I want to know when I'm moving that, just like if I were moving a meeting with my boss, you know, that's a big deal that I'm having to adjust calendars and, and it's okay. He's usually forgiving like that as is my family, but not over and over again.

Jason 25:59

So, so Scott, I, I totally agree and I'm glad you that you highlighted that, that when, especially as believers who are leaders, we've got a, we've got an entire life we have to think about that encompasses our roles as, servants in the church, as Christ followers, as, spouses, as parents, as all those roles that we have to consider. So I think, I'm glad that you said that, that, you know, our goal would not be to help other leaders get really, really, focused on just their work schedule and work time. But, it should encompass everything. And I remember still, I'm gonna go back and use Steven Covey, uh, tools. I don't know if they still have these, but their planners that they used to had would prompt you by questions around your different roles in life, you know, and you filled those out. It was generic, but it's still, you know, and it would talk about the spiritual component and, you know, it would talk about work component and relationships outside of work. And so, yeah. That's, that's important. One other question, Scott, I want to ask you if you use, is there a specific tool that you use or, and I, and I'll talk a little bit about one that I use, and this isn't an advertisement, it's just again, to throw out suggestions. what do you use to organize and plan that way?

Scott 27:07

I've used a lot of different tools over the years. I can tell you I started out with the old Daytimers and I had a Daytimer for every year for, I don't know, 15 years. And that worked really well. They're kind of big and bulky. It's like the adult trapper keeper if, uh, is, is what it felt like to me. But, uh, for, oh, probably the last five years or so, I'm gonna tell you most of what I use is Outlook. I use my calendar. so I plan everything in there. Um, I can carry it in my phone and I can carry it in my tablet. I do have a, uh, just a small planner. that I've started using this year. That's, that's, uh, written down. It has, uh, I don't even know what the, the name, it's the Haba Hache Teco Plant. And this is not an advertisement for it either, but it's nice. It's very, it fits in one hand so I can carry it, uh, anywhere even into a plant. if that's where I'm, that's where I'm headed. It'll fit in my, uh, my cargo pants pocket, when I'm walking around a plant, which is nice. And yeah, I use that for, but more for, uh, two things that I really do with this. One is long term looking at the, the calendar planning and, uh, cuz that's nice to be able to lay it out in front of you. And two is just daily to-do lists. Those are basically the things that I, that I do in here. Everything else I do in Outlook.

Jason 28:28

perfect. I use Outlook as well, obviously, you know, and for anyone working in a professional setting, that's a key tool. But I do put my personal, not all of'em, I'm not, I'm not as disciplined as you. I have my devotional time and my gym time in the morning. I do it, but it's not on my calendar. Maybe it should be, but nobody ever, nobody is in, ever interested in scheduling a meeting at 5:00 AM or four 30, so that's good. But, so that's good. I, I use mine as well. And then I also use, and, and I have done some advertisements for these guys. This is not a paid advertisement, but, uh, for probably about five years, I've used something called the Monk Manual. And, uh, again, it's, it is, I love it because I can put. All of my priorities for the year in it. The, the manual covers a quarter, it's a quarter of information. But I take those, you know, as you talked about, those priorities I have for the year that include my spiritual growth, uh, my, you know, knowledge growth, what books am I reading, my relationship growth and it, and it asks questions around all of that. So I'll link in the show notes to the planner. You talked about the one I talked about. Again, I just want to give people options to consider, uh, as we're challenging them to get better in this area, that there's some tools out there that they could use. So, onto the second topic, one that you and I are both passionate about, and I will tell you that it's disappointing to me how I think how few leaders are as passionate and serious about this as I think should be. And it was probably a. 10 years into my career, maybe seven or eight years into my, uh, leadership career before I joined an organization that took doing one-to-ones with your team very seriously. And it was, it was awkward for me at first. And now looking back, that was 15 years ago almost. I couldn't imagine not. I literally can't imagine not doing them. And so the principle that we'll talk about is really developing that relationship with your team members and showing them that you care genuinely not to manipulate them, but as again, as, as Christian leaders, we are called and mandated to care about others. Love God, love others. And that includes your team at work. And so we're called to do that. And I am a firm believer, and, and somebody can call me, email me if you wanna debate this. I'm up to debate and argue it, but I do not know of another way to do it effectively than having. Regular one-to-one meetings. Uh, Scott and I are both big fans of management tools. I'll link to that in the show notes. Those guys have really tried to refine, you know, how they suggest that you do them. again, I, whether you do it the exactly the way they say or not, I think is debatable. but doing one-to-ones, building that relationship so, so critical. So Scott, I'd like to just get your thoughts on kinda your, your, your experience with doing'em and why they're so important. How do you do yours? And talk a little bit about that.

Scott 31:23

Y Yeah, this is a, a gladly, this is a topic that I'm very passionate about as well, and I, I'll try to make the transition. From talking about our time to talking about our people, there's only two, essentially two standing meetings on my calendar each week. one are the, my, I'm gonna call it my collective one-on-ones with direct reports and the other one's my weekly staff meeting. That's that. So talk about easy calendar. those are the ones that are critical. Everything else is something urgent. Somebody else put on my calendar or some time I tried to, break aside. But my, uh, my one-on-ones are, they're sacred, right? That's my time. that's established with my people to actually, they know that on this day, at this time, they get a half hour of my time. I make them, I would. I'm a nine, I'm probably 90 plus percent in terms of actually making the meeting. probably 80 plus percent. Uh, sometimes we have to move the time around a little bit because of, you know, on a plane or something like that. But I've been doing this practice now for, ah, 20 years as long as I've been listening to manager tools. It was a friend, a friend and a colleague that I worked with in my first manufacturing job that turned me on to manager tools. I started listening to their podcast. They, this is part of what they call their management Trinity. So when I graduated from school and took my first job, my manager did one-on-ones with me. so that was a really, I, I didn't, I never knew a time, um, that managers didn't do that. Um, and when I took my, uh, my job, my job at Kellogg, where I spent most of my career, my manager sat in the next room from me and we, uh, also held one-on-one. So I had a lot of good examples. but then manager tools kind of taught me the fundamentals and, you know, they, uh, there's a lot of data they have behind the way they suggest you do it. And so I've been, uh, pretty religious about it. I've also, I would tell you that, uh, I've experienced, managers who do it differently. So for, for example, when they talk about, uh, doing one-on-ones, they say every week. So it's not something to do every two weeks. It's not something to do every three weeks. It's not something you do every month. So it, uh, I, I've, I've worked in organizations where they say it's, it's, it's mandatory to have a one-on-one with your team once a month. And I'm gonna tell you what that feels like. It feels like you get your performance review once a month. does not feel like building a relationship. and so the purpose. and one-on-ones is all about building relationship. And matter of fact, I mean, we have essentially two or three agenda items. It's, uh, time for the direct to just tell me whatever it is, to talk to me about whatever it is they want to talk about. And that could be, you know, personal, it could be business, it could be their career. It could be what's happening in the news. It doesn't matter what they want to talk about. Now, this is the way I get to know them, is to listen to them, talk about what's important to them. and usually when I'm kicking those off, and it's a new relationship, I'll just let them go. You know, I don't have to say anything if I, I'm, I'm the manager in this situation, right? So if I want their time later on to talk about business, all I have to do is put it on the calendar or probably just give'em a call and they'll pick up and answer any questions I have. So this is their time to have my un devoted attention. second thing is my time. And so after, uh, You kind of spin, um, you've been in this for a while, you know, usually they'll, they'll start hitting common themes. and then I'll also ask some questions. Often, I would say 75% of the things on our list are agendas of the same. and then we usually like take a few minutes and talk about the future, career development and, and succession and things like that.

Jason 35:07

I do mine every week as well, and Manager Tools has convinced me? Again, I would argue that it's, it needs to be every week. I do a half hour a week. Is that, do you do a half hour for each of your direct reports?

Scott 35:18

a half hour is exactly what I book, and I can tell you, I mean, right now I think I have six direct reports, so that's not terrible. But, you know, folks, you could get up this. 10. I had a conversation with a friend last week, has 11 direct reports. That's a lot of people to try to start scheduling 30 minutes, anything more than 30 minutes. But sometimes, you know, depending on what my calendar looks like, it goes over. and if it's a really good conversation and I'm learning and or, you know, then I'll, you know, I'll let it go over

Jason 35:47

Yeah. Yep.

Scott 35:49

if I don't have the time, then I, you know, obviously I'm a, I'm very disciplined in meeting, starting on time and then ending on time, preferably. But if I, if I had some free time in there and I try to leave some free time in my calendar, so I don't want it 100%

Jason 36:05

Scheduled every

Scott 36:06

because life just doesn't work that way.

Jason 36:09

right, right. that was the topic I, yeah, we could have hit on earlier too, was just having some slack in your calendar, which is super important. But I do one-to-ones each week, half hour with my direct, uh, reports. You talked a little bit about when you join a new team and, many years ago I had a mentor that he and another guy had developed a, it's a, it's a, I guess a set of tools. It's a mo almost like a curriculum maybe for when you first join a team. It was to quickly. Build the relationship and get to know your team members. And they called it leading through relationship ltr and I have these documents. I've, I mean I, he literally, back when he gave it to me, it was in a hard binder. I mean, this was, now I've, I've, kept them and converted them to digital. But it really takes your first, I think the first three to four weeks of the one-to-one and is all, all about learning about your, your team members. And in fact, how it's supposed to be done is that you give them it's questionnaires and you give them to them ahead of time. I do. I mean, some of the questions are real basic. What's your name? What do you like to be called? This was something I'll never forget. He was like, people make assumptions cuz the guy's name is whatever it is. Right. Robert. And someone assumes he wants to be called Robert, or someone assumes he wants to be called Rob and the guy likes to be called Bob or Bobby or whatever. So it's what do you like to be called? Right? So it's questions like that, but it's, there's one whole week that's focused on, how they like to be managed and it's really questions around who was your best manager you ever had and why were they the best manager? So you don't ask them how do you like to be managed, because some people are like, I don't know. But when you say, who is the best manager you ever had and what made them a great manager? And they put those things on there, you walk away going, now I know what's important to them. So anyways, I, this would be something I'd be willing to share this with anybody. I've, again, I've not always used them, but I will tell you every time I've used them, when I've joined a new team, I've been very glad I did. And it has expedited that process of building that relationship because it digs pretty deeply into who they are as a person. It asks some personal questions. Do you have kids? Are you married? How long you been married? What's your kids' names? How old are they? It also asks a lot of career focused questions. It asks questions around how they like to be managed, how do they like to be recognized? And so, that has been really helpful. And I also use the, the, the model that they talk about, the 15 minutes. first part is for the direct report to talk about whatever they want. And the second part is for me, and like you and I recently had this happen where I have someone we're in a meeting, they're really opening up. I mean, they're, they're being super transparent. I mean, I'm not stopping that. And in fact, in this particular example, I had another meeting right up against it. and I went late. I'm like, that meeting that I'm gonna be late to is not nearly as important as what this person's sitting here sharing with me right now and talking about, and not even close. So, you know, I've had people, I mean, they just, as the relationship builds, they're gonna be real transparent with you. And that's a gift. I mean, that is a gift to have that kind of relationship with a direct report and to be able to ha, you know, prayerfully to be able to impact their lives in a really positive way, at work. And to know that they have gotten to a point where they can trust you as, as their manager, but as a human being. Is, uh, I don't know. I, I can't even say how, how, uh important that is. How meaningful, I guess how meaningful that is, for me.

Scott 39:41

yeah, I mean, I could tell you, I've never heard of, uh, leading through relationships, so I'll be one that would like to, uh, learn more about that. That sounds really fascinating. And, uh, I, right now, when I, when I start one-on-ones, um, I haven't had, I've only had to do with this last time, you know, with this new organization, I can tell you, uh, they, uh, at first, you know, the re response being un, unfortunately, because not many managers are doing this, you know, they're, it's not that they're not talking, they're talking every time there's a problem and they need something, which doesn't lend to, uh, you know, building a good relationship.

Jason 40:16

got

Scott 40:16

so I said, no,

Jason 40:18

I, oh, I got, I gotta tell ya, I've gotta tell ya I was thinking about this. I, I apologize for interrupting, but I hear that. all the time from managers. I've had people that are colleagues and I've had people that were my managers. I've had people that were on that were my direct reports that were managing people that I've challenged them to have one-to-ones or be consistent. And they're, and I hear that solo. I just heard it last week. Well, we talk, yeah, we talk regularly. It's not the same. I'm not gonna yell cuz it'll like squelch the mic here, but, oh my gosh. I just wanna say it. It's not the same. It's not. And I, until you're, until you're really doing one-to-ones and doing'em consistently, you just don't, I don't know. You just not, you

Scott 41:01

Well, we'll go, go back to our conversation about proactiveness and reactiveness. So that's exactly what I've heard. Oh, we talk every single day. One, once I put, uh, one-on-ones in, we didn't have to talk every single day. I, I, most of the people who work for me are directors. They manage entire teams of people. They don't have time to talk to me every single day necessarily unless there's a problem. when we put the one-on-ones in, they're like, oh, most of the things that we had to talk about every single day. We're trivial and we could talk about'em on our, during our one-on-one, or we get to that point in the week and it wasn't even necessary. So there goes a bunch of that all, all that time that we were wasting, um, because you're picking up the phone a hundred times a day that goes away. And uh, I'd say, you know, at least half of it. And, uh, the relationship, matter of fact, you know, that's really cool to see it because I spent 20 years in my last company and so the things I had put in place over 20 years had become pretty commonplace, at least with the people who had worked with me. And I can tell you those relationships go on. We're still very close because of the relationship we built, but within three months of me starting at my new company and instituting the same practices, they were asking me to start teaching other leaders to do this. And so I'm like, whoa, that is a huge. A compliment, I would say. I mean, I'm like, wow, you know, that's, I didn't realize the impact it was having. It's just the, the way I've learned to, to get to know people and to manage and uh, and I've had other leaders say, Hey, would you come and just talk about one-on-ones, during one of our leadership team meetings? Cause I want to get all of our team doing this. And, and so it's pretty cool. It's a, it's a, it's a huge impact. People can see it and they can feel it. And I've heard testimonies from my team to other, other teams about it, just in the last couple weeks.

Jason 42:51

No, the, the impact of'em, again, I can't, I cannot overemphasize, I think another, Another thing I've found over the years, and I, I'm curious if you would share this, is when I have had a disengaged team member, or I've had, which a disengaged team member who then leaves, or if I've had someone who leaves the organization either because they left or because I had to, help them leave the organization. When you're doing one-to-ones, none of that stuff is a surprise. I mean, I, I was thinking of this recently and I, another, another red flag that I've seen is when I have direct report that begins, quote unquote forgetting about the one-to-one, it's skipping our one-to-ones. And, and, and I will tell you my practice has been, I don't go chase'em down. If they're late, I'll, I'll give'em, I'll give'em five minutes. Right. We all have crazy schedules, but if they just don't show. I leave it, I'll, I'll probably touch base with'em later that day or the next day and say, Hey, we missed our one-to-one yesterday. But I can tell you that in the vast majority of cases, when that, when that becomes chronic, there's a problem. It's a, it's a red warning sign. And, and again, I can, I can tell you who on my team is engaged and disengaged and most likely to be a flight risk, just through one-to-ones and that, that sort of stuff, you will not be able to detect nearly as well when you're not doing one-to-ones at all.

Scott 44:16

Yeah, a hundred percent agree. you know, and, and actually you're making me think about a, a, another situation where I came into, uh, I took over a new team. This is not my current team, but I had an employee who was, I don't know, dis disengaged, disenfranchised, so to speak. you know, disenfranchised with really everything at that point with leadership. And I was, I, I represented leadership now and, uh, I think they were disenfranchised with me personally and didn't even know me, you know, I said, well, you know, that's a, i, I, you know, that's a tough situation. And I'm like, I don't know if, in the back of my head I'm thinking, I don't know if we're gonna be able to, if we're gonna be able to bridge this gap. But I, I, I'm sure I came home and I talked to my wife about it and, uh, but I said, now this is what I want to do. I want to get to know you and we're gonna do this. And so first couple times, you know, we're really dicey maybe after a month of. Consistency, um, start to open up a little bit. Took six months before I would say we were like, Hey, we are, we're good. We're, we're not great, but we are good. And by the time I was moving on to my next thing and they were moving on to theirs, that employee is sat down and told me that, that I was the best manager they ever had. I went from, I, I didn't think they wanted to sit in the room with me,

Jason 45:30

they probably, they probably didn't at first.

Scott 45:32

and I don't know that I was truly the best manager they ever had. But I mean, just that change in attitude and approach and relationship. you know, we went through some things together cuz you know, life happens and when you do this every week consistently, you get to know what's happening in their life and they get to know what's happening in your life. And so it could go both ways, but there's no doubt about it. That's one. One of the things I like to ask is just generally how you doing? You know, how's everything going? And, uh, Let them, you know, give'em some space to talk about how they're doing. Because sometimes, you know, 75% of the time folks are, they're doing fine. And, uh, every now and again, they're not. And they need someone to talk

Jason 46:13

Yeah. I think an another, uh, thing that I always, I always try to ask again. I'm like, you know, if I do it 80% of the time, I'm, I'm doing pretty good. But I always try to ask my team when we're done, what do you need from me? What, what do you need from me? Like, I'm there to remove barriers, to help you, to support you and coach you through things. But yeah, what do you need from me? So it's about building the relationships, connecting. I will tell you as our audience, I'm not telling you Scott, cuz you know this, I'm telling, I'm telling everybody else, if you aren't doing. Y that you don't have a good, you don't have a good, strong, healthy relationship with your team. I will, I will guarantee it. Not as good as it can be, and so that you're not being as effective of as a leader as you can. And I would even challenge that you're, you're not fulfilling your calling as a Christian leader to care about the people on your team as much as you could be. And I think should be. you know, early on in my career, I had misguided information. And I think this is still out there. I, it's, I don't hear it as much, but that you can't, well it's the old kind of cliche that, you know, I don't come to work to make friends. I just come to work to, you know, do work. And you gotta keep a wall between, or a line between friendship and, and management. And as you become a leader or manager, you gotta, you can't have any friends, quote unquote. And you know, the longer I've led. the more I would just call bologna on that. And here's what, and here's what I tie back to again, as a biblical principle. I look at my relationship with my kids. You know, I have, I have three kids, you've got four children, Scott. And I think to myself, these humans, these three children I have, and I'll count my daughter-in-law in on that. So that's four are some of the most important people on the planet to me. And when I think of discipleship and developing and helping them with in life, they're the ones I do that I should be doing that the most with, as well as my spouse. But as children, we do more of that coaching, helping discipleship, discipline, you know, when they're younger, right? And I wanna see them grow and mature. And I think it's, it should be the same with the people on our team. We wanna see them grow and mature. and can I not have a meaningful, trusting, healthy relationship with people who I love, I truly love and will sometimes have to discipline. I think biblically we, not only can we, that's what, that's what we're called to do. I mean, that's what the church is called to do, is that the relationship, you know, Christ came full of grace and truth, full of grace and truth. That means that he's gonna look at Peter and say, get behind me Satan in one instance, and then later after his resurrection, he's gonna come alongside him on the beach and just breathe encouragement and life into that same man and send him out to do great things. So the whole idea of, I don't want to get close to my team because you know, I got to, if I what if I have to fire somebody? You know what? I've had to fire people that I really cared about them. I love them. I've had to fire people that shared my faith, truly we're other believers. And you know what? I prayed before I did it, and I prayed after I did it. And I really believed I did the right thing for them and for the business. And, you know, I prayed that they would go and, you know, be successful. And you can do that in a way. I, I recently had a podcast with a friend of mine and, you know, and he said, you don't have to be, it was funny. He just said, you don't have to be mean about it. It's just, they weren't surprised. We talked about it. I gave'em the, all the chances I could, which is again, that comes out in the one-to-ones, there's no surprises. Surprising someone with a termination. I, I'm going on a little bit of a rant here, I apologize, but surprising someone with a termination, probably one of the most horrible, borderline evil mean things you can do as a manager ever. And that is, and is, and shame on us as believers if we do that. And I pray, I've never done that. I'm sure there's been times when I thought I was being more clear than maybe the person. you know, that we had to let go. Certainly you can get better at it. But, another book I'll say, and this is not a, this is a book written by someone who's not a believer, but I just recently read it and it talks about this subject and it's called Radical Candor, and it's by, I think it's Kim Scott. I'm 99% sure Powerful, powerful truths in that. And really it ties back to speak the truth and love. I mean, she's writing about speaking the truth and love, but it's called Radical Candor. And I'd recommend that to people that are leading others. So anyways, that's,

Scott 50:45

I, I love it. I, I love, I love it. I love your thoughts. Christ is our model. and that's exactly what he wants us to do is speak the truth and love. Um, and we do, I mean, relationships, we have to have grace and truth in them for them to really be a relationship, right? Um, if there's not any, if there's not both grace and truth in there, I'm not sure you have a relationship. So one-on-ones. We, we could probably start carrying this on to the next of, the critical behaviors, which is communicating about performance. This is bringing me to management tools and that's how to, how to give feedback, right? Well, we, I won't, I won't do it. Maybe that's, that's next to podcast. Or folks can just listen to manager tools cuz they do it so much better than me. But if you are having one-on-ones and building relationships with your people, no matter everyone's gonna be different. Every relationship is different, right? Everybody's needs are different. But if you're doing that and as part of that, you're given regular feedback about what you appreciate and what's, what's effective and what's not effective. And you probably never have you, very rarely, unless you have a really bad role fit that you walked into or created, you're not gonna end up in that situation very often where you're having to terminate because you're given feedback on what, when, what's working well, what's effective, what's not regularly every week at a minimum, right? And so if you're doing that, people are making those little course corrections along their career. and it's not a surprise. I've never had a sur I mean, I, I, I, praise God, I've never had a surprise, when, uh, it's either been a bad review or it's been a performance improvement plan, or it's been, you know, eventually having to see someone leave the organization. and a matter of fact, I don't know that I have any that, I don't still have some relationship with this to this day, because it wasn't a surprise. We tried to do the best thing we could for them. And, uh, and most of the time, you know, whatever the Lord had for them next was, uh, was the right move anyway. So that's always what I like to think is God's making it clear to me that this situation isn't gonna work for either of us.

Jason 52:46

Right. That's right. Yep.

Scott 52:48

uh, yeah.

Jason 52:49

Well, Scott, brother, I mean, I appreciate your wisdom and I mean that you and I, uh, we've been close friends now for six or seven years and, we've chatted a lot around the campfire with our, we went camping with our families and of course we, we, uh, go to church together. We, we were elders together. And, so I know you very, very well and I trust you to give good advice and I know it's biblical and it's, you know, with 20 years of leadership experience. So, uh, you've helped me, um, along the way. I know there's been times when I come to you for advice on, you know, leadership practices and challenges I'm facing at work. And so I knew you'd have a ton of value. And so I think we'll do this again. We'll pick a topic and you know what, if there's a listener out there that wants to hear about a certain topic, hey, let us know, cuz we'll be glad to do it if we have, if we feel some confidence that we can speak to it. we'll do that. So, yeah, thanks for coming on today. I look forward to seeing, how this helps others and, if we can, you know, uh, be a blessing to others. One thing before we go, I guess, easiest way to get ahold of you, Scott, LinkedIn email, like, how can people reach out if they'd like to?

Scott 53:50

I'm on LinkedIn. Um, I have email. My, uh, my personal email is, uh, King scar 36 gmail.com. So that's, uh, basically my name backwards at, uh, gmail 36 gmail.com. You can send me an email or find me on LinkedIn. I do want to say, ju just, uh, praise the Lord for the time we've got to spend here. This morning, Jason, and certainly for our relationship. I wrote down, a ton of notes just in our conversation. So, uh, I've got books to read and, uh, new practices to put in place. I'm learning something every day and I certainly learn something every time I talk to you. I'm grateful for our relationship and, uh, the wisdom you've imparted to me.

Jason 54:33

Ah, thank you. No, it's, it's mutual for sure, and I'll, I'll link in the show notes, the books we've talked about today. Your contact information will be in there. And if, if anybody's interested, Scott was my very first podcast guest as, uh, such a close friend, he was willing to jump off that bridge with me. So if you go back to episode one, just over a year ago, he's there and, uh, you'll get a lot out of that. So I'd encourage you to go back and check that out. Well, blessings to you, brother. I will look forward to seeing you, tomorrow and the Lord's house together. Until then, have a, great afternoon, man.

Scott 55:04

God bless brother. We'll see you tomorrow.

Jason 55:06

And thank you for joining me again this month. As we work to hone our craft and strive to honor the Lord while doing so. If the show has been a blessing to you, please rate and follow us. And I look forward to coming back again Next month, Lord willing.